The first week after I was taken was hard. Most nights I had night terrors, the memories of what Angelo and his cousins had done to me too much for my subconscious to battle. And every night Rayne would hold me through it, whispering sweet words to calm my racing heart.
He didn’t go to work, didn’t so much as step foot out of the penthouse to pick up the newspaper, instead he favored following me around the apartment to make sure I was okay. Which after the first week I was, not that he believed me.
When he told me he didn’t think he could let me out of his sight, I didn’t think he meant it so literally, and yet I still wasn’t allowed to pee with the door all the way closed. But I humored him. He almost lost me, and for a man who fears nothing, it means everything that losing me is the only thing that keeps him up at night.
After two weeks though his constant hovering started getting on my nerves, and I’m not embarrassed to admit that I started acting out to see how far his tolerance would last before he snapped.
And that brings me to hiding in the wardrobe for a few minutes of peace. I’ve been camped out in here for the last twenty minutes after I made a quick escape while Rayne took a work call. It’s stupid, but for someone who has always been so independent, having zero autonomy over what I do or where I go has been a hard pill to swallow.
Of course, I have no interest in leaving the apartment. I haven’t been back to the Center since I was taken, and Dad knows a very short, very censored version of what happened to me. The kids know they can call me, and they do. Despite wanting to remain in the safety of the penthouse, I still need some space. Wynter, Snow, and Storm all moved back to their own homes with additional security until we’re sure the threat has passed. The moment Tommy told Storm and Rayne they were each getting an additional two guards at all times was a conversation I will cherish for the rest of my life. The two strongest, manliest men I had ever met were beyond offended when they found out, but Tommy, who was helping Rayne while he was off work, was having no arguments.
“Emerson,” Rayne calls from somewhere in the apartment.
I bite my lip to stop myself from letting him know where I am. I’m walking a fine line of both wanting to be with him during every moment of the day and wanting to wring his neck every time he fusses over me like I’m a wounded animal. The cuts on my legs have almost healed. Doc left a piece of tape on each leg to protect the new scar, but they’re far from open wounds. The cut on my stomach is a little deeper and is taking a bit longer to close over, but it’s almost there and Doc is happy with the progress. There’s no reason I can’t walk myself from the office to the lounge, except for Rayne being a fucking control freak.
“Emerson, where are you?” The worry etched into his voice has guilt eating at me immediately. I shouldn’t be doing this. I should have stayed where he left me and put up with him being overbearing.
“In the wardrobe,” I reply, quickly rummaging through a drawer to give myself something to do.
Rayne storms in just as I’m tugging a sweater over my head. I’m not really cold, but at least I’ll have a reason for being in here. “Why didn’t you respond the first time I called? I was worried,” he snaps.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.” I let the lie slip from my tongue.
He glares at me. “I could have got you a sweater if you were cold. You know I don’t like you walking around on your own at the moment.”
I roll my eyes. “Doc said I was fine to walk anywhere I wanted, seeing as the cuts on my legs are superficial. There’s no reason I can’t walk around the apartment on my own.”
“Did you just roll your eyes at me, Emerson?” he growls.
I bite my lip to hold the smile back and shrug. “So what if I did?” It’s not the first time I’ve picked a fight with him, but it is the first time he’s sounded the least bit frustrated with me.
He makes a low noise in his chest as he stalks toward me. The fire in his eyes has me pressing my legs together. Did I mention he hasn’t touched me once in two weeks? That’s the other frustrating thing. No matter how much skimpy lingerie I put on, no matter how much I back into him while I’m ‘asleep’, he won’t touch me. Not in any way that matters at least. “Sweet girl, are you trying to bait me?”
I smirk. “Maybe.”
“Am I not giving you everything you need, Emerson?” He spins me and carefully presses me into the drawers, his body holding me in place. “Does my sweet girl need some more attention?”
I nod, breathless from the feel of his hardness pressed into my ass.
“I wanted to give you time to heal. I wanted to make sure you were okay before I touched you,” he whispers in my ear, his breath brushing across my cheek and eliciting a soft moan from my throat. “I’ve been dreaming about your sweet pussy, Emerson.”
“I’m fine, Rayne. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.” I move to face him so he can see I’m telling the truth, but he keeps me in place.
“Don’t move, sweet girl.” He bites into my neck roughly and I hiss from the mingled pleasure and pain. “I don’t mean your injuries. I mean the emotional toll of what they did to you. I didn’t want to touch you and you see them.”
“I only ever see you,” I whisper, tears pooling in my eyes.
“But if I touch you the wrong way, it could trigger a memory. I don’t want that. I don’t want to remind you of what they did.”
“I want you,” I murmur.
Rayne huffs out a sigh of relief before scooping me into his arms. “Thank god. I’m not going to be able to take it slow today.”
“Good.”
Rayne deposits me in the middle of the bed, making quick work of removing the tights covering my legs. His fingers are gentle as they pull the fabric away from the cuts, careful not to tug at the tape. A moment later, my shirt and sweater are over my head and I’m laying bare. The best thing about not leaving the house is not having to wear a bra, and I’ve been exercising that perk as often as possible.
