12. Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
I broke away from Kade to tug his shirt off. He immediately pulled me back against his mouth.
“I bet you’re already soaking,” he muttered, his voice like sandpaper, the words dropping one by one between kisses he peppered across the swell of my breasts. “Bet if I shoved my fingers inside you right now, you’d clench down hard enough to break them.”
“You gonna fuck me or just talk about it?” I taunted.
Kade didn’t waste another second.
His hands shot to my waist, dragging me down against him. I barely had time to gasp before he shifted beneath me, grinding up, making me feel exactly how hard and thick he was.
A shudder racked through me. Goddamn. He pressed against me right where I needed him most.
A sharp gasp left my lips. Oh. Oh, fuck.
I rolled my hips into him just to hear him choke on his next breath.
Kade groaned, his grip tightening on me, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of my hips like he wanted to leave marks.
In response, I dragged my nails down his bare arms. Not soft. Not sweet. Just enough pressure to sting.
His nostrils flared. His hands flew to my ass, dragging me right over his cock again.
“Get on your knees and put me in your mouth,” he ordered. “Now.”
Something inside me recoiled, breaking the spell.
It was something about his demand of Now.
Just like the guy in the library.
Stroke me. Now.
I was suffocating. Pinned in. Helpless.
Just like with Connor, I had been powerless to fight back.
Malcolm’s words floated through my head. Well, my best guess? If you shoved Connor and it was ineffective…it was because you wanted it to be. You’ve absolutely got some super strength.
Now the question wasn’t just did I want Connor to manhandle me the way he had…but had I wanted what happened to me in the library?
Was that what I’d done?
Had I let it happen?
Something dark and sick slithered through me. The idea—the possibility—that maybe somewhere deep inside, I had wanted it.
I shook my head. No. No, no, no. That wasn’t true. That wasn’t what happened.
My head felt paralyzed for a good while, but Kade hadn’t noticed. Didn’t seem bothered by the fact that I had not, in fact, gotten on my knees and put him in my mouth. He licked up my sternum, his breath hitching like he was still barely holding back.
“Tell me you want this,” he rasped.
I met his eyes.
No.
I wasn’t going to tell him.
I was going to fight him.
Not because I didn’t want him. Not because I wasn’t aching for him.But because I needed to know.
Was my so-called super strength more powerful than the twisted need in my core or…
Or if I had let it happen before.
With my hands flat against Kade’s chest, I pushed.
“If you want it, you’re gonna have to take it,” I hissed.
The black of his pupils nearly overtook the gorgeous green of his eyes.
“And no matter how hard I fight, let me be clear…” I leaned in, my lips brushing his ear. “I want you to take it.”
His eyes widened. His jaw clenched.
For a second, just a second, he looked like he might hesitate. Might pull back. And then his lips curled, and I realized—oh. Oh. He wasn’t hesitating. He was savoring the invite.
“Fuck, you don’t even know what you’re asking for.” His voice dropped so low I could barely hear it. “I haven’t gone soft either.”
For a second, he didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
Then—
A growl ripped from his throat, and suddenly, I wasn’t straddling his lap anymore.
My back hit the couch, Kade’s weight pinning me there, his hands already dragging down my pants and underwear in one go.
And I fought.
I kicked.
I bucked my hips, punched at his head, tried to throw him off, tried to make my body react the way it should have before…
But it didn’t.
His body didn’t move from on top of me.
My strength didn’t come.
It wasn’t working.
And even as Kade’s hand shoved between my thighs, even as his teeth scraped up the side of my throat, I couldn’t focus on the way it made my blood throb, couldn’t focus on the sharp pang of fuck, yes every time his body pressed against mine.
Because my brain was screaming.
Not because I was in danger.
Because I wasn’t.
But…I needed to stop it myself, and not by using fucking words.
Otherwise, I had to be letting this happen.
Lust was overriding my self-preservation.
I shoved him. Hard. Harder than any human girl should be able to. But he didn’t fucking move.
