Page 2 of Entombed In Sin

“There, that feel better?” he asks.

My head bobs up and down.

“I knew it would. Is there a reason you always keep your hair in two braids?” Thatcher takes my wrist and turns me back around to face him.

I'm sotired. As I stand there before Thatcher, naked and covered in sweat, grime, and blood, I can't find it in me to care about my appearance. I don’t have it in me to be embarrassed, mortified, or even slightly perturbed. In fact, other than a strange buzzing under my skin, I'm feeling rather numb now that the terror has subsided.

Focus. Thatcher asked me a question. He’s waiting for an answer. I try to lift my eyes all the way up to meet his gaze, but he’s just so tall and my head feels so heavy. The task is too daunting. I settle on staring at his mouth as I reply, “M-my mother used to braid them when I was a child, to keep my curls out of my face. She was good to me back then and I…”

I what? Want to remember her that way? Or is it because my hair is easier to maintain styled in this fashion? Thoughts drift on by without much substance to hold on to. The jumbled mess in my head and the strange disconnect from my mouth make me feel almost drunk.

“I like them,” I manage to get out, but even my tongue feels heavy now. My head shakes as I try to clear it, but it doesn’t help. “I feel funny.”

“I like them too. I’m only curious.” Thatcher guides me toward the shower. “And you're crashing. All that adrenaline has zapped your energy and now you’re spent. Don’t worry, I got you, Little Sister. Let your big brother take care of you.”

His words, as repulsive as they should be, don’t bring the visceral response they should. I squeeze my eyes shut and try not to feel too relieved that he still wants to play the doting brother. Thatsomeoneis here with me after a harrowing experience. I’m not alone. It doesn’t matter that Thatcher, Sagan, and Knox orchestrated the event. Someone is here with me now, and that’s all that matters.

You're so fucking pathetic, a small voice in my head whispers as Thatcher's steady, firm grip helps me step over the ledge ofthe clawfoot tub. Pathetic I may be, but I need help and he's here to offer it. Ineedhim.

Even if he helped Knox put me in the ground andburyme.

I flinch as hot water hits the open wounds all over my hands. I shiver as pain races down my spine. My knees knock together before I lose sensation in my legs. Just as I start to go down, Thatcher’s there, naked, stepping under the water with me. His hands hold my hips, steadying me.

“Hands on the wall,” he demands.

I do as I’m told and lean into them.

“Good girl, Beatrix.”

Compared to everything said thus far, these three words seem to ring loud and clear. I both love and hate the way they work some of the stiffness out of my shoulders. I capture my bottom lip as it wobbles, and tears well back up.

“Now stay like this while I wash you.”

Thatcher’s body, lean and hard, presses against my back as he reaches for the loofa. His warm skin against mine coaxes up memories of our time together in his motel room. He told me I was his good girl then, too. I squeeze my eyes shut as another shiver rushes through me. If Thatcher feels it, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he gets to work lathering the loofa up with soap and scrubbing away the evidence of my punishment.

My stepbrother’s touch isn’t innocent.

As one hand works the loofa over me, Thatcher’s other hand comes to rest on my hip. From there, it slides around to cup my rounded stomach before sliding up to hold a breast in his hand. He kneads me, and I can’t stop the soft gasp that slips from my lips as his touch draws heat beneath my cold skin. His fingers tug and tease my nipple before he rolls it and repeats the motion. Thatcher groans in my ear, his mouth pressing against the shell.

“How good it feels to hold you, Little Sister.” My nipple grows hard under his touch. “I was worried there for a moment that Imay never get to again. It would've been devastating to lose you, Beatrix.”

Devastating? That's a strong word for someone who barely knows me. I'm not sure if I believe him. But I currently don't have it in me to analyze much of anything. Not his words, his sincerity, or how I feel about all of it.

“Sagan and I should've supervised Knox with his punishment. Instead, we gave him our blessing and let him do whatever he wanted. That was our mistake,” he murmurs into my ear. “Quite frankly, I love the creativity on his end. If he’d let it go on for only an hour, things would be different. But he didn’t. Knox really messed up, Beatrix, but we'll make sure to put everyone back on an equal playing field.”

Knox. Just his name makes me want to claw my way out of my skin. I must’ve reacted somehow because Thatcher shushes me.

“Everything is alright now. Let your brothers make it right. Right now, let me bask in your presence. I'm just glad I still have you. You’ve poisoned my mind, Little Sister. Altered my very DNA. How wicked and clever you are to toy with me. I’ve thought about how good you taste on my tongue and how perfect your pretty cunt felt around my cock more times than I care to admit. I can't think of a life without you now that I possess you. I don'twantto.”

The loofa switches hands. He takes the opportunity to play with my other breast, working that nipple into a hardened peak. The numbness that has stretched through me begins to fade. His touch stirs the blood beneath my skin, warming me from the inside out. Unconsciously, I find myself leaning back against Thatcher as the heat he’s kindling rushes through my veins and gathers heavily between my legs, growing warmer.

How could my body be responding to him right now? I almost died because of Thatcher. Maybe he didn’t put me in thatcoffin and maybe he didn’t pick up a shovel and bury me himself. But he said he admired the creativity in Knox’s punishment. He would’ve allowed it to happen if Knox had come to him. I would’ve been in this same position, regardless. I hate myself as my clit begins to throb and I’m forced to suppress a hard shiver as desire builds under his touch.

“No…” I whisper as my head shakes back and forth in a weak protest. Self-loathing and want battle for supremacy in my chest and muddle my mind even further.

“Hush, let me remind you how good it feels to be alive and with your big brother,” he murmurs into my ear.

I groan softly, not sure if feeling things,anything, is ideal. The warmth, his touch, the water as it sluices over me. I don’t want to feel it. Because along with sensation returning, memories resurface faster. From the shattering realization that I wasn’t getting out, to the pain in my chest as I struggled to breathe—none of it is worth remembering.

---