Chapter 22 Caroline
CAROLINE
The doctors all say Mom got lucky. Her injuries were bad, but not fatal. She’d heal eventually. “It could have been so much worse,” an older nurse says, shaking her head with a smile. “Someone must’ve been looking out for you.”
“Yes, someone was,” Mom answers and looks over at me. “I got very, very lucky.”
Although she’ll still need a couple days of observation to make sure none of her internal injuries are bad.
Redmond didn’t survive the accident. Nobody’s sure how the generator ignited, but Dad furiously screamed at the site manager for an hour and demanded a full investigation from the police. Once it’s clear Mom’s going to be fine, Finn takes me back home.
“They’ll find the fuel lines were faulty. Somehow the entire gas tank ignited all at once. Catastrophic failure, they’ll say. I bet your dad can sue the generator’s manufacturer and win a nice settlement.”
“Here’s hoping he never gets the chance.”
“Won’t bring Redmond back.” Finn stretches one arm behind his head. It’s been a full day since my second brother died. I spent most of it in the hospital and I’m completely exhausted, but I’m also buzzing with energy.
“No, it definitely won’t.”
“Even if the generator hadn’t gone up, I have a feeling that hammer already killed him.”
I look down at my lap. I’m holding a glass of wine. It’s dark red and much thicker than blood. I take a long sip and sigh.
“I should feel bad. I mean, I killed him. Not in some, like, abstract way. I didn’t push a button or give him poison. I hit him in the face with a tool.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“He was my brother.”
“But he deserved so much worse.” Finn scoots his chair closer until our shoulders are practically touching. The pool is quiet. The underwater lights bend and shift through the water. It’s peaceful in our little dome.
“I just… I should feel bad, but I don’t. That’s wrong, right? What kind of person am I if I don’t feel guilty for murdering my own brother? There’s got to be evil in me.”
“You’re a survivor. You’re strong. You saved your mother’s life. You think he was going to stop kicking her? She’s an old woman, for fuck’s sake, and he was beating her to death.”
“I know.” I blow out air and close my eyes.
I can see Red doing it all over again, and it makes me sick.
How long had he been abusing our own mother like that?
Years, I’d bet, as long as he’s been able.
And he’s been big since he was fifteen. “But I still keep waiting for a change. Like with Shane, I couldn’t stop feeling awful. Now though, it’s like… I’m used to it.”
His hand rests lightly on my leg. I look at it, drink my wine, and lean into him. My shoulder presses into his arm.
“Every time you think you should feel bad, look in the mirror. Look at the scars on your thighs. Look at them on your back and your arms. Remember what they did to you. Remember how they laughed and said it was for your own good. Don’t you dare think you should’ve done anything different, because I promise, Caroline, none of your brothers would’ve spared your life. ”
I meet his gaze, and I know he’s right. How fucked is that? How wicked and wrong? I drink my wine, set the glass down, and touch his cheek. I press myself closer until my mouth finds his.
I kiss him softly at first. More exploratory than anything.
But hunger floods me when his hand presses into the small of my back.
This here, even if it’s fake and won’t last the death of my family, it’s the most alive I’ve ever felt.
Until I met Finn, I was happy cleaning houses and hiding away in my shitty apartment.
I was living under the shadow of my brothers, trapped in the memory of my abuse. I was small, scared, and pathetic.
Now I’m starting to wake up. I feel like I’m crawling along a beach, desperately struggling toward a deep, black ocean. It’s still miles off, but now I’m moving, and I can’t stop and I can’t look back. There’s only forward.
Finn grips my hair and I move to straddle him. I kick over his glass. It shatters nearby, but he pulls my mouth to his anyway. “We’ll get that later,” he whispers before his tongue slides along mine.
I grind down into my husband. The chair rattles against the concrete.
I kiss him harder, whimpering into his touch, feeling needy and scared and elated all at once.
I killed Redmond with a hammer. I broke his face and mashed him until he was pulp.
I did that to him, that bastard, I did it and I don’t feel bad about it.
Maybe that makes me a monster. I just don’t care.
Finn cups my breasts and breathes in my smell. My core tightens at the eager smirk on his face. This man loves touching me more than anything in the world. It’s addictive, the way he growls and murmurs how good I taste and how much he loves sinking deep inside of me.
I’ve never been this praised before. Nobody’s ever really noticed me. I’m the youngest daughter of a big, dangerous mafia family. Nobody’s been stupid enough to want to date me. Not for long, anyway, not when they see my scars, or when they meet my brothers, or when they realize who my father is.
Finn’s the first who doesn’t care about any of that. He sees me for what I am. All my disgusting, fucked-up flaws.
He pulls my top off. My bra follows. His lips find my neck and move down to my stiff nipples.
He sucks them, murmuring about how pretty I am, how badly he wants to ruin me.
“I’m going to make you my bad little slut, Caroline,” he says, squeezing one tit roughly as the other grabs my hair.
I grind harder against his stiffening cock.
“We’re going to do terrible things together. ”
“That’s what I want.” I push back, tugging at his pants. I get them off and toss them aside. His dick is so hard as I kneel on the hard concrete, scraping my knees. He sits forward and I take him in my hands, stroking him, looking up into his eyes.
