39. Juliet
JULIET
T he room is dark when I wake. The absence of light as night steals into the bedroom that feels nothing like mine makes it hard to lift my eyelids. My body feels as if I’ve been hit by a Mack truck. My limbs are so sore that they refuse to move initially. I’m surprised I’m still alive.
My eyes flutter, lashes tickling my cheeks, and the room comes into hazy focus. I’m on the bed at Morpheus’ house, cold air rolling over my naked flesh. A shadow in the shape of a man sits on a chair nearby, watching me.
I stiffen and then immediately regret it as my body screams in protest. When a moan makes its way up my throat, the pain intensifies. Any sound that tries to break free feels like swallowing shards of glass. My eyes blur again as I take stock of the rest of me.
I’m no longer bound, but my wrists are sore as are my shoulders. One of my shoulders, however, aches more than the other.
With gently probing fingers, I reach up and feel around the skin. There’s a wound on the left side in the shape of a crescent, but along it are ridges. Teeth marks, I realize.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you.” The quiet announcement breaks the silence of the room.
My gaze shifts to where Lex sits, bent over, his elbows propped on his knees and his chin resting on his steepled fingers. His eyes remain fixed on me. Sitting up is like lifting boulders from my body. A Sisyphean task of painful proportions.
“Why didn’t you kill me then?” Is that my voice? Raw, raspy, and at my loudest—a whisper that barely travels the length of the room to reach him?
“I don’t know,” he says.
I touch a hand to my throat, swallowing and nearly sobbing with the agony that resurfaces. Biting back the sound and tears, I glance down at the rest of me. My ass aches inside and out. My cunt is sore. I can’t remember if I passed out before he came or after. My memory is a murky haze.
Lex had made Bran’s single attempt at anal feel like ecstasy. I’d cried and shoved Bran off me in that one try and refused to ever let him do it again. He’d used lube at least. Lex had fucked me with nothing but my own cunt juices, spit, and cum.
Guilt eats at my insides. How much pain did it take for him to do that?
Even now, I’m afraid to stand because I’m not sure that my body will be able to handle it.
I’m sure I’m still in shock because the lightning zips of various injuries and pains continue to pump through me, but they feel muted somehow.
As if all of my nerve endings are so overwhelmed by the unusual amount of discomfort. I’m sure it’ll only get worse.
“I still want to,” Lex admits.
He still wants to kill me? I shift on the bed, sliding towards the edge and freeze as something leaks from me. My eyes shoot to Lex’s face. With horrifying realization, I understand what it is. Lex’s cum is oozing out of my ass.
My stomach cramps lightly and with a grimace, I reach down and cup a palm over it. Any more clenching only makes the liquid move faster, sliding between my ass cheeks in a sick expulsion.
“Bathroom,” I croak, struggling to get to the edge of the bed as it really becomes a problem. My feet graze the floor and as I expected earlier, the second I try to stand, my legs collapse from under me.
Lex doesn’t move from his spot. Instead, he simply sits there and watches me as I battle with my own limbs in a bid to get them to work correctly.
I’ve never felt more humiliated in my life.
Not when I caught Bran and Avery together.
Not when my father was arrested. Not even when I was called into Principal Long’s office and informed that the school counselor had made a false report about my mental health.
I press my lips together as I force one leg up and plant my foot. I will not beg for Lex’s help. I will not let him see me fall again. With one hand gripping the side of the mattress, I haul myself to my feet and shuffle towards the door on the opposite side of the bedroom.
Every step causes a little bit more of Lex’s cum to drip out of me. A part of me feels as if I should be ashamed of what we did, of what I let him do. He spanked me. Tormented me. Fucked my ass without lube and choked me until I passed out.
Somehow, the familiar ache of shame doesn’t fill me, though. If that’s what it takes for forgiveness—I’ll do it. The Scorpion Kings haven’t asked me for anything but loyalty and I turned on them. In their eyes, I’m the traitor. I can’t blame him for that when I’m the one who made that happen.
