Chapter 39 Monroe #2
I can sense the moment he decides to disengage.
He’ll go into the bathroom or lie down on his bed and scroll through his phone.
Then, the charged energy in the room temporarily subdues.
This has proven to be a good time to ask him to order food.
It always takes me several minutes to work up the confidence to speak, to let him hear my voice.
The first few seconds are the scariest, when my brain analyzes his shift in energy, and I’ll know if the bear is annoyed but agreeable or irritated and now irate.
Minutes pass, and he hasn’t called me to his lap.
But I can sense the tension. I can sense he wants to, but knows I may refuse, and doesn’t want others to see him rejected in public.
I know if I initiate, it will please him, and I don’t want to give him a reason to be angrier than usual tonight.
I need him to let me go upstairs with Jace.
I need him not to think twice about locking me in his room without chaining me to the bed.
I need him to think I took the pills when, in fact, I didn’t.
Swallowing my dignity, I reach out and skim the calf of his black pants. He looks down at me, and I give him my best attempt at innocence.
He leans forward and more tenderly than I would have expected, helps me to my feet. I climb onto his lap, straddling his groin. He stiffens underneath me, and I feel his length press against my panties.
I gaze into his hollow eyes as I run my palms up his bare chest, wishing that a shred of his humanity would shine through, because I don’t know if I can go forward with this, and I don’t know if he can, either.
Does he know it’s over?
Does he sense deep down that this is the last time?
I avert my eyes in apology, and to my shock, he lifts his mask. Our stares lock, and it’s the first time I’ve seen him, really seen him, in weeks. His gaze flicks between my eyes and lips. I feel my soul whimper with want, and I close my eyes, pulling his mouth to mine, and taste him.
I moan, craving him, needing him, thirsting for his touch. His forgiveness. His approval. His love and acceptance. I know with every swipe of my tongue against his that I may walk away from this man, but I will spend an eternity wishing I had his heart.
His fingers push aside my thong. Weeks without intimacy has me pulling back to study his face.
He slides two fingers down my labia as he looks at me in question, silently asking if this is okay.
I don’t confirm, but I don’t stop him, and despite the voice screaming in my head, I slowly rock into his touch.
His eyelids flutter closed as he pushes his fingers inside my hot center, as if this act alone is enough to send him over the edge, and I want so badly to believe the expression painted across his face is one of regret.
The threat of tears stings my eyes. I can’t look at him. I can’t watch him fall apart.
I fumble with his pants, unsteady and out of practice.
His fingers slide from my center to help, and it takes several awkward attempts to line up the head of his penis with my entrance.
I bounce slowly, grinding myself against the base of his shaft, savoring the moment when he tilts his head back in sweet relief like he forgot how good we feel together.
Like he forgot me. I lean down to kiss him again, this time hungry.
I wish we were upstairs. I wish we were experiencing this moment in private.
Maybe it’s an act, a performance on his part for the crowd.
For the man in the back. But I’m going to tell myself that it’s not.
“Make me come, Kieren. Make me come,” I plead breathlessly against his lips. I pick up my pace, directing his fingers to my clit. He remembers what I need, doesn’t he?
Without warning, hot cum floods my inner walls.
I pant, out of breath, but slow myself as I realize what happened.
Kieren’s chest heaves from his release. His closed eyes open halfway, apologetically meeting mine, as he realizes it too.
For some couples, this might be insignificant, but it’s significant for us, because never has Kieren let this happen.
A tear falls from my right eye, then another from my left.
It’s over.
We are over.
And we both know it.
This was our crestfallen goodbye. Our swan song. A halfhearted, lackluster fuck before I’m severed for good.
Kieren reaches up to brush away my tears when that god-awful metallic voice rasps behind me.
“It is time.” The low, demonic voice rumbles at my back. I turn to look at the man with the gold-horned mask and then back at Kieren as he reaffixes his own.
“Five minutes,” Kieren responds, holding up his hand with five fingers spread wide.
I wait until I’m sure the man has turned away to lift myself carefully off Kieren’s lap. His release slides out of my pussy, coating his fingers as he tucks himself into his trousers.
“Jace will take you upstairs,” he says, clearing his throat without making eye contact.
The pain of being discarded smacks me in the face.
I blink away more tears as my feet hit the raised platform, unsteady.
In the back of the room, I see a slender woman with pale, milky skin and long, wavy black hair.
Her back is to me, and I can tell by the knot of fabric at the back of her head that she’s blindfolded.
Jace pushes off a nearby wall and walks toward me, steps away from crossing paths with Kieren.
Two men in black, demonic elder masks with black horns flank the woman, each holding an elbow, guiding the woman toward the hidden room.
Jace stands five feet in front of me, and I make the oversized step down from the dais to the floor. I begin to walk. Jace turns away.
My freedom.
My freedom. My freedom. My freedom.
But I can’t.
