It feels like forever that I hang here, and in that time I tell myself, the first chance I get I’m gone.
I’m leaving him.
He can’t stop me.
But he can.
And that scares me.
Was it love I felt for him or just pure and simple lust?
I shake my head knowing full well that I love him, that I’m completely in love with him. And even if I try to convince myself it’s lust, it will always be a lie. Even if I didn’t know all of him, I knew most of him.
“Not a sound,” he says finally emerging again.
He’s left me hanging while he went and ate. I can smell the bacon when he opens the door. He’s cleaned himself up, and he now has on his black pants. He shuts the door, so I can’t see him again as the room falls to darkness, but I hear his footsteps as he gets closer.
His hand touches between my thighs and he presses hard at my sex, wiping something, then I feel it at my lips.
“Open, Everly.”
I shake my head, so he pinches my nipple until I can’t stand the pain and I open my mouth.
His finger goes in. “If you bite, you will be punished.”
I don’t bite. I want to get down, my arms are aching, and I really need to go to the bathroom. I taste him on my tongue. He’s got his cum on his fingers from between my legs and is pushing it into my mouth.
When he pulls away, he claps his hands loudly. A light illuminates the room, and he’s standing in front of me watching me.
“Good girl, now you can be rewarded.”
It takes a second for my eyes to become acclimatized to the light in the room, and I watch as he begins to untie me. When I’m free, he catches me before I fall. Then he lifts me bride-style and walks me to the bathroom before placing me down.
“Shower before I come back. Don’t try anything stupid, Everly.”
I want to flip him off and tell him to get fucked. Instead, I turn the shower on, and let the water wash over me. Instantly, I relieve myself and it feels great. Then I scrub all evidence of him from my body.
Getting out, I look in the small mirror. My breasts are bruised with black and blue welts, my ass is as well. He’s marked me, even my neck.
I cry into the towel, and when I hear his footsteps I quickly sit up and shake it off, wiping my face so when he opens the door, he can’t tell that he’s breaking me.
I’m stronger than he gives me credit for.
I will survive this.
And when I do… I might just kill him.
24
There’s food on the two-seater table where he directs me. I haven’t been allowed in here, only when I walked past to go to the garage where he strung me up. The bastard pulls out my seat, and I sit opposite him as he pushes a plate toward me.
“Eat. I cooked it for you.”
“So I have the energy for you to fuck me again?” I ask in a harsh tone.
His fists slam on the table. “Yes, so I can fuck you again. And so you can enjoy it. Because you do, Everly, despite your reservations of me owning you. You absolutely enjoy it.”
“No one can own someone.”
He sits back, his fingers touching his chin. “I suppose you think you can leave me when we get back?”
I don’t answer.
He takes my not speaking as his answer. “Let me tell you something you probably don’t know, but I want to inform you so you get it straight…” He pauses, takes a sip of his coffee, while my stomach grumbles loudly. He nods to the food then says, “I wouldn’t go breaking your contract. Not this one, my love.”
“Why?”
“Because your family’s lives will be in danger. Now, you wouldn’t want that, would you?”
My heart sinks.
“What do you mean?”
“It means, as long as you stay my wife, your father gets to keep his life. It’s the reason he pushed the marriage on you so hard. He likes his life and everything he has in it.”
“He wouldn’t.”
He leans in close. “Think, Everly, think hard. Back to when this contract was made. A Thorne killed a Reid, and in return for not destroying your bloodline, a contract was made. The firstborn girl will marry a Reid, and if she doesn’t, bloodshed will reign supreme.”
“That can’t be right.”
“It is. You should have worked that part out by now. Did you never question, or wonder what it was your father did?”
“My father’s in real estate,” I say.
“Correct, he is. But he’s also in a lot more than that. You know he isn’t innocent. He runs the town, and he does it with authority. He isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty, and neither am I.”