Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
CORA
Footsteps followed me up the stairwell, leaving me in a fizz of anticipation.
I’d been a mess walking home from the club—fine, wobbling my way home—after what we’d done together in the parking lot.
And I knew Valentine would rip me a new one because I was lost in my head the entire time, not in the least security conscious, but thinking back over the entire evening, from wishing he was there, to seeing him again.
Flirting with him shamelessly until the moment when I told him I was going to dance and read the raw hunger in his eyes and then…
That was it. That was the moment that everything came back to. Probably a whole lot before, tension building between us all week, but tonight, it was that moment. When he took my hand and led me through the crowd, his hands landing on my waist as I moved just for him, his eyes drinking me in.
I’d never felt so worshipped in my entire life.
That I’d fallen for the new Chimera’s defender was an absolute, unequivocal yes.
Resounding, and completely unethical, at least from where I stood on my wobbling, exhausted, slicked legs as I pushed my building door open and hauled my trembling body upstairs, praying he wouldn't make me wait too long.
When the footsteps—slow, deliberate and absolutely meant to be heard—echoed mine in the same, slow rhythm, I knew the person making them followed me for a reason.
Valentine hid the sounds of his approach well.
I hadn't heard his bike this time at all, hadn’t seen his shadow lurking in any of the alleys near my apartment building.
Not that my attention had been on such things since I’d been concentrating on…
well him. Just the version of him from about an hour ago.
Yes, he could tell me off about that later too, though I didn't think he’d yell. Valentine had his own way of hauling my ass back to reality with a quiet word, or even no words at all.
He certainly hadn’t used a lot of those tonight, and the ones he had used were…
Well placed.
That good girl still reverberated through me. My face heated for the millionth time as I pushed my key into the lock, blessedly turned it on the fourth try, and managed to open my door. I left the lock off, the door ajar as requested and headed for my room, shedding clothing as I went.
The beaded dress was discarded first, my bag with my other things in it left in the kitchen. My phone vibrated in my bag and I extracted it to find a one word message from my Chimera of choice.
Valentine: RUN, Cora.
I smiled, staring at the screen as I listened for his entry into my apartment, but the hallway remained silent. Anticipation built in my belly. I tapped out a reply.
Cora: The door is open for you. xx
When he didn’t reply, I shoved my phone back into my bag that matched my discarded dress and tugged remnants of tape from my boobs.
Shaking my head, I fluffed my hair out, deciding to leave my heels on.
Valentine seemed like the kind of man who would appreciate a little playacting and drama after all.
A glance over my shoulder told me that I was still the sole occupant of the apartment, though I didn’t put it past him to sneak in and watch me undress. It seemed to be the sort of thing he would be into. Maybe we could make a game of it later on, another night.
The stickiness between my thighs reminded me of tonight's game.
I headed straight for my bedroom, and climbed onto my bed.
My toys were in my top drawer. I left the curtains hanging open; at the height of my top floor building, even though it was older and not in the best of areas, no one was around to look in.
Still, I liked being able to see the world in the evenings and I rarely closed the place up.
Lying back on my bed, I scrounged in the drawer with one hand, seeking…yes. I came up with hard, cold metal, and snapped one end up the handcuffs around my wrist. The other end I attached to the bed frame, and the key I pressed to the middle of the decorative pillow beside me.
A present for Valentine whenever he decided to release me.
On impulse, I grabbed the next thing I found in the drawer: a silky blindfold that came with a toy pack once that I’d never used. What was the point with no one to watch me, no one to hide myself from? But tonight I had a watcher.
The front door creaked, and snicked softly as it shut.
I fumbled the satin black mask over my eyes one handed and lay back, attempting to breathe gently and not hyperventilate.
My legs spread a little, then wider. Why not?
It was his mess on display, and mine, after all.
Maybe he’d do us both a favor and clean me up?
The thought left me hot and gushing. I moaned softly, tilting my hips restlessly as the footsteps found my room and stopped.
Within seconds I had a love/hate relationship with the blindfold.
I loved that I had to rely on my other senses to form a picture of what was going on in my bedroom around me, but also I hated that I couldn't read Valentine's expression. Was he happy with how I’d presented myself? Did he want something different?
A frustrated noise built in my chest. I slapped the pillow, intent on freeing myself with the key I’d left there and…
Came up empty.
“Oh, Cora. No. That’s not going to happen.”
I froze at the high pitched, thin voice that most definitely wasn't Valentine’s deeper, smoother version.
Why did I leave the door unlocked? Shit. I left it open for any random, to walk on in. But this wasn’t just a stranger. This man knew my name, and that little fact made my home invasion, invitation open or not, so much worse.
A spark of recognition as he talked fritzed my brain through my fear of lying bare before someone I swore I knew.
“Key, please,” a voice said faintly. After a moment, I figured out it was mine, though I felt like both the voice and my body were a mile away.
“Key,” I said, my volume a little stronger.
“You shouldn’t be in my home,” I berated the stranger who refused to answer me.
“My boyfriend will be here soon, and he’ll be… upset.”
“No, he won’t.” The thin voice that I couldn't place held a degree of mirth. “He’s still back at the club talking with our friends. But then you knew he wouldn't really come after you, didn't you Cora? Which means that you’re really all mine tonight.”
I blinked behind the cursed mask, the darkness cloying and thick. Shaking my head, I tipped my body to one side, raising my hand to pull it from my face, but something hard—a forearm or a knee—clamped down on my wrist, pining my arm to the mattress.
“No, Miss Brooks. I don’t think so. Not after your little fuck you this afternoon, then deciding that you’d flirt with a hockey plater instead of your media kin, yeah?”
