He was inside me.
This stranger.
“Are you doing it? Imagining him?” he asked tenderly, not moving, but throbbing as my body clenched around him, unsure if I should feel good or bad, angry or sad. “Imagining the man who holds your heart?”
My vision flashed.
A memory of Breaker in the car with me.
Arguing.
And then the heated look across the room that I knew I would never get used to as he watched me dance.
I instantly relaxed. “Yes. Yes, I’m imagining him.”
“Good.” He slowly started to move. “You’re giving this to him, not me, the one who owns your soul, he gets this, not this monster, do you understand?”
“Yes.” Hot tears slid down my cheeks as his hips moved in a slow cadence that replaced the pain with enough pleasure that I was helpless to do anything except lay there and wonder how my night had gone from a boring party to a complete stranger taking my virginity, and Breaker Campisi’s name in my head and on my lips.
I would hate him forever for not stopping this.
Just as much as I would love him for being my imaginary hero during this nightmare.
“Damn it,” Valerian groaned. “You’re so tight.”
My body exploded with pleasure on his next thrust, and then he was quickly pulling away.
The rustle of clothes was like a bucket of ice water getting thrown over my still naked bottom half.
Another knock sounded.
“Shit.” A rip sounded, and then he was cleaning me up as much as he could, and gently pulling my dress down, sliding my underwear back up, and then lifting me into his arms.
Twenty seconds later, the door burst open.
I kept my head high even though I knew they were making jokes about the sheets, about my virginity, about the price I paid.
And then I was getting handed off to someone else.
“Are you okay?” Andrei’s low voice whispered in my ear.
“Yes.” I gulped. “No.”
He let out a string of curses that had me tensing in his arms. “Breaker is taking you immediately home. I need to talk to your dad.”
I almost laughed. Dad would kill me, kill him, even if it meant saving him, he would rather die than know this story.
“Don’t,” I commanded. “Don’t tell him.”
“Vi—”
“Promise me.”
“Damn Abandonatos will be the death of me.” He sighed, and then his mouth was pressing a kiss to my forehead. “I will avenge you.”
“I know you will.” And he would, he was terrifying. You didn’t cross the Sinacore-Petrov boss and live to tell about it.
“Go with Breaker, he may need to carry you until the drugs wear off. I’m going to deal with this… situation.”
I felt myself getting passed over to another person’s arms, familiar arms, arms that I’d dreamt of just minutes ago. “Breaker?”
“Yes.” He sounded like he’d aged twenty years.
“Tell him to use the Tigers.”
“My fucking pleasure,” he spat and then, still blindfolded, I was carried to the waiting SUV.
Once inside, Breaker jerked it off my face and pulled me into his arms.
I didn’t cry until we left the parking lot.
And then the sobbing didn’t stop as he pulled me into his lap and rocked me back and forth like it would somehow fix what had just been broken and return what was just taken.
Chapter Two
Nature’s first green is gold, Her harder hue to hold. Her earl leaf’s a flower; but only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. —Robert Frost
Breaker
With each quiet sob, I watched a piece of my heart dislodge from my body and plummet to the ground with a resounding crash, over and over, the crashing turned into a chaos of glass and blood. Should I be shocked that by the time we reached her still empty house—I had nothing left?
There was blackness where once had been life.
Blood still pounded.
And something still beat, but it was more rage than life, and it filled me to the brim with hatred for so many things that it would take years to assess the damage.
“C-can—” she hiccupped “—Can you stay with me?”
I often wondered how easily people were deceived by the light when, in fact, they were nothing but dark. This was one of those moments where lies and smokescreens existed.
Where loss and evil chuckled their win, while love and innocence mourned what once was.
“Yeah, Vi.” My voice sounded like gravel as I spoke, and felt even worse; my throat was sore from keeping the screams in, my body was weak from desperately trying to take her pain in any way I could.
Take me.
Use me.
Hurt me.
Just leave her alone.
But the universe, as it often did, had other plans, didn’t it?
I hadn’t seen this one coming.
We were both quiet as we moved around her room. She went to the bathroom and turned on the shower.
It was the quickest shower any girl had ever taken, I was sure of it, because within four minutes, she was back in the room, wearing black silk sleep shorts and a white cami.