Page 15 of Dark Soul (Tainted #1)

The key turns stiffly in the lock. I push open the door with my shoulder, stepping into the low-lit quiet of my apartment.

Everything is where I left it. My coat slips off my shoulders, and I let it fall, unbothered by the soft thud against the hardwood. I close the door behind me but don’t lock it.

I hadn’t locked it when I left either.

My fingers fumble for the light switch. I don’t turn it on. Instead, I stand in the entryway, my eyes adjusting to the dim blur of furniture and shadows. My heels click softly as I cross to the hallway mirror.

I stop.

The lipstick is still there. Smudged at one corner. I press my lips together, then part them slowly, studying the echo of what has almost happened.

My fingers rise to the side of my neck, finding the faint pressure still blooming from where he’d kissed me. More like where he’d pressed his mouth like a man trying to claim a trophy he hadn’t earned.

I don’t feel beautiful or desired. I feel cheap. Like a costume I haven’t taken off fast enough.

The memory comes in shards.

My laughter has been too loud. My thigh brushes against his.

The trembling in my stomach has nothing to do with nerves. I let him touch me. Let him press his lips to my throat.

Not because I want him to, but because I’ve needed to silence the voice in my head. The one that whispers in a cadence that doesn’t belong to me.

I walk deeper into the apartment, peel off my heels, and leave them by the couch.

I reach for the lamp but don’t switch it on. The darkness makes things feel cleaner.

I undress slowly, letting the dress slip down my hips, pooling in a puddle of black on the floor. In the bathroom, I wash my face in silence. Water dripping down my jaw and pooling at my collarbone.

I stare into the mirror and whisper to my reflection, “I didn’t want him. I just wanted him not to be him.”

The silence that follows is not forgiving.

I wrap myself in a robe and move toward the kitchen.

The floorboards creak under my bare feet. Something feels off. The air feels heavier than it has before.

I pause. A breeze brushes past my ankles. My brows draw together.

None of the windows are open. I glance toward the living room. The curtain by the balcony door flutters barely. My heart ticks a little faster.

I cross the room, slowly, each step measured. My eyes scan the floor. I check the latch. It’s locked. I check the windows and find them locked.

I turn and freeze.

The chair beside the bookshelf is not where I left it. It’s been shifted a few inches to the left. It’s enough for someone to stand there and have a clear view of my bedroom door.

My breath hitches. Something sour and metallic rises in my throat.

I back into the hallway. My hand brushes the wall, fingers searching for my phone. I don’t find it.

A scent catches me off-guard. Cologne. Definitely not mine. It isn’t a scent of anyone I can place.

It smells masculine, and clean. An overpowering scent of spiced leather with a note of something bitter underneath. It’s familiar and completely foreign at the same time.

What the hell is this?

My heart thunders. My ears buzz with the sound of it. I move to the bathroom again, lock the door with trembling fingers, and sit on the closed toilet lid.

I try to breathe. I press my palm over my mouth.

I hear a drawer sliding open.

My throat closes around a sound I don’t recognize.

The creak of a floorboard that only moves when stepped on from a certain angle follows.

Oh, God, he’s here.

It isn’t Nolan or a burglar. Every part of me sings with the complete assurance that this is my stalker.

I reach under the sink. I have no weapon or phone here with me. I may as well toss hope out the window. Dammit.

My fingers touch a pair of nail scissors. I grip them like they matter and pray they’ll make a difference.

Silence follows. Long and endless. Then another sound of deep and steady breathing that sounds too close for comfort.

I rise slowly, my robe clinging to my damp skin, and press my forehead against the cool tile wall as I tell myself to stay calm.

Think, Vera.

He won’t hurt you. He hasn’t given any indication that he wants to harm you.

I gulp as I grip the scissors tighter. A slow realization creeps under my skin. He’d come because I let another man touch me.

I can feel the judgment in every breath outside that door.

Fuck!

Shame curls in my stomach. I had known, deep down, that this would happen. That tonight would have consequences.

A floorboard creaks again. He’s moving away this time.

I wait. Minutes pass. The silence stretches so thin I can hear the refrigerator humming down the hall.

Eventually, I unlock the bathroom door.

I don’t open it. I stand there, listening.

There’s no sign of him. But he’s been here. I’m sure of it now.

