by Lucian Bane
“You can’t ask this of me!” she yelled at him, pissed back. “I love him,” she said, no longer caring how it affected him. “I’d die for him, do you understand me? I’d be raped for him, I’d do anything for him but I won’t…hurt him!” She shook her head, a sob clenching her chest. “I can’t.”
His glare turned fifty shades of evil as he sucked his teeth, his upper lip raising in a snarl. He began to pace at the foot of the bed. Two steps, turn, two steps turn, his eyes never leaving hers. She stood, feeling like a rodent in the boa constrictor cage. The tension in the air grew until she had to fight to get enough air in her lungs.
Flashes of her dead brother’s face slashed her heart. Then she saw Bones doubled over on the floor, in agony for his lost brother.
“I’m not a whore,” she gasped, tears flooding her eyes as her body shook. “I belong to a man,” she said louder. “A beautiful man. And his name— is Bones,” she screamed. “Do you hear me? His name is BONES NOT X!”
Fury launched her across the bed, not at him but to the night stand. Her right hand wrapped around the lamp base and she spun with it, whacking him across the head.
THE NEXT CHAPTER
Winter woke with a huge gasp, looking around. Shit, she’d fallen asleep. She jerked her head right and left, looking for Bones on the floor where he’d fallen and never moved. Oh God, where was he? She’d made sure she hadn’t killed him, then got dressed and she sat and watched him. She’d thought if he moved, she’d run out. Out of his reach till morning. She’d fought for hours to keep her eyes open and couldn’t even remember when she’d lost that battle.
She looked at the bed and saw a piece of paper. Her heart hammered as she remembered the note Reginald had once left her. She waited for a pang of guilt to hit her crawling on the bed to retrieve it. Her fingers shook as she opened the white square. Getting you breakfast. Wait for me in bed.
Her stomach flipped fifty times and she swallowed down nausea. How was he walking? She wondered how his head was? Didn’t he wonder why he had a baseball sized knot?
She froze at hearing a sound at the door followed by the need to hide or run. She fought her flight or fight instincts, telling herself it was Bones. With breakfast. Not X.
She sat tense, wondering if he needed help getting in. The door finally opened and he pushed the door open with his back before turning with a fancy looking tray. Her heart fluttered and pounded, making her breaths come too quickly. She needed to calm down.
“Sleeping Beauty,” he said, walking to the foot of the bed and setting the tray down. He immediately made his way to her side, breathtaking in his black t-shirt and jeans. She stared up at him, trying to smile and appear normal then clenched the covers in her fist when he took her face softly in his hands. Leaning down, he kissed her. “Morning,” he whispered gliding his lips over hers. He kissed her repeatedly, slow, teasing nibbles that made her clit throb with a dense heat. She tried to keep her morning breath in, sure it wasn’t fresh and minty like his. “I missed you,” he murmured when he pulled up.
Now that she knew it wasn’t X, the need to drag him into bed hit all her muscles. She watched him at the tray, her stomach lurching to life at the smell of the food. Then she remembered her diet. Just the idea made hunger claw at her stomach in angry response. Too bad, deal with it. She wanted to be the most beautiful woman for him. The perfect woman that he deserved.
“Hope you’re hungry.”
“A little.”
“No diets here.” He shot glances at her. “No diets anywhere in fact.”
“What?” she worried. “Why?”
“Because I like you exactly like you are.”
“Fat?”
“Call it whatever you want, I think you’re perfect.”
“Fat isn’t perfect.” He walked over to her with way too much food for one person, even a fat one. “I hope we’re sharing that.”
“You clearly have no clue how sexy you are.” He sat exactly next to her with the plate instead of giving it to her. “Your ass?”
“Is my biggest problem.”
“Is my biggest weakness. And after breakfast, you’re going to shower. And then I’m going to fuck you from behind so I can stare at it. And spank it.” He brought a forkful of scrambled eggs to her mouth. “And fuck it if you let me,” he mumbled.
