Page 22 of Collateral Damage

“And who's fault would that be?” We sound like an old married couple and the only thing keeping my heart beating and my blood pumping right now is the discombobulated rage inside of me. She pulls the duvet back enticing me to slide in, letting the encapsulated heat escape. “You're letting all the heat out!” Irritation rolls through my fingertips, as I rub my upper arms with my icy hands creating friction against my skin.

“Then hurry the fuck up.” She bites hard and I hesitate, anticipating the rights and wrongs, but she's right. I don’t have a place to argue this, and my clothes are barely enough to keep me covered.

“If you lay a hand on me, I will rip your skin off.” I snarl, clutching at my body like a fragile ornament. I’ve never shared a bed with anyone. Not even friends, and I can't exactly say I thought my first bed share would be with a literal murdering psychopath. I shudder at the thought, internally raging at my inner turmoil, at the fact I am even considering this.

“I don't doubt that,Princess.” These nicknames are really starting to rub me the wrong way and not because I don't like them… Because I do. It shows me there is something there besides evil. It tampers with the relentless mental strength I need to entirely hate her and I don't know why this is proving to be so difficult when I dohate her.

“I'm serious.” I reach my hands out to grab the sheets, shuddering at the breeze infiltrating the warmth I've settled beneath the palms of my hands.

“I'm quaking in my boots.” Her mockery is resenting. It eats away at the wall I’ve built when all I want to do right now is grin at her smart fucking mouth.

“Are you just going to lie there and watch me like a creep?” On second thought. Being watched whilst unconscious is one thing, but now I'm back to the land of the living, the thought of that makes my skin itch.

“Depends. You're not exactly the most pleasing thing to look at. You dribble in your sleep.” I gape my mouth open, trying to find the words but warmth heats my cheeks as I shy in utter embarrassment.

“I'm just going to pretend you didn't say that…” My gaze diverts to the sheets below me, about to plant my ass down with my back facing her, contemplating what the hell in life I did to deserve sharing a bed with theDevil.

“Take off your top.” My heart tightens in my chest followed by a sharp pain shooting up the pockets of my spine.

“Excuse me?”She must be joking?

“You heard.” Yeah, I heard her alright, and she is nuts. It’s freezing! And my dignity is already stripped from me when she watches me shower inherclothes.

“I am not taking off my top!?” What could she possibly want me to take it off for!

“Do you want to stay warm? You have a bra on. Take it off.” She's so assertive that my goody two shoes find it hard to fight against her orders, sinking into the bed as I finish sitting, feeling her eyes burning a hole into my back.

“Turn around then…” I can't see her but I can feel her shuffle, tugging the duvet along with her as she follows my order with no hesitation as always which only winds me up more.

I unbutton my upper half, letting it glide against the goosebumps painting my skin as it falls to the mattress and I feel disgusting in my own body, diving under the covers to cover up my humiliation but the chill is biting at my breasts, hardening against the sheets.

Uneasiness plagues the room as I hug my side of the bed trying desperately to create a ravine between us, the sheets brushing like feather weight against my bare body and I am indecisive as to whether I enjoy the feeling. She shuffles some more, subtle tugs pull against the sheets before fabric cushionsthe floor on her side of the bed.Did she just take her clothes off?The space between us immediately radiates with heat and I concentrate solely on the warmth consuming me, closing my eyes to finally chase my escape.

“Closer.”Is sharing a bed not enough for her? We are already close enough. I don’t move but it makes no odds as she plays tug of war with the sheet I'm wrapped in, forcing our proximity until our backs are touching. A silent hitch escapes my mouth as her skin sears mine, burning red hot against me immediately slowing my heart rate.Comfortis the only word to explain it and that thought alone makes me grind my teeth with internal annoyance. Nothing about her is comforting. She’s like a splinter piercing her way through my decaying heart. Slowly inching her pain inside of me and nothing about that is pleasant. She’s already made her grave where whatever this is, is concerned. This is merely a usage of one another to benefit our needs, but I can feel myself yearning for more, crawling inch by inch until our backs are firmly flush against one another, chasing that warmth my glacial landscape so desperately craves right now.

“How are those feet holding up.” Her words ooze out as she refers to earliers comment and my tongue runs my teeth as I kiss them, feeling her canine curl up on top of them like a heated blanket.

I would rather shoot myself in the foot than sleep with you.

I hug her back with mine and tell myself I hate it, but she's warm, and my body instantly feels a whole lot better for it. Skin on skin isn't at all what I expected, it's sticky, unsanitary, it’s so foreign to me, so not in my jurisdiction and I feel like I'm committing my own felony.

I don't know if this is a one off, or she plans to do this until the temperature picks up again but I'm just going to keep my eyes closed and pretend she's not there. She's merely acting as ahot water bottle. This was her idea not mine. I'm just using the facilities she's willingly supplying.

C H A P T E R 14

CORRUPT SYSTEM

Puppeteer

Play - ‘Shadow - John Mark Nelson’

After over thirty minutes of protesting getting into the damn bed she's finally passed the fuck out. All that fightmust have been so exhausting. I know I said I wouldn't watch her, but I lied. She does dribble in her sleep though, that part was true. She isn't unpleasant to look at, I'd rather see her wearing my blood but that's beside the point.

She's been out for around three hours and I've studied her breathing, how her subconscious reacts to me. She won't admit it but she feels safe and part of me hates that. Her damp strands of hair are stuck to her cheek and her mouths slightly open, breathing gently beside me, her wrists curled in under her chin facing my abdomen. I don't plan on doing this forever, but something wanted me close to her tonight and it wasn't invited. I could say I'm being considerate but that doesn't explain the dire urge to touch her tender skin under my fingers. How my eyes are fixated on the plush complexion of her plump lips, how I have to fight a smirk when she makes those sleepy whines against my skin. I'm just fucking horny and I need to get laid.Jesus.For some reason the thought of it does nothing for me right now. I say that as I wet my lips just looking at hers. It's freezing but my body is red hot, even sat here half naked. Luckily it's notlight enough in here for her to see anything if she was to wake and by how frigid she was to intimacy, it’s dawning on me that she hasn't exactly had much experience even without finding a love interest. She'sclean. Which tempts my urge to corrupt her all the more, in her skimpy little pyjamas and her fragile little frame.

Prison wasn't exactly swarming with Angels. The closest I got; I watched die once again. Right in front of me. Intimacy is something I avoid like the plague. I wouldn't have called it a relationship;I didn't love her.We just gave each other what we wanted and that was that. She was rough round the edges but she made for a good fuck and a vent. I’d say she was the closest thing I had to a friend. She was probably the only person on earth I trusted. Maybe there was something there, but it was never love. Loneliness at best. I don'tmake love. I take. I take until I'm satisfied. I've never told anyone I love them and I don't plan on it. The last person I uttered those filthy words to was my mother and look where that got her.Dead. When I‘care’people get hurt, it's a reoccurring curse. After a while you realise you weren't built to consume the touch of purity, only eat away at others in hopes they might warm your cold, hollow heart.

She cares too much for her own good. She finds empathy in the shallowest beating of her own heart, it's how she survives. Or it's my fault for not being harder on her. She is clinging to this premonition that there is good in me when there isn't, that version of me etched herself into the four walls I was confined to for six years. She's fighting me but we both know harming her is the last thing on my mind and maybe that's why she is pushing my fucking buttons. She will come unstuck if she continues to search for this redemption every fucker seems to think I burrow. I chase death, I feed off it. It soothes the monster I've become and she will learn. I don't want her close but keep finding myselfmoulding myself to benefither needs.Not my own sick and depraved needs.

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