Page 49 of Promise to Break

"You'll hurt me more than you already have, and I'm afraid I'll let you."

"You will," he states, wrapping me in his embrace. The sensation is foreign, nothing like the times he kissed me. Those moments came out of an act of power, his attempt to subdue the wild beast—in him or in me, I may never know. His hands, his touch are nothing like I imagined. I always thought his hands would be rough on my skin. While they are not soft—a man like Killian could never be soft—his touch is warm, solid, and secure.

I try to shake this girl, who feels safe in the arms of her bully, without success. It's said that victims of abuse seek toxic relationships again and again and fucking again. A vicious cycle, they call it.

He has to be as cold as I am, or close, considering I'm still in my wet clothes, yet I only feel his warmth. The thought that we're both going to get sick if we don't warm up reaches my conscious mind. Even so, I don't move. I can't. Here I am, soaking wet, surrounded by the intoxicating scent and tight embrace of a monster, and I don't run.

Our personal monster, the pixy-like girl in me, assures with a smile. That naïve little girl who craves to have someone for herself.

Oh, how I want to believe her, to smile with her and thank her for not giving up on me, on us. But I can't because I know I will never get a happy ending.

"Break for me," he whispers. "Just for tonight. Let me take from you." One of his hands slides up my dress from thigh to breast until he reaches his destination—my neck. The sick part of me relishes his touch and bends to his determined persistence.

"And then you'll leave me be? Fuck me and let me go?"

The hand that was gentle not a moment ago squeezes, demanding my surrender, my compliance. I almost do. He doesn't block my air supply, but he lets me know who's in control. I wonder if I ever had the privilege of denial when it comes to him. I don't think so.

He lowers his head to my ear. "I will never leave you be. You will be mine for the rest of our miserable lives."

"Sounds like a blast." A shiver covers my skin as he licks my new favorite spot. My earlobe.

"Be real with yourself, Little Girl."

I love it when he calls me that. Not a wild thing he needs to conquer, just a little girl who craves something even she can't identify.

"You can run, and I will chase you, or you can let yourself be mine for just a few hours."

"A few hours? You nearly died tonight." I want him to remember that, to remind myself that no matter how strong and god-like he appears to be, he's just a mere mortal, like everyone else.

"I can make you come for days on end," he replies with amusement in his voice, "but for now, an hour or two will suffice. After all, you need to get used to my size. The piercing can be tantalizing as well."

I roll my eyes, knowing that he can't see my face from this position. The silence stretches as he waits for my complete abandon. Killian Fierro isn't one to speak just to cover the quiet, and I respect that.

"Speaking of your little jewel down there, why did you do it?" I expect him to speak about how hot it looks and how good it will feel for him or even for the women he's bedded, but Killian Fierro is a complex motherfucker.

"Because pain is evidence I'm still alive. Don't worry. This kind of pain enhances my pleasure. I love how it feels when I enter the walls of a woman's body. The piercing makes cunts choke the life out of me. Tell me, Little Girl, don't you want to feel it?"

A new wave of goosebumps covers my skin as he squeezes my neck again, this time to a dangerous degree, still letting me breathe, but not quite.

"Don't you want to know what symphony our bodies can create? I'll fill you to the brim, take you until you lose any ounce of control, take you to the brink of death just to revive you again and again until you beg me to stop, to keep going, and stop again. You'll cry, you'll beg, you'll scream."

A shiver goes down my spine as I buckle from each word whispered in my ear. "It's funny," I say.

"What is?"

"You. Your words. Your main goal in life is seeking and inflicting pain, while all I want is to escape it. I've known pain for as long as I can remember, and I don't want it anymore."

The hand that covered my air supply just a few moments ago goes to my collarbone, stroking it slowly, gently, reverently, for the longest moments until I'm lost in his touch.

"Do you really?" he asks, eventually. "As I see it, life is pain," he says, and for once, I'm not scared. "A baby comes into the world causing pain to the woman who will protect it with her life. Growing up, aging, living, and dying is painful. We suffer most as we look for moments of pleasure and happiness. Those rare strikes of bliss that we call joy. Life can't be all good because then those moments would be futile."

"I see happy people all the time." The hand on me softens a little, stopping its play on my skin.

"That's camouflage, a show. Humans created the evil in this world. We need it in order to live. It's in our nature. The most intelligent species can't live without creating disarray. Look at history. We choose to go to war, time and time again. We kill for fun because we can. Control is the main goal of the powerful, while survival is the goal of the weak. People call it greed, greed for money, which they use to rule. It's us, humankind, who enjoy seeing tears and suffering because if we don't, we'll become bored."

His hand returns to my neck, not stopping there until it finds my lips. It lingers there, caressing, rubbing, teasing. I open for him, sucking in the finger he offers, letting him play me like an instrument.

"Intelligence doesn't like monotony, Little Girl." His other hand, the one on my stomach this whole time, wanders up as well, stopping to cup my breast. A sigh escapes my lips as he toys with the sensitive bud, pinching it through the soaked black fabric. I try to concentrate on our conversation, but he bites my ear. Hard. A gasp leaves me as my legs almost buckle to all the sensations at once.

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