37. Juliet #2
Somehow, between when we were children and now, Lex has found solace in his obsession with me. He’s developed a whole world around the two of us in a way that he sees my recent actions are more than a betrayal—they’re an unraveling of his reality.
I once worried that his fixation on me was temporary, that it would fade with time when he realized I wasn’t the perfect Juliet from his memory.
Now, I understand that the only way I could have hurt him was to do exactly as I’ve done now.
I wanted him to think that I abandoned him to protect him, and now he believes it when the truth is so far from that ugly lie.
His hands are so hard, I know I’ll wear his marks for days. Bruises that will remind me of all the hurt I’ve given him. Maybe it would be better to tell him the truth, to tell him that I lied.
Lex’s forehead presses against mine. His hair falls over my cheeks, brushing against my skin in the softest caress.
Gently, oh-so fucking gently, he tips his chin down and strokes his lips against mine, back and forth.
It’s the sweetest, most cruel of kisses.
It tastes of venom and betrayal and pain.
“I warned you, baby,” he whispers, voice rough, cracking. Broken. The burn in my eyes heats. “If I can’t have you, no one will.” His breath is warm against my cheeks.
I’m so focused on how damn good it feels to have him on top of me, to have his weight pressing into me from shoulder to thighs, that it takes me a moment to comprehend his words. By the time the synapsis in my brain fires correctly long enough for me to actually hear him, he’s pulling away from me.
The loss of him against me has me swallowing back another whimper of agony.
Thankfully, it doesn’t last long. Lex stands up, getting to his feet as he hovers at the edge of the overly large mattress and the ornate footboard.
Reaching back, he grips the fabric of his shirt and pulls it over his head, dropping it to the floor to join my own clothes.
I blink and his hands are at the waistband of his jeans. I blink again and they’re gone. Tall and sharply muscled, Lex focuses the entirety of his attention on me.
Fuck. Me. He’s hot and it’s so wrong to do this here. My eyes move, once more, to the door. If we’re caught… A hand touches my ankle and spreads me wide, snapping my attention back to the man standing over me.
“Tell me something.” His words are hoarse, but I can’t move. I’m bound by the spell of him as he stands over me, silently daring me to run from him now. I know better. To run from a predator only encourages their instinct to chase. “Have you thought of me since you left?”
I wince at the hurt in that question. “Of course I have,” I say. “I’ve thought of you every single second.” All of them.
His expression remains as hard as ever. “Did you fuck him in this bed?”
My insides turn sharp, cutting the inside of my chest to ribbons. “Lex…”
“Did you think of me when he fucked you?”
I shake my head. “Lex, no, that’s not?—”
His hand on my ankle pushes me wider. “No lies, Juliet,” he snaps. “No more lies between us.”
“I’m not lying.” Not this time.
Lex’s upper lip curls away from his teeth. “Really?” His tone is caustic, disbelieving. “Then tell me something else. Have you fingered yourself in this bed?”
My breath catches, but he isn’t done.
“Did you part your pretty thighs—” His fingers trail up the inside of one leg, leaving a path of goosebumps in his wake. “—and think of all the things we did to you when you were in our beds? When you were ours?”
I’m still theirs. I open my mouth to tell him as much, to explain the reason I chose this. Because of them, always them. Everything I do is to protect them the same way they would for me.
“No.” He grips my ankle and climbs back onto the bed, on top of me again. “Don’t talk until I’m done, baby.” He reaches to the root of his cock and squeezes himself.
My eyes slowly move down the length of his body, the dips and hollows of his chest and abdomen. He’s hard, his cock bobbing against his stomach as he strokes himself once from base to tip and back again. A bubble of pearly fluid leaks at the tip of him and my mouth waters to taste it.
“Lex…” I moan his name, unable to stop myself. Shivers rack my body, hunger and need battling for dominance.
With a growl, Lex releases himself and straightens, dragging me up with him.
He reaches around and unlocks my bra, yanking the straps down before the cups disappear entirely and the contraption goes the same way as the rest of our clothes.
His hands are rough as he shoves me back onto the bed and then his hand comes down right over my nipple. Hard .
My back arches as pain shoots through me.
A gasp leaves me and the hot sting is followed quickly by a second as he slaps my other breast. I try to cover myself, surprise and confusion slamming into me.
Lex merely adjusts himself, crawling up my body to place his knees on either side of me, using his leg strength to hold my arms down and out of the way. Then, he really punishes me.
