24. Valentina
Chapter 24
Valentina
I throw Darragh’s peach as hard as I can into the treeline as I jog from his property to ours. My legs barely feel like they can carry me. Darragh’s fingers between them has turned my muscles into something weak and pliable, like chocolate melting in the sun. My abdomen feels achy and heavy, but it’s not solely due to cramps.
It’s due to arousal.
Because of him.
Just how stupid am I? Just how pathetic? I didn’t even try to fight him.
I didn’t even want to.
Shame burns alongside the pleasurable throb of the memory. The memory of him backing me up against the wall with that haunted hunger in his eyes. Of him forcefully spinning me. Of him putting the tampon inside while his fingertips found my clit and made a total mess of me.
I came so fucking fast. Like my entire body has been primed for his touch from the first moment we met tonight.
Or the first moment we met at all.
It’s like I’ve been made of tinder my whole entire life and I never knew until now.
But Darragh knew. And now he keeps teasing me with the match.
One day he might burn me – and everything else – to the ground.
No. He’s not in control. A foolish part of my body might want him, but my brain doesn’t have to. He’s unpredictable. Unreliable. Angry and violent and domineering.
I’m in charge of my own life.
At least, in charge of the parts that my papà isn’t.
I enter our cottage, hating the stiff, sticky feeling of my shorts against my skin. As soon as I reach my room, I drag them off, chucking them into a laundry basket. I should probably just throw them away entirely, like I did with my underwear. I’ll never get that blood out.
Told you I wasn’t going to stand by and let you bleed.
My heart, along with the rest of my body, throbs. But it’s not with hate. At least, not only hate. And that’s the worst part.
I put on fresh underwear and crawl into my bed. I assume it will take a while to fall asleep after everything that’s happened, but it doesn’t. My body is heavy, sinking into the mattress with strange and shocking force.
Darragh’s altered the state of gravity.
I’m not sure the world – or my body – will ever be the same.
* * *
Like usual, Darragh is gone the next morning. Like nothing even happened at all.
It’s too hot to lie around with a heating pad on my stomach, so I just laze around instead. I watch some old soap opera episodes with Mamma. I paint each fingernail and toenail a different colour.
By the time Mamma’s passed out for the night, Darragh still hasn’t returned. I don’t want to admit it, but that is starting to really piss me off. The fact that he can waltz in and out whenever he pleases, meanwhile I’m the one who’s stuck here. Like I’m fucking waiting for him.
But I’m not. Even if the memory of his demanding hands on my skin has been burning inside me all day.
Feeling trapped inside our big house, I head outside. Tonight is cool. Even cooler than last night. Despite the heat of the sun during the day, autumn is certainly on its way. Any day now I expect that Papà will be dragging us back to the city. Which is good. I can escape the fever dream of this place where time seems to stand still during the day and everything explodes at night.
I rub my hands up and down my arms, enjoying the feel of the thick hoodie I’m wearing. The cool breeze coming in off the lake doesn’t make me cold. I’ve got leggings on as well. My hair rustles as I reach the dock and sit down on it. I draw my knees up to my chest and put my chin on them, gazing out at the black water with its broken wings of white, moonlight on the waves.
“Hey! Sunglasses girl!”
A male voice pulls me from the quiet. I rise and see the blond guy next door sitting on a Muskoka chair. There’s a small bonfire crackling in front of him. He raises a bottle.
“Want a drink?”
Do I want a drink? Not really.
But I also don’t want to keep sitting around here like I’m waiting for Darragh to arrive. I shift from foot to foot, craning my neck to look the other direction at Darragh’s dark cottage. He isn’t there.
And who cares if he is? He doesn’t own me despite whatever he might think about it. Resolution steels my spine.
“Sure,” I call to him.
The guy hesitates, then grins, firelight illuminating his face. “Awesome. Come on over.”
I leave the dock, then pick over the rocky shoreline between our property and the next. I walk up the incline and around the fire to the empty Muskoka chair beside him.
“Wow. Can’t believe I actually got you over here finally,” he says, sending me a crooked smile. “You really keep to yourself, eh?”
