Chapter 19

NINETEEN

Laura

T he music had drawn me toward him. Eerie, sad notes twisting their way through the heather and pulling me in. When Phoenix picked up that damn violin he may as well have been a siren, luring me to disaster. Despite my anger from him tanning my arse and then leaving me wanting more, I struggled to stay away.

The ponies had lingered near him, curious but wary. Muffin, as I'd named the scruffy little pony with the dark brown dots – like a chocolate chip muffin – had come over and nuzzled into me.

Shortly after, Phoenix's violin screeched to a halt and he stalked off down the hill with his arms tensing, his fingers white around the violin's neck.

My shoulders relaxed as he departed and I threaded my fingers into Muffin's matted mane.

‘What am I going to do?' I asked the pony. ‘I'm stuck here, just like you. But I don't belong here. I need to get away.'

Muffin whickered into my shoulder as I ran my hands down over his neck, giving him a jolly good scratch.

‘Thing is, he touched me. And it felt like how I'd always wished it would. Not with him, obviously, but when I lay in bed and dreamed of Massimo. Phoenix makes me want it. And I despise it. I don't want to want his touch.'

I sighed and stood, brushing dry dirt from the back of my clothes, watching as little flecks of grass drifted down to the ground. The raging fire his hands had left burning on my ass cheeks had dulled to a soft ache. I screwed my face up at the thought of being bent over with him chastising me. Who did he think he was?

‘And why did it make me wet?' I asked Muffin, who ducked his head down to munch on a patch of clover near my feet.

I needed to get out. But how? Could I take the boat? Old Bess couldn't be that difficult to man, right? Even if I could just get it far enough out to sea that Phoenix couldn't swim out and sent out some kind of mayday signal.

It wasn't a concrete plan, but it was the best I had.

I just needed a way to get the keys. Phoenix almost always kept them on him. He needed to be distracted. Distracted and trusting.

Maybe I needed to play along with his game. Men usually slept like the dead after a good lay. I could suck it up long enough to get him knackered and then take the keys from discarded trousers, right?

Fuck, if I played it right, made him as desperate as he was trying to make me, I could have the keys by nightfall.

‘You wouldn't be mad, would you Muffin? You'd understand my leaving? I need to get home. Tell the police about Massimo, and my family, and Phoenix. Maybe I could come back for you when he's in jail. Take you home with me.' I sighed as tears pricked in the corners of my eyes. ‘Not that I have a home anymore.'

Muffin didn't seem to mind either way.

A light rain smattered the grimy old cottage windows, the pitter patter a soothing companion as I read Phoenix's teenaged scrawl. He may have set the rule that I had to only read it in his arms, but what was he going to do? Spank me again?

The delicious thrill that spread out from between my thighs made me scowl. Stupid, treacherous vagina. Who's side are you even on?

Refocusing on the diary, I read on through a particularly angry entry.

I don't know if he's ever going to take me back to the doctors. We've been on the boat for so long. Has everyone forgotten about me? Sometimes I wonder if I ever even existed. May, Mum and Dad feel like a dream. I keep trying to picture their faces, but they are getting foggier every day. I wish I had some photos. Something of us all together. I miss them so much.

I miss everything. I miss my friends, my school, even the nights arguing with Mum about eating my veggies. I'd give anything to have her back. And my mouth back.

Uncle let me starve for a bit when I refused to drink the awful pink shakes. When my hip bones started sticking out he forced the shakes into the hole I have left in my mouth. It would make me vomit, and then I have no option but to swallow the soured shakes back down when I couldn't spit them out.

I hate him.

I HATE the shakes.

But I take them to avoid having him sit on my chest and choke me with them. One day I'll be strong enough to kill him. I'll sit on his chest and drown him in the fucking vile liquid. Then I'll go home. Find someone who cares.

The word cares was blemished with a years old teardrop, the ink spreading around the word in a blurry black smudge.

Phoenix hated the shakes as much as I did. He'd had nothing else to eat for years.

A noise in the doorway had me startle upright, closing the book.

Time for operation make him come, then steal the keys.

I wanted to gag at the thought of him anywhere near me, but I'd done worse things with people who didn't even know my clit seemed to exist. At least if I closed my eyes, I might be able to get that itch scratched before I left him in the dust.

