Why did I leave the door unlocked?Shit. I left it open for any random, to walk on in. But this wasn’t just a stranger. This man knew my name, and that little fact made my home invasion, invitation open or not, so much worse.
A spark of recognition as he talked fritzed my brain through my fear of lying bare before someone I swore I knew.
“Key, please,” a voice said faintly. After a moment, I figured out it was mine, though I felt like both the voice and my body were a mile away. “Key,” I said, my volume a little stronger. “You shouldn’t be in my home,” I berated the stranger who refused to answer me. “My boyfriend will be here soon, and he’ll be…upset.”
“No, he won’t.” The thin voice that I couldn't place held a degree of mirth. “He’s still back at the club talking with our friends. But then you knew he wouldn't really come afteryou, didn't you Cora? Which means that you’re really all mine tonight.”
I blinked behind the cursed mask, the darkness cloying and thick. Shaking my head, I tipped my body to one side, raising my hand to pull it from my face, but something hard—a forearm or a knee—clamped down on my wrist, pining my arm to the mattress.
“No, Miss Brooks. I don’t think so. Not after your littlefuck youthis afternoon, then deciding that you’d flirt with a hockey plater instead of your media kin, yeah?”
I shook my head again, trying to wake up from the twisted fever dream, but I couldn’t. Whatever this was, I’d hit reality in a way I couldn’t escape. The fear I’d held at bay with dissociation and distance slammed into me at street level. Pain and fear left me choking on a breath I couldn't swallow and when I did, my only thought was to make as much noise as I could.
Warn him.
Drawing my knees to my chest, I sucked in a deep breath. “Valen–” I screamed.
Or half screamed.
Material stuffed into my mouth followed by thin tape that slapped over my face. Tape that had been stuck between my boobs and my beaded dress earlier.
“Fuck,” I mumbled through the impromptu gag that I thought might be socks from my drawer. Then the penny dropped.Hockey player. Media.“Peatie?”
My words didn’t come out like his name, and I only managed to drool on myself.
“So pretty.” Fingers swirled at the corners of my lips as I held my breath, then dropped slower. I squeezed my eyes tight, the vulnerability slamming into me for a fraction of a second too late before a mouth touched my skin.
A mouth I didn’t want on me and that had no permission to be there. Peatie’s hot, wet lips sucked the skin above my breast, then bit down.
I screamed into the sock, but that came out garbled and muffled, too. Tears coated my cheeks, mixing with my saliva. “Stop,” I begged as his fingers trailed lower.
“I like to mark my girls up before I ruin them. It’s a habit of mine.” I shuddered at the realization, curling in on myself, my knees tightened around my stomach, but that left my back bare and exposed. A hand touched the curve of my ass, then the mouth returned. I flinched away, rolling and kicking and shrieking but the tape that had held up so marvelously all night continued to do its job.
Fucking kudos to you.
I screamed again as those hands and mouth found other places to bite, Peatie’s light weight settling over me and forcing my legs open.
I forgot how to scream after a while and forgot how to fight, thrashing and slapping at air but he was always there. My body ached where he bit me, my head screaming in silence words that refused to exit my mouth as he decorated my skin in marks I feared I’d have to wear forever, and hate myself for every single day.
Bite marks.
Bruises.
Corinne Weathers.
Valentine helping her that night in the club that the media reported on him and the Chimeras. Her refusing to report anything, and only willing to talk to him.
The marks over her body that I could bet my job matched the ones now on mine.
I cried harder and lashed out again, connected a hit with my heel against something solid to my side where I didn't expect it. Something solid that saidoof.
A different voice.
“Valentine?” I whispered, hope filling my voice. Hope that I prepared to be dashed.
Don’t let Peatie have brought his friends. Please, no.
I curled tighter, turning to the side I thought the men weren’t in, not that it would stop them.
