12
“No!” I yell, and shove at Charlie’s chest with my fists, teeth clenched using all my inner strength. “Stop, Charlie! Stop!”
“Blaire, calm down.” He snatches for my wrists and manages to grab them, tensing his grip as I struggle. Our bodies rub against each other in a tussle, slipping and sliding in sweat. He grunts with the effort to pin my hands on the bed above my head, the muscles in his shoulders contracting. “What’s—agh, calm down! What’s wrong?”
“Just stop!” I try to kick him away now, preventing him from entering me, but his body is a powerful mountain of muscle. “Please, don’t do this!”
“No one is allowed your virginity.” Maksim said Charlie could do anything but this. Maksim said Charlie is not allowed to take my virginity.
“I-I don’t want this,” I say, stuffing my face in the pillow to the side so I can’t see him. “Stop! Just stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!”
I drift into the distance of my mind where it’s safe, zoning out of reality. Emotionless and detached, I stand before my master, fold my hands behind my back, and remain silent with respect.
“Blaire, baby, talk to me! What’s going on?”
Maksim is dressed in a gray suit against a white shirt, looking at me through those terrifying, golden eyes. He wanders back and forth in quiet muse, until he says, “You are my little pet.”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Yes? Yes, what? Can you hear me, Blaire? Blaire, look at me!”
“You’re mine. We are each other’s.” Maksim walks up to me with virile poise, his shoes clinking on the buffed floors. “Don’t let anyone come between us, My Little Pet.”
“I won’t,” I say.
“Who do you belong to?”
“You. I’ve always belonged to you.”
“Belonged? Blaire, tell me what the fuck is happening!”
My master smiles in a rarity of affection, and in this moment, a sense of dark tranquility comes over me. I must have been good because he is pleased.
I smile back.
“Fuck, if you don’t fucking focus—Dios te ayude, Blaire! Look at me!”
“You are to fulfill Charlie's needs without ruining your virtue,” my master says. His friend and I can do everything else, but we can’t fuck. Not properly.
“I understand,” I say.
I hear my name being yelled from above. Directing my eyes, I stare vacantly at Charlie, at his mouth moving in slow motion. A vein in his forehead pulses while the muscles in his neck swell and tick.
He shattered the world as I knew it out of pure revenge. Nothing more. He didn’t care.
“I...I’m not allowed to do this.”
“You are.” Charlie rests his forehead on mine so we’re eye to eye. I can feel his warm breath on my lips; sense the desperate urgency in his body. “Just focus on me. I’m here.”
“I love you, Blaire.”
“I love you, Blaire.”
He repeats his declaration, causing a little spot in my chest to squeeze. My chin quivers, and a lump forms in my throat. I battle to block him out. The way he makes me feel...it isn’t real.
“He’s been using you, you stupid girl. Whatever you feel for him isn’t real, and he doesn’t care about you either. He’s been using you to get back at me.”
“Don’t think about him, baby. Think about us and what we have. That’s it, look at me.”
I blink at Charlie, cold and numb from within.
“That’s it,” he whispers, pecking my lips. His grip on my wrists loosens as he reaches to hold my jawline, to caress me there with his thumbs. “Just train your mind on us.”
“You can’t have me like this.” My Russian accent comes out thick and distant. “You can do anything else, just not this.”
“No!” His face tightens, eyes tapering with loss of control. “Get him out of your fucking head!”
“You can hurt me if you want,” I say, placing my hands on his forearms. “You can hit me, whip me, fuck my ass again—you can make me bleed if that’s what you desire—but you can’t have anything else.”
The hairs on Charlie’s arms stand up razor sharp.
I smile at him, eyes gleaming with a foreign entity. “You want to hurt me, don’t you? Everyone wants to hurt me for pleasure.” I frown, reflecting. “Do it. You have permission, Charlie Decena.”
“What’s happening inside you?” he asks, eyes flaring in despair. “Tell me. Tell me and I can help you.”
“No one can help me.” I shut my eyes to whisper, “It’s too late.”
“You would tell me if he tries anything with you, wouldn't you, My Little Pet?”
My stomach twists, disloyalty and shame scolding my soul. I didn’t tell him. I lied to my master—because of Charlie.
