I wanted to kill him.
I wanted to die.
But slowly, sickly, my body reacted under his instruction.
He did what he promised and showed me that if I was touched in the right way, desire had nothing to do with it. Instinct kicked in. Nature took over and condemned me.
I grew hard all while I cursed the very feeling of my fingers working beneath his.
Of my skin on my skin.
Of my body betraying me.
Of my hand making me hard when all I wanted to do was run.
Of myself hurting myself.
I was the seducer.
The defiler, the traitor, the villain.
I was my own worst enemy.
“Good boy.” Mr. Willby smiled as he removed his hand from mine. “Keep going. Get that thing stiff as a stick, and then...we’re all going to have some fun.”
“STOP!” I punched the wall.
I shoved knuckles into stone and rolled onto my back at the onslaught of agony. One of my knuckles cracked, and excruciation blazed through my hand.
However, instead of groaning in pain, I groaned in gratefulness. I kissed fresh blood trickling from a cut. I cradled the rapidly swelling appendage and sucked in untainted air.
With practice born from self-preservation, I snatched up all the memories and hurled them back into the blackness where they belonged.
They should never have escaped.
I’m getting worse.
With shaky legs, I climbed to my feet, stumbled up the steps, and ran through the kitchen to outside.
I didn’t stop.
I ran, and I ran.
I ran until splinters and stitches hurt my lungs.
And then, I ran some more.
I circled the valley twice, I skirted the cave, I followed the river, and by the time the sun slipped from morning to afternoon, I fell to my ass in the wild grass meadow and flopped onto my back, breathless, wrung out, and more wretched than I’d been since that first year of living on my own.
Why now?
Why had my chosen amnesia faltered?
Her.
That’s why.
I didn’t move as the sun cast me in heat, drying my sweat and burning my exposed skin. I wanted to forget the past few days. I wished I could erase any and all moments where a girl had trespassed, offered herself to me, and then successfully ripped open my carefully patched-up wounds.
Damn her.
Screw every person who ever existed.
I didn’t need anyone.
I didn’t want anyone.
And I definitely don’t want her.
Forgetfulness was the only way I could survive. I fucking refused to live in fear of what was inside my head. Not for anyone.
Releasing a tattered breath, I sat up and picked a piece of long grass. Chewing the sweet tartness from the stem, I scowled at the mansion before me. At the ivy dripping from the roof, at the flowers growing in the gutters, at the stonework that had once housed sex and screams and now echoed with its crimes.
She’s still in there.
I dropped my stare to the ground, trying to see through soil and concrete to the prisoner who’d made me touch myself.
I thought I could do this. That I could give in to sex after hiding from it for so long and not stir up the hornet’s nest inside my fragmented mind.
Fucking stupid really.
I should know better.
And you know what you need to do then, right?
I couldn’t keep her.
Sex for me would forever be tainted. It was better for everyone if I abstained for the rest of my life. If I had to choose between pleasure and insanity or celibacy and forgetfulness, then I would choose a blank memory each time.
In a couple of years, all of this nonsense would be forgotten. I wouldn’t remember a girl with strength in her arms and seduction in her eyes. I wouldn’t recall her name or how her tongue felt on my cock.
She would be yet another hollow void inside me, keeping me safe from my past.
Get it over with.
Pushing to my feet, I curled my hands.
No more procrastinating.
Today was her last day. No more favors. No more surviving.
I’m done.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WHEN THE DOOR OPENED, I knew something had changed.
There was no lust in his eyes. No food in his hands. No challenge or dominance in the way he stepped over the threshold.
There was only acceptance, grim determination, and a coldness that slinked through the air and settled like frost upon my skin.
“Get up.” He waved his hand as if through sheer will he could levitate me to my feet.
I sucked in a breath at the emptiness in his tone. His long hair hung damply to his shoulders. His bare feet were dusty and smudged, while his slacks were stained with pollen and wherever else he’d been. His chest was naked, revealing glistening sweat and the undeniable scent of a male who’d been physically active.
Pushing to my feet, I dropped my gaze to his hands. One looked bruised with a fresh scab that’d barely stopped bleeding. On instinct, I stepped toward him. “What happened to your hand?”