She took the bite while her clit tingled again. “Let you?”
He brought a piece of toast to her mouth next. “Would you prefer I force you?”
Her heart hammered with strange excitement. It sounded like a sincere question, like he’d force her if she wanted him to. Did he want that? Imagining him making her do anything sexual stole her breath. She wanted to ask now but wasn’t sure how. She took another bite of toast, “Would you… want to?”
He eyed her. “Fuck you by force?” He stuffed his mouth with toast and raised his brows as he ate hungrily. “Definitely.”
Oh God. She could hardly breathe with the idea. He glanced at her and slowed his chewing as a tormented look slowly took his face. “You want that?” he asked as though it would be too good to be true.
“Do you?” she had to ask again.
“No, do you. That’s what makes all the difference. If you don’t, then the idea sickens me. But if you do…” He licked his lips slowly, his eyes burning on her. “Then that’s your fine, fucking ass,” he muttered, the clear threat stealing her breath.
She recalled what X had done to her in the office and immediately, shame and arousal lit her up. “I won’t guess about it. You’d have to tell me.”
She took the next bite he presented her. Pancakes this time. Funny how he mixed things. “How would I tell you?”
He held a slice of bacon up next, waiting as she chewed. “Hmmm,” he said, the sound purely sexual. “Maybe you could spank your ass like you did when you danced.” He gave a deep chuckle that said he’d really liked that. “Then I’d know.”
“What would you know?” she whispered, breathless, wanting to hear him say it.
“That you wanted me to become an animal all over you. God, you fucking want that, don’t you?” The whisper was low and eager, like maybe if she did he’d be thrilled. Or maybe he thought she was weird.
She gave a hesitant nod to which he snorted lightly. “That’s not good enough.”
“I do want it. I just… don’t want you to think… I’m…”
“I think it would be insanely hot, that’s what I think. I think my cock is about to explode just imagining it.”
“I want it,” she gasped, nodding.
“Look at me and say that.”
She suddenly remembered her neck and quickly brought her hand up, pulling her hair over it. She had never looked to see what he’d done to it.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked, setting the plate down.
She shot her eyes to his, panic hitting her. “Nothing, what?”
“Holy shit,” he muttered in confusion, staring at her. “You just lied.”
Oh God. Her mind fought with the need to run and hide. But she never intended to hide from this, she planned to tell him, she just… she wanted to figure out what to tell him, how to tell him, when. Where. Not here and now.
“Winter.”
The warning edging his tone called up more panic. “I…” Shit, where to begin? “I need the bathroom,” she blurted, cringing with the mistake. She did need it but he saw it for the excuse it was.
He suddenly lowered his gaze to her chest. “Why are you dressed?” he asked, as though his own mind raced to figure things out.
She needed to tell him before he drew too many wrong conclusions. And yet her mouth opened with nothing, no saving words, only silence as his suspicion grew with a momentum that devoured any courage she fought to grab hold of.
He stood and put his back to her, standing there with his head lowered. His breaths were coming deep and harder, his hands in loose fists at his sides.
“I need… to talk to you,” she whispered.
He turned his head, aiming hard eyes at her. “What the fuck did you do?” he muttered, like he didn’t know what she’d done but knew it was something so terrible. She’d done the thing he feared she would one day do. All the fears that kept him from trusting her, all the doubts that made him want to hide Reginald from her, that’s what he was sure she’d done, whatever it was.
He slowly turned to face her, his chest heaving. “Start. Talking.”
“You’re scaring me,” she whispered, her voice weak and shaky as tears filled her stupid eyes.
He slowly shook his head, his gaze filling with hate. “Don’t you fucking do that. Don’t you fucking act like I’m the monster in whatever this is.”
His words brought a sob in her chest and she swallowed it down. Because she would have to somehow explain to him something that might break him more than he already was. And hurt him on top of that? God, how was she supposed to do this?