I shook my head again, trying to wake up from the twisted fever dream, but I couldn’t.
Whatever this was, I’d hit reality in a way I couldn’t escape.
The fear I’d held at bay with dissociation and distance slammed into me at street level.
Pain and fear left me choking on a breath I couldn't swallow and when I did, my only thought was to make as much noise as I could.
Warn him.
Drawing my knees to my chest, I sucked in a deep breath. “Valen–” I screamed.
Or half screamed.
Material stuffed into my mouth followed by thin tape that slapped over my face. Tape that had been stuck between my boobs and my beaded dress earlier.
“Fuck,” I mumbled through the impromptu gag that I thought might be socks from my drawer. Then the penny dropped. Hockey player. Media. “Peatie?”
My words didn’t come out like his name, and I only managed to drool on myself.
“So pretty.” Fingers swirled at the corners of my lips as I held my breath, then dropped slower. I squeezed my eyes tight, the vulnerability slamming into me for a fraction of a second too late before a mouth touched my skin.
A mouth I didn’t want on me and that had no permission to be there. Peatie’s hot, wet lips sucked the skin above my breast, then bit down.
I screamed into the sock, but that came out garbled and muffled, too. Tears coated my cheeks, mixing with my saliva. “Stop,” I begged as his fingers trailed lower.
“I like to mark my girls up before I ruin them. It’s a habit of mine.
” I shuddered at the realization, curling in on myself, my knees tightened around my stomach, but that left my back bare and exposed.
A hand touched the curve of my ass, then the mouth returned.
I flinched away, rolling and kicking and shrieking but the tape that had held up so marvelously all night continued to do its job.
Fucking kudos to you.
I screamed again as those hands and mouth found other places to bite, Peatie’s light weight settling over me and forcing my legs open.
I forgot how to scream after a while and forgot how to fight, thrashing and slapping at air but he was always there.
My body ached where he bit me, my head screaming in silence words that refused to exit my mouth as he decorated my skin in marks I feared I’d have to wear forever, and hate myself for every single day.
Bite marks.
Bruises.
Corinne Weathers.
Valentine helping her that night in the club that the media reported on him and the Chimeras. Her refusing to report anything, and only willing to talk to him.
The marks over her body that I could bet my job matched the ones now on mine.
I cried harder and lashed out again, connected a hit with my heel against something solid to my side where I didn't expect it. Something solid that said oof.
A different voice.
“Valentine?” I whispered, hope filling my voice. Hope that I prepared to be dashed.
Don’t let Peatie have brought his friends. Please, no.
I curled tighter, turning to the side I thought the men weren’t in, not that it would stop them.
The touches stopped. And the biting.
“I’m here, Cora. Here for you,” Valentine reassured me. His hands swept over my body as I flinched, unable to control the motion, and the blindfold came off.
I stared into dark, rage filled eyes, his control carefully tethered as his arms folded around me. A second later, the metal bracelet at my wrist fell away. I cried out and launched into his chest, burrowing deep.
“It’s okay, Cora. It's okay. He can’t hurt you again. Not anymore.”
“How do you know?” I sniffled at his shirt and tried not to be disgusting, though my tears were anything but the pretty sort.
“Because he had an accident with your stairwell. Apparently he thought he could fly.”
I pulled back to stare into Valentine's face and found no evidence of a lie there. Not a truth either.
I clung to him, shivering and trembling. “You know, the last goalie the Chimeras had used to defend the team from everything as well,” I said as flashing lights illuminated my apartment from the street level through the open door and the stairwell.
I didn’t need to look to know the trust that Valentine didn’t say. Maybe I should be scared but… I wasn’t. Not anymore.
Bootsteps invaded my home as I clung to Valentine, ignoring the chatter around us. He fielded the questions, thick arms strong and protective around me, a barrier against the world.
“I called the police earlier. Figured out too late where he would be, that you were his next obsession. I hope it mattered.” His kiss on my lips was tender and sweet and left me aching and needy for more.
“Iloveyou,” I mumbled the mangled words into his shirt as a disgruntled, unknown someone told Valentine that they’d have to come back and talk to me later.
We both ignored them.
“Me too,” he echoed my garbled words with a clarity I couldn’t muster. “I’m in love with you, Cora. There is no one else, not for me,” he murmured.
I rested my head on his shoulder, letting him tug a quilt around me. No one else. That was a sentiment I could get behind right now. I sighed into the family rhythm of his heartbeat and stole a few more seconds before our peace was blasted to pieces again.
But that’s how Valentine and I had always been, it seemed, even in the few days that we’d know each other.
Rushing about, trying to make our strange, frantic relationship to work even as we orbited around the other all day.
And when we spent time together it was what time allowed, rather than what we planned out.
“Thank you for coming for me. He— Peatie,” I forced his name through my lips. “He said you wouldn’t,” I whispered.
Valentine's arms tightened around me. “And you believed him?” he murmured, his voice soft though his arms remained stiff. Tension rolled off my protector Chimera as I pressed my body to his.
“I thought maybe you were sick of me.” The confession stung, even though it was true.
He pressed a kiss to my temple, then a more tender version to my lips that shattered my heart on the spot. “Never going to happen, Cora. I’m in too deep for that to happen.”
I smiled at that last. Because funnily enough, so was I.
Despite all the promises I made to myself when I took on the Chimeras this time around, the promises that said I wouldn't get involved with a player, that I wouldn’t care and that I wouldn’t let a single one of them get under my skin…
I was in too deep, just like him.