Page 49 of Look What You Made Me Do

“Not by choice,” I reply, though I immediately regret saying anything. I don’t owe him an explanation for anything I do.

With two long strides, he’s across the room, and he has me pushed up against the nightstand. I wish I could see more of his face, but even his eyes are hidden by the darkness. So I can’t read his expression, but I canfeelthe tension rolling off him.

“You want him to fuck you,” he says, the words gravely. It's not even a question. It’s the same accusation Gabriel always made.

I hate Lucas and I generally don’t fuck people I hate. He’s hot, though. I can’t deny that, even if I wanted to. Sometimes I imagine how his cock would feel stretching me. Or how his sun-kissed skin would taste on the tip of my tongue. But thinking about fucking him, andactuallyfucking him are two different things.

“I don’t want anyone to fuck me,” I lie. “I just want to be left alone.”

He laughs under his breath and I cling to the sound of it. Do I recognize that laugh? I think I do, but I could also be imagining the familiarity. You’d think you’d know someone, even if they came to you in the darkness. Even if they disguised their voice. But without all the normal cues, it’s so damn hard.

His hand darts out and he grabs my face, his fingertips digging into my jaw painfully. “You thought you could protect yourself from me.”

My head shakes a little. I want to deny it, but the words are caught in my throat.

With his free hand, he reaches into his pocket and flicks a knife blade open. I’m wearing a tank top, no bra. He slides the blade under the thin strap, and yanks it upward, cutting it. Then he does the same to the other strap. My breasts hold the top up, but I bought it a size or two larger than normal, so with just a slight movement, it’s going to fall and expose my breasts. To prevent that from happening, I take shallow breaths.

In the end, it doesn’t matter though. Pulling my face up a fraction more, I wince as he uses the tip of the blade to cut the rest of the tank top off, exposing my top half to the cold night air. My nipples tighten as the sharp blade scrapes downward, sending a quick flash of heat straight to my core.

My eyes flutter closed and I suck in a breath. I don’t fight him, because I’m not sure what he’ll do. He’ll slip up at some point, though. I know he will. He’s obviously very clever, but he’s still a guy. I just have to play along until an opportunity presents itself to run.

His masked face is so close, I can feel his breath on my neck. “Maybe I should just carve you up. Then there’ll be no question that you're taken,” he says with a low, sinister chuckle. The tip of his blade digs into my ribcage.

“Taken by who, though?” It takes literally every ounce of courage for me to ask that. “I don’t even know who the fuck you are.”

He laughs again. Still holding my face, he guides me to the bed and pushes me down. He’s looming over me in seconds, his blade pressed to that sensitive area right between my breasts.

“You may not know my name,” he says, the blade digging in. “But you know the pleasure I give you. You know the feeling of my cock inside you.”

I wince and try to move my body away from the sharp pain of his knife, but there’s nowhere for me to go. I’m completely surrounded by him. Gripping one breast, he holds me still as he carves something into my skin. There’s a twinge of coldness, but no real pain, which is disappointing. It’s probably due to the sharpness of the blade, but I find myself craving that sting.

It only takes a second, but when he’s done, he lowers his head and licks the spot he just cut, a long, tortured moan coming from somewhere deep in his chest. He must have lifted his mask at some point without me noticing.

Then releasing me, he tugs my sweatpants and panties off with quick, jerky movements. Once I’m naked, he grabs my hips, his fingertips digging into my skin painfully.

I know I shouldn't want this, and I struggle to suppress the urge to open my thighs wider for him. Even if thisisGabriel, he doesn’t have the right to just take whatever he wants, whenever he wants it.

His large body is hovering over mine, but with my arms free, I reach up and swipe at his face. I feel the softness of his mask, but I also catch skin, my blunt nails swiping across his jaw. That takes him by surprise, and he pulls back on instinct—not a ton, but enough for me to wriggle out from under him quickly.

I scramble off the end of the bed, standing by the window, in the darkness. Fear pumps through me because I know he’s not going to let what jus

I watch as his shadow stalks toward me. Power. Confidence. Cruelty and malice. “Oh, you’re going to be sorry you did that,” he growls.

As he advances on me, he steps into a sliver of light, but he’s already pulling his mask down over his face, covering his mouth. I get a quick glimpse of those eyes, but before I can even register the color, he’s back in the shadows.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” I ask, desperate now. There’s nowhere for me to run. The bathroom is several feet to my right—he’d get to me if I darted for it—and the front door is clear across the room.

“I’ve already answered that,” he says, still moving forward slowly like I’m a rabbit in the forest and he hasn’t tasted blood in a long,longtime. I’m glad I can’t see his face.

He must be able to see me a lot better than I can see him because when his hand darts out and grabs my throat, he doesn’t miss. The air is instantly snatched from my lungs as he hauls me back over to the bed, and shoves me onto the mattress harshly.

An instant later, my wrists are tied over my head and he’s using a piece of fabric to blindfold me. I fight against him, but it doesn’t even seem to phase him. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say my fighting just seems to turn him on more. The sound of his breathing is quicker now, more frenzied like he’s struggling to hold himself back.

My hands are tied to the headboard, but I thrash around and try to make as much noise as possible. My neighbors are like, eighty, and usually have their television turned up so loud, a nuclear blast could go off and they wouldn’t fucking hear it, but it’s worth a shot. I open my mouth and scream.

His large hand clamps over my mouth, cutting off my scream. “Ah, ah,” he tsks. “You’ll need to stay quiet. No one can save you from me, anyway. They’d die trying.”

I hear the click of the lamp on my nightstand and a sliver of light creeps in through the bottom of my blindfold.

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