Chapter 46 Gabi
GABI
Present Day
Early October, Senior Year,
Dornell University
“Wake up Gabriella,” a gentle voice whispers. A lucid dream. I scrunch my face, willing the noise away.
“Wake up,” the voice nudges softly. Warm breath tickles my ear, and I release a clipped whimper. My eyes flutter as my brain fights with itself. Stay asleep, it’s just a dream. Open your eyes, this is real.
A strange pressure pricks my neck. I breathe in an extended inhale, and…
“What the fuck?” I try to scream, except my words are trapped by the hand Jace rams against my mouth.
“If you try to fight me, I’ll slit your throat,” he growls.
I whine as the sharp edge of the knife nips at the fragile skin of my neck.
“Hmm, how does it feel, Gabriella?” His scratchy voice reminds me of our freshman year, tangled together under the sheets, talking and fucking until the sun came up.
What a stark contrast to this morning. My freshman self could never have imagined there would be a day when I’d find Jace in my bed, holding a knife to my throat, hating me more than he’s ever hated anyone in his life.
Never could I have imagined the elite fraternity he was so eager to pledge, the revered Sigma, would corrupt him to the point of becoming unrecognizable.
“You were so bold last night when you sliced my fucking arm,” Jace seethes. “It’s only right if I return the favor.”
I squirm, my pointless pleas muffled under his palm.
“But I think I’ll start with your body first,” he says, repositioning himself until his chest is flush with my lower abdomen and his face eye-level with my breasts.
I don’t dare move, convinced he’s going to accidentally slice my artery.
“You touched me last night, Gabriella, and you said things to me. Things you shouldn’t have said. ”
I lie helplessly as I take in his words, my vulnerability on full display in my thin cotton thong and equally thin white T-shirt.
“You know what happens if you scream, right?”
I nod, and when Jace removes his hand from my mouth, I remain compliant.
Fingertips graze the side of my ribcage as he lifts the hem of my T-shirt with his free hand, exposing my bare breast. My breath hitches as he begins to knead, gently squeezing the tender flesh.
“Do you remember when you used to beg me to do this, Gabriella? Do you remember telling me how badly your tits would throb when you were aroused? Or how I would massage your aching, full tits like this while you straddled my lap and fucked me?”
I don’t answer him, but the whimper I’m unable to contain gives me away.
“Maybe you remember how I would suck your sensitive nipples, like this,” he rasps, encasing the painfully hardened peak with his warm mouth.
I try not to react. I try not to writhe under him, not only because he’s holding a blade to my throat, but because I’ll be damned if I let this man have any power over me. But, fuck…
His hot, wet tongue swirls around my nipple, sucking and licking, leaving a trail of cooling saliva with each pass. I don’t realize my death grip on the sheets until he starts nibbling at the swollen bud with his teeth.
“Jace,” I plead. But he doesn’t stop. Instead, he sucks my nipple with the fervor of a newborn baby, remembering exactly how my body responds to this type of stimulation.
I can feel my flush bloom, and I start to short-circuit.
Within the span of a few hours, we’ve had more physical contact than we’ve had over the last two years.
My brain is frantically trying to quell my body’s natural response, but it’s losing control by the second.
Popping my nipple free, Jace cups his palm over my breast, teasing the now chaffed, delicate skin. I tense my muscles in a fruitless act to remain unresponsive, even though I can feel them quiver, dangerously close to coming undone.
“Do you remember any of that, Gabriella?” he smirks.
Pure evil. This man is pure fucking evil. “No,” I croak.
“No? Then why are your panties wet?”
Embarrassment spears through my body like white hot lightning. My instinct is to look, to see if he’s bluffing, but I remember my compromised position and decide I’d rather not slit my own throat by leaning forward.
He releases my breast and crawls on top of me like a bear. “I need you to know something,” he growls against my ear. “Last night you called me a cheating piece of shit. Not once did I cheat on you, so if you’re going to come into my house, and fondle my dick, then…”
“Then why is there a video?” I finish for him, although I know this was not what he intended to say.
Sincere confusion flashes across his face. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“There is a video. I have it on my phone.”
Dumbfounded, he sits back on his heels, and I exhale a sigh of relief when I no longer feel the blade against my skin.
“You’re lying,” he challenges.
“I’m not,” I assure him.
“Show me.”
I reach for my nightstand, inadvertently bending my knees so the soles of my feet can press into the mattress, giving me the boost I need to grab my phone.