“Fucking talk!” he roared, making her jump with a gasp. “You’ve been acting weird since I walked in. Like a fucking whore after a job! Are you waiting for me to pay you so you can leave?”
She gasped and stood, fighting her anger while needing it for strength. “Stop it,” she ordered in a gasp. “Listen very carefully to me, Bones. You look me in the eyes right now.” She swiped tears so she could focus. “Before I tell you anything, you need to remember one thing. And that is how much… I love you.”
“Oh God,” he muttered in disgust. “Don’t preface your filth with love.”
“It’s not what you think,” she assured, shakily. But it might be as bad to him, she wasn’t sure. “I don’t know how you’re going to take this. Remember that you sleepwalk?” she hurried on. “Remember that you think you might be doing bad things?”
Her words shifted his world and the confusion on his profile gripped her guts. “Why are you telling me this. What did I do?” he asked, spinning to face her.
She held up a hand carefully. “I’m going to tell you,” she whispered. “But I want to remind you that you suffered memory loss at the institution. Remember that? So, try to realize that your mind isn’t quite… in order.”
He gave a dry laugh at that but worry and fear still shadowed his eyes. “I doubt there’s anything you could tell me that would surprise me at this point about myself.”
She prayed he was right. “Remember the night I tied you up and… then we fought? And you went sleep on the couch?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember coming to me that night? You gave me a body rub.”
His gaze narrowed. “No, I don’t remember. What else did I do?”
“Things… you would do if… you didn’t hate me.”
“You implied that,” he barely whispered, his face turning more disturbed looking. “I didn’t believe you. But… at the same time, I didn’t put it past myself.” He shook his head, confused. “Why would you think I would be pissed about this now?”
“Because… the person you are at night… isn’t like the person you are during the day,” she said carefully, hoping he’d connect the dots.
He stared hard at her. “The fuck are you saying?” he whispered, maybe more to himself than her.
She swallowed. ‘He… calls himself… X.”
“He?”
“He doesn’t think he’s you.”
“Because he’s not.”
Alarm hit her. “You know him?”
“What? No I don’t know him,” he said emphatically. “I’m saying…” His expression suddenly froze and her heart hammered. God, he’d connected it. The sexual things with this other person.
“When did you know he wasn’t me?”
“When he told me.”
He stared at her for many seconds before asking, “Before… or after you fucked him?”
Oh God.
“Holy fuck,” he gasped, swiping his hand over his mouth and turning away from her. “You fucked… another man… in my body… while I hated you?”
It had to be the worst way he could possibly interpret it. God, please let him hear how crazy that is, let him focus on the fact that he has a split personality instead of the fact I’d fucked him!
“Why?” he whispered. “How could you, after… after you knew.” He turned to her. “You knew I thought you were cheating on Reginald at that time and then you… you fuck another person with my body? Fucking Christ,” he strained, holding his head and pacing. “I have another person in me that I don’t even know about and you fuck him. Why shouldn’t you, though, just so you fuck!” he spat, as he kept pacing.
He suddenly spun and Winter braced as he got right in her face. “Why now! Why the fuck are you telling me this, what happened? Did he come last night? Did you fuck him last night!” he yelled.
Winter clenched her eyes tight. “No!” she gasped. “I mean he came but I didn’t fuck him, I didn’t do anything,” she fought to say through shaky breaths. “When he first came, I thought… it was you. He was sitting on the bed, watching me. And we talked and then he said something that made me realize…” She covered her mouth, her hand shaking. “He told me that I could help him.”
“Help him!? By fucking him!?” Bones grit, turning away from her and grabbing his head again.
“He needed answers about you and Reginald. He said he took care of the night…graveyard business.”
Bones jerked his eyes to her, fear adding to his pain.
