Reveal (A Wild Nights Novel)

by K. M. Golland

  The nausea in my stomach joined hands with the dread rolling through my body, both of them skipping toward my throat. My eyes shot open and scanned my surroundings, taking a second to focus and soon discovering I was in a room that did not look familiar. A tidy room but devoid of furniture other than the bed I was lying on. I’m lying on a bed? Oh fuck. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. No.

  The incessant echo of my beating heart pounded in my ears, and the desperate need to get far away from where I was kicked in. It was fight-or-flight time, and I was prepared to do both, prepared to do whatever was required in order to be safe again.

  Adrenalin surged through my body, and I went to sit up but fell back, my wrists and ankles, restrained. Oh my God! Oh my God!

  “Relax, love. You’re safe.”

  H’s sudden but eerily smooth, calm voice sounded from behind, flicking the tempo of my heart to an even faster beat and louder thump. I craned and twisted my neck, trying to catch sight of him so that I could confirm that it was his voice I’d heard. I couldn’t be sure. I was still a little disorientated.

  “H? Is that you?” I croaked, my throat constricted and dry.

  “No!” The voice was stern, cold, almost unrecognisable. Shit! Who is he? Where am I?

  “I’ve told you before, Emily. My name is Mike. Mike and Emily, Emily and Mike.” His footsteps were slow, calculated, and heavy, his boots echoing against the hardwood floor until they stopped beside me.

  I looked up just as he lowered himself to the edge of the bed. Our eyes met, and I tried to scoot away but he put his hand on the mattress beside my body, stopping me from moving any further. “Don’t be scared, love.”

  “Don’t be scared?” I shrieked, my eyes wide, my chest heaving. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m tied to a bed after being drugged. Of course I’m scared. Untie me now, Mike! You’ve gone way too far.” I pulled on my restraints and squirmed, trying to loosen them, but they were tight, unyielding, and they hurt like hell. “Ow. It hurts. This isn’t funny.”

  He moved his hands onto my stomach and applied a small amount of pressure, enough to stop me from squirming. “You’re hurting you. Not me. Just lie still. Relax. I need to show you something.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked softly, a tear escaping one eye.

  “Because I love you, because I need you, and because you keep ignoring me and pretending I don’t exist. I do fucking exist. I’m right here, next to you. I’ve always wanted to be right here next to you.”

  “What? Like this?” I exclaimed, pulling on my restraints again.

  “No, love. Not like this.” He placed his hand on my cheek and wiped my tears with his thumb, his sad but strangely serene hazel eyes studying my face. “You’re so beautiful. Perfect.”

  I turned my head away, his touch, unwelcome. “I’m not perfect. Nobody is perfect.”

  “Oh, but you are.” His fingers dug into my cheeks and guided my face back to him. “In my eyes you are, which means you are.” H watched intensely as his fingers loosened their grip and trailed down my neck to my collarbone, stopping at the seam of my tank top.

  My chest heaved, and I panted nervously, but what scared me the most was that despite my fear, my body reacted to his touch in a way that it shouldn’t.

  “Please stop,” I whispered.

  His eyes met mine. “Why would I want to stop? You’re perfection. My perfection. No one else’s.” H lightly swept his fingers over my cleavage.

  I trembled. “You should stop because I want you to stop.”

  Sighing, he lifted his hands and scrubbed his face with his palms. “I never wanted to do this, love. But you gave me no choice.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it,” I snapped. “You decided to bring me here and tie me up. And for what reason… so you can rape me?” I yanked on the restraints again, but it was pointless.

  “No! I’m not gonna rape you.” He moved his hands away from his face, the squint of his eyes indicating I’d offended him.

  The squint offered some relief.

  “We’re gonna make love instead,” he continued.

  “What? Mike, listen to me, you don’t want to do this,” I pleaded.

  “Of course I do. I’ve always wanted to make love to you, to taste you. You’re always telling me how sweet you are. You’re such a tease, Emily Davis.” He smiled and reached over to a small table, picking up a pair of scissors.

  My eyes widened, and I screamed. “No!”

