Chapter 42
A week without her is a week without oxygen. I’ve been moving through the city like a rabid dog, tearing at everything that moves. Nothing satisfies.
I’m obsessed. It’s a parasitic need to be inside her skin, to hear her heart rhythm and know I’m the one dictating the pace. I’m starved.
I broke into her apartment. I’m a monster. A devil. A thing made of nightmares and bad intentions. But I’m her monster. I’m hers. Fucking hers. Every cell in my body is under her command.
I bought every flower I could find. Fifty bouquets. Red, white, purple—lilies and roses. I’ve crowded her small living room with them until it looks like a funeral for the man I used to be.
The lock turns.
I’m on my feet before the door even clears the frame. She startles when she sees me.
I lunge for her, my hands gripping her waist so hard I know I’ll leave marks. I bury my face in the crook of her neck, inhaling her like a drowning man hitting the surface.
“Charlotte,” I rasp.
I kiss her cheek, the hinge of her jaw, the pulse point at her throat.
“I’m a coward,” I mutter against her skin. “I’m an idiot. I’m everything she said I was, but I can’t breathe without you.”
I pull back just an inch, my thumbs digging into her jaw, forcing her to look at me. I want to weep, and I want to kill.
“I’m on my goddamn knees. Forgive me. Please. Just tell me I’m yours. Tell me you won’t let me go back to the cellar.”
I drop, wrapping my arms around her thighs. It’s a pathetic sight—the man who owns the streets of New York, kneeling like a dog.
I feel her hands on my head, her fingers threading through my hair. She pulls, urging me to stand.
When I stand, she kisses me. Only then do I feel like I can breathe.
“My forgiveness comes with conditions, Valerio,” she whispers against my lips.
“Anything,” I say. I mean it. I’d cut off my hand if she asked.
“Condition one: you never run again. If you’re drowning, you drown with me.”
I nod. “Done.”
“Condition two: you tell me exactly what those thoughts are. The ones that ‘disgust the devil.’”
“I’m scared,” I admit, the word tasting like bile.
What if she runs? The thoughts in my head are awful. Monstrous. Any sane woman would flee.
“Don’t be. Tell me.”
I swallow hard, looking at the floor with shame.
“I want to own you, Charlotte. Not just have you. I want to be the air in your lungs. I have these thoughts… that I don’t ever want to hear ‘no’ from you.
I want you to be a part of me, something I control so completely that you can’t even blink without my permission.
It’s dark. It makes me feel like my father. ”
I look up, waiting for the disgust. It doesn’t come.
“Do you want to hurt me?” she asks.
“Never. God, never. I just want to own you. I want to be the only one who provides for you, touches you, and decides for you.”
She steps closer, her chest brushing mine. “We can try that. On one condition. We have a safe word. If I say it, the game stops. But otherwise… I’ll try to never say no to you. I’ll let you own me, Valerio. If that’s what it takes to keep you whole.”
Can someone be so fucking perfect? How is she so fucking perfect? It’s like God made her specifically for me.
“You don’t understand. I want you to wait for me. I want to tell you what to wear, when to eat. I want you to belong to me.”
“Then show me,” she whispers. “Show me how you want to own me.”
I reach out, my gloveless fingers tracing the line of her throat. I’m going to let it out—but only for her.
“Yellow,” I say. “That’s the word. But until you say it, Charlotte… you’re mine. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Valerio.”
I lead her to the kitchen island with my hand on the nape of her neck.
“Did you eat today?” I ask.
Her brown eyes are wide and searching. “No. I wasn’t hungry.”
I feel a surge of heat in my gut. I grab a loaf of bread and a knife. I don’t ask what she wants. I don’t offer options. I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the blade thudding against the marble.
“I don’t want you to say no to me when I tell you to eat, Charlotte,” I say, tearing a piece of bread off and holding it to her lips. “Open.”
