“What else would it be?” I whisper. The sight of his hate-filled eyes makes me tear mine away. Only now, I’m staring at what’s obviously dried blood on his hands and wrists. A lot of it, too.
He snickers. “What? You don’t like seeing me bloody? What if I told you the guy who bled all over me is dead because I killed him in a fight?”
“You did?” I can barely get the sound out through my tight throat.
“And then I drank half a fucking bottle of whiskey because I could. Because I’m alive, and he’s not.” He hauls me close, and yes, the coppery stench of blood is all over him now that I’m up against him. “And what do I find when I get back? I find you trying to run away.”
Fear trickles down my spine. “I wasn’t! Where would I go?”
“You’ve snuck away in the past. How the fuck should I know?” I don’t have time to come up with a defense for that before he makes up his mind, bending slightly and throwing me over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” I try to kick out with both legs, but there’s no budging the iron bar of an arm he’s wrapped around my thighs.
“Taking you back where you belong,” he snarls, bouncing me as he marches toward the stairs. Fear has me in its grip now. I know what’s coming next.
On the way up the stairs, he mutters to himself, “Think you can leave me… you belong to me… ungrateful bitch…”
Tears fill my eyes, but I know arguing with him is useless. I’m not ungrateful. I wasn’t trying to leave. I don’t know where his mind is right now, but it’s not here with me.
He barely takes time to close the bedroom door behind us before marching me across the room and throwing me onto the bed. I land hard enough to almost bounce off, but he blocks me with his body to stop that from happening. I manage to get on my hands and knees and start scrambling for the corner of the bed, but he’s too quick for that, too.
“Running away again?” He grabs me by my ankle and tugs hard. I grab for the blankets, anything to stop this, but it’s no use.
“Why are you doing this?” I’m talking to myself since Lucas yanks down my shorts and thong at the same time, his short nails breaking my skin and making me hiss in pain. Instead of stopping him, it seems to egg him on. He delivers a hard, unforgiving slap against the place where he scratched me, and I howl with my face pressed against the mattress.
“You can do better than that.” He strikes me again, on the other cheek this time, and I yelp from the force. Blazing-hot pain radiates from that spot outward.
“No, stay that way,” he growls when I try to lift my head. To help things, he puts a hand on the back of my neck and presses me farther into the mattress. Over the sound of my heart, I hear him lower his zipper.
“There’s got to be a way I can teach you,” he grunts, parting my thighs with his knee. “You belong to me. Your life is mine. Your body is mine. And this cunt?” He even slaps me there, hard.
“This is mine. Say it. It’s mine. Your pussy is mine.”
I’m delirious with need, with hate and rage.
He slaps that sensitive area again when I don’t react last enough. It feels like it’s on fire. “It’s yours!” I shout. “It’s yours, okay? Please, stop!”
“You tell me it’s mine, but then you tell me I can’t use it? What are we going to do about these mixed messages?”
I grit my teeth, my pulse thunders, and the burning rage toward him threatens to overflow. I don’t get to answer him because suddenly, he’s inside me, breaching my entrance and plowing ahead even though I’m dry.
I dig my fingers into the blankets. My body trembles, and pain ripples through my core, but that doesn’t stop him. A sense of déjà vu overcomes me, and for a moment, I’m back in that cell, back to being helpless and used by a man supposed to protect me.
“Please, Lucas, it hurts.”
“Not ready yet?” He spits, and his wet saliva hits my crack. He pulls out and drags his head through the wetness before entering me again. It’s only slightly less uncomfortable.
“Asshole!” I growl, wanting to hurt him as badly as he’s hurting me.
With the fingers of his other hand biting into my hip, he sets a rough, brutal pace. Unforgiving and unfeeling. I might as well not be here. I’m just a warm hole for him to fill. That is until he starts talking, and then I know he’s speaking directly to me.
“I go out of my way for you… I risk everything, go against my family… and what do I get?” Every grunted phrase is punctuated by another thrust.
I can’t answer him or even defend myself thanks to the way he holds me down, face-first. I start pounding my fists against the mattress, my lungs seize, the need for oxygen overcoming me.
When I’m sure he’s going to kill me, the hand at the back of my head eases, and I gulp in a single breath before he pushes me down again. Is he trying to kill me? Death by sex might be a great way to go, but I’m not ready to die yet. As he continues to fuck me, a deep warmth fills my belly. Each stroke rubs against a spot at the back of my channel that I didn’t even know existed.
The pain turns to pleasure, and the chaos of our rage becomes something beautiful. Intense pleasure threatens to consume me.