  He chuckled, amused. “Stop screaming, love. I’m not going to hurt you, and anyway, no one can hear. It’s just you and me.”

  My eyes darted from his and scanned the room, noticing that the walls were covered in a criss-cross patterned foam, like the walls of a recording studio. “You planned to do this all along, didn’t you?” I asked, shocked, my voice barely above a whisper.

  “What? Bring you here to this room? No, I didn’t. I wanted to bring you to my room, and to my bed where I could worship you. And I will, when you admit that you love me and that we belong together.”

  Tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. “I did love you in my own way,” I gritted out. “Very much so. But this? This is just crazy. How can I love you after this?”

  “I’m gonna show you how.”

  H sliced open my singlet top with the scissors, cutting it away from my body and exposing my white sports bra.

  I cried, thrashing and trembling. “Please, don’t.”

  “Stop moving. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You ARE hurting me. You’re breaking my heart.”

  He paused and hovered unbearably close to my face, his breath warm with a hint of tobacco. “I could only break it if you gave it to me. You never did.”

  Leaning back, he reached for my cotton shorts and sliced those as well.

  “Mike, no! I’m begging you, don’t so this.” I tried to prop myself up, to distract him. “We can sort this out. I want to sort this out. Please just stop and untie me. We can talk.”

  “I’m done talking, love. I need to show you. It’s the only way you’ll see. The only way you’ll remember.” He placed the scissors down and pulled my cut shorts from underneath me, discarding them on the floor, the loud thud of my phone sounding as it fell from my pocket and hit the floorboards. H ignored it and climbed onto the bed, straddling my knees and running his hands up and down my stomach, hips, and thighs. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. Please tell me this isn’t happening.

  I closed my eyes and tried to escape the reality I was in, to tell myself I wasn’t where I appeared to be.

  But I was there.

  I was very much there.

  Crawling backwards, he placed a delicate kiss on my leg. “This is for the first time you wrote to me. You said, ‘Mr Happy, can you make me happy?’”

  I gasped and choked on my tears, remembering that I’d typed those very words.

  He moved up higher and hovered over my panty-covered pussy, inhaling deep and then breathing out. “I can smell how wet you are,” he hissed, his warm breath skating over the material. My pussy clenched, and a rush of heat waved through my body. No! What is wrong with me? No!

  I didn’t want to react this way. It was wrong. He was forcing himself on me against my will, and it was fucking wrong.

  He moaned, breathing in once again. “And this is for the first time I made you laugh.”

  I tried to mentally prepare myself for his lips to touch me where I didn’t want them to touch me, but they never did. Instead, he moved across just slightly to my hip and placed a soft kiss there. “You said, ‘Lol, I thought Mr Happy referred to your arse not your cock’.”

  “And you said no … that’s … that’s Mr Crappy,” I sobbed, trying to suck in a breath.

  H lifted his head and smiled at me, and I hated it. I hated it because he remembered that memory too, because it was a happy memory that would never be happy again.

  “Yes, love. I did say that.” He moved up higher yet again and nudg
ed my belly with his nose.

  Arching my neck, I closed my eyes and tried to pull away, tried to rescue my body from the perverse spell he was casting. “Please, Mike, stop. I don’t want this.”

  “And this is for the first time you emailed me your phone number. One of the best days of my life.” Dipping his tongue, he circled the rim of my bellybutton. “You said, ‘I can have more—”

  “Of you now,” I whispered, finishing his sentence, tears streaming down the sides of my face.

  My memory of that email was probably one of the most vivid memories I had the trembling of my hand as I’d held the mouse and hovered my cursor over the send button, wondering what the hell I was doing. Wondering why I was drowning in doubt yet drawn to wanting more of him in my life.

  H smoothed his hands up my stomach and lifted them just slightly before reaching my breasts, holding them suspended, his fingers twitching before they settled on my bra.

  I held my breath and froze.

  “You wanted more back then, so I gave you more,” he murmured, his eyelids closing as his fingers began to massage.

  I thrashed beneath him and screamed, “I gave you more as well.”

  “But not enough.” He leaned forward and picked up the scissors. “I need more.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I need to take everything off.”

