Chapter Sixteen

Tamatha

I hated that my body reacted to him. How, deep inside, a part of me had hoped he’d have come to me sooner. Through the sleep deprivation, noise abuse, and solitude, I’d hoped he fly in and tell me it was all a bad dream and when I woke up he would be holding me tight. Instead, when reality hit, I felt raked over jagged rocks and thrashed on the shore. My treacherous body burned under his touch, the spikes on his gloves leaving behind rough evidence of his possession. I couldn’t ignore the way my body sang and my skin tightened to have him near.

But my heart was breaking.

It splintered into tiny pieces, the shards tracing through my blood, sending me into a tailspin with each agonizing thump of my heart. Benecio’s kiss electrified me, and there was nothing I could do to stop the headlong rush into acceptance. I’d been trained to crave what he could give, and I wanted it. Heart and mind warred with one another as his spike-covered fingers twisted into my hair, sending shots of dull pain across my scalp. I loved the way Benecio hurt me, and yet I hated his need to do so.

This man, who protected my son, killed our enemies, and planned to give us a new life, destroyed what happiness could have been between us. I wished I’d been colder against him. But his mouth was hellfire and brimstone, scorching me, breaking me down and recreating me into steel. And like the metal, I loved the very thing that had formed me. But I resented him all the same. Especially when he left me bound to the wall, at his mercy, and lowered me to the floor.

Cold concrete scraped my spine, and I wanted to be just as dark, just as unforgiving, but flesh was soft. Covering brittle bone and weak vessels of blood. I caved, taking his weight, even as tears clogged my throat. I choked on my pain and drowned under the pleasure. His hands were rough, with desperation or anger I wasn’t sure, but I opened my legs for both.

“You belong to me,” he said, breaking the kiss.

His eyes were wild, and so many emotions filtered through I couldn’t keep up. Pain. Desperation. Need. Anger. But the one that stopped my heart was fear. King Midas was afraid, and I felt powerful. It was sick how he and I pushed and pulled, fought and lost, but it was there. I wanted him to hurt, to be terrified, just like I was. I needed to reclaim pieces of me by chipping off chunks of him.

And I wanted to say goodbye because I’d no longer be his after this.

“Yes,” I told him, my gaze locked with his.

He closed his eyes, a relieved sigh sweeping over my lips, and the tears I’d been holding back slipped out. Our kiss now was salty, and it seemed fitting. A bittersweet end to what we hadn’t even had a chance to truly begin. I wished my hands were free so I could memorize him—the slope of his shoulders, his thick chest, and the angular lines of his face. I’d tattoo him on my heart, stitch it back together with memories of the man who’d broken me because I loved him. But my hands weren’t free, and maybe that was better too.

This wasn’t a slow descent into dark pleasures, but a torrential slide into the depths of the sea. Benecio was barely on me for a few minutes before he was tugging at his jeans and pressing his hot cock against me. I’d miss this too. Somehow, I’d get off the island with my son and disappear as I had before. The body he’d fuck until I made my escape would only be a shadow of who I am, a husk left behind, and nothing he’d do would bring her back. Today was the last time he’d have his Tamatha beneath him.

His dick, thick and hard, sliced into me. I screamed, sensitized by the gloves he’d worn and uncomfortable after he hadn’t touched me in so long. I clenched my walls around his intrusion, or maybe I tightened to hold him inside me. Whichever one it was, his desperate hold on my hips stabbed my skin, and pleasurable pain swirled through me. This was what Benecio was: pleasure and pain. Destruction and beauty. Love and hate. A man and a confused boy. Looks of an angel and the heart of a demon.

He jerked his hips into me, his gaze asking for things I couldn’t give, demanding I prove him wrong, and hoping I could save him. I think I was being fanciful, with my head all messed up because of the games he’d played. Desire and pleasure amped up, tightening my chest and my groin as he fucked me. He felt so good, his thick length bashing my walls and setting off explosions inside of me.

“Let me hear you. Tell me you love me fucking you,” he demanded.

I couldn’t deny it, and wouldn’t—not this time. “I love you fucking me.”

He growled into my neck and forced one of my legs up and out. The move sent him home into my core, and my back arched painfully. Without the use of my arms, and trapped in an awkward position, I could do nothing but take him. His cock swelled inside me, throbbing in time with his grunts. I cried out, full to bursting.

“Tell me you love me,” he commanded.

I bit my lip, sucking down hard. I wouldn’t give him that. Never again. He didn’t deserve it, not now. I couldn’t love that man, though my heart ached and told me I was a liar. What he’d done was unforgivable, and I wanted him to bleed, to hurt. So I let him build, felt him move faster, and then I opened my mouth to destroy him.

“Did you know Gary was the first one who hurt Domino? He took him for a camping trip for the weekend when he was just three, and my son didn’t smile anymore.”

Benecio froze, his body jerking to a stop, but I couldn’t stop my words. They flowed from me like a geyser, powerful and destructive. I was breaking us so I could leave.

“Alec took me away for a trip, and I thought it was awesome I was finally being accepted. Then he showed me the videos. He fucked me while my son screamed for me.”

Benecio softened within me, slipping from my folds and leaving me empty.