I can’t live with myself.
So, I run.
The room isn’t large. It takes two breaths to get to the back.
“No!” I scream, grabbing the woman who I’m sure is Tessa. I grab her left arm from behind, freeing it from the masked elder before he can react.
“Tessa run!” My scream gurgles in my throat as I desperately pull her arm, trying to get her to run with me. “They’re going to kill you!”
A body slams into me from the side. Thick arms are around my waist, hauling me backward as I scream.
“They’re going to kill you! They’re going to kill all of you! Run!”
“Run!” I scream, kicking, fighting, clawing at the arms around me as they lift me off the ground. “Run!”
“It’s a trap!”
Kieren bursts from the hidden room. A half-masked man grabs my ankles, holding my legs closed so I can no longer kick. The room is a blur of blood red and tears.
“Run!” I sob. “Run!”
The basement door shuts behind me.
“Let me go!” I scream as I’m carried up the stairs. “Let me go!”
“Stop it, Monroe. Stop!” the man carrying me shouts. I know it’s Jace, because even though he’s manhandling me, he’s not hurting me. If it were Harrison or Barrett holding my torso, I would have broken ribs.
“Get her upstairs,” I hear Kieren shout from the base of the steps.
I stop fighting. I failed. I failed, and now he’s going to kill me. I couldn’t save Tessa.
“Please don’t do this,” I beg through sobs as Jace and Harrison carry me into Kieren’s bedroom. “Please, Jace. Don’t leave me in here. Don’t leave me alone with him. He keeps me in here. He starves me. Please, if you have any ounce of humanity left inside you, please help me. Please!”
Only a handful of seconds pass before the bedroom door Jace had closed behind us flies open with so much force that it slams into the wall.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Kieren screams at me. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Any idea what you’ve cost me? What you’ve cost my family? And his family, and his?” he screams, his voice hysterical, as he points to Jace and Harrison.
Kieren grabs a pill bottle from his desk. He’s shaking with rage, barely able to twist the cap open, continuing to scream every hateful thought he’s ever had about me.
Something inside me snaps.
And I scream right back.
“You’re a murder! You’re all fucking murders!
You’re killing them! You’re going to kill me!
Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I don’t know what’s going on?
Do you think I don’t hear you when you talk to that man about offering me?
About spilling my blood? Who is making you do this? Is it him? Is it X?”
A hand collides with my cheek, and I taste the coppery tang of blood.
“Don’t you ever fucking say that name again,” Kieren screams, and then before I can comprehend what he’s doing, he shoves his palm flat against my mouth, forcing the pills inside.
“Hold her down,” he growls. Harrison pins me in a bear hug. “Take the fucking pills,” Kieren yells. He clamps my mouth shut but I refuse to swallow.
“Give me the ketamine,” Kieren shouts. My eyes flare in horror as Harrison hands him a water bottle.
“Drink it,” he grits, shoving the water bottle into my mouth until I have no choice but to swallow.
“Kieren, stop! She’ll overdose,” I hear Jace yell.
“I don’t give a fuck, she’s dead anyway. Put her in the cage. Put her in the fucking cage!” he shrieks.
Harrison shoves me down to the floor, stuffing me inside the metal door with his huge, rough hands.
“Out!” Kieren barks to Harrison and Jace, pointing to the door.
I glare at Jace who now stands there stone-faced, unwilling to further provoke Kieren’s unhinged madness, only to see him avert his eyes.
My only two witnesses quickly vacate the room without a word, without so much as a flicker of objection or concern on their faces for what Kieren might do to me if left alone.
Sobs catch in my throat, and suddenly, I can’t breathe.
I can’t see... His gun... His rage... The room begins to spin, and I just know. .. I’m going to die.
“FUCK!” Kieren screams at the top of his lungs and then kicks the cage over and over. The metal rattles violently, shaking me within until I’m dizzy to the point of throwing up from both fear and motion sickness.
“I’m not a murder. I am a fucking God!” he spouts. He crouches down, slamming the door. The lock hanging from the metal wire is clicked closed.
“Make no mistake, Monroe. I’ll do whatever it fucking takes to protect my name, my title, my legacy.
Something you know nothing about because you’ve been a bottom feeder your entire miserable life.
You’re the dregs of society. You’re a fucking parasite who just lost its host. I will destroy you,” he rumbles, shaking the cage with his fury.
“You’re roadkill, and I’m going to relish these next thirty days.
I’m going to drain you. I’m going to suck every drop of spirit from your worthless body, and by the time the next Full Moon Ceremony comes around, you’ll be begging for death.
And I’ll be there, holding the knife, ready to slit your fucking throat. ”
He stands, turning to leave, but then whirls around and slams his boot into the cage one last time.
The room is cold and silent. My hands tremble as I remove my ceremonial mask Kieren had custom-made for me.
This isn’t a mask for the living. It’s a mask for the dead.