I’m fucking rattled, like an old A/C unit on its last leg.
We just arrived home. Zade is in the basement taking care of Xavier, and I’m desperately grasping onto my last shred of sanity. Restlessness gathers in my bones, and I feel like an animal confined within my own cage.
Heart pounding, I close my bedroom door behind me and then pace the floor, running my hands through my hair and pulling tight—a pathetic attempt to calm the anxiety.
Don’t worry, diamond, I’ll make this nice and slow for you. I want you to feel every inch of me.
No, I don’t want to.
Tears build in my eyes, and I shake my head, attempting to rid myself of that demonic fucking voice.
I must’ve forgotten to lock the damn door because minutes later, Zade bursts in and slams it shut, a wildfire raging in his eyes.
“We need to have a talk, Adeline. I’ve let you process for over four hours now. I need you to talk to me.”
Hysteria is consuming me, and what doesn’t he get? I don’t want to hear his fucking words, nor do I want to give him mine. There’s too many of those in my head, and I’m drowning in them.
Whirling away, I bolt for my balcony doors. I’ve no idea what I’m going to do once I get there—maybe just pitch myself over the rail and end it all—but his arm is curling around my waist and turning me right back around.
The second my feet touch the ground, I wiggle out of his hold and turn to face him.
“Stop it,” I snap. “Just leave me be, Zade.”
“How many times will you run away before you learn that you can’t escape me?” he growls, getting in my personal space before I can even take a breath.
I take a step back, retreating from his intensity. He doesn’t let me go, though, stepping back into me until I’m pressed against the wall.
“However many times it takes before you realize I don’t want to be caught,” I snarl, my own anger rising. I’m not even sure what I’m angry at, just mad that he’s mad.
Let me feel every inch of this sweet body, diamond. Fuck, you feel so good. Don’t I feel good too, baby?
“You’re drowning, Addie. Just let me help you.”
I narrow my eyes, my mouth thinning into a straight line. “I’ve been doing fine!” I argue heatedly, growing defensive purely because he’s right.
I am drowning. And the scariest part—I don’t feel the need to come up for air.
“You’re not fine. And you know what? Neither am I. I’m not fucking fine at all.”
His hand trembles as he brushes a strand of hair behind my ear.
The man who’s borne so much strength, a pillar of stone despite the ruthless attempts made to knock him down. But the thing is, stone still crumbles. It still breaks and chips and cracks. Even when it’s left standing, there will always be missing pieces.
Here he stands before me, crumbling as we speak.
“I dream of all the ways I will make them suffer,” he whispers. “I dream of their blood on my hands—between my teeth. I will kill every last one of them for you, little mouse, and I will fucking rejoice in it.”
I stare up at him, my lip trembling as I force myself to keep the emotions down. At first, I felt everything while trapped in that house. And then, I felt nothing.
And now, I’m left with a pile of broken pieces in my hands where my heart is supposed to be, and I don’t know how to mend it without cutting myself deeper.
‘I don’t need you, Zade. I don’t need you to do anything for me.’
He clutches the back of my neck and pulls me in. ‘See, that’s what we’re not going to do, Adeline,’ he barks, baring his teeth. ‘We’re not going to act like you’re so tough that you don’t need me anymore. Because you want to know something, baby? There are very few men in this world capable of killing me. And I fucking need you. Do you understand me?’
I grit my teeth, refusing to answer.
‘Do you think needing me somehow makes you weak?’
‘Doesn’t it?’ I snap.
‘No, baby, it makes you strong.” He bends down, putting his face directly into mine. ‘I may own every breath in your body, but make no mistake, Adeline, you own mine, too. I am yours to command. To bend and break. To mold and manipulate. Do you think that makes me weak? Or do you think I’m strong enough to admit that even though my body can physically live on without you, I would never get my fucking soul back?”
His hand slides into my hair and fists the strands tightly.
‘Without you, I will shatter. But with you, I am indestructible.’
I suck in a sharp breath and clench my jaw against the different reactions circulating inside me.
But the most prominent—the worst one—is to do everything in my power to get this man away from me.
My skin bristles beneath his electric touch. Those sparks that used to feel so divine now feel like spikes cutting through my flesh.
“Every single man that laid eyes on you while in that house will die slow fucking deaths. I’ve killed so many already… and it’s still not enough.”
He pulls me into him, and I tense as he wraps himself around me.
So many men have done the same. Sweat soaking my skin as they take my body, their skin sliding against my own. Sliding inside of me. Over me. Around me.
How can he feel like home, feel so safe, yet make me feel like I’m being buried alive?
