His fingers underneath my chin lift me up, but I am so worn down I collapse immediately into his arms. He scoops me up from the floor in his arms and carries me all the way to the bathroom. He sets me down inside the tub and turns on the faucet. The running water feels good on my cold and still vibrating skin, but I can’t stop wondering why he’s doing this.
I said the words … the ones he was looking for all along. I expected him to take me right then, so what is he planning?
He takes off his clothes one by one and places them neatly on the chair in the corner before sliding into the tub too. I sit there with my legs tucked in against my torso, clenching them tightly as he scoots toward me. He grabs my arm and peels my grip off my legs, forcing me to come to him. He pulls me close and wraps me in his arms, his legs beside my body and his hands on my skin.
The warmth of the water pales in comparison to the heat from his body against mine.
I don’t understand. Why is he doing this? What does he gain? Does he intend to fuck me here, or is he trying to confuse me? If so, it’s worked because I don’t know what to think or feel for him.
All I know is that my body responds to his touch with more excitement. Despite being stuck on a vibrator for hours, my pussy still clenches with need as his hands slide along my sides and brush past my breasts.
I feel naked … vulnerable … as though he’s entering a part of me I’ve never freely given away. Yet here I am, letting him touch me and wash me.
He pours the soap onto his hands and lathers it on my skin, rubbing my shoulders, my arms, and my back. Everything is done so tenderly that I’m lost in thought, and I close my eyes and let it all happen. He’s like a completely different man. He’s rarely been this gentle. The last time I remember was when I was crying my eyes out in the middle of the night, and he came to lie next to me. We even had a fight about it the next morning.
Is this who he truly is? The man underneath the monster’s mask, who could be kind and sweet if he wanted to?
I lick my lips and sigh as he massages my shoulders and temples, and then washes my hair too. It’s so strange to sit here with him. As if it’s the most normal thing in the world, and we do this every day. But he’s never made me feel this comfortable.
Is the punishment finally over? Is he content with all the ways I’ve suffered for him?
“Why are you doing this?” I ask.
He rinses off the soap. “I can’t bathe with my wife?”
“I never … You can, but—”
“You’re trying to make sense of something that can’t be understood,” he responds.
“Yeah.” Why is it so easy for him to read my mind? “I thought you wanted to …?”
“What? Fuck?”
I gaze at my own feet underwater and his that are right beside mine. They are much bigger and sturdier, like his hands. And his thighs, they’re huge, as is his stature. And for some reason, being in this tub with him like this is the first time I actually feel safe in this room.
I grab a strand of my hair and tuck it behind my ears. “You told me you were waiting for me to say the words.”
He stops washing me and brushes aside my wet hair so he can lean in close. “It’s not the words I’m looking for,” he whispers, and he presses a kiss onto my shoulders so soft it makes me feel like a wax candle melting away. “I’m waiting for you.”
Me. It’s always been about me.
All this time, I thought I was dancing to his tune. Fighting him at every turn and waiting for him to take what he came for. But it wasn’t about that at all.
It’s my heart.
My love.
My choice.
That’s what we’ve been fighting over all this time. The pulling and tugging weren’t solely about my body but to win over my soul. To make me fall.
And I am falling … so fucking hard.
The kisses he plants, one after the other, undo me and strip me of every defense I ever put up. An uncontrollable ache in my body commands me to yield, and while my hands float in the water, I close my eyes and hum to the tune of loving defeat.
I want his lips. I want his touch. I want him to take me.
Even if he is the bad guy.
The one who stole me away from my old, habitual life and immersed me into a world filled with sexual deviance and power. A world I crave to explore.
All this time, I was wishing and praying I wouldn’t fall for the devil, but I should’ve known the devil has his ways and always wins. And now he’s won me over.
“I want you. I’ve always wanted you …” he says, pressing a kiss to my neck as my head tilts sideways. “From the day I saw you at your father’s wedding until the day you finally said yes at the altar.”
“But I hated you,” I murmur, my body instinctively leaning into his as his lips land on my skin. I’m halfway turned in the tub, crawling up against him, his rock-hard abs candy to my eyes. Droplets of water roll down his chiseled face along his beautiful dark lashes, his pronounced cheekbones, and his delicious lips. My eyes can’t stop taking him in.
“You hated the idea of me. The power I have and how I use it to ruin everything around me.” He cups my face and forces me to look at him. “To get my hands on you.”
My lips part, but I don’t know what to say. Even when I offered myself to him, he still didn’t take me. And now here we are, face to face, in the most exposed situation with all our feelings laid bare. All this time, I thought I was the one who lost. Who was locked away and imprisoned by the beast.
But I’m not the only one who suffered. He sacrificed his sanity, his morals, and his dignity to be with me. And even though that should make me loathe him, I don’t anymore.
Because I feel for him. I feel for the man who could’ve been everything we both wanted if the circumstances had been different. If we’d met in a different place and time, maybe we could’ve been together without all the grief and pain. Without wanting to hurt each other.
“You want me, but do you really know you do?” I mutter.
“More than anything. I would sacrifice my business for you if I had to,” he says, clutching me, our lips grazing. “I’d fucking sacrifice my life to be close to you.”
“Then kiss me,” I murmur.
