Chapter 24
He drives to her apartment, jaw clenched tight, not saying a word to her.
She accepts that, and probably deserves it too. She understands on a very deep level that no one wants their hidden trauma brought up unannounced…but she also knows he was going to keep this buried his entire life. This dark horror, this terrible thing that made him into what he is. Twisted and shaped his desires until he couldn’t desire anything normal.
When they arrive, he quietly follows as she heads up into her building, chewing on her thoughts. How to even approach this? She can feel the heat of his eyes on her spine as they ascend towards her floor. Never did she ever imagine herself bringing Nicholas Havenwood-Calais here.
This is home . Home is supposed to be safe .
Home was never safe when you were a girl, Kara.
She fumbles getting her keys into the lock, nerves on edge. The tension is thick, weighing on her shoulders. After an awkward moment of struggling to get the door open, Kara finally functions like a human being and unlocks the path to her apartment.
“Here it is,” Kara says with a sweeping gesture. “My very humble abode. Nothing like you’re used to, I’m afraid.”
His dark, stormy eyes take in the space, across the mess near her kitchen sink, over her aging furniture, across the photos of her and Bianca, grinning into the camera-
Kara feels like he’s judging her, looking at her space. She’s not filthy rich, she doesn’t have a maid, she doesn’t have a fancy redone kitchen, none of the above, alright? But, it’s her space, the space she’s kept him out of all this time, afraid of giving him access to her life.
This man. This predator who got himself entangled with her.
Nick is in her home, gazing around with shadowed eyes. It feels like Kara has opened the final door to her vulnerability, bringing him here.
After a moment of looking around, he turns to look at her, his face a mask. “What is it you want to hear?” His voice is icy, yet distant. “You want to hear about how it started out almost normal? How I was too stupid to realize what was happening? That she was easing me into it? You want to hear about how powerless I felt once the nature of the visits changed , how I couldn’t say anything because my mother told me not to? What aspects of my disgusting history do you want laid bare?”
Kara feels her questions die on her tongue. A part of her doesn’t want to know. A part of her doesn’t want to hear it. “I want you to let go of the story and get it off your chest. Only whatever you feel like saying.” It’s what her therapist had told her, once, when Kara was discussing her past.
His jaw shifts hatefully as he mentally gnaws on his words. “I love my mother, you know. She gave me every opportunity in life. She mentored me. Nurtured my career. Taught me all that I know today in law. I grew up adoring her, wanting nothing more than to make that stone-cold woman happy. I wanted her proud of me.” His voice wavers only slightly, a look of pain crossing his features. He hides it quickly enough. “I was young when she told me her very important friend was interested in being a mentor to me. I wasn’t about to say no. She told me the judge was very important to her, to her career, and to her life. That she would be important to mine as well when the time came. So, I went along with it. It started normal enough.” His expression turns bitter in memory. “I thought nothing of it. Just some boring afternoons with a woman I barely knew or understood. I didn’t question what the interest in me might be.”
Kara remains silent, stuck in place. Afraid to move. His words remind her of how she felt - feels - about her father; hating him and loving him so completely, only wishing for small scraps of affection despite the emotional distance.
“The judge liked her toys young, as it turns out.” Nick continues, idly stalking around her kitchen counter, running a finger over it, as if checking for dust. “It wasn’t just that, which I suppose is bad enough . She also liked pain . She wanted to be hurt, degraded, and demeaned in ways you can’t even begin to fathom. Things that would make you sick. The things she made me do to her. If you can think of the vilest of acts that you wouldn’t want done to you, she did want them .” He shakes his head, a horrid skeletal expression on his face. “Do you know what that does to a kid, being forced to commit such depraved acts? It changed me. I was repulsed by her, but like a dog, she trained me to respond in the ways she wanted. Soon, I was aroused by what I did. Eventually, the things that should have interested me, didn’t .”
Kara feels her eyes pricking, horror growing within. “…how long?”
