Chapter 18 He Bleeds

— 18 —

HE BLEEDS

Gemma

I AWAKEN WITH a fright as I'm stung by something sharp. It delivers a searing pain near the bottom of my ass cheek.

My mind runs through a series of commands.

Fight.

Run.

Sleep…

I try to rise, but only my head lifts from the bed, and it quickly falls as a tidal wave of exhaustion crashes into my skull. The waves sweep me out into the sea of sleep but the pain prevents me from slipping under. It keeps my head above water in a weary floating state that's somewhere between sleeping and awake.

There's a weight on my leg, pinning it down, and I feel it shifting and pulsing against my calf.

Wake up, Gem…

Wake up, wake up…

I force my eyes to open, though they fight to stay closed.

Wake up!

With every ounce of strength I can muster, I manage to lift my head, twisting my neck to look over my shoulder. My eyes are wide as they search for whatever caused my pain, though I blink slowly, fighting each tug of my eyelids.

He's here…

My eyes snap up and they're easily captured by Ozlo Kincaid's passionate stare. Immediately, I recognize the desperate look of lust—the one that warns of danger—yet there's something more behind his eyes that I can't quite place.

The way he stares at me, the way his gaze latches onto mine feels as connecting as it does controlling. But I know I must be misunderstanding what I'm seeing. Men like Oz never want connection; they only want control.

"Just hold still for me, baby."

His eyes drop before a fresh pain sears my ass.

I suck in a breath, but I don't speak a word, stunned by the proximity of a knife to my back. I'm overwhelmed by the relatively minor pain of it—it drags me back in time to the night I was meant to die.

I'll never forget it.

I'll never forget the horror I felt.

I'll never forget the excruciating pain of each puncture as four men took an equal share of stabbing me in the back.

My mind slips, dragging me away from reality. Fear begs me to disconnect, to flee to the darkness and hide there until this is over.

I could let it happen…

I could slip away from the present.

But there's something in my soul demanding I stay.

The glow of the bathroom light behind Oz frames him with a halo of light, even though shadows move around him, shifting in the darkness. His stare is fixed. He watches me bleed. He seems fascinated by the blood trickling down the back of my thigh. He watches it drip with the intensity of a vulture tracking a dying man, waiting for his inevitable death with anticipatory glee.

Yet his stare holds something else, something like reverence, admiration… possession.

Wild possession.

All at once, he moves. His knee lodges against the inside of my thigh, and as he rises on his knees to kneel behind me, he spreads our legs apart together. He grabs my hips, his thumbs dig into my cheeks, and he jerks my bottom up off the mattress. My upper body turns, and though I feel too drugged by sleep to push myself up enough to swat at him, I keep my head turned to watch him behind me.

He drops his head, but he lifts his eyes.

They meet mine with a lightning strike that electrifies me, sending a jolt straight through to my core.

What the fuck was that?

His stare is intense, passionate, desperate… obsessive.

It's everything that terrifies me, yet it begs my curiosity.

Why does he look at me that way?

Why don't I hate it as much as I should?

He looks into my soul as he flattens his tongue against my cheek, then drags it over the cut to taste my flesh and blood.

My muscles tense as I suppress a shiver.

I see my blood coating his tongue as he lifts it from my skin. He drags it back inside his mouth and runs it over his teeth. His head remains low, and his eyes stay locked on mine. He flashes a feral grin to show me his bloody teeth.

Fucking hell.

I know I should be screaming and fighting, but I feel like I'm coming out of a damn coma. My head is throbbing, my heart is racing. I'm aching, anxious, tingling, and dizzy. If I try to fight him off right now, I'll fail. I need to bide my time until my body finds some equilibrium. And I need to shake off any feelings that aren't pure hatred for this man.

Then I can wrestle that knife out of his hand and cut him .

Blood for blood, you little bitch.

I keep my voice low and steady. "I didn't have you pegged as a kiss ass."

