by Bea Paige
So, I do, and once I start, I can’t fucking stop.
My hands move down her arms to cup her breasts. Her nipples are puckered into hard points, the dark pink skin tempting me to taste her. I squeeze her soft flesh, her breathy moans drawing me out of the dark. Pulling me up from the depths.
“Do it!” she insists. Determined, strong. She fights with me, not against me. She draws out the monster as though to purge it from my soul.
It’s all I need to hear. Falling forward, I greedily take her nipple in my mouth and suck hard. My teeth scrape across the pebbled point drawing out a long, breathy moan from her throat. She’s fucking delicious. The moment I taste her, it’s like a bomb detonating in my head.
Something unravels, and with it the music comes.
“Erik,” she cries, pulling against the restraints.
But her cry doesn’t drown out the music. It’s not nearly enough.
The fucking music fights back, getting louder, trying to drown her out.
“Stay with me, Erik,” she begs.
Squeezing harder, my mouth falls between her breasts as I lick and suck at the skin there before sliding my lips and tongue over her soft flesh taking her other nipple in my mouth, lavishing and sucking until her moans fight for my attention. My teeth scrape over the tender flesh as my hands mould her breasts in my palms.
It’s been so long...
“Yes!” she hisses, arching her back.
My cock stiffens, coming back to life for this woman. This fucking beautiful, extraordinary woman.
Yet the music still plays, it still fights for my attention. With every note, I feel my control retreating, I feel the monster coming to life.
But I won’t give in. Not this time, not with Rose so vulnerable.
When I rip open her chest and devour her heart it won’t be through force but because she begs me to, wants it. The darkness, the monster I harbour won’t give her what she craves. The man I am will give her what she needs.
“Erik, please,” she cries out, a moan of pleasure edged in the finest layer of pain.
She’s skirting the line between the two. Fear and desire battling for attention, just the same as me. I lift my head and look into her green eyes sparkling with courage and lust, and something more, something deeper. Far beneath the surface is the shipwreck of her heart. It’s fucking broken, beaten, submerged under years of pain, but amongst the wreckage is a pocket of air, of hope.
Consciously or not, she’s giving me a glimpse into the depths of her. I see the heart of her, the truth and with it her ability to let go. I want it, and I’ll do anything to get.
“Please,” she begs so quietly, it’s no more than a breath of air breaking through the surface.
I fucking lose it.
Standing, I tip my head back and roar until my throat is hoarse and I’m panting like a wild beast. I’m vaguely aware of Anton moving closer to the glass. I’m pretty sure he’s shouting, but I can no longer hear him.
The music is so loud, but so is Rose. She’s calling to me above the rushing and pulsing in my ears. She’s calling me back to her. Shouting my name, drawing me out of the depths.
Ripping my joggers and pants down, I kick them away. My cock falls free. It’s heavy and thick and fucking erect. Fisting it, I stand above Rose and pump my cock hard and fast welcoming the tingle in my balls, welcoming the rush of blood in my cock as it turns to fucking stone.
Rose thrusts her hips upwards lifting her arse off the bed, forcing me to see her.
My eyes snap to her mound and the dark thatch of hair between her legs. Despite the fear in her eyes, she’s wet and ready for me. So damn wet, her thighs glisten with her desire.
Feeling feral, frantic, I grab Rose by her hips and flip her over so that her bound wrists are twisted, and her stomach and face are pressed against the mattress.
“I’m going to fuck you, Rose,” I grind out, yanking her arse up and kneeling on the bed between her parted legs.
“Yes,” she cries out, lifting her arse higher. The pink slash of her pussy fucking beautiful and welcoming and mine.
The music fights back, it plays louder in my head and I feel the memories begin to encroach on this moment. I need them gone, replaced with something else. Anything else.
Raising my hand into the air I lower it quickly, smacking her arse. The sound reverberates around the room silencing the music for just a moment.
She cries out, her arousal a heady perfume. I breathe her in, drawing her scent into my lungs, imprinting it onto my memory.
