God, I’d ruin her, make her bleed, have her scratches on my back as she clung to me and cried out. She’d beg me to stop, but I wouldn’t because I knew she truly didn’t want me to. She’d plead with me to go harder, to be rougher.
And I would.Jesus Christ,I’d be so savage with her that no other experience in her life would compare.
Maybe it was the egotistical side of me, or maybe it was something else, a tendril of dark obsession.
Because the thought of anyone else sampling her, touching her, even looking in her fucking direction, had this unusual rage boiling within my gut.
I ripped my hand away from her and moved several steps back, not liking the way she made me feel, not liking that the very sight and thought of her was fucking with my head.
It should be the other way around.Ishould be the one messing withher.
I felt my anger and irritation grow that this tiny woman, far too young for me, could have this kind of effect on a man like me.
I took a left, going down the dark hallways toward the east wing, a part of the house that I purposely blocked off.
Only two staff members were allowed on this side of the house, ones who rotated duties to keep everything clean… to look after the one person whom I wanted to live for fucking ever. Just so I could watch him suffer.
And only so that I could torment him the way he’d done to me.
When I stopped in front of the door, I placed my palm on it, the wood cold, silence coming from the other side.
My blood rushed as I gripped the handle and turned it, pushing the door open and stepping inside.
I knew where he was instantly. The fucker couldn’t move by himself.
He lay in the center of his bed, the sound of his labored breathing echoing off the walls.
I moved farther into the room until I could smell the antiseptic that surrounded him, a scent that clung to everything.
Even though my hatred for him ran deep, I made sure he had the best care money could buy with state-of-the-art medical equipment keeping his decrepit form alive. And it was because, if I could, I would’ve made sure the bastard lived untilItook my last breath. I’d make sure he suffered for as long as possible.
I turned to reach for the chair beside the bed, dragging it across the floor so the legs scraped against the wood. It was loud, jarring, and he blinked open his eyes and turned his head to look at me.
My father by legalities only. Michael Cronus.
He made a deep sound in his chest, the wheezing growing louder as it drowned out the sound of the oxygen coming out of the tube.
I sat down, leaned back, and rested my arms on either side of me, staring at Michael and letting him see how much he relied on me for literally his next breath.
He made another rough sound, unable to speak anymore, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say.
“I bet you have so many things you’d like to talk to me about.” I kept my tone conversational as he shifted on the bed. I had no doubts vile things about me ran through his head. He just couldn’t voice them anymore. The stroke had taken care of that.
But he was too weak, too frail, to do much more than turn his head and adjust his arms.
“I bet you wish you could grab your belt right now, don’t you?” I ground my molars, phantom pains slicing across my body.
Michael had been such a corrupt man his entire life that this was the result of all that poison he surrounded himself with.
It ate away at him from the inside out.
“Do you know who’s come to live with me?” I looked down at my hand and ran my fingers over the edge of the armrest.
There were nail marks within the wood, ones that had such significant memories tied to them.
He brought the belt down across my shoulders, and I dug my nails into the chair, holding in my cry. The splinters pierced my fingers, my blood a polish for the wood. The buckle tore into the center of my back, the sharp edge scraping into my skin, tearing it open. Michael sharpened the edge specifically for that reason. “Marks give character,” he said repeatedly—a mantra, a slogan that I was sure he’d have tattooed on himself if he wasn’t so vain.
I’d learned long ago to keep my mouth shut. That begging, pleading for mercy, for the pain and abuse to stop, only gave me more.