“You had the chance to run and you chose to stay. Don’t make yourself regret that more than you do already.”
“I wanted to make sure Doe was okay.”
“Don’t. My daughter is none of your concern. I won't let you hurt-”
He stops, freeing me with a flick that has me stumbling backwards into the front door.
“Cooper Jennings,” I say, stepping towards him and gripping his t-shirt. He takes hold of my wrist while he shakes his head, but I’ve got his attention. He wants to hear what I have to say, so right now he’s the compliant one. “I’m not going to hurt her. Nor am I going to allow you to hurt me. I won't break, Cooper. When you kill me, you’ll be killing the only woman who can calm your racing mind. By killing me, you’ll kill yourself.”
“Spoken like a woman who knows what she’s talking about. Perhaps you should have gone into acting.” With a sharp cutting motion, he severs my contact with him and turns me to face the door. When his lips touch my ear, I moan. “When you get inside my house, I want you to go straight to your tower.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so. Defy me and I’ll be forced to teach you another lesson. I will know if you come out, and I will punish you for it.”
Cooper opens the door and uses his hand on the back of my neck to shove me inside. I avoid falling to my knees and instead turn to face him with my hands on my hips. I know my effect has been dampened by the cast so instead of allowing him to point out my weakness, I point out my strength and refuse to run to the tower and wait for his next order.
“Erin.”
“Cooper.”
“Don’t push me.”
“I don’t mind the darkness, you know,” I confess, walking towards the tower. “I don’t mind this shit that you throw at me. You know, I think I enjoy it. I think I enjoy knowing I mean nothing to you because it means I’ve got nothing to lose. Knowing you’ll hurt me means I’ll never love you, so I’ll never be crushed by something unrequited. I think I like knowing you want to fuck your wife as badly as you want to fuck me. I’m not jealous...not like you are of Griffin.” He growls and follows me along the hallway. “It means I don’t care who you fuck. In fact, you can come fuck me now if you like, before you’ve even had a chance to clean her off you.”
“You know nothing.”
“I know more than you think.”
“No.” He growls again and my step falters when I realise how close he is to me. He’s closed the distance quickly. “You have plenty of puzzle pieces and you keep arranging them in the wrong order, making a ridiculous fucking picture of fantasy. You. Know. Nothing. But continue, really—I’m quite enjoying this little charade of yours. You’re really helping me refresh my game plan.”
“It’s not a charade, Cooper. I don’t care if you’ve been following me for years, you don’t know what’s inside my head.”
“So enlighten me, caterpillar.”
I shake my head. “Not a chance. I’m just going to ruin you with all the things you’ve mistaken about me.”
I’m trying so hard to stay brave, to be the kind of woman he hates so he’ll let me go willingly. I know what he did at the hospital, why he did it, and what he hoped to achieve. I hadn’t let him win, which is why he wants me in the tower, so he can punish me. I refuse to be punished for losing a game I couldn’t win.
“This is my point, caterpillar. All these big words and this big show but you know it just makes me hard. You know I want to tear you in two for daring to stand up to me.”
I know. I also know how to hit him where it hurts.
“I know. Is that why you can’t have Doe? Because despite her mama being a junkie and an alcoholic, you have a conviction, or a record, or a reputation?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Take your wife to any court with evidence of the kind of woman she is, and Doe will be yours without stepping foot into a courtroom. The only reason you wouldn’t be granted custody is if you’ve done something much worse.” Cooper takes a step forward, his eyes alight. He thought we’d be playing a game where the end result was him balls deep inside me and me at his mercy. Not today. “Did you rape your wife like you rape me? Did you break her bones? Did you make her bleed? Did Doe see it?”
“Shut up,” he grunts, snapping his teeth together to try and stay in control. “Do not talk about my daughter.”
“Why not? You made me talk about my parents, about my fiancé. He’s never hurt me. He’s never made me cry.”
