"Yes," I breathe out, my vision swimming from the combination of pain and pleasure he's wrecking on my body. "My body is yours," I strain to speak, my mouth seemingly unable to cooperate. "You can do anything to me."
"That's right, sunshine. You're fucking mine," he growls in my ear.
Suddenly, he pushes my face down on the table, my cheek against the cold surface as he keeps me pinned in place.
He thrusts into me as if he'd like to imprint himself on my very soul.
"Fuck," he curses out, suddenly stilling as his release claims him.
I'm breathing hard, sweat clinging to my body from the exertion. He's not any less affected than me, barely getting himself together to move.
His cock slips out of me, leaving a burning trail that culminates in an aching emptiness.
As soon as I'm out of his hold, I turn around, trying to regain my equilibrium.
There's a deafening silence as Bass stares at me, his eyes wide with horror.
"What?" I frown, following his gaze down my body. "What..."
There's blood on my dress and between my thighs, red splattered all over. And as I look back at him, I realize I got some on him too, the condom splattered with red just like the base of his cock.
"I'm so sorry," the words tumble out of my mouth immediately.
"Shit," he curses, suddenly looking worried. "Are you ok? Did you just get your period?"
He quickly gets rid of the condom, zipping himself back up and I feel slightly put on the spot. I bring my teeth over my lower lip as I bite it in uncertainty, giving him a small shake of my head.
"Then... why..." his brows are knit together in consternation as he keeps on perusing my bloody thighs.
I pull down on the dress to cover myself, self-conscious about his examination and a little embarrassed about what had happened.
Maybe I should have told him beforehand, but I don't think he would have believed me—I don't think anyone would have believed me.
"Gianna," he calls my name, his eyes still fixed on the spot between my legs. "Please tell me it's not what I think it is," he whispers, his voice almost anguished.
Raising his gaze to meet mine, he asks again. "Tell me. Just tell me it's not..."
"I'm sorry," I reply with the only thing that comes to mind. Because I should have told him.
"What... how..." he shakes his head. "I don't understand," his voice seems broken as he keeps on shaking his head, a lost look in his eyes that tugs at my heartstrings.
"It's not your fault," I'm quick to assure him. "It happens sometimes during..."
"During the first time," he completes my sentence.
I nod.
He takes a tentative step towards me. And another. Until he's standing in front of me. There's so much torment etched in his features, and I feel guilty for having caused it.
"I'm fine, I promise," I raise my hand to his cheek, slowly caressing his unmarred flesh.
"How?" he croaks. "How..." he shakes his head. "Clark, he..."
"He didn't. Not like that," I answer, feeling a pang in my heart at hearing his name mentioned. I'd never told anyone what had happened that night for two reasons. For the longest time it had been hard to even think about it, much less recount it to someone else. And there was also the issue with people already thinking the worst of me. No one would have ever believed me.
But because he's Bass. Because he's my Bass, I find myself confiding in him.
"He's had an obsession with me since I was fourteen," I start, telling him about the incidents where he'd visit my room at night. "He would always try to corner me alone and touch me. I was usually pretty good at avoiding him. Until I wasn't," I whisper.
"I was sixteen," I tell him about that night.
How Clark had cornered me in the bathroom, pushing me inside a stall and all but ripping my clothes off me. How he'd restrained me, a knife on my cheek as he'd threatened to disfigure me if I didn't let him have a taste. How he'd touched me all over, my tears and screams all in vain. And then how he'd unbuckled his belt, and I'd felt his erection touch me. I'd threatened to tell everyone that he'd raped me, but he'd just laughed at me, telling me there would be no proof. Because he could still fuck me and I'd remain a virgin. And no one would be able to tell.
"Sunshine..." Bass stops me, and I note a lone tear in his eye. I bring my thumb up, wiping it away.
"He tried. God, Bass, it was so painful. He kept trying to push it in my ass, and I kept on screaming, my throat raw from pain. I don't know how I managed to get my bearings together. But at that moment, I knew that I'd rather have my face ruined than let him ruin me. I fought back. His knife cut me on my back and on my arms, but I fought back until I managed to run away."
"Gianna, baby," his arms come around me in a tight hug. I feel his chest contract and I realize he's crying—for me.
"You want to know what was equally as bad?" I lean into him, everything I'd kept buried suddenly finding its way to the surface. "My best friend walked in on us. In the bathroom. She stayed long enough to take a picture under the stall, and then she told everyone I was a slut who likes to take it up her ass. That's how the rumors started," my voice feels painful as I relive that betrayal. "That's how everything started."
I lean back, trying to gauge his reactions, a little disconcerted when I see him white as a sheet of paper.
"Bass? What's wrong?"
"I didn't know... Honest to God, sunshine... I didn't know," he keeps saying, his eyes on me, his gaze filled with so much anguish I feel his pain as my own.
"Bass, you couldn't have," I tell him tenderly. "I swear it wasn't as bad as the blood makes it seem. It didn't hurt that bad," I blush as I tell him. "But I'm glad it was you. I'm glad he didn't take that from me. You're the only one for me. Always," I give him a tentative smile.
