Page 44 of His To Erase

Ani

The road winds tighter the higher we climb, trees crowding in like they know where we’re headed. When the car finally slows, gravel crunches beneath the tires, and my stomach does the kind of slow roll that usually comes with regret—or foreplay.

“You aren’t taking me to a hotel?” I mutter under my breath.

Steven doesn’t even look at me. “Do I look like someone who books hotel rooms?” he says. “If you wanted a hotel, you wouldn’t have called me.”

That shuts me up. This—him—was never going to be safe. It was never going to be soft. I guess in some way, he’s not wrong about that either.

The car rolls to a stop, and for a second, neither of us moves. The house looms ahead, all stone and shadow.

He gets out and doesn't wait for me. By the time I slam my door and follow him up the stairs, he’s already unlocking the front door and pushing it open.

Heat spills out and I hover in the doorway, pulse hammering.

He glances over his shoulder. “Inside.”

I step in and close the door behind me, the soft click echoes like a decision I can’t take back. He tosses his keys on the table and shrugs out of his jacket, but I don’t move.

“Do you want me in the room I was in before?” I ask, pretending I didn’t just come apart in the woods and still want him.

His mouth twitches into one of those half-smiles that never quite reaches his eyes.

“You’re not here to sleep.”

My breath stutters. “Excuse me?”

He turns then. Eyes dragging down the length of me—slow and unapologetic.

“You wanted safe?” His voice is low. “Then you should’ve called someone else.”

I open my mouth—ready to say something to claw back some power—but he takes a step forward, and I back up on instinct.

He doesn’t stop.

Another step. Then another. Until my spine hits the wall and the firelight dances over his face like it knows exactly what he came here to do. His hand braces beside my head. God, it’s embarrassing how much I want to close the distance between us.

“I’m not going to be gentle,” he says, deliberately. A warning and a promise wrapped in smoke.

My breath hitches.

“Then don’t,” I whisper. “Just get it over with.”

His eyes flare.

“Not how this works.”

Then he leans in, his mouth brushing my ear. “You don’t get to come apart unless I let you.”

His hand finds my throat again, like he knows I’ll bolt if he doesn’t hold me still.

“Take off your hoodie,” he says.

I don’t move and he smiles. Fuck me, that smile.

“Or I can always do it for you.”

I freeze long enough to feel the weight of that quiet threat in his voice. It has no business turning me on the way it does. He steps forward, and for a second, I’m positive he’s going to rip it off me. Oh my God, yes. Please touch me again.

That snaps me out of those thoughts real fast, and my fingers finally move. I slowly pull it off, despite how shaky my hands are. I’m doing my best to act like I’m unaffected while my skin is humming. His eyes track every inch I reveal like he’s already undressing the rest.

When I shrug it off, his hand brushes mine—and fuck, I flinch like I’ve been lit on fire. That’s what it feels like every time he touches me.

He takes it from me without a word and turns—walking upstairs like I didn’t just short-circuit in his shadow.

What the hell just happened?

My legs still feel like Jell-O in a windstorm, and I’m just standing there in the glow of his fire like some confused hoe with my arms crossed like that’s gonna hold me together. I shouldn’t be this fucking wet for a man who talks to me like I’m some limited-time offer he hasn’t decided on yet.

Then his voice floats down the hall. “Are you coming?”

The double meaning is not lost on me. I wish I was, buddy. God, I hate him. No, I hate how much I want him.

Every step down the hallway feels like I’m walking deeper into something I won’t come back from. My brain is screaming, but my body is begging. Am I seriously going to let him fuck me right now? Just like that?

He’s waiting at the end—leaning against the doorframe like he owns me, wearing that same unreadable expression on his face he always wears when he doesn’t want me looking too close. He’s clearly already made every decision, and I’m just here trying to catch up.

“Let me know if you need anything.” He pushes the door open with one hand, like this didn’t just shift the axis of my entire fucking world. His voice is calm, but dismissive. And I hate that I flinch.

I thought—I don’t know. I thought this was headed in a different direction. I thought this was going to be feral and violent. When he said I wasn’t here to sleep, and looked at me like he wanted to taste the bruises he put on me, I followed him down that hallway ready to burn.

Fuck, I was ready to let him wreck me, if that’s what it would take to get him out of my head. I would’ve let him nail me into the mattress and erase every thought I’ve been trying not to have. Just so I could say I survived it.

But now he’s just… offering guest services like this is a fucking Airbnb.

