Page 72 of Promise of Destruction (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #1)

sixty-seven

Soren

"Declan..." I huff, my voice hoarse, breathless and full of fear.

The apology is still there, just waiting for me to give it, but I can't. My fucking pride won't allow it.

"I've been doing more than just watching you, you know?

" He smirks, settling his thighs over my shoulders.

My heart hammers at the proximity of his cock, which I'm sure he's going to shove in my throat and use to suffocate me at any moment.

Part of me wants that... some fucked up part of me that I can't possibly begin to understand.

Declan has said he wants to break me, but I'm clearly already broken, because there's no way I should be craving his cock on my tongue like this. There's no way I should have given him two of my orgasms already, no way I should be wanting more.

"I've been studying you... learning everything about your life, your past, you ..."

"Declan, please. I— "

I almost got it out that time, but he presses a hand over my mouth, shushing me with a shake of his head.

"You know what I've noticed about you, Ren?

" He doesn't give me a chance to answer, and I don't try to.

I just look up at him with wide eyes, fear mixing with desire that I pray doesn't show through.

And there's no denying that the desire is there. How could it not be, when he’s just taken control of my body?

"You crave control the way some men crave power… that you’ll do anything for it. Your entire life revolves around making yourself feel that you have a grip on everything, that you're not in a spiral, that you're not still reeling from tragedy."

My reply, a sharp " fuck you!" is smothered by his hand as he clamps it over my mouth, his heavy breaths giving way to a laugh.

"Your life was perfect, wasn't it? A happy husband, a beautiful house... a baby on the way?"

That feels like a punch to the stomach; it hurts. God, it fucking hurts. More than anything I would have ever thought he could make me feel. But this isn't his pain to give me. It isn't pain that he caused. I'm confident in that now.

Somebody else did this to me. They left a gaping hole in my life. Declan is simply pushing another blade into that hole, twisting it a little, seeing what happens.

I forgot, until this moment, about seeing him in my garage holding the sonogram.

I forgot him holding me as I beat his chest with my fists and screamed and felt the wall I've tried so hard to build around my heart crumbling.

Even now, it feels more like a dream than a memory, fragmented images in my head, no words, no sound.

Bringing it up like this is a low blow, lower than I thought he'd sink.

I don't know why or when I started to think he may have principles, given all of our encounters to this point, but somehow, this betrayal feels intimate— the kind that can only come from someone you trust. Maybe because my body has given in to him, my resolve to see him as a monster has wavered.

"It was perfect, wasn't it?"

It wasn't perfect, but I'll never admit that to Declan. I'll never admit that to anyone .

I never cared for perfection, but we were far from that. Sure, everything began beautifully. Sure, I'd give anything to go back to before that night and change the outcome. Sure, I'd trade my soul to have that life back. But perfect wasn't on our radar. Not by a long shot.

I'll never forget the fights over my birth control, how he said he just wasn't ready, how he told me it would happen when it was meant to every month that I was devastated, how he left me alone to cry over negative ovulation tests because my cycle was too irregular to pin down.

I remember how he'd looked angry the day I told him he was going to be a father, as if it was something I'd gone and done against his wishes.

I remember how he told me he was worried I'd get fat, that I wouldn't want to have sex, that I'd never have time for him.

I remember him telling me he'd have to take another job to afford this, how selfish it was to choose this over him.

I'm not stupid. People tend to glorify and memorialize the memories of the dead, forgetting the pain they caused.

I haven't forgotten any of it, but I'd suffer it over again because that pain was less than the anguish his death caused.

Because I had hope for a better future with him, and now it will never come.

"And then one night you lost it all. Someone took it all from you, and your perfect life fell apart.

You fell apart. You haven't put yourself back together yet, but you want people to think you have.” Declan chuckles, his breath blowing across my collarbone.

“Your friends, your co-workers, the people who whispered behind closed doors that you snapped and killed him yourself.

You want them to think you're fine, but inside, you're broken. Ashes and rubble, elastic and string to hold you together.”

He's not wrong, and I fucking hate him all the more for it. I hope he can feel it, dripping from my pores, present in every ragged breath.

I fucking hate Declan Evers.

“So, on the outside, you project composure.

You put yourself together perfectly in the morning and keep everything spotless, immaculate, and orderly because they say that your house is a reflection of your mind.

If you keep everything just the way it's meant to be, maybe you can even fool yourself into believing it one day. .. believing that you're not ruined."

I want to ask when the fuck he decided he was my therapist, when he started psychoanalyzing me.

I want to ask what the fuck gives him the right to go to these lengths.

But I know what gives him the right. The fact that I accused him of the worst thing that's ever happened to me gives him the right to bring it up.

.. the right to yield it as a weapon against me.

It doesn't give him the right to keep me tied to this bed and do wicked things to me, but I know what gave him that right, too.

The fact that he's rich, that he's got the police in his pocket, the fact that he's bent my body to his will enough that it wants to obey him like a puppet without strings.

The fact that some masochistic part of me loves the way I hate him, and hates the way I lo—

I don't love him. That's not the right word.

I hate the way I feel about him, and I hate that I don't even really know what exactly that is.

I hate the way he came into my life, the way I led him straight to me, the way he's consumed me, and what parts of my life I have tried to re-establish in the last year since Vin's death and the loss and my break with reality.

"You think you can control everything, but you don't have control over anything in your life that's happened since that night, do you?"

He knows the answer without me having to say anything, but he removes his hand from my mouth finally, wiping a tear off my cheek with a slow stroke of his thumb.

"You're broken, Soren Palmer. Beautifully, tragically broken ."

The words whisper across my lips, like a secret between lovers.

But he isn't telling me anything I don't know.

He isn't telling me anything that the world doesn't already know.

I've tried to keep things running, to maintain the illusion that I'll be okay hoping that I can manifest that to reality.

But there's no willing yourself not to be depressed, no amount of asking the universe to heal your brain that can fix you when you're broken so fully.

"I can fix you." Declan promises. Or taunts. I can't tell, honestly, what his intentions are as he strokes my cheekbone reverently. His eyes are full of something that I can't place, something that feels eerily like devotion.

Obsession.

He's crazy. Every bit as crazy as I am.

I hide behind my perfectly styled hair and my immaculate home, and Declan hides behind his wealth and the power that bought him. But underneath all of the facades we've put out there, we're both crazy.

He stalked me. Stood outside my house, bought the paper I work for, watched me from across the street, coerced me into working for him. I should have run far away, because he's not who he pretends to be.

And now I'm tied to a bed at his mercy.

"I can fix you." He says again, sliding down away from me. He crawls off of me and stands, stepping away from me so that he can take me in all at once.

His retreat leaves me cold. "But I have to break you more, first."