Chapter 8 #2
After everything I’ve been through, I deserve a normal life. Someone who can love me and accept me with all of my flaws, all the scars that have left marks too deep to ever eradicate.
But Michael isn’t that man. He’s not my forever. He never will be.
“Are you all right?” His palm buckles around my hip from behind, and I only now realize that I’ve stopped moving, frozen mid-stair.
“Yeah, I…uh, I’m fine.” Clearing my throat, I continue up, reaching the top.
Once he’s beside me, he leads the way down a long corridor. “It’s right through this door.”
He gestures with a hand toward the last room on our right, and when he opens it, my eyes almost bug out. It’s massive. Just like him.
I enter first, him marching in after me. My gaze floats toward the large black upholstered bed against one side of the wall, a fireplace across on the other, a white shaggy rug before it.
“Welcome home.” His voice is a gritty concoction of sin and seduction.
His fingers feather around my hip, and my arms scatter with goose bumps.
I pull in a long breath.
“This isn’t my home,” I manage, clearing my throat, ridding it of all things Michael.
The pads of his fingers tighten, delving into my skin. “It is now, little dove. And it’s a much better upgrade than that house they had you in.”
I turn sharply with a scowl. “What do you know about that place?”
Seconds drift, his eyes only staring with a darkened lull, not revealing whether he knows what that place is a source of.
“Come, let me show you the rest of the room.” It’s obvious he wants to avoid the conversation we’re bound to have eventually.
He marches past me, down the long stretch of the room. I can’t even call it that. It’s like its own city, bigger than the entire house I was trapped in. A guitar lies against the corner beside the bed, and I start to wonder if he plays. He must. Why else would he have it?
Does he sing too? Like me?
When I try to picture him playing, singing his heart out, it doesn’t quite fit. He’s so hard, well put together in those clothes. I can’t imagine him strumming the guitar in a three-piece suit.
Speaking of suits… My eyes inadvertently catch the sight of his round ass, tightly wrapped within the confines of his gray trousers. A man’s ass has no right to look that enticing.
He wears a suit like he was born in one, tailored to his every sinew, every taut muscle on his fit body. I bet that black dress shirt he has underneath is sculpted perfectly around him.
He pops a single brow as his face turns to me.
“Coming?” he asks, his hand on a doorknob, and I have no idea where he’s taking me or why I’m still staring at his ass.
His lips tip up just a little, and I realize he’s caught me. He pushes away the long strands of his hair from his face, and even his hair is beautiful. God-awfully beautiful.
I try to pretend he has no effect on me, willing my legs to move, unsure what he could be showing me. When I’m beside him, he fully parts the double doors and reveals a large walk-in closet.
There are loafers lined neatly on the floor in all colors. Shirts, pants, and more suits than I’ve ever seen hang in a row. Even more than my father owned, and he owned a lot.
I continue to take it all in, registering the warmth of his body behind me once again, a palm tightening against my hip, hair prickling across my flesh from the wake of his touch.
“I’ll make room for your things.” His sensual, deep tone sends me into overdrive, heat spreading across me.
It’s as though after all this time, after everything I’ve survived, he’s brought my body back to life. Like I can finally feel something for a man.
After the years of beatings, the rapes, the loss of dignity, I’ve come to accept that I’ll never know the tenderness of a man and the love and acceptance that comes with it.
But here with him, in this illusion, it feels like I can have that.
Like the dreams of a girl I once was—of finding someone who loves her—can finally come true.
“What things?” I snicker. “I have nothing.”
With a twist of a hand, he turns me to him, my body molding into his, my tight nipples scratching against my shirt as he pushes me up against him.
The back of his index finger nudges my chin up to meet his height, while his other arm twines around my hips. “You’ll have everything.”
His gaze bores into mine, so deep that I sink into his eyes, forgetting everything but this moment. This feeling.
“My wife will want for nothing,” he promises.
And that thumb, it brushes against my lips, setting me on fire.
His wife…
An ache builds behind my eyes because for a single fleeting moment, it feels real, like I’ve finally found it.
A life I once only dreamed about. And for a moment, I dare to imagine it: a future, that we’re together, me with my arms around him, him kissing me, that my heart was made for a man that isn’t mine.
But only little girls dream of such things. A woman like me? She knows better than to dream. Dreams are for those who haven’t been broken.
This is nothing more than a lie. I’m his captive. A woman he’s using to get to the top. And I will help him get there.