Without notice, he takes a step back. And another. And suddenly, he falls to his knees in front of me.
"I'm so sorry, sunshine. I didn't know. I swear I didn't know." He continues to speak and my confusion mounts as I see him repeatedly say he's sorry for something that isn't even his fault. It's mine because I didn't tell him.
"Bass..."
"Please forgive me. Fuck, they lied to me, sunshine. They lied... And like an idiot I bought it. I fucking believed all the shit they told me," he continues to say, his features ravaged with agony.
Just as I'm about to ask what he means, the doors to the library open, my father striding in. He makes a straight line for me, the back of his hand connecting with my cheek as I'm sent flying to the floor.
Bass makes to help me, but he's quickly restrained by my father's guards.
"Papa, don't," I yell as I see them drag Bass out the door.
But the worst? He's not even fighting it. There are only two people handling him, and I know his strength. I know he could out-power them. But he doesn't. He doesn't even try.
Instead, there's a resigned look on his face as he gives me one last nod, his eyes sending me another apology. For what, I don't know.
"Let him go, please. Nothing happened," I turn to my father, quick to jump at Bass' defense.
"You're fucking stupid, Gianna, that's what happened. Fucking whore sullying the family name," he mutters under his breath. "And you know what's worse?" He gives a maniacal laugh as he stares at me. "You went and fucked our enemy of all people."
I frown at his words. "What do you mean?"
"There's no Sebastian Bailey. But there is a Bastiano DeVille," he almost spits the name, and I cower back, thinking he's going to strike me.
"I... I don't believe it." I say rather confidently. I know Bass—I know my Bass. He wouldn't do something like that. It must be a misunderstanding.
"You don't believe it," my father chuckles bitterly. Roughly grabbing my arm, he all but drags me out of the library and into the ballroom, where everyone seems to be focused on a projection on the wall.
I don't see it at first. But I hear it. And what I hear is like a spear through my heart.
"Gianna Guerra, or should I say the DeVille whore?" the voice says, laughing. And I recognize that voice. I love that voice.
No! Bass couldn't do that. He wouldn't do that.
But as I extricate myself from my father's grasp, I realize people are starting to stare at me.
One step. Two steps. Three steps.
And I see it.
My arms fall by my body as I feel my entire body go numb—my heart shattering in a million pieces never to be put back together again.
I own every hole in your body, don't I sunshine?
Every hole.
Every fucking hole, sunshine. You'll take all of me as I fucking breed you. Pump you so full of my cum you overflow with it. I want to see it spilling from every fucking orifice. Your mouth, your pussy, and your ass. Isn't that right, my dirty little slut?
Yes. You can do anything to me.
The words echo in the room, the sound of flesh slapping against flesh resounding even louder. My moans, his moans.
Everything.
I'm stuck to the spot as I see Bass fucking me on the desk, the video filmed from a vantage point in the study. You can't see much of me except his hips pumping in and out of me.
But the damage is done.
The damage is more than done.
I keep shaking my head, hoping this is all a bad dream. That I haven't just been betrayed in the worst possible way by the man I love. That a video of me isn't playing for over two hundred people, all already with their phones out to record what they can. That I haven't just lost everything.
He used me.
He used me for revenge.
The realization is startling, and my breath catches in my throat, my lungs constricting and making me gasp for air.
It feels like I'm suffocating.
And as people continue to stare at me with their condemning gazes, the words slut, whore, tramp sounding in my ears, I can barely hold myself upright.
How could you, Bass? How could you...
My sight is hazy as my eyes fill with tears. Still, I continue to watch that one scene on repeat. The video had been customized by someone to have the message and a short snippet of Bass fucking me, ensuring people knew I was now a DeVille whore.
The pain in my chest continues to expand until a hollowness overtakes me.
The man I'd fallen in love with. The man I'd given my trust to. The man I'd given myself to.
He was an illusion.
He'd never said he loved me back.
He'd never said anything except his need to own me—to actually turn me into the whore everyone condemns me to be.
God, but how could he?
I bring my fist to my chest, banging on it in an effort to alleviate some of the pain I feel in my heart.
All our moments dance before my eyes, and I try to identify signs of his deceit.
He played me so well. I can't help but be astounded by the way he'd toyed with me, using all my weaknesses to promptly catch me at my lowest. And when he'd managed that, he'd turned himself into my protector, making me trust him with my very life.
And I had. That's the bitter truth, and why this betrayal cuts so deep.
I'd trusted him so unconditionally, giving him all the love I had to offer, and he'd simply stomped on it.
Now I'm here... a shell of myself, an emptiness that echoes back at me and lets me know I've truly lost myself.
But this time... I don't think there's a way back.
I'm slow to get out of my shocked state, but the first thing I see when I become more aware of my surroundings is my brother.
Michele is standing right in front of the video projection, watching his sister get fucked by her bodyguard in the most vulgar way.
Without even realizing, my feet take me to him, my hands covering his eyes as I beg him to stop looking.