So, there’s no shame in what we did. Only the weight of determination and the need to clean myself up.
I keep going. One foot in front of the other.
When I have to leave the bed and make it the several foot difference to the wall, I falter.
My legs are trembling and the heat of his attention remains burning into my back.
All over me, the twinges of the violent sex are coming to life. My breasts ache. My nipples are swollen and my ass… my fucking ass clenches to keep more of his cum from slipping free and down my thighs. I’m trembling with the effort it takes.
Breathing deeply, I release the edge of the bed and take one stumbling step towards the bathroom door.
I never make it. Before I can lift my foot a second time, there’s a dark curse and then he’s there.
Lex sweeps me into his arms and closes the rest of the distance, slamming into the wide bathroom, flipping the switch with his elbow, and carrying me straight to the toilet against the far wall.
Relief fills me as I drop onto the toilet and my insides finally release what he left behind.
Lex stands over me, arms crossed, face an empty mask hollow of all emotion.
My eyes linger on the faded t-shirt that covers his chest. He redressed while I’d been passed out.
The notion that he’s standing before me, fully clothed and practically glaring at me full of rage, while I sit, bare and vulnerable and filled with his cum, isn’t lost on me.
I drag a shaking hand down my face. I don’t say thank you. I don’t say anything at all.
The silence drags on and with shaking limbs, I clean myself off with the toilet paper and struggle upward from the seat after flushing. The shower is a few steps away, but it might as well be a mile with all of the strength left in my legs. I stare at it for several moments after I manage to stand.
I want the sensation of water on my skin so badly that I’d probably kill for it. Still, there’s what my mind wants and what my body can handle and I’m not sure I can manage standing for the time it would take me to wash myself.
As if he senses the direction of my thoughts, Lex steps to the side, turning and facing the glass stall. He reaches inside and twists the handle. Steam quickly fills the bathroom, fogging over the glass wall that separates the shower from the rest of the room.
I watch him cautiously, confused and curious. Why is he doing this now after fucking me into unconsciousness? Does he… regret it?
Hope is an evil thing that blossoms in my chest as I watch Lex work.
He strips off his shirt and tosses it onto the bathroom counter before lifting me back into his arms and carting me into the stall.
The second the water hits, I relax. Hot jetting spray soaks into my skin and soothes ravaged flesh.
There’s no ledge for sitting, but there is a shorter lip where a collection of soaps, shampoos, and conditioners are lined up in perfect order.
Lex props me against the wall, letting me use it to keep my balance as he reaches for the first bottle.
The water’s spray soaks into his jeans, not that he seems to notice.
What was the point of taking off his shirt if he was just going to leave his pants on? I want to ask the question, but as I’ve already proven, the damage to my throat only makes me wish for death every time I try.
I flinch as Lex turns and faces me. There’s a hard edge to his face, but when he touches me, it’s not roughly. He lathers the soap on his palms and uses them to rub me down. Both of us spy the washcloth sitting pristinely alongside the bottles, but neither of us reaches for it.
I want his hands on my body, no barriers. Just him and me. Flesh on flesh. Body to body. Truth and hope.
With firm touches, Lex turns me to face the shower wall and I jerk when his fingers pry my ass cheeks apart. “Don’t fight me,” he mutters as he soaps me there as well, cleaning away the last vestiges of his cum, and I wonder if there’s blood there too.
A garbled moan escapes me. Why is that so fucking hot? Him cleaning me, washing me of sweat and cum and spit, feels like an intimacy I’ve never known. I let my eyes slide shut and I press my forehead to the cool tiled wall of the shower.
“You need to get the rest of my cum out,” he says, fingers circling my hole. I tense and he makes a noise of disapproval. “I’m serious,” he snaps. I can feel his glare on the back of my head, but I don’t say anything—my voice is shot.
After a beat, when I still haven’t relaxed, Lex sighs and reaches for my chin. My eyes shoot open as he turns my face towards his. “You’re going to hurt later if you don’t.” His words are warm on my face.
