Chapter 31 Dread #4
“The black box,” she begins, eyeing me warily.
“How do I trust it wasn’t you? How do I trust you at all?
You’ve done everything in your power to ensure I know how much you hate me and want me to suffer.
Suddenly being nice to me, slowly gaining my trust so I let my guard down, only to humiliate me all over again—it would hurt me more than anything you’ve done so far, and I think you know that.
Betrayal cuts deep, and you can’t betray me unless I trust you.
” She points to the bleeding heart plant, and it’s just so fucking ironic that its namesake encompasses exactly how I feel right now.
“For all I know, that could just be another normal plant. None of this could be real.”
I refocus on the dried flowers spread across the soil, searching for the right words. Except the more I try, the more insufficient they feel.
I replay everything I’ve put her through—every cruel insult and merciless vow—and reach only one conclusion.
I wanted to be her demise, but instead, I’ve become my own.
Because now, I’m in love with her, and there isn’t a goddamn thing I’ve done to earn hers in return.
“What if I’m not?” I ask finally. “What if I’m telling you the truth about the box, and this is real?
What if bringing you here and showing you how to destroy me is the only way I know to give you your power back?
” I look at her, ensuring she can see the gravity in my stare.
“Do you want to rip those flowers out of the ground to test it? Do you want to see me break first? Because if that’s what you need, then you better fucking put me back together again when you’re done, darling, because only you know the layout of my soul. ”
Lips parting, she studies every inch of my face. After a moment, her scrunches her brow. I’m not sure what she found, but it doesn’t seem to be what she expected.
She turns her focus to the bleeding heart plant, her eyes tracing over the wilted petals before traveling up to the picture of my mom’s smiling face.
My heart pounds, and my muscles stiffen with tension, expecting her to bend down and start ripping the plant from the earth at any moment, clawing out the stems until the roots snap free and it’s as lifeless as the woman inside it.
But silence ticks by, and then she quietly says, “I don’t need to test you, Dread. I just need to wait. But that doesn’t mean I have to let you in while I do.”
I tighten my lips into a firm line. I’m not surprised she spared me. Even when I’ve given her every reason to be, she’s never been needlessly cruel.
“If you prove me right, not only will I uphold my promise, but I will completely disappear from your life, and you will never see me again.” She tips her head to the side. “Maybe you’d want that, but it’s the one thing I’d be happy to give you.”
I bite the inside of my cheek before I can allow a smile to form. I have zero intention of giving her a reason to leave me, but it’s cute she thinks she’d even make it a fucking foot.
If she runs, it’s only because she wants me to catch her.
“Fair enough,” I respond casually, electing to keep my mouth shut for now, lest it start another fight and I’m forced to chase her down.
“And what about everything I told you?” she asks, her tone more hesitant. “With Georgia.”
I blow out a breath, searching for the words to explain how I feel. Yet another thing I never imagined myself doing.
“Some moments, I’m enraged, but not because you stayed silent.
It’s because he made you,” I answer quietly.
“Then, I’m enraged because, regardless of your silence, what Lionel put you through is…
” I struggle to find the words to convey how fucking murderous it makes me feel.
Just imagining a six-year-old Reverie scared out of her mind as she stares at one of the most horrific sights any human being could see, let alone a goddamn child…
“Fuck, Reverie, you have no idea how badly I want to fucking kill him for doing that to you.”
Red washes over my vision, and my fingers instinctively tighten around hers, her delicate bones caught in the crossfire of my wrath. When she gasps from pain, I quickly drop her hand and put a few feet of distance between us.
Teeth clenched, my fists flex with the need to wrap my hands around Lionel’s throat and squeeze with all my strength. I hunger to see his panicked eyes bulge from his head. I thirst to see the life fade from them.
Even then, it’s not enough to satiate my bloodlust. I want him to fucking suffer, too. The agony I could inflict on him is boundless—the possibilities endless. I’ve imagined hundreds of different scenarios of all the ways I could make the fucker scream.
“It’s okay,” she placates, which only brightens the red in my vision.
“It’s not okay,” I bark, spinning toward her.
My feet charge up to her before I can stop myself. I envelop her sweet face in my palms, forcing her to look up at me. I’m too lost in my rage to notice how tormented she appears, but I can feel it. I can feel her pain as strongly as I can feel my own.
“Nothing about what he put you through—what either of your parents put you through—is fucking okay, Reverie, and that’s why I’m finding it impossible to hate you.
Because even though it kills me inside knowing things could’ve been different, your silence saved your mother’s life. My silence killed mine.”
She shakes her head, vehemently arguing, “You were a kid, Dread. You couldn’t have known it’d be the last time you saw her.”
“And you were a kid, too, Rev,” I retort.
“But I wasn’t brave,” she whispers, the words cracking at the seams as tears fill her eyes. “I could’ve saved a mother who loved her child more than anything. Instead, I saved a mother who wished she succeeded in killing her child.”
She squeezes her eyes shut, though a tear slips through and trails down her reddened cheek. I brush it away instantly with my thumb, my chest aching again, though for an entirely different reason now.
