“Come here.”
I clear my throat and shake my head.
All it takes are two steps from him and he’s got his arms around me. He’s wet and cold. The next thing I know, he’s lifting me off the ground, and I scream when he tosses me into the pool.
Panic sets in instantly. I open my eyes. Bubbles are all around me, and that cloudy, echo-like sound drenches my ears, fills me with terror. I think I’m screaming, but then, an instant before I need to breathe, his strong arms are around me and he’s lifting me up. I break the surface.
“You can’t fucking swim?”
I’m clinging to him and sputtering water and I want to cry and scream all at once. He’s got me pressed between the edge of the pool and himself, and all I feel beneath my feet is water. He mutters another curse, this one to himself.
“You really don’t know how to swim?” he asks a little more gently.
I shake my head, and the coughing finally ceases. I’m embarrassed. “I want to get out.”
“You’re fine.”
“No. I want out.”
“I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
I look up at him, and I don’t know if it’s his words or the way he’s looking at me or the whiskey or fuck, I don’t know what it is, but I start to sob. I’m clinging to him and pushing him away all at once and he’s just letting me, he’s letting me and holding me and keeping me up and fuck. I’m losing it. He’s going to make me lose it.
“Let me go!”
“No.”
“Please!”
“No. I won’t let you go.”
I look at him. He’s watching me and next thing I know, he’s got his hands under my arms and he’s lifting me out. He sets me at the edge of the pool and, with his arms on either side of me, he lifts himself out. He kisses me and pushes me backward as he lays his weight on me.
I should fight.
I should want to fight, to hit him, to pound against him as little good as it will do, but I don’t want to. I just want to lay here beneath him, and I want to feel him kiss me. Feel him watch me, feel him want me.
He pulls back, looks down at me. His eyes are dark, the pupils dilated. He nudges my legs apart and then he’s between them and my dress is hiked up to my waist. I feel him at my entrance, feel his thick cock. I reach up to pull him to me, but with his hands on either side of my face, he halts me. I close my eyes when I feel him begin to penetrate, but he stops that too.
“Open your eyes, Emilia.”
I blink them open, and I feel the heat of tears again.
“I want to watch you.”
He kisses me. I taste chlorine and him and I watch him, too, as he enters me. It’s different this time. It’s slower, and I can feel every inch of him. I’m clinging to him, and it’s like I can’t get close enough, like I can’t get warm enough, like I can’t have enough of him to hide me, to keep me locked beneath him and hidden from view. I’m crying again and fuck, this is going to kill me. This slow fucking, this lovemaking, it’s going to destroy me.
“You are so fucking beautiful when you cry.”
A moment later, I feel the tip of his tongue catch a tear and trace it upward. I hear a strange sound like a sob or something desperate, and I just need him to fuck me. To fuck me hard and make me come. He knows it, and he’s not giving it to me.
“You want to break me.”
He shakes his head. “I told you last night. You’re already broken.”
He did tell me. He did. I dig my nails into his back, and I know it hurts him when I feel his skin give, when I know I’m drawing blood, but he won’t move faster, and he won’t let me go, he won’t even let me look away. But then he moves one hand to cradle the back of my head, but that cradling is only momentary before his hand turns into a fist in my hair and he squeezes.
“Do I need to hurt you to make you come?” he asks, pulling out and thrusting in hard. The movement steals my breath away. I cup the back of his head with my hand and twist my fingers into his hair. One corner of his mouth curves up.
“Say it. Tell me.”
With his other hand, he bends one leg up. His next thrust is deeper and harder and the next one harder still.
“More,” I say, my eyes closing.
“Open. Look at me.”
I do. I reach up to kiss him. “Hurt me,” I say into his mouth. “I need it.”