I swallow hard, realizing he’s toying with me. A predator playing with his prey. “I think you get off on fear and violence. You love being in control and inflicting pain only increases my fear and, therefore, your enjoyment.”
He claps his hands, the sound as jarring as a gunshot. “Very clever, Eliza.”
The whip arcs through the air and slices into my skin again, making me grunt in pain as I dig my fingernails into the bedsheets beneath me.
“And yet I can see your cunt and how wet it’s getting with each lash of my whip. How do you explain that?”
My body flames as I clench my thighs together, trying to hide the unexplainable reaction to his treatment.
He slides his leg between mine and kicks them open with his knee. “No hiding, baby girl.”
A shudder races down my spine as I realize the longer I’m in this man’s clutches, the more of myself I’m losing. His intention to break me and make me a shell of the woman I once is already on course.
“Perhaps you’d enjoy learning the true extent of my depravity.” I feel the press of something cool and sharp against my shoulder blade, and I freeze up, terror coiling through my gut. “The things I want to do to you, baby girl, would make you run screaming in the opposite direction.” He taps the blade against me. “Or would they?”
“Adrik, please, don’t.”
He chuckles, the sound nothing but evil. “Don’t what, baby girl?”
I can’t bring myself to say the words, as I can hardly believe he’s got a knife pressed into my skin.
“As you said, I’m as depraved as they come. It’s a constant fight to stave off my thirst for blood, but you make me want to bask in it.”
I shiver as he drags the blade of the knife over my sore, welted skin, barely enough to graze. “Do you know how badly I want you covered in your own blood while I fuck you?”
“That’s sick,” I say, but the image he’s painting in my mind is both utterly terrifying, and yet I feel the wetness between my thighs increasing. It’s depraved what he’s talking about, so why the hell does the idea send a thrill through my body?
Perhaps it’s the pure primality of it.
“Call it what you want.” I feel the tip of the knife at the entrance of my pussy and I freeze, my body turning as rigid as stone. “Your cunt is telling me all I need to know about how sick you are, too.”
I don’t dare move, frozen by sheer terror. The coldness is removed, but then he shoves what I can only assume is the butt of the knife into me. I groan at the sudden invasion, my head lulling forward in relief that it’s the blunt end and not the other end.
“Did you think I’d let you walk away from me in the hospital and you wouldn’t bear the consequences, Eliza?” He thrusts the end of the knife in and out of me roughly, but I’m so wet it feels good. “And you’re keeping a secret from me as well. Aren’t you?”
My body shakes as I wonder what he’s talking about.
“We’ve been fucking uninterrupted, except for the past five days for over a month, and you haven’t bled.” His thrusts become more brutal, and I realize Adrik has worked it out. A fact I’m almost certain of but haven’t had the guts to confirm with a test.
“What are you saying?” I ask, acting dumb.
He grabs a fistful of my hair and pulls so hard it feels like he’s trying to tear it from my scalp. “You’re carrying my baby, aren’t you, Eliza?”
I shudder, shaking my head. “I don’t know, possibly.”
He releases my hair and continues to fuck me with the blunt end of the knife. “And when did you intend to tell me?”
“I haven’t taken a test, so I can’t be sure.”
He stops fucking me then and pulls the butt of the knife out of me, pressing the blade to my throat. “Are you lying to me, Eliza?”
Panic bubbles up my throat. “No, I swear. When would I have been able to purchase a pregnancy test, anyway? I’m a prisoner in my home.”
The pressure of the knife eases. “True. Well, you’ll do a test as soon as I’m through with punishing you.” He removed the knife from my throat, but then I feel the edge dig into my shoulder and break the skin. “So beautiful,” he murmurs behind me.
The knife drawing a line through my skin and leaving a stinging pain behind. And then I feel his finger tracing the line. “You bleed so nicely, Eliza.”
“What is wrong with you?” I ask, hating the tremble in my voice.