Chapter 18

SIX MONTHS LATER

I tilt my head as I look at myself in the length of the bathroom mirror. More piercings litter my body, and I toy with a few of them as I think of how Cain had pierced me. This time, while awake.

It’s been six months since Cain ran me off the road and kidnapped me. I’m forever changed.

I’m settling into work at the hospital. Cain got me a job in the registration office that keeps me busy. Though I don’t need to work, I like to have somewhere to go. I’ve made friends, and Cain and I even have a few couples we go out with from time to time now.

Of course, none of them know who we are in the dark, but how well do you truly know anyone anymore? You don’t.

Stripping the bullshit away at the door of the house is like a weight off our shoulders each night. Dangling from my hoops for my master is where I’m free.

He was right.

I often wonder if I’ve lost my fucking mind. Or if Cain unlocked something in me I didn’t know was locked away in the first place.

Maybe he saw what I couldn’t.

“Mm, darling. I love it when I walk into a room and you’re naked.”

I lick my lips as he comes behind me, enveloping me in his scent, his hands traveling down my stomach and over the new piercings that lead south.

“Don’t tease me unless you plan to deliver, psycho.”

He chuckles, nipping my ear and grinding his cock into my backside. “Don’t I always give you what you need, puppet?”

It wasn’t long after I forced my madman to come back to me that he told me everything: how he changed his name, using the same men he had to change mine, and how he existed in the world as someone other than who he was.

He had to remake himself to feel whole.

I’m the only woman he’s kept, and the knowledge seemed to lock something in place for me, something I needed to know before becoming his good girl.

I’ve always been a bit overwhelmed by life. I never found where I fit before. I went through the day-to-day motions, barely surviving, smiling fakely through it all.

Until I met Cain.

I feel alive now. Even at work, thoughts of what I’ll go home to later dance in my mind until I clock out and rush home.

I’m living now.

Though I know I have to accept something living within Cain, it’s not time for that yet.

When the time comes, I’m sure we’ll survive it.

My chest tightens, and I ignore it. Choosing to focus on the man standing behind me, demanding attention as he slips two fingers inside me. I bend over the counter, hands gripping the granite as I moan and press back into him.

“There’s my girl. You looked a bit bogged down in there.” He taps my temple with his other index finger, watching me in the mirror as I fight to keep my mouth closed and my eyes open.

“Look at me, Grace. Watch my fingers fuck your pussy.” He backs us up until his back hits the open door, the door banging against the door stop.

His booted foot comes between my legs, kicking them open so that he can spread me with one hand while his other fucks me expertly.

“There you go, darling. Now you can see what I do to you.”

I’m dripping with arousal around his fingers; his hand is glistening with it against the bronzed-finished vanity lights gleaming overhead.

The hand that spreads me slides north, finding the hook pierced through my nipple as he yanks on it, tugging my breast upward.

“Cain,” I whimper, bucking on his hand.

“All in due time, puppet. Before I suspend you from these pretty little hoops of yours, I want you dripping with cum.”

My moan is loud and drawn out as his heel presses against my clit, fingers speeding in pace.

He lifts my nipple with the hook, twisting it in little waves and adding to the heat thrumming my body.

“Look at yourself, puppet. Look how fucking good you are for me.” His voice is dripped with heat and malevolence.

When he dragged me from my car into the cold grass of the woods, I had no clue that this was what we were going to become. Puppet and master, in a dance of wicked euphoria until the day we die.

I fight to keep my lids open as my body tightens and burns.

“Cain,” I get out in warning.

He chuckles, dropping his lips to my ear. “Don’t worry, darling. I’m not going to stop until you soak my hand. Go on, come for your master. I’ve got you, fuck puppet.”

My knees buckle against his words, but true to them, he keeps me upright, hand working me harder and faster .

I watch in the mirror as I writhe for him, coming alive before my very eyes as I let go, head lolling back on his chest, body shattering in pleasure.

“Good girl, give me all of it,” he whispers, crooking his fingers against my G-spot as I feel wetness bathe us both. “There it is, love. Now, let’s get you hooked up, shall we?”

Hoops in my torso, arms, and front of my legs tug as I’m suspended on one anchor over my middle. My legs hang bent and open, and Cain walks around me, his gaze skimming my body like a fine artwork.

“It never gets old, Grace. Seeing you like this, watching you submit. You must trust me, darling.” He stops at my head, leaning over and hovering over my lips. “Do you trust me?”

If he’d asked me the night of my accident, my answer would’ve been a resounding no. Now, however…

I nod, breathing heavily and under his spell. His proximity causes my heart rate to spike, as it does every time.

“I don’t know why. You probably shouldn’t.” He grins.

I hear it before I see it as he walks around my body—the clicking of a lighter. I watch as he plays with the tiny flame when he rounds to my right side.

