But he sees where I’m looking, and some of his calm starts to fade. To give way to the angry fuck that I know he is.
“No, Ella,” he warns me. “You don’t want to do that—”
“You have no fucking idea what I want to do!”
He blows out a breath, scrubs a hand over his face and rests his elbows back on his knees, clasping his hands. “This why you’re at that school?” he questions me, condescension in his tone. “Because you’re a teenage bitch that can’t control her—”
I don’t let him finish that sentence. I snatch two glasses from the table and hurl them against the wall, beside the projector. They burst into pieces, glass shattering on the floor, the sound piercing in the room. But that’s not enough. That’s not nearly enough.
I reach for two more, but he reaches for me, standing to his feet and grabbing my upper arms, holding them still.
“Put it down,” he snarls in my ear, pressing my body against his.
“If you insist.” I drop the glasses, hard. His grip on my arm stopped me from throwing them, but he held my arms up, giving them just enough height to shatter at our feet.
His hands tighten around my arms at the sound. Glass sparkles on the floor around us in the lights from the projector screen. We stand there in near silence, the only sound his heavy breathing and my rapid pulse.
Then he throws me against the couch, one hand in my hair as he rips down my leggings.
“You little bitch,” he snarls, and I know there’s glass under his feet but he doesn’t seem to care as I grab the back of the couch. “Your mom ever whip you, Ella?”
My eyes go wide as I try to catch my breath. To take in everything I just did. “No, Maverick, no—”
“But you like being hit, don’t you?” He slaps my ass, hard, and my breath catches in my throat.
I try to twist around to see him, but he grips my hair tighter, my scalp burning.
“Answer me.” He yanks my underwear down to my knees, and I hear something that sounds like a belt being unbuckled, his zipper being pulled down.
“Maverick,” I say again, my throat dry, “don’t—”
“Oh, so you don’t like it?” he asks me. He pulls me by my hair down onto the couch, spreading my thighs apart with one hand and then I feel the tip of his cock against my ass. “Even fucking better.”
Part of me wants to give in. Part of me wants to come up on my knees, arch my back, let him have anything he wants. Part of me wants to fall to my feet, worshipping this beautiful, violent god. I knew the night we met in the forest he’d be the next Shane. The next one to make me fall fucking head over heels and I knew that he’d use and discard me too.
But right now, he’s still using me, and I want him to.
Until he spreads me apart with his hands and his cock brushes up against somewhere I don’t want him to be.
My limbs lock and I shake my head, trying to push up on the couch. He presses his hand against my back, keeping me down.
“Maverick, no,” I say clearly, trying to let him know this isn’t a game anymore. That this is serious. “Not there, Mavy—”
He presses his chest to my back and reaches around for my throat, making me gasp. “That’s not my fucking name.”
He thrusts his hips, his cock still where I don’t want it to be, but without his hands helping him, he’s not getting inside my ass.
He seems to realize that, and he lets go of my throat, pulls back to spread me wider. I twist around to look at him, coming up to my knees, but that just gives him better access and he smirks at me.
“Maverick.” I swallow, locking eyes on him as he guides his cock to my ass. “No.”
“You want to talk now?” he taunts me, his eyes on mine as he stops for a moment.
I shake my head. “I don’t want you to—”
He presses his index finger against the tight hole, and I suck in a breath.
No. But I can’t say the word again. He wouldn’t. But I remember my words to him in the woods at Liber. Make it dangerous.
He pushes his finger into me, still holding my gaze.
“No.” It comes out in a hushed, shaky voice.
“Ella,” he says, his eyes darkening, “why’re you at that farm?”
I almost laugh at how he says it. But I don’t laugh. I don’t say anything.
He sighs, rolling his eyes and flexing his jaw. He pushes his finger further into me and it burns. “Ella,” he growls, “you don’t want to play this game with me. Not tonight.”
“Why is that?” I taunt him, refusing to give him what he wants as my entire body clenches.
“I’m in a bad mood.”
“Are you ever in a good mood?”
His jaw clenches and I can see it in his eyes, just how much he wants to hurt me.
“Talk to me,” I plead with him, tensing around his finger. “Talk to me instead of this. Why are you in a bad mood?” I try to reason my way out of this, try to use words and turn them on him. Make him talk.
He stiffens, anger replaced with something else. Just for the briefest moment. He moves his finger in and out of me, gripping my ass. I feel his hot cock against my thigh. “That doesn’t concern you.”
I grip the couch beneath my hands. Take a deep breath. Ignore the feel of him inside of me. “What’re we doing here? You just wanna rape me? Whip me? Beat me? Send me back to my trailer? That how you think girls from trailer parks should be treated, Mavy?”
I watch the corded muscles of his neck strain against his skin, like he wants to kill me. “I think that’s how you want me to treat you.”
And before I can respond, he grabs something from the couch, yanking himself out of me as the belt comes around my windpipe, spinning my head around, away from him. My fingers instinctively move toward it, trying to pull it off, trying to give me room to breathe.
This is still a game.
“Don’t fight me,” he whispers in my ear, his chest against my back. “Don’t fight me, or I’ll make it worse.”
My entire body is coiled with tension, and I think about the glass on the floor. I think about the fact that I can feel his hard cock against my back. I think about the fact that I can’t breathe.
I stop fighting, my fingers still at the belt, but no longer trying to pull it off.
“Hold onto the couch,” he instructs me.
If I do as he asks, he won’t do what I don’t want him to do. He won’t make this worse. So, I do as he said, slowly, panic lighting through my limbs at the belt around my throat. I wonder how long it will take me to pass out.
But then, mercifully, he loosens his grip, giving the belt some slack.
A second later and he’s back to pressing the tip of his cock against me there.
Panic engulfs me and I twist my head around to look at him. He’s staring right at me. “You thought this would be fun for you?” he asks me with a manic grin.
I shake my head. My body breaks out in a cold sweat. Like New Year’s Eve? I could do New Year’s Eve. I wanted like New Year’s Eve, and every time after. We could fuck this out.
But this…
I can’t speak.
His fingers slide underneath me, up my wet slit and I shudder. “Here?” he teases me, the pads of his fingers circling my swollen clit.