Page 6 of The Devil and I
Rayna. A beautiful name for this beautiful girl.
“How old are you, Rayna?” I inquire, stepping into my closet again to pull out one of the bigger first aid kits I keep at home. I walk back to the foot of the bed and immediately drop to my knees, trying my best to avoid towering over her. At six foot two and built like a cage fighter, it is effortless for me to intimidate someone with my size. The last thing I want right now is to make her feel even more unsafe.
“I'm 20,” she tells me, eyeing me cautiously. “What did you say your name was?” Her eyes drop down to the big white box resting at her feet, and as if she suddenly remembers she cut open her arm not that long ago, she winces. She lifts her arm to regard the white bandages carefully, a fingertip tracing the patches of blood adorning it. She frowns, dropping her arm into her lap and turning her dark eyes back in my direction.
I offer her a nod, popping open the lid on the first aid kit so that I can pull out the supplies I'll need to re-dress the arm. I reach over slowly to grab her wrist, trying my best not to startle her, and pull it gently towards me.
A good man, a sane man, would have just taken this girl to the hospital. I was not a good man, however. Rayna inspired new, dark urges inside of me and I wasn't strong enough to deny them. Bringing her here gave me control, and feeling the way I was, I needed all the control I could get.
“My name is Lucas Black. I'm with the Toronto Police,” I explain, starting to carefully unwrap the original bandages, keeping her wound together. I'm relieved to find that the blood flow has slowed significantly, which will make it much more manageable for me. I try to ignore the sweet yet sharp scent of blood as it rushes into my head, fighting the sudden overwhelming urge to lean down and drag my tongue along the length of her cut. As fucked up as it is, I desperately want to taste the very essence of her life on my tongue. If I were weak, I'd give in to what I want. It's not like she or anyone else could stop me. The monster in me would love to coat my fingers in her blood and stroke my cock with it.
I shove those urges down, as deep as I possibly can, and focus on the task at hand. Right now, we need to pretend that this innocent girl isn't sitting in front of the devil himself. Despite the sick thoughts circulating in my head, my hands work on autopilot. I take a saline syringe out of its package and very gently clean the surface of her arm, flushing the surface of the angry gash on her arm. Once done, I take a thick pad of clean gauze and press it lightly against her skin to dry it. I hear a sharp intake of breath and lift my eyes to hers. She isn't staring at the destruction she left all over her arm; she is staring at me.
I try to offer her a reassuring smile, shifting my body slightly in an attempt to re-adjust my cock where it is hardening beneath my heavy sweat pants. Great, just what I need. To have to explain why there are eight and a half inches of dick straining against my pants while I'm trying to tend to her injury. I am so fucked up.
“Look, Rayna, I don't really have a good explanation as to why I brought you to my home instead of the hospital,” I tell her, chancing a glance at her while I apply a thin layer of antibiotic ointment to the cut. Her eyes narrow slightly, but she doesn't say anything in response, so I continue to talk.
“Your cut looks worse than it is, and you looked so god damn vulnerable that I just wanted to get you somewhere I could keep you safe and figure out what the hell happened to you,” I admit, plucking out a bunch of butterfly closure bandages from the box. She still doesn't say anything as I begin setting the closures across her wound, and I start to wonder what's going through her head as she listens to me try to explain myself. This time when I lift my gaze to hers, she is staring at her arm.
“Say something, Rayna,” I command, trying to snap her out of whatever fog she's sitting there in. Her silence is deafening, and it's making me feel uneasy. When her lips part on a sigh, I feel a flood of relief.
“I don't know what you want from me. I'm supposed to be dead,” she explains, her voice so small and hollow that I have to lean in slightly to hear her clearly. “What am I supposed to do now?”
My head starts to throb, and I realize my jaw is clenched so tightly that the veins on my forehead must be bulging. The suffering evident in her voice makes me feel like a madman, desperate to make her feel better and equally desperate to kill the motherfucker that put her in this state. I force myself to finish wrapping her arm, fighting the urge to pull her into my lap and soothe her with the warmth of my body. That is until the sound of a broken sob escapes her mouth and lands a punch right at the center of my chest. Quickly securing the wrap with a large clip, I lean forward and wrap both of my arms around her so that I can pull her down into my lap. She doesn't fight me as I cocoon her in my embrace.
She relaxes into my arms immediately, and the way she falls apart reminds me of an animal accepting its fate. Trapped in the deadly jaws of a predator, it simply gives up and waits for death. She allows her agony to spill from her in relentless waves of crying, as though she's giving up for a second time today.
