Page 12

CHAPTER 11

MAX

E very night it’s been the same routine.

I get home from work and try to go to bed. Sometimes I’m able to fall asleep, other times I toss and turn. But without fail I’ll always wake up at some point in the night. When something feels off, like someone else is there, watching from the shadows.

The weirdest part of it all is that I’m not scared.

The logical part of me knows it’s not Carson, or anyone from my family. I don’t know how I know, other than if it was them, I’d have been dragged out of here already, and that’s mostly why I feel like I’m probably just going insane. That’s why I turn on music and let it flow through me, sometimes I’m able to move with it, other times not.

This is my new normal and I don’t hate it.

There isn’t the fear of what I’m going to walk into when I come home. Fear that Carson has been drinking and how he’s going to take it out on me or what he’ll make me do. There isn’t any worry about my parents and what they’re going to make me do, dress up for, or who they will make me talk to.

It’s a peace that I’ve never experienced before. Despite the feeling like I’m being watched, the peace is soothing.

After stripping off the clothes I wore to work, the smell of smoke, beer, and liquor lingers on my skin. I get into the hot shower to wash it all away. The water beats down on me, soaking my hair as I work the shampoo then conditioner through my long auburn locks.

As I’m rinsing the conditioner out, I feel like I hear a door closing, and jump. Standing still, I wait to hear something else, but nothing happens. I’m sure the noise was from outside. Continuing my shower, I get that feeling again. The one I get when I wake up every night, but this time I’m fully awake as it hits.

I turn off the water and just stand in the shower, waiting to see if I hear anything else. The water drips from the shower head, but the rest of my house is silent. Even as I step out into the bathroom, wrapping a towel around myself.

Hesitantly, I step into my bedroom and glance around to see if anything is out of place, still waiting to hear something else. Everything looks as it should, and no sounds are made.

Not even as I change into an old, ripped, oversized T-shirt. I always wanted to be able to wear things like this around the house and just be comfortable. Too bad I never could, because I was told that’s not how a woman is supposed to dress.

And Carson liked silk.

Everything I wore had to be something he liked. Which is why I left behind all those silk pajamas when I left, because he liked them so much that he can enjoy them by himself now. Wear them, jack off with them, I don’t care, it’s not my problem anymore.

I do wish I brought one pair to burn, though, that would’ve been nice.

My phone dings from where I left it on my kitchen counter, since no one is really trying to get a hold of me, it’s pretty surprising that it’s going off at all, though I’m sure it’s going to be Danner. She’s nice and is essentially forcing her friendship on me. I didn’t come here looking for any sort of connection, but I guess a friend may be nice once I actually get used to living a normal life.

As I walk into my living room toward my kitchen, my feet freeze and I stop dead in my tracks, staring at the large man leaning against the wall across the room. He’s massive and not entirely unfamiliar, but it really hits me when I get a glimpse at his light eyes, the blue so bright that it’s almost silver has me recognizing him instantly.

The guy from the first night at the bar. The fighter at the gym. Caine.

“What the fuck are you doing here? How are you here?” I stutter, looking around to see if he broke a window or something to be here, but everything seems to be untouched.

“I’m here for you,” his voice is deep and I’m a little surprised he said anything. But it doesn’t really answer my questions. For a second, I’m worried that he’s here because he knows Carson or my parents. Maybe they sent him, but there’s no way they would know where I am. And I met him during my first shift, so it would be impossible.

“Why? How did you get in?” I look around again, shaking my head. “Actually, it doesn’t matter, get out.”

It’s my defiance that gets him to smirk, just the slightest pull of his lips, but it’s there. And it makes me uneasy seeing him be anything other than standoffish. There’s something sinister in that movement. Something that makes me feel like I should want to run in the other direction. But another part of me has me staying still.

Which is why I don’t move. My heart rate kicks up the longer he looks at me, but I still don’t move. Not even when his eyes roam over my barely covered body, my legs completely exposed, my nipples hardening into peaks under the thin fabric without a bra to conceal them.

I shift slightly, making my legs rub together, and I’m ashamed of the slickness I feel pooling there. But it’s the reminder that I never sleep in any underwear and that’s the reason that I don’t have any on. Now, here I am with a somewhat scary looking man, standing in my house uninvited, towering over me while I’m practically naked. For some reason my body’s reaction has not been to scream and run away.

