I climbed the stairs to go to the alcove, my haven. How messed up was it that my one safe place was still intertwined with him? I let this happen. It was my fault. I opened myself up. He’d told me explicitly what he was going to do.
I pulled out my phone and texted him. I wanted one last chance for him to explain. To tell me everything was a misunderstanding.
You told my mom about my box?
I waited.
Three dots appeared and disappeared.
Why would you do that? Why would you go behind my back and spill all of my secrets?
Another three dots, and they vanished just as quickly.
Did you really kiss her?
Betrayal coursed through my veins, acrid and searing, and I asked the question I really wanted to know.
Did you plan this from the beginning? All of it?
Another three dots appeared. I was certain they would vanish, but I received a response: a photo. Whatever hope I had vanished with it, shattered into a million pieces.
No. No, no, no.
It was a selfie. He was grinning and appeared to be naked, but the selfie cut off just at the hard, muscular vee pointing down to his cock. It was lewd and sexy and suggestive.
The way he held the phone, I could clearly see behind him. He was in a bedroom, and I recognized it.
I spun around, looking behind me, then back at my phone.
It was the guest bedroom just a few feet down the hall.
On the bed, the dress Gemma’d had worn tonight was wrinkled. What removed all of my doubt—the silver-gray lingerie only Gemma wore was scattered on the hardwood. I nearly dropped my phone.
I told myself I wouldn’t fall for Theo.
Love is ephemeral, conditional. Love can be withdrawn. Love is a fucking lie. It happened anyway. And here was the proof. The minute I believed I could have something real, where we used to drink and make fun of everyone, where we spilled our hearts, Theo fucked my sister just feet away.
He sent me only these words along with the picture: “Come find me, sweet girl.”
Theo was waiting for me with one arm propped on the doorway.
Totally, unfairly naked.
“What did you do?”
I looked into his eyes, but there was none of the warmth I’d seen radiating these past few weeks. Cold, cruel Theo was back. The one who ripped away my grandfather, who’d promised to make me regret my love.
His grin was crooked, and he pulled off the condom still on his semihard dick, tossing it to the ground. “I don’t know. What did I do, Reject?”
My eyes landed on the condom.
No.
“Did you really sleep with her?” I hated how my voice shook.
The past was coming back in a wave of nausea.
I wouldn’t believe it. Not this time. I couldn’t.
“Did you?” There was hope in my eyes. I knew it, because it wavered in my question.
Theo looked at me like I was a curiosity. “What if I did?”
Below us, the ball continued without pause, lilting music and laughter taunting me. They were having a wonderful time, unaware that above them a girl was shattering.
“I don’t believe it,” I whispered. “It’s like before. You’re lying. It’s a misunderstanding.”
He took a breath and leaned against the wall, one shoulder propped. “I wondered how the Crowne sisters compared. Gemma tastes better, but you’re definitely more eager to please.”
My lips trembled.
I didn’t need to listen to this.
I turned to leave, but he gripped my bicep, spinning me flush against his naked body. When I struggled, he tangled one hand in my hair, the other at my lower back, anchoring me.
“You said you loved me, Abigail.” His words were taunting, not sweet. “Even if I betrayed you. How does that lie taste on your tongue?”
“Fuck you—”
He tugged my hair until our eyes locked. He looked demonic. Crazed. His eyes searched mine like a police dog going in for a kill.
“You said you would love me, Abigail.”
“Fuck you.”
“If you insist.” Then his lips were on mine.
28
ABIGAIL
His lips were punishing and consoling, taking my pain and sorrow and twisting it into something sweet. I couldn’t escape our addicting ouroboros, and a moan threatened to escape me. The moment it left my lips, Theo broke our connection and shoved me to the bed.
The bed where my sister’s ball gown now lay beneath me.
I couldn’t see him; our ball gowns took up my vision. Fuck tulle. Seriously, fuck whoever invented it. He was a predator and I was his prey, trapped in the bushes of glittery and gauzy fabric, trying to find him.
“I’m not doing this here.”
I could’ve stood up, run out of the room and from this. Instead I made a weak proclamation even I wasn’t sure I believed. I heard a creak on the hardwood to my left.
“Where I fucked your sister, you mean?” Theo’s voice came at me from the right, low and amused. “She’s probably still on the sheets.”
“Stop.”
“Can you feel her?” His low voice took up all the space in the room until it was inside me, seeping cold amusement. “I fucked her bare before I put on the condom.”
“Stop.”
I was yanked by my right ankle, pulled roughly out of the tulle forest, into the eyes of Theo.
“Does it hurt?” he asked. “Does it fucking break you up inside?”
His eyes pierced me. The green in them fractured like cracked gemstones, furious emotion shining through. Naked he was so breathtaking. All sharp glistening edges—naked because of my sister. Three parallel scratch marks slid down his pec. He was mine. He was mine, and she’d marked him and he’d let her.
I found his eyes again, but they were too tender. I needed him to be cruel as betrayal’s knife twisted in my side.
