Page 5 of Cursed to Be Mine
Holding the gaze of my reflection, I let the chills squeeze my lungs, the hint of terror making me want to flinch. But I need to face my fears. I can’t afford to be weak in a world of such violence. I can’t afford to be like Mark Reynolds in this. So I let the horrors fill my mind as I struggle to breathe.
I could be dead in a second.
I would’ve died fighting for my city.
Heaven will await me…
My blue eyes drilling into my skull, I hold my gaze unwaveringly as those newspaper memories repeat inside me, in the weakness of my legs, the tightness of my chest.
But I am strong.
Capable.
I will crush these abominations once and for all, eliminating their disease-ridden corpses from the streets of St. Augustine.
Breathing in slowly, I exhale my fear and straighten up at the sink. My eyes finally leave my reflection, and I reach down to pull off my dark-blue satin chemise.
Dropping it to the floor, I pivot for the shower. The perfect temperature already set on the knob, I simply turn it on and wait a second before stepping in. My thoughts instantly flood with Khalid under the hot spray, and I use his image to beat back the lingering fear that I could die at any moment.
My hand finds itself between my legs. Leaning against the cold tile wall of the shower, I spread my thighs and push in deep.
A moan whispers from my lips, quieted under the hot spray pelting my skin and bouncing off the white tiles. Ragged breaths leave me, mixing with the steam filling the cubicle.
I want him in here.
I want him fucking me against the wall, hard and fast anddeeplike he did in my dream. God, he fucked me a dozen different ways last night – ways I would never let Aaron have me, not that my boyfriend would even think to ask. All he ever wants to do is missionary.
Closing my eyes, I visualize my neighbor, the corded muscles of his back clenching and moving beneath my fingers as I hold him to me. Sharp lines of blood carve into his skin from my nails as he fucks me so hard I can’t breathe.
I start to pant.
My fingers dip in further.
Lifting one leg, I brace it against the side of the shower and rock my hips up.
“Mom?”
My eyes snap open at the sound of my daughter’s voice muffled through the bathroom door. All heat leaves me, replaced by poised frustration.
“Benjamin’s here,” Scarlett says.
Clenching my jaw, I breathe out heavily, hating my lack of privacy with her home for the summer holidays. Had she been at Flagler College, my PA would’ve waited outside, not rushing me to finish.
Hewould, however, have had a go at me in the car on the way to the hospital, complaining how we were going to be late. Bad publicity arriving late. Worse publicity if we are caught speeding given I just pushed for more road cameras to curb such ‘mindless deaths.’ Even worse if we crash into a car and kill someone…
Benjamin is always about good publicity.
So with a sigh, I remove my fingers and wash them under the spray. “Have him wait in the family room,Gen. I’ll be out in fifteen minutes.”
I grab the shampoo and squirt it onto my palm.
“He’s already there.”
I don’t hear her footsteps as she walks away, but she rarely ever lingers. She just hides in her room, sleeping the day away. No drive. No motivation. What happened to my Little Genius (Gen) who used to talk non-stop about every little thing she learned? At six, she used to come into my room every night to readmegrade-eleven books. At ten, she started researching which colleges she wanted to go to. Yale. Harvard. Oxford all the way in England.
But then she hit puberty at twelve, and she withdrew into herself as her chest expanded out. I was called to her school more and more often over her ‘indecent attire’ (her shirts were too tight around the chest – impossible not to be without reaching her knees) and ‘distractions in the classroom.’
I wanted to burn the school down for blaming her for being achild. It’s not like she had control over how her body developed. And she sure as hell wasn’t responsible for how teachers and other students looked at her or how they made her the focus of their ‘pranks’ and ‘accidents,’ ending up with her shirts wet.
