Page 17 of XV (Fifteen) (War of Roses 1)

Vodka still taints his breath, but he isn’t drunk. The look in his eyes is too hardened. Too steady. For the first time, I see the hint of real lust lurking in his heavy-lidded gaze. Chuckling, he slides his palm down to my hip and then underneath, cupping my buttock. My skin crawls. I can’t look at him. The ceiling.Feel nothing. Breathe, Ellen—

“No.” His free hand latches onto my scalp, forcing my face toward his and those soulless eyes. “You want to end this? Give me what I want. Or I’ll just take it. ”

He continues to touch me—and there is no blocking him out. Rough. Hard. Nails. Fingertips. My mind reels at how he interchanges brutality with…softness? Almost like a child flickering a light switch to disorient those trapped inside a locked room.

“I underestimated you,” he proclaims, frowning as if disappointed by the fact. “Your master trained you too well.”

Master. Trained. I can’t explain the reaction those words set off in me. Heart stopping. Chilling. Mainly, they just trigger memories. Robert. Those awful nights. The hateful things he made me feel. Enduring him. Suffering him.

He never trained me to withstand him. All I had to cling to was one pathetic word.Breathe.

“Don’t ignore me.” My captor touches me again, grazing me more firmly with ragged nails. “I’ve been patient enough—”

“Stop.” A stranger utters that plea—not me. I rarely say that word anymore. Only when Robert’s at his worst. His cruelest. When I can barely think through the pain. But all I feel now is…

More heat prickling down my spine, fading between my legs. It’s more alarming than pain. Too foreign to place. My hips roll of their own accord, desperate to escape it.

Unconcerned, the stranger continues to touch me, sliding his fingers from the curve of my hip, down between my legs. Each pass is bolder. Faster.

“S-stop!” My hand forms a fist without permission from my brain. Rises from the mattress. Strikes his shoulder. “Please—”

“Your name.” The callous tone doesn’t match the lazy sweep of his fingers against my flesh. Once. Twice. Again.

On the next pass, he curls his fingertips, teasing my entrance. Only the ragged tip of a nail breaches the barrier of my curls—but I feel the invasion deeper than just in my skin. In my heart, jagged and unwelcome like a rusty nail being jammed into a fortress I thought impenetrable for so long.

“S-stop.” It’s more than a broken whisper now. “Stop. Please.”

His expression is unreadable, composed of fathomless eyes that watch me tremble without a shred of pity. Of mercy. “You want to end this, Little One?” he wonders, drawing his hand away. “Give me your name and all you know of Robert Winthorp.”

My name.I try to remember through the chaos flooding my brain. The stranger has to compete with phantoms from memories.Like sisters…like sisters…

I can’t find the answer in time. My punishment comes swiftly.

He presses more firmly with his finger, grazing flesh and nerves that shudder at the brazen display. Humiliation descends. My eyes burn. Tears gather, along with the knowledge that nothing I do can keep them from falling.

I can’t even scream.

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