Page 53 of Tortured Hearts
I throw my head back, images of violence, blood, and sex racing through my veins. I don’t know what’s happening to me, but it’s all getting muddled into one craving. I need the feeling of Henry’s hands off my skin. “Take me,” I whisper. “Turn his bruisesinto yours.”
His muscles tense “I won’t be your monster, Becca.”
He thinks I’m forcing him into a role that’s not his all so I can fight back.
Maybe I am. But not in the way he thinks.
“I decide who marks my skin,” I say firmly. “I choose you, Gianni Marchesi. Mark me. Hurt me. Help me take my power back.”
“Becca…”
“Please.” The word comes out whispered. A broken plea.
The intent on Gianni’s face shatters, then slams back into place with something harder and much darker. His fingers trace my throat, then tighten around it. “Red.”
“What?” The word comes out garbled. Like we’re both drowning in syrupy slow motion.
“Say ‘red’ if it’s too much, or if you change your mind.”
The haze thickens as the word repeats over and over in my head.
Red. Red. Red.
“Becca?”
I blink him back in focus. “No,” I say roughly. “Not that word.”
He nods. “Then you choose.”
There’s only one that makes sense. A word that’s both meaningful and ours. “Fire.”
His pupils blow, the demons in them licking their lips as he slides his hand down my stomach. As he dips it under my dress, I sink my teeth into my bottom lip and brace for the misplaced feeling of violation that never comes. All I feel is safety, desire, and the slick drag of his finger.
I let out a stuttered breath. “Oh, God…”
“Wet already, Doc?” Gianni clicks his tongue. “Bad girl.”
I tip my head back as much as his restrictivehold will allow. “It’s your fault. I have no control when you look at me like that.”
Please take the hint. Play along.
He stares at me for a moment, his expression blank as a canvas. Then, his lip curls up, his hesitation turning cold. “Then allow me to fix that for you.” By the time the hand on my throat slides around to the back of my neck, the room is already spinning and my cheek slams against the wall. “Better?”
I smile against the concrete. This isn’t disrespect. It’s intimacy. He’s doing exactly what I asked. He’s taking a brutal assault and making it ours. He’s replacing violence with dominance.
“Hands up,” he demands. When I hesitate, I feel his breath against my ear. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
Weeks of submitting to this man have me lifting my arms above my head. There’s no “good girl” or any other words of praise. Gianni simply pins my wrists to the wall with one hand as I hear the other drop to his zipper. I close my eyes as he yanks my panties down my legs, letting the feel of him replace a vulgar memory.
He barely gives me time to step out of them before his arm is around my waist, and he’s lifting me off the ground and impaling me onto his hard cock.
With my wrists above my head and my feet off the floor, I’m completely at his mercy—a helpless doll he holds with an iron grip while pounding into me from behind. To anyone else, it would seem vicious, but to me, it’s cathartic. Gianni is possessive, forceful, dominant, and dirty, but he’s all those things because I allow it.
And that’s the glaring difference between him and men like Henry Saddler.
The harder he fucks me, the stronger I feel. But there’s still something missing.
“Hurt me.”
