Chapter 19 #2
I don’t know why his roughness shocks me. I have every expectation that he’s going to kill me, but I’m letting myself get unsettled by the fact that he just pulled my hair. My hands snap on my seatbelt before my mind even knows what they’re doing.
“Are you going to kill me next?” I ask, trying to put on a brave air, but failing miserably. My voice is shaking, and he clearly notices it.
Suddenly, he whips off his mask.
I gasp out loud.
It’s the first time I’ve seen his face since our relationship ended, four months after high school graduation. When he ruined my life and I took out a loan to escape for college.
He takes my breath away.
I’d forgotten how fucking beautiful he was.
His piercing blue eyes, peering at me behind the locks of dark hair, his long, straight nose and cheekbones.
Only now, his jawline is chiseled, there’s a tattoo winding its way around his neck, and a very long scar that runs from the right side of his forehead down to his chin.
It’s slightly slanted, and in the darkness of the car, made only darker by the fact that the sun has disappeared behind heavy storm clouds, it seems to glow white.
By all rights, I should be terrified of that scar, of those piercing eyes burning with darkness, of the chiseled jaw that tells me just how buff he’s gotten since I last saw him.
But all I can do is stare, my stomach clenching with something no amount of horror can repress.
“When are you going to kill me?” I ask, and this time it’s for me. I don’t expect an answer. I just need to keep saying those words, thinking those words, to keep from being sucked into the vortex of his eyes.
You’re going to kill me. I know you’re going to kill me. You’re a killer, and I’m going to die.
But something in those eyes tells me he won’t kill me. I know he has it in him to kill a person without even blinking an eye, but somehow, he doesn’t have it in him to kill me.
I can tell he wants to. But the silent protector shit runs deep. Or something. I don’t know what it is that makes me so sure he’d never truly hurt me.
He did hurt you, my mind screams to me. He ordered your rape!
But somehow, in the stillness of this car, that feels abstract. The only thing that’s tangible is his eyes, locked on mine, and there’s no anger in them. Not right now.
“Come on,” he says.
He’s parked the car in a garage, and I look around wonderingly. I wish I hadn’t been so zoned out during our drive. I have no idea where we are.
I probably would have no idea where we are anyway, even if I had been paying attention. I have zero sense of direction.
He gets out and shuts the door behind him. From outside, I hear him growl in impatience then open the passenger door, unclick my seatbelt for me, grab my arm and drag me out.
I hadn’t even budged. Maybe he won’t kill me, but I have no fucking idea what he’s planning. I know I have no choice in the matter, his strength outweighs mine ten-to-one, but why would I go docilely to my fate?
I’m going to make it hard for him.
He clicks his tongue angrily as he half-carries me to the elevator.
I’m not putting up a fight, because I know there’s no use, but I’m definitely being a deadweight.
He doesn’t even break a sweat though. He just leans back in the elevator, staring at me.
He’s seen my face recently, in fact he’s probably spent quite a lot of time looking at it while I was sleeping, but somehow, he seems to be studying every detail of it hungrily, as hungrily as I’m taking in his appearance.
But he doesn’t touch me, merely standing back and staring as if I’m some sort of livestock he’s just bought at the farmer’s auction or wherever the fuck it is farmers get their cattle.
Then the elevator dings and he grabs me by my nape and pushes me roughly out. I stop dead in my tracks as I look around.
The elevator has just opened its doors straight into the nicest apartment I’ve ever seen.
This puts the Astley hotel to shame. There’s a big entrance, and as Quill pushes me through it, I notice an enormous room with modern furniture, entirely surrounded by a balcony that looks out onto the metallic business section of Astley.
But he doesn’t push me toward there. He takes me to a side door that leads to a bedroom. It’s big but pretty bare except for a queen-sized bed, its sheets plain white. Clearly, whoever this bedroom belongs to doesn’t spend a lot of time here.
“What is this?” I ask, stopping again at the door, so suddenly Quill nearly stumbles into me. “Where are we?”
He merely grunts in annoyance, and pushes me all the more roughly into the bedroom. Then he slams shut the door behind him.
“Quill,” I say again, insisting on the name he told me I had no right to call him, because the masochist in me wants to piss him off. “Where did you bring me? What are you going to do to me?”
He slams his hand over my mouth with nearly the same force he just used on the door, then pushes me backward until I fall against the bed.