“Cain,” I warn, lifting my head the best I can. I teeter on the rigging, and my strings tug even more .

“See how quickly that trust went up in flames, love?” His grin turns dark, dangerous even.

He comes closer, pulling a bottle of something out of his pocket. Pouring it in my belly button, he then moves the flicker of the lit lighter closer.

My breathing is erratic at best, and my neck burns as I keep my eyes trained on where he hovers the flame over my belly.

“Is it going to hurt?” I ask him, exhilaration worming through my veins as my blood roars.

“I don’t know, puppet. You tell me,” he replies, smiling as he lets the flame ignite the fluid in my belly.

The flame is blue and beautiful as it dances momentarily. Cain leans over, breathing life into it, causing it to waver.

He covers it with his hand, and it’s gone. The pang of thrill it left me with, however, is alive and well, thrumming through me like a wild beast.

“Well? Did it hurt?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Nearly seven months, and you haven’t realized yet, darling.” He leans over again, peering down at me from above.

“Realized what?” I whisper, unable to breathe around the intense rush of being suspended and the aftermath of the flames on my skin.

“That I can’t hurt you. Even if the desire is still there, even if the call to kill is strong, you’re the one I can’t maim. The one I must preserve at all fucking costs. The other half of my psychotic soul.”

My lip quivers as his words take me even higher, to a space even I haven’t been after six months with Cain.

There’s a reason I’ve fallen head over heels for this psychopath, and it all stems back to how he makes me feel loved and wanted. Even in his obsession, I feel worshipped.

No one else on the face of this earth will ever make me feel like Cain Moldova does.

“Cut me,” I whisper, not knowing what I’m doing but letting it slip out anyway.

“What was that?” He leans down, turning his ear to my lips.

“Cut me. If the desire is still there, make me bleed,” I tell him, leaning closer to his ear and skating the tip of my tongue against it.

He straightens, looking down at me with crazed eyes, darkening by the second. “You don’t mean that, darling.”

I nod. “I do.”

Even if it sounds fucking insane.

“If you still have the desire to maim, let me be the one to bleed for you.”

It’s not so much a want to save others from him more than to be what he needs.

I want to be everything that he needs to survive. How better to accomplish that goal than to become his perfect little victim, strung up and vulnerable ?

He rolls his neck, his demeanor becomes less controlled, and his body becomes more rigid. “You can’t mean that. You don’t want… Fuck, darling, you’re going to make me have a fucking meltdown…” He growls, turning back toward where I’m suspended at his mercy.

His face looks so animal-like, teeth bared like he’s lost control.

Out of nowhere, he opens a knife, the blade black and threatening. He pinches the tip into my stomach, dragging it down my skin with insane-looking eyes.

He’s unbalanced, and I’m the one who’s tipped him.

“Cain,” I tell him, trying to reel him back. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I want to be what you need.”

He snarls, turning his head almost preternaturally, his dark eyes wide with rage and irrationality. “You’re trying to save them !”

I was afraid of this, and that is the exact reason I haven’t offered myself up. I didn’t want him to think I had an ulterior motive.

“No, my psycho. I want to be what you need . I don’t want you going outside of our home to be fulfilled.”

My words settle between us as I watch the muscles in his neck uncoil. It’s as if he were a venomous snake ready to strike, only to decide there’s no longer an enemy to sink his fangs into.

“You want to be what I need,” he repeats.

I shudder out a long breath. “Yes.”

“Do you understand the needs of a man like me? ”

His question at first pisses me off because I’ve been with him for six months. I gave up my life and identity for him. To stay his perfect little puppet. I know, however, he’s trying to make me see the error in my decision.

“I understand. Who better to understand than your other half?”

The tip of the knife presses into my skin, the slice causing me to cry out.

He never looks away from my face, not even to see how deep he’s cut me.

Even though I have to fight the urge, I don’t look at the wound. Breathing through the sting, I moan when he pulls the tip back out of my body.

“A man like me needs more than kind words to sate his dark urges, Grace. I need action.”

I bob my head in understanding. “I know.”

He finally turns and looks at the blood trickling out of the wound, and I sneak a glance downward. It’s not deep, only a flesh wound, but the way he’s looking at it has my pussy throbbing.

“You were already my perfect puppet—the epitome of flawless, darling girl. Now…” he trails off, reaching up and running his hand through my blood.

Lifting his hand to his face, he inhales deeply, getting high off the metallic scent.

“Now, what?” I breathe, enlivened by his response.

“Now, my puppet, you’re a fucking masterpiece. ”

When he makes his second cut, I let my head loll back, and a feeling of release washes over me. I’m safe in his hands, even when there’s a blade in them.

Because I’m his perfect girl.

His masterpiece.