Page 83 of Disturbed Lucidity

I needed more.

Something harder. Something darker.

The disturbed hunger gnawed at me relentlessly.

I paced back and forth, restless and desperate, like a junkie deprived of their fix.

The desire for pain incinerated me until I imagined my life seeping away, like a river flowing out of control. The longer I went without it, nothing else mattered. Time slowly ticked by until the thought of pain was all I could think about.

The door opened, then closed.

I heard the lock engage.

I turned and there he was.

My pleasure. My pain.

He was stunning. An overwhelming force that could easily bend me to his will. Darkness radiated all around him, almost like he was daring me to defy him. He stood rooted, arms crossed over his massive chest, determined and powerful. And like a moth to a flame, I felt myself drawn to him. He was the only one who could give me what I wanted now.

Nothing else mattered.

Only the disturbed lucidity of pain.

I shivered when the reality of my situation hit me with the force of a wrecking ball. Heat rose off my chest, my heart inflamed, as goosebumps rolled under my skin. Tickling my arms and puckering my back. My nipples stiffened angrily as they jutted out in desperation. My body cried out in abject need for him, demanded that I relent.

Yet something stopped me.

Staring at him, I tilted my head and whispered, “When I walked in here, all I could think about was how much I needed the bite of pain. The feel of the burn searing my skin. It’s what I know. What I crave all the time. I’m not good at anything else. I needed the release so badly I was willing to do anything to get it.”

Raising my hand, I showed him the knife I held.

His eyes widened as he looked over my body.

“But you know what stopped me?”

He shook his head.

“You,” I said, dropping the knife as I walked over to him. “I realized that nothing I did to myself would ever compare to the high that only you could give me. What does that say about me? That I need you more than I need the pain I crave?”

“You want pain, baby,” he crooned, reaching for me. “I’ll give you all the fucking pain you need.”

“But is that enough?”

“We decide what’s enough. Fuck everyone else. Told you once before I wasn’t good at relationships. That shit downstairs just proved it.”

“You just shocked me. You’ve never done anything like that before. I didn’t think that was what you wanted.”

“I don’t. I’m not soft, Ivy. I don’t know how to be.”

“No one has ever kissed me like that before. I didn’t know how to react.”

“Next time I do something stupid like that, slap my face.”

I smirked.

“I do that, and you will whip my ass raw.”

His eyes heated devilishly. “Oh, babe, I’m gonna do that and more, regardless.”

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