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EMILY

“… y ou’re about to find out.”

Cohen’s voice took on that eerily calm tone again. The one that told me he was anything but calm , his expression absolutely feral when he reached forward and ripped the chair out from under me before tossing it aside.

I didn’t know what I’d said or did to trigger him this time. But my reflexes had me jumping to my feet so that I wouldn’t land my ass on the solid floor and then he was behind me. His thick thighs pinning my hips in place and a heavy palm shoving my head down on the table in front of us. My cheek pressed to the solid surface while he tugged the hem of the dress he forced me to wear up until it was covering the exposed side of my face.

Light streamed past the porous fabric enough that I could see movement but not much else. My hearing though? It was never fucking better. I could hear everything.

The sound of his zipper as it lowered and the wrenching down of his pants. The freeing of his cock and the shuffling of his boots as they scuffed the floor behind me. How heavy his breaths seemed each time he sucked in a lungful of air and hissed it back out again. Then there was the slapping of skin and the sloshing of bodily fluid. The pounding of my waist against the table’s ledge and the creaking of its legs. The way the lights buzzed in the background, baring witness to my humiliation while doing nothing to stop it.

It was okay though, because I didn’t do anything to stop it either. Finally understanding what it meant to be a deer caught in the headlights. Watching the oncoming traffic barreling towards you but finding yourself unable to get out of the way.

Not long after that the grunts started, followed by the knocking of the table against the concrete behind it. I could hear it all while feeling absolutely nothing. Even as his lips pressed next to my ear, whispering their ownership at the same time the rest of his body proved it.

Deep down, I thought knowing who he was would somehow make it better. Easier to accept. But I think all it did was shut me down. Strip some of the fight I’d always thought was innate.

It was a weird way to prove that it wasn’t.

By the time his rhythm was quickening, jerking, his breaths more stuttered and the friction between my thighs more intense, I was already miles away. Aware that my body was responding to him even when my brain was detached.

It wasn’t until I felt my dress being smoothed back into place, my vision no longer obscured by a light-blue haze, that I noticed the stream of warm liquid trailing down one leg before dripping onto the top of my foot. Then the sandwich was rising up in my stomach, and the next thing I knew, what was left of it was spewing from my mouth and splattering on the floor.

And suddenly I couldn’t hear anything but the thumping of my temples and the condescending tone of Cohen’s voice.

“Another thing you’d do well to remember, Emily. We do not waste food in this house.”

I was still in a daze, no recollection of moving or being moved, while my current surroundings told me that was exactly what had happened. The black-and-white tiles a stark contrast to the all-gray room I was used to seeing. But it was the shock of the scalding water hitting my back that sent me crashing into reality.

I didn’t remember the last time I took a shower, let alone a bath. But I had to admit that once the initial surprise wore off, the feel of the bubbles popping up around me was nice. Much nicer than anything I’d experienced in days.

I sank deeper into the water. Leaned farther back against what I now realized was a chest tucked up behind me. I lifted my chin and found myself staring into a single blue eye. Then his rough hands, much rougher on one side, were rubbing up and down my arms. Swiping the bubbles aside and working the kinks out of my neck.

This was exactly why Cohen Michaels was so bad for me. Far more deadly than any poison I feared he might slip into my food. It was his intoxicating yo-yo effect, giving you just enough string at the end to hang yourself before tugging you back towards him again.

The worst part was the fact that I knew it. Recognized it. Leaned into it. Then tried to fight against it.

I hummed to myself when he combed his fingers through my hair and worked out the knots, unusually gentle on the same scalp he had no problem yanking in every direction whenever he was grinding up behind me.

I could feel my muscles relaxing under his touch, my head resting on his chest and my eyes starting to close even as he shifted me onto his lap, his cock dangerously close to the spot that landed me here in the first place.

My lashes didn’t flutter open again until long after the tub water had turned cold and I was already wrapped up in a sheet, my body curled up on the softest thing I’d slept on since I stepped through the front doors of Briarwood— that lost memory was now haunting me too.

I dug my elbow into the mattress, attempting to roll onto my side, only to have a large arm tug me back against the bed. Cohen’s bed. This room far different from any of the others I’d been lucky enough to peek inside during the entirety of my confinement. But no less terrifying.