Nick makes a derisive noise, a haunted look briefly crossing his eyes. “Years. And all my mother told me was to not say a word, that it was fine, it was normal. That I was doing it for her, so that she could further our status in life. I went through my days trying to pretend I was fine, but inside, I was fucking drowning. I could only see innocent, oblivious kids around me, who didn’t have adults forcing them into perverse acts.”
He takes a seat at her table, sitting confidently, as if he’s not bothered by his own story. Kara knows he’s hiding his real emotions, the fragile ones that he doesn’t let anyone else see. It’s what she does, what she’s always done.
Hearing him tell his story is worse than Kara imagined it would be. The things he doesn’t elaborate on? Untold horror in her mind.
“What she did was horrible, Nick. Selfish and wrong. To sacrifice her own son’s well-being, for power?” Kara allows him to see past her mask, allows him to see the devastation of her feelings on his behalf. “What your mother did to you is monstrous .”
Grimly, he says, “I’m the making of my own experiences. As are you. But, we are not the same.”
No, they certainly are not. Kara’s childhood was wrought with emotional destruction and physical harm…but sexual abuse? No. Never . “My father nearly ruined my ability to emotionally connect with anyone. Your mother destroyed your ability to have a normal romantic relationship.” The anger in Kara’s breast begins to boil. “She shouldn’t even be in your life! Why do you allow her to have this hold on you?!”
“Because, she’s my mother. I owe her my success.”
Scoffing furiously, Kara gestures harshly. “You owe her your success ? What about the mind-fuckery of your life?”
His lips are in a firm, unyielding line. “What does it matter to you? You can’t fix me.”
Doesn’t he understand why she even wanted to have this conversation in the first place? She’s looking for a way to make them better . To find a way to maybe give them a chance. “Together, we could try to fix us . There are therapists, group sessions for childhood abuse-”
“I don’t believe in any of it. I’m beyond the psychobabble, Kara. I’ve been this way for far too long. Maybe I don’t want to change.” He sneers hatefully. “You have your morbid little tale. Does it all line up with what Dieter so helpfully told you?” His eyes flash like electricity out of control. “Or did he leave out his part in all of it?”
“I know about the accident,” Kara utters. She hugs herself, unsettled now that it has shifted to Dieter.
There’s something unpleasant brewing on Nick’s features. He’s trying to unpuzzle her reaction. “If you know about the accident the judge faced, you must know that it wasn’t an accident at all.”
The unease grows darker, like a shadow in Kara’s mind. “Are you trying to say Dieter murdered her?”
Nick holds her gaze steadily, saying nothing.
Kara’s mouth drops open as she gets up and paces around the room, distraught. “He was just a boy! Younger than you. That’s unspeakable !”
Scoffing in that bitter fashion that he has down pat, Nick shakes his head. His stone-cut features are firm, handsome, and austere. “There’s nothing about this story that isn’t unspeakable .”
“He told me it was someone else in the stable that tacked her horse-”
“He would tell you that.”
{I’m just playing with you, chickadee. Don’t look so scared shitless.}
He’s saying that Dieter tacked the judge’s horse that day. That he purposely set the girth to be dangerously loose. Good lord. And maybe, just maybe , that makes sense.
Why would Nick be unsettled about Dieter otherwise, if Dieter hadn’t been involved in some way? Still, she can’t see him murdering someone. “What if you simply remember it incorrectly?”
Nick scoffs in disbelief. “I don’t remember it incorrectly. You forget; I have known Dieter nearly my entire life. Sometimes, weird accidents add up when they seem to be near the same person. Let’s just say it wasn’t his first rodeo, even then.”
