I don’t know what wakes me up. A noise? A sensation?
My eyes open in the darkness, and I blink a few times to try and see more clearly. All around me are the faint snores of the other girls. A sliver of moonlight streams in around the edges of the blinds.
I open my mouth, then realize there’s something covering my lips.
What the fuck?
I touch the slightly bumpy texture of tape over my mouth, and then the shadow descends. My hands are yanked over my head and connected to something. There’s a soft click , and cold metal closes around my wrists.
Fear twists through me.
The shadow returns, and it takes precious seconds to realize it’s Greyson.
His face is a mask of ice.
Duct tape.
Handcuffs.
I wriggle, trying to move my body up so my arms aren’t useless, but he ignores it and yanks my sleep shorts down.
I go still.
My heart is rioting, slamming against my ribs. My pulse is all I can hear, like rushing water in my ears, and I struggle to calm down.
To breathe through my nose.
He crawls over me, straddling my hips. He bends down and licks the side of my face. His tongue leaves a wet trail up my cheek, over the corner of my eye.
“I love your tears,” he confesses, his lips pressed to my ear. “I fucking love your terror.”
I shiver. He’s said that before—but what lengths will he go to get it?
“What do you think will happen if one of them wakes up?” He turns his head, looking out over the girls spread across the living room.
I don’t remember falling asleep. I just remember the dancing, and eventually the exhaustion. Did I decide to lie down? Did we all collectively decide to go to sleep at the same time?
Sleepovers generally don’t involve that much sleep.
And for Greyson to have gotten in here…
How the fuck did he find me?
I thrash against the handcuffs, trying to dislodge him, and he covers my mouth over the duct tape. It’s different, feeling the barrier between his palm and my skin.
His fingers brush my nose, and I twist my face away.
No use.
He pinches my nose shut.
My panic makes it worse. I thrash harder, the handcuffs—which are looped around something, although I have no idea what—clinking together.
Someone rolls over across the room.
Greyson leans down again. “Do you want to wake them up? I won’t stop. I’m going to fuck you either way.”
My chest burns. I desperately try to open my mouth, but it holds fast.
He releases my nose, and I suck in a noisy breath, gulping down oxygen. I’m so fixated on breathing, on easing the pain in my lungs, that I don’t notice his attention move down. He moves my panties aside and runs his finger up my slit.
I groan through the duct tape, then bite my tongue. Whether or not he’s serious about being undeterred if one of the girls wakes up, I don’t want to test it.
He lifts my leg and slams into me in one go.
I jolt and bite my tongue harder. Blood fills my mouth, the taste sharp. It’s all I can do to not let another noise escape me. Fuck if it doesn’t feel good. I hadn’t even realized he pulled his cock out of his pants, and now he’s thrusting into me with powerful strokes.
My cunt clenches around him.
Do I want this?
Do I hate him?
I twist and try to pull myself away. He’s got a grip on my hip and under my knee, but I manage to turn my upper body. I press my face into my arm and hold on to the chain between the cuffs. It’s looped around the leg of the couch.
He’s inside me, invading me, and everyone around me continues to sleep. Even as pleasure rolls through me. We’re skating a thin line between consent and something far worse. So I guess I have to decide—is what he’s doing okay? Am I okay with it? His hand slides down and cradles my calf. He runs his thumb over the surgery scar, again and again. In time with his thrusts.
Both quicken.
He hits a spot deep inside me, but it isn’t enough. He doesn’t go near my clit.
I let it happen.
I fucking let him do this to me, and a part of me is getting off on this knowledge. If I truly wanted him to stop, I could scream through the tape. I’m in a room full of sleeping girls. I’m staying quiet on purpose.
The rational part of my brain has shut off and checked out. She’s long gone. Yet I can’t just make it easy on him. I rip my leg out of his hold and kick him.
He falls backward with a sharp exhale, catching himself on his hands. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness—enough to see his slow smile.
I pull myself into a sitting position and glower at him.
He just shakes his head, then lunges for me.