“Do you still want me to stop, Abigail?” His touch on my ankle was soft now. His thumb stroked the bone, back and forth, too light. Too sweet.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Say no, Abigail.” The way his voice lowered into a vibration made it sound like a threat, but he was threatening me to make him stop.
I couldn’t do it, either way. I couldn’t say no.
“There’s no going back, Theo.”
Misery. That’s the brine on my tongue.
I promise by the time I’m done with you, you’ll be ruined for everyone but me.
He was right in the end.
Some emotion flickered across his features at my words. It was followed by another barely-there second of that addictingly sweet touch; then his grasp hardened, and he yanked me to the edge of the bed. He lifted one ankle to his shoulder, and then leaned over me, hands at my neckline, tearing my dress down the middle.
Hours before he’d wondered if it was held up by magic; now the lace was torn between his fingers.
His touch left me too soon, but one hand returned, between my thighs.
“Oh, I get why you didn’t want to stop.” He laughed, rubbing my panties into me. “What did it? What part of this is getting you so fucking wet, Reject?”
I was stuck on him, the way he watched me. It was reminiscent of our first night together, when he drank in every sigh, goose bump, and bitten lip. But unlike that night, I had a feeling I was going to regret his worship.
He rubbed my silk panties against me, a concentric, intoxicating rhythm. I wanted him to rip them off. I would deal with the emotional fallout after. All I knew was I wanted Theo’s rough, knowing hands on me.
“Is it knowing you’re second best?” he asked, pushing aside my panties. He slid one finger into me, and I must’ve gasped, but it was drowned out under his groan.
His groan.
Deep, strangled, and unfair. Unfair he gives it to me after such cruel words.
His fingers left me. I was shocked, and so empty. A cruel fucking tease.
But then h
e was at my entrance, his thick cock spreading me. He held one ankle on his shoulder, my other gripped in his hand. I’d never been so obscenely open, vulnerable, and so ripped apart.
But he waited.
For me to say no? To push him away? I should. Tears were drowning my face.
Instead, I arched my back.
He slammed into me. I arched higher off the bed, but he gave me no reprieve.
“Abigail Crowne,” Theo taunted with another powerful thrust. “So unloved she can’t love in return.”
“Abigail Crowne”—thrust—“has told herself so many lies the truth looks fake.”
Theo pushed deeper and deeper until I could only gasp. Deeper than I ever thought I could take, harder than I thought I could manage.
“Abigail Crowne”—thrust—“a pathetic, rejected princess.”
“Why are you doing this?” Tears streamed down my cheeks, not from physical pain, but from the brutal, emotional battering I was receiving. Physically, Theo was driving me to ecstasy.
The combination was ripping me apart. He was weaving two existing dichotomies inside me irrevocably together.
“I thought you loved me, Abigail? I thought you loved me even if I betrayed you.”
The worst, most cruel part about this is I still did love him. I wanted to take it away, I wanted to break it, I wanted to forget my love for him ever existed, but I couldn’t. It was throbbing and bruised from what was happening, but it was there.
His eyes were red, and I could almost convince myself that this hurt him as much as it was hurting me, but then he pulled out, flipping me onto my stomach so I couldn’t see his face. He grabbed my hips, pulling me against him, so rock hard.
He yanked my hair, pulling my ear to his lips. “You don’t deserve this cock, Reject.”
He dropped me, and I bounced on the mattress, and he was inside me again. The new position was too much, too deep. Every thrust driving me higher.
“Look at me.”
I shook my head, so he grabbed hair that had taken hours to braid, yanking it and lifting my head. “Look at me, Reject.”
The black window mirrored our image inside the diamond-shaped golden lattice. I saw our relationship, a hundred different reflections of what we’d become, dark and twisted and wrong.
I still saw Theo too clearly in the window. His beautiful, sculpted features next to me, his lips even more plump from kissing me. My hair was nearly all down. Messed. Tangled from him.
He slowed his thrusts, watching my reaction just like before, and it was so much worse. Too deliberate, almost tender, as he fucked me atop my sister’s ball gown. A ball gown I could now see had twisted inexorably with my own. His lips came to my ear, eyes still locked with mine. His words were low and steady, gentle even, as if they weren’t going to rip me apart.
“Truth or promise?”
“I don’t want to play this game with you.” Tears reflected back at me, my makeup entirely ruined.
He slid out, then back in—deeper. I gasped, clawing at the sheets—her ball gown—I realized. Still going the same, deliberate pace, but now deeper, harder. I was on the edge, begging to jump off, but Theo held me back by the collar.
Shivers slid inside my veins and I could barely breathe, let alone speak.
“Truth or promise, Reject, and I’ll let you come.”
“Promise,” I gasped instantly.
He froze, body and eyes rigid, but still dug into my hip with his hand. For a moment, I saw old Theo, sweet Theo. I’d only ever made him one promise, after all.
I promise, Theo. I promise I’ll never let you go.
Then he rammed into me again, this time harder, faster. I was going to come. I could feel it.
“Promise you don’t love me, Abigail,” he commanded, voice dark.
“What?” I gasped.
How could he ask that of me?
