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For heaven’s sake, I can’t fall for his pretty words when he is practically choking me with a collar he just put on me.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he whispers, his beautiful gravelly voice pulling at my heartstrings like a puppet master.
I can feel it. My heart…it…
It’s betraying me.
“Say it, my love. Who do you belong to?”
I swallow past the gigantic ball in my throat. It physically hurts to do so.
“You.”
When I talk, my lips brush his, and the current that sparks from the touch travels all the way down to a place he already controls.
“Mm.” He smiles against my lips. “Again. Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours, Elliot.”
“Sawyer wanted you, Stan paid money to keep you, Ethan is still in love with you…but whose are you?”
I’m trembling when I answer again. “Yours.”
“Good fucking girl.” He bites my lower lip in that way I love so much, making it swell and redden between his teeth. “Soon I’ll hold your pretty little heart in the palm of my hand. Eventually, you won’t be able to breathe unless I allow that heart to beat.”
I can hardly breatheright now, and it’s got nothing to do with the collar.
No, it’s because of the monster of a man telling me what my future looks like.
When Elliot speaks of when he’ll take control of my heart, his words feel like a prophecy rather than a threat.
He takes a step back, his eyes shining with a need for me I’ve never seen before. Not in anyone else. Ethan wanted me, needed me, but he had me willingly. He was never like this…so unhinged from trying to keep me to himself.
The heat from the party contrasts harshly with the freezing temperatures outside. I don’t like winter. It’s too cold. In the studio apartment where I lived with my parents, we couldn’t afford the heating. My mom would cook something in the oven, and when she was done and had turned it off, she’d leave it open to warm up the place while it cooled down. I guess it’s a good thing we lived in such a small place.
I’m surrounded by people like me. People who got hit with the realities of life at a young age. Right in the face.
People I used to call my friends.
Uncomfortable, out of place, pariah…these words can’t even begin to describe how I feel tonight.
I can hear their whispers, despite the loud music. I read the questions in their eyes.
Is Elliot fucking her again?
That traitor? Surely, he can’t be touching her.
Vickie and her friends have been eyeing me from the other side of the room for what feels like hours. They can’t do anything because I’ve been forced to sit on Elliot’s lap all night. The other guys he usually hangs out with don’t mind. They get a great view of my skirt and legs. Probably what’s underneath the skirt too. Out of four men sitting with Elliot and I on the sofas and chairs around the coffee table, two I had sex with during the period between Ethan and Elliot, and one I had sex with while I was already seeing Elliot. I don’t think he knows. It was meant to be just fun, so we weren’t exclusive. Or at least I thought we weren’t.
I’m starting to understand there was never any fun between Elliot and me. Just him and his elaborate plan to keep me to himself.
Because he couldn’t have justaskedlike a normal person. Or even suggested it. No, he waited until Ethan and I were over. He advised me to join the Kings to keep me close. He insisted we do most of the work together, seduced me, pretended it was a fling…and when I ran away, he had someone killed to find me, came back for me, dragged me back here and offered me protection in exchange for…me.
I shift on his lap. Putting it like that makes it sound so wrong. It truly highlights that fucked-up part of me that’s falling for him. The part that feels ecstatic a man went through all of this to have me.
Elliot is so much worse than everyone thinks. It’s those sweet eyes and that bright smile. We all fucking fall for it as if he never proved to us that he is capable of scheming sins that would make the devil shiver.
Every two minutes or so, my eyes scan for Ethan between the sweaty bodies.
