His heat made my skin prickle with sweat.
I couldn’t breathe with his weight, but I wouldn’t shift or beg. If he wanted to smother me, then that was one of the easier ways to welcome death. A kind way to go compared to so many others.
But then he was gone, folding off me, rearranging the steelness in his trousers.
“But that would be too easy. You think you can control me? Get me to do something I would never do? Become someone I’ve fought all my life never to be again? Well, fuck you. Fuck you and whatever conditioning that’s ruined you.”
Striding to the door, he jerked a hand down his t-shirt as if preparing himself to enter a room full of well-dressed diplomats. “Until you have the balls to accept that I won’t lay a finger on you; until you’ve addressed what that cunt did to you, you won’t see me again. I don’t have time for broken things; especially slaves who I believed were so much stronger than what they turned out to be.”
He turned and strode out the door without another look.
Silence fell like a guillotine as he slammed the wood into place.
For a second, I didn’t breathe. I remained locked inside and safe, able to ignore the smarting agony of what had just happened. Of the degradation of what I’d become, the shame of what I was, and the guilt that I wasn’t as good as I thought.
And then rage came again, hurling me from my bubble, dragging me back into liveliness.
For so long, I’d tempered my anger so it curled around me but never exploded. There was nowhere for it to explode, no sobs I could shed, no screams I could utter.
But here, as I lay naked and vulnerable with far too many wounds and far too little strength to rebuild myself, I let loose.
I lost it.
It wasn’t sweet, obedient Tasmin who shot to her feet and snarled at the finery. It wasn’t timid, broken Pimlico whose claws latched onto the decorative cream silk from the ceiling and yanked.
It wasn’t me (whoever that was) as I hurled off the bed and threw cushions and pushed over chairs and smashed sea life figurines.
I let two years’ worth of tears spew forth.
I hiccupped and howled and gagged as my tongue pounded in agony.
I lost myself.
And I no longer cared if I ever found my way back.
WHAT THE FUCK am I doing?
The question had run a track inside my mind for the past two days.
I should just pull up to shore, drop her off with a lump of cash, some clothes (which she would probably refuse to wear), and say good fucking riddance.
I didn’t have time for this. I didn’t have the luxury of going down a path that had taken me so long to run away from.
I had my own issues to deal with let alone shoulder hers.
Did you expect her to snap out of it the moment she was yours?
If I was honest, yes that was exactly what I bloody expected. I envisioned myself as the saviour and her smiling in gratitude and finally opening that bruised little mouth to say ‘Thank you, Elder, for saving my life. What would you like to know about me? I’m an open book for you, read my pages, pry away.’
I dragged my hands through my hair, digging my elbows into the desk.
Nothing was going according to plan. And seeing her struggle only made me realise how much I fucking struggled. How much I shut down and pretended I had everything I wanted—that my business kept me whole, that I wanted for nothing more than wealth, my boat, and the sea.
It was all a bloody lie.
I smothered myself with rules and trickery to prevent the addiction inside me from taking claim. She’d made me snap and admit some of my darkest truths at dinner.
That wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
I was supposed to crack her, not the other way around.
Fucking woman.
Even in her despair, she had the bravery to show me just how much I confused her.
Lying in bed after throwing her back in her room that night, sleep had refused to come. I recalled every word she’d written to No One, doing my best to put myself in her shoes and figure out how I would’ve coped.
The thought of someone physically and mentally abusing me was too abhorrent; I couldn’t fully comprehend what it would be like to live with such a monster. I’d done my fair share of hardship, but it had been my own doing, not from some corrupt bastard who thought he could own another.
Old memories sprung up, threatening to drag me under.
Digging my fingers into my skull, I held on.
Don’t fucking—
Too late.
I couldn’t stop the memory from stealing me, hurtling me back to a time I couldn’t run from—eighteen years ago where it all ended and begun.