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He answers by biting my thigh in a punishing grip. I cry out, the pain blinding. He loosens his jaw, allowing the pain to bleed into pleasure. A primal noise slips out as he pushes the gun deep.

“Are you going to make me ask again?”

I open my mouth, but no answer comes out. My silence allows for me to hear his warning loud and clear. He cocks the gun.

“Okay, okay, fuck,” I relent on a terrified hush. “I-I learned not to let another man touch me.”

Those words bring tears to my eyes. Because saying them out loud makes me feel well and truly trapped by this man.

“Who’s the only one allowed to touch you, Adeline?”

I close my eyes, hating the lie that’s about to slip from my mouth just like the tears are from my eyes.

“You,” I whisper, the bitter taste of the words clogging my throat. A battlefield rages in my body. The side that wants him to make me come, and the other side that wants him to turn the gun on himself and fire it.

I glance down at him and note the way he’s staring up at me. And I have the terrifying realization that he doesn’t believe my lies.

“You have ten more seconds to come, little mouse. No more after that,” he warns before nipping at my thigh again. “Rub your clit, baby.”

I hesitate. The last thing I want to do is allow this man the satisfaction of making me come, and even worse, helping him do it.

He doesn’t fucking deserve it. And though my body is strung tight with desperation for it, my brain revolts against the thought.

“Now,” he growls, his eyes blazing with something carnal and dangerous.

Muttering a curse, I reach down and twirl my fingers over my clit, too scared of the repercussions. If it’s between orgasming and getting shot, I’m going to have to choose the option that will cause the least amount of damage.

“Good girl,” he whispers. It takes two more thrusts of the gun before I’m tipping over the edge, my ass shooting clear off the ground as the orgasm rips through me.

I’m screaming. I can feel the sound vibrating the muscles in my throat. And I can feel how hoarse it’s becoming. But I can’t hear it. Not when my entire being is consumed in fire and ice, and the only thing I can see is heaven.

The gun works inside of me faster and deeper, drawing out the orgasm until I’m literally begging for it to stop.

He rips the gun out of me, and my thighs snap shut instantly as the last of the orgasm dies.

I’m left a shuddering mess from the aftershocks, while he stands, his body towering over me.

I look up through half-lidded eyes, still jerking from the little shocks, when he lifts the gun and swallows the barrel. It feels like an out-of-body experience as I watch him lick the weapon clean, and then stick it in the back of his jeans.

My body is full of rage, humiliation, and shame—I know this. But it’s like my brain can’t process those emotions, so it’s just choosing to feel nothing at all.

Is this what trauma does? Knowing you’ve been violated but your body chooses to go numb instead?

Like a magic trick, his hand comes back into view with a rose that must’ve been in his back pocket. The petals are crushed, likely from our struggle, but he doesn’t seem to care. He twirls the rose in his hand before tossing it on me, the flower fluttering to my stomach.

With one last lingering look, he turns and walks out without a word.

And finally, the dam bursts as emotions crash through my body and flood out of my eyes.

For the next three nights, my shadow stood outside my window. Watching me, a red cherry blaring in the night as he puffed on a cigarette. What I wanted to tell him is how fucking disgusting it is that he smokes.

But the heat between my thighs likes the way he looks. I think my asshole of a vagina might’ve even been jealous of the cigarette. Apparently, it has a thing for inanimate objects.

And that reminder royally pissed me off. Enough to storm into the kitchen and pour myself an entire cup of wine. Wine cures everything for a little while.

Anger.

Trauma.