Page 103 of Seizing Control: Part One

Instead, my innocent metukà shelì always seems to cop the brunt.

Shifting from foot to foot, angling my hips so she can’t feel the reaction I’m having to her beautiful body, I twist the wedding panties she’s wearing for Slash into a knot. The skin at her hip turns white underneath the taut material. Her chest heaves up and down, her unbound breasts quivering as I force her to bare herself to my manufactured scorn. The reddening slap marks on her pale skin heralds my brutality.

Still, Lily denies me her anger.

I’ve stripped her naked.

Destroyed her wedding dress.

Treated her like a slut.

Berated her for cutting.

Made her admit she fears me.

Nothing has worked.

I’m running out of options.

So, even though, it hurts like hell, and fuels my reservations over faking my death tonight, I make myself scan the new marks on her lower belly to remind myself of the stakes in this game. Every moment of weakness I give in to puts my woman at further risk. I’ve hurt her, too many times to count. Let her down, over and over. Abandoned her. Lied to her. Treated her with a level of disrespect she’d never show me.

And she still continues to maintain her faith in me.

Even her new scars are my fault.

A sign of my failure.

I ignore the guilt that flares in me as I lower my gaze to her inner thighs.

Too many half-healed slices to count.

The bruise at the top of her inner thigh catches my attention as I mentally catalogue the number times Lily’s scored her own flesh in my absence. Dozens of slices. Each one an individual moment of pain she’s battled through alone. I know the poison that lives in her head. I’ve heard the words she cuts to drown out. Time after time, I’ve held her as she fought through the urge to bleed.

My eyes return to the bruise marring the softest skin at the crease of her thigh.

A love bite.

A motherfucking love bite.

As my brain registers what I’m seeing, Lily realises as well.

She stiffens.

A guilt response.

She kicks free of my grip to scramble backward on the table.

I seize hold of her ankle and pull her flat.

“You’ve already fucked him.”

When she won’t meet my eyes, I slap my hand down over her face to make her look at me. My fingers bite into her cheeks, my palm covering her mouth. In the bright blue gaze that has been my home for as long as she’s been alive, I see the truth.

Lily and Slash.

He’s already been between her thighs.

His taunt from days ago mocks me.

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