16. June 22nd

16

June 22nd

W ater ripples all around me, pressing me further and further into its depths. I try to breathe, but instead of air or even water, my airway is greeted with sediment. I try to cough the material up, but it fills up my mouth and nose.

I am facedown in the water, being shoved into the ground below. Large hands compress on my back and I feel as my lungs protest. I attempt to thrash about, but the hands don't budge, instead they push heavier onto me. I feel the full weight of the person above as I am drowned in the shallow water.

I know the moment I am dead.

My body no longer cooperates, and the hands let me go. I hear the splashing of my murderer's retreat as I lie there unable to do anything.

"Oh Sunflower, not again," the voice caresses my ear, swirling in my subconscious.

Someone's grip pulls me out of my shallow grave, and while I still can't move or function, I can now see my surroundings.

I am on the bend of a river, but more importantly, I am staring directly into my brother's eyes. I cannot process how it makes me feel, especially not in this state.

"We have to stop meeting here." He smiles softly, he wipes my face off, but I feel nothing.

It's at that point, I realize that it's not his hold keeping me up. "Sunflower, please, you have to let this go. Let us go. It's going to be okay. They're going to take care of you. You just need to be happy. Before it's too late." Tripp's voice is a familiar gentle breeze into my ear.

Suddenly I feel everything. The pain of my death, the agony of loss, the desperation to return to Auggie and Tripp.

***

My vision fades and I wake up to the sound of screaming. It takes five seconds to realize that the noise is coming from me. Another ten seconds to notice I am wrapped in an embrace.

"Hush, it's going to be okay." Axel's gruff words are muffled by my hair.

He is cradling and rocking me in his large muscular arms and before I know it, he has us rolled so I am on top of him. I am forced to place my hands on his shoulders to catch myself from falling.

"What… what's going on?" I am barely awake, this feels surreal as if it's part of the dream I just had. Or was it a nightmare? The memory of it is fading faster than they normally do, but it felt so familiar, as if I had been in that dream more times than I knew.

Establishing myself in reality, I jump to escape from Axel's body, but he catches me by the waist before I can move away.

"Stop," he growls the word. "You stubborn girl, just stay with me. Just let me be here for you. You're not as goddamn alone as you want to think you are."

The unmistakable length of his cock pushes against me and in my sleep riddled state, I find myself rolling subconsciously against it.

He hisses as he thrusts upward. His rough fingers find the skin under my shirt, drifting slowly until gripping me tightly on my waist, his thumbs rubbing my back. "Now is not the time for that. Be a good Little Lamb, let me take care of you. And at the end of it? You don't have to feel guilty. You can blame the monster. You can say I made you feel the way you do."

I don't understand what he's saying or what he means. I am raw. His touch is scorching, lighting me on fire. My emotions are haywire and nothing is making any sense to me. I just want to go back to sleep and forget that this world exists. Forget that I am here living it, alone. Because he's wrong, there isn't anyone that loves me. I am officially in a pity-party of one, but I don't care.

I don't even question why he's in my room. The room I know for a fact I locked the door to this time. Axel is wrong about a lot of things, but there's one that he's right about.

He is the monster under my bed. And I so desperately want someone to blame. Want someone to fight.

My want to escape twists into a desire to fight instead. Fury ripples along my skin, heating a path as it goes.

Now I am pounding my fists against his chest, yelling at him, cursing at him. He takes it all in stride, he doesn't even flinch.

"What a good Little Lamb, I am everyone's scapegoat, everyone's supposed monster and for that I am incredibly angry and enraged. But when it comes to you? I would be that and more. You just have to let me in."

He's flipping us and pulling down my shorts before I even know what's happening.

"Pretend whatever you want, blame whoever you want. But just feel. Let yourself feel good. And then tomorrow when you wake up and you're enveloped in guilt, you can hate me again, but I still won't regret it."

That's the only warning I get before he moves down the bed, before his face is between the apex of my thighs, before he consumes me.

My breath stutters, it takes longer than I care to admit to even want to push him away.

He licks up and down and brings his large strong hands up to my thighs separating them further and resting them over his shoulders. With his hands free, he uses one to push past my folds into me, and the other he grips onto my hip to hold me in place. My desire pulses, a spring coiling, building up, I am nearing an edge that I know I shouldn't fall over.

It's time to fight him. Time to pretend I am not loving every moment of this. That I am not a horrible, terrible person. Less than a month ago, I was dating his twin. His now dead twin. But his touch is igniting me in a way that I have never felt before. Everything about Axel exudes passion, madness. An explosion seconds from going off. He is making me feel good, too good .

"Get out of that beautiful mind of yours. Stop thinking." He bites down on my clit and it has the wanted effect. I feel myself trembling from his treatment as heat curls deep in my belly. "One day soon, it won't just be my fingers stretching this pretty little cunt of yours," Axel promises as he crooks them into me, pushing at a point just inside that causes me to let out a desperate gasp of air.

"Axel." The word was supposed to come out as a warning, but it is husky and saturated with want and need.

I push my guilt to the very back of my mind as I give in to the most dangerous of the O'Brien brothers.

I reach down and I hold onto his long soft hair pushing his mouth further onto my clit.

He adds another finger as he continues to push them in and out, he seems to know exactly where he needs to press and every spot that makes shockwaves shoot across my nerves. I am edging the precipice.

"Fuck," he says the word against my clit. The vibrations, his fingers, the pressure, his firm grip on my hip bone. They push me over the edge.

I come with a cry. Lifting up off of the bed and trembling around his fingers, they don't let up. Instead he quickens his speed for the next several moments as wave after wave crashes through me.

He doesn't stop until I am panting on the bed. A mess.

I watch as he pulls his fingers out of me and his face away.

I am not the only mess.

Before he gets too far, he leans back down, and I feel as he begins to suck on the inside of my thigh with bruising pressure.

It feels good. Too good. I let out a soft moan of appreciation.

He pulls back causing a popping noise to come from his mouth detaching from my thigh. Axel stands up, a fierce smile on his harsh features. "Mine." He puts his wet fingers into his mouth and sucks my essence off of them. "Tasty Little Lamb, aren't you?"

The scene is intoxicating and a soft gasp leaves me at the sight.

His face darkens. "Blame me for that, but just know, I am nowhere near done with you. Grayson and Darius? They want to treat you with kid gloves." He leans over the bed, his lips inches from mine, his bright eyes searing into my soul. "But not me, I am here to push your limits. To make you realize, everything that you need is right in front of your face."

He's made me a raw emotional mess, but I find that I like it. That underneath the guilt something else entirely is pulsating. I feel alive, content, satisfied. Axel makes me feel like I am the center of his universe.

I can smell myself on him and I want to taste it. I arch my back to do just that.

The thought and action startle me.

As if Axel is a mind reader, he is pushing forward, his lips capturing mine. The combined taste of us is heady. He reaches forward, catching my curls and holding me in place. He is all sharpness, control, power. He is dominating me.

It's nowhere near how Tripp treated me.

Tripp .

The guilt returns twofold, and I push against his chest. He lets me.

A feral grin spreads across his face. "See you around, little girl."

He leaves the room before I can even begin to unravel what has happened. What we just did. How he made me feel. Alive . Wanted .

Shame churns in my gut, up my throat, making it difficult to breathe. Air leaves my lips in short pants as I come to a startling realization.

I want more of whatever he has to offer.