“You’ll have everything you could possibly need by tomorrow.”
“Great,” I grit. “Except my freedom.”
When I try to pry his hand off me, he only tightens it, not looking away, fingers biting rougher.
“You’ll have that too, eventually, as promised. Until then, little dove, you’re mine.”
“How lucky for me.”
His mouth curls into a devilish smirk, and I wish I could take that gun of his and shove it down his throat.
“Tell me one thing.” My stare narrows. “Did you know what they were doing to us?”
Was he somehow involved? Because if so, he can put a bullet in me right now. I will not help him.
When his jaw flexes and he refuses to answer, I shove at his chest hard with both hands. He lets me go, arms now crossed over his chest.
“You did, didn’t you?” I gasp, shaking my head in disgust. “Did you participate? Oh my God.”
I slap a hand over my mouth, backing up.
“This was a mistake. I—I’m leaving. Or kill me. I don’t care,” I tremble, turning on my heels, rushing for the door.
But I don’t even make it two steps before he fastens his arm around my stomach from behind, muscles tight and flinching around me.
“You will go nowhere,” he husks out, every word like a sword, piercing me with strength.
“You’re no better than them!” I yell, clawing at his arm, trying to get his arm off me.
But he grabs my other hand with his and pins it behind my back.
My breathing ravages, my inhales faster than my exhales. “Let me go!”
My entire body shakes, not giving up the fight, groaning when I can’t move an inch out of his grasp. He’s damn strong, towering over my small frame.
“I’ll drop my arm. Just don’t fight me or I will restrain you again,” he breathes, and the words whisp against the pulse beating rapidly in my throat.
My chest expands, unable to stifle the rage inside me. I’m tired. So fucking tired. Counting to ten, my eyes drifting to a close, I attempt to calm down, my body sagging as I finally do.
He must sense it because his arms begin to fall away, but only for a second. His palm snaps around the back of my neck and he tugs me to him, and with his free hand, he holds my cheek, thumb strumming back and forth, waking all my senses.
“I wasn’t involved in that. None of my people were.”
In his eyes, I find the truth. But it’s not enough.
“So, you what? Just looked away?” Tears burn and bleed behind my eyes. “Pretended it wasn’t happening?” My lower lip quivers. “I hate you.”
His inhale is harsh as he continues to stare, his unflinching gaze full of regret. Seconds drift by without a word from him, not even a justification for not stopping what was happening to us. Because I bet he could’ve.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, clutching my face tighter, brows snapping.
Somewhere inside me, I realize that those words aren’t ones he’s used to uttering. I can feel their weight in my hands.
But words aren’t enough. They didn’t save me then, and they won’t save Kayla now.
“I don’t forgive you, Michael.” More tears tremble out of me.
His chest widens with a sharp inhale.
“Being my wife won’t be so bad for you,” he promises. “You’ll be safe. No one will hurt you here.”
“Except you.” The words swim out faintly, like the water before the hurricane comes. Like the wave of attraction tangled in the web of darkness.
“I won’t hurt you either. Unless you don’t behave.” That sinful mouth lifts a fraction.
“Never been good at behaving.” My eyes narrow into slits, the anger still brewing.
And as I try to turn around, needing out of this room and away from him and this chaotic mess of feelings, his palm clenches rougher around the back of my neck, pulling me close enough for his forehead to slant over mine.
“Oh, little dove…” His voice is a sharp, whispered threat, lips lowering, too close for a taste I can’t let him have. “You will behave.”
His fingers trace south, roughly cupping my ass, squeezing it.
My breathing quickens, and I can feel the swell of his cock—large, rigid. I shuffle on my feet, squeezing my thighs together to quell the need pulsing through my core, hating every bit of it for a man who knew what was done to me and never stopped it.
It’d be easier if I wasn’t attracted to him. But instead, I’m stuck with a man who, in a mere day, has brought my body back to the living. Like he’s flipped a switch, illuminating all of my deep desires.
I gasp at the intrusion as his fingers now massage my flesh, mouth falling to mine until his lips graze my mouth, chaotic exhales matching his rough inhales.
“It’s a shame you’re so beautiful.” His brows dip with emotion as he moves enough for me to see him.
“It’s a shame you’re such a bastard.”
My attempts to catch my breaths are futile. My heart is racing; I’m unable to slow it down no matter how hard I try.
I can’t wait to get as far away from him as possible.