My senses narrow, Maksim’s conditioning coming to life. I feel it in my every essence, burning, bubbling. It’s the black switch flicking on.
“You, ruined everything!” I swipe for Charlie’s face, and he hisses, squinting to protect his eyes. “Get off me!” I slap out at him, screaming at the top of my lungs, “Khuy tebe! Khuy tebe!” Fuck you! Fuck you! Wrapping my legs around his waist, I squeeze him between my thighs, determined to suppress him, but I can’t. He’s too strong.
So, I punch him.
I clock his jaw, whipping his head to the left. He scuffles to catch my wild hands, groaning with frustration. “Stop this, Blaire! Stop!”
“Aargh!” I pull up my knees between us and push, straining with all my might. My skin slides against his where we’re both covered in a veil of sweat, but I keep pushing. “Let me go! I am not yours!” I manage to slip out of his hold on my wrists and punch him in the mouth again.
“Fuck!” Charlie maneuvers to hook his strong arms under my legs, behind my knees, and he folds me over. I gasp, winded with my knees crushed to my chest. He cuffs a hand around my throat and wrings, draining the air from my lungs.
“Stop this, now,” he warns, buzzing on anger. Blood slithers down his mouth, snaking around the stubbly curve of his chin.
My heart speeds up, panic pumping oxygen through my body. I claw at Charlie’s hand for breath, gaping with dread.
“You’re mine,” he says through gritted teeth, and that’s when I feel him nudge at my entrance. He thrusts his powerful hips, and my sex stretches, burning with friction.
“No”—I choke—“stop it!” I whack his shoulders, back and forth grabbing his hand on my throat. “Stop, please! Please, don’t do this to me!”
“I’ll never stop when it comes to you.” There is fire in his eyes as he takes what he’s been craving for so long. The thick column of his cock opens me up to new depths, and I cry out in agony, barely audible because he’s crushing my windpipe.
“Just relax your body.” He moans every word while his eyes glitter under sapphire lust. “Focus on one thing. Focus. Just fucking focus!” I think he’s talking to himself. He sounds adrift.
“Charlie, please don’t,” I hiss in pain. My lower belly pangs like a whole fist is being shoved up me. I turn my hips from left to right, but he goes deeper. “No! I said stop!”
Halfway in, he pauses moving, radiating heat like a furnace. The muscles in his temples beat, evidence of his own struggle. “It’s done.” He puffs out, sweat gliding down the sides of his face and his veiny neck. “Eres mío. Everything you are is mine now.”
I feel numb, searching my mind for his voice—I don’t know what to do—but he’s gone.
He’s been abandoned.
He’s dead.
I. Killed. Him.
“No!” I break into hiccupping sobs. “I’m sorry!”
Charlie lets go of my throat and slips both arms under me, one around my back, the other behind my head. He squeezes me in a tight embrace, cramming my face in his neck. Skin to skin, there’s only sweat between us. I feel it all, the power of his need and affection for me. It seeps in my cracks, threatening to break me.
“No! I-I can’t take this!”
“I love you,” he says in my ear, making the spot tickle with his warm breath. “I love every fucking inch of you from the scars on your back, down to the last strand of hair on your head.” His endearments chip away at my mental wall, splaying my heart open.
My eyes burn, throat swelling so much it hurts. Everything he’s ever made me feel rushes in like a tsunami, smashing down my barrier.
“Do you understand that, hmm?” He kisses the side of my face, holding his lips there for a while. “I love you...I love you so much, Blaire,” he repeats himself, programming me to believe him. “Your darkness...your light...I love it all.”
“No one loves me.” My voice crackles deeper as I whimper, “Not really. No one wants me for me.”
“I do love you, Blaire,” he says on my skin, and swears, “I want all of you.”
I turn my head to look at Charlie, touching his nose with mine. I hunt through his eyes for myself, certain I’m in there somewhere. I’m lost in there somewhere.
“Who do you belong to?” he asks the depth of my soul, looking right at me without blinking. “Hmm? Me, that’s who. You belong to me, baby. And I’m gonna take care of you, love you, and keep you safe. That’s my job and my promise.”
Past moments flash in my mind; when I first met him in Maksim’s office; when he first kissed me, touched me, fucked my ass; when he said he couldn’t imagine a single day without me in it; when he first told me that he loved me.