Still the music gets louder, and my vision darkens with every note. I dig my fingers into Rose’s flesh leaving little crescent shapes as I mark her further.
It’s not enough.
“Do it,” she grinds out.
I slap her again. Hard. My hand stings, as much as her arse probably does.
She cries out and I know I’m hurting her, but I can’t stop, don’t stop, not with the next slap, or the one after that. Before long, her beautiful arse is covered in my hand prints.
“Erik, taste me,” she pants, her head twisted to the side, her dark hair stuck to the sweat beading on her forehead.
A snarl releases from my lips as I duck down behind her and shove my face against her pussy. The second my tongue dives into her, she cries out. The sound is fucking beautiful, and once more the music is silenced.
Clutching onto her, I lick and suck every part of her tender flesh greedily. My tongue swiping upwards from her clit, rimming her arsehole and drawing out deep moans, then sliding between her plump folds finding her clit once more.
Another note sounds, and my fingers move against her hips as though moving along the neck of my violin.
No! I refuse to let the music drown me. I need to hear her instead.
She cries out when my teeth graze against the sensitive flesh of her folds, when they clamp down onto the soft flesh of her arse. Her pants, her breathy moans, is a new kind of music, one my monster fucking craves.
Reaching between her legs, I press against her clit with my fingers, my thumb entering her whilst my tongue licks everywhere else. She tastes like a forbidden fruit; ripe, sweet, fucking sinful.
Yet with every lick, the music fights back. It still fucking fight backs. Rearing upwards and away from Rose, my torturer’s face appears. Her evil smile taunting me.
“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD!” I shout, every part of me fucking trembling. Fear seizes my heart. My cock softens, my heart plummets into the pits of hell but somehow through the haze, I see Rose twisting her head.
“Fight it,” she shouts, and if it weren’t for the tear sliding down her cheek, I might have lost the battle there and then. But that one tear, full of pain, hurt, empathy, sadness, it draws me back, it makes me strong even though it makes her feel weak.
“Fight it, Erik. Fight her. Use me to do that,” she chokes out.
Her voice cracks, she understands how close I am to losing it. She sees the darkness leaching from me, so she does something extraordinary, she breaks open a little more, tears freefall across the plains of her face and I realise in that moment they’re as rare as a precious jewel long since lost beneath the dark earth. They feed the man within, the man beyond the monster. I’m so fucking thirsty for her tears. I want more and with that one animal need, my cock hardens.
Yanking her hips back towards me, I force the memory of my torturer away with one hard thrust, burying myself deep into Rose.
She cries out, her scream muffled by the pillow, her shoulders and arms sag as she relinquishes herself to me. My hands grip tighter, supporting her weight as I squeeze the flesh of her hips, bruising her with my touch.
“Don’t stop,” she grinds out, her voice as feral as mine is now.
I pull back and slam into her, my cock buried balls deep in her warmth.
It’s fucking bliss.
It’s sheer agony.
My torturer’s face reappears as Mazurka in A Minor reaches its crescendo, and I feel my cock so
ften ever so slightly.
“No!” I bite out, raising my hand and smacking Rose on the arse, hard.
Her image shatters. Rose cries out, her core squeezing around my cock, bringing it back to life.
Bringing me back to life.
She holds me tight within her, not letting go, not allowing me to forget where I am… buried within her, within Rose.
The music still plays, it taunts me, but with every note I respond by slamming into Rose.
I fight back.
I pound into her.
Fast, hard, deep.
She screams with pleasure, with pain, with strength. A battle cry only for me.
Her core tightens even more around my cock, keeping my focus, keeping me with her.
This isn’t lovemaking, it’s a fucking war, and this time I’m going to win.
So I rut like a fucking animal, a monster. I take what I need, what she gives. Over and over I slam into her until I hear nothing but her cries of pleasure.
Rose takes my punishment as though it’s her own.
Every slap, every tug of her hair, every deep thrust. She takes it. Owns it. Fucking swims towards the surface with me.