His mouth hangs open and his eyes blaze. He wants this as badly as I do. Maybe even more. I tease him, licking his tip, doing it nice and slow, and I can tell it’s driving him crazy.
“Open your pretty mouth,” he says with a note of begging in his voice. “Please, Caroline, fuck, I need to feel it.”
I love that tremble, the way his teeth bite his lower lip, how tense his body is. When I’m with him, there’s nothing else but his intense attention. He can’t think when his cock’s in my mouth, and that’s a power I’m deeply addicted to.
I suck him, moaning as I slide him into my mouth, licking and tasting his salty skin.
He moans, one hand grabbing my hair. I’m sloppy and wet, and I don’t care.
I let my spit slide down his shaft and I let myself feel everything.
His cock in my throat, his hand in my hair, how badly I want him, his hardness pulsing against my lips.
I’m not supposed to want a man like Finn to flood me with his madness, but I’m so beyond that now.
“Oh, fuck, Caroline,” he groans, and I hear the edge in his tone, the pure bliss.
I suck him faster and he squeezes my tits with his free hand.
“Fuck, your pretty mouth feels so damn good. Look at you, baby, sucking my cock. You love it, don’t you?
You love getting me all spitty and wet.” He pulls my hair, yanking me back.
I gasp in surprise at the pain, but he buries his mouth onto mine.
I moan into that kiss and keep stroking him, gripping his thick shaft tightly, my palms soaked from my spit.
“I want… your hand… on my throat,” I whisper, staring into his eyes. “I want it there when I come.”
His hand moves from my hair and wraps lightly around my neck. “Like this?”
“Just like that.” I close my eyes, whimpering at my vulnerability. I trust Finn, but I also know he could kill me if he wanted.
“Come here, you messy girl.” He stands me up and peppers my skin with kisses.
He lavishes me with touches, caresses, as he slowly gets my pants off.
I kick them aside as my panties come off next, and then he pulls me into his lap.
I straddle him again, but this time I arch my back as his tip teases my slit.
“Oh, god,” I moan and press down, taking him deep between my legs.
He stretches me to my limits. There’s always a moment of pain when I’m not sure I can handle him. But that quickly passes as I start to ride him, grinding up and down, his cock filling me deeper and deeper.
“This is where you belong, baby,” he snarls, biting my shoulder as he grabs my hips and fucks me. His thrusts are long and hard and, god, it feels so good when he takes me. “Right here with my cock deep inside of you. This is what you were made for. Taking me again and again until you’re broken.”
He growls, turning, pushing me back down onto the chair. The back collapses flat as I wrap my legs around his waist. He slides into me again, easy as a hand through water. I pull him down and kiss him feverishly as he fucks me, holding my hips. The chair rattles, sliding against the concrete.
“Keep going,” I urge, pleading, not caring who’s in control anymore. There’s only him and me and this feeling building in my core. I need the release so badly it’s like an addiction. His hands move up my flanks and, finally, one big, strong palm curls around my throat.
I gasp, eyes going wide. I wanted it, but it’s still a surprise.
His grip is firm, but not choking. I lean into it, needing more, but he knows what he’s doing.
This is a man who can use his hands. He drives faster, deeper, his hips slamming into mine as he takes me over and over.
I moan, whimpering and wiggling, holding onto his wrist and staring into his eyes.
This is what I deserve, it’s what I need, this is all I’ve ever been: worthless, despicable, beyond redemption.
“You’re beautiful, Caroline,” he says and those words are like a spike in my core. “You’re so fucking sexy it breaks me. Every inch of you ruins me. I can’t control myself much longer.”
Oh, god, the idea that he’s losing himself, that he’s going to come too, that slams me through a glass wall.
I arch into his hand, wanting it tighter, needing more pressure on my throat as he fucks me wildly, and I feel it building, all my hate and anger, all my rage and self-loathing, until he bites my lip.
“Fuck, Caroline, I need you,” he whispers.
And I shatter.
God, I come so hard, I nearly black out.
I can’t tell if it’s from the orgasm or from him choking me, and I don’t care.
My brain’s on fire. It’s ecstasy, it’s bliss, there’s something angelic and divine about the way my world completely unravels for him.
And just as I think I’m going to tunnel into nothing, his hands move away from my throat and he thrusts in deep, moaning his own finish.
I feel him, warm and steady and strong, filling me to the very brim.
We stay like that, gasping and sweaty. It’s always so damn warm in here by the pool. He kisses me, kisses my throat where he gripped, kisses my lips and breasts. Each kiss brings a fresh shiver to my spine.
“Such a good girl,” he whispers, right next to my ear. Our bodies are tangled and loose. I’ve never been so relaxed before.
“I feel like I just lost weight.” I laugh, giddy and stupid. “What the heck just happened?”
“I think you’re shedding something.” He touches my neck. “I think that’s why you want me to choke you. That’s why you want me to call you fucked up.”
“Therapy sex.”
“Something like that.” He pulls me tighter. “But you don’t need that. You’re right where you belong with me.”
I bite back a retort. Isn’t this supposed to be temporary? He doesn’t need me to ruin the moment, and honestly, I don’t really want to.
I’d rather just believe him.