The suddenness of it, coupled with the feeling that I’m falling backward, have my lips parted in a silent scream.
But he doesn’t let me fall roughly. His other hand catches my back as I tumble into the air, until I’m thudding down on the soft mattress.
Then he climbs on top of me, straddling my thighs with his legs, and all thoughts of murder, Devil, and the fact that I’ve just been kidnapped by my psycho ex, vanish from my mind.
All I’m aware of is his body heat, his thighs pushing down against my lower limbs, his face flush against mine as he keeps his hand over my mouth.
“I thought I told you to stay the fuck away from Devil,” he grits out, his hand over my mouth turning into a vise that feels like it’s going to break my face.
I try to answer, but my lips move wordlessly against his hand clamping down on me. At last he tears it away from my face, and I take in a deep breath before blurting out, “Why would I listen to you? You’re going to kill me anyway.”
By now, I know it’s not true, but I can’t help throwing it in his face. I saw the accusation had a weird effect on him, but I couldn’t tell what it was.
Now, I see that his piercing blue eyes are softened by something that looks like… hurt.
I’ve actually hurt his feelings.
I can’t tell if I want to laugh out loud or cry.
My body settles on both, and I let out the weirdest, most strangled noise known to man. Then my face flushes hard, because in spite of the fact that I’m currently helpless in the hands of a coldblooded killer, I’m… embarrassed.
And that coldblooded killer’s lips twitch into the shadow of a smirk.
“You’re insufferable,” he mutters, for the first time using his real voice. “You’re insufferable, cricket. Do you know that?”
Somehow, those words have more effect on me than all the rest put together. Because they sound like the old Quill. The one I know I’ve lost for good. If I ever even had him.
The desire to laugh fades, and all I can do is clamp my own hands over my face to try to hide my tears.
But they’re the full-body kind, the kind that makes my stomach spasm, the snot run down from my nose, and turns my skin blotchy red.
The horrible, embarrassing kind that I can’t believe I’m experiencing in front of Quill right now.
I actually want to disappear six feet underground.
Fucking hell, I’m so pathetic. Why do I care what the monster currently pinning me beneath him thinks of me?
That monster grabs my hands and yanks them away from my face, and I cringe, wondering if he’s going to… I don’t know. Smack me? Punch me? Strangle me? What exactly is he capable of?
Instead I feel the crash of his body against mine as his lips glue themselves to me. I’ve got snot running down my face, and somehow that’s the first thing I think of as he hungrily sucks on my lips, his hands freeing mine so he can run them in my hair.
The second thing I think of is… nothing. My mind goes blank as his hands thread themselves through my red curly locks, in a way that feels almost tender, in a way that I could almost imagine means he cares, if his lips weren’t attacking mine as if they wanted to destroy them.
Sucking on them, biting them, his tongue forcefully exploring every inch of my mouth, which fills with blood at his rough treatment. And then his hands, so at odds with his vicious mouth, go to my face and gently wipe away the tears and the snot.
It’s not the gentle hands, though, but his mouth, biting on my lower lip so hard that I wonder if I’ll even have a lip after he’s done, that makes my panties wet.
Before I even know what I’m doing, I’m grinding into him, trying to find relief against his cock that’s as hard as I’m soaked.
He pulls away from me, and my face flames again as I realize what I was doing.
“You’re going to fucking destroy me, cricket,” he groans, unzipping his fly.
In the tiny space between us, I can just make out his dick, swollen with desire, the tip glistening with precum, and my mouth waters. I can’t decide if I want to take it in my mouth or in my pussy. I’d even take it in the ass again, because that’s how much I fucking need him.
This time, though, he’s not out to punish me. It’s like something melted in him at the sight of my tears. He pulls my jeans and panties down so harshly I feel them rip. Then he plunges into me, and a loud moan escapes my lips as my inner walls grip his cock.
He falls back on top of me, driving himself furiously into me, his arms crushing my body, as if he’s scared I’ll disappear into thin air if he’s not holding me to him.
I feel all his desperation as he fucks me, his hands clinging to my body, fisting my hair, sinking his face into the nook where my neck meets my chest, while I inhale him like a drug.
His body fits perfectly to mine, a missing puzzle piece, as his cock buries itself in me up to the hilt, then drives out again, only to push back in all the harder.
“Quill…” I moan. “Quill…”