My torturer is still there at the periphery of my consciousness, taunting me, so I mark Rose again. A deep red handprint blooms on her thigh splintering the image of the woman who tries to hurt me even now, after all this time.
The notes continue to play, they’re like knives slicing my skin whilst that hateful woman shimmers on the edge of my memories waiting to destroy me. I refuse to let her, not whilst I’m inside Rose, not whilst I take back the power bit by bit.
I pull Rose’s hair, twisting her head to the side, needing to see her face once more. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes at half-mast, her pants turn me on. Her moans of pleasure start to become louder than the Mazurka in A Minor.
Rose’s music, her strength, her ability to endure drown out the memories, making me strong enough to swim against the tide. I clutch hold of her tighter, grind into her harder and push my way to the surface, needing to breathe again.
Needing to feel more than fear. Needing to feel like a man. Needing to feel alive.
Somehow, together, Rose and I fight against my past.
We fuck, our bodies leading us as we let go of all restraint. Together we battle against the memories, against the years of fucking pain and helplessness.
Rose draws out some of the hurt, some of the darkness. She fucking absorbs it, makes it her own. She takes it all as I thrust into her. She takes the wildness within me, the monster. She allows me to find another outlet that doesn’t end in violence and death.
I fight harder than ever before. I fight for the man I was, the man I want to be. But most of all, I fight for Rose until, eventually, both of us come hard and fast, our mutual screams of pleasure obliterating the music and the memories that have haunted me these past five years.
And just for a moment, I’m free.
Chapter 24
Rose – Present Day
Out of the darkness he rises, the man with a lion’s heart.
Brave, courageous, powerful, fierce.
He withdraws from me, slides his hands gently over my hips and turns me back around, laying me back down with great care. I know he’s studying me, but I can’t look at him. I’m too raw, too goddamn vulnerable.
He took what I offered, took what he needed just like Roman had all those years ago on Cerulean Blue, but, unlike Roman, he doesn’t try to hide the harshness of our encounter behind words of fakery and love.
He might have marked me with the firmness of his hand. He might have bruised me internally with the power of his thrusts. He might have fucked me like an animal; frantic, wild, raw, free, but he didn’t do it to break me, he didn’t do it out of some sick twisted desire, he did it to save himself. And I let him.
This man who stares at me now is nothing like Roman.
And that scares me to death.
Sweat slides from Erik’s nose and falls against my chest as he leans over me and unties the rope. He doesn’t say a word as he releases my sore wrists and presses a delicate kiss against them. He doesn’t utter a sound as he climbs off the bed and scoops up my boneless body into his arms. I let him carry me, too weak, destroyed by the battle we just faced together.
He strides over to the cubicle in the corner of the room, opens the door and steps inside. Too dazed to protest, I let him slide my body against his as he manoeuvres us both into the shower cubicle. Supporting my weight as the water slides over us both, Erik washes me.
He’s gentle, so fucking gentle that it breaks me open so much more than the violence of our encounter. I press my eyes closed against the water, against the depths of his gaze and allow myself to just feel. I’m too shattered to do anything else.
For long minutes, Erik smooths his hand over every inch of my body. He’s gentle where once he was harsh, caressing my bruised, reddened skin. Careful, tentative, caring.
I feel myself breaking, weakening the more he persists.
Roman had never held me this way after our encounters. The first time he’d used me, he left me curled up in a ball, bleeding, broken, bruised, bereft. Every encounter afterwards he did the same until eventually I wasn’t a curled up, broken mess.
He turned me into the woman I am today. Strong, but fragile. Brave, but fearful. Fierce, but indifferent. The thing is, right now, I don’t feel strong. I don’t feel brave or fierce.
I’m open and raw, bruised more than just physically.
Everything hurts. Everything.
My demon has abandoned me. I pushed her away one too many times and now she’s left, and I don’t have the energy or the will to fight Erik’s tenderness without her.
I’m so fucking tired of fighting.
