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“Let’s go get you cleaned up,” he murmurs.
I yank away from him, staring up at him with a renewed sense of rage. He shouldn’t be acting like he cares. Not when he’s the one who caused this.
“I. Fucking. Hate. You!” I bellow.
His eyes flash with fury, and he responds by capturing my wrist in midair before I can shove him back.
A small part of me is grateful for this moment of captivity. The part of me that realizes I’ve completely lost control. I’m terrified of what I might do because I don’t recognize myself right now.
“Bianca.” His voice is softer this time like he’s trying to get through to me, but it doesn’t matter. He’s still saying that goddamn name.
Whatever control I had left snaps, and I do everything in my power to free myself from his grasp. I slap and kick and shove at him with the intention of hurting him, and I think I do.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He seizes my arms and pins them behind my back, staring down at me like he’s finally getting the picture. He doesn’t recognize who I am right now, either.
“What happened?” Eden rushes up to us, her worried voice barely registering.
“You did this!” I scream in Madden’s face. “You betrayed me!”
“What did you do to her?” Eden asks again, and when I finally look at her, her eyes are wild. She’s never seen me like this. I haven’t seen myself like this either. I’m humiliated, vulnerable, and ashamed. But more than anything, I’m scared. I’m so fucking scared of my own emotions because I don’t understand them.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” I cry out, pleading for her help. “What’s wrong with me, Eden?”
She’s pale and quiet, and right now, I need her to tell me that everything will be okay. But it seems like even she’s at a loss for how to deal with this situation. She isn’t moving. She isn’t telling me what to do, and Eden always knows what to do.
“We’re leaving.” Madden tightens his grip on my arms and urges me forward, but when I resist, he throws me over his shoulder and carries me like a toddler having a meltdown.
“Don’t fall for it,” Eden screams at me as she fades into the distance. “Don’t believe anything he tells you, Lyric! He’s doing this to you. He’s turning you against yourself.”
A quiet sob wrenches its way out of my chest as the reality of what just happened really sinks in. I had a complete mental breakdown in the middle of the club in front of everyone. I chose violence, and I’ve never known myself to be violent. I don’t understand it. Any of it. But in my mind, Eden is right. Only one person is to blame.
Outside, Madden opens the passenger door of his truck and sets me upright on my feet, grabbing my face. He’s breathing hard, his eyes dark, and it frightens me because I don’t know what I’ll do if he provokes me any further.
“I hate you!” I scream at him again. “This is all your fault!”
When he doesn’t respond, I slam my palms into his chest to shove him away, and he wraps his fingers around my throat, his lips coming within an inch of mine.
“Hit me again, and see what happens.”
I slap at his hand, and his nostrils flare. “I fucking warned you, Bianca.”
He disables me easily, spinning me around and shoving my face against the seat cushion. With a swift yank, he’s pulled my dress up around my hips, exposing my ass to him and the cool air.
“I fucking told you.” He palms my ass with rough fingers. “You’re going to straighten the fuck up, or you’re going to learn the hard way.”
I tell myself he’s not really going to do it. But when I squeeze my thighs together, I catch the movement of his arm in my periphery. His palm reverberates off my ass, and it has the unfortunate effect of paralyzing me. A breath hisses between my teeth, and he smacks me again. Two turns into three, and three turns into six. The entire time, I don’t make a sound. It stings, but it’s more the shock of it than anything. And it isn’t until he stops and I take stock of my emotions that I realize something’s shifted. The anger I felt has melted, and in its place is something warm and sticky between my thighs. Before I can adequately process that, I turn back to catch Madden staring at the red handprints blooming across my ass. Liquid heat warms his gaze, and I feel it between my legs.
He drags a hand across his mouth, shakes his head, and turns me back around.
“You done now?” His chest heaves with the threat of more as his eyes dip to my nipples scraping against the thin material of my dress.