Kara gnaws on her lower lip, stunned, trying to make sense of this ugly mess. She doesn’t want it to be real. She knows Dieter, even if Nick says she doesn’t. He’s not a killer. He’s just selfish and self-serving. “But if it’s true, why were there no consequences? If it’s just speculation, then, well-”
Leaning forward in his seat, Nick replies, “Why do you think? You know the legal system and you know it favors those with money. The Bittinger’s can make ‘problems’ vanish. You want to know the worst of it? My mother never forgave me for what he did,” Nick says coldly, hatefully. “In her mind, I’d ratted her meal ticket out. Hans Bittinger’s wicked little sociopath figured out what had been done to me and because it amused him, he found an accident for her. Not because he wanted to help me or anything, but because he was bored and he didn’t like that my afternoons were being taken up by her.”
The horror of the statement hits Kara like a sledgehammer. Of all the things Nick has said thus far, this is what sounds like Dieter. The boredom, the selfishness. Orchestrating a woman’s death because her existence annoyed him. It boggles the mind, and yet, the shoe fits.
Lord, Kara wishes it didn’t. She doesn’t want to believe it. Not Dieter, not that compelling smile, those beautiful dazzling eyes, that seductively submissive tone…
“He should have never interfered,” Nick continues with acid in his voice. “I didn’t mourn that wretched woman, but my mother was furious. It was as if everything I had suffered was for nothing. A waste. Nothing I did was ever good enough.”
Anger and sadness fuse into something that Kara can’t keep off her face. “Don’t you realize your mother had no right to be mad at you ? You were a child and she sold you off to be abused .” She shakes her head, horrified. “How can you even speak to her still, knowing how she used you like a political tool in such a sick manner?”
He closes his eyes and won’t look at her. His throat works visibly, his emotions held under tight check.
Voice dipping into a soft utterance, Kara asks him, “And Claire has no idea? No inkling?”
He shakes his head, jaw clenched.
Kara comes over to the table and sits down across from him. Carefully, she reaches out a shaky hand and takes his. “I won’t say anything; words can’t even begin to atone for what happened. But I want you to know that I’m angry for you .”
He yanks his hand away, huffing, red on his cheekbones. Shame, humiliation. “I don’t want your emotional bullshit on the matter,” he snaps. “I don’t need help. I’m not weak.”
Sorrow fills Kara like lead; she never wanted him to feel humiliated by her having this knowledge. She’d never use it against him. “You’re not weak. You’re just…”
“Messed up? Ruined? Disgusting?” Self-loathing brews in his blue eyes. Something Kara is well familiar with herself. “I don’t know why you’d want to have anything to do with me, knowing any of this . The things I’ve done .” His voice cracks. “The things done to me . I was violated until I almost became numb to it, until someone begging me to stop was the only release I could find. I’ve pissed in someone’s mouth because it got them off. I was thirteen .”
The room fills with an aura of deep misery. The aroma of self-hate and violence.
Kara blinks rapidly, wanting the tears to vanish, but one slips down her cheek. “Because the crime that happened to you, happened to you . It isn’t you .” Kara wishes she could make him understand. “You’re still the same asshole I’ve known all this time. Still smart. Sharp-tongued. Witty . Classy, when you feel like it. This doesn’t change any of that .”
Nick’s shoulders are still tense and he’s having difficulty meeting her gaze. He’s withdrawing. “We always were better together when our lips were busy with other things,” he says tonelessly. “Less talking and more doing. None of this emotional refuse .”
It would be in bad taste for Kara to admit that more than once, she thought she liked him better with his mouth shut, too. That was a long time ago though. It’s exhausting, knowing that his defense mechanism is starting to surface; to be brash, crude. To push her away. She knows, because her own nature is to become aggressive when feeling defensive. They are alike, this way. Never wanting anyone to get too close.
Kara stands up from the table, unable to stay seated. “We don’t need to turn this into a fight, Nick. You don’t have to treat me like I’m the enemy.”
He stands as well, his greater height giving him an authoritative edge over her. “I’m not treating you any different than I always have.” Within moments, he’s standing closer to her, the dark scent of his cologne washing over her senses in a midnight wave. “I’m just done with this conversation.”
Oh no. He’s channeling the emotional unrest in the room. Fueling an aggressive undercurrent.
