CHAPTER 14
Eve
Vaughn: I'm still (laughing with tears emoji)
Vaughn: It's cute and all that you two are here together recruiting for your harem but, I'm going to have to pass. ROFLMAO. I can literally HEAR your smart ass saying it!!! (Laughing with tongue out emoji) (laughing covering mouth emoji) (sideways laughing with tears emoji)
A dam took me home to get my phone and I filled Vaughn in on the events of the day. She laughed so hard that tears poured from her eyes and no sound escaped her mouth for a solid two minutes. She totally gets me.
Vaughn: Fucking savage (devil emoji)
Eve: We're pulling back up to Eden House. Ada's outside.
Vaughn: Make that bitch work for it.
Vaughn: You don't owe any of them a damn thing.
It just now occurs to me that if I had just mentioned Ada's last name to Vaughn, she could've cleared this whole thing up for me the day she saw Adam in my room.
There she is. Ada Davenport.
I wanted so badly to be friends with this girl.
She's the biggest reason why I came here in the first place.
I looked up to her at those camps and then I got here, and she hated me on sight.
I was crushed. I never allow myself to hope like I did with Ada.
It was a brutal reminder that hope is a killer.
Hope can tear you down quicker than anything else.
I suppose I also have to acknowledge my own blame here. I do shut people out. She's not the first person to think poorly of me. I lean my head back on the headrest and let out a deep sigh. Adam grabs my hand.
"You don't have to talk to her if you don't want to."
"I know. I just...I don't know. I've spent the past couple of months fortifying myself against her and forgetting about a friendship. Now it feels like I could be setting myself up for..."
"Hurt?"
I shrug a shoulder.
"She knows she fucked up. She doesn't expect you to forgive her right away. She's going to do what she should've done in the first place."
"And what's that?"
"Make an effort."
Wow. Is that what I want? Eye roll. You know good and damn well it is.
I inhale deeply as though this is the last bit of oxygen that I'll be getting for a while.
Adam grabs my arm, holding me in place when I start to get out of the car.
He gives me a look that says, DON'T so I sit back, watching him get out and come around to my door.
I give him my hand and he pulls me into his body, wrapping his arms all the way around me and burying his face in my neck.
We stand like this while he takes several deep breaths and Ada watches on, seemingly amazed.
She's waiting for me, and I can see the apology in her eyes.
"Hey."
"Ada." I'm wary but I try not to show it on my face.
"I'm sorry, Eve. I know there's nothing that I can say that will undo the cold shoulder I've been giving you all this time but-"
I cut her off at the but. "First of all, saying but negates everything you said before it.
Second, you didn't just give me the cold shoulder.
You talked shit daily. I'm actually surprised that you even know my name, considering I'm nothing more than volleyball.
" Ada winces at this comment. Yeah. I heard you .
"Also, you didn't just decide that you weren't going to be friendly to me.
You made sure that it was categorically uncool to associate with me.
I don't give a shit that you think I'm funny.
I don't give a shit about how bad you feel now that you've found a way to see me as a real person.
You've already shown me who you are, and I believe you. "
I walk past her without saying another word. Soon, I hear the siblings talking behind me, but I don't pause to listen, instead walking straight inside Eden House.
"Heyyyy, Belle! The Beast must've found you. Glad to have you back."
I can't help but laugh.
"So, is it full on Stockholm syndrome or a straightforward abduction?" Cal is the biggest of the trio and still the least intimidating. His joyful demeanor is impossible to hide.
"Jury's still out."
Cal sighs heavily. "I sure wish I could help you princess but, I've never seen him this attached to anything before. I'm honestly afraid that he might cut my hands off and feed them to me if I assist you in another escape. That first one put me right in the shit."
"It's okay. He feeds me well. Maybe you can provide me with an IOU to be used at a later date. This may not be the last time I'm abducted."
Cal thinks this over and nods. "Seems reasonable."
He goes to the kitchen and rifles through a drawer. He scribbles on a piece of paper and hands it to me.
IOU
To: Belle
From: Unlikely Hero
Expiration: upon the death of either party.
He hands me the paper and I look it over.
"It needs a signature."
Cal snaps his fingers and snatches the paper back, scrawling his signature at the bottom before handing it back.
"Your selfish refusal to assist me in regaining my freedom is officially water under the bridge."
He raises his hand to high five me and our hands are nearly connected when Adam comes through the door. We both pause with our hands mid-air. Adam takes in the scene, looking first at Cal and then at me. His eyes are narrowed to slits.
