Page 56 of Vengeful Rotten Casualties

Denying my internal voice screaming at me to turn around and walk out of the room, to walk out of this house, and out of Luc’s life all over again is hard enough to make me shake all over. My body moves without my consent. The nerve endings beneath my skin leaping and jumping like tiny little frogs are controlling me from the inside, trying to rip themselves free of my flesh and flee from this out of control sensation I’m being swallowed up by.

The only thing keeping me remotely steady is his presence. Every time his skin brushes mine, the cruel voice full of doubt quiets down. The frogs stop jumping. I can fucking breathe again. Everything inside of me settles and I feel … safe. Something I haven’t felt in so fucking long. It’s addictive. Dangerous. I didn’t realize how much I missed it until it came back, and now I don’t want to leave.

“Micki.” Luc’s voice draws me back into the present. He reaches up, cupping my cheek. His skin is so warm against mine it practically burns. “Tell me.”

I can’t deny him anymore. As much as I want to run and hide, I want him more. My lips part, and for a brief moment, nothing comes out. Then it all shatters. It falls apart. The words come—slow at first and then faster. A broken dam. It’s as if I’ve been waiting forever to finally open up this toxic vat of waste and it’s spilling out, spreading everywhere. I don’t even mind that it’s filling up the room because at least it’s out of me, it’s not inside anymore.

I tell him about the sex, the blood, the pain, the torture. The doctors Thomas hired to keep my skin from scarring too badly after each visit. The drugs—never anything too hard if Thomas was watching. He could never be too careful with his merchandise. He fucked up with my mother, I once heard him say. I didn’t know what he meant, but he said he wouldn’t make the same mistake with me. I tell him about the collars and the choking and the degradation I was forced to endure.

The only thing I don't tell him is what I almost did. Multiple times. In the dark of the night, stepping too close to the edge of the void in my mind. When it all became too overwhelming and how truly close I’d come to just … ending all of it. If it weren’t for Avalon, I might have. Even with her, I sometimes still considered it. Now … now, I have a mission and the thought of dying is a small annoyance, hovering in the back of my mind. Always there, but easily overwhelmed by my vengeance. I can’t—I won’tlet my sister, that vulnerable little girl, live in a world with monsters like the people who killed her mother and ruined me beyond reparations.

He doesn’t say a word, and somehow that merely makes me talk more. As if I need to fill the cavern of silence his lack of response has left in the room. Luc’s hand moves in my hair, over my nape. He touches me, stroking me like I’m a nervous cat. A part of me hates how it works. It actually soothes me. His touch draws me towards him and quiets the fear buried in my soul.

“What scares you the most about what he did?” Luc’s voice vibrates with an almost knowing lilt.

My body jerks at the question. It feels like a trap. Hell, heisa trap—just him. A fucking honey trap. Lulling me into some false sense of security only to push me to my limits and demand answers that I’m trying to forget.

“It doesn’t scare me anymore,” I say, even knowing that my words are lies. “It’s over.”

Luc’s gaze narrows on me. For a moment, he doesn’t speak. Part of me wonders—the part that sees something dark in his gaze, the inhuman pieces of his soul that he tries so hard to repress—if he’s just waiting for me to change my mind. To tell him the truth. As if he already knows. I swallow roughly and press my lips firmly together.

“The truth,” Luc’s voice is quiet as he speaks. It scares me more than any screaming or cursing ever could, “is far more terrifying than any lie, isn’t it?” His hand moves over me, caressing me again as his fingers drift up my arm and down again. Goosebumps trail in his wake. My flesh becomes electrified. I am the source and he is my conduit. The energy between us bounces back and forth as he talks.

“You don’t want to admit that you liked some of what he did,” he says knowingly. “That maybe you liked a little bite of pain. It’s different when you do it with someone you actually care about. With someone who would never push you past your limits and would respect you.” His hand locks on my arm and spins me away from him.

In the next second, a gasp escapes my lips as his hand cups the back of my skull and he pushes me down. My palms slap the counter as I’m forced to bend at the waist, the counter cutting against my hips. Luc stands behind me, pressing his covered cock against my ass. Even through the fabric, I can feel the pulse of his hardness. It makes my insides soften. The muscles in my thighs contract and release with need.

“It’s okay to be scared, Micki,” Luc tells me. His hand doesn’t free itself from my hair. Instead, he grips it tighter in his fist, and the stinging tug at my scalp has me arching my back like an animal in heat. I’ve been a whore for men more than twice my age. I’ve been put in every fucking position, forced to suck and fuck and bow to their every command. Not a single one of them ever made me feel like this. Like one more touch is all I need to fly so far away that no one can ever bring me down or hurt me again.

Luc’s free hand goes to my skirt. I stiffen as his fingers delve underneath and he pulls it up, inch by incremental inch until air slips over my ass. I shiver as he tucks the bottom hem into the top band and smooths a flat palm over my bare ass. He doesn’t even bother touching my thong. He doesn’t remove it even when I’m practically begging for him to, straining against his hold, pushing back against his cock. Wanting. Needy.

“Despite my love for you,” he starts, “I can’t say that I’ve been a saint since you left. I’ve fucked and I’ve played. I’ve taken everything from girls whose names I can’t even remember. Not their faces. Not anything. You know what I’ve never done, though…?”

I don’t get a chance to answer him as his hand leaves my skin and then a whooshing noise reaches my ears a split second before his palm comes crashing down on the upper curve of my ass. I cry out at the shock of it. I used to hate it, but somehow, coming from him, it’s different. Because I trust Luc. Because I know if I said ‘stop’ or told him ‘no’ he wouldn’t laugh and hit me again. He wouldn’t stuff my underwear in my mouth and fuck me anyway as I cried through the pain. He’d stop. He’d take care of me. He’d make sure I felt safe. That I felt human.

Luc doesn’t release my hair. He keeps me bent over as he slaps my ass again with a resoundingsmack. “I’ve never taken anyone in the ass,” he says. “I don’t know why … I had the opportunity. More than once.” He pauses and I can sense his contemplation. “I think I wanted to save something for us. I always hoped, prayed for you to come back. I wanted to fuck you in the darkest place on your body. I wanted something like this.”

He strikes me again, laying out my punishment in a series of quick and sharp slaps that drive me closer and closer to the invisible edge in my mind.

Smack.

Smack.

Smack.

“How do you feel, Micki?” he asks as I pant, practically drooling onto the countertop. “Are you scared now?”

I shake my head quickly, turning my cheek against the cool surface beneath me, warmed by my skin. “No.” Another series of slaps rain down. I want more. I want it to hurt. I want more pain. More striking. More consuming.

Smack.

Smack.

Smack.

Each new hit is harder than the last, but it’s still not enough. “Your ass is turning pink,” Luc comments as he smooths his fingers over his handiwork. My skin seems to grow hotter where he touches. The pain he’s giving me doesn’t feel disgusting. It doesn’t make me want to disappear or float away. It just makes me want more. Wetness from my pussy drips down my inner thighs, past the thin layer of my underwear. My legs are trembling with the effort it takes to keep holding myself up. If it weren’t for the counter, I’d be a puddle on the floor.

“You know you drive me insane, don’t you, pretty girl?” His voice is even, deep. It’s almost raspy and I know what that means. He’s turned on. He likes what he’s doing to me.

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