“Come here,” he says more quietly, but with no less threat.
I stand in front of him, naked and determined not to show fear. A callus has formed over my dignity and my self-respect. I barely feel them anymore. They’re casualties of my survival and of my eventual escape.
“Make me believe you want me, Iris. Ride me.”
My eyes fly to his, stunned and stupefied. I can’t. I don’t even remember what it feels like to want Caleb.
“I … well, I—”
“Kiss me,” he says softly, almost persuasively. Like he cares, but I’ve played this game enough to know his gentleness is always a trick card.
I gulp down my disgust and lean tentatively to place my mouth over his. I nearly gag when his tongue sweeps against mine, rough and thorough like he’s scrubbing the taste of August from my mouth. It’s a nasty mimicry of the perfect passion I felt not even an hour ago. His hand snakes out to clamp around my throat, barely squeezing, but exerting enough pressure to remind me he could snap my windpipe if he pleased.
“I said ride me.”
Every command is more confusing than the last. He pulls me by the throat to his lap, spreading my thighs over his. He doesn’t wait for me to position myself but snatches me up and slams me down onto his dick. The air whooshes out of me when he spears up into my tightness. He grips my hip painfully, coaxing me into a rhythm I can’t find. He pulls me flush to his body, crushing my breasts to his chest and shoving the pistol into my side.
“You’re still wet. You came for him, didn’t you?” he snarls. “When was the last time you were this wet for me?”
; Fear ripples over my body. This could be the night he kills me. He reaches for my throat, fingers tightening until there’s no air.
I grasp desperately for the manacle at my neck. Black spots speckle my vision, and cotton fills my head. Just when I think I’ll pass out, he releases my throat.
“Did he touch you here?” Fury strains his voice to the point of snapping. “In your pussy, Iris? My pussy?”
“Stop.” I choke on the word and the nausea filling my throat the longer he fills me. “Please stop.”
“I’ll stop.” He lifts me off his lap and shoves me onto the bed behind him. “You asked for it.”
Relief floods me, my body releasing the fear that held my muscles tight. All I want is a shower. I’m sure there will be repercussions when I least expect it, but maybe not tonight.
No sooner has the thought formed than Caleb rises over me and flips me onto my stomach. A prickle of foreboding tickles my consciousness. “Caleb, what are you—”
“You think I’ll follow behind West?” he growls.
“You aren’t,” I say, desperate and struggling to loosen his hold. “We didn’t, Caleb.”
“So I’m a fool now?” A laugh, void of humor, whips the air. “I’ll just go somewhere he hasn’t been.”
I can’t submit to this. I squirm loose and spring off the bed, sprinting toward the bathroom, but I’m no match for Caleb’s long arms and legs, for the lightning speed of his well-conditioned athlete’s body. He’s at the door ahead of me, blocking my way, laughing in my face. I turn to flee in the other direction.
His arm snakes around my waist and he lifts me from the floor, tossing me back onto the bed. His hold feels bionic when he jerks me to all fours, and I buck my back into his chest, trying to dislodge him. My arms flail wildly. I claw at his thigh and feel his skin curl under my fingernails. I slap any part of him I can reach, until the cold steel of that pistol at the base of my skull petrifies my fight.
“How dare you let him touch what’s mine?” he growls behind me, jerking my hair painfully.
Tears crawl from my eyes and over my cheeks. His large hand slams between my shoulder blades and he grasps my hip, lining himself up with my ass.
“Please don’t,” I beg unashamedly, fisting the sheet. “God, Caleb, don’t do this.”
It’s not like in the movies where the woman wrestles for minutes, and you keep thinking there’s a chance she’ll get away, undefiled. That someone intervenes just in time to save her.
No, it’s not like that for me.
With one brutal thrust, Caleb invades a place no one has ever been. He’s hinted at it, threatened it, but never taken me this way.
There’s no lubrication. No preparation. No warning.