"Oh, you're just the whole damn package, aren't you? Sweet and funny."

"I'm not sweet. I'm gonna kill you… as soon as the room stops spinning."

"You're so fucking sweet, Gemma." I feel his finger trace the cut, collecting my blood before tracing diagonal lines down the back of my thigh.

I tense against each drag of his finger. I don't want to feel how gently he touches me or the strange way each swipe sends a tingle rushing up my thigh, shooting through my body, sending signals of shameful pleasure to my core.

"Just look at you, candy cane." He stares down at the back of my leg where I imagine he sees the bloody stripes he's painted with his finger, and he licks his lips. "You taste so much more delicious than I could have dreamed."

He slips back and bends deep, touching his lips to the back of my knee. There's enough space between us now that I could probably get out from under him…

He hums through his kiss, and the vibration of his lips against my skin ripples through me. It triggers an unexpectedly gratifying sensation, one that keeps me rooted to the spot. It's a feeling belonging to him that he shares through his touch—a pleasure found within a mixture of adoration and carnal indulgence.

He replaces his lips with his tongue, sparking something so hot that I have to stifle a gasp. A current of electricity flows from his tongue, and it surges all the way up, traveling the path he draws as he licks straight up the middle of the back of my thigh. He reaches the cut, licks the open wound again, and it sends the current rippling up my spine. I shudder at the shockwave that tears through me, shaking loose a whimpered moan that escapes me, unrestrained.

What the hell is happening to me?

I need to hate the way that felt… but I don't.

I think I kind of liked it.

Snap out of it, Gem.

He just cut you and made you bleed.

He wants to hurt you.

He took you from your opportunity to kill Seb.

Get mad at this motherfucker!

It's easy enough to dig up anger for a man when he makes me feel something good without my enthusiastic consent. And it did feel good… I can't deny it.

I should feel embarrassed at the way I moaned, that I felt something resembling pleasure that didn't make me feel disgusted with myself. That's how I always felt when Seb would force my body to respond against my will; he'd use toys with heavy vibration that would send my body through the motions of coming—the building tension, the spasming muscles, the release. But the release was devoid of pleasure, unsatisfactory, and provided no relief.

If anything, it was painful, both physically and emotionally. Compared to all the other ways he hurt me, the physical pain was slight and temporary. But the emotional damage he caused that fucked me up sexually—in some ways I'm probably not even aware of—will never fully heal.

The shame he made me feel, the anger I had for myself knowing my body would give him a false perception of pleasure, the disappointment in myself for having any kind of physical release—even one without pleasure or relief—are feelings that still exist within me to this day.

Seb made me hate myself.

I call on that self-hatred, throw it on the flames of anger building within me, and let it burn.

I snarl, grit my teeth, and say with a deep, insistent tone, "Get the fuck off me."

He shifts behind me, and for a moment, I almost think he's going to listen and move away. But of course, he doesn't. Instead, he brings both knees between mine, slips back as he grips my ass, and dips low behind me. He moves quicker than I can react, and without warning, his head is between my legs, face against my panties, and his nose gently brushes across my pussy.

I gasp, entirely shocked.

Get fucked, dickwad!

I finally lose it.

I turn violent, thrashing and bucking beneath his hold.

"Get off me! Stop!"

His palms curve around my hips and hold me down. His face barely brushes over my sex when I hear him groan—a deep, guttural, desperate sound that makes me tingle where his lips lightly rest against my panties.

I'm fucked.

This isn't like the shower where he rubbed me as though he was clueless just because he was pissed at the way I faked pleasure for him.

This isn't like that at all.

The way he lightly sweeps—his face barely whispering over my panties—is teasing, tantalizing, tempting.

It's purely physiological, Gem.

This doesn't feel good.

You don't like it.

You don't want more.

Except… it does feel good, I do like it, and I do want more.

Oz's grip on my hips is painful, and it's contradictory to the intentionally gentle way his face moves between my legs.

It's confusing.