It’s not soundless. The huff that comes out of me is loud in my ears, as is his grunt of pain when he collides with me. My knee digs into his gut, my elbow catches his throat.
He grips my jaw, turning my head back to meet him, and rips the duct tape off.
“Scream,” he orders in my ear. His voice is barely above a whisper. “Scream, Vi. If you’re not wet and horny from this, then fucking say stop . This is your chance.”
I eye him and lick my lips. I don’t say stop. I don’t speak at all.
He covers my mouth with the tape again. I’ve curled into a fetal position, but it doesn’t matter. He fucks me like that, looming above me. Chasing his release.
It isn’t enough for him. Not for me to agree.
So he leans down and cuts off my breath again.
Tears have flooded my eyes, and white spots flicker in my vision, before he releases me again. He repeats it. Over and over, until I’m a quivering mess beneath him.
Only then does he reach down and touch my clit.
It doesn’t take long.
How pathetic is that?
I’m strung so tight, he only has to touch me a few times for me to come apart.
He pounds into me as I come. I clench around him, my silent orgasm triggering his own. He grits his teeth and explodes inside me.
We both go still when someone yawns.
In the silence, I strain to hear their slow breaths as they fade back to sleep.
Greyson pulls out of me, and the noise is loud. Slick. His weight covers me. He stretches out on top of me, and he unlocks the handcuffs.
“Next time you don’t answer my text, I’m going to repeat this little game… but I might make sure someone else sees. I like this little game of you resisting, Vi.” He meets my gaze. Some of the ice has melted, but he’s still frigid.
I want to set him on fire.
“You and I have a meeting tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock.” He gives me a look. “With a publicist.”
I swallow.
“Remember your NDA. Remember what my father can do to you.” He analyzes my face.
Does my expression change? Do I show more fear when he mentions the senator? Because it’s true—no matter what Greyson does to me, there’s always a bigger threat.
Greyson hides behind his father’s name. He hides behind the money and the prestige, and even though he’s a psychopath… there are worse monsters.
Like his father.
His eyes narrow, but he doesn’t push it.
I don’t think he wants to know.
He shifts off me and pushes back up. His earlier threat registers, and a thrill goes through me. My mind is fucked if that makes me excited. If that is what I’m looking forward to.
So twisted.
I need my head checked.
I stay still until he’s gone, then slowly peel the tape off my mouth. I touch my lips. I count to one hundred in my head, then slowly rise. His cum is coated on my thighs, seeping out of me. My muscles ache when I stretch, and the room tilts.
Still buzzed.
And utterly confused.
Greyson is obsessed with me. It came out of nowhere—and I think my reaction to him has put my feelings into perspective, too. I’m not obsessed… but I am curious.
And turned on.
Shit .
Who knew I’d be this depraved? To enjoy when he fucks with my head, when he steals my breath, when he forces himself into me.
Jack was vanilla. Nice. He could make me come, which was a plus, but it wasn’t as earth-shattering as Greyson.
So now… I don’t know what to think.
Before, vanilla was good. I was content. There were only so many exciting things I could dedicate my time to, and ballet always won. Jack was the same, with football stealing a lot of his attention. He liked me cheering him on at the games, just as I liked it when he came to see the dance team.
Not that he ever came to a ballet…
Besides the point. Ballet was something he just didn’t get , like I didn’t understand why the clock had to stop every ten seconds in a football game.
Some things just aren’t worth explaining , Jack said on occasion.
I stretch and hunt down my sleep shorts that got tossed. I sneak into the bathroom, and when I come back, one of the girls is sitting up. She squints in the darkness.
“Violet?”
My heart thunders. “Yeah?”
“I thought I heard a noise…”
I swallow, my throat tightening. “I just had to pee. Sorry.”
She nods to herself and lies down. I do the same, pulling my forgotten blanket back over me. Amanda keeps her apartment warm, but I think I’ve caught a chill.
One thought keeps circulating in my head. If I’m becoming something new… where did the real Violet go?