Theo continued to slide in and out, and I was reaching that addicting moment where you’d do anything to reach the peak. Selling my soul seemed like a good trade, if only Theo would…just…keep…going.
“Promise,” he gritted.
It wasn’t his command, or even my need, that made me say it. He was nearly out of breath, fingers bruising my thighs, like he was trying to keep himself from coming, but his thumb… his thumb softly traced my hip, back and forth. It was almost like he didn’t know he was doing it. How treacherous that a show of affection would topple me.
“I—”
Just before I was about to speak and damn myself for eternity, Theo spoke over me.
“Promise you’ll never say ‘I love you,’ promise you’ll never make another goddamn promise to anyone again.”
When he slammed the final nail in my coffin, it didn’t matter, I was already over the edge, and the words were already leaving my lips.
We came together. As I exploded back into a thousand pieces that only Theo had been able to put back together, I promised I wouldn’t love him.
Or anyone else.
It still hadn’t settled when Theo put on his black slacks. I didn’t realize what happened, how badly we were broken. I hadn’t moved, but he was getting dressed. I sat up, trying and failing to clasp my ripped bodice together.
“Where are you going?”
He eyed me, pants undone. “Somewhere. Anywhere.”
“But you’ll be back in my wing by tonight.”
A wrinkle formed above his brow. “No, Abigail. I won’t.”
He continued dressing.
He was leaving me in a ripped ball gown. He was leaving me ripped.
“Are you going back to my grandfather?”
He shook his head, and my chest caved.
Theo was leaving.
Again.
For good.
“You can’t leave,” I practically screamed. “You’re mine. I mean”—I tried to stifle my emotion—“I own you. I’ve owned you from day one. You belong to Abigail Crowne.”
He paused.
“It says so here.” I lifted my wrist, showing the bracelet I still wore. I hated how my voice trembled. “You belong to me.” He’d always belonged to me, before I knew it, before he knew it.
He was mine.
I was his.
He glanced absently at my wrist, where the bracelet I’d given him as a child lay.
Then, without so much as a flitter of emotion, he ripped it off. Pastel beads clattered violently to the marble floor. My breath caught and clambered in my lungs as they bounced on the floor.
I like you having something of mine. To think of me.
Whatever strength remained inside me vanished as beads slid under furniture, vanishing into shadows. I was a broken radio, static switching from numb to broken to pained. I didn’t know I could feel this amount of pain. My chest was ripping open. I thought the first time Theo left was brutal.
This…
This would end me.
Theo finished dressing. In black slacks and his white undershirt, he still looked like a celebrity. He was ruffled, and he made it look good. I resented that.
He headed to the door, and I thought I would have to watch him walk away. I thought he was through with me. I was foolish. I thought the pain in that moment was the worst I would ever feel. I was naïve.
He looked back at me, like I was an afterthought. “Say thank you.”
At first I couldn’t do anything but stare back, my words lost in shock. He couldn’t be serious.
Theo didn’t so much as smirk at me. He waited, bored yet still infuriatingly hot, watching me like I was some waiter taking too long with his order. He was serious. He really wanted me to say thank you.
I summoned rage. Good, easy, numbing rage. “Fuck you.”
“I will,” he said, nodding, walking back to me as he spoke. “If you don’t say thank you. I’ll make you come on her dress over and over, until you associate her with feeling that good.”
I looked up, shocked, staring into his eyes. Part of me couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t belie
ve the boy who’d saved me had become this way.
Evil. Theo was evil. What did it make me that I gave in to temptation so easily? Because as much as I knew he would go through with that promise, I knew I would let him. I hated him, I hated myself, but I still craved him.
Bruising or tender, biting or soft, I needed him.
I was pathetic.
“Say it.”
“No.”
A part of me wanted to keep saying no so he would have to go through with his threats.
He tilted his head, as if reading my mind. “Sweet girl, that would break you.” His voice was soft then, his touch softer.
That, more than anything he’d done, broke me.
He can’t call me by such sweet names while obliterating my soul into such small pieces they can never be repaired. It fucks with my head—but that’s Theo, and that’s why I’m so strung out on him. Theo is the moment after agonizing pain subsides, when stark relief has you high and you’ve sworn you’ve never felt so good. It’s the most addicting thing I’ve ever felt.
Be mean to me just so I can hear you say nice words.
I jerked my head away, but he caught me, slowly bringing my gaze back to him, digging into my jawbone, soft touch returning brutal.
I knew he was done telling me what to do, just like I knew I had to do it. I wouldn’t look him in the eye for this humiliation. His grasp on my chin still harsh, I looked down. I focused on the fine needlework of my dress now ripped from his hands. Teardrops stained the white chiffon. Soon everything blurred in my tears.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
It burned through me like hot smoke, staining my insides irrevocably.
Theo laughed and dropped my chin. “You’re welcome.”
29
THEO
I’d barely made it out of the room before I doubled over, heaving whatever was in my stomach. It didn’t help. I was still festering inside.
Promise you’ll never say I love you, promise you’ll never make another goddamn promise to anyone again.
Vote Then Read: Volume II Page 206