Page 11 of Carnal Desire
It’s like I haven’t said a word to him. He’s ignoring me. I buck my hips and thrash around as best I can, trying to get him off of me but he smirks, dragging the knife across my stomach. I scream as pain and terror engulfs me.
“Angel!” I yell my safe word again. “Angel! Please Christian…please stop!”
He laughs. It’s not his usual laugh that lights up his entire face making him look adorable. It’s cruel. It’s mean.
“I’m not stopping, Cadence. Not until I’m covered in your blood and coming all over you bloody skin.
“Angel! You’re safe with me.” His deep-timbered voice cuts through the fog of fear trying to overtake me and send me spiraling into the abyss of panic. “Open your eyes, Angel. I amnothim.”
“I’m safe.” I frantically nod, breathing in and out until the fear starts to recede. “You are not him,” I repeat. “I’m safe. You are not him.”
“That’s right, Angel. Listen to my voice, baby. I am not him. You will always be safe with me.”
When I open my eyes, I see the sincerity in his eyes. But I can’t fully let my guard down just yet and I think he knows it.
“He wouldn’t stop when I used my safe word,” I explain although I’m pretty sure he already knows.
“Can you tell me what happened?” he asks. “Can you show me what he did to you?”
I inhale another deep breath and release it, trying to calm my nerves. Only a handful of people have seen my scars. The doctors who saved my life, the cosmetic surgeon who tried to make them less visible, and my sister. No one else.
I can’t believe I’m really considering telling a stranger what happened to me much less show him the proof. Even though, I know this is the step I need to take to get back to the person I want to be, it’s not easy and I wasn’t expecting to do it this early. I have to not only show him what I live with every day so he can understand where I’m coming from with my trust issues, I need to tell him exactly what happened. The weight of this moment is almost too much to bear.
I look at him and he’s waiting patiently, not pushing me one way another. No emotion blankets his face although I see the anger in his eyes. He also didn’t command me but asked and right now that goes a long way in my book. He’s taking my mental state in account and giving me a choice when he really doesn’t have too.
I nod my head.
“I need your words, Angel. Will you show me all your scars and tell me what happened to you?”
“Yes”
I don’t hesitate because if I do, I know I will chicken out and find a reason not to move forward in my journey to rediscovering the person that I was. So, I remove my bra and panties, placing them on the bed beside me. I return to the correct position on my knees but I scoot a little closer to the computer screen so he can get a better look.
Even though he’s given me permission to look at him, I still drop my head because I don’t want to see the disgust on his face. I have to look at my body in the mirror every day and listen to the voices tell me I’m not worthy. I don’t need to see it or hear it from him too.
The longest scars start at my lower hip, crisscrossing diagonally over my stomach all the way to my right breast. It looks like a sword was used to cut me three times before switching to the other side, where one long scar cuts through the others. There are smaller ones that decorate my body, but the surgeon was able to minimize them, including the one across my neck. However, the largest ones, there wasn’t much he could do about them.
“Look at me, Angel.”
I hate to look at him because I don’t want to see what he thinks but I can’t keep myself from doing it. As a submissive for years, it’s ingrained in me to obey my Dom, so my eyes lift to the man I only know as Billionaire Playboy. I’m shocked when I don’t see disgust, only anger.
“Did this happen at a club?” he asks once my gaze is locked on his.
If he’s from Chicago, he may be a member of Club Desire, even though I don’t recognize him. But if he is, we’ve all signed NDAs, so I can understand why he didn’t ask me straight out if it happened there. I want to make sure he doesn’t think this is Elijah or Laila’s fault, just in case he’s a member.
“No. Not at any club, but at my former home. In my personal playroom.”
I had to sell my house that I designed myself because I was so traumatized, I couldn’t step foot back into the place without having a damn panic attack.
The place was still covered in blood when I was released from the hospital. The carpets and the walls from the playroom to the living room were stained and streaked in my blood.
It was my dream home, and it had been tainted by a madman in the worse way imaginable. The first time I was able to go home, I stepped inside and had a full-blown panic attack after seeing my blood everywhere. Then, I was rushed to the hospital. It was a damn miracle I survived with the amount of blood I’d lost. So, because the place was triggering, I had no other choice but to put it on the market because there was no way I’d be able to live there.
My youngest sister, Dawn, said by the blood trail, they think I crawled from my playroom to the living room where my cellphone was most likely sitting on the coffee table where I usually left it. I dialed 911 and apparently passed out while on the phone with the dispatcher. They sent a police unit to do a wellness check where they found me naked, bound by my hands, covered in blood, and barely clinging to life.
I don’t remember anything after he cut my throat, not even crawling to get help. The doctor said that my memory loss is my brain’s way of protecting me from what happened and that’s a memory I may never recover.
Thank God.
