“What did you say?” he asks me, voice low and quiet and unmistakably threatening.
“I told you to go fuck yourself.”
He tugs my hair as I say it, making me wince with pain. I dig my nails into the skin of his chest and scratch. Even though I draw blood, he only grins. I feel him press against me, his erection growing harder and his predator eyes turning black as I drag my nails down his chest.
“Go fuck myself?” he asks, and his free hand cups my ass and squeezes. “But it would be so much more fun to fuck you.”
I’m on tiptoes instantly, muscles tight, and I hate the whimper that escapes because men like him, they like this. They can smell fear and it turns them on. It turns them into the beasts they are.
“Get off me, bastard.” My voice sounds controlled, but inside, I’m screaming.
“I wonder,” he says as he glances down at my nipples. I’m trying to ignore the fact that they’re pressed against his chest. “I wonder if you like this. If it turns you on.” He returns his gaze to mine. “My guess is yes. I could check to be sure, though.”
“Get off me!” I’m louder now. Desperate.
“How do you ask nicely, Cristina? We just had a lesson not too long ago.”
My options are limited. I know this. As does he, because his smile just grows wider.
“Please get off me!”
“That’s better.” He doesn’t let me go, though, not yet. He gives my ass one more squeeze first, then he releases me and steps out of the shower.
I pant for breath, leaning against the shower wall. He’s soaked, water dripping from his jeans onto the floor. He reaches for a hand towel and dries his face and hair, then tosses it.
“Let’s try this again. Pick up your bra and panties and hand them to me. And be very careful, Cristina.”
I glare but bend to pick them up. I toss them at him, satisfied at the splat when they hit him square in the chest.
He keeps them in one hand, never taking his eyes off me.
I wait for my punishment. It’s coming. I have no doubt.
“Now wash yourself.”
I will kill him one day, I promise myself.
Picking up the shampoo, I squeeze some onto a shaking hand and wash my hair. I don’t bother to condition it. I pick up the loofah, pour body wash over it, and just run it over my shoulders.
He doesn’t say anything when I hang it back on its hook.
“Satisfied?”
“Hardly. But we have time and you’ll learn.”
I scoot out of the way of his arm as he reaches in to switch off the water. I hug my arms to myself at the sudden cold, trying to hide as much of myself as possible even though he’s seen it all now.
“I hate you.”
“Good. You should hate me. But you will do as you’re told. Arms at your sides.”
“Didn’t you get enough of an eyeful?” I ask, my mouth as usual working faster than my brain. “Pervert.”
He grins. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy you, Cristina,” he says, reaching for a bath towel. Opening it, he steps toward me, and I see us in the mirror’s reflection. Him big and strong and in control. And me naked and stubborn as hell but under his control. No matter how much I want to deny it.
He puts the towel around my shoulders and wraps big arms around me, trapping me before I can even fight him. He lifts me effortlessly off the ground and carries me into the bedroom.
“What are you doing?” I ask when he sits on the bed and lays me down.
The towel falls open, and he takes my wrists, then stretches them up over my head.
Panic surges through me. “What the fuck are you doing?”
He’s leaning partially down, the length of his body alongside mine, almost touching mine. He sets the thumb of his free hand on my mouth, on the scar. He begins to trace it down over my chin, my neck and throat, down to my chest to where it ends at my heart. It’s thicker there, spots darker from where the stitches were. Glass at my heart. Glass like a knife. A centimeter to the right and I’d have died too.
Sometimes I wish I had.
“Do you remember it?” he asks, eyes different when he looks back at me.
I feel my forehead crease at this shift.
“Do you dream about it?” he continues.
How does he know?
“Is that what you were dreaming about last night?”
Blinking, I look away, my eyes burning with tears.
Is he enjoying this part, too? Hurting me like this? Reminding me?
“Do you think we’ll ever stop dreaming about it?” he asks.
I turn my face back to his then, confused. I’ve never talked to anyone about them. Never. Not even Liam. Does Damian dream the same dreams? Does that night haunt him, too?