For a moment my heart stops when Rayne’s eyes trail over the scars left by his enemies, worried he sees me as tainted despite the sweet words he speaks. His gaze catches mine and my worry must be evident because before I can blink, he’s leaning over me, his face so close to mine his breath brushes across my cheeks each time he exhales. “You are beautiful, Emerson. No amount of scars is going to change that for me, do you understand?”
I nod. “Yes, I understand.”
His eyes sweep over my cuts one more time as he makes quick work of removing his own clothes before he starts positioning my body. He carefully pushes my knees up until my feet are planted on the bed, shoving a pillow under my hips to keep me in position. “You are not to move. I don’t want to hurt you and this is the only way I can think that I won’t press on your cuts, okay?” He climbs onto the bed, settling himself between my legs. The mutual sigh we let out when his cock slides across my bare pussy almost makes me chuckle, but the need burning through my body makes it impossible to think of anything other than Rayne, other than his fingers trailing down my cheek and across my lips as if memorizing the path.
“I won’t move,” I whisper, not trusting my voice not to crack.
“Good girl.” Rayne smiles from above me. Slowly, too fucking slowly, he uses his free hand to guide his cock up and down my soaking slit, using my own wetness to lubricate himself. “I’ll go slower next time, sweet girl. But right now I need to be inside you.”
“I need you.” The words tumble from my lips but I don’t think either of us realizes how true they are. In a matter of weeks, I went from being fiercely independent to needing a man to keep me safe, and that should bother me, but love gives me the one thing I never knew I wanted or needed. Freedom.
Rayne groans long and loud as he presses into me. The fullness of him splitting me open borders on painful, but the look of rapture in his eyes as they hold mine makes it worth it. The feeling is intoxicating as he snaps his hips forward in short thrusts, each time giving me a little more than the last until he’s buried inside me. “Sweet girl,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the inside of my knee.
I want him closer. I want him to consume me, but he won’t risk hurting me. I reach for him, gliding my nails across his shoulders and down his chest, relishing in the feel of his rippling muscles until I reach the place where we’re joined.
His eyes snap to my hand as I guide my fingers around the base of his cock, feeling the way it throbs as he thrusts in and out of my tight heat. “Touch yourself,” he demands, and I don’t hesitate to obey him.
My fingers draw soft circles against my clit in time with Rayne’s measured thrusts. He’s watching every single move I make, all my reactions, there’s no hiding from him, and I wouldn’t even if I could. I want to bare myself to him. I want him to see every single fractured piece of me, and I want him to glue the jagged pieces back together into the perfect image of myself he sees when he looks at me.
“I’m not going to last, sweet girl. Your cunt is gripping me so fucking perfectly,” he grunts as his movements become less rhythmic. “Make yourself come, Emerson. I want to feel you come around me.”
I increase the pressure on my clit, the pleasure coursing through my body makes it hard to concentrate on my own movements, but the way Rayne is staring down at me tells me I need to hurry up before he takes matters into his own hands. “Rayne,” I whisper, the peak so close I can almost taste it, one breath away from the pleasure that will destroy me before putting me back together again.
“That’s it, sweet girl,” Rayne coaxes.
My breath catches in my throat as I tumble over the edge and ecstasy rolls over me like the ocean on a warm summer’s day. The ebbs and flows of my orgasm take the air right out of my lungs as I watch Rayne fall apart above me.
The roar he lets out doesn’t sound human, his body rutting into me with wild abandon as he chases his own high. His cock throbs inside me, drawing out my own release for so long I almost can’t take it anymore. And yet when he finally stops moving and my fingers fall away from my throbbing clit, it seems like too soon.
Rayne pulls out of me and I immediately feel his cum drip from me. The feeling once seemed so foreign, but now I love it. It reminds me I’m his as much as he is mine. “So pretty when you leak with my cum, sweet girl,” he murmurs, his eyes fixed on my thoroughly fucked pussy. “Was I too rough? Are you sore?” Worry etches into his brow.
I shake my head, a smile tugging at my lips. “No, I’m not sore. You were just rough enough.”
Rayne smirks. “The moment you’re healed I’m going to fuck you on every surface in this penthouse, in every fucking position I can think of until you’re filled with so much of my cum that no one will ever dare take you away from me again.”
If someone said those words to me a month ago, I would have laughed in their face, but coming from Rayne it’s a declaration of love, and of fear of losing me like he almost had.
“Marry me,” I whisper.
Rayne smiles, crawling back over me so our eyes are level. “I already proposed, sweet girl. Or did I fuck you so good you forgot about the ring on your finger?”
I giggle. “No, I mean I want to get married soon, like on the weekend. I don’t want to wait anymore. I want to be your wife.”
Rayne’s grin is so pure I almost can’t contemplate how this man has murdered so many people, and yet still look at me like I hung the moon. “Fuck yes.” He pushes himself back and starts riffling around in the pile of clothes he had discarded hastily.
“What are you doing?” I laugh, turning onto my side and propping myself up on an elbow to watch him. I’ll never get sick of watching him. Not today, not tomorrow, and not any day between here and the day I die.
“Getting a group chat started, we’re going to need Wynter and Snow to pull this off.”
I fall back into the bed with a grin so big it hurts my cheeks. But I don’t care. Because in a matter of weeks I went from having nothing to having everything I never dared to dream of. And if that’s not worth smiling about, I don’t know what is.