His lips whisper across my cheekbone, and panic sparks. My breath falls shorter, and my lungs constrict as his other hand reaches up to touch me. I tremble as memories flash through my eyes. Faces, so many faces. Smiling at me as they take from me.
Whispering filthy words from their fucking rotten mouths.
Such a pretty girl.
You’re going to look so good with those lips wrapped around my cock.
Fuck, I could come from just touching you.
These tits are perfect, how much did you pay for these?
I can’t control myself. I need you now.
I can’t control myself.
I can’t control my…
“Let me go,” I whisper.
He stills, his mouth poised over my cheek.
“Stop… stop fucking touching me.”
I hear him swallow. “That’s like asking me to cut out my own fucking heart.”
“If I can live without one, so can you,” I snap.
He’s solid stone as he processes my words. And all I want to do is fucking break it. Make him crumble beneath my fists.
Slowly, he pulls away, his mismatched eyes catching hold of mine.
What does he see when he looks at me?
Does he see the anger churning beneath the surface? Like looking down into the mouth of a volcano to see what the insides look like. Red. So much fucking red.
That’s what the inside of every human looks like—but I’m no longer full of blood. Only fire.
“Do you think of them when I touch you?” he asks, his voice turning hard.
That fire rises, building in the pit of my stomach and ascending up my chest like lava.
Who gave him the right to touch me? Who gives anybody the fucking right to?
The trembling increases until my bones are rattling and my teeth chatter.
Fire.
I move without thinking, my hand wrapping around the gun tucked in the waistband of his jeans and yanking it out. The second he realizes what I’ve done, he backs away, raising his hands in surrender.
I point the gun right at his fucking head, and all I want to do is blow it off. All I want to see is his brain explode beneath the bullet.
Because I’m not looking into the face of the man I love.
I don’t see him at all.
All I see is a faceless man trying to take what he wants from me without my permission.
And I want him to fucking burn for it.
Tears build in my eyes, my vision blurring. The gun is vibrating from how hard my hand trembles, but he’s close enough that I’d strike true. Whether the bullet hits his head, his throat, or his chest, I don’t care.
“Little mouse,” he whispers. I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing the sweet whisper out of my head. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want it to mix with the other voices.
So many of them.
Fuck, you’re so tight. You sure you’ve been fucked before?
Shh, don’t cry diamond, it’ll only hurt for a second.
I can’t wait to hear you scream.
Let me see that blood, baby. Show me how hard I tear you apart with my cock.
“You’re no different, right?” I bite out, my voice cracking. “You’ve forced yourself on me before, remember? Taken from me—stolen from me. What makes you so different, huh?”
My eyes burn from the tears welling up. And within seconds, they spill, running down my cheeks.
“Do those memories keep you up at night?” he asks, his voice soft. “Do they torment you?”
He bares his teeth, his own ire flashing in his eyes. “Do you think about my touch as anything other than a fucking godsend?”
“I do now!” I shout, thrusting the gun at him. I suck in a sharp breath as a sob crawls up my throat.
He nods slowly, the anger dimming in his eyes. Deep down, I know better. I know he’s not angry with me.
He’s angry because he’s helpless.
Hopeless.
A goddamn lost cause.
Because I will never be the same. And he knows that.
But what he doesn’t know is what that means for him. For us.
The sob escapes, but the rage persists.
Slowly, he steps towards me like approaching a scared animal with vicious teeth. His eyes don’t stray from mine as he advances, and I’m so close to slipping back into that paralyzing hold he has on me. And then he’s right before me again, pressing his forehead into the barrel of the gun.
“Does this make you feel powerful?” he murmurs.
Another sob breaks free, but I don’t lower the weapon.
“Does this make you feel alive again?”
I scowl but can’t muster the courage to respond. I can’t articulate what it makes me feel—I just know that it makes me feel something.
“What you’ve forgotten is that the heart beating inside your chest isn’t fucking yours,” he snarls. “It’s mine. And if my heart has stopped working, then pull that trigger, little mouse. Kill the rest of me. I’m nothing if I’m not the reason you breathe.”
I break, and screw my eyes shut against the flood of tears, but it’s like putting a piece of paper over a bursting pipe.
My face contorts as pure agony consumes me.
“I don’t want to feel anymore,” I choke out, barely getting the words out before a gut-wrenching sob bursts past my lips.
“Let me—fuck Addie, just let me fucking hold you,” he bites, his voice breaking.
He tears the gun from my grip and tosses it on the bed, and then I’m being swooped up into his arms, weightless as he lifts me up against his solid chest.
I open my mouth, and I scream. I scream and scream until my voice cracks beneath the pressure. Until I fear my throat will shred from the force.
