Chapter 27
Angel
Lauren’s head jerks, her eyes opening wide when I reenter the room a few hours later.
Her eyes follow me, and for a second, it makes me feel more like prey than the predator I claim to be.
I’ve never met another woman like her.
Where most would expect the bravado to fade, to turn into begging, Lauren is standing her ground.
She could’ve easily agreed to my terms, but maybe she realized I was lying, that I’d never let her go. I spilled blood for her. There’s nothing she can do to pay that back in full, and that means she’ll owe me… forever.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she growls when she sees the plate of food in my hand. “You made me a sandwich?”
“Presumptuous little bitch aren’t you,” I say as I get closer, picking up the sandwich and taking a huge bite.
Hatred fills her eyes as she watches me chew.
I grin when her tongue sneaks out to wet her lips. I know she’s fucking starving. The IV has been giving her just what she needs to survive, but it’s nothing compared to actual food.
“You don’t want it?”
She looks away from me as if she doesn’t have the strength to verbalize her rejection.
“If you don’t eat, I’m going to hurt you,” I threaten, delighting in the way she turns her head back in my direction, a defiant uptick of her chin.
Reading people is practically required in my line of work when you don’t have a long amount of time to determine if someone has nefarious plans for you.
It doesn’t take but a split second for me to understand she wants what I’m threatening.
I could leave it at that, pull her hair back and shove the fucking sandwich down her throat. I could force her to do anything I want. People always bend. Regardless of her declaration about being put out of her misery, there’s a reason she hasn’t done it herself.
I’m not foolish enough to think it’s because she honestly wants to live, but it takes a certain level of courage, an insanely determined person, to commit suicide.
A lot of people see it as being weak, but it takes so much courage to look at one's life and decide that the unknown—or the absolute known if they’re religious—is better than what they’re facing.
Her sister wasn’t a coward. She was probably the bravest person she ever met.
I don’t have the strength to do what Liana did, and I doubt Lauren does either, or she would’ve done it already. She needs to force someone else’s hand to doing that for her.
She glances back down at the sandwich, her mouth practically watering at the sight even though it’s nothing but two pieces of bread with a thin layer of turkey.
It’s dry as fuck because I’m not one to keep condiments in the house, but that’s also intentional.
I need her to eat, to gain her strength for what I have planned, but I’m not going to give her gourmet food.
I need it a little dry and tasteless. I want her begging for more or for a sip of water.
Her discomfort is my joy, and I’ll seek it out at every fucking turn.
“How about I’ll hurt you if you do eat it,” I counter.
Her eyes widen before narrowing as if she can’t believe I’m calling her out on her desires.
She doesn’t speak, and I can’t just leave the sandwich on her lap with my warning and walk out of the room. Her arms are still tied.
Instead of trying to force the sandwich into her mouth, I sweep a soft, gentle finger over her arm before bending to press a kiss to the bruise on her shoulder.
She shudders, but not out of disgust because I’m pressing my lips to her flesh. She hates the soft, and after her drunken confessions, I have a better understanding why that is.
“Feed me the fucking sandwich,” she snarls, and I know that she’s asking more for me to stop the soft shit than her need for food.
She glares at me the entire time I lift the sandwich to her lips and as she chews.
She’s starving, but she’s also aware of her limitations. It makes my blood boil that she’s taking her time, evaluating how the sandwich is settling in her stomach before taking the next bite. She knows it doesn’t matter how hungry she is, if she eats too fast, she’s going to get sick.
It means she’s done this a time or two.
She’s put herself through a lot. I knew that when I met her in El Salvador.
The problem right now is that knowledge bugs me more now than it did back then, and I fucking cared a lot before. So much so, that I put myself between her and the men coming to hurt her.
I earned two bullets that day. It was the day I stopped caring about her safety and started dreaming of my revenge.
Yet, here I fucking am, hand feeding her a fucking sandwich.
It takes longer than I really have the patience for until the sandwich is gone.
She doesn’t thank me, but I would never expect that from her.
“Where the fuck are you going?” she snaps when I get up to walk out of the room.
I turn back to her with a raised eyebrow, and my cock thickens at the irritation on her face. I stand there, wondering if she’s even going to speak again.
“You fucking promised,” she finally manages.
She twitches, antsy, as I approach her and place the empty plate on the bedside table.
I know what she wants, and I did promise, but we seem to be in the business of lying to each other.
She’s more annoyed than anything when I brush a lock of hair from her face, letting my fingers trail down her cheek.
She catches herself before she can lean too far into it, but I catch her reaction.
“Stop,” she hisses, jerking her head away. “You said you’d hurt me.”
“Aren’t I?”
She nips at my fingers, and I have no doubt if my reaction time wasn’t faster than hers, she’d bite the shit out of me.
“You know what I want.”
I know my cock wants it too.
“Does your unmarred skin hurt?” I whisper, my soft fingers brushing the tip of her breast. “Do you need more bruises?”
She doesn’t answer me, but I don’t expect her to. She’s the type to push someone to hurt her rather than ask for it. One is a win, the other is defeat.
“Your food needs to settle. I’m into a lot of shit but getting puked on while getting sucked off isn’t one of them.”
I grab the plate and leave the room. She doesn’t stop screaming at me for half an hour.
I wait three hours before I go back into the room, once again waking her up.
I don’t hesitate to climb on the bed and shove my cock into her mouth. She doesn’t bite me the way she did my lip when I kissed her earlier, and that speaks volumes. As quick as she is to admit to wanting things to end, she isn’t putting herself in a position to force my hand and make it happen.
I may have thought of killing her more than once in the past. I needed to focus on it so I didn’t lose my damn mind in El Salvador, but she’d be no use to me dead.
Not when she has so many holes to fill and fuck.
“Deeper,” I growl, fisting her hair until those little lines pop up beside her eyes.
I don’t really give her the chance to wrap her lips around me. I’m literally using her throat again like I did in the motel room.
As my balls tighten, my orgasm imminent, I reach down and tease her clit.
She’s fucking slicker than she ever has been. Maybe it’s the way her arms are tied, but I fucking love it.
She can fight and argue, beg me to stop as much as she fucking wants, but this greedy cunt of hers never lies.
My cock kicks, convulsing rhythmically as I orgasm, and the second it’s over, I pull from her mouth, pleased with the way my wet dick slides down her chin.
She growls when I pull my hand from her body, but I know she won’t ask for an orgasm. I know she sees it as beneath her. She’ll take them if she’s forced but asking would be too much.
She wants the pleasure. God, does she fucking want it, but she’s unwilling to cross the line she drew for herself.
I almost want to give it to her, to reward her stubbornness, but that would give her the upper hand and I’m not ready for that just yet.
I doubt I ever will be.