Page 74 of Promise of Destruction (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #1)

sixty-nine

Soren

When I wake, it's because my bladder feels like it may explode.

Panic sparks inside me as I test my bonds, wondering if Declan may have crept back in to free me.

The room is dark, and I can't see anything, but I can feel the resistance when I tug at the belt around my wrists, which are raw from all of my struggling.

My throat is raw, too, from all of my screaming.

And for what? None of it has accomplished anything, because I'm still tied up here, still naked and exposed and humiliated.

Is this all a game to him or was it a long con to get me to drop my defenses?

Maybe I was right all along and he is a killer.

Maybe he's just fucking with me until he gets tired of me and decides to dispose of me?

"Quit struggling."

The voice that comes to me through the dark nearly makes me piss myself, but I manage to hold it in as the scream escapes me.

"Declan?" I swallow, twisting to look for him in the dark.

I'm not afraid of the dark, but I am afraid of what I don't know.

And the truth is, I don't know Declan Evers.

I don't know whether he'd let anyone in here, whether he'd let anyone hurt me.

Part of me says no, that he wouldn't betray me like that.

But another part of me doesn't know what to expect from this man who came into my life like a fucking tidal wave.

A small click in the corner makes me cringe, but the glow of a lamp illuminates him a second later, leaning forward in the chair he's sitting in.

"I told you to stop struggling." He says again, his voice thin. He sounds tired, as if he's the one who was tied to a bed and left to scream and beg for his freedom. "You'll tear out your IV."

"IV?" I ask, remembering the doctor he brought to my house, the needle he stuck in my arm. But that was before we left to go to Costa Rica, before...

My mouth is dry, and yet I have to pee so badly I'm on the verge of tears. I’ve never had a need so great. It’s like my bladder is being squeezed from the outside in.

"Please." I groan. "The bathroom."

"You're not going anywhere." He says it casually, as if we're just at the office and he's denying me a break in the middle of a meeting.

" Please !" I beg, my skin burning with the need that's so violently taken over my every thought that I haven't even doubled back to that IV comment yet. "I have to..."

"Pee?" He guesses, chuckling like a kid who still finds amusement in bathroom talk.

"Yes," I cry, tears slipping down my cheek as the pressure feels like it's going to rip me apart.

I don't know how long I've been tied to this bed, or how long he's going to keep me tied to it, but I don't want to be left to lie in my own piss. It's a humiliation that's less than human.

"I'm sure you do, little bird. That needle in your arm has been pumping you full of fluids for the last… hmm… ten hours or so."

It's more than I can contend with, my brain stuttering as it tries to process the information he just gave me.

I pull hard against the belt, but I realize it isn't there anymore.

The leather strap that rubbed my wrists raw is gone, replaced with the distinct sound of metal as I tug against the bedpost.

Handcuffs.

"Why are you doing this?" I sob, aching and angry. God, I'm pissed.

He told me I was his toy, and if I was smarter, I'd have believed him, run the other way, tried to put as much distance between us as possible. Clearly, I'm not.

"I told you already, but you're not listening.

" He sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face as if I'm the one who's vexing him.

The audacity makes me want to strangle him.

"You know, when I was young, my dad died.

.. left my mom a widow. It's hard raising a kid alone.

" He swallows, licks his lips. "It's hard being alone at all.

But doing it with a kid is another beast. She was lonely, I guess, so she looked for love wherever she could.

.. more often than not from losers who weren't capable of loving anyone but themselves. "

"I don't want your sob story." I snap, grinding my jaw. No amount of tragic backstory will make what he's doing to me right now okay. No amount of mommy issues will make it okay to stalk someone and tie them to a bed and refuse to let them go.

"Good, cause that's not what this is." He laughs, unbothered by my venom.

"My father treated her like a queen, or so she always said.

I can't remember much about him. But I do remember the losers she'd date, the way she'd wear bruises like pearls, the way our possessions started to disappear, the way she'd limp and wince and try to convince me nothing happened.

I never saw them hurt her, but I could put the pieces together. "

"So, you abuse women because other men abused your mommy?" I spit, swallowing the whimper at the end of my sentence at the pain of holding on so tight to my faculties.

"No." He laughs. "I don't abuse women, Soren, no matter what you may think of me.