No, my body has decided to react in a way it really shouldn’t. As he stalks forward, I stay rooted to the spot. I can’t even get my voice to work as he gets closer. His footsteps are heavy and seem to get louder with every step he takes closer to me. My breathing picks up, and yet I don’t move. I can’t. I’m stuck.

Pulling every bit of mental strength I can manage, I fold my arms across my chest, standing as tall as I can while he steps even closer. “Why are you here, Caine?”

He’s standing so close now that if I reached out I could touch him, but I don’t move, waiting for his response.

“I thought you’d be sleeping,” he responds.

My eyebrows knit together at yet another non-answer from him. “So breaking and entering doesn’t matter if the person that lives there is sleeping?”

He makes a small huffing noise, almost like the world’s smallest laugh. If it were anyone else, I may think that’s what it is, but I don’t feel like he’s capable of such an action. He probably doesn’t find anything funny. Or amusing. Or joyful unless it’s beating people to a pulp and watching them bleed out.

Or breaking into unsuspecting women’s homes and trying to scare them.

He glances around briefly. “Nothing looks broken to me.”

I breathe out an annoyed sound. “Okay, well, you’re still in my house uninvited and I want you to leave before I call the cops.”

“You’re not going to call the cops.”

I scoff, “Yes I am.”

“With what phone?”

I glance behind him at the counter where my phone still is, and I know there’s no way I can get to it without him easily grabbing me. That doesn’t mean I’m not about to try. I dart past him quickly, and manage to get to the counter, grabbing my phone before I’m completely pinned by the large body behind me.

His legs and hips push against mine, holding me in place as he reaches around, plucking my phone from my hand despite my efforts to fight him off. My phone clatters out of reach as he pushes it away and spins me around to face him. Caine pins my hips with his, the counter digging into my back.

“Get the fuck off me,” I screech, trying to swing my arms and legs to make any sort of contact with him. Unfortunately, I’m not able to with the way he’s pressed completely against me.

“You really need to work a bit harder in training if this is the best you can do,” he taunts, dragging his nose to where my pulse beats violently under my ear and inhales.

I scream out in frustration, attempting to land a punch against his face. Instead, he grabs my wrist in one hand and before I’m even able to try and swing with my free hand, he has that one as well. He manipulates my body with expertise until he’s holding both wrists in one hand against my chest.

I continue to try and get him off me, but the hold he has won’t budge. When I shift my hips slightly, that’s when I feel it, the unmistakable hardness rubbing against me, and I suck in a quick breath.

“Let me go,” I grit out.

His free hand falls to my exposed thigh, right where the hem of the T-shirt grazes my skin. “I’ll let go if you make me.”

He moves his fingers higher, taking my shirt with them as he slides up the skin of my leg and it renews my fight. I try to break my hands free, but all it does is make him tighten his grip more, making me whimper from the pressure. But not because of the pain, though I’m sure I’m going to have bruises left over, but because I feel how my traitorous body is responding, as the wetness between my thighs increases. My pussy throbs when he presses his hips against me again.

He’s so much bigger than me, so much stronger. He could truly do anything he wants to me at this moment and I’m hardly even trying to stop him.

“Let me go,” I repeat weakly as his hand continues to move up my leg, he’s close to discovering that there’s nothing between his hand and my pussy. Which means soon, he’ll discover how wet this interaction is making me.

His head dips down to my ear, lips grazing against my skin and chills cover my body. Though, I can hardly hear him over the blood pounding in my ears. “I said make me, killer.”

I scowl at the nickname. I double my efforts to fight him off, and I’m actually able to move my foot enough to stomp on his instep, but he’s wearing shoes and I’m not, so it doesn’t even matter. Then I’m back to being completely pinned and his hand has made it up to where my thigh meets my hip and is sliding forward.

“Please, let me go,” I try. This time I actually get a laugh from him. It’s deep, throaty, and full of smoke. The feel of it trembles down my spine, sending another set of chills running throughout my body.

“Not happening.” He turns me around again so my hips are pushed into the counter while he covers my back. “Especially when you came out here without anything covering your pussy. Almost like you were wanting something like this to happen,” he says darkly.

“I’m allowed to walk around my house however I want to, you aren’t supposed to be here,” I rasp.

His fingers are at the juncture between my thighs now, they graze against my core, and I feel the rumble of his chest with the low growl he lets out as he discovers what I wanted so badly to hide.