My breath seized in my lungs. My stomach flipped with nausea.
This was just like before. Just like the library. Just like with Connor. I was fighting. I was trying. But it wasn’t working.
Something cold cut through the heat inside me, something darker than fear. A sick whisper in the back of my mind: If I wanted him off, he’d be off.
Panic shot through me, a lightning bolt of ice down my spine.
I bucked hard—this time with everything I had, desperation flooding my system.
And finally, Kade moved.
He reeled back, panting, his eyes wild.
We both stared at each other, our chests heaving.
The corners of his mouth lifted into a sick smile.
“Stay away from me, asshole!” I screamed.
“The chase just makes it sweeter, angel.” He licked his lips. “I’ll give you a head start.”
I scrambled up, but my pants were around my shins.
In the split second it took me to kick them and my panties off, Kade tackled me to the ground.
He wrestled my arms together and pinned them above my head.
I scooched and shimmied, trying to inch out of his grasp.
Brought my leg up, but he anticipated it, and I kneed the air, not his groin.
“For that feeble-ass attempt, you’re going to take me balls deep. I’m gonna fuck you so hard you bleed, slut,” he spat. “Then you’re going to beg for more.”
I was pinned. Trapped. My wrists caught in a grip I couldn’t break. My legs caught under his weight. His breath hot against my throat.
Work! I screamed at my body as my heartbeat thrashed into my ribs.
Give in. Just let him fuck you. You want it, whore, another voice, louder than my scream, bellowed.
“You wanted this.” Power thickened his voice. “And now? You’re gonna get so much more than you asked for. TAKE IT, BITCH!”
“Kade, get the fuck off of me!” I screamed.
BANG!
The front door slammed so hard against the wall that the sound ripped through me like a gunshot.
For half a second, everything went still. Even Kade, his weight crushing me, froze.
Was it just my imagination or did his hot breath go cold against my skin?
And then the silence collapsed.
Palpable fury rushed in, sucking all the oxygen from the room as a shadow moved too fast for my brain to process.
Then Kade was gone.
One second, he was pinning me. The next, his body wasn’t on me anymore.
A sickening wet sound filled the space—flesh meeting flesh, bone crunching beneath force.
Connor. He didn’t yell. Didn’t hesitate. Didn’t even give Kade a chance to fucking breathe before his fist crashed into his face like a wrecking ball.
Another.
Then another.
I sat up fast, my heart fucking sprinting as I scrambled to process what the fuck was happening.
Connor swung again. His knuckles came back bloody.
I opened my mouth to scream, but—
“You motherfucker,” Connor snarled.
His fist caught Kade’s jaw, snapping his head to the side so violently I thought his neck might break.
Kade gasped and choked, slumping, but Connor didn’t let him fall.
He grabbed him by his curls and yanked him back up just to hit him again. Harder.
“I will fucking end you.”
Then I heard it.
The crack.
Not the wet crunch of bone breaking under a fist—this was worse.
This was skull meeting drywall. Hard. The exact fucking sound I’d heard the night I—
No.
A cold sweat rushed through me, my vision blurring.
I wasn’t in this room anymore. I was there. My mother’s body, crumpling to the ground. The sound of her head bouncing off the brick wall. The way she had stared at me afterward with shock, betrayal, pain—
No no no no NO!
“You piece of shit!” Connor yelled, snapping me out of it.
My body reacted. I moved. Fast. With speed I shouldn’t have.
And when my hands clamped down on his shoulders, it should’ve been like trying to hold back a bucking bronco, but…
One second, he was pummeling Kade. The next?
Thrown. Tossed like he weighed nothing.
Connor slammed to the floor, his wild eyes finding mine immediately.
I was already there, blocking Kade from Connor, my arms out, my breath ragged.
“Run,” I told Kade.
If he didn’t get out of here now, he’d be leaving in a body bag. Connor wouldn’t give either of us a chance to explain.
Kade didn’t hesitate. Coughing blood, he staggered toward the door.