"Don't," I whisper, my heart breaking even more that my baby brother had to witness it.
"Gianna!" someone yells my name.
By this point, the crowd had parted, seemingly no one wanting to be close to the whore.
The whispers are bad enough, all of them calling me slurs unbefitting the ears of an adult—much less a child. But I can't shield my brother from everything.
And as I see Clark saunter towards me, his face a mix of embarrassment and mottled anger, my entire body starts trembling, my knees almost buckling.
But as he makes to reach us, he suddenly clutches at his heart with his hand, foam appearing at his mouth as he drops to the ground.
Dead.
He's dead.
I can't even gloat.
Because soon, I'll be dead too.
Chapter Eighteen
I try to open my eyes, but there's not much I can see. My eyes are swollen shut, and I've already lost count of the amount of punches I'd taken to the face. If I'd been scarred before, I expect now I'll be downright disfigured.
Nothing less than what I deserve.
Fuck, but I deserve so much more.
Leave it to Benedicto to draw out my death, though. By the end of my miserable life, I'll have endured enough pain to atone for at least some of my sins. Because there are some things that not pain, nor death, nor any other fucking thing can erase from my mind.
It's been a day now, or maybe two? I think I've lost track of time as I'd been in and out of it for most of the time.
His guards had taken me to a dark room—a basement I assume, since there are no windows—and since the beginning, they'd tied me to a big, wooden X on the wall. Securing my arms and legs with barbed wire, they'd ensured that I'd have perpetual wounds—bleeding and festering and bringing me closer to my death.
And it won't be too long until I'll be dead. I know it deep in my gut, just as I know that after the second or third beating I started to become numb to the pain, my body taking it in stride.
But while my body has become inured to fists and wounds, my heart has been hemorrhaging in my chest, the pain so intense it's like I feel every drop of blood as it spills from that vital organ.
I don't think I've ever experienced more self-loathing than the moment I'd been faced with the consequences of my actions. With the fact that I'd been fucking manipulated into killing my own heart.
And there's nothing worse than knowing it's no one's fault but my own for falling for Cisco's lies.
From the beginning, I'd been primed with skepticism, and because of my own issues with my mother's death, I'd been easy to fool into believing Gianna was just like her.
Fuck... Gianna.
I don't even dare say her name in my thoughts, the act seeming like the highest offence after what I did to her.
I can still picture the way she'd looked at me, so much love in her eyes as she'd been willing to do anything for me.
Fucking hell, but she shouldn't have had to prove me anything in the first place. I should have been the one to question everything I'd been told and just... trust her.
Her smile is ingrained in my mind as she'd whispered words of love, the trust she'd placed on me so undeserving. And that's the one sight I want to take to my grave.
As I replay every single interaction with her in my mind, I can now see the signs perfectly.
From the very beginning she's been a vulnerable woman doing her best to protect herself while hiding her weaknesses. The mask she'd shown to the world was the only thing helping distract from what was really going on with her—she was fucking terrified.
Everything is starting to make sense—the pills, the way she'd react if men touched her unwarranted, as well as her bitchiness. They were all coping mechanisms and ways to keep people away from her. She'd come across as heartless and mean when she was only a traumatized woman thrown to the wolves to devour her.
What had she said? To assimilate, she'd started behaving like one too. She'd assumed the mean girl persona to keep people at arms' length.
And knowing what I do now about what Clark did to her, and about her best friend's betrayal?
I
t doesn't fucking surprise me.
If anything, I'm in awe of her strength. All this time, she's had absolutely no one. Everyone had condemned and maligned her, branding her the vilest of whores when in fact she was anything but.
Until I turned her into one.
Fuck...
I can't help the way my eyes tear up, even busted up like this.
Because my darling girl had been living with that stigma for so long, the rumors never far from her hearing, and I'd just turned them into reality.
I'd made her into the whore everyone thought her to be.
To my dying breath, it's going to be the one thing I will never be able to forgive myself for.
And as things start to shift into perspective, I realize that I'm no better than Clark.
I'd taken advantage of that innocence that had somehow remained untouched even under layers of sophistication and worldliness. In spite of all the depravity and malice surrounding her, she'd maintained her naivete, until I ruthlessly stripped her of it.
The first time I'd forced her on her knees comes to mind, and how I'd mocked her for her lack of skill when it had in fact been just inexperience.
The signs had been there. Fuck, but the signs had been there. But I'd been so deep into my warped perception of her that I could not see past them.
Every single intimate interaction we'd had had been filled with apprehension on her part, her tentative touches a result of her trauma, not as I'd arrogantly thought—a way to wrap me around her little finger.
It's too late. It's too late to realize that she'd been the only innocent one in this whole debacle.
And now? I'll die knowing I caused the woman I love extreme anguish. That I destroyed her entire life.
Cisco is probably patting himself on the back now, knowing he's reached his goal and he'd made an utter fool out of me.
And if I have a dying regret, it's that I can't kill the motherfucker from the grave. That, and knowing my girl will hate me forever.
Frivolous: A DARK MAFIA AGE-GAP ROMANCE Page 26