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Please note that this is dark romance. The possible triggers are listed below and do contain spoilers, so if you’re comfortable to go in blindly, feel free to skip ahead.
This story contains CSA (on-page, minimally graphic), altered reality/dissociation, violence, murder, references to growing up in an abusive/exploitive system (foster care, juvie), alcohol/drug use, cheating (not between MC’s), and rough sex featuring mild exhibition, humiliation/degradation, and physical aggression.
PROLOGUE
One, two, three…
I’m on a boat, it’s storming, and the waves are thrashing the cabin. It smells like sweat and stale beer, salty and pungent.
I imagine it’s my crew pressed up alongside me as we ride out the storm raging outside these four walls. We’ve been at sea for days, with nothing but the ocean and a bar of soap to wash ourselves. It’s hot, humid, and rank.
The rocking picks up, and a sharp twinge sparks at the base of my spine, hollowing out my belly as reality creeps into my fantasy.
…six, seven, eight…
Eleven point five.
He never makes it past eleven point five, not when he’s drunk like this.
My eyes are squeezed shut. The pillow is damp against my cheek, and I tell myself it’s just sweat. Or maybe some seawater spraying in from a crack in the window.
It’s hot in here. It smells.
I’m on a boat, I’m on a boat, I’m on a boat, I chant inwardly.
I’m a fisherman. No, a pirate.
…nine…
Pirates are strong. They’re deadly and brave. No one messes with pirates.
The mattress squeaks beneath me, and I inhale sharply.
Squeak, inhale.
Squeak, inhale—
Groan.
Block it out, block it out.
I squeeze my eyes shut so tight I feel like my eyeballs might pop.
I’m counting and inhaling, choking on thin, musty air. My fingers are buried so deep in my pillow, the cotton pushes my nails back into my skin. It burns, so I push them in deeper.
Eleven…
But then, there’s a noise—a creak—that halts everything, ceasing my lungs with a sharp, high-pitched gasp.
That didn’t come from the bed, I realize, as the rocking comes to a stuttered stop.
My eyes fly open, the fantasy shattering.
I’m facing the brown paneled wall of my bedroom, but I know it’s the floorboard by the door I just heard. I just know it.
And so does the man on top of me.
My much smaller body shudders as he pulls away, relieving the pressure, like pulling a stopper from a drain. The bedframe whines.
