Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 72854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
But just as quickly as he’s shown me gentleness, he leaves me, his absence intensifying the coldness of the air. And I’m left naked on my knees in his bed. Wearing a collar and making decisions based on fear.
Thoughts of my father and Nikolai return. Shame accompanies the image of their disapproval and disgust. As much as I’d like to lie, I loved what Carter did to me last night and I’d let him do it again.
“Why are you doing this to me?” The words are torn from the other side of me. The side I want to hide and tell to be quiet.
Walking back to the dresser, I think Carter’s ignored me until he answers, “Because I can,” he answers in a tone not to be questioned or defied. “A man asked me what I wanted, and I could buy anything I want, yet I saw your picture and knew I could never have you.” He turns to face me, leaning against the dresser and waiting for my response.
I remember the words I’ve held so dearly that he spoke days ago. The words that gave me hope. How I would help him and he would give me everything. I wonder if it’s a lie, or if what he’s telling me now has anything to do with that deal he shouldn’t have made.
“And now that you’ve…” I trail off, then swallow my words.
“I don’t have you, Aria. Not yet. But when I do, you’ll be begging me to stay.” What strikes the most fear in my heart is how utterly and completely I believe him.
Walking toward me, I can see something begging to escape from his lips. Something that’s maybe a secret, maybe not. But he merely runs his fingers along my lips again and tells me he’ll find me when he’s ready for me again before leaving me and keeping the bedroom door open.
When something is hard to the touch and so sharp it would draw blood, you have to always be careful. It’s the gentleness of it that will break you. You can’t ever let your guard down.
If you’re smart, you avoid it and if you have to be around it, you stay away from the parts that hurt. But those aren’t the parts that destroy. It’s the parts that you begin to crave, the parts you don’t want to resist that bring you to your knees. They make you forget or maybe they make you think the sharpness won’t cut you, as if you’re somehow immune or no longer prey to it.
Even knowing so, I fall helpless to the way he cups my chin like that. And I sit there for far too long with my fingertips lingering where I can still feel him.
I can’t breathe as I wake up. The cold sweat that covers my skin makes me shake, as does my racing heart. The room is dark, and I can’t see for a moment, but the hands gripping my shoulders and holding me down aren’t the ones in my nightmare.
It’s not Stephan, I try to think logically as I hear Carter’s voice yelling at me to wake up.
My chest heaves as the light filters into my vision and I see him. The anger in his tone is absent from his pained expression.
My shoulders hunch forward as I try to calm down. It was just a night terror. I can’t control them. I can’t stop them.
“Please don’t send me back,” I barely push out and it causes Carter’s fingers to dig deeper into my shoulders before he releases me. Stalking to a chair on the far side of the bedroom, he sits with his body leaning forward, his dark eyes staring at me through the dark room.
My skin tingles with a numbing fear. I can’t go back to the cell. Tears leak from my eyes at the thought that one fear of mine, a man who destroyed my world and threatened to do more, would keep me from being safe from yet another, the cell.
“Please,” I plead weakly and before the word is completely spoken, Carter commands me, “Come here.”
Although my body feels weak, I force my limbs to move quickly as they fight with his sheets. I practically fall to the ground and quickly crawl to him, the rug brushing against my knees.
In nothing but a pair of silk pajama pants, his abs ripple in the faint moonlight. His body looks like it was carved in marble. Even with the fear still strongly present, I can feel the itch of my fingers to run down the carved lines of his muscles. If nothing else, he’s a beautiful distraction. He can use me, fuck me into a deep sleep. And I would beg for it in this moment.
I’d beg him to use me and take away everything else.