  “Why? NO! No, you don’t.”

  He lifted my bra away from my chest and cut it, the hitch of his breathing not going unnoticed as he pulled it free and dropped it to be with my shorts. “Fucking perfect, love. So fucking perfect.”

  He placed the scissors back down and moved his hands over my chest, his fingers touching my breasts, their feather-light caress turning hungry as he kneaded me.

  “I hate you!” I sobbed. “I hate you for doing this, and I hate you for infiltrating my heart, because you don’t deserve to be in there.”

  He groaned, his eyes fixated on his hand’s movements. “You welcomed me, love. I didn’t infiltrate it.”

  I swallowed that sickly feeling in my throat known as the bitter truth. “Well, you can leave now. You’re no longer welcome. I hate you for doing this. I hate you for making me hate you. You’ve ruined everything,” I cried.

  “Your body doesn’t hate me, Emily. Look at it.” H nodded toward my chest. “Your nipples are hard, and I can make them even harder.” He leaned down and blew on my skin. “You’re hot and flushed, and you’re panting, love.” His lips surrounded my nipple, his tongue lightly swirling in circles. “And,” he said, letting go with a delicate pop, “you keep licking your lips.”

  H reached up and traced his finger over my bottom lip. I shook my head, trying to prevent him from doing so.

  “Stop it. Just stop. Please!”

  Ignoring me, he dragged his finger down my chin and neck, settling it on my hip. “And I bet that if I slid my finger inside you, you’d be drenched.”

  “You’re wrong,” I spat, gritting my teeth.

  “Am I?”

  I didn’t answer. It was pointless. He was going to test his theory anyway. And as much as it disgusted me to admit it, he was right. I was wet. He was turning me on just as much as he was terrifying me, and my body enjoyed his touch just as much as it despised it. I couldn’t deny it, and didn’t understand it … I didn’t want to understand it.

  H sat up once again and grabbed the scissors, and knowing what was going to happen, I burst into tears, everything inside of me shattering. But strangely enough, I didn’t fear him entering my body uninvited. What I feared was losing a part of me I’d cherished for two years, a part who’d saved me and brought me back to life, and a part I had ruined by trying to supress and deny it.

  I feared losing my friend.

  My confidant.

  He sliced my panties free and discarded them. All I could do was cry and try to cover myself up by rotating, failing because his straddled body had me pinned.

  “Mm,” he hummed, shaking his head, his eyes feasting on me. “Let’s see how wet you are, shall we?” His voice was cocky yet stern, his tone, relaxed.

  I didn’t answer him again, just kept my eyes pressed shut in the hope that the darkness would swallow me, even though I knew that it wouldn’t. My senses were on too high an alert for that to happen.

  His weight lifted from my body, and the bed dipped beside me, his warmth sidling up to my side. “You have a very pretty pussy, love.”

  I shook my head, not wanting to listen to his words. Not wanting to let them affect me like they always had. His words were now embedded with betrayal. They were nothing.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  I continued to ignore him.

  He chuckled. “I’ll show you.”

  H trailed his finger down my bikini line, circling my pussy before trailing it back up again. I flinched.

  “So soft. So smooth.” He scissored his fingers and spread me open. “So pink. So shiny.”

  Shut up. Please! Just shut the fuck up. My sobs were uncontrollable, and my legs locked straight.

  “Try all you like, love, but you can’t hide from me. And you won’t want to when my tongue licks that sweet flavour of yours.”

  “I h … h … hate you.”

  “You hate me because you love me. Because I’m right, and because you don’t want to admit it.”

  “No!” I screamed.

  The bed dipped and the mattress wobbled, and I felt him place his hands on either side of my face. “Open your eyes and look at me,” he demanded angrily.

  “No!”

  The weight of his forehead rested on mine, and he sighed, his lips touching my tear-stained cheek. “This is for the first time I fell in love with you.”

  Lips touched lips, his air becoming my air. There was no force, no tongue, just a quiet desperation in the way he held my face. “You said, ‘I think of you and you save me’.”