“Your mom is a selfish cunt, your dad is a weed of a man with no drive to take care of his princess, and Griffin is fucking his secretary. Explain how any of those people have a positive impact on your life.”
“How does Doe have one on yours? You still took me. You still treat me like an insect. You still think I’m worthless. Butterflies aren’t pretty and priceless, and that’s not what you think when you call me caterpillar. You know they’re weak, bottom of the food chain…one drip of water and a butterfly is paralysed. Which one of us is really the butterfly, Cooper?”
I reach out and prod his ribs, the side of his weakened lung. He hisses and smacks my hand away, but the damage has been done. He knows I know his weakness. He knows I’m no longer vulnerable to his abuse because I know he’s the victim of his own mind.
“I didn’t hurt her,” he confesses, bowing his head as he steps closer. “I’ve never hurt anyone until you.”
I clap my hands between us. “And the man of year award goes to Cooper Jennings.”
He blanches and steps away from me, shoving his hands in his pockets and continuing to put distance between us.
“You really wanna know why I took you?” he asks, pain flashing across glistening eyes as he moves further and further away. “Because I thought you’d be the one to save me. I hurt you because despite what you say you love it. Because I’ve read what you need, what you want, and I’m trying to open your eyes to the kind of life you should be living. In fact, what I should have done was leave you to your lonely miserable life, continued to watch and laugh as you kissed a man who hadn’t even washed his mouth out after eating his mistress’s cunt. I should have just left you to rot and not wasted my time.” Turning to the side, Cooper extends his arm towards the tower as he takes his gun from his waistband and holds it down by his side. “Now fuck off to the tower while I decide what to do with you.”
He can’t be serious. I thought he just said those things about my family to hurt me. Deep down, I know I became my parents’ meal ticket. But Griffin…has Cooper really watched him cheat on me?
The click of metal jolts me back to life and I glance at Cooper. He isn’t looking at me. He’s looking straight ahead. Sighing, I push off the wall and walk towards him, admitting defeat. I screwed up. I pushed the wrong buttons and sent us back to square one.
“Stop.”
I freeze in front of Cooper and attempt to turn my head to look at him, but he grips my throat, turns me to face the wall and bends me over the sideboard in front of me. My cheek hits cold, hard wood and cool air licks me between the legs as Cooper shoves my dress up. His fingers probe at me, the harsh coldness of the gun against the bottom of my back, and his jeans hit the back of my legs. His scent hits me and steals my senses from me, sending me to black out in a cloud of panic, humiliation and lust. A catastrophic cocktail. It won't end well.
“I’ve been real nice, Erin. I told you to treat it like a holiday, take what you wanted from me, and follow a few simple rules. I don’t want you to read me. I don’t want you to get it wrong and you got it so fucking wrong.”
I hiccup on a sob when his fingers drive into me, twisting and stretching and scraping tense muscle. He keeps my head down, back arched, offered to him and ready to take. I cry, the effects of him ripping apart my comfortable life and forcing me to acknowledge how stupid I’ve been, sending me over the emotional precipice into destruction.
“Cooper.”
“Don’t fight it.”
&
nbsp; He twists his fingers a little deeper before he withdraws them and spreads wet heat upwards. He massages in tight circles, dipping his finger in until I feel his knuckles and close my legs. He kicks them apart and I cry out when something foreign pushes into my pussy. I clench around it, fighting against him to look behind me and see what he’s doing. Gripping my hair in a tight fist, he keeps me in place, his fingers stretching and exploring my arse as the heavy ache in my womb keeps whatever he put inside me in place.
“What are you doing?”
“Does it matter?” he asks, smacking my arse and making me shudder against the onslaught of sensation. “You’re my prisoner, remember? I stole you from your happy life, remember? I can be evil as fuck because it’s what you expect and I’d be a lying son of a bitch if I said I didn’t like seeing you writhe around in discomfort.” Stepping to the side, he digs his elbow into my spine and I yelp, kicking my legs out as he leans over me. I hear a drawer open, but I’m held physically captive, as well as mentally and emotionally dependant on this brute.