And worse is the realization crawling up my spine. I’m not scared.

I’m thrumming, alive and drenched in something between dread and desire.

I hate myself for it.

I turn off the bathroom light and walk back into my bedroom.

I close the door and lie down without undressing.

The scissors stay under my pillow.

Somewhere, beyond the walls, beyond my locked door, I know he’s still listening, watching, and waiting.

And part of me, a dark, ugly, and honest part, is also waiting.

I have no idea how I manage to fall asleep in this situation, but I wake to the pressure first. It’s a subtle awareness of tension in my limbs as something pulls at my wrists.

My eyes open into darkness. My breathing quickens instantly.

I can’t move my hands. My arms are stretched above my head, tethered to the headboard. The material around my wrists is soft and familiar.

Is it satin?

I move my wrists slowly.

Are those my stockings?

My heart rams against my ribcage. Cold sweat forms at my temples.

I try to speak, or call out.

Nothing comes out.

Something thick fills my mouth. It isn’t choking, so I didn’t notice it until now, but it’s enough to muffle any sound. My tongue recognizes it before my mind catches up.

It’s a scarf. My scarf. The one I looped through my coat pocket earlier in the week. A cashmere scarf that still has the lavender scent clinging to it.

He used what belonged to me.

That detail, the intimacy of it, sickens me more than the binding.

My legs tremble uncontrollably. Panic tries to surge, but shame and heat slide in alongside it.

I jerk my arms, struggling against the ties. They hold fast.

I feel a touch of bare, cool fingers. They move deliberately as they skim the side of my throat, gliding just under my jaw.

They don’t linger or grope. They study me, like my skin has sentences written in braille.

I feel my body go still.

I can’t see him. A shadow moves at the edge of my vision, but he never comes into focus. He stays behind me, or beyond my peripherals, just far enough to remain faceless.

But I know.

Every fiber in my body recognizes the unspoken command in his silence. The weight of him and the control. I don’t need to see the man to know the stalker has finally crossed the line.

My breath comes harder as my lips press around the scarf.

His fingers move again, down the line of my collarbone and pause. Then they trace the curve of my waist, over my shirt, over the frayed edge where the fabric has been split.

I whimper. It’s barely a sound, but it vibrates against the gag.

I don’t know if I’m begging him to stop or keep going.

One hand grips my jaw suddenly. His hold is firm. He turns my face, forcing me to look toward the silhouette where his face might have been. I try to make out features, a shape, anything.

There is only shadow.

The hand holding my jaw trembles slightly. As if even he isn’t immune to this moment. As if something inside him is cracking, too.

His other hand cups my breasts and pinches a nipple through my bra. I jerk involuntarily, and I swear I hear him chuckle.

His hand leaves my breasts and moves lower. Over my stomach. Then he stops.

His knuckles press between my thighs.

He makes enough contact to make me inhale sharply through my nose.

My body responds without permission. My thighs clamp, reacting to heat, to humiliation, and fear.

My breath stutters.

I clench my fists around the stockings, shame blooming like wildfire through my veins.

He doesn’t move further or escalate the moment. He just stays there, letting the weight of the touch do its damage.

Slowly, his hand slides away.

I can hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

My chest arches upward involuntarily. My body betrays me with a flush of something dark, wet, and devastating.

Oh, God.

He knows. He has to know. That I’m not just panicked—I’m aching.

Tears burn behind my eyes, but none fall. He doesn’t speak, laugh, or gloat. And that is somehow worse.

His hand grips my bound wrists. He leans close and whispers the only thing he ever says to me that night.

“Don’t make me remind you again who you belong to.”

The words are soft and deadly. He pulls the scarf in my mouth subtly.

Then he’s gone.

I don’t hear a door or footsteps. Only the sudden, deafening absence of him.

I push my tongue forward, and the gag releases.

I spit out the scarf, coughing. My lips are wet with saliva and tears I hadn’t realized had escaped.

I move my wrists. The bastard has loosened the binds. I tug repeatedly until they’re free. My arms drop.

I curl in immediately, body folding into itself like it needs to retreat somewhere small and unreachable.

I am completely alone.

The apartment is silent.

I stare at the ceiling, my body still trembling and burning. The air is too thick to breathe. I feel my chest rising and falling in an uneven rhythm.

I can feel the dampness between my thighs.