Every molecule of my being bounces around inside me, chaotically colliding and rebounding, making it hard to know good from bad, right from wrong, up from down. I can't make sense of the way I feel, and I can only process that in one way… He's being deceptive.

He's trying to manipulate me.

His lips smack as he places a kiss on my panties, and I feel the pressure of it touch me at the center of my pussy.

"I wanna lick you, Gemma." His voice is soft, almost pleading. "Let me taste you right here… Tell me I can make you come, baby. Please."

Let me? Tell me? Please?

Why is he using words that empower me?

Those words allow me to give or revoke consent. They give me ownership; they give me control. He can't possibly mean them. He has to be manipulating me, grooming me, making me feel safe enough so he can lead me willingly toward unwilling abuse.

I can't let him do that.

"No," I reply.

He toes the line, keeps his face there against me so I can feel him, though he doesn't press in. But I can still feel him rubbing his nose, his mouth, his cheeks over my panties.

Fucking hell.

It almost feels good again.

"Gemma, please ." I feel him shudder, hear the way his voice quakes with desperation. "Tell me I can taste it. Tell me it's mine. Let me fucking have it before I lose control and take it from you."

Ah, there it is.

The power play. The coercion. The manipulation.

He doesn't really care about my consent, because he's going to take what he wants from me whether I give it or not.

If he's going to be deceptive, then I'll deceive him right back.

"Ozzy baby," I say both words as if that's his name, "I'm gonna give you one chance, okay?" I wiggle my hips, deepen the bend in my knees to lift my ass higher. "This is your one chance to get the fuck off me before I clap your face with my ass and break your nose between my cheeks."

There's a pause, and then he chuckles through a deep groan.

"Goddamn, baby, ease up on the filth. My cock can't handle that kind of dirty talk coming from you."

I warned him.

In one smooth motion, I push up on my hands and knees, shift forward, then pitch my weight back hard, smacking him right in the face with my ass.

He grunts as I slam into him and his hands release my hips. I drop to my hip and twist sideways, looking back at him to assess for my next move. As his hands rise instinctively to his face, I see that he didn't drop the knife. He still holds that damn thing in his right hand.

What? Did he glue it to his palm? Fuck.

The knife points at an angle toward the ceiling, parallel to his face, as both hands come up to cover his nose. He blinks, clearly dazed from the impact of my ass striking him in the face.

I need him to drop that knife…

Laying sideways in front of him, I lift my leg and thrust it at him with all my might, slamming my bare foot into the skull tattoo on his hand still held in front of his nose.

Caught off guard, he grunts in pain, his body tilts, and he almost topples backward off the bed. Before he falls, he rights himself, leans then drops sideways onto the mattress to avoid landing on the floor.

"Shit," he groans, rolling on his hip.

And the knife is still in his fucking hand!

He rolls his head against the bed, aiming his nose at the ceiling. His hands fall away, revealing a bloody nose and a bloody forehead—there's a small cut above his left eyebrow where the knife must have nicked him when I struck.

I climb to my knees, move above him with my arm drawn back, fist cocked, ready to punch him in the nose and make sure it breaks. As I thrust down, his hand snaps up defensively, his palm closing around my fist, and he pushes back.

It's his right hand cradling my fist.

He dropped the knife…

I spot it on the mattress beside him, resting a few inches from his head.

There's a pause.

We look at each other.

Then, at the same time, we move.

I jerk my fist from his grip as he rolls sideways, nearly knocking me over. I lunge for the knife, but he grabs my waist and pulls me back. I fight him hard, thrashing and kicking my legs. I thrust myself higher along his body, using his thick thighs as a leverage point for my bare feet to push off from.

The shift of my weight has me slipping from his grip. The knife is within my reach. I stretch my arm, my fingers scrambling, clawing at the comforter, and with a grunt of determination, my palm wraps around the handle.

There isn't so much as a millisecond to celebrate. His arms instantly tighten around my waist, and he flips me onto my back. I tug on my arm, but it's met with resistance. I look at the knife, which hovers in the air between us.