“You stole me from everything I knew.”
“That’s right.” He pauses between words, adding to the effect. “I stole you because I wanted you. I’m keeping you because I love you.”
Lips quivering, I shake my head.
“Yes,” he says. “I do, Blaire.”
Tears seep out the corners of my eyes, streaking down my cheeks. I stare at Charlie, the last shred of my numb control snapping.
“Who do you belong to, Blaire?”
“I-I belong to you now?” I snivel between words. “And, you’ll keep me? You won’t let me go, will you? I don’t want to be on my own, Charlie.”
“You’ll never be alone, no matter what. I’ll never let you go.” He tips his head, consuming my everything with that starving look in his eyes. “Where is he, Blaire? Where is Maksim?”
I glance away, then back at him, away and back at him. He kisses my damp eyes one by one, then my nose and then my mouth, coating my lips in his metallic flavored blood. “Where is Maksim, hmm? Tell me, baby.”
“Maksim is dead.”
———
I belong to Charlie Decena now, forever.
He broke everything I believed in.
He will take care of me, love me, adore me, and keep me safe. He swears it as he pumps his powerful hips, working his way in my burning, narrow passage. He will find my brother and keep him safe. He promises that, too. “I will do anything and everything for you, you’ll see.”
Knees to my chest, crushed under him in the mattress, I hold onto his muscled waist like I’m holding on for my life, protected in his arms. It hurts—my body and my soul—and I sob through the whole experience. I’m not sad. I’m anew, and I don’t know if I can handle it.
“No matter what you hear or feel from him, it’s not real,” Charlie says. He pulls out nearly all the way and thrusts back in another inch, slowly filling me up.
I scream so hard my throat tears, fighting to deal with the raw burning. It’s such a snug fit. I’m not sure I can take all of him.
“Relax.” He cups my face in both hands and holds us mouth to mouth, so I’m looking up at him in pure desperation. “Just relax, baby.”
“It hurts,” I sob on his mouth, my face soaked in tears.
“I know,” he rasps softly. “But it’ll get better, I promise.” Sealing his lips completely over mine, he swallows my sobs.
I kiss him back through my whimpering, anchoring myself to him. He gazes at me in a moment of connection with a storm of emotions brewing in his eyes. I wrap my fingers around his veiny wrists to hold on, and that’s when he pushes in all the way, making me gasp in anguish. His pubic bone hits mine, balls crushed against my asshole. The burning in my channel turns into a full-on, sore blaze. I bury my face in the crook of Charlie’s neck and bite down on his shoulder muscle, shaking from the pain.
“The worst is over,” he says in my ear, kissing me there. “Just breathe.”
I do breathe. It’s all I can focus on. In through my nose, out through my mouth. I can smell Charlie’s musky, aromatic fragrance, and the sweet tint of sex in the air. It’s heady, making me feel floaty and high in the aftermath of breaking.
Charlie begins to ripple his muscled hips, so his pubic bone stimulates my clit. I tie my feet around his ankles, readying for the agony.
But it doesn’t come.
What does come is powerful beyond words and feelings. Heat, and heavy tingles deep in my belly. My breaths start to come harder, heart rate climbing. I blink up at the ceiling through damp lashes, morphing into bodily sensations.
“Charlie,” I gasp. “Charlie, what-what’s happening?”
“That’s it, baby, let go.” He notices the change in me and gradually picks up the pace, watching me as he does. He grunts with every pump, soft and slow at first, getting faster and faster, and faster, until I’m bouncing between the mattress and his solid body. Skin smacks skin. Every propel forces me to meet his magic. When the first gale hits me, I wrench my eyes shut, screaming and clawing down his waist. My vision blasts with stars, blissful agony rushing like a hurricane. I squeal and squirm, trying to figure out what’s happening. This is unlike anything else he’s made me feel before.
And just when I think it’s too powerful, I realize it’s nothing compared to what’s about to happen.
His cock somehow thickens, enlarging in my channel. The muscles in his body tense, throbbing with tension. He buries balls deep, so hard it takes my breath, and curls his hips in wide circles. It sends me crazy with spasms, a blast—a wave of power gushing out of me. I try to buck away, but I can’t move. I’m small and helpless, pinned under Charlie. Suffocating, I scream his name, begging him to let me go. “Charlie! I-I can’t breathe!”
