Page 111 of Whispers of Obsession

“She trained me like a dog, using a whistle, to obey her every command. She took what I wasn’t willing to give, and she made me crave every release. I’ll spare you the specific details, but it took me to a very dark place, and even now, with her gone, thatdarkness still lives inside of me. Maybe I always had the seed within me, but she planted it and watered it, and cultivated me into a monster. I couldn’t cut the darkness, that part of me, out with a knife if I tried, and if I’m honest, I wouldn’t even want to.”

I open my mouth to speak, but I don’t even know what to say, so I close it again and frown.

I knew Slater suffered at the hands of his aunt. Something in me just instinctively knew that the day I found them in the basement together wasn’t the first time. I think that’s what made me snap and stab her. Knowing that Slater had been on his own, trying to face her alone for all those years, and feeling clueless and stupid and useless for not seeing it sooner or helping him.

“I’m sorry for the night of my birthday.”

It takes a moment for his words to sink in.

“She triggered you,” I whisper.

He nods and scrubs a hand through his hair, clearly agitated. “God, Cora, I never meant…” For a second I think he’s going to sayto hurt you, butthen he trails off and says nothing for a beat. “I never meant for things to go that far. I was so out of control that night, and you paid the price.”

The masked man took my virginity that night. Ripped it away from me in the most brutal way possible. With a darkness and a depraved madness I’ve grown to crave. But doesn’t Slater know I would have offered it up to him freely if he’d just asked?

I’d already accepted my fate before that night. I knew what was coming, what the masked man wanted from me, and that he wouldn’t stop our games until he had it. I’d made peace with that, deep down, but I wasn’t prepared for his vanishing act that came afterward, because I’d already latched on to the attention he was giving me, and I didn’t want to give it up.

“You felt guilty,” I state flatly. “That’s why the masked man vanished after that night. It wasn’t because he finally got what he wanted and was done with me.”

It’s pathetic how relieved I am to realize it. A gasping sort of sob releases from my throat, as tears fill my eyes, and I smile up at Slater.

“I thought you were just done with me…that I wasn’t worth more than my virginity. That you just wanted to break me, and leave me there alone. To show me I meant nothing.” The confession slips free, and I swallow thickly.

Slater’s gaze darkens and when he speaks, the words are a low rumble. “I’ll never be done with you, Cora. You. Are. Mine. Now more than ever.” He pulls me into his lap, his hands cupping my cheeks as I straddle him. Our chests pressed together as we both breathe heavily. “I was always going to be yours too. You have never been, and never will be, nothing, little darkness. You are everything.”

Now is not the time to be getting turned on, but fuck, if the masked man didn’t train my body well. I can’t help the way I respond to his possessive tone, even if alarm bells in the back of my head ring over the similarities between the way he treated me, and the way Heather treated him.

It’s not the same. Slater loves me. I take his pain away, by allowing him to inflict it.

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect you and keep you safe. You’ve killed for me. I’ll kill for you. I would have killed my father if your mom hadn’t gotten there first. I’ll destroy anyone who even looks at you the wrong way, and I’ll enjoy doing it. Little darkness, my love for you is intense and violent, but I won’t apologize for that.”

Why do his words fill me with warmth? The urge to smile is overwhelming. I always wanted a love that drove someone to lose control for me, and in Slater as the masked man, I found that. Now he’s sitting in front of me swearing to do the same asSlaterand it’s…everything. I push my fingers into his hair, holding him tightly.

“Why did you come back into my life?” I ask, needing to hear the rest of the story, even if I already know the ending.

“After my birthday, I snapped. I had to get away. Get some help. It was working, for a while at least.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“What did you mean?”

“The first time, before the masked man, when you just suddenly came back. And started…taking care of me. The night of the football game.”

“Cora, I was always the masked man. You need to stop thinking of me and him as two different people when you know we’re one and the same,” he says firmly, and I nod. He’s right. Slater is my masked man.

“And I came back because, well, I never truly left. I realized what was happening between you and Victor, and knew I needed to do something. Immediately. But being around you again made me realize that the feelings I had for you never went away. They were just being suppressed.”

“Why the mask then, if you wanted to protect me? Why start…well, assaulting me, for lack of a better word?”

He gives me a wry smile. “I liked it. At first, it was just to scare Victor away, but when you reacted so beautifully, I realized you liked it too. I thought why not continue. It was fun, and we both enjoyed it.”

“Idid notlike it! That is not what I would call fun, Slater.” I frown at him, even though, as the words come out, I can taste the lie.

“I thought we were being honest?” He raises a brow and smirks at me, immediately calling me on my bullshit.

“Youmademe like it,” I protest, swallowing nervously. The lie tastes bitter on my tongue this time around, and my pussy throbs. “You made me crave it.” He’ll have to pry the confession out of me… I’m not fessing up to shit.

“Did I? Or did I just bring your attention to what was already inside you and awaken it?” Slater leans forward until his lips ever so lightly brush against mine, “Did I corrupt you, or did I simply free you. Release you from the chains of your own guilt and shame.” His lips press featherlight kisses across my jaw.

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