“I screamed and cried, but it didn’t matter. All I could do was hold my baby when I got home and fight them when they pulled us apart for more weekends. Until I found a break in their security and ran. I didn’t wait. I didn’t plan. I just ran. That is what you brought me back to, and I hate you.”

My words cut him. Benecio flinched as I finished, his face a mask of both agony and rage.

“I will kill him for you.”

“Will you kill yourself?”

I cracked inside to say it, but I did.

“What?”

“Will you kill Midas so only Benecio remains?”

I turned my head away from him the best I could and remained silent as things shuffled around. I could feel his gaze on me, but I closed my eyes to block him out. I couldn’t afford to look at him right now. Cold metal pressed against my neck, and then the rope snapped, freeing my wrists from my neck. He cut through what kept my arms together. Once he lifted me up, he forced my arms into material that smelled like him, and I wondered if it was the hoodie he’d been wearing. But it all really didn’t matter in the scheme of things. I just wanted my son and to run away. I needed to be free of all this, the trappings of men who used me and took what they wanted. Some part of me had hoped Benecio would be different, but he’d proven he wasn’t.

“We’re going home,” he said.

No, he was going home. As soon as I got Domino back, we’d find a home that was real. I didn’t know how I’d rip him away from the place he’d finally felt safe, but I’d have to. Benecio presented a greater danger. He lifted me into his strong arms, and I hated that I curled into his power. The lie of his arms was beautiful and deceiving, but I held on to it for a bit. Once we got into the boat, he wrapped me in his arms as he powered us back to his home. Not blocked from seeing around me, I realized we were just a short distance away on the other side of the island, and how much he’d thought out his subterfuge.

I never learned.

“I can make this right,” he said.

No, he couldn’t, not if he still needed to command me without love.

He carried me up the pier and into his home, exotic birds squawking in the fading sunlight. How I’d missed it here and wanted to return. How I’d longed for the safety of his impenetrable home, never realizing the monster stalked the walls inside. He lowered me onto his couch before kneeling at my feet. A fallen angel, and just as deceitful.

“I just needed you to stop me from loving you,” he whispered.

That bruised fucking piece of flesh in my chest thudded to the floor. It was only when I choked on a cry that I realized tears coursed down my face.

“Love?” He couldn’t be serious.

He sighed, gripping his hair with rough fingers. “You belong to me. There is no stopping that. You got too close, Tamatha. I’m not a man who believes in love, but you forced me to see it.”

“Then why try to ruin it?”

*

Benecio

I lunged to my feet, releasing my hair, my body too amped up to remain still. I paced in front of the beautiful woman I’d picked up off the street, who I hadn’t even realized I’d given my heart to, and saw her shut down. Her lips were thin and firm, her stare blank, and I knew I’d done that to her. I’d broken her because I’d been too afraid to face what we shared. My mind whirled with problems and solutions.

I could trace lines of code for days, clean blood off my hands and walk away with no remorse, and procure anything in the world, but I couldn’t stop the woman who’d stolen my heart from ripping it to shreds. And I couldn’t blame her. I wanted to take her over my knee, spank her until the bruising of my possession colored her skin and forced her to admit I was still the man she loved.

She loves.

I refused to accept it was in the past tense. Like I needed the control from weeks ago, I now needed her love and adoration.

“Because I was afraid.”

She scoffed. “I’m in the middle of an island, Benecio. What exactly could I do to you?”

I wanted to snap her fucking neck and curl up around her feet. But neither was an option for me. I couldn’t bend like that. But … maybe I had to.

So a king fell to his knees.

“My mother once told me she should have dug me out of her womb. Instead, she let my father beat me, hoping one day he’d kill me. The only reason she brought me to the States was because it helped her get amnesty.”

I tucked my face into Tamatha’s lap, nuzzling her thighs and shuddering when her fingers speared through my hair. I needed her. Fuck me, but I did.

“What a cunt,” she said.

“I wish that were all of it.” I closed my eyes and swallowed. “She sold me regularly to make the bills, and she didn’t stop until CPS took me away from her and put me in school. A few years later, she got me back, but I knew it was for the money. She was smarter, moved us around, made sure I was in school, and the men who bought me threatened to kill both of us if I told. I suppose loving her meant more than the life I was willing to give up.”

Tamatha’s fingers clenched in my hair. “That’s why you are like that with Domino.”

I nodded. “You now know more than any soul what happened to me. Nathan doesn’t even know the whole story. I don’t know how to love, Tamatha, but I’m willing to try with you. Just … teach me. I’ll never be easy, I don’t know how to be, but just know that no one will ever try as hard as I will to make you happy.”

Soft hands framed my cheeks, and I lifted my head to face Tamatha. She smiled softly at me, a dangerous and dark smile that made my heart pump.

“Do I need to end her for you?”

Such a fucking wicked question, enough to surprise a laugh out of me. “I didn’t need to make you a queen. Fuck, you came in perfect design.”

“And don’t you forget that, Benecio. I give you the power you have over me because I want to.”

“Yeah, baby. I got the memo.”

“Ti voglio molto bene,” she whispered.

I let her words of love wash over me. I’d nearly destroyed us, but maybe I saved us too. “Someone’s been learning on the internet.” Her ears turned pink, and I smiled. “I love you too.”