9. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I can't fucking sleep.

The bed feels like it's shifting, like the soft fabric is trying to swallow me whole just to get me back inside my head. My skin is itchy, slick with sweat, and feverish against the sheets.

I sit up, raking a hand through my hair, trying to get a grip. But staying here, lying still, isn't going to help me untangle the mess in my head. I need to move.

Need to fucking breathe.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed, my bare feet touching the cold hardwood. The wallpaper catches the moonlight that slips between the cracks in the heavy curtains, the dark floral design almost . . . breathing. Shadows whirl at the edges of my vision, teasing and whispering every time I blink too long.

I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands, ignoring the throb in my cock. Jesus. I'm hard again.

A miracle, considering I've already jerked off twice since Adrian fucked me. But every time I started drifting off, the images of us kept invading my thoughts. Even my asshole clenches at the thought of him, as if needing to be stretched.

I stare down at my erection, throbbing and red. Like I have no fucking control over it. Because I don't.

With a sigh, I grab my jeans off the floor, then tug them on. The silence in the room is enough to drive me insane. Okay, I have this problem at home too. It's one of the reasons I love the city.

Nothing ever closes.

So, when those old childhood memories start to resurface, I head out. Fuck some rando in front of a group of people. Control my situation.

But I'm out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere here.

I've never been able to understand how people enjoy living in the country. Or off the grid. Not a lifestyle for me.

Something catches my attention. A noise.

Not my own ragged breathing, but . . . something else.

It stops as quickly as it started.

If Adrian could see me now, he'd probably laugh.

Going on my list of things I hate . . . old houses. And on that note, it's time to get out of this room.

Quietly, I slip into the hallway. The air is colder out here, sharper. I start walking, hoping if I just keep moving, my mind will fucking settle.

Dark, empty corridors stretch on and on in front of me like some winding labyrinth. My boots barely make any sound on the hardwood, but my breath is thick, heavy. Damp. It clouds in front of me every time I exhale.

The back of my neck prickles, like there are eyes following me. I glance over my shoulder, but the hallway's empty.

Just me. No Adrian. No one.

"Yeah, no fucking old manors for me. Not ever."

But there's a weight in the walls, the way they seem to ripple the farther I go, each step pulling me deeper into the house's belly.

"God, I'm being fucking ridiculous."

Maybe Adrian wasn't just talking shit when he said the house has a way of getting inside your head.

And then I hear it.

A creak.

My breath catches. It's faint, coming from behind—barely louder than the sound of my heartbeat in my ears. I stop, turning slowly, but there's nothing there. Nothing but the dark hallway stretching behind me and the dim flicker of a sconce casting long, jittery shadows against the walls.

Another creak, this time closer.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me." I pick up my pace, hands clenched and fingernails digging into my palms in some pathetic attempt to ground myself, to control my shaking body.

But the faster I walk, the more I hear them.

Footsteps.

And not mine.

Something heavy, following in the dark, just a hair too quiet to be real.

I turn another corner, the layout of the manor spinning in on itself. This place is a madhouse, twisting me around, pulling me into its damn games. Every corridor looks the same—impossibly long, lined with the same faded portraits of strangers whose eyes feel too real, too focused—as if they're tracking my every move.

"Christ, am I losing it? Why the fuck did I let Adrian talk me into coming here? I'm such a fucking idiot."

There's a door ahead of me, nearly hidden by the shadows. It's small, almost unassuming, the kind you wouldn't notice right away. But there's something off about it, something that tugs at me the way Adrian's gaze does.

I turn the handle and the door opens, revealing a room bathed in a harsh, almost sterile light. The contrast to the dim corridors is jarring, like I've stepped into another fucking world.

I blink, adjusting to the sudden brightness, then take a step inside.

"What the fuck . . . "

The windowless room is . . . small, clean, pristine in a way that doesn't match the rest of the house, like some outdated tech room. It's crammed with shelves of old and new recording devices, stacks of VHS tapes, and a wall of high-tech surveillance screens—the cutting-edge kind that doesn't belong in a place as old as this manor. Cables snake across the floor in tangled knots, and every inch of space seems to hum with a faint, subtle energy.

I move closer to the screens, my breath coming faster now, something curling heavily in my gut. "Why the fuck is there a surveillance room tucked away like this?"

Scratchy, low-res footage plays on one of the dimly lit monitors. A man is tied to a bed, his body bent in ways that make my stomach churn. His skin is glossy with sweat, marks and welts already forming on his back.

I swallow, my throat suddenly dry, when the camera pans just enough to reveal Adrian—and that fucking mask.

"Does he ever take the damn thing off?"

He toys with the poor bastard on the screen, pulling him apart piece by piece—for pleasure, for pain. Adrian fucks him with the same precision, the same fucking intensity that he used on me earlier.

I flinch, glancing away, especially when my dick twitches. But my gaze locks onto the tapes—so many of them. How many people have walked through these halls, completely oblivious to the cameras capturing their every weakness?

And then I see it.

A tape marked with today's date.

My name.

"No fucking way." I grab the tape, jamming it into an empty player with such force, I nearly break the thing. The screen flickers to life, crackling in and out, before finally settling on an all too familiar image.

Me.

In the mirrored room. The encounter from earlier. Everything from when he undressed me to when he restrained me in the immobilization stand, which forced me to watch myself come undone from every angle.

Fuck.

I watch myself, back arched, hair plastered to my forehead with sweat, panting and moaning as Adrian dominates me. I see the exact moment I fucking break, my body trembling as I give in, fucking myself on his dick.

But the worst part . . . when he commanded me to beg.

And I did.

"Please, fuck, please. Adrian, make me come."

My face burns as I'm forced to relive every goddamn humiliating second. I look away, but it doesn't stop the sounds—my voice. Utterly wrecked. Groaning, panting, begging.

He recorded it.

I hit the pause button and step back, nearly tripping over my feet as I crash against one of the shelves. My pulse hammers in my ears, my vision blurring around the edges.

"Motherfucker. Fucking, motherfucker!"

Is this what he wanted from the start? To drag me in, rip down my walls . . . just to put me in his collection of twisted, depraved bullshit?

Yeah, to hell with that bullshit.

I'm not some fucking toy to play with. No fucking way is he going to make me feel powerless, violated.

Fuck this, fuck him, fuck all of it.

I'm out. I'm leaving this damn place, and Adrian, and the haunting fucking eyes that follow me from every goddamn shadow.

Except there's no way back from what already happened, no matter how far I run.

No way to undo what I've already given him.

Or . . . what he's taken.