One of his large hands finds its way to her hip, dragging her flush with his body. He looks down at her, eyes half-lidded, gaze dark and unreadable. His other hand buries itself in her mane of hair, keeping her in place. His breath touches her lips and Kara knows what he wants. “Do you regret bringing me here yet?”
This is not what she planned. Shit. She can’t let this get out of control. “Please, don’t do this. Respect my boundaries-”
He presses against her, all strength and barely contained power. “The way you respected mine? Snooping into my life, as if it’s yours to know.”
Her lip trembles and pain strikes low. “I only wanted to help you. So, we can talk about what hurt us both and move forward-”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” he tells her, using his body to completely overpower her. “I want you to make me forget.”
“Don’t. Nick .” She pleads with him, but she knows it falls on ears only too eager to listen to her refusal. It doesn’t matter if she means it or not; he gets off on her saying no . “Please, don’t.”
“We both know this is really what you want,” he tells Kara as he manhandles her over to the couch, his hands like iron manacles at her wrists. “You like when I’m the villain. It gets you wet, same as it gets me hard.”
This isn’t what I wanted from this conversation , Kara thinks helplessly.
She struggles against him, knowing that it fuels the fire inside of him. This time though, she’s not trying to turn him on; she’s trying to stop him. “What about Claire-”
Aggressively, he presses her against the armrest of the couch, tearing open her jeans, forcing them down. “We’ve already discussed how this doesn’t matter to her or me. Time to catch up to the class, Kara.”
Kara gasps, outraged and distraught as he snaps her panties off shortly after. His hand, buried in her hair, pulling to expose her throat to his lips as they bite and suck marks against her sensitive flesh. Pleasure follows in the wake of each love bite. “It matters to me! I don’t want to be part of your nasty faithlessness!”
It grinds all her gears knowing he’s engaged to Claire only because his mother wants it to be so. He doesn’t owe his mother anything, certainly not who he marries!
He growls, teeth against her neck. His fingers carefully find the place between her thighs. “Already steamy like the whore you are.”
The traitorous body Kara has been saddled with provides him with all the lubricant he’ll ever need, even as her mouth tells him to do the right thing. “Nick, I’m not joking. I don’t want us to do this, you’re still engaged-”
His mouth presses against her own, effectively stopping her protests. Nick’s kiss is a storm, like the vicious undercurrent of the sea. It pulls her under, making her every nerve sing with reluctant desire. The fact that her body is weak to this, to the feel of him dominating her…it’s downright unfair. Unforgivable . Her body is completely against her mind.
“Good girl,” he murmurs against her lips. His tongue, briefly caressing her own in a dance of lust. “Just let it happen. I know what you need.” His voice darkens jealously. “ Only I know what you need.”
Furious at him, at herself, Kara digs her nails into him, trying to hurt him, to make her displeasure known. His one-track mind infuriates her, because she knows he’s trying to bury the emotional moment from before, he wants to pretend it didn’t happen.
He wants to forget his trauma. Kara wants them to fucking find a way to heal themselves.
Snarling her frustration, Kara bites at his mouth. “You aren’t what I need right now , you beast. I said no .”
Eyes burning with dark hunger, Nick pulls back and sneers down at her. His eyes, dilated and full of cruel want. “I heard you the first time, sweetpea.”
Before Kara can retort, he spins her around, forcing her to bend over the armrest. He spanks her, making her cry out as she hears him pulling down his sweatpants. She knows the veiny thickness of his cock is now exposed; she can feel the searing heat of it being rubbed against her rear.
Embarrassed, Kara fists the fabric of the couch with her hands, thrashing. He presses his open palm to her slit, rubbing it, getting his skin nice and wet. Moments later, Kara can hear him taking himself in hand, using her slick desire to stroke himself to full size. The sound of him handling himself is loud, filthy. He makes grunting sounds that burn low in her gut.
He’s vile and every noise he makes has her channel aching to be filled.
“I hate you,” Kara whispers miserably, hating herself.
