She choked on a cry as I inserted a third finger, her hips riding my hand with total abandon. I stopped kissing her to watch. To witness how her eyelashes feathered on her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes closed with need. How her mouth popped wide with a silent scream. How her hair rubbed against the wall as I thrust my cock into her palm.
A slither of blackness hissed in my mind, hinting at a memory I wouldn’t like.
Shaking my head, I forced myself to stay with her.
“Kas...I need you.” Her eyes blazed open, pupils dilated with hunger. She looked absolutely perfect. So stunning. So unbelievably beautiful and wild and mine.
She wanted me.
Truly wanted me.
She was addicted to the same kind of madness I was. A disease that had no medicine or remedy, leaving us both doomed forever.
“I need you to fuck me, Kas. Show me you feel this too.”
I shut my eyes as my mind swarmed with sick shadow. Her command mirrored the mistresses of my past. Her instruction to pleasure her. Her authority shackling my body to her direction.
I shuddered.
“Hey...it’s me, Kas.” Her hand landed on my cheek, forcing my eyes wide. I focused on her. Only her. I did my best to forget about the abusers of my childhood.
“Just me.” Her whisper arrowed through my heart. “Just us.”
I drowned in her stare, suffocating on the emotions she let me see.
She didn’t just want my body.
She wanted me.
Every part.
All of it.
And fuck, I wanted to give it to her.
I wanted to be honest.
To be free.
To be happy.
I opened my mouth to tell her I loved her. That despite all my martyrdom and desire to be good, I would never let her out of my arms. She was mine...for fucking eternity.
I bowed closer.
I grew drunk on her lips as I let the final barriers inside me crash down.
And that was it.
My mind abducted me, wrenching me back into a black void.
“Kas, stop!”
Her scream fed the mania inside me as I rutted harder, faster and faster, fucking her like an animal on the library floor.
Her face twisted with tears. Her legs spread wide as my ass pumped between them.
I viewed it as an outsider.
I saw precisely what I’d become.
My hips pumped harder, aggressive and mean, crazed with violence and nightmares.
She gasped and cried, tears glittering on her cheeks as I plunged deep, taking her against her will. She was nothing beneath me. Nothing but a vessel for me to purge all my dementedness into.
“Please!” she screamed, tears catching in her throat, disbelief etching her panic-stricken face. “Please, stop, please—”
She locked eyes on the ceiling as I ignored her.
My hips worked harder.
I took her so hard, she inched along the carpet, her skin rubbing raw.
I fucked her.
Wilder.
Meaner.
My body pinning hers down while I did something un-fucking-forgivable.
I was exactly what the guests had been.
Taking her against her will.
Making her helpless and traumatized.
“This can’t be happening,” she moaned, stricken and broken as I continued to ride her without permission.
Her legs flopped wider as I crawled into her body.
She closed her eyes and gave in.
She gave up.
She went lax beneath me and still I rode her like a monster.
No!
Stop it.
STOP IT!
I tripped backward.
I fell with my jeans looped around my ankles, smashing to my ass.
I couldn’t stop trembling. Shaking. Convulsing.
Sweat drenched me.
Nausea climbing up my throat.
No.
That couldn’t—
I didn’t.
FUCK.
But I had.
I remembered.
I remembered it all.
How I’d chased that release like a maniac.
How she’d stopped fighting beneath me.
How I hadn’t stopped—
“Jesus Christ,” I groaned, wiping my mouth with a quaking hand.
“Oh—” Gemma’s voice dragged my gaze to her. “Are you okay?” She reached out to me in surprise. Her face no longer pinched with pain from when I’d hurt her but lax with lust and welcome. “What happened? Did you trip?”
I glanced past her to the blood on the wallpaper and down to the carpet.
And I retched.
Right here.
I’d done it right here.
In this very fucking spot, I’d raped the girl I was in love with.
I’d had my cock deep inside her, my body punishing hers, and I hadn’t even been aware of it. I’d been trapped in a nightmare. A hallucination. A goddamn curse.
I’d hurt her past anything redeemable.
I’d raped—
Nausea spilled from my gut, lightning quick.
“Oh, shit.” I scrambled to my hands and knees, giving in to the repulsive abomination inside me.
I wanted to spew it all out.
I wanted every twisted and nauseating memory out of me.
Gemma dropped to her knees beside me, her hand landing on my back and drawing soft circles. “It’s okay. Was it the soup? What can I do?”
Nothing came up.
Acid burned my soul.
I wanted to die.
I wanted to grab a knife and stab it into my worthless heart.
Instead, I laughed.
A cold, empty laugh that cut like a blade. A blade that made me bleed, giving me a thousand cuts of sorrow.
Even now.
Even after I’d raped her, imprisoned her, taken everything she had to give, she still offered more. And because I was a motherfucking bastard, I would continue to take and take until she had nothing left.
No.
It ends.
Right now.
Scrambling to my feet, I yanked my jeans up and fought the wave of headaches and imbalance.
I couldn’t do this.
I wouldn’t.
She had to leave.
Before I did something worse.
Shouldering past her, I snapped, “Pack your bag, Gemma Ashford. We’re done here. I want you gone in the morning.”
I left before she could argue.
I broke into a run, crashing off a wall, struggling to stay standing through my horror.
Wrenching open the front door, I bolted from Fables, from her, and myself.
I didn’t stop running.
CHAPTER FORTY
I RAN.
Barefoot and dressed in a nightgown and hoodie, I ran as if the hounds of hell were on my heels.
“Kas!”
What the hell happened?
Why on earth had he left like that?
“Kas!” I ran harder, leaping over long grass, flinching as debris hurt my soles.
Nothing.
No sound of him.
No sight of him.
Just an empty, pitch-black night.
Slamming to a stop, I planted my hands on my knees and sucked in air. I tried to calm my galloping heart and rapidly building fear.
Where had he gone?
Why had he run?
“Kas! Where the hell are you?”
Holding my breath to listen better, I closed my eyes for sounds of his footsteps. The only thing that came back were the low rush of the river, the soft scurryings of animals, and the crushing hushness of darkness.
I pushed off again, jogging into shadows, doing my best to see the track we’d used to walk to the river when I’d helped him with the hydro generator.