“I—”
“You did that to me and then you left me!”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…I shouldn’t have ever done that to you,” I say.
She shakes her head before looking up and wiping away the tears. “There are a lot of things you shouldn’t have done, Max.” I clench my jaw. “I just, I’m just confused and I’m—I’m just, I don’t even know who I am anymore. This”—she motions angrily around the room—“this is my life. Sitting here, locked up, and for what? Forwhat?” she shouts. “So you can fuck me? So you can have me whenever you want, so you can bargain with me, kill me? What the hellisit you want?Whyare you keeping me here?” Her eyes lift to mine. There is so much emotion there, like a fucking ocean during a storm battering a rickety ship. Anger and hate and fear—sadness. And she knows she is drowning.
She buries her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with sobs, and I pull her into me, wrapping my arms around her and holding her tightly.
I watch her break. I feel her shatter.
I see hope slowly slipping out of her grasp. She’s aware she’s losing her mind. She is breaking rationally, and none of them have ever broken this way, then again, none of them have ever broken me—until now.
A simmering rage starts at my fingertips and bleeds up my arms, down my chest to my legs until every last inch of my skin is buzzing with it. “It’s notwhyI’m keeping you here that matters, it’s why I’m not letting you go,” I whisper into her hair before kissing her cheek.
She grabs onto my arms, her fingers digging deep into my skin. It’s as though she’s holding on in an attempt to ground herself, but a man like me should be no one’s anchor.
I’ve done this to her.
I’ve done this to myself.
And now I am trapped with her and she doesn’t even realize it.
23
Ava
Day 64
It’sfunny how quickly you can forget things.
Faces, voices…absence and time makes even the most salient of memories seem inaccurate. I’ve started to wonder if some of what I remember is even true. Maybe none of my past is real. Did any of that life before this hell really exist? Because it all seems so foreign now, and the daydreams and reality are all muddled like a water color painting left to dry out in the rain—all the colors have bled together until I can no longer make out the once perfect lines.
I can barely hear a soft rumble of thunder, and I find myself wishing I could watch it storm. Little things like watching the rain—those are things you never think you’ll miss; things you never learn to appreciate. Maybe I should be grateful that this entire ordeal has taught me to take nothing for granted. It’s shown me just how much to life there is to love and appreciate and soak up.
The latch clicks, the hinges creaking as Max opens the door. He steps inside, locks the door, and stands at the foot of my bed. His gaze is aimed at the floor, his hand rubbing over the back of his neck. Ever since the other day, I’ve been trying to force myself to hate him. Theoretically, it should be easy. And for a split second, I feel it. I feel that anger bubbling in my chest as I stare at him.
It ishisfault I am still here. He’s sick for fucking me. But I’m just as sick for wanting him too…and then he lifts his head. Worry is etched on his face, his eyes swimming with regret. And the smallest part of me believes he loves me. That fucked-up part of me that believes in fate believes he loves me and I love him and that somewhere in this dark place he’s brought me, we could be happy. In the very moment our gazes lock all I want to do is touch him. My chest tightens. My fingers draw into tight fists.
Max takes a step toward me, his body blocking the light and casting shadows over his face. All I can think is I don’twantto hate him, no, I want to love him and I want him to love me because we’re both part of this darkness and the way people like us have to be loved—there can be no light.
“I won’t come down here again tonight,” he says.
“Why?”
“I have to take care of something.”
“Okay.” Tension hangs thick in the air and I take him in: his face, his muscles, his scent. My heart hammers in my chest, my face heats, and because I no longer have control over anything, I sit up and grab onto his arm, dragging him down on the bed beside me.
He studies me, his gaze flicking between my eyes and my lips. “This is not how this should be,” he says so quietly I’m not sure he meant to say those words aloud.
My pulse races, my mind jumbles, and before I realize I’m speaking, I say, “But what if it is?”
Max grabs my face, pulling my lips to his in a brutal kiss. His fingers tangle in my hair, his soft tongue brushing against mine before his teeth rake across my lip, and suddenly, he pulls away. His thumb gently rubs over my cheek while he glares at me with passion that strikes primitive fear deep within me. This man is a walking contradiction. Never has brutality seemed so kind, so gentle. Never have I wanted to be owned by a man the way I do him.
There’s a flicker deep within his eyes. They narrow and he leans into me, pushing me to lie on my back with him on top of me. Max grabs my wrists, pinning my arms above my head. My heart goes into a full on sprint. I close my eyes, and then, I feel him tenderly kiss down my neck. Just as I move my head to the side, the gentle kisses stop and he bites down on my throat. The sudden change in sensations causes me to squirm under his massive frame. On a groan, he sits up, straddling my hips as he tears his shirt over his head. The way the shadows dance over his muscles when he tosses his shirt to the side of the room is nothing short of a sin. His hands roughly glide over the curve of my waist, and he’s still right there, straddling me, his defined chest rising in ragged swells as he stares at me—throughme—into the darkest parts of me I don’t let anyone into.
He grabs the straps of my camisole with one hand and pulls the material to the middle of my chest, exposing my breasts. For a moment, he palms me, squeezing and pinching my skin before he leans over and sucks one nipple between his soft lips. Everything about the way he is touching me is so gentle and reverent, and then his teeth clamp down around my nipple. I gasp, my back bowing away from the bed. Grabbing my jaw, he gives me another hard kiss then pulls away.