“That’s the proper response, isn’t it?” Nick replies huskily, now guiding his length between her cheeks, sliding it up and down between them obscenely. He humps against her a bit, allowing her to feel the swing of his heavy sack against her ass. “Don’t worry; I’ll make you love every second of hating me.”
He keeps her pinned down with his free hand on her upper back, keeping her in place. There is no escape, only a struggle in futility.
It feels as good as ever, the thrill and the violence of it feeding the beast inside of her. It has no right to feel this good, it shouldn’t make her thighs quiver with want. Kara closes her eyes briefly, overwrought with emotion, crying out her dismay.
Why is she like this?
Nick lewdly continues to rub his thick glans against her swollen folds, spreading her natural slickness around, coating his length. He groans, powerful hands spreading her cheeks wide, exposing all of her to his lustful gaze. She can feel the way he stares at her center, where she aches for him to stretch her, to fill her.
His thumb presses against her rear entrance, playing with it, teasing as he dips the tip of his cock into her soaking cunt. Every nerve ending in her body is yearning for completion, wanting this to move forward. Wanting him to fuck her until she can’t remember why she didn’t want it.
The way the thick mushroom head of his sex drags in and out of her, slow and easy. Playing with her. Making her desperate for his entire length. Kara quivers, gasping for air, hips shifting, needing more-
With a snarl, Nick slides home completely, filling her to the brim. Kara’s back arches as she cries out, feeling her body spread to accommodate his girth. She feels stuffed, obscenely spread as he forcefully spreads her cheeks, looking at his cock spearing between her delicate puffy lips.
The torturous ecstasy of him pulling all the way out before sliding back in. She feels every inch of him and whines. He angles his hips and grinds into her. Feeling her from the inside in ways that make her head spin with hot desire.
It’s all so wrong. She doesn’t, doesn’t want this , told him no, but her body loves it, lives for it-
He moans, head thrown back as he sensually pumps his hips. “It’s been so long, sweetpea. I’ve missed this. I’ve missed your naughty cunt. So tight . Tired of fucking my hand, thinking of you, baby.”
Oh, God. Kara pants desperately, feeling her walls adjusting to his size, enjoying the girth spreading her wide. “ Nick .”
His hips work, his hands bruisingly hard on her hips as he takes her, riding her for his pleasure.
Time doesn’t matter, nothing does. Nothing aside from the shift of his cock inside of her, sending every nerve ending in her body spiraling with pleasure. The wet sound of their bodies meeting, the slap of flesh.
In that domineering fashion, he grabs one of her hands and places it under her, making her play with herself. She can feel the slide of his cock going in and out as her finger finds her clit, her swollen lips, the place where he fills her. Kara shudders, tightening around him.
Those large hands soon find her breasts as he palms them roughly from behind, dragging her up briefly as he fucks into her hard, his balls swinging with his movements. Every thrust is punctuated with a deep grunt of want.
“You like that?” He hisses in her ear, his thumbs on her nipples as he shoves her neckline down. “You like being fucked from behind, your tits out?”
Humiliation bathes Kara’s face in red as she bounces along with his forceful fucking. Her insides are clenching, seeking release, milking him. His big hands hold her breasts as he pumps into her. She mutters, “ Shut up .”
Shifting, Nick pushes her forward again, spitting into her crack. Kara moans, knowing what he intends to do next. He’s the only man who has ever done it to her, after all. The shameful, dirty thing that makes her cunt sing.
He carefully eases a thumb into her rear, pressing as he angles his hips, driving against that place that makes her feel like a well about to spill over. The sensation of being stuffed in two places brings a heavy coil of lust, low in her belly. “Dirty girl,” he hisses, cock twitching with arousal as he fucks her in two places.
“It’s, it’s too much, please, ah -”
“I’ll get you there,” Nick grunts roughly. “I’ll make you spill on my cock, sweetpea. Come on, come on .” He slams in, hitting that place that makes her scream.