His large palm encircles my hand that holds the knife.

"Let go !" I shout.

"You're gonna hurt yourself," he says with a feigned tone of concern. "Don't fight me on this."

"I'm not gonna hurt myself , you asshole . I'm gonna hurt you !"

He starts to smile, but it must pull a shockwave of pain through his face because he flinches, blinking hard. I pull down with all my strength but he's stronger, and he doesn't relent.

"You can hurt me all you want, pink... I might even like it. But it's not gonna get you what you want."

We fight for control over the knife, tugging back and forth. But he maintains power with brute strength, climbing to his knees and straddling my waist.

"Fuck. You." I grunt the words between tugs.

It may be hopeless to fight him, but I'm not going to stop.

"Is that an invitation? You should be careful with your words, baby. I'll give you everything you ask me for, and nothing that you want."

He rises higher on his knees, looming over me, making me feel smaller with each passing moment. His left hand is pressing down on my shoulder, and I feel myself succumbing to his strength.

And at some point, I realize there's been a switch…

We were both pulling on the knife before, each of us fighting to tear it from the other's grip.

Now, we're pushing, pressing, thrusting it toward one another.

What am I doing?

I want control of the knife.

When he pushes down, I relent, let my arm drop to the mattress at my side. He hesitates as I twist the knife in my palm, grip it tight, and when I raise it between us with the tip pointed at his throat, he sits back on his heels.

I let out a heavy breath of relief.

But then he grins.

He bends.

He lowers until the tip of the knife touches his throat.

"You wanna kill me, baby?"

I'm confused, surprised.

"Yeah," I reply. "I wanna kill you."

His eyes flash with something dark. "Do it. Push it in. End me right now."

We're both panting as we watch one another.

Do I really want to kill him?

Will he really let me end his life?

We might both be bluffing in this standoff of wills.

"I've killed before," I remind him between breaths. "Three men as big as you, all on my own. I can kill again… I can kill you ."

Why am I still talking?

I should just stab him and get the hell out of here.

"I know you can." He drops lower, and the tip of the knife presses an indentation into his skin. "You can do anything you want, baby."

"You condescending motherfu—"

He slaps his palm over my mouth—the one with the skull tattoo—and presses down. "Quiet, pink, I'm not finished."

His hips are heavy on mine, his hard cock against my lower stomach. "There's a time and place for everything. Opportunities find us when the time is right, and if we don't take advantage of them, they scurry away… just like you, baby. I found you when I was meant to. You were an opportunity I took advantage of. I haven't wanted anyone the way I want you in a long fucking time."

He continues to drop his weight as he speaks. My gaze shifts between his face and the tip of the blade as the threat of him puncturing himself gradually strengthens.

"If I hadn't snatched you up, you would've scampered away from me forever. I knew when I saw you that I couldn't let that happen. Do you understand me, Gemma? Do you have a grasp on the value of acting without hesitation? If you really wanna kill me, this is your chance. This is your opportunity, and it's the only one you're gonna get. You should take advantage of it. I'd probably even be proud of you. But if you don't kill me now, then I'm taking that opportunity away from you for good. Try to kill me again after today?" He makes a sound of pure delight. "I'll make us both bleed, Gemma. I'll paint our bodies with blood from each of us, mix it together, see if the blend is as dark as our souls… And you know what?"

"What?" The word grinds through my clenched jaw.

"I think you'll like it. I think there's a darkness hiding inside you, and it's the same shade as mine. I think it turns you on to imagine your blood coating my fingers before I sink them inside you."

Violence .

He demands it, and I'll deliver.

With a quick slash, I drag the tip down across his chest. He hisses at the burn of the shallow scratch and instinctively pulls back. He only rises a couple of inches, but that creates the space I need between us to aim the tip at his heart and build enough momentum to pierce him.

I aim.

I breathe.

I thrust.

He bleeds.