I want to crawl outside of my body so desperately. Just so I can escape this feeling.
No. What I want is that gun back in my hand so I can turn it on myself.
One last shout rips out of my throat, this one so full of pain that it brings Zade to his knees.
And finally, the pillar crumbles.
The raw sound tapers off, fading into a hoarse, staccato cry.
I suck in a deep breath, filling my lungs with oxygen that I don’t want, but I’m too lost in my grief to scream like I want to.
Zade’s hold tightens painfully, trembles racking his body as he clings to me. He stuffs his face in my neck and he just… listens.
Listens to his heart breaking inside my chest.
The voices in my head amplify, and I’m clawing at my skull, desperate to get them out. But his hands stop me, grabbing onto them and trapping them between our chests.
“They are not here anymore,” he whispers unevenly. “Listen to my voice instead, baby.”
I shake my head, but he keeps talking anyway. He tells me about the first time he saw me and how unsure of myself I seemed in a room full of people. He says I looked like I was trapped in a glass box, and everyone else on the outside was observing me like a zoo animal. Then, he talks about the first time I confronted him. How I ran out of my door screaming like a banshee, fire in my eyes and spewing venom from my tongue. He recalls how utterly stunned he was by my courage, and how deeply he fell in that single moment.
“I’ve seen the woman who could hardly stand to be in her own skin, and the woman comfortable in a gothic mansion, at home with herself and the ghosts that haunt her. I loved both versions of you, and I love who you are now—someone full of both strength and vulnerability. Yet still, you carry fire in your heart, and that will never fucking change. They will never take that from you, Adeline.”
His words only make me cry harder, but just as he promised, it slowly chases away the voices.
An indescribable amount of time passes before I finally calm down enough to string together a sentence.
“Sometimes, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to fully tolerate your touch,” I confess in a broken whisper.
“Are you okay with that?” he counters. “Is that how you want to live your life? Fearing the touch of a man—of me.”
Do I? Part of me wants to retreat in on myself and not let another man lay his hands on me for the rest of my life. I don’t want to see the images flash through my mind every time I feel skin slide against mine.
But then there’s another part of me that rages and lashes against that notion. The same part that allowed me to use his hand and that knife handle as a release. I don’t want those men to take more from me than they already have.
Because if I do, they’ll never stop. I’ll continue to hand over every piece of myself until there’s nothing left but a chalk outline.
“I don’t know how to… be okay with it.”
“Not even with your own hand?” he rasps. He pulls away, gently setting me on the floor.
“You took back the power with that knife. Now you can take it back when it comes to physical touch. Let me show you.”
My brows furrow as I stare up at him through puffy eyes with confusion.
His glistening stare picks apart my face, and I don’t need a mirror to know that my skin is flushed red and dried tears mar my cheeks.
Reaching over me, he grabs a rose on the nightstand, twirling the stem in his fingers. The thorns slice through his skin and tiny pinpricks of blood sprout.
“You didn’t clip the thorns,” I whisper.
“I’ve been protecting you from getting hurt, but sometimes embracing the pain is the only way to overcome it. Take off your dress,” he orders quietly. I blink and open my mouth, but he cuts me off, “Just trust me, Adeline. I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to.”
I only stare at him, my heart picking up speed as his spoken expectations linger between us.
Swallowing thickly, I reach behind me and blindly unzip my dress, letting the top half drop down my arms. Quickly, I shuffle the material down my body before I can think about what I’m doing. What he’s making me do.
“Good girl,” he breathes. “Your bra, too, Addie. Take it all off.”
I shake my head, the remnants of their voices starting to rise again.
“Don’t think right now. Just do as I say.”
Biting my lip, I snap my strapless bra off and throw that to the side.
“Good girl,” he praises. His eyes stay firmly locked on mine. I wait for them to drop, but they resist.
Such a pretty diamond, look at—
“Don’t think, Adeline.”
I pinch my eyes shut, shaking the thoughts from my head.
My chest is too tight, and panic is starting to set in again.
“Zade—”
“Shh,” he hushes. He sits on the ground, leaning against the bed frame and spreading his legs. My muscles tighten until I’m vibrating with the need to get away.
“Sit here,” he says firmly, patting the ground between his legs.
Hesitating, it takes a few seconds to gain the courage to listen and crawl toward him. I look anywhere but at his face. If I see him, I might back out.
“Turn away from me.”
There’s no stopping the look of relief before I twist around and settle between his thick thighs.
I’m still strung tight, but I can breathe a little easier this way.
“I’m going to lean you back into me,” he warns. Biting my lip, I nod my head, allowing his hand to come around my body and press on my chest, guiding me to lean back.