I shrug noncommittally.
“I’m Connor,” he says. He opens a cooler between the chairs and pulls out a bottle of beer for me, opening it and passing it over.
“Tina,” I tell him, even though no one’s ever called me Tina in my entire life.
“Tina. Cool. Good to meet you.”
I take a sip of my drink and grimace. Horrid stuff. Connor’s eyes linger on my mouth when I put the bottle down.
“Shit,” he suddenly says. “Guess I probably should have asked how old you are.”
“Old enough,” I say, suspicion in my voice. I don’t know if he wants to make sure he isn’t serving alcohol to someone under nineteen…
Or if he wants to relieve himself of any guilt that he might have been lusting after an underage girl this entire time.
“Haha, I’ll take it,” he chuckles, running a hand through his tousled blond hair. He’s a good-looking guy. Clean cut. Fit. A nose that looks like no one’s ever punched it.
And I couldn’t be less attracted to him.
“Where’s the rest of your group?” I ask, gesturing over my shoulder towards the quiet cottage behind us.
“They had to go back to work. I’ve got a few days of vacation left. I’m in finance,” he adds suddenly, even though I didn’t ask.
I wonder if he thinks that’s supposed to impress me. Maybe it does impress some girls. Girls whose fathers aren’t also in finance. The kind of finance that means you cut off a person’s hands when they don’t pay.
“How about you?” he asks. His gaze dips to my tits. “Are you in university? Off for the summer?”
I shake my head. “Family business.” I take another sip of the beer, even though it’s terrible, because even drinking this stuff is more interesting than talking to Connor the finance bro with the wandering eyes.
“Damn. Business must be good. Your place is insane.”
“Thanks.”
Silence descends, and I decide that I just don’t have the energy for this. Despite the way he’s currently eye-fucking me through my clothes, maybe Connor is a nice enough, if boring, guy. But the thought of spending any longer trying to make small talk with him while nursing this godawful beer makes me want to groan out loud.
I’m a little worried that the reason I’m so bored with him already is because he isn’t Darragh. If that isn’t a scary fucking thought I don’t know what is.
“I’m actually really tired,” I say, putting my beer down on the grass beside me. “Thanks for the drink. Have a good one.”
I rise from the chair, but before I can take a single step, Connor grabs my hand and pulls me back down. My ass hits the wood. Pain and irritation swell, driving me to rise from the chair again. But I can’t, because Connor is there, his hands on the armrests, his broad frame blocking me.
“Come on,” he wheedles. He leans in so close that I can smell the beer on his breath. “Don’t go before we’ve had a chance to have a little fun.”
“Fun?” I ask flatly.
His grin vanishes, and with it goes the nice guy act.
“I want to fuck you.”
“Tempting,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “Move.”
“Have another drink with me.”
“I’m not having another drink,” I say between clenched teeth. “And I’m not having sex with you. Besides, I have my period. Back the fuck off.”
“Period? Ew. Is that why you’re so bitchy?” He pulls a face of disgust, and it’s so hilariously immature that I almost laugh out loud. My God. He’s got to be at least five years older than me, but he sounds like some idiot still in high school.
It’s a stark contrast to Darragh last night. No flinching, not even a hint of being grossed out by the mention of a period.
Instead, he bought me tampons.
And even put one inside me…
I try to rise again, but Connor still hasn’t moved. I’m starting to get really pissed now. This is different than the way I feel when Darragh pushes me. I get pissed at Darragh, too, of course, but there’s also an answering darkness, a need, a part of me that I’m starting to think only he can access.
“You can still suck me off,” Connor says, his eyes half-lidded. “Or we can do it from the back. I’ve been going crazy watching that juicy ass all week.”
I’m so angry I can’t even speak. My hands are shaking. I wish, like I’ve wished so many times in my life, I had the kind of power that my cousins and my papà have. I try to imagine someone threatening Elio or Curse the way Connor seems to be trying to, and know that they’d have likely pulled a gun before the conversation even got this far.