Phoenix climbed onto the bed, pulling me and the diary into his arms.

Operation play it sweet, Laura. You can do it.

‘I'm sorry about this morning, I shouldn't have thrown the glass.' I tapped the diary before looking over my shoulders. The half mask covered his lower face, but his intense eyes met my glance. ‘I didn't realise how much you hated them too. I'm so sorry.'

His fingers danced over my hip, dragging my focus to their gentle touch.

IT'S OKAY

My plan to seduce him caught inside me, the idea too ridiculous when he was pressed all up against me. I didn't want him to fuck me. I definitely didn't want him in my mouth. Would tossing him off do the trick?

Reaching around me, he plucked the diary from my hands and placed it on the bedside table before turning off the light.

Pitch darkness enveloped us, making me painfully aware of the heat of his body against mine. I screwed my eyes shut as he shifted, a soft thump landing on the floor as he stripped off his clothing.

No. No. No. I wasn't ready.

Tension hardened my every muscle when he wrapped his naked form around me, pulling me under the covers against him.

At least he left my t-shirt and shorts on.

After a few minutes wrapped in his embrace, I began to relax. He was just holding me like he had the previous night.

Maybe he doesn't even want you. No one does.

The insidious thought bounded around my head, utterly unwelcome. I didn't want him to want me. Not really. I'd just spent so many years watching everyone else find men who couldn't keep their hands off of my friends. Worshipping them. Doing anything for a grain of their attention. I'd always only been the other friend. The one they brought a mate along to the double date for. The one getting a pity fuck at the end of the night because it was better than nothing else.

Not even the scarred, lonely man who took me was desperate enough to want me.

The two ideas warred in my head. Wanting to be wanted, and wanting to be a million miles from Phoenix.

Had he fallen asleep?

I listened to his breathing, trying to decide if he'd settled into the familiar pattern of sleep.

His hand moved against my hip, pulling me backward. Something large and hard nudged against my ass, making me flinch. Good lord. Phoenix arched against me, the head of his naked cock rubbing against my arse.

I ignored it entirely.

Let the sick fuck hump me all he liked.

His breath was hot against my neck, his masked face grazing the flesh there as he picked up the pace, using me like a pillow to grind.

Ignoring him was hard enough, but possible, until he hauled one of my legs up over his hips and pressed his solid dick against my panties. Shame burned in my cheeks when he dragged the word WET across my stomach with his fingers.

With each arch of his hips, the head of his cock pressed up and over my clit, sending spirals of pleasure dancing through me.

Fuck.

The action was salacious. Being ridden like a dog humping a leg, and yet I couldn't ignore the growing need each stroke fuelled within me. One large hand pressed against the spot right above my pussy, eliciting even more sensation.

Pain erupted as I bit down on my lip, trying to stifle the moans threatening to overwhelm me. Phoenix's earthy smell, like fresh grass and autumn rain, filled my nostrils with every laboured pant I took.

I wouldn't give in. Wouldn't give him what he wanted. I'd get his keys another way.

‘Oh god,' I whimpered when he circled my clit between the ongoing sliding of his cock against my panties. Sweat slicked between us, hot and dewy beneath the darkness. Using his fingers beneath my panties, he spread me wide, nudging his cock over my clit with precise little thrusts.

A gasp ripped from me, my thighs trembling. I waited to fall over the edge. Waited for him to pull my panties to the side and thrust that cock of his deep inside me. Waited. Waited. Waited.

He held me there with ease, not giving me enough to send me tumbling, but neither letting up on the onslaught against my clit.

‘Just fuck me,' I panted, fury and need overriding any sense of self preservation.

BEG he wrote against my clit with those fucking fingers.

I wanted to. I really did.

Every single part of my body was strung as tightly as his violin, his cock like his bow, playing me so expertly. He'd mastered my flesh so easily. All I had left was my mind.

Giving in wasn't an option.

‘Never,' I gasped.

His hips stilled, and I cursed myself in my head. I waited for him to move. To let me go and pull away. Instead he held me there against him, his cock nestled between my pussy lips, my wet panties all bunched up between us and his fingers still pressing against my clit.

I was awake long after he fell asleep, rage burning me to a crisp.