It feels like trying to bend a metal spoon. It takes effort, but eventually, I rest against his chest. His heat soaks into my skin, like the sun shining on your face on the first warm day of spring after a long, cold winter.
“That’s it, baby. Relax.”
It takes several swallows before the lump forming in my throat dissipates.
“Breathe,” he whispers.
I do. I try to, at least.
The oxygen stutters out of me like an old engine. With every intake, it feels like I’m breathing in chemicals. Everything burns. Everything is too tight.
“Take this,” he directs, holding the rose in his bandaged hand. Tiny trails of blood slide down his wrist, and something about that is calming, just like when he cut his hand open on the knife to bring me pleasure.
Watching someone else bleed doesn’t make me feel quite so alone.
I take the rose, a thorn immediately pricking my skin, but I hardly feel it. Not with all of my attention on the heat of his body pressing into my back.
“Can I touch your thighs, baby?” he asks, his tone hushed and deep. Another nod of my head, and his large hands are slowly spreading my thighs. All of my focus zeroes in on the movement, and the terror is becoming too much. Tingles blossom in the tips of my fingers, and I know pretty soon, they’ll travel up my limbs until I can no longer feel them.
“Relax,” he soothes. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to think about it really hard, okay?”
Sucking in a deep breath, I hold it for a few seconds before releasing it. And then I nod, working to calm myself.
“What makes you feel powerful, Addie? Was it holding that gun in your hand? Holding it to my head and knowing that you could take my life?”
Tears rise, followed by a touch of guilt.
“I’m so—”
“I don’t want your apologies or guilt, Adeline. I want you to tell me the truth. What did holding a gun to my head make you feel?”
Tightening my lips, I quiet the shame and look past that. What did it make me feel?
It made me feel… in control. I was holding someone else’s life in my hands, and it was my decision and only mine if I pulled that trigger. I held something precious. Something irreversible. And it was all… mine.
“It made me feel powerful,” I admit.
“And what does power feel like?” he asks, his voice deepening as one of his hands trail up to my neck, avoiding my breasts. His touch is sensual but… safe.
“Let me feel you here.”
His hand slowly slides up the column of my throat, giving me time to reject him. When I say nothing, he clutches the underside of my jaw, forcing my chin up as he pulls my head back against his chest. My gaze locks on the white ceiling as anxiety crawls through my body.
“Focus, Adeline. What does power feel like?”
I release another shaky breath and speak before I can think too deeply about it. “It makes me feel good.”
“Good,” he murmurs. “I want you to think about that feeling. In your mind, hold that gun to whoever you wish. To me. To any of the men that hurt you. Whatever makes you feel good.”
I close my eyes, and the first person that comes to mind is Xavier. He’s kneeling before me, begging for his life. I can still feel the heavy metal in my hand, but unlike just minutes before, my hand is perfectly still. No violent tremors rack my body as I hold Xavier’s life in my hands.
I press the gun to his head, relishing in the pleas spilling from his lips. And I pull that fucking trigger.
“Now feel between your legs,” Zade whispers, sensing how my breath has escalated for an entirely different reason.
Slowly, my hand reaches down, swiping between my legs. Moisture gathers on my fingers, and I’m surprised enough by the revelation that I completely forget about everything else. For just a moment, I bask in the fact that I’m aroused.
My breath falters, and shame filters in, but Zade senses that, too. With my throat still seized in his hand, he turns his head until his lips brush against the shell of my ear.
Warm breath skates across the side of my face as he whispers roughly, “Do you know how hard my cock gets when I think about all the ways I’m going to slowly torture the men that hurt you?”
I open my mouth, but no sound escapes. They evaporate on my tongue when Zade rolls his hips into my back, the evidence of his words digging into my lower spine.
It should repulse me. But it doesn’t. And I clutch ahold of that feeling while it’s there. I don’t care if it’s fucked up, it feels so much better than the constant agony.
I close my mouth and nod, acquiescing to the thoughts as the shame recedes.
“I’m going to touch your hand now,” he whispers.
He keeps my throat in his grip while his free hand reaches up and wraps around mine, the rose still clenched in my fist. He squeezes tight, forcing the sharp thorns to spear my hand.
I inhale sharply, hissing between my teeth before gritting them against the pain. And then he guides our hands down until the soft petals brush against my pussy.
My eyes shutter as he glides the petals up and down, coating the rose in my arousal. I feel the blood rising to my cheeks as he lifts it again and presents the dripping flower to me.
“Zade…”
Blood trails down my arm as he releases my throat to grab my other hand and bring it to the rose, guiding my fingers across the petals.