He looks to Cal. "Didn't I already say no touching?"
He looks back at me. "Do you truly think you aren't in enough trouble already?"
We both tuck our hands back into our bodies, looking sheepish and thoroughly scolded.
We walk through the bedroom door and Adam begins hastily undressing me and then himself.
With one arm around my back, he lays me down on the bed and slides his body over the top of me.
Just the sight of his beautiful form makes my body hum.
When he slides on top of me, I am instantly wet.
Reaching down between my legs, he swipes two fingers from my entrance to my throbbing clit and it isn't clear what he's doing until he lines his huge shaft up with my opening.
He's checking to see if I'm wet, I realize.
He slides into me so slowly. Painfully slow.
Pushing my thighs apart, opening me wider to him, he pushes in further, harder.
Once he's seated fully inside of me, he stills, wrapping both arms around me tightly and burying his face in my neck.
My body is on fire! I need him to move. I need him to do.
.. something. Anything. I roll my hips into him.
His lightning-fast response is to roll me slightly so he can slap my naked ass hard.
"Ah!" My cry is half pain, half want.
"You're not going to cum, Eve. I don't know when you'll ever cum again."
"Is this my punishment?"
He chuckles softly and there's no amusement in the sound.
"You. Left. Me. This is just the beginning.
This is still my body however." He says this as he runs one rough hand from my collarbone to my breast and stomach and finally settling in a painful grip on my ass.
"So, I will use it as I please...when I please.
You will never forget this feeling...just as I will never forget the feeling of you leaving.
I have to make sure that you'll never do it again. "
Feeling on the edge of sanity, I remind him, "I was gone less than a day...I was hurt and angry."
He jerks back to look at my face, making no attempt to mask the fury on his. "Are you saying you were going to come back? No. You weren't. You can be mad. You can be hurt. You can be whatever you want to be here with me. What you cannot do, what you will never do again, is take you away from me."
"I love you." I can't hold the words back. He's threatening me. This is inexcusable. He's behaving like he owns me and that I have no say in the matter, but somehow, all I can think is no one will ever love me as much as this man does.
"What else?"
"I...what do you mean?"
His gaze is piercing, and he seems angered to have to explain himself to me.
"I don't just love you, Eve. You are not a want for me.
I need you. I refuse to be without you. You belong to me just like I belong to you.
If the roles had been reversed this morning and I had believed you had a boyfriend all this time, I would've killed him and then I would've fucked an apology out of you.
No matter what you ever do, I won't be without you. "
Well, how's that for crazy? There are no words for that declaration.
What can I say to that? He poured his heart out.
He did it angrily, but he still did it. He basically told me he wouldn't leave me even if I cheated on him.
He's so angry and so hurt. I can't imagine how he must have felt when he walked out of this room and realized I had left him.
It must have seemed like I did it so easily.
"I'm yours, Adam. All of me. I'll never leave you. I'll always be yours no matter what happens next, and I'll make this up to you, I promise."
His slow smile is breathtaking. This smile is only for me.
He never smiles at anyone else like this.
In fact, he rarely smiles at all. That day in the gym, when he smiled at his sister, it was genuine but not like this.
This smile is euphoric. My words just healed something that I had broken in him.
I could easily devote my life to earning more of these smiles.
True to his word, he uses my body and doesn't let me cum.
It's literal torture. As soon as he sees that I'm about to climax, he pulls out and coats my stomach and breasts in his release.
Now, he has braced himself on one elbow and, so far, has spent several minutes rubbing his cum into my skin.
He looks so content that I can't even be upset by the mess he's making of me.
His fingers finally begin to slow and he's looking into my eyes.
"Time for a bath."
I look down at myself and nod with an expression of feigned disgust.
The bath is relaxing with Adam gently washing my hair and body. Once again, he has used my favorite bath salts and lit several candles. The scent of Jasmine permeates the warm air while the salts and hot water loosen my tense muscles. Mmmmm. There's no place I'd rather be.
...................................
Adam is moving behind me and I realize I have fallen asleep in the bathtub. He lifts me, wrapping me tenderly in a towel and carrying me to bed. We're finally dry and sufficiently tangled up in one another when Adam begins whispering into my ear.
"In the beginning, God created man. Man was not meant to be alone, so God created from that man, a woman. You are bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. You are mine, Eve. You have been mine since the beginning of time."