Page 76 of Fear Me, Love Me

He gives a dark chuckle as his hands land on either side of my head. “You just keep doing everything I say, and I’ll be your devoted husband who lives only to make you happy. I’m your servant. I’m yours to command.”

As he thrusts deeper and deeper while I’m trapped beneath him, it feels very much the other way around. I moan into the pillow, arching my back so he can fuck me deeper.

“Everything I do is for you,” he pants in my ear. “I live for you. I die for you. I’ll never let you go, and I’ll never give up all my secrets. By the time you figure them out for yourself, it will be too late. The monster in the labyrinth will have his claws too deep in your heart.”

Tyrant goes on like this, threatening me and praising me, promising me the world but only if he’s holding me tight in his arms the entire time.

“Who’s Tyrant’s good girl?”

It’s the easiest question I’ve ever answered. “Me. Always me.”

He fucks me harder, making my pulse race faster and pleasure burst through my body. “That’s right, my sweet angel. Now show me how much you love me and come for Tyrant.”

I cry out and dig my nails into the mattress as I climax. I fear him. I love him. I belong to him. Forever.

27

Tyrant

“To the bride and groom,” Ace says, holding aloft his wine glass.

“Soon to be husband and wife,” I say to my brother, reaching for Vivienne’s hand with a smile and raising my own glass for the toast. We’re getting married in the morning, and the bridal party has gathered around the dining table in my home. My best man, Ace, along with Vivienne and her bridesmaids, Carly and Camilla.

Vivienne and my youngest sister have become close these past few months. Over dinner one night, Vivienne told Camilla all about witnessing the incident with the men who ruined her sixteenth birthday, and then me beating them up.

“Did you fall in love with him right then?” Camilla asked Vivienne, and Vivienne admitted with a shy smile that she did. Camilla gave me a fond look and said, “That moment made me love my brother even more.”

Since then, they’ve shared many cakes, shopping, and work sessions, Vivienne studying, while Camilla balances my books. They spread their books, laptops, receipts, and sewing patterns out on this dining table and keep each other company. Often Carly joins them, and I’ll hear bouts of chatter and giggling as they take turns playing with Barlow when I’m elsewhere in the house.

Vivienne lifts a wine glass full of lemonade and clinks it against everyone else’s, before taking a sip with a smile on her lips. She’s wearing a pale, shimmering bustier dress that reveals her four-month baby bump. I can’t get enough of seeing her with that adorable, sexy bump showing. I hope her wedding dress fits close to her body. I don’t know because she hasn’t let me catch a glimpse of her wearing it. She says it’s bad luck.

Carly finishes her mouthful of wine and asks my bride, “Did you hear the news about Julia Merrick and her family?”

I laugh under my breath as I help myself to a platter of garlic shrimp before passing it to my sister. Camilla gives me a curious glance as she spoons shrimp onto her plate.

“What happened?” Vivienne asks her.

With the gleam in her eyes of someone about to tell a really good dinner party story, Carly glances around the table to make sure she has everyone’s attention, which she does. “Well. My goodness. Everything has happened to them. First, Mr. Merrick’s wife walked out on him. It seems he’d been having an affair with his assistant and someone emailed Mrs. Merrick screenshots of their text conversations and dirty selfies they’d shared with each other.”

Vivienne’s eyebrows shoot up her forehead, but Carly isn’t finished. I settle back in my chair with a smirk on my lips to listen.

“Then the IRS came for Mr. Merrick and arrested him for cheating on his taxes, and the feds are investigating him as well for links to criminal gangs around the state. That was bad enough, but then Julia’s brother Damien was beaten up by a former friend who discovered Damien had assaulted his sister. The sister had taken proof to the cops, but the cops in Henson did nothing. Someone finally convinced her to speak up to her family about it. It was all too much for Julia, who went on a rant online about how her brother and father had done nothing wrong and they were all being persecuted for no reason. Her post was filled with so much hate and name-calling that her new university expelled her. Then she got drunk and ran a red light. Now she’s in the hospital with a broken pelvis.”

And two broken legs. The car accident had nothing to do with me, but I think it’s my favorite part.

Vivienne turns to me, both eyebrows raised. “That’s so much bad luck to befall one family.”

I play with the stem of my wine glass. “I don’t know. You could say they did it to themselves. They made their own luck.”

“I never liked Damien,” Carly says with a shudder. “He was so creepy, especially around drunk girls at parties. He would always be trying to separate them from their friends.”

“That sounds like that’s the end of Mr. Merrick’s political aspirations,” Ace observes. “I never did like him. So slimy.”

He offers me the salad bowl, and I accept it. “That’s enough about the Merricks or you’ll ruin my appetite. Who wants to hear about our honeymoon plans?”

Everyone does, and Vivienne describes the beach house in Hawaii that we’ve rented for two weeks.

After dinner and when everyone’s gone home, after telling us to get a good sleep before the big day tomorrow, I sit on the bed, watching Vivienne take off her earrings in front of the dressing table. She’s taken off her dress and is wearing a satin slip.

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