Connor pulled himself into a seated position, his stare holding mine. Not even glancing at Kade. Or the blood smeared across his knuckles. Or my nakedness. Eyes on eyes.
Looking at me like I had just betrayed him in a way he couldn’t fucking process.
“The fuck did you just do?” he breathed.
I swallowed hard, forcing my body to stay between him and the door, which Kade hadn’t bothered to close behind him. “I stopped you from making a mistake.”
He laughed humorlessly as he hauled himself to his feet and stalked towards me. “A mistake? He was about to rape you. You should’ve let me end him.”
“He wasn’t,” I said. “It was consensual—”
“I don’t think that word means what you think it means.” He flexed and bent his fingers then shook them out.
“Consensual non-consent,” I clarified, refusing to be embarrassed and hoping this revelation would calm his ass down. “And I appreciate that, in the moment, you thought he was…attacking me…because it probably looked like that, but Kade wasn’t doing anything wrong. I’m fine. Everything is fine.”
Connor’s breath, ragged and shallow a moment ago, evened out. His fists, still smeared with Kade’s blood, unclenched. He went still.
Not the kind of stillness that meant he was calming down. The kind of stillness that meant he was about to snap.
“You’re telling me you wanted that?” His voice sounded low. Sharp. Like a blade drawn across skin. “You wanted him to pin you down and pretend to rape you?”
My heart slammed against my ribs. “Forced sex is a common—”
“Shut up.” He took a step closer. I didn’t dare move. “You wanted to fight?” Another step. “To struggle?” His eyes darkened. “What, you get off on pretending you don’t want it?”
A shiver ran through me.
Connor’s gaze flicked over me, from my eyes down to my toes and back again.
His jaw clenched. “You like having your thighs forced open? You like being forced, Geulia?”
I swallowed. “I—”
He moved so fucking fast I barely registered it.
One second, I stood in front of him. The next, my back pressed against the wall.
Hard.
His body didn’t touch mine. But his hands slammed on either side of my head, caging me in.
I sucked in a breath. “Connor, I appreciate that you…care about my safety—”
“Some fucking body’s got to!” he screamed.
I flinched as a spray of his spit landed on my face.
“SOMEBODY HAS FUCKING GOT TO!” He drew his fist back and slammed it into the wall inches from my face.
My pulse jackhammered against my throat.
I knew I shouldn’t speak, shouldn’t push him, but Jesus, this was too much. “You are acting like a jealous psychopath!”
The second the word “jealous” left my mouth, I knew I’d hit a nerve.
“Jealous?” he ground out in a low, dangerous rasp. “You think I give a damn about you?”
His body pressed so close, heat rolling off him in waves.
Then his eyes dragged down my face, down my throat, to where my bare chest still heaved. His lip curled in disgust.
“You’re nothing, Tuesday.” His words were the most poisonous venom, the sharpest of knives. “Just a girl who doesn’t know how to shut her mouth except when it’s stuffed with a cock.”
I clenched my jaw. Refused to fucking blink. “If I’m nothing, why are you so obsessed with controlling everything I do? Why are you always watching me? If you hate me so much, why don’t you just leave me alone?”
The way he looked at me… Fuck. It wasn’t just hatred. It was something else. Something hot and raw and aching, buried under layers of denial so thick he probably couldn’t even see through them.
And it fucking scared me.
For a second, neither of us moved. The air between us sizzled, every charged breath thick enough to choke on.
His eyes flickered—wild, burning. Feral. Like he was one second away from doing something irrevocable.
I braced myself for the hit.
But it didn’t come.
Instead, he grabbed my chin. His fingers, firm as any touch I’d ever felt, forced my gaze up to meet his.
And fuck… Fuck, I felt it. The heat of his stare, the way his grip tightened just a little—like he hated himself for touching me but couldn’t make himself stop.
Then, just as fast, he let me go.
“Put some goddamn clothes on, you little whore.”
Then he turned away.
Like if he stood there one second longer, he’d do something he couldn’t take back.