I blink, stunned stupid because all I can focus on are the rich hues of gray and silver in his eyes. Irises made of smoke and clouds bore into me. Utterly unique. I’ll dream of his eyes until the day I die.
“Juliet.” His hands are back on my ass cheeks, prying them apart as he urges me to bend slightly. “Let my cum go, baby.”
Tears prick at my eyelids as he releases my face and with my cheek to the wall, I do. The rest of his cum dribbles out of my asshole and he washes it away. The care with which he takes in cleaning me has my body shaking in barely restrained need .
All I crave, all I’ve wanted for the last week is to see them. To have their arms around me. I don’t care what put me here, all I care about is the fact that he’s here—he came. Why did I ever think they’d let me walk away so easily?
I’m sore and aching. The longer we stay in the shower, the harder it is to maintain my balance and keep on my feet. Lex doesn’t say a word as he quickly finishes washing me and moves onto my hair. Shampoo. Conditioner. Rinse.
By the time he shuts the shower off, my body is wracked with tremors and the need to lie down.
Back into his arms I go and out into the main bathroom where Lex wraps me in a towel and carries me into the bedroom.
The squelching sound of his wet jeans is like an oddly comforting background noise as my mind drifts in and out of consciousness again.
When Lex sets me onto the bed, pulling back the covers and lifting them up over me, I want to cry more than I did when he was hurting me.
It’s not the pain that breaks my heart, but the softness he provides. I look up at him as he stands next to the mattress and wish we were anywhere else but here.
I hate the smell of Morpheus’ house. The clean, empty hollowness that this place feels like it’s part of a nightmare I thought I’d escaped. If I fall asleep now, I’m scared that when I wake again, Lex will be gone and I’ll be all alone in this place.
Slipping my hand free from the covers, I quickly reach for him as Lex turns to go. He doesn’t pull away from me, but neither does he close his fingers around mine. He stands there for the longest time and I swallow again and again, trying to force words from my broken throat.
“…threatened you…” I finally manage to carve out the words I wanted to tell him earlier. Sharp needles stab at my vocal cords, but it’s not enough. He needs to know. I didn’t leave them because I wanted to. I left because I had to. For him. For all of them. “Couldn’t… let… him… hurt… you…”
Each word is another wound, ripped freshly open and bleeding down into my stomach. I keep them going anyway. He deserves to know. His love was worthy. It’s everything .
His love is obsessive and cruel. It’s just as he said. Lex’s love says, ‘if I can’t have you, no one will’.
Those words are imprinted on my soul. Perhaps before my life changed, I would have rejected him. Now… the thought of another woman putting their hands on his skin, of kissing his lips, of fucking herself over his cock… turns my insides to the fiery pits of hell.
If I’m so owned by him that no man is allowed to have me, then he’s so owned by me that one touch from another woman would sign her fucking death warrant.
Lex’s fingers seize against my palm and he turns, looking down at me. Gunmetal gray eyes are wide, pupils blown.
Yeah, baby, I think, trying to offer him a smile. Told you so . You were wrong about me. I have always been yours. I hope he can read the words in my expression because my throat is done.
“Threats?” he repeats the word. “Morpheus threatened you?”
I shake my head and nudge my chin in his direction, a silent correction since I can no longer speak.
“He threatened… us?” he asks. “Nolan and Gio and… me?”
I nod my head, but the action is difficult.
Exhaustion pulls at me and I sink even deeper into the mattress and pillows beneath me.
Maybe if I were standing, I could have kept my eyes open.
But Lex’s punishment has wiped me. My lashes flutter as my hand goes slack in his grip, falling from his cold fingers.
A moment later, he recaptures it and I manage to lift my eyelids as he bows his head. Something wet splashes onto my knuckles and then he presses his mouth to my skin.
I hear his voice, but it starts to fade as sleep rolls in. I want to hear the words—I struggle and fight to remain awake, to listen, to hear him—but it’s too late. My body has hit its limit. My mind fades, oblivion rolling in.
Lex’s words are lost to me as my eyes close and oblivion sweeps me back into the dark that awaits me.