The nausea hits me next. I roll onto my side and sob—silent, choking sobs that have no rhythm or shape.

What’s wrong with me?

I want to scream it. I want to rip my skin open and shake myself free from whatever he left behind.

But I can’t move. Because worse than the horror…is the want.

I want him to come back.

I don’t know how long I lie there.

The room remains still.

One of the curtains drifts with the night air, its edges catching the breeze like a flag on a sinking ship.

The window wasn’t open when I came home. I’m sure of it. But now it stands cracked enough to whisper.

The air smells like cold sweat and his cologne that has imprinted its scent in my brain.

My bed is a battlefield. The sheets tangled, my shirt still torn halfway down the front. One stocking dangles from the headboard, swaying slightly.

The sight of it makes my skin crawl.

I sit up slowly.

Every muscle aches, not from force because he hadn’t hurt me, but from restraint. From the tension that has coiled itself so tightly into me that it now lives beneath my skin.

I touch my wrists. Faint lines mark where the stockings had held me. My skin isn’t red or bruised. The lines shine faintly, acting as a ghost of what just happened.

I look toward the door. It had been closed, locked, and bolted. None of it matters.

He can come through anything.

I slide off the bed. My legs don’t want to work at first, like they haven’t decided whether they’re mine yet. But I make them move.

The bathroom mirror greets me with the full weight of what I’ve become.

Makeup smeared across my cheekbones. Mascara in the corner of my eye. Hair knotted, the lip color still faintly visible, the same lipstick I applied for another man hours ago.

A man who has no idea what he’s stepped into.

I splash cold water onto my face and rub until my skin stings. I grip the edges of the sink and stare.

Fog still clings to the mirror’s corner. I hadn’t showered since morning. The steam is fresh.

My eyes dart to the shower door.

I back away slowly and silently. As if any sound will summon him again.

I walk back into the bedroom, into the scent of him still coiled in the air. Faint, teasing, and clinging.

My knees buckle, and I sit hard on the edge of the bed. My fingers brush the scarf that had been in my mouth.

I should throw it away or burn the damn thing. I’ve been violated and should report it. But I just stare at the scarf. My body still aches from absence.

I wrap my arms around myself, pressing my palms against my bare waist as if to contain whatever has been opened inside me.

This isn’t fear the way I’d known it before. This is different.

It is horror soaked in heat. Shame laced with want. A want I didn’t choose. A want that makes my stomach twist and my eyes sting.

I try to tell myself what he’d done is unforgivable. It is. But it isn’t what haunts me.

What haunts me is how my body responded.

How I hadn’t tried harder to get away or thrashed around.

How, deep down, something was waiting for his touch. The command and ownership in it.

What kind of woman reacts that way? What kind of woman lies there, trembling, violated, and wants more?

I drop my face into my hands and weep.

But the tears aren’t clean. They come with heat. With pulses still echoing between my thighs. With a dull ache of something unfinished.

I curl onto the bed, drawing my knees to my chest, the torn shirt gaping against my skin. The scarf sits beside me. The curtain dances in the breeze.

And I know, without a shadow of doubt, this isn’t over.

He hasn’t taken everything yet. He wants my unraveling.

And I’m unraveling piece by piece. The apartment doesn’t feel like home anymore. It feels like a trap he lured me back into. And somehow, I haven’t resisted.

I’d locked the doors and closed the windows. But I’d also let the date touch me. Let myself be seen in that dress, in that lipstick, with that lie of a smile.

I’d provoked something and purposely stepped toward the flame. And now I’ve been burned.

I reach up and unhook the stocking from the bedframe. I hold it in my hand, feel the softness, stretch, and the imprint.

He chose it out of all the things in my drawers. He picked this. Something that had once graced my skin.

There is meaning in that.

What terrifies me most isn’t that he broke in or that he touched me. But that he knew me better than I wanted to admit.

I stand again. The apartment is cold. The heating is still on, but the air inside me has changed. I turn to the mirror again, catching my reflection in the dark. I look haunted and unsteady.

There’s recognition of myself in my eyes. Of something I can’t keep pretending isn’t there.

I walk to the window and draw the curtain completely.

When I climb back into bed, pulling the sheets over my trembling body, I don’t cry again.

I just lie there, eyes open, staring at the dark.