I pulled my hand away like I’d been burned and stood.
“Put your forehead on the floor and raise your hips.” My voice held a different tone, quieter, darker. My cock throbbed to life, hard and ready and wanting.
Wanting her.
She turned her head, just glancing behind her but not quite able to hold my gaze.
“Do it.”
I didn’t know what I would do. I could anticipate what she expected, why her face had twisted, and why she remained silent as she slowly leaned forward, her bound hands sliding along the floor, creating a cushion for her forehead as she did as she was told.
I waited, taking her in, slight and frightened and so fucking erotic. I wanted her. I wanted her surrender, her submission, but more than that. I wanted her in a way that was different. Not like the others. Not like the women before—in my former life.
She raised her hips slowly, and I sucked in a breath.
I’d seen her naked. I’d cleaned her. I’d touched her. I’d tasted her. But this, this presenting of herself to me, even if it was under duress, it felt different. And some part of me, it longed for her. Longed to have her. Possess her. Break her and own her.
It longed for this surrender, for her submission, to be real.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that, her quiet and obedient, me in some trance, under this strange spell, watching like this was the first woman I’d seen like this. Wanting like I’d never wanted before. Feeling something almost pure wash over me, at least momentarily, before she sniffled, and I knew she was crying. Quietly crying. Afraid.
No.
Terrified.
Overpowered.
Breaking.
I took a step back, seeing as if for the first time this filthy floor in this filthy room. This terrible place where I would break her, break this beautiful, perfect creature and make her less. I would take everything away from her. That was what I did. What I had done to so many others.
I stumbled backward some more, misstepped, and caught myself.
Pure. I’d felt something pure washing over me. What a joke. What a sick, fucking joke.
I turned on my heel and walked out the door, slamming it shut behind me, locking it, locking her in. I grabbed my jacket and keys and stalked out of the cabin, breaking my own rule and leaving her behind. I climbed into my truck and drove through the narrow passage in the woods and out onto the open road. I didn’t stop at the nearest town like I would have in the past. I didn’t want a woman. And I didn’t want whiskey. I just wanted to be out of my head. Out of my skin. I wanted to be someone else. Anyone else. Because the lowest scum of the earth had to be better than the filth that was me. Than the aberration that was me. This hateful monster who hurt, who broke, who took beauty that did not belong to him and destroyed it.
She was right. Salvatore had been right.
I was a monster.
I was the worst kind of monster.6GiaHe’d left the blanket behind. After washing my face and hands, I grabbed it and wrapped it over my shoulders, not caring how dirty it was, not caring about the stains or the smell. I just held it to me and climbed onto the bed and lay on my side, shivering, knees pulled in to my chest, clutching this foul blanket to me. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make the tears stop. I wept like I had when I’d watched Mateo die. How could there be tears left inside me? How could more come, how could I not be dead of dehydration after all this fucking crying?
They’d shot him in the back of the head after they’d cut out his tongue. They’d made me watch it all. Watch him as he set his face before the block—a fucking tree stump stained with the dried blood of how many others? I’d watched as he had laid his tongue on the stump, his eyes wide, trying hard not to show his fear. Failing. I’d seen Victor’s nod in my periphery, giving the order. Watched the ax come down and blood pour and Mateo fall over, a garbled scream coming from him. From my brother. My vital, loving, crazy brother whom I loved so, so fucking much.
He’d done it to save me. To spare me. He’d made Victor promise. He’d made the deal. He’d offered his tongue in exchange for my life.
And then, after, was it a mercy then that they’d hauled him up to his knees and pressed his head back onto the block until he held it there, chin cushioned in his own dismembered tongue, in the pool of his own blood seeping into the stump of the tree. He’d looked at me once more before closing his eyes. That was the moment he’d given up hope. I knew it. I saw it. Victor pushed the barrel of the gun to the back of his head then. This time, the scream was mine.