He kisses me so fucking hard that the tub suddenly feels as though it’s filled with scalding water. My heart pounds in my throat as his mouth claims mine. His kiss is mind-numbing, soothing the turmoil in my heart. His tongue darts out to expertly pry my lips open and toy with my tongue, leaving my body needy with more. He licks the roof of my mouth and grabs a fistful of my hair to pull me closer. I’m fucked by his tongue, and I love every second of it. This small moment in time of bliss is where I find my acceptance with my own wantonness and the arousal settling between my legs.
I move in, sliding my hips over his, the friction becoming too much to take. I want him inside me; I want him to own me, completely, fully, whatever it takes. I don’t want to think or feel; I just want to be.
But then he pulls his lips off mine and leans back, gazing at me with eyes that scream for more. But no matter how hard I try to seduce him, he doesn’t come for me. His penetrating stare forces me to come face to face with my own depraved lust. But I know full well what I did … what I said.
“I told you to fuck me,” I say straight to his face. His dick grows against my thighs, but he ignores it completely. “Why don’t you do it?”
He cocks his head, and a smile tugs at his lips. “I don’t need your permission.”
“But you wanted me to beg,” I mutter as my index finger grazes his lips. “And I begged for it.”
“And I heard you loud and clear,” he groans, grabbing my wrist. “But I want you to mean it.”
Our lips are so close, lightning shoots through my veins. I don’t want to beg, but I would do anything right now for those lips to numb this confused heart of mine again.
“I do,” I mutter, but deep down, I know it’s a lie.
I said it at a moment of delirium when the lines between what’s right and wrong blur. But I know I needed to go down into the depths in order to understand my own needs and to give in to them. Doesn’t that count?
“You’re beautiful when you’re lying,” he says, a lopsided grin appearing on his face.
I frown and lean back. “So you won’t take me even when I did what you wanted?”
“I want you to want it for yourself,” he says, still trying to keep me close to him. “Not because I want it.”
“But you do. We both do,” I say, sliding back into the water. “Why does it even matter?”
“You know why,” he says with a suddenly serious look on his face.
I shake my head and snort. “You did everything, all of this, to capture me, use me, and degrade me so you could flaunt it in front of my father to destroy him. You want to see him suffer, and I was part of that plan, right?”
He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t need to. I know how he works.
“You hate him. And here is your one opportunity to stick your middle finger up at him, and you won’t grasp it?” I ask, raising a brow. “You won. I give in. I’m yours. What else could you want?”
“You,” he says with such a convincing, genuine smile that it shakes me to my core.
Why would he do this? Why would he make things so damn difficult? I was ready to give him my body, to give him what he wanted, and now he won’t take it.
“I’m here,” I retort in one last attempt.
He sighs. “Because I wanted you here. Because I made sure you’d be here, right in this position, saying the very things I wanted to hear. I made you this way. I broke you for my own selfish needs.” He licks his lips. “But that’s still not enough.”
Still not enough? Fuck him.
Fuck him and his self-righteousness.
First, he steals me away from my home, claims my life, my body, and anything under the sun, and now that I’m willing to give it to him freely, he refuses to take it? What is wrong with this man?
Then it hits me. There’s only one reason he wanted to steal me away from my home … my father and his business.
“This isn’t about me, is it?” I growl. “It’s about my father.”
He frowns. “What are you talking about?”
“You still want to punish my father.” I suck on my bottom lip. “This is all a ploy to get me to like you so you can throw it in my father’s face.”
“What? No?” He waves it away as if it means nothing.
“Don’t lie to me,” I say, pointing a finger at his chest. “If you love me like you say you do, stop lying.”
He grips my hand and holds it down. “Fine. Yes, a part of me does want to see him suffer.”
I shake my head. “So nothing has changed.”
“Yes, we have,” he says, cupping my face.
“No.” I swat his hand away. “You can make me be with you, but you can’t force my heart to love you back.”
“Why do you make things so difficult?” he sneers.
“Because I’m still only a tool for you,” I growl out loud and stand in the tub.
“That’s not true,” he says.
“Tell me the truth, Easton,” I growl, folding my arms. I’m not backing down from this one. “For once, tell me what it is you’re doing to him. If you think I can love you back after the truth comes out, then maybe it’s worth telling me after all.”
His face turns dark as the silence in the room kills me.
“I want your father to know I own his precious girl.”
“He does. I’m married to you,” I say. “But that’s not enough for you, is it? You want to see his face dissolve when you kiss me. When you …”
Shit.
I figured it out.
The cameras.
The footage on his laptop.
His incessant need to log everything and his need for revenge.
I gasp. “You’re … sending the footage from those cameras to my father?”
He doesn’t answer, but his deadly stare says enough.
I grimace. “That’s disgusting.” I wrap myself with the new bathrobe. “Fuck you, I’m out of here.”
“Charlotte …” He reaches for my legs, but I push him off and jump out of the tub before he can touch me.
How dare he send that footage to my father without asking me, without informing me of his plans? Images of all the things I’ve done, all the things Easton did to my body, replay over and over in my head, and it makes my stomach tumble.
My father saw it.
God knows how much of it …
How can I ever look him in the eyes again?
Easton did this on purpose. No wonder he has cameras everywhere. It’s not only for his twisted needs but to get back at my father too.
He lied to my face when he said it was all for himself.
And here I was, thinking I could warm up to him, and maybe, just maybe, I was falling for this dude.
Fuck him.
I don’t want him, and he can tuck that huge dick right back into his pants where it belongs, just like his cocky, arrogant smile.