I lean back against my pillow, unlocking the device.
I haven’t looked at this video in months.
There was a time when I would watch it every day, multiple times a day, torturing myself with the proof of his infidelity.
It takes a few minutes to scroll through two years of photo and video history, an undertaking made even more arduous by the soothing strokes of Jace’s fingers on my upper thigh.
I can hardly focus. I’m not even sure he’s aware of his own hand movements, because at one point, touching me like this would have been second nature to him.
Jace Carver is on my bed, kneeling between my spread open legs with a front-row view of the tiny, triangular scrap of fabric separating my pussy from open air, and even though he is fully clothed, the tent in his pants is uncomfortably obvious.
“Here,” I say, handing him my phone as I try to avoid looking at his groin. I pray the tent has deflated. Jesus, is watching this video going to make him even more aroused? The thought makes me ill. I can’t look. I can’t fucking look, or I’m going to need a trashcan.
He presses play on the video, and suddenly, I’m forced to relive one of the worst moments of my life.
The catcall hollers of the Sigma fraternity members standing around him as a naked blonde pushes his legs apart.
The euphoric look of pleasure on Jace’s face when she unzips his pants and lowers her mouth onto his erect dick.
The backward tilt of his neck as her head bobs.
The way his hands guide her hips as she climbs on top of him, straddling his lap, and fucks him.
Jace hits pause, but I know the video keeps going. I’ve watched her bounce up and down on his dick until I’ve become nauseated. On several occasions, I’ve actually thrown up.
“But I’m the slut, right?” I ask through gritted teeth. “I’m the whore.”
“Where did you get this?” he demands. His tense face is severe, almost stoic, as his eyes search mine.
“Why does it matter?” I push back, hoisting myself onto my elbows. “It doesn’t change what you did.”
“Who sent this to you?” His expression remains infuriatingly unreadable as he taps the screen.
“What are you doing?” I snip, growing more agitated by the second by his lack of reaction to this massive reveal.
“Texting it to myself,” he explains. “Who fucking sent it?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t recognize the phone number, and when I responded, my text didn’t go through.”
The muscles in his jaw tick with tension.
“When?”
“The day before I broke up with you.”
He freezes, and his fury-filled eyes flick to mine.
“Why… didn’t you fucking say anything?” he asks. His words are slow and deliberate, like an animal about to snap. I scoff at his unbelievable audacity.
“Why didn’t I say anything?”
He glares at me, expectant, and the rope I’ve wound tight around my emotions unfurls at last.
“That video was from your Sigma initiation. A week before you fucked that woman, you were in my childhood bed, in my family’s home over winter break, fucking me with tears in your eyes because, and I quote, you ‘loved me so much that it hurt,’” I snarl, annoyed that I ever let myself fall for such a cliché line.
“The day after this video was taken, you crawled into my bed and fucked me without protection, like I let you do for the rest of the goddamned semester because I trusted you. You never would have told me. You were content to let me stay oblivious, knowing the entire time that I had been faithful and you had not.”
“You destroyed me,” I continue, unable to stop myself at this point. “So why would I tell you the real reason when it was so much more satisfying to watch you fall apart like the cheating piece of shit you are? You didn’t deserve the truth, Jace.”
“Fuck you Gabriella,” he has the nerve, the fucking nerve, to say.
“Retribution is a fucking bitch, isn’t it Jace? Now get the fuck out of my bedroom!” I shout. If Ele and Viv didn’t hear our conversation before, they surely have now. Tears threaten to spill from my eyes. I want to scream at him. I want to gouge his eyes out with that fucking knife in his hand.
The only leverage I’ve had over this man, the ruse that I’ve kept going for years, is gone, and I’m furious with myself.
I’m furious because I stupidly thought he would feel bad.
I expected him to show a semblance of remorse, but he didn’t, and why would he when he knew the entire fucking time that he had cheated?
He knew, and he didn’t care. And now, he has the gall to be mad at me.
One leg at a time, he climbs off my bed, refusing to break eye contact.
His chest heaves like he wants to say something, to retaliate.
He certainly could. He’s the one with the weapon in his hand.
I glare at him, picturing myself leaping from the bed, grabbing the knife, and stabbing him over and over in the chest until the last bit of light drains from his eyes. God, it would feel so damn good.
“Gabriella,” he says in finality.
“What?” I hiss.
“Lock your fucking window.”