Chapter 3

3

Juno

It’s not unusual for me to hear people shouting in the darkness.

Where I came from, it’s the norm.

Tortured shrieks that rattle my bones have long been my lullabies.

The shout that comes in the middle of the night isn’t one I recognize, though. It’s deep. A man’s misery in full stereo. Commanding one moment. Guttural, desperate the next.

It takes me a minute to remember where I am.

Not in my unremarkable locked room.

I’m in Caleb’s guest room. Wrapped in his shirt and the soft, forest-green comforter. Which means my host is the one who is yelling down the short hallway.

My heart screws up tight, the corners of my mouth turning down.

At dinner, he confided in me about his PTSD. His honesty made me feel extra guilty for keeping the truth about my identity from him. He should know he was telling something deeply personal to a stranger. A liar. Because of my deception and refusal to return his honesty, I owe it to Caleb to wake him up from this nightmare. Don’t I?

But do I really want to go into his bedroom after the way he looked at me?

Like I was naked.

Like he was curious how I taste.

Men have looked at me with interest before, long before it was legal for them to do so, but this? This was different. There was a hint of madness in his lust.

And I got the feeling he was tempering it for my sake.

How much more lay beneath?

Another shout blasts down the hallway and I swing my legs over the side of the bed.

Swallowing my trepidation, I walk toward his door. Finding it closed, I open it…and my breath catches. I was right. Caleb is locked in the throes of a nightmare.

A fine sheen of sweat coats his ruthlessly honed muscles.

He’s also naked. Lit only by the moonlight coming in the window.

A sheet is twisted over most of his lap, but the thick patch of black hair and the broad base of his shaft is visible. It takes me a moment to drag my attention upward, over the heaving slab of his abdomen. His tense pectorals. The veins standing out on the generous curves of his biceps, his straining forearms. His body language reminds me of a cornered animal.

Or a patient who isn’t in the mood to take her pills.

I know the feeling well and my sympathy moves me forward.

“Caleb,” I whisper, once I’ve reached the bed.

Maybe it’s not a good idea to wake him up, but I’m always grateful when something rouses me from mine, whether it’s an alarm going off or a slamming door. The guards talking too loudly in the hallway. If given a choice, I never want to remain in the nightmare. To let it play out. Who would?’

I settle a knee on the edge of the bed, dodging a flailing arm. “Caleb.”

“Get the fuck down,” he growls, baring his teeth.

My heart is racing as I settle a hand in the center of his chest. “Caleb—”

I’m ripped down onto the bed. Violently.

Two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle rolls on top of me, a lethal hand circling my throat. His eyes are open now, but they’re fogged. Still trapped in some unknown location. Reliving something unspeakably awful. His tortured expression tells me that. And even in the midst of my terror, I grieve for him. Want to help. To soothe.

“Caleb,” I gasp with some of my precious breath. “Wake up.”

A muscle jerks in his cheek, his head cocking to the right. “Who’s there?”

What name do I use? Juno? Sarah? I struggle to fill my lungs with his huge body crushing me and speak on an exhale, “It’s me.”

His lids clamp shut and he shakes his head hard, as if trying to break free of the fog.

And then slowly, Caleb focuses all that torture on me.

Awake now, but still suffering.

Needing somewhere to put it.

Against my inner thigh, his sex stiffens and his chest begins to heave with renewed vigor. His hips move slightly to the right, cinching into the cradle of my thighs, settling there like a king to his throne. “What are you doing?” I breathe.

He drags my wrists up over my head, locking them there. “Don’t say no to me, girl,” he says raggedly. “Don’t ask me to stop.”

“But Caleb—”

His mouth stamps down over mine, stopping the flow of words. What was I going to say? Stop. I think I was going to tell him to let me go, but the desperation in his kiss confuses me. It pits my compassion against my fear of the unknown. The former parts my lips for him like a drawbridge, allowing him to thunder in and take. This man devours me, his head angling right, then left, his tongue so deep in my mouth I could confuse it for my own.

My wrists are held in a bruising grip, my protests lost in the kiss, and slowly he starts to rock against the juncture of my thighs. Slowly, slowly, then fast, hoarse sounds erupting in his throat, though he never breaks the kiss. No, he continues to consume, his mouth racing over mine, our foreheads flush, hot breath puffing from his nostrils.

“My little lost princess,” he croaks, finally letting me breathe, his hard lips raking down to the hollow of my throat, launching a sensual attack. “This is your home now.”

I open my mouth to respond, but he grips both of my wrists in one hand, using his free one to rip my borrowed shirt down the middle and all I can do is gape. At my complete nakedness. At the man who is already snarling at my nipples, lapping at them hungrily.

“Fuck,” he rasps. “These are delicious. Like ripe little cherries.”

A moan sneaks past my lips.

Does it feel good?

I-I don’t know.

There’s moisture gathering between my thighs, but the tightening sensations in my tummy are so foreign, so confusing. Where do they lead? “C-Caleb—”

He flips me over onto my stomach, expelling the air from my lungs.

I try to suck in oxygen, but he’s already lying down on top of me again, shoving my legs apart. “Haven’t had pussy in a decade,” he growls in my ear. “Sweetest one in all creation falls right into my lap. Did you think I wouldn’t end up drilling it?”