I used to enjoy seeing her in pain. It’s ingrained so deeply inside her, it became the marrow in her bones. It’s a fucking cancer slowly killing her, poisoning her bloodstream and depriving her organs of oxygen until they suffocate.
Now, all I want to do is fucking take it from her, give her my marrow and replace her agony until my bones ring hollow.
I rest my forehead against hers while sharp, staccato gasps warm my lips.
“You saved me,” I whisper, my throat tightening around the confession. “You gave me a reason to keep breathing when all I wanted to do was follow her into the darkness. My torment is suffocating, but you are my oxygen. It is you who keeps me alive, darling.”
She tenses, shaking her head, sensing what’s coming, but she can’t stop it any more than I can.
I drag my thumb down her plump bottom lip, trading between watching her mouth and the melted coins in her eyes. There’s panic swirling within them, but there’s also a desperate need as potent as my own desire.
“I love you, Reverie. Resisting you is like swimming against a riptide. The harder I fight, the deeper I sink.”
Her face crumbles. “Dread,” she whimpers.
“I told you I’ve never been afraid to drown, but I lied,” I say. “Nothing has ever scared me more than you. But you were right when you said it’s peaceful once you let go. It only hurts when you breathe again.”
Her bottom lip trembles beneath my thumb.
“I’m not afraid anymore,” I whisper. “If the only way to love you is to drown, then I won’t hold my breath, Reverie. I’ll inhale you and keep you safe inside me.”
My stare drops to her lips as I run the pad of my thumb over it again, my own parting as my mouth waters.
Then, I lift it back up to hers, and whisper, “Darling, you are my reverie, and I will follow you anywhere, even if it’s only into a daydream.”
A whimpered exhale shudders out of her, and I waste no time crushing my lips against hers, swallowing it down. I can’t take her not saying it back, so I don’t give her the option to say anything at all.
My tongue dives past her lips, greedily demanding more of her. It’s an unquenchable thirst, an insatiable hunger.
With a moan, she rises onto her toes and tangles her fingers in my hair, only to yank me down into her with a strength I don’t dare resist.
A satisfied growl rumbles deep in my chest. With the touch of her tongue, a monster emerges, and it will do anything to devour her.
Her nails dig into my scalp while she lifts higher onto the points of her toes, nearly climbing my body.
My hands drop to her ass and squeeze, using my firm grip to tug her roughly against me.
A silent agreement passes between us—it’s not enough.
In a matter of seconds, our hands become feverish and restless, grasping at each other’s bodies, tugging and clawing, attempting to get closer even when it’s physically impossible.
Our tongues clash mercilessly, as if the electricity sparking between them is the sole conductor powering our bodies.
The second the last spark dissipates, so will our existence.
The desire overwhelms logic and reason. I’m blind with need, and I would sooner rip her apart than tear myself away from her.
There’s nothing to stop me. Nothing that can—
“Dread,” she gasps, forcing her head up and heaving in a deep breath. Instinctively, I circle my arms around her and trap her against me before she can step away. With a growl, I nip harshly right beneath her jaw, earning a breathless chuckle.
“This is extremely inappropriate in front of your mom,” she says, pushing against my chest with both hands and arching away—except there’s no strength behind it, no real effort to escape.
“Baby, she’s a fucking plant,” I say against her neck, inhaling her sweet tuberose scent before capturing the sensitive flesh below her ear between my teeth.
With another sharp gasp, a violent shiver racks her body, and her fingers curl into my hoodie.
“Dread,” she groans, wiggling in my hold. “It’d be no different than fucking me on her grave. That’s just… really wrong.”
“Then it’s a good thing we have a cottage right behind us,” I murmur in her ear, only to deliver a sharp nip to the soft lobe.
She trembles just as I capture her lips between mine again, drinking down her whimpers greedily. I taste a soft moan, and it snips the last string holding on to my control.
A deep rumble vibrates my chest as I bend to grip the backs of her thighs and lift her into my arms. She’s wrapping her legs around me while I spin us and slam her against the wooden cottage wall.
She gasps; I enter.
Our tongues meet the moment I grind into her, my hard cock straining painfully, desperate to sink inside her. The pressure sends a zap of pleasure down my dick, and I groan into her eager little mouth.
Fuck, I’ve missed her so much.
I’ve missed drowning in her. I don’t care if it’s only been four days, four hours, four fucking seconds. It hurts to come up for air.
I roll my hips once more, earning a pleased little squeal from her throat. Right when I go to repeat the movement, a loud buzz interrupts me, and she jolts in my arms, ripping her mouth away. I chase with a whine, but she chuckles and evades me.
No, no, no, no.
I’ve never been the praying type, but in this moment, I’d kneel for the first god to make whoever is on the other line disappear.
“Shit, I missed it,” she whispers to herself. But then, her phone buzzes, signaling a text.
When I let out another groan, it’s full of frustration. Panting, she plucks her phone out of her coat pocket while I drop my forehead to her shoulder, inhaling the chilled air into my lungs.
My dick is painfully hard, and just as I reach the decision to fuck her anyway, she gasps, her body stiffening into solid granite.
My head snaps up. “What?”
“It’s Barry,” she breathes. “They have a DNA match for the blonde hair I received last week.”