The sound of him repeatedly fucking into her grows loud and sloppy, their mingled fluids leaking out of her, dripping to the floor as he humps against her harder. Like a beast, Nick fucks into her, taking her, filling her ass with his thumb, her cunt with his thick cock. All of it converges into searing pleasure-
“My good slut, my good fucking girl and her perfect cunt and ass,” he hisses, knowing how hot she burns when he praises her and demeans her in the same breath.
Humiliatingly, she shatters around him, crying out her agonizing ecstasy. She feels herself spasm around his girth, her orgasm going to liquid lust as it spills out around his length, gushing down her legs. Kara moans in elation and humiliation, hearing Nick groan in response. His voice is animalistic as he says, “Soak me with your cum.” A loud squelch, her ejaculation spilling. “Fucking love that you squirt like a whore. Fuck .”
His hips slam into her one more time as he follows her over the edge, huskily voicing his release into her body, filling her.
They remain connected for a few moments, their breathing harsh. Eventually, the heat of Nick’s body pulls away. The minute it does, Kara moves from being bent over the couch and instead sinks to the filthy floor in shame.
How could I have let this happen?
You didn’t. He forced it on you.
But I liked it, same as always.
She wants to cry.
Sitting there, mostly nude, feeling roughed up more than she’s used to these days, Kara puts her head in her hands to hide. “I need you to go.”
He’s all back in order again. Easy for him; he’s wearing sweatpants. Nick is standing over her, towering like some sort of deity, looking down at her disgraceful form. “Kara.” He sounds unsure, suddenly. Awkward. Not smug in any sense, not proud of himself.
That doesn’t matter.
She won’t look at him, her insides filling with a drowning sensation of guilt. She’s fooled around with an engaged man. She knows his fucking fiancée. How is she ever going to forgive herself ? She wraps her arms around herself tighter, as if that will help her escape this reality.
Her mother could never hide the emotional wounds of knowing Charlie was stepping out on her.
There’s the sound of him sighing as he rubs the back of his neck. “I…realize that…isn’t what you were expecting. From our conversation. Kara, I-”
She doesn’t want to think about their conversation, she doesn’t want to think about them at all. There’s no hope for them if he won’t ever decide to see reason. If he won’t accept and respect her wishes, that she doesn’t want to be a mistress, they can’t be together. They can’t ever associate anymore-
“You’re making me hate myself more than I already do,” she whispers, voice hoarse.
He’s crouching in front of her now, as if he wants to embrace her. A gentler man, revealed now that the vicious monster within is satisfied. “I don’t want you to hate yourself. Not because of me,” Nick says, sounding regretful. “You don’t need to beat yourself up over this-”
All she can think about is how her mother used to sit at home at night, watching the clock with a strange expression on her face. Waiting and wondering about Charlie. Where he was. Who he was with. And how drunk he would be when he returned.
Dropping her hands from her face, Kara meets his blue gaze, seeing something close to remorse in his eyes. “You made me do something I told myself I would never do. I need you to leave me alone while I digest what this makes me.”
“Don’t do this to yourself, sweetpea.” He presses his forehead to hers, grinding them together as if they can fuse their skulls. “Don’t-”
“You chose this. You made me do this. All so you could hide from your emotions again.” Kara utters flatly, turning her head away from him. “All I ever asked was that you consider that I just want you, all of you. Maybe I want you committed to me, not someone else. But you don’t care about how I feel or what I want. You only care about your mother’s wishes , despite what she did to you. I see that now.”
His expression is horrified. “That’s not how it is at all. Kara, why-”
“Please, Nick. Just go. You only see me as something to use for a good time. But I’m only human. I have feelings. Sorry about the inconvenience. This is over. Completely.”
She can feel him staring at her in utter disbelief. When he realizes that she isn’t going to budge on this, he stands, collecting himself. The sigh he makes sounds despondent.
When he finally leaves, Kara allows herself to fully wallow in her guilt, curled up on the floor amongst her scattered clothes, reeking of regret.