“And you shouldn’t be soaking wet,” he teases, applying some pressure to my clit making me bite back a moan.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” I spit, attempting to throw my head back to hopefully do some damage, but all I feel is his solid chest and he runs a finger through my slit and my breath hitches right before he pushes it inside me roughly.

I cry out at the intrusion, and try again to get away from him, but he continues to keep me pinned between his brick wall of a body and the cold stone of my kitchen counter. I’m completely at his mercy as he roughly pumps his finger inside my embarrassingly wet cunt.

“Sure as fuck seems like your pussy wants me to be touching you.” He punctuates his words by shoving another finger in and I scream at the sudden stretch. And because I know that I shouldn’t want him touching me, despite the fact that I’m suddenly desperate for more.

The palm of his hand presses against my clit and it makes my knees buckle as a shot of pleasure shoots through me. Caine presses me harder against the counter and there’s no denying the large erection digging into my back. The mere thought of that coming anywhere near me has my fear kicking up a notch.

It’s that thought that has me struggling, fighting even more than the fact that there’s a man I don’t know in my house. A man that’s essentially holding me hostage with his fingers knuckle deep inside of me.

Clearly there’s something wrong with me.

But I guess I’ve known that for a while.

I feel him grip my throat at the same time he curls his fingers, hitting a spot on my inner walls that has me clenching and moaning.

“You like this don’t you, killer? You like the fact that I’m taking whatever the fuck I want from you and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it?” His gruff voice adds to the sensations I’m feeling, and I hate how my body is responding.

I hate that he’s right.

“No, get the fuck off me.” I try to buck against him, using my body weight to try and push him off once again. Though, it still doesn’t work and only makes him push his fingers in rougher and squeeze my throat tighter.

My head is tilted back slightly with the grip he has on me, and that’s when I realize my arms are free once again. Reaching behind me, I grab the back of his neck, digging my nails into his skin and he groans.

“That’s right, fucking hurt me.”

I do just that while he continues to work me with his hand, and I begin to feel the orgasm cresting from the way he’s rubbing and fucking me with his fingers. I don’t want it to come though, I don’t want to give him that. I don’t want to give him anything more than he’s already taken.

Moving my hands from his neck, I dig my nails into the skin of his arms, but it doesn’t make him move, it only has him tightening his grip so hard he’s cutting off my air. The worst part isn’t the fact that he could easily kill me right now.

No, the worst part is that it’s the lack of air and fear that has my orgasm that was approaching, full on barreling toward me. I try to hold it back. I want to hold it back, but when Caine squeezes my throat even harder, I’m completely cut off from taking a breath, his deep gravelly voice says, “Give it to me.” I’m done.

His grip on my throat lets up, so I suck in air the same moment my release slams into me. I’m clenching around his fingers, gasping for breath while crying out. He pushes my chest down on the counter, covering my back with his hard chest as he works me through the pleasure and I’m still trying to catch my breath as the strongest orgasm of my life racks through me.

Once I come down, he removes his hand from under my shirt, wiping his soaking wet fingers on the skin of my legs making me shiver. His lips graze against my ear when he speaks, “Next time it’s going to be my dick you come all over.”

“Next time I’m calling the cops,” I spit back.

He huffs a breath that I think is supposed to be a chuckle as he lifts off me and I whirl around ready to try and fight him again, but his long legs have him across the room, almost to my back door.

“No, you’re not. But you should really get this lock fixed,” he says, opening the door and I gape at him. “Or don’t, makes it easy for me, but I like a challenge.”

“Fuck you,” I seethe.

“Don’t worry. You will.”

Then he’s gone.

I rush forward to lock the door he just left out of, and stare at it for a few seconds while I try to work out what just happened. I’m still throbbing between my legs, I can still feel the phantom grip of his hand around my neck, and my hips sting from where the counter was digging into me. Everything is so confusing, but I remember what he said about my door.

I jiggle the handle slightly and the lock pops open easily. Throwing my head back with a loud groan I know the chance of me getting any sleep tonight has all but vanished knowing I’m not secure here. Though, I’ve already faced one monster tonight, what’s another one if I was somehow found.

Despite my annoyance, the soreness in my core, and the tinge of fear I can never quite get rid of, I lock the door again, shove a chair underneath the door handle, and turn on some music.

At first, it’s just to take me out of my mind, but as the melody continues I feel myself moving. Before I know it I’m dancing without having the noise of my thoughts affecting it. For the first time in a long time, I feel freer than I think I ever have.