I don’t have a gun. I don’t have anything but my own rage.
I draw up my foot, plant it against Connor’s chest, and shove.
Between the beer he’s had and the element of surprise, he goes toppling backwards. He very narrowly misses falling right in the fire. I can’t say I would have felt bad if he did.
“Oh, fuck no,” he pants, getting to his feet as I stand up and start to leave. He grabs my arm again, yanking hard when I try to shake him off. “Don’t fuck with me. You’re seriously gonna fucking tease me right now? After you’ve been prancing around in front of me in your tiny bathing suits this entire fucking time? You fucking slut. I’m going to-”
Without warning, his hand releases me.
No. It’s wrenched from me.
I spin around. My heart climbs into my throat.
Darragh is here. Dressed all in black.
He’s got Connor by the throat. He backs him up against the thick trunk of a nearby tree, and, oh, God, there’s a gun. He forces the barrel of it between Connor’s teeth.
“Say that again,” Darragh murmurs quietly, all terrible silken malice. “Say that again with my gun in your mouth.”
Connor’s eyes bulge. He gasps and gags against the metal Darragh is shoving mercilessly to the back of his throat. Blood dribbles from one side of his mouth.
“I can’t hear you,” Darragh growls. He doesn’t even sound human to my ears anymore. The firelight plays against the side of his face, turning his profile into a twisted mask. “Say it again. Say that she’s a slut while you’re two seconds away from swallowing my gun’s load.”
“Darragh,” I whisper as the crotch of Connor’s pants goes dark with piss. “Please!”
I don’t even know what I’m asking for. For him to stop?
For him to keep going?
My body goes shaky and half-numb with the buzzing torch of adrenaline.
I’m about to watch Darragh kill yet another man right in front of me.
“Where did he touch you?”
It takes me a moment to realize that Darragh is addressing me. He hasn’t turned to look at me.
“Nowhere!”
“Don’t lie to me, pet,” he hisses. He twists the gun viciously in Connor’s mouth. “He was touching you when I fucking got here.”
“Just my wrist. That’s it! I wouldn’t have let it go any further anyway. I was going to-”
Darragh tears his gun out of Connor’s mouth and then uses it to deliver a stunning blow to his temple. He falls limply to the ground, groaning. The groan turns to a howl when Darragh grabs a rock the size of my head from near the fire and smashes it down on Connor’s wrist.
My muscles revolt, violently flinching at the sound of breaking bone.
“Where else?”
Darragh finally turns to face me. He looks furious. Nearly manic. His eyes alight and yet ruthlessly dark.
“Nowhere! Just my wrist. I swear.”
He plants his boot on Connor’s back, his burning eyes still on me.
“If I find out you’re lying to me,” he seethes, “then I am going to leave his severed dick at your front door tomorrow. Wrapped like a fucking present.”
Holy shit.
This is Mad Darragh. Bloodthirsty, cruel, possibly sadistic.
This is the man most of the city, if not most of the country, fears.
So why am I not afraid? I am tense, I am anxious as hell, I am afraid of what this night is turning into…
But I’m not afraid of him.
“It’s the truth,” I tell him quietly. “Nowhere else.”
Darragh stares at me for a beat, his chest rapidly rising and falling as Connor struggles weakly beneath his boot. He looks like a demon or a monster or a fallen fucking god. So angry, so powerful, that he could implode the entire world.
“Fine,” he hisses at length. Moving his boot, he kicks away the rock he used to break Connor’s wrist. He seizes the back of Connor’s polo shirt, dragging him up into an unsteady standing position. Then, he places his gun against the back of Connor’s blond head and orders him to, “Walk.”
“Where are you going?” I demand as Darragh forces Connor towards the darkness of the road beyond the cottage. “What are you going to do with him?”
He sends me a piercing look over his shoulder and says, “Use your fucking imagination, Valentina. Now stop asking me stupid questions and go home. Otherwise, I will be the one to take you home.”
The darkness swallows him. Turns his last words into a bodyless threat on the air.
“And I will fucking lock you in.”