She hesitates for a fraction of a second before she parts her lips. I feed her. Slowly. Piece by piece. My fingers linger against her tongue, her teeth grazing my skin.
“Good girl,” I rasp.
I’m stone-hard. Nothing ever turns me on but her, and nothing turns me on more than owning her.
I walk her to the closet. I ignore her jeans and sensible sweaters. I reach for a slip dress—black silk, thin as a cobweb.
“Take off your clothes,” I command.
She unbuttons the suit jacket as she slides the denim down her hips. She doesn’t reach for the “Yellow” safety net. And I secretly hope she never will.
I help her into the silk. I stand behind her in the mirror, pulling her back against my frame. I look like a reaper looming over a sacrifice.
“From now on, you dress for me. If I want you in lace, you wear lace. If I want you in nothing, you’ll walk naked until I tell you otherwise.”
I bite the curve of her shoulder, just hard enough to leave a mark that will be purple by morning. Her eyes roll to the back of her head.
My little Charlotte loves to be owned.
“I want everyone who looks at you to know that there isn’t an inch of your body that hasn’t been claimed.”
I grip her hair, tilting her head back. My eyes are wild, the Morelli rot in full bloom.
“You’re my property. You’re the one thing in this world I won’t let go of, even if I have to kill us both to keep the deal.”
This is when I expect her to tap out… but all she offers me is a small smirk of her perfect lips.
Does she even realize that these aren’t just words?
That I’d do just that if she ever looks at me like I’m the monster I am?
That if I can’t have her in this life, I will sure as fuck have her in the next?
She. Can’t. Say. No. To. Me.
“From now on, you don’t leave this apartment unless I say so. You don’t speak to your patients unless I’ve vetted the file. You don’t even look at the door without wondering if I’ll let you pass.”
I circle her like a shark.
“Are you okay with being my little prey, Charlotte?” I murmur.
“Because I have thoughts about chasing you. I want to see you run, knowing that when I catch you—and I will always catch you—I will take you in ways that make you want to scream ‘no.’ I want to push you until you’re begging for mercy.
And I’m not going to stop. The only thing that stops the monster is that word.
Yellow. Do you understand? Without it, I am the god of your body.
I decide when you come, when you sleep, and how much you hurt. ”
James Morelli’s ghost is standing in my boots, wearing my skin, breathing my air. I’m the monster in the cellar.
I wait for her to see the rot behind my eyes and scream. But Charlotte only nods. She’s breathing like she’s just run a mile, her chest heaving under the silk, and when I look into her eyes, I don’t see a victim.
I see a woman who’s starving.
She isn’t just accepting the leash; she’s handing it to me and asking me to pull. It makes my head spin. It makes me want to wreck her and worship her all at once.
“Go back to the living room,” I order my little prey around. “Now.”
She obeys. I follow her, watching the way the silk clings to her perfect fucking ass. The living room holds fifty bouquets of my desperation.
“Sniff them,” I say. “I want you to find the one you love the most. Tell me which one it is, and I’ll make sure your world smells like it for the rest of your life.”
I don’t just want to own her. I want to pamper her until she forgets there’s a world outside these walls. I want to buy her every diamond in the city, dress her in the finest lace, and feed her the rarest fruits, all while keeping her in a cage of my own making.
She moves from bouquet to bouquet, her fingers grazing the petals.
“This one,” she whispers, her nose over a bunch of blood-red peonies.
I grab a handful of the peonies and press them against her face. “You’ll have everything you ever wanted, as long as you belong to me.”
I slide my hand under the silk, palming her ass cheeks. I’m hard enough to ache, the pressure behind my fly torture. She presses a small peck to my lips, and even in the state I’m in right now, it makes the dead organ in my chest beat faster.
“Tell me again,” I growl. “Tell me you’re my prey. Tell me you want me to hunt you.”
She leans her head back against my shoulder, her eyes closing. “I’m your little prey, Valerio. Hunt me. Make me yours.”
“Run.”