“You’re hurting me!” I cry, crossing my legs and trying to wriggle free.
“That’s the point.”
My breath hitches as something cold nudges my arse and pushes its way in.
“They’re called beads,” Cooper says. “I ordered them especially for you the first time I saw your firm ass naked and decided I’d fuck it. Now I’m not so sure I want to touch you at all-” he pushes another small ball inside me, twisting to make sure every inch of me feels the intrusion. “But I will make sure you can’t even take a breath without thinking of me.”
“Why…?”
“Because I’ve ruined your life, haven’t I? I’ve stolen you from people who treat you so goddamn well it hurts, right? May as well live up to the label you’ve stuck on me.”
“I haven’t…”
He smacks me again and I throw my head back, my neck cracking against his hold on me. He does wince with me, as pain ripples through me, but if he regrets it, he shows no signs. He continues pushing the beads into me, filling me up with alien objects I’ve never seen. He strokes my neck, and I know we’re both wondering if he’s broken another bone, but he says nothing. He’s watching me, my reaction to what he’s doing, my pussy, bared to him and soaking. He’s watching on as each of the beads enter me like I know he wants to. He’s punishing us both by doing this. When he’s done, he stands behind me again, squeezes my arse and massages, forcing me to quiver around him and moan as pleasure ripples out from his toys to my core, my heart, my mind—all the things Cooper stole from me.
“Now,” he says, smoothing my dress down and gripping my hair to help me stand and face him. “I want you to walk to your tower and stand in the middle of the room. Do not, under any circumstance, touch what I’ve just given you.”
“But-”
He stops me talking with his hand gripping my jaw, before he crushes his lips to mine and punishes me with a kiss. It’s a kiss full of hate I hadn’t even seen him project onto his junkie ex-wife. It’s a brutal kiss, with biting and force and fervour; it’s a kiss that floods my mouth with copper and I’m not sure who from.
“Get out of my sight, caterpillar, before I do something we’ll both regret.”
He turns me to face away from him and I cry out when he smacks my arse and forces me to walk away.
“Don’t forget to let me hear you scream, baby.”
“I won't scream for you,” I say with the final shred of defiance I have.
“We’ll see.”
I hear Cooper laugh as I use every ounce of energy and willpower I have to walk to the tower without him seeing how good his torture feels. When I close the door and look around the circular room, with nothing but floor to ceiling windows and the post Cooper strung me up on, reality smacks me. I can’t cope with this. I can’t cope because now I feel guilty. It’s the guilt that beats every other emotion surging through me. I should have left; I had the chance and Cooper as good as gave me permission to go. But I didn’t. I chose to stay with the man who stole me, and now he’s punishing me for it. I try to keep my legs together and reduce the crippling sensation, to cross the room and lean against the wall opposite the windows. I scream when an earthquake wreaks havoc on my core, sending a paralysing ripple throughout my body. My nipples pebble against my bra, my toes flex, and my back arches off the wall. Whatever Cooper put inside me is vibrating, toying with my nerves until I’m twitching in response, and he’s playing me from afar as if I’m nothing but a sex toy. I cry out again as the vibrations pulse, wave after wave coursing through me.
“Cooper!”
Everything clenches against the alien toys doing the dance of deviance inside me and I look around me to find relief. There’s none. Forcing my body to obey me, I stumble forward and grip the pole, wrapping my arms around it as I fall to my knees. The vibrations continue until I can count each rhythmic pulse, and hone in on every one of my senses stolen by it.
“Cooper!” I cry again.
