Page 65 of Caged

“I’m sorry, Monroe, if you think I overacted, but try to see it from my point of view. It was four in the morning. I had barely slept and was hardly able to function. I roll over and find you missing. I panicked. Then when I found you snooping around behind my back, I snapped. You pushed me to my limit,” he explains unapologetically. “If you don’t want me to snap, don’t do shit like that!”

“I can’t do this,” I say through ragged breaths. His arms wrap around my back as he pulls me into his chest.

“Yes, you can,” he insists.

“Why do you have a gun, Kieren?”

“For safety, obviously.”

“For your safety or mine, because I sure as fuck do not feel safe.”

“Stop, Monroe,” he soothes, kissing the top of my head as he strokes my wet hair. “You need to calm down. You should know by now not to push me like you did.”

I try to steady my breath. “What happened last night in that room? Did you and the elders have sex with that woman who went back there? Please, don’t lie to me.”

“How do you know they’re called elders?”

“Jace told me,” I admit.

“Why does that not surprise me,” Kieren scoffs. “No, Monroe. I swear on my life. On my grandfather’s life. I did not have sex with that woman.”

I swallow the lump in my throat, the fear that he had been unfaithful.

“Monroe, why would I cheat on you? Look how perfect you are,” he says, spinning me around to face my reflection. Perfection is not the word I would use to describe my present appearance. My eyes are bloodshot and puffy. My face is marred with patches of irritated, flushed skin. Dark crescents rim my under-eyes, and I look pale and exhausted.

“Tell me what happened, then, if it wasn’t sex.”

“It’s an old Sigma ritual. A bunch of chanting. But there are rich and powerful alumni who take it very seriously, and I need to appease these people because I need them to donate funds to Sigma. We’re fucking broke, Monroe. This chapter is one delinquent payment away from foreclosure.”

“Sigma is broke?” I ask with surprise.

“Not Sigma as a whole, but our chapter has struggled for years. Maintaining this massive house on top all the expenses associated with the parties we throw has drained our coffers. I shouldn’t tell you this. No one is supposed to know about our financial situation nor that Sigma alumni are attending these Full Moon Ceremonies. Especially that, because if word got out, I would lose everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve. I’d probably get expelled.”

“I won’t say anything,” I promise.

A moment of understanding passes between us as we silently take in our reflection. The tendons of Kieren’s forearms flex as he holds me flush against his chest, and despite the way I felt when I woke up, it feels like we’ve managed a truce.

“Do you still love me?” he asks. His voice cracks in a way that is both desperate and endearing.

I tense, uncertain if I’m ready to forgive him.

“Please, Monroe. I need to hear you say it.”

My stomach knots with inner conflict. He needs me, and in this moment, I cannot remember who I was before Kieren, but I also fear who I will become if we breakup.

“Yes,” I concede, setting my unresolved emotions aside for another time. “I do.”

He kisses my earlobe and down the side of my neck at my response.

My towel plops to the floor, and I stare back at my naked self in the mirror. My teardrop breasts, my shaved pussy, theindentation down the center of my abdomen that Kieren now traces with his fingers.

“Kieren,” I stammer, halting the progression of his hand.

“Don’t push me away, Monroe. Let me give you what I wasn’t able to give you last night.”

He holds my questioning stare in the mirror. “What? Did you think I didn’t notice how badly you wanted me to fuck you like that woman on the table? I could smell how aroused you were as you watched. I knew you wanted me to bend you over the dais and fuck you senseless. You wanted it raw, like an animal, and it killed me that I couldn’t give you the pleasure you deserved.”

The hand on my abdomen skims the curve in my waist and runs down my ass. I gasp when Kieren shoves two thick fingers inside my pussy from behind, pumping them in and out.