He grips both of my nipples, the pebbled points throbbing under his unkind fingers. He pinches them, twists them, glaring down at me all the while as I try to resist the urge to cry out. The pain is intense. Each one getting harder and rougher as he takes his rage out on my body.
At one point, he takes both of my nipples between his thumbs and forefingers—squeezing and pulling them until my back lifts off the mattress. Tears prick at my eyes. His cruel gaze never leaves mine.
Then the pain turns to heat and I gasp as it fills me and spreads outward. I had no idea it could feel like this. Each twist and slap—whatever he’s doing to me seems to flow into my body and turn every hurt into something volcanic and enticing. My insides churn, but my pussy throbs.
He hurts me because I hurt him, and I let him.
I stop resisting and I take his anger. When he finally releases my tits, I collapse onto the sheets, dragging in gulp after gulp of air and feeling as if it’s not enough.
They ache, they burn. My stomach flips and my thighs press together as fresh wetness oozes down the insides of my legs.
“I should’ve listened to them,” Lex says. “I should’ve known you were never what I thought you were—what I tried to make you. Tell me something…” He leans closer, hand finding my throat again and compressing along the sides.
Blood flow slows. My heartbeat races in my ears. Of all the ways I thought I might die, I never thought it would be at his hands. Now that we’re here, though, I wonder if I’ll let him follow through with it or if, in the end, I’ll fight him.
I guess we’re about to find out.
“Did you like playing with us?” he demands.
“Did you like slumming it with the criminals from the wrong side of the tracks?” Lex doesn’t give me room to answer.
“I bet you did,” he continues, eyes roving over my abused breasts as they heave for more air.
“I bet you never had dick as good as when we fucked you.”
I bite back the urge to snarl at him, to fight and struggle and tell him how wrong he is, how he’ll regret the way he’s treating me. As much as I want to flip him off me and slam the flat of my palm into his nose, I can’t. Still, there’s no denying my own irritation when it surfaces.
He doesn’t know shit. If he really loved me, if he was as obsessed with me as he always claimed—if all those years of stalking and watching me meant a goddamn thing, then he would know that everything he’s saying now is utter bullshit. I bare my teeth at him.
“Don’t worry.” Lex eases against my throat and I cough as the fuzziness that had begun to invade around the edges of my vision and the pounding sound of my own racing heart fades.
“I’ll give it to you good one last time, baby.
I’ll make sure you go out in a blaze of glory—one last orgasm from one of the men you threw away. ”
He fists his cock again, stroking himself over me. The head is an angry red, swollen and leaking with each pass he makes. His balls hang down, swinging slightly against my upper abdomen.
A bit of his juice dribbles out, a thin string trailing its path as something wet touches my skin. I arch against him again, trying to free my arms, but his knees never shift or move. He keeps me beneath him with little effort and doesn’t even seem to notice my kicking legs.
“ Lex. ” I bite out his name as I glare up at him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’d let me explain, then I?—”
A gasp escapes me as he slaps my breast again, a direct hit to my already abused nipple. The pain is immediate and it’s far worse after his attention than it was before. I grit my teeth and hiss out a breath as my eyes burn.
Asshole.
“Whores don’t need to explain,” Lex tells me. “They just need to lay there and take it.”
“I’m not a fucking whore.” Every time I talk, he punishes me, but I won’t be silenced. Not by him.
Lex arches a brow. “Seems you need something more,” he murmurs darkly.
“Don’t worry, baby. I’ll give it to you.
I tried to be gentle with you. I didn’t want to scare you away because I planned to keep you, but that was before.
Before I realized what you really are. You’re just like the rest of them.
Nothing but an empty cunt that needs to be filled. ”
“You’ll regret this,” I warn him, but he’s already shaking his head as another bead of fluid drops from the tip of his cock onto my smooth belly.
Each one is like a brand to my skin and as much as I want it, I don’t want it like this.
Not with him not knowing the truth and thinking so much evil of me.
“I don’t think so, baby,” Lex says. “The only thing I regret is thinking you were worth anything but a good hard fuck.”
The words are meant to insult, to wound, and though I try to remind myself that he doesn’t know the truth—that if he did, he wouldn’t treat me like this—I can’t deny that they meet their intended target. They fucking hurt, but his cold eyes promise to make it so much worse.
For the first time since I realized what Lex was—a psycho, a stalker, an obsessive monster—I feel true fear.