Page 47 of Crawl
His hands wrap around me as his mouth consumes my neck. His ragged breaths heave onto my skin. I skim his chest with my fingertips. The unruly chest hair. His muscles tense as he fucks me. His pulse races against mine until we’re in sync and there’s no difference between me and whathewants.
Suddenly, he pulls us both back and my breath sucks out of me as the noose tightens, the pressure building, blood clawing at the surface of my skin, but his dick pumps me harder, his cock stretching me so damn wide. One day, he’s going to tear me apart, and that thought alone pushes me over the edge—because at that moment, I’m not anyone to him. I’m not a person. I’m not a woman.
I’m his.
He yanks the noose free from my neck and the orgasm thunders through me until I feel myself coming apart. Cash holds me close, binding his arms around my body as if he doesn’t want me to disappear. His come pumps inside of me, filling me up, and I don’t question it because I want every hot pulse of his cock. It makes me realize something: I’m not afraid of being powerless around him.
Once the final twitch of his cock subsides, he yanks the blindfold, earplugs, and noose from my body, letting them fall to the ground. His arms scoop me up, carrying me to his car. For a moment, I sink into him. But then he puts me down. My clothes are already on the front seat. I stumble to put them on, the exhaustion weighing down my shoulders, and Cash watches me, the look of amusement gone.
And then everything is empty, and I’m lost. Like nothing happened. And I only want reassurance that we’re fine. That I haven’t done anything wrong. That we’re okay.
I know this is a remnant of the past. Where I felt like it was my fault for what my stepdad did to me. But I can’t stop myself from needing reassurance.
“How come you’ve never kissed me?” I ask. He scoffs as he goes to the driver’s side.
“Have you ever been turned on by a kiss?” he asks.
Cash is right; I’ve never enjoyed a kiss like that.
He pushes the start button and the engine roars to life.
We drive in silence, but inside, I’m furious. He made me come, and it was by far the craziest, most fucked up and pleasurable experience of my life. But I feel so used. I honestly won’t be surprised if he drops me off on the side of the road to make me hitch a ride home with tourists. Everything is a facade with Cash.
So what part of him is real?
“What was that?” I ask, pointing in the direction of the secluded parking lot.
“Sex,” he says.
I clench my fists. Is he mocking me?
“You only met my mom so you coulduseme like that,” I say, raising my voice. “What? So you could dump me off like a lousy secretary? What the hell is your problem?”
He keeps his eyes on the road, a coolness settling between us. Everything about Cash is relaxed. No matter how loudly I speak, or how pissed off I am, every muscle in his body is always loose, like he truly doesn’t care what I say.
And it drives me insane.
“We’re even, now,” he says. “I went to dinner. You let me use you.” Finally, he looks at me, a hint of amusement crossing his lips. “You tried to poison me again, didn’t you?”
Anger rushes through me in a hot burst of light. I cross my arms and stare out the window. How does he know everything?
“Why didn’t you?” he asks.
The crappy part is that I don’t know. I should have done it. It would have been the best thing for Jenna, and maybe it would have been the best for me too.
My face is hot but I can’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth: “You agreed to go to dinner with my mombecauseyou feel something for me. I don’t care what you tell yourself, but deep down, you know it. You have feelings for me, Cash.”
He slams on the brakes in the middle of the empty road. The seatbelt tightens across my chest and I gasp, not because of the sudden stop, but because of the expression on Cash’s face. His temples are strained, the vein throbbing in his forehead like he’s ready to rip me apart.
He grabs the back of my neck, forcing me to look at him.
“I will do anything for you,” he says. “Meet your mother. Cover your crimes. I’ll even kill for you, Remedy.”
The words still my heart, my breath catching in my throat.
He’ll kill for me?
Those words seem real. But he’s an abuser. A manipulator. And above all else, a liar. But I can’t shake the instinct that he’s telling the truth. That he truly will do anything for me.