He isn’t here, and if he is, he doesn’t plan on coming to my rescue. Why would he? He’d told me to go and I didn’t, because of some fucked up notion that I could get through to him. Now, as the tears stream from my eyes in time with the wetness that trickles from my pussy, I want to go home. I want boring. I want to be with the cheating fiancé, the ignorant parents, the people who see me as nothing but a meal ticket and personal ATM. I want to go home because I know where I stand there. Here, with Cooper, I know I’ve got no chance of figuring him out. The vibrations calm and I take a moment to wipe the sweat from my brow, and focus on the throbbing ache inside me that has become painful. I take deep breaths, but my body is on edge, rippling with unwanted desire, begging for something to take the ache away. Cooper obeys my body’s silent demands and the vibrations begin again. They’re not gentle, they’re not sensual, they’re not soft or rewarding or intended for pleasure. They’re punishing. They’re painful. They’re excruciating for my mind because he’s given me the need to come, with the hatred for the man orchestrating my orgasm.
The tears continue to fall, the sweat continues to collect and pebble and drip down my temples. My arse is sore, the beads no longer enjoyable. The thing inside me is no longer my friend, offering to make me come in Cooper’s absence; it has become an enemy, a source of my frustration, and I need Cooper to finish whatever he started so I can breathe again. My hands slip from the pole and smash to the floor as I come. The vibrations tear through me, forcing a scream from my lungs—a scream so devastating I fear for the glass in the room. My vision begins to darken, black shadows dancing in my peripheral as Cooper continues to fuck with my head, at the same time he fucks with my body and forces another orgasm to collide with the first. I fall onto my back, digging my heels into the floor to lift my hips and search for relief. The thing inside me changes its rhythm and I gasp as the tiny tremors travel around my body and offer me a rest. It doesn’t last long.
Cooper plays with me for hours; the early afternoon sun turns into dusk, and when night falls, I’m done. He has made me come so many times I’ve been sick, started to bleed, torn chunks of my hair out, and promised to kill him, obey him, fuck him, run from him, stay with him forever…anything to make him stop.
Finally, he does, and I take my first real breath before I pass out.
“Caterpillar.”
I open my eyes to bright sunlight and Cooper. I wince, curling my body up and attempting to get away from him; with a hand on my thigh, he stops me and holds me still. I freeze and look up into his eyes. Last night they were menacing. Today they’re…calm.
Without saying another word, Cooper helps me over onto my stomach, grips my knees to bring them up under me, and extends my arms so my body is lying flat on the floor. I shriek when he pulls the first bead out of me.
“Just relax,” he says. “Take a deep breath and relax.”
How can I relax? My body has been assaulted and it doesn’t want to relax around him. All he’ll do is hurt me aga
in, because…because what?
“Cooper.”
“Hush, caterpillar.”
I clamp my mouth shut, along with my eyes, and just let him free me. When he’s done and my body is mine again, he helps me to my feet. I can’t stand, leaning into him instead while he supports my weight.
“What was the vibrating thing?” I ask, attempting to look up at him, and then change my mind.
“It’s just an egg,” he says, as if that’s all I need to know. He sighs when I say nothing, snuggling into him instead as he holds us motionless in the middle of the room. “Do you want to see it?”
I shake my head quickly. “No.”
“The only time you shut up and let go is when you’re coming. I just got a little carried away last night.”
“A little?”
“Yes, a little.” He wraps his arm around me and tucks me into his side. “Come on. It’s Monday morning.”
“And that means what exactly?”
My voice is dry and scratched. Cooper notices and grabs a bottle of water from the sideboard outside the tower as he leads us from it.
“It means it’s time to work.”
I sniffle a sob when Cooper leads us down the steps, my entire body singing with pain from his abuse last night. I feel like I’ve been tied up in knots, each one pulling tighter with every step I take.
“What is it?” he asks, stopping one step below me and turning to face me.
“Have you ever been sexually abused, Cooper?” I expect him to smack some obedience into me, but he blanches. “Do you know how much it hurts? I’ll let you in on a secret, to help you improve your game when it comes to breaking me piece by piece…it hurts more the day after.”
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