A small memory floods my mind as I try to reason my way out of the itchiness, filling me with immense dread as the man of my nightmares materializes in front of me. He leans in, and I can feel his minty breath wash over my face, can feel his grip on my hips, pinning me into the mattress.
“Bones,” I rasp, a word finally escaping me. Lifting a weak hand, I point my index finger toward the closet across the room.
The corner of Kieran’s mouth turns up, his expression morphing from concern to something evil. Vile. Terrifying. If I were in my right mind, I’d be getting the hell out of here.
“Look, Kal, the bad little kitten wants to play.” He hauls himself up on the surface I’m on—a bed, presumably, if this is still the room I passed out in—and straddles my thighs; a blast of cool air hits my flushed skin as he peels my leggings down over my hips and down to my knees. And all I can do is watch, once again robbed of the ability to speak.
A flash of white-hot electricity zings through my abdomen, but again, I have no clue where it’s coming from.
There’s a pressure building between my legs, knotting my stomach muscles, and I watch as his hand disappears there. The likely culprit. “You like games, right, Juliet? Let’s play, shall we?”
Despite my incapacitation, my body hums with excitement, blood rushing between my ears, heading south.
“Kieran—”
He holds his hand up to the other man—Kal, apparently, and I can’t help but wonder if this is the same one Elia’s friends with—shushing him. “She’s a big girl, Kal. She can answer a few questions.”
“You’re just gonna sexually assault her until she tells you what you want to hear?”
Scoffing, Kieran smirks down at me, reaching behind his neck to pull his black hoodie off in one fluid movement. “It’s not sexual assault. She wants this. Wants me.”
“She’s not—”
“She’s lucidenough. Christ, Kal, if you’re gonna be a pussy about it, get the fuck out. I don’t want you seeing this shit, anyway.”
“Oh, suddenly you’re not into sharing?”
My eyes widen—I think—and something shifts against me, a crushing weight on the flat of my stomach as Kieran moves up my body. His face falls dangerously close to mine, his nose almost brushing against my forehead as he breathes, “Not her. Never her.”
Against my better judgment, and since I don’t seem to have control over my body, a flutter ripples through me, culminating at my core, making me wish I wasn’t in this catatonic state and could actually enjoy what’s happening.
Moving back down, he settles beside my calves and spreads my legs as far apart as they can get with my pants stuck at my knees, and I watch his fingers draw light circles on the inside of one thigh, feeling my pulse at my throat and in my pussy, beating in time with the stuttered breaths rushing from my nostrils.
He watches me, bemused, and I want to wriggle out from beneath him and his lust. Away from his sins, the skeletons hidden in his closet, the stolen innocence on his hands.
Hands.Focusing on his right as it pinches my skin between two fingers, I notice the cracked flesh; it’s rubbed red and completely raw, lined with bloody cuts and rough against me.
Catching sight of where my gaze has settled, he continues his ascent, bringing the tip of one finger to the corner of my pussy, stroking lightly at the bottom of my lips. I can’t see his hand anymore, but it doesn’t erase the image of his hands, starved for TLC, from my mind.
Even with my brain in its current state.
Because they look familiar—hands of a guilty conscience.
A tormented soul.
When he cocks an eyebrow, a silent question, my mouth falls open again. “Bones. In your closet.”
“Ah, yes, tell me what you think you saw, kitten.” He swipes up my seam, his fingernail ghosting against my most sensitive flesh, and my insides curl into the gesture, twitching and twisting into the pleasure.
It should hurt, should make me uncomfortable, but there’s a power in his movement. A hunger in his eyes, something I’ve been desperate for my whole life.
And all I ever wanted was for someone to give it freely, without me having to beg for it first.
“Why do you have that stuff in your closet?” I whisper, unable to project my voice any louder. I’m still floating, one foot in the room and the other somewhere in space, searching for its way back. The question repeats in my mind over and over, all I can concentrate on other than the feeling of his hands on me.
“Why wereyouin my closet?”
I open my mouth, shaking my head, and feel a sharp prick at my entrance as he swirls around, dipping the tip just inside. Clenching at nothing, a wave of darkness floods my mind, trying to pull me under, and I’m struggling to stay afloat.