“Are you serious right now?” I struggle to stand up but he holds me in place with a hand pressed hard between my shoulder blades.
“I’m very fucking serious,” he growls.
“I just sucked your cock and you’re mad at me for ruining a stupid dress?”
“You have no respect for anything, do you?”
“What are you even talking about? We were in the middle of dirty sex and—Oh, I get it.”
“Get what?”
“You feel guilty. I should’ve known. That’s a typical man response. You can’t control your urges so—”
“My urges? You practically begged me to fuck you!”
“Oh, really?” I say, so snarky. “No. That’s not what this is. You want me. You dream about me, don’t you? Picturing yourself fucking me. But you don’t want to admit you want me. I’m fucked up, right? Disturbed. And you can’t soil your own self-righteousness with psycho Lyssa. And you’re this high-and-mighty moral asshole who thinks he’s too good.”
“I think I’m too good?” He laughs. “That’s all you!”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Do you want to spank me, or don’t you?”
“Yes!” he yells.
“Then do it!”
He smacks me hard and I squeal. Then again, and again, and again and—he stops.
I’m breathing hard, pressing my face into the mattress. My fingers gripping the comforter tightly.
He removes his palm from my back and I scramble all the way on to the bed and turn around to face him.
He’s grabbing at his hair, shaking his head.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know.”
He tucks his dick away and sits back down in the chair. Hand over his eyes as he rubs his forehead.
“Mason,” I say.
“What?” he mumbles.
“What’s going on?”
He looks up at me from under his hair. Shakes his head.
“What?”
“This place is fucked up, that’s what.”
“Why do you think I didn’t want to live here? Jesus Christ.” I sigh. Because this shit is not rocket science, yet no one but me seems to be able to figure it out.
What is wrong with people?
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says, hiding his face again. “I have no idea what I’m doing here with you.”
“You’re… working?” I offer. Because he looks pretty distressed and, try as I might to hate this man, he’s just not hateable. He’s actually kind of adorable. Nothing like any of the boys or men I’ve dated in the past.
He moves his hand away from his eyes. “Working?”
I shrug. “Well, you’re getting paid.”
“To do what?”
“I don’t know. Make me… better? I guess. Change me into whatever it is my stepfather told you to?”
He stares at me for a minute. “You wanna know what he told me to do?”
I don’t know if I want to know that. I really don’t.
But Mason tells me anyway. “He told me to break you, Lyssa. What the fuck is he talking about?”
“My bad attitude?” I say, guessing.
He laughs. But I can tell it’s an ironic laugh and not a funny-haha laugh.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“For what?”
“For all of this. I think I should just go.”
“Go? No, Mason. Please. Don’t go.”
“Why do you even want me here? You don’t know me, so you don’t like me. And I’ve done nothing but harass you and keep you locked up in that stupid bedroom. You should want me to go.”
I wilt a little. Because I do like him. And I haven’t even been miserable upstairs in that room. Confused and possibly regressing. But I looked forward to him bringing me food and choosing me clothes. I liked making him frustrated and flustered. It’s all sorts of fucked up and I can’t even begin to explain why I feel this way or why I do these things, I just know one thing. I don’t want him to leave.
“I’ll be good,” I whisper. “If you stay, I’ll be good.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN – MASON
She’ll be good.
“I’ll go to the mall with you,” she says. “And we can eat something else. Not spaghetti and meatballs or hamburgers.”
She’ll be good.
“Mason.”
“What?”
She sucks in a deep breath and lets it out. “I promise. I’ll be good. You can’t leave anyway. You got paid already, right?”
I nod, but don’t look her. I did get paid. A lot of fucking money. And my mom is in the experimental treatment program. So her stepfather held up his end and not only am I not holding up mine, I feel like I’m making everything worse. I feel like I’m making her worse. I just can’t put my finger on what’s wrong here. I mean, I know the whole thing is wrong. She’s wrong, he’s wrong. The estate, the criminal record, the marriage. All of it is so very wrong.
But I don’t have a firm grip on why it’s wrong.
Baylor’s excuse for why he wants his daughter to marry this guy makes some sense. In one breath I believe him. He’s worried about her. And anyone who spends time with this girl gets that she’s disturbed. So is it so bad that he wants to take care of her?