  I opened my eyes and found his, and there was no denying that he loved me. I could see it in the very depths of the haunted hazel staring back at me. Within them I saw that his love was immersed in pain, because he knew what he was doing was wrong. I could see that. I could see by the way his brow pinched, and by the way he kept looking down. I could see his regret. Feel his regret. But all of it was masked and dominated by his desperation to make me see it.

  “Yes, Mike, you saved me. But you destroyed me the moment you drugged me. And you’re killing me slowly for every second you keep me tied to your bed, taking from me what isn’t yours to take.”

  “Then just admit that you love me. Fucking be honest with yourself for once.”

  “I can’t admit what isn’t true.”

  “But it is true. You’ve just forgotten.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Forgotten what?”

  “Think, love. Think to what you said ten months ago when you thought I was going back to my wife.”

  Blinking, I didn’t know what he was talking about until a chill suffused my skin and recollection clawed its way inside my heart, tearing it in two.

  He smiled, but it wasn’t one of triumph. It was one of relief. “You finally remember, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes. Now you know why I’m doing this. Why I had to.”

  My head slowly moved up and down, nodding of its own accord.

  “Because you told me to.”

  I tried to say no, tried refute him.

  “Sure you did,” he said, touching his lips to mine. “Tell me what you said.”

  “No!” I whispered, shaking my head. “I don’t want to.”

  His lips found my earlobe and nibbled. “Just say it. This will all go away if you just say it.”

  My chest wracked as I surrendered to him. “I said if things don’t work out with your wife, f … f … find me, kid—” I sucked in a breath. “Kidnap me, and take me away—”

  “Your world is much better than mine will ever be,” he said, finishing my sentence and untying my hands.

  H lifted me to a sitting position and wrapped
his arms around me, my body limp against his chest, my head lifeless upon his shoulder. This is all my fault. All of it.

  I’d welcomed a complete stranger into my life and into the dark recesses of my mind. I’d played with him there. Let him play with me. And I’d used his desire to satisfy my own.

  This. Was. All. My. Fault.

  The bounds around my ankles loosened but I physically couldn’t move. I was in shock. Stunned. Guilt had taken command of my mind, and the will to fight no longer seemed reasonable.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, although I wasn’t sure I’d even said it.

  H lifted me into his arms and carried me out of the room and into another. His room. With his bed and his things. He laid me down on the mattress, my arms falling limp. It was as if I was there but I wasn’t; I could breathe but inhaled no air. It was as if my punishment was to feel everything … without feeling anything at all.

  It was as if I’d died awake.

  Kneeling on the bed beside me, H undid his belt and buckle and unzipped his jeans, pushing them down his thighs and freeing his cock. He leaned forward and kissed me, except this time he teased my lips apart with his tongue, stroking me lazily.

  I didn’t fight it.

  I didn’t do anything.

  I just let it be what it would be.

  And that was when the sound of a door crashing, and the thunder of footsteps and yelled commands played about me like a dream.

  Was this all just a dream?

  If I pretend it never happened,

  I hope that one day,

  I’ll truly believe it didn’t.

  The days following my kidnapping were a blur. Hospital. Police Station. Home. Counsellor. I’d spun through a whirlwind of emotions—sad, empty, confused and angry. But most of all, I’d been lost, adrift in a sea of what-the-fuck and floating through rapids of guilt and self-deprecation. As much as I’d hoped deep down inside that what had transpired with H had been a horrible crazy nightmare, it hadn’t been.

  He abducted me—fact.

  Tied me up—fact.

  Sexually assaulted me—fact.

  Shattered my heart into a million tiny pieces—fact.

  All of it was real.

  What was also real were the police officers breaking down the door to H’s apartment, arresting him and rescuing me before he raped me. God. I still shudder when I say the word ‘rape’ and H in the same sentence, because it hurts so much. But here’s the thing—in H’s mind, it was never going to be rape. He truly believed that once I’d become aware of the fact I’d ‘told’ him to kidnap me, and when I stopped resisting him, I’d give consent, and that I loved him and wanted to make love to him. Or at least that was what he’d shouted with desperation as they’d whisked him away in handcuffs.