Even though instincts told me I should argue, fight, and stay...
I did what he asked.
And I left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
GEMMA ASHFORD WAS THE only person to ever successfully break me.
I’d had so many others try. I’d endured hundreds of punishments and thousands of games, yet I’d always been able to safeguard the inner parts of me. I’d sheltered those pieces for my family. I’d held them tight all while I’d been beaten and used because I knew if I gave up, who would look after them? Who would find a way to kill our masters? Who would sacrifice their own happiness so that one day, those he loved could find theirs?
But Gemma.
Christ, Gem.
She was the first to give me something out of the goodness of her heart. No matter how much it cost her. No matter how much she hated me for what I’d done. She’d read my suffering, understood the jagged complexities of my mind, and she’d been so angelically good.
She’d glowed in my arms. She’d had wings of gold and a halo of kindness all as she took my corrupted, unclean soul inside hers.
And how had I repaid her?
By coating her in the same fucking dirt I’d crawled out of.
Seeing my cum trickle down her leg? Seeing the bruises I’d given her while doing something unforgivable? Fuck me, it represented every disgusting thing I’d ever done. All the cum that’d covered me, all the guests who’d claimed me, all the games I’d been forced to play.
She hadn’t deserved to be included in that mess.
She didn’t deserve to be trapped with a man who couldn’t control his own thoughts or keep her safe from the very same urges he’d ignored for eleven years.
She wasn’t safe here.
She wasn’t fucking safe because seeing my release roll down her leg had made me viciously hard again. It wasn’t enough to take her once. I wanted her again and again and again. I wanted her beneath me, on me, in me. I wanted to die with her on my tongue and my body pounding into hers.
I was sick.
I was exhausted.
Living with her had become impossible.
I found it harder and harder just to survive. I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t dangerous and cruel. I couldn’t wipe away the blood still coating my hands, or the nightmares just waiting to manipulate me.
I’d raped her because I’d stupidly fallen asleep. Fallen asleep because of a concussion that scrambled my thoughts and an exhaustion borne from her presence.
I never wanted to sleep again.
What if I woke to her dead beneath me?
What if I never woke at all, and I kept her trapped here forever, like me. Hurting her, using her, never able to open my eyes and see just how wonderful she was. How giving, generous, and kind.
I groaned and rested my sweaty forehead on my arms.
I didn’t think I could do this anymore.
I couldn’t keep living with someone who was nice. Who forced me to confront all my dark madness.
And the worst part?
The worst part was not knowing how she’d react. I’d hurt her. Yet instead of hurting me back, she’d given me something that no one else ever had.
She’d given me understanding, calmness. Granted access to her body and gifted me a split second of happiness. She did something no one else would ever have done, and I didn’t know how to handle that.
How was I supposed to keep my walls up, to protect myself from a past that had the power to suffocate me, all while Gemma Ashford broke me into pieces?
For hours, I sat against the wall, sinking into my misery. My stomach snarled with hunger, and my mind...well, that flickered with its familiar concussion and unreliable memory.
My eyes dropped to the chain binding her to me; the very same chain that’d clinked softly as she’d left the room on my request. I would never tell her, but my shitty memory had forgotten where I’d put the key. It wasn’t a good thing for someone like me to know she was close by, especially in my current state.
Just like the key was missing, tiny incidents that made up my life were gone. The blankness came on suddenly with no warning, erasing a few seconds, deleting my attempts at being better.
It was as if I fought an unwinnable battle.
I wanted to be good, but how could I when every part of me was bad?
I wanted to deserve her, but how could I when I’d always be a slave?
God, I was tired.
I felt wrung out and wrong, and something gnawed at me that couldn’t be ignored.
For all my shame of what I’d done to Gemma, she’d never once looked at me as if she cursed me. She’d shown incredible strength and sweetness.
She was so different, so pure, so right.
She was dirty because of me.
She was hurt because of what I’d done.