I realise that I’ve been allowing these men in bit by bit. First, Ivan had made love to me, then Anton had showed compassion when he massaged my pain away, wanting nothing in return. Now, here I am with Erik, his tenderness debilitating me.
I can’t fight him, them. I can’t do it.
“Please, no more,” I manage to say.
Erik pulls me closer against him, the sweet smell of coconut and blossom rising in the air.
“For now,” he replies, picking me up again.
I let him carry me back to the battleground, laying me down on the bed. I’m soaking wet, my skin prickles with cold, my teeth chattering, my whole body begins to shake.
“Is she okay?” Anton asks beyond the glass wall.
Erik nods. “She will be.”
I watch him walk back into the shower room and return with a white, fluffy towel wrapped around his waist, clutched in his hand is another. When he places it over me, it’s surprisingly warm, but despite that I’m cold. Every part of me is cold to the bone.
I know now that my condition has taken over. I’ve pushed myself too far, I’ve abused my body, failed to listen when it’s told me I’m weak, that I need to rest. For the last couple of months, I’ve pushed myself physically, mentally… emotionally.
And this is what happens, my medical condition fights back one-thousand fold, smacking me in the face with reality.
Erik perches on the corner of the bed, swiping a strand of wet hair away from my face.
“You’re in pain. I’m sorry for it.”
I shake my head. “Don’t be. This isn’t on you, Erik. I’m just tired.”
Actually, I’m beyond fucking exhausted, but he really doesn’t need to know that. He could murder me now and I wouldn’t even put up a fight.
“This is more than tiredness, Rose.”
“You’re right, it is. I’m damaged goods, Erik. Broken beyond repair, a hopeless case.” I smile, but it’s half-hearted.
“No one’s broken beyond repair, you of all people should know that. Look what you did for Ivan, for Anton… There is always hope.”
“And you, Erik? What about you?” I ask, knowing I shouldn’t, knowing it’s too soon.
He doesn’
t answer me, he simply places his hand over the towel and rubs my skin, gently drying every inch of my body. Once he’s completely satisfied I’m dry, he pulls the towel from my body, and covers me with a blanket.
“Sleep, Rose. When you wake, we’ll be here, waiting.”
“Not all of you,” I mumble, thinking about Ivan.
“All of us,” he says, nodding towards a spot behind me.
I turn on my side, twisting my head around. Ivan is staring back at me, his forehead and hand flat against the glass. I don’t know how long he’s been there, but the fact he is comforts me.
“I’m here, Rose. I’m here,” he says, gently.
I wake with a pounding head, thirsty and hungry. I don’t even know how long I’ve been in here with Erik. I’ve lost all track of time.
“Hey, Rose,” Erik says softly. He’s sitting in the armchair opposite me. “Hungry?”
“Very,” I respond, hauling myself upright.
“You okay?” he asks, leaning forward in his seat.
Am I okay? I mentally check myself. I still ache everywhere, particularly my damn knee. I feel weak and exhausted even though I get the feeling I’ve slept for hours. Today, my condition is kicking my arse. The ugly truth seeps into the confines of this room, laying it bare. There’s no getting away from it.
Groaning I swing my legs over the side of the bed. “I’ll live,” I mutter.
“Ivan brought us food. There’s some bacon and eggs if you want it?” Erik asks, glancing at a tray with a covered plate. Beside Erik’s feet is an empty dish. Looks like he’s eaten already.
“Morning, Rose,” Ivan says, stepping into my line of vision. My heart does a weird flip-flop. I ignore it. He looks tired, exhausted actually, but at least he’s here. Anton was right, he did come back. An unfamiliar warmth fills my chest, taking me by surprise. I swallow down the unexpected lump in my throat.
“Where’s Anton?” I manage to ask, deflecting the attention away from me and the pink flush forming on my cheeks.
“He’s in the farmhouse, getting some rest. He’s stayed awake a long time and now it’s my turn,” he says, settling himself on a rather uncomfortable looking garden chair commandeered from who knows where.