Page 91 of Bitter Queen (Advantage Play 4)

“You did. The moment you called me your Peach. I’m special to you, aren’t I?”

He stays quiet, but his eyes bounce over my face, searching for my sincerity. I just hope I can convince him that it’s there.

Lifting my head from the pillow, I close the distance between our mouths while holding his gaze with mine. My chest rises and falls with an unsteady rhythm, but I pray he doesn’t interpret it for what it really is. Fear.

“We’ve never kissed,” I whisper, ignoring the way my stomach churns as his acrid breath fans against my cheeks.

“No,” he breathes.

“Can I kiss you?”

He tilts his head to the side but doesn’t refuse, so I do the honors and run my tongue along the seam of his lips. He tastes like sour milk mixed with a dirty ashtray.

I want to vomit, but I swallow it back.

His groan is animalistic as he tangles his fingers into the back of my head and pillages my mouth with his tongue. Sucking it into my mouth, the tears stream down my cheeks while my nightmares threaten to consume me. It’s too much. Too many memories. Too many senses on high alert, threatening to drag me back to the tortured girl I was in that room.

Focus, Q.

I hook my ankle around his leg the way Diece taught me and roll Sei onto his back so that I’m straddling him. His once liquid muscles turn rigid beneath me as if he’d anticipated my move before I grind my hips against him and bend forward to kiss him again.

“Shhh,” I whisper against his putrid lips. “Let me enjoy it.”

Then I slip my tongue back into his mouth and fake a long moan that would make a porn star proud.

With another groan, his hands find my ass and keep me in place, pushing himself against my core.

But that means he isn’t holding the knife anymore. And I’m in control on top. Just like Diece taught me. Continuing to kiss Sei, I blindly search for the forgotten blade on the mattress, but all I feel is the cotton sheets. His hand inches up my tank top, and I know I’m seconds from no return when a sharp bite of pain blossoms along my fingertips.

I found it.

Grabbing the handle, I take a deep breath then plunge the pointy end into Sei’s side with all of my strength. He shoves me off him, and I crash onto the ground with a hard thump as the blood seeps a few inches above his hip bone.

“What the hell did you do?” he shouts, his face red with fury.

I scramble back like a little sand crab toward the hallway. But he’s too quick. Too determined. Too filled up with rage and adrenaline to let the pain from his wound consume him for long enough to let me get away. Like a snake, his arm darts out and grabs my ankle. Then I’m dragged toward him. My screams feel like blades against my raw throat, but I don’t stop yelling, praying someone can hear me and will call the cops as I kick my legs as hard as I can and claw my way across the ground to get away from him.

But it’s no use. With both hands diffusing my feeble attempt to get away, he throws me onto my back and climbs on top of me. I try to throw him off me, twisting back and forth, but he pins me down with his weight and throws his legs on both sides of my waist. I can’t move. Claustrophobia sets in, making me feel like I’ve run a freaking marathon as I try to catch my breath. My chest rises and falls way too quickly to do me any good, but I can’t stop it. I feel like I can’t breathe.

Then he cocks his arm back and hits me in the side of the face. My head snaps to my right while the familiar sensation explodes across my cheekbone.

Shiiit.

His fists are deadly. I try to protect my face with my forearms, but it’s useless. I can still feel it all.

At least it’s not a knife, I think to myself, before pushing aside the sarcastic glimpse of insanity that I’m currently swimming in.

My vision blurs with dancing black spots that I can’t blink away. He hits me again. And again. And again.

“Six!” I plead, delirious. “Six. Six. Six.” The safe word tumbles out of me over and over again in cadence with his fists. But I can’t control myself from muttering the useless gibberish that falls on deaf ears. I know it’s a waste of precious time. I know he’s probably getting off on it. But there’s comfort in the word. A weight of respect that should accompany it. A promise to end the pain. The suffering.

All of it.

If only Diece could hear it.

Then I’d be safe.

I’d be with him.

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