His weight lifts, and I panic-roll to the side gasping for my life, forcing him to pull out of me. I can’t see anything for a second. It’s pitch dark. I reach out for something to steady the ceaseless buzzing, grabbing a clump full of the sheets. My hand is trembling. My heart is beating too hard. My head is rushing.
Charlie’s voice is in the distance repeating my name. It comes closer and closer, and then I feel him panting on my cheek. “Maldita sea, will you answer me?”
“I-I’m all right,” I wheeze, holding out a shaky hand to keep him at bay. I’m burning up, and he’s scorching with heat.
I brush his chest hair as I withdraw my hand to clutch my own chest, sprawled across the bed with one foot hanging off the edge, numb from feeling. Well, everything is numb except for the buzzing. It’s like...the ecstasy of heroin multiplied ten times. It’s so...exhilarating.
Charlie grips the back of my neck and pulls me upright, man-handling my limp body. My head whirls. A cold glass presses to my lips. Water. Hmmm. It tastes divine, fresh and cool on my tongue.
“Slow sips,” Charlie says, but I can’t resist. I gulp greedily, escaping the dangerous sex coma he nearly put me in. It seeps out the corners of my mouth, dripping off my chin and onto my chest, snaking down my belly. When I’ve had enough, I push the glass away. Charlie puts it on the side cabinet, eyes trained on me the entire time.
I plonk back on the bed for space but grimace as my elbow sinks in a warm puddle on the mattress. “Ewww, what is that?”
“Don’t worry about that.” Charlie pinches my chin between his finger and thumb, studying my face with a frown. “Are you all right? Do you feel sick? Lightheaded?”
“No. I-I told you...” I tug out of his grasp, struggling to get my words out.
He presses fisted hands into the mattress on either side of my waist so we’re nearly face to face.
“Charlie, I am all right. It was intense, and you’re just so...big, you-you were crushing me. I couldn’t breathe.”
He kneels at my feet, head turned up staring at me with palpable concern. “I thought I really hurt you. I thought it was too soon.”
“Nearly killing me with suffocation isn’t exactly hurting me, but”—I gulp—“it crosses a line.” I recoil as I remember what happened, how I freaked with Maksim’s conditioning setting in.
“What’s wrong?” Charlie asks, lifting a hand to touch my face.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper for attacking him, just like James did. I don’t know what else to tell him other than apologize. Because of my darkness, he had to force me to break through.
“What are you sorry for, hmm?”
My head hangs. I look at the needle marks on my inner elbow, shrugging. “I don’t know what happened.”
“Hey”—he turns up my face, so I can see he’s smiling softly at me—“you’ve nothing to be sorry for. I always knew this might be hard, but s’all right. I told you, didn’t I, I love you, Blaire. All of you. Even your darkness.”
The squeezy sensation in my chest aches. I search his face for truth, holding onto the silence for as long as I can. Charlie doesn’t always need to speak to me. Sometimes, when he looks at me, his silence is all I need.
“You promise?” My voice comes out fragile and scared because I am scared. What happens when he realizes I’m a vile person?
“I promise. I swear on everything.” He takes my hands and curls them in his, as if hiding an essence of me from myself. “Do you want to tell me what happened exactly?”
My shoulders arch forward, clamming up. I should tell him. We can’t hide things from each other if we’re going to be together. But I don’t want him to know that side of me.
“Can we lie down?” I ask, retreating from the topic of conversation.
He sighs in a state of defeat, but stands without pressuring me. “Sure we can.”
“We should change the sheets,” I say, peering back. “They’re all wet, Charlie.”
He slips a hand behind my knees, the other around my shoulders, and lifts to bundle me in his arms. “We’ll sleep on my side.”
“Are...are you mad at me?”
“Course not,” he says, rounding the bed. He stares onward, never meeting my eyes. “You’ll open up to me when you feel ready—I hope.”
I don’t share his hope. I doubt I’ll ever be ready to bare my soul to him. That side of me is too dark and empty, no matter how innocent he believes I am. And I don’t want to be her anymore. I don’t want to talk about her. I don’t want to think about her. I want to forget My Little Pet ever existed. And I can. With Charlie, I can be whoever I want to be.