How he can whisper filth into my ear while I moan into his throat like a goddamn whore, then toss me a throwaway line like I’m one of a dozen girls who’ve been here before—it’s infuriating. And humiliating.

I swallow hard. “I won’t need anything.” Then shove the door shut—loud—and right in his smug, perfect face.

I stand there, unmoving with my jaw clenched and my chest heaving. Then lock it for good measure because the real danger clearly isn’t him.

It’s me.

Which—now that I think about it—is fucking pointless. If he wanted to get in here, he obviously could. Since it’s his house and all.

The room hasn’t changed since the last time I stayed here. Same clean sheets. Same worn book on the nightstand I never touched. Same walls I stared at while he slept in the other room, like some phantom who only ever shows up just to disappear again.

I peel off my leggings, flinging them across the room, and climb into bed in nothing but my cropped tee and underwear. I yank the blanket up like it might smother everything I’m feeling. It doesn’t, unfortunately, but a girl can dream.

My body still feels him. My hand drifts up to my throat, where his was, and I shift under the blanket, squeezing my eyes shut, hoping that’ll help.

Spoiler alert— it doesn’t. I’m still throbbing and instantly wet. Again.

All just from remembering how his cock was grinding into me—how hard he was, how close, how goddamn smug. Fuck, I’m in trouble.

Awesome. Love that for me.

I’d take care of it myself, but he’s in the other room—and I’m not about to rub one out over a man who devoured me like he wanted to ruin my life and then told me to “let him know if I needed anything.” Yeah. I need dick. But sure, I’ll settle for your throw blanket.

I might as well tattoo deeply unwell across my forehead and call it a fucking day.

Sleep doesn’t come, just the past 24 hours, banging around in my head, along with the memories I keep having.

“It’s already done. She’s his now.”

My stomach knots so hard it starts to hurt. I press the heel of my palm to my chest like I can hold the crack together. I bet if I just apply enough pressure, I’ll forget all about it and fall asleep.

But the memories don’t stop. Everything comes in flashes. Pressure across my ribs. A laugh that didn’t sound like laughter.

I flip over, shoving the blanket off. The sheets are too hot and they’re clinging to my skin like static.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and sit there with my elbows digging into my knees.

I put my head in my hands like I’m trying to physically hold it all in place. I can’t fall apart. Not here.

I blink—just once—and I’m not in the room anymore.

I’m back on cold tile with my cheek pressed against linoleum. My ribs are screaming, and I can feel my fingers sliding in something wet.

“Get her in the car.”

Something crashes. Glass? Metal? I can’t tell. A door opens and all I remember are the boots, then the hands. There were so many hands. One squeezing too hard on my thigh, and another grabbing my ass. My mouth opens to scream but—nothing comes out. Just silence thick enough to choke on.

I’m upright and off the mattress so fast it’s like I’m trying to outrun my own skin. My knees almost buckle, but I catch the wall just in time.

Breathe.

If I stay vertical long enough, the rest of me will catch up I’m sure of it.

“Great,” I mutter to no one, “love a good midnight PTSD sprint.”

I stumble into the bathroom and flick the light on looking like I haven’t slept all year. Dark circles, dead eyes, and secrets lining every bone.

I grip the sink, knuckles white. My vision flickers and suddenly the lights feel too bright. My hair’s stuck to my face and there’s blood dried under my nails, but I don’t remember bleeding. There’s a duffel bag on a bed that I don’t remember packing.

I blink, and I’m back in the bathroom. Just me. No weird smelling room, or grabby hands. Except—I remember something.

A bracelet.

Thin leather—dark brown, worn soft at the edges from years of never taking it off. I remember the way it wrapped twice around my wrist. I remember the frayed thread I used to twist when I was nervous.

I never took that thing off. Not once.

Except… it’s not on my wrist now. And that’s what makes my stomach twist. So where the hell is it?

Thanks for the free trauma amnesia, I guess. Five stars. Would dissociate again.

I sit down hard on the edge of the bed, and my stomach is flipping like I missed a step. Part of me knows exactly what this means—but I refuse to think it through. I don’t need the answer. I don’t want it.

I rub at my wrist. Hard. Like I can scrub off the phantom weight that’s suddenly driving me insane. I grab my hoodie, yank it over my head, and I’m out the door before I can talk myself out of it.

I’m not looking for him. I’m not looking for anything, really. But the second I crack open the door, I know I’m lying.