Every single tear that falls from her reddened eyes destroys all the carefully constructed threads of humanity that hold me together until I am stripped bare before her. No longer Officer Black, but Lucas... a monster in human skin. A primal beast from the darkest depths of the human psyche, desperate to claim her as mine and right all the wrongs done to her. These urges are insane. I recognize that, but no amount of rational thinking changes things. I've always been a monster beneath it all, but today is the first day that I feel enslaved by the sudden onset of possessiveness, obsession and need that this girl has summoned out of me.
I'm a monster, but I am her monster now.
“You're safe. I've got you now. I'll fix whatever is wrong,” I promise her, brushing my lips against her overheated forehead while she continues to wail, leaving wet paths of tears across my shirt and against my throat. “I'm going to take care of you,” I tell her then, pressing her tighter against me. This is unbearable, feeling her cry and tremble in my arms, not knowing how the hell to fix the damage done to her.
I rock her gently in my arms for what feels like the longest hour of my life before she finally starts to calm down. She has tucked herself so tightly against my body, clinging to me like I'm the last vestige of safety in her ugly world. Once her cries fade into the occasional hiccup, I take note of the way her body erupts into shivers. She is suddenly cold to the touch, which could be a result of either the blood loss or the shock. Probably both, if I had to guess.
Getting her into a hot bath makes sense in my head, since my body heat alone is not doing the job for her. There is no way in hell I'd leave her alone for a single second right now, which means we'll be getting into that bath tub together. That way, I can get her warm and clean while keeping her arm elevated out of the water. It also means I can prevent her from doing any further harm in an attempt to end her life.
“We need to get you warmed up, Rayna. I'm going to give you a bath,” I tell her firmly, not expecting her to protest when she is obviously running on empty. My voice rumbles low and deep against her ear, which causes her to shiver harder in response. “Please remember that you're safe. I won't hurt you.”
Despite how tired my body feels after everything today, I find it easy to shift my body so that I can get to my feet without letting her go. A lifetime of fitness pays off when it counts the most, it seems. At this point, I'd run a thousand miles straight if it meant I didn't have to let go of her for a single second. All of these new possessive feelings are being amplified by the way she clings to me for safety.
Her fragility as she clings to me only strengthens my resolve as I walk us across my bedroom and into my large, en suite bathroom. Suddenly grateful for my unusually large bathtub, I reluctantly set Rayna down on the counter so that I can get the water running. Reaching overhead, I grab a jar of epsom salts from the shelf there and dump a few spoonfuls of the stuff into the water.
I check the temperature of the water to make sure it isn't too hot before making my way back over to the wayward girl perched on my bathroom counter, who sits there watching me with curious eyes that are still red from crying.
“Do you often find dying girls in the forest and bring them back home to take care of them?”
I drag my hand across my face and through my hair, watching her closely to monitor any emotions that may etch themselves into her features. I find nothing but exhaustion there.
“No... no, I don't. This would be a first for me.”
“Oh,” she says, glancing towards the tub as the water quickly rushes to fill it up. “Hopefully you're not a serial killer,” she whispers, looking down to watch her small hands where they fidget in her lap.
I don't blame her for that comment, because any normal person looking at us right now would question our collective sanity. I don't know this girl, and she doesn't know me, and here I am patching her up and getting us ready to take a bath together. I clench my jaw, frustrated with myself. It's a war between my rational mind and the possessive animal inside of me. There is nothing I hate more than having to fight what feels natural in this situation, but at the same time, I don't want to terrify her before I get the chance to show her I won't ever hurt her.
“You're safe with me,” I tell her again, “You're in shock and you've lost a lot of blood. I need to get your body temperature back up. That's all that is happening right now.” I pull my shirt off over my head and tug my sweat pants down, leaving myself standing in the middle of the bathroom wearing only a pair of black boxer briefs. I don't give her a chance to fixate on the fact that I am now standing here half naked, so I step in front of her and begin to unzip the hoodie she is wearing over her clothes. Once I peel it away from her body and toss it in the corner of the room, I wrap an arm around her lower back and pull her down off the counter. I make quick work of removing her t-shirt and leggings, tossing those in a pile with her discarded sweatshirt. Once she is standing before me wearing nothing but her panties and bra, I place my arm around her lower back and guide her towards the tub.
I step into the bath before her, reaching down to turn off the faucet now that it's full. I immediately rise to my full height and guide her into the tub with me. Once she is standing in the water, I lower myself down and bring her with me. She sighs deeply as she submerges herself in the water, settling between my legs and leaning back against me without hesitation.