I'm giving you what you need, but you won't listen to me.

She developed a limp one day; she couldn't put any weight on her foot.

Instead of going to the doctor, she ignored it for weeks— got crutches secondhand and hobbled around everywhere, popped ibuprofen like it was candy.

When she couldn't take it anymore, she finally went to a doctor, who had to refer her to a surgeon.

She broke her ankle somewhere, never told me how, and it healed all wrong.

The surgeon had to break it all over to set it right so she could walk again. "

"You're fucked in the head." I sob, pulling at my wrist again uselessly. Tears stream down my face at the humiliation of being denied a basic human right such as getting up to fucking pee.

The worst part is that he really believes what he's saying, that he's convinced himself he's some sort of psychologist who's analyzed me and come up with a course of treatment.

"I'm not saying I'm not." Declan laughs, raking a hand through his hair.

He looks disheveled, wild and dangerous, and fucking gorgeous. I wonder when was the last time he slept, if he's on the tail end of some sort of manic episode.

"Declan," I swallow my pride as much as I can while I still have it. "Please, let me go."

I'd start with just letting me go to the toilet and worry about the rest later, but it's clear that he won't give me that either.

"It's you who needs to let go. Let go of thinking that you're in control."

"I know I'm not in control!" I snap. That's the problem. The last bit of control I do have is about to be pried away from me, because I can't hold it much longer. I can't.

"So, stop trying to act like you are. Just let go."

I clench my fists and turn away from him to stare up at the ceiling, taking shallow breaths through my nose to try and calm myself, to focus on anything other than how badly I need to get up.

I can't feel the needle in my arm he spoke of, but I can feel the tape scratching at my skin.

It's another betrayal— he let someone in here to do this to me.

How do I know they didn't do anything else? How do I know what they saw or thought?

The humiliation burns in my stomach— and lower, too. I don't even realize what it is until I feel him sink onto the bed over top of me, his sculpted chest moving into my vision as he straddles me without putting any weight on me.

"We're in a power struggle, Soren." He tells me, his hand skating up my shin to the bottom of my thigh. "Just give in."

He makes surrender sound so fucking beautiful, as if we're talking about something simple like moving on from a failed test. I press my lips together harder, trying to hold onto the desperate cry building inside of me, the ache that I could be rid of if he'd just let me up to use the toilet. .. or if I'd just give in to him.

"I can't."

"You will." He promises.

And then he makes good on that promise, his fingers dipping between my thighs and stroking my slit with the lightest pressure.

It's enough to make me squirm, my heartbeat racing as heat rushes to my cheeks.

I feel my eyes flutter closed, and I let them stay that way, not wanting to see the smug look on his face as he draws arousal from me instantly.

"I love how your body responds to me." He groans, pressing harder as he skates down to my ass.

For a minute, terror seizes me and my heart stops as I imagine the intrusion there.

But that's not what he's after; he only traces me with his thumb, taunting me over what he can do, reminding me how fucking stuck I am.

I don't even get to enjoy the moment of relief when he moves his touch higher, back toward my pussy before he plunges his fingers deep inside. I hiss in frustration as it feels like he's angling right for my bladder.

The pain of holding so tight cinches deep inside of me, but it's overpowered by something else... something like pleasure.

" No ..." I moan, hating the way it sounds so much like yes, hating the way he chases heat through me, the way I feel impossibly, gloriously full from just his touch.

"Let go..." He whispers the words right over my lips, an intimate act that makes his fingers in me feel so fucking lurid and filthy and... incredible.

"I c-can't- " I moan as his fingers reach deeper, hitting some horrible and wonderful spot deep inside of me that makes me tremble and ache. I can feel the sweat that’s broken out over my skin ratchet higher, the heat undeniable. "Declan, I- I'm going to- "

He thrusts deeper, gripping my chin with his other hand and giving me a little shake so that my eyes flutter open to take him in.

Gorgeous.

Vicious.

Relentless.

Declan Evers is power and promise... a promise of destruction.

He's going to ruin me, I'm sure. I just don't know if it's, as he says, to put me back together or not.

"Let go."

He says it like I have a choice, but there's no choice involved.

He reaches deep inside of me, coaxing my orgasm and my compliance, and with a final twist and thrust of his fingers, I let go.