My body is excited, tingling, but my heart is rebelling.

I’m not sure I want to stop, but everything is moving so fast.

Is this how my first time is supposed to happen?

I’m not even sure how sex works exactly. Is he going to tell me?

His fingers lodge between the mattress and my belly, traveling down, down. I squirm when they dip below my belly button. Oh my god. He’s going to touch me there. “Wait,” I breathe, my bottom wiggling, frantic in his lap. “But…but…”

He doesn’t wait.

The pad of his middle finger parts my sex like he owns it and fireworks go off in my vision, their silhouette staining the pillow my face is pressed into. He tickles me on that nub, that button I sometimes play with in the shower, though it gets me nowhere but frustrated. The way Caleb touches the stiff bud is different. Demanding. Crude.

Arousing.

“I dare you to pretend you don’t love that, girl,” he grates in my ear. “Matter of fact, say whatever you want. Your pussy is telling me the truth, isn’t it? You’re a wet little princess in a man’s bed and there’s only one way out.”

My moan is muffled by the pillow.

The way he’s talking to me is shameful.

Does that mean I’m shameful for holding my breath, not wanting to miss a word? And he’s right about one thing, the flesh of my inner thighs is soaked, growing more so with every stroke of that nub between my thighs. There’s tension gathering inside of me and I don’t know what it means, but I start to rub myself against his finger, a whining sound growing louder and louder in my throat. “Caleb.”

“There it is. That’s how you say my name, girl.” His hips drop down hard on mine, thrusting his erection against my buttocks. “That’s how you tell me you’re ready for cock.”

Am I ready for it?

I don’t know. I don’t know.

But then he’s pushing my knees wider and yanking my hips up at an angle.

Something smooth and hot prods my opening—and then it sinks all the way into my body, slowly, inch by inch, a rigid, unstoppable force. A juggernaut pushing through that virginal barrier on the way to filling me completely. And I scream. I scream at the intensity of the invasion, how it stretches me, how he doesn’t allow me a second to get used to him before he’s drawing my hips up higher and pounding at me, the squeaking of the bed springs mingling with his guttural grunts.

“Goddamn, that’s tight,” he groans, dragging a palm up my spine and tangling it in my hair, pulling my head back. “You legal, girl?”

I am, I’m eighteen, but I’m too overcome to respond…and the desperate way he thrusts into me suggests he wouldn’t stop, no matter what I answered with. It hurts. I’m being rutted. But there’s a tingling in my hips that begins to arrow inward, making my belly constrict. How something so forceful can make me feel…ticklish is beyond my comprehension, but the sensation climbs until I’m mewling into the pillow.

His rock-hard stomach smacks off my butt over and over again, his palm cracking off the cheek of my ass every so often, as if he’s chastising me for making him feel so good. I don’t understand it, but those spanks make me sensitive all over and suddenly I’m pushing back into the pumps of his hips, a dark, undiscovered part of me enjoying the mixture of pain and pleasure. Enjoying the fact that I’ve made him come off his hinges.

Because he’s nothing more than an animal now.

He flattens me to the bed, buries his teeth in my shoulder and takes me so roughly, I see stars. Some instinct tells me he’s going to be finished soon and I don’t want to be left behind. So I wedge my fingers down between my legs and ride the heel of my hand, his frantic pumps grinding that slick bud up and back, up and back, until I start to panic at the magnitude of what I’m beginning to feel. I’ve never gotten this far. Never felt the weight of pleasure bearing down on me, bundling up all of my nerves and making them quake.

“Not taking my dick out. Can’t.” His pace turns wild, his sweat dripping down my back, mixing with my own. “Might have to put a brat in you, girl.”

Am I a bad seed?

That’s what my mother always told me.

But I never believed it until Caleb threatening to make me pregnant only makes me lust harder. Makes me whip my hips back into the rhythm of his thrusts, my upper lip curled with mischief. I’m given no warning before I’m swallowed up in a black hole of pleasure, my screams delivered into the pillow as long, unbearably hot ripples grip my core, bringing relief so complete, my eyes roll into the back of my head.

Caleb stiffens behind me, choking out curses, his hand flexing and releasing where it grips my hair. That huge, wicked part of him spasms inside of me, sticky hot moisture flooding my sex and sluicing down my inner thighs. He continues to pump, growling, spanking my buttocks with a hard palm until finally, he collapses on top of me, his harsh breathing leaving condensation in the curve of my neck.

I don’t know what to think or feel.

No, I do.

I’m…angry. At him for taking what I didn’t technically offer.

At myself for finding pleasure in the act, regardless of his crude treatment, his filthy words and filthier intentions. I am a bad seed and I’m mad at him for proving it.

Tears crowd my throat and I wrestle my way out from beneath his heavy body.

He doesn’t let me get far, however, his hand shooting out and wrapping around my elbow. When I look back at the man over my shoulder, he looks anguished, tortured shadows brimming in his eyes. “Jesus. Sarah…”

I would have stayed if he didn’t call me by the wrong name.

It’s not really his fault since he doesn’t know I’m Juno. But having my virginity taken so forcefully, followed by him using Sarah to address me…it’s too much.

Refusing to cry in front of Caleb, I jerk out of his grip and run down the hallway, locking myself in the guest room, curling into a ball on the bed and letting the silent tears fall.