She needed to fix this somehow, set it all straight. “He told me he gets you to do things by wanting them, he says he communicates with you by residual thoughts he impresses in your mind when he’s awake. He said Reginald…” She shook her head, remembering. “He didn’t know about Reginald. Being gone. He doesn’t just know things. He-he has to find them out when he wakes up. He says he looks around at clues. He talked about a man named Z that funds the night operations.”
“Night operations?” Bones paced faster, like a caged animal needing to run.
“I did it all to help you, he said he’d help me help you,” she went on, hating how that sounded. “You hated me at the time, Bones,” she reasoned. “I thought what’s the difference, I would be a whore one more time and get the information to help you.”
“What information!” he raged at her.
“About Reginald!” she screamed back. “Maybe he could help me find him!”
He kept pacing, her words putting a small dent in his fury and then he paused, hitting her with, “Did you fuck him in the office?”
She covered her face in shame and she jumped when he knocked the lamp off the table. “Goddamn you!” he roared, his every breath coming like growls.
“You hated me!” she screamed. “You wanted me gone! And then we made up and he came… last night,” she hurried on. “He wanted me to do things and I wouldn’t, I told him I couldn’t, things were different. I wasn’t a whore anymore, I belonged to you and he was furious.”
“You belong to me? Which me,” he slammed his hands on his chest. “I don’t fucking know who I am anymore!”
“I know who you are!” she yelled at him. “You’re Bones, you’re not him, you’re not X. I didn’t know what to do!” she cried louder. “I tried to talk him out of it I was stuck. He woke me up, he cut my neck,” she said, her voice hoarse.
He stopped pacing. “He did what?”
She shoved the hair away to show him and he hurried to her, holding her jaw to the side. The feel of his hands on her, even biting and angry made her sob with need. “I didn’t have any clothes on, I didn’t know what to do, I tried to play it smart,” she said while he gripped her face. “But then he wanted to do things and all I could think was no. I can’t. I told him I can never do that because I’m in love with Bones,” she barely wailed, tears pouring.
The iron grip on her jaw slowly loosened. “You told him that?” His desperate breaths shook right on her face.
She nodded and he released her, staring down at her. “He was so angry,” she whispered. “But then so wa
s I. I told him…” she barely managed around a sob, “that he couldn’t make me do that.” She shook her head roughly. “Because I’m not a whore, I belong to a beautiful man, and his name is Bones. Not X. And I would do anything for him, I’d die for him, but I would never hurt him! And then I knocked him out with the lamp,” she finished in a squeal.
His breath came in bursts now. “Is that what that fucking knot is on my head?”
She nodded just as Bones’ mouth covered hers so hot and hungry. His hands pulled tight in her hair as he kissed the breath from her lungs. He circled her waist with an arm and pushed her down onto the bed, his body covering hers. Their breaths clashed furiously as they both fought to remove his pants.
His cock suddenly shoved in deep and she grabbed his shoulders, gripping with a rapturous cry.
“You think I’m beautiful?” He gripped her jaw in his fingers, shuddering at her mouth as he pumped his cock so hard. “You belong to me? You’d die for me?”
“Yes,” she fought to say between her incessant moans.
“You fucking love me?”
“Oh God, so much,” she gasped as his ragged breaths grew into growls right in her face. He was coming, God he was coming and it was something massive. She wrapped her legs tight around him, needing to give him every good thing the world could give. “I love you so much.” She held his face as he came undone, his growls and thrusts turning ferocious, hitting blood and bones, mind and heart, and especially her g-spot. Her own shattering came in strangled hoarse cries that wound a mile deep inside her followed by “oh God, oh God, oh God.” Begging without words to let what they just shared be real and true. And forever.
THE NEXT CHAPTER
Winter sat on the bed while Bones looked around for something to write with. Her eyelids sagged heavily. God, she was exhausted.
“Okay, I’m ready,” he said, pulling up a chair next to the bed before her. “I want every single detail you remember.”
Her head swam and she fought to clear it. “I…” she blinked several times. “The scar,” she remembered. “He said to check the hospital records.”