He thrust again, his entire body tensing as he chased a release. “Please. I need it. Just one second of pleasure.”
Pleasure that his body might want, but his mind thrashed against. He was two people in one. The monster and the boy. The sane and the insane.
He grunted with frustration. He howled with despair.
He fucked me as if any second now something would snatch him, kill him, and leave him bleeding in the woods. His hips drove deep, and we both cried out. His cock hit the natural obstruction of my body, bruising both of us.
His forehead furrowed as his speed increased, short stabbing thrusts as he lost himself to his nightmares. He snarled with bitterness. Driven mad with anger, grief, and failure.
He was at a pinnacle.
He was about to fall.
I made the choice to be strong enough to catch him.
Lifting my arms, I cupped his face. I willed heat and gentleness to my fingertips as I spoke from the inner wisdom and power inside me. “Wake up, Kassen Sands. I need you to stop.” My tone wasn’t mocking or mean. It wasn’t cajoling or cruel. It was breathless with tears and broken with kindness.
He froze for a second. His hips still pumped with the primitive instinct to copulate. He trembled. He panted. His eyes were glazed and lost to me.
But I didn’t give in.
I fought for him.
Because no one else ever had.
“Kas...look at me. See me.” I dug my fingers into his scruff, latching my nails into his soul and dragging him back from ghosts and demons.
He blinked.
I whispered, “Please...see me.”
And then, the world imploded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SOMETHING WASN’T RIGHT.
Something was...wrong.
So very fucking wrong.
But even as my mind tried to understand, my body was too far gone. Too drunk on lust and full of desperate frustration to finish. My hips continued working against my control, chasing that ever-elusive release.
I had to come.
I had to feel happiness.
Didn’t she see?
Couldn’t they give me that tiny shred of joy before they took everything else from me?
“Kas...look at me. See me.” Trembling hands cupped my cheeks, warm and gentle, so different from how others touched me.
I blinked.
“Please...see me,” she murmured, sounding so sweet and so, so far away.
I blinked again.
I slowed.
I tried to see.
And slowly, the black fog lifted.
Snow flurries and blood-soaked carpets vanished, incinerating like pieces of paper chewed up by the fire.
And then, I saw clearly.
And I gagged.
I retched.
I died.
“Oh, fuck! FUCK!” I jack-knifed up and withdrew. I skidded back so fast, I fell on my ass and sent a lance of agony through my broken arm.
That was why I had that contraption around my forearm. Why I was hurting in places that hadn’t been touched in my nightmare. Why I suddenly realized how badly I’d messed up.
I’d been dreaming.
I’d touched her in my nightmares.
I’d raped—
“Shit, shit, SHIT!” I scooted backward until I collided with the wall of the library. I drew up my knees, complete with undone jeans still clinging to my thighs, and huddled into a ball, breathing hard, coated in sweat, my cock glistening from being inside her.
From being inside her against her will.
Against my will.
Against everything that’d been right and true between us.
No.
Christ, no.
I buried my face in my hands, my bones cracking as I began to shake. It was worse than the snowstorm when I’d been curled at the bottom of Levin’s bed. Worse than any ice or chill I’d ever endured.
This shaking wasn’t because of an outward discomfort but because my heart was shattering, my soul was splintering, my very fucking hope at being human was lost.
Gone.
Shot to pieces.
Just like that.
The sound of Gemma sitting upright and the rustle of clothing as she readjusted the mess I’d caused made me moan under my tattered breath.
I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop the pressure, the swelling mass of grief inside me.
It quadrupled in size, clogging up my lungs until I gasped for air. It punctured my heart until it beat a dying drum.
I couldn’t stand the agony. I couldn’t stomach what I’d done.
“I’m sorry,” I grunted between my fingers. “So, so fucking sorry.”
I couldn’t look up.
Couldn’t see her.
Couldn’t bear witness to what I’d done.
But with my eyes closed, that debilitating lust came back. The whispers of doing to them what’d been done to me hissed in my ears.
Take her.
Finish her.
Come in her.
My hips rocked up on their own accord, making me almost vomit all over the carpet.
God, when would this shit end?
When would I be sane again?
When could I trust what I saw and what I heard were real and not my rotten-riddled past? When would I be myself again? Be that kid who’d loved others more than himself? Who knew that violence against violence only equaled more pain? Who still believed he was worthy of something good?
I wanted good.
I wanted kind.
I wanted safe and sheltered, love and peace.
I wanted things I’d forgotten I could never have. Things that I’d forgotten the meaning of. Things I didn’t fucking deserve.
My eyes burned even as my cock still begged for a release.
I wanted to cry.
I wanted to come.
I wanted to rip apart my ribs and throw my fucking heart out the goddamn window.
I dug fingers into my eye sockets, doing my best to erase the images of sex and sadistic pleasure. I could barely breathe, I teetered on a panic attack, yet my cock continued to bob between my legs, continued to frustrate me with need, to ooze with cum that I would never spill.
And suddenly, it was all too much.
I couldn’t contain it.
My body wasn’t strong enough to bottle up such suffering. It was gnawing at me, hissing at me, ripping me into bloody pieces.
Soaring to my feet, I staggered sideways as vertigo threw me off balance. Kicking off the goddamn jeans, I spun to face the wall and drove my fist into the embossed wallpaper. “Fuck!”
I grunted as my knuckles bellowed.
“Fuck you!” I bellowed as I struck again and again. I hurled fist after fist, left and right, pummelling the only thing strong enough to embrace my rage, my agony, my misery. “Fuck all of you!”
Something cracked in my hands.
My arm gave up screaming at me to stop punching a wall with a broken bone. My entire body shut down, giving me the quietness I needed just to strike and strike and strike.
To smear the wall with my blood and do my best to stem the tears running down my cheeks.
I lost all sense of time.
I gave over every shred of myself, feeding every molecule into my fuckedupness.
I beat that wall until my hands were pulp and the wallpaper hung in tatters by the light switch.
And then...only then...
Only once I gagged on air and sweat dripped off my eyelashes did I spin to face her.
Only once I couldn’t remain standing did my arms fall to my sides and my chin raise, and I forced myself to look at her.
To look at how much I’d failed her.