Page 17 of The Cruelest Chaos

Not from the sex.

From the stealing.

Or begging.

“Go back to sleep.” I don’t bother being quiet now. I grab the doorknob.

But he’s fast. As I fiddle with the lock, he comes up behind me, slapping his hand against the door.

“You’re not leaving at three in the morning.”

I twist around to glare at him, his arm still on the door, beside my head. I don’t say a word. Iamleaving. There’s no use wasting words on it. I didn’t come here for a sleepover. He wouldn’t want me to stay anyway, if he really knew me.

I can’t see him clearly in the dark, but I can practically hear him smirking. “Come back to bed with me, Ella.”

I frown in the dark, crossing my arms. Something about his tone...I don’t like it, because…I do.

I say nothing.

He sighs, and his hand trails from the door to the side of my throat. “Does your face hurt?”

I don’t say anything to that either. I don’t want him to feel bad about it. I like it. He’s not the first to do it. My mom was the first. In bed, an ex was. When I taunted him about someone else while we were fucking, he hit me so hard I saw stars.

I hadn’t been able to speak for a few moments.

Then I told him to do it again.

It made me the center of attention.

Just like Shane did, although he didn’t hit me. In some ways, though, he was worse.

Just like Mom’s blows. But those feel different. She doesn’t hit me because she wants to own me. She does it because she hates me. One feels like love. The other…well, she feels like disgust.

Maverick’s thumb brushes my lip and I flinch. It’s sore.

He must’ve felt the movement because he moves his hand to the back of my head and pulls me in close, against his bare chest. “I’m sorry, Ella, I—”

I jerk away and slap him. Just like I did a few hours ago. The sound is quick and loud in the quiet room, and he flinches, then shoves me against the door at the same time he steps away from me.

“You fucking bitch,” he snarls, his hand going to his face, one still against my chest, pinning me to the door. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I’m leaving.” I try to twist out of his grip, toward the door, but he drops his hand from his face, threads his fingers through my hair and yanks, hard.

“No you’re not. You wanna hit me again? I’ll hit you back, Ella. I’ve never done that with a girl before. Not one I didn’t want to kill.” His mouth is against my ear as he drags me toward him. “But I fucking liked it.”

Warmth pools in my low belly, the little hairs on my arm standing on end. I know I should shove away from him. Scream. Yell. Make a scene. But I’ve never been good at those kinds of things. Not in moments like these.

He presses me against the door, and I feel his erection against my stomach. My lips part and when his hand moves from my hair to my shoulder, down over my arm, I close my eyes.

Try to let go.

Let go.

Letting go of one thought, drifting to the next, it’s a way to control the anger. Move past it. Become detached from that emotion. Reach for a different one.

But that can mean a lot of things, Marnie. Especially for a girl like me. Anger, arousal, attention. They’re all the same for me.

No. I’ve got to leave. I already don’t like how I feel around him, and that’s how all my problems begin. I’ve known him three hours. Three fucking hours, and two I was asleep for.