“Do you feel how soft and wet these petals are?” he whispers. Licking my lips, I nod my head slowly. “This is what I feel every time I’m inside you.”
Fuck, you feel like hea—
“Hold on to that feeling of power, baby. Don’t let go of it.”
I’ve tensed up again; my muscles strung tight. Shuddering, I shove out the intrusive voice and replace it with the image of pointing a gun to their head. Steady, and calmly as I pull the trigger.
I relax as he pushes my middle and ring fingers into the center of the rose, just like he would if it were my pussy.
The pain needling throughout my hand fades as a deep-seated pleasure takes hold. For the first time in so long, I feel sensuality and eroticism as I continue to push my fingers in and out of the rose, Zade’s own fingers held over mine.
I feel the pressure building in my core, desperate for some type of release. Different faces flash through my mind like a movie reel, all of them meeting the same demise. The pressure between my legs grows and grows until I’m sure just one touch of my fingers would send me over the edge.
“Zade,” I plead, though I don’t know what I’m asking for.
“Tell me what you need,” he says, continuing our movements with the rose.
“I… Touch me.”
“Don’t stop feeling this rose,” he orders softly. I nod, my stomach clenching when he reaches between my legs.
The softest brush of his fingers nearly makes my eyes cross. I plunge in and out of the rose as his middle finger presses into my clit and starts circling the swollen bud.
My back arches and I can’t stop the high-pitched moan that escapes as raw bliss rolls through me.
I force myself to feel Zade—to feel that a man is touching me. Making me feel good. And that I’m enjoying every second of it. And then I push those other men from my mind and think only of the one wrapped around me.
I don’t want to come with the images of the depraved monsters that stole from me, even if I’m blowing their heads off. I only want to see the man that’s given me everything. A beast who has bent my will to succumb to him yet has shown me the true meaning of love and devotion.
“Zade,” I mewl as the orgasm crests. I hear him hiss through his teeth as he circles my clit faster. He still has his other hand wrapped around mine, the stem clenched in my grip. He flexes his fist, forcing the sharp thorns deeper into my flesh. The pain swirls with the heady pleasure and a hoarse shout rings out.
Rivulets of blood continue to trail down my arm, dripping off my elbow and onto my stomach. I look down, watching the streams of red aim towards where Zade touches me.
My mouth parts, the euphoria spiking as I watch him. His hand is fucking massive, with long fingers, thick veins laced throughout, seeming to pulse as he rubs my clit.
It’s so erotic that I can’t hold on any longer. I cry out as I finally let go, the orgasm crashing into me so hard that I nearly come off the floor from the power of it.
Zade growls, cupping my pussy as I ride the waves, my hips rolling against his hand while his name fills the air around us.
I feel him tensing beneath me, but I’m too lost to care. I’m too desperate for this feeling to never end.
We both drop the rose simultaneously, and I don’t stop to consider what I’m doing when I reach back, grab ahold of Zade’s face with both hands, and guide his lips down onto mine.
A deep rumble vibrates through his chest, and he once more seizes the underside of my jaw, granting us both a better angle as he devours me.
His tongue lashes against my own, tasting me until my lips are bruised and raw, and the orgasm has long since faded.
Yet the bliss remains. For the first time in months, those wicked men didn’t plague my thoughts. I didn’t hear their voices. Their laughter, and their cruel jokes.
And my body feels so much lighter because of it.
Finally, he pulls away, and all I can do is stare up at him in wonder—the person responsible for chasing away the monsters in my head.
They’ll come back, but Zade isn’t going anywhere either.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He closes his eyes and brushes his lips against mine softly.
“You’ll always be safe with me, little mouse. Always.”
Feeling invigorated, I twist in his arms and tear at his blazer, the buttons flying as his heated eyes lift to meet mine, his tongue slowly swiping across his bottom lip. Red is smeared across his cheek from my bloody hand, and the sight has my eyes nearly rolling.
He looks so goddamn savage, and I think my ovaries are exploding. He’s going to get me pregnant just from this image alone.
“You sure you want to go there?” he asks, his voice dripping with sin.
“It’s what I want,” I say softly, albeit shakily.
He lifts up and the material slides down his arms. Then, I gather his button-up shirt until his abs are exposed, along with the dark tattoos inked into his flesh. Flattening my hands on his hard stomach, blood smearing across his skin, I push it farther up, but he stops me.
“Don’t push yourself too hard. This wasn’t about me.”
When he goes to lean forward, I plant my hand on his chest and push him back firmly. His mismatched eyes round at the edges in surprise.
“Let me try, Zade. I’m not going to fuck you yet. I just want to touch you.”
