Love Is Strange (I Know... #2) (25 page)

“I have to finish up in here,” I say blandly. He stares down at me and his nostrils flare and I know he's angry. I don't know if I care, honestly. I'm tired and I want to sleep. I want to wake up tomorrow and forget the events of the last forty-eight hours. I tell myself that in the morning, we'll