* * *
My eyes fly open, and I see Arlo standing over my bed. Matteo’s arms wrap around me tighter as he lazily opens his eyes.
“Well, don’t you two look cozy? I didn’t mean to intrude,” Arlo says.
“I bet you didn’t,” I snarl at him.
Arlo raises an eyebrow at me, not expecting my snarkiness. But he hasn’t seen anything yet.
Matteo doesn’t seem the least bit concerned to have his brother standing in his bedroom while he was sleeping with me.
“Relax, brother. I’ve just been taking care of Nina here since you couldn’t deal with the sight of her so broken. Don’t worry; she still cares about you,” Matteo says, casually leaning back on the bed with his arms behind his head.
I give Matteo a dirty look that shows him just how insane I think what he just said is.
“I don’t care about Arlo.” I turn my attention back to Arlo. “I don’t care about you. The tiniest feelings that I had for you before vanished when you raped me.”
Arlo closes his eyes when I say raped me. If I didn’t know him so well, I would just say that he was blinking. It happened so fast. But me saying that he raped me stung him. I don’t understand why, but it did.
I want to talk to him about what happened. Because, clearly, I’m missing something, just like I’m missing everything else.
“You don’t care about Arlo?” Matteo says with a raised eyebrow.
“No.”
Matteo nods. “You’re feeling better, aren’t you, beautiful? Much stronger?”
I nod, not sure where he is going with this.
“Good. Then, I think it’s time you show Arlo here that your feelings have shifted.”
I cock my head to the side as I look at Matteo.
“I’ll give you a choice. Suck me, or suck Arlo.”
I freeze. I knew that, eventually, Matteo would want something sexual from me. He is a man after all and a man who supposedly owns me for the next seven years. But I didn’t think he would be so crass about it. I thought that, someday, we would have sex, but it would be on my terms. Not his.
“No.”
Matteo smiles. “It wasn’t a yes or no question. It was a choice. Just like every other time. Suck me, or suck Arlo.”
“No,” I say again. I will not suck either of these men. Not until I’m ready.
“Choose, beautiful. Arlo needs to see that you don’t care about him anymore. He needs to see that I’m the one you think about when you sleep. He needs to see that you’ve only been here a few weeks, and he’s already lost.”
I turn from Matteo to Arlo and then back. “No. You won’t force me. You won’t hurt me. I won’t do it.”
Matteo nods. “I would never hurt you, beautiful.” He strokes my cheek. “You know that. But Arlo won’t show you the same courtesy. You need to choose. Suck me or him.”
I look back to Arlo, and I see the hardness that was there when he raped me creeping back into his eyes. I don’t have any doubt that he will do it all over again in a second if I don’t obey his brother’s command.
I grab Matteo’s hair and forcefully kiss him, passionately putting everything I can into the kiss. I suck on his tongue. His lips. Everything, letting him know exactly how I want him to think I feel about him.
And then I break away from him. I see his cocky smirk slowly vanish as I get out of the bed. My legs are a little shaky since I’ve barely used them this week. But I stand and walk over to where Arlo is standing at the foot of the bed.
It takes all of my strength to take each step, both physically and mentally, because I want to walk almost anywhere but toward Arlo. But I won’t let him or anyone else break me again.
I stumble on the last step, and Arlo grabs me, keeping me from falling face-first into the ground. I don’t know why he does it. He likes seeing me in pain while on the ground, whimpering in front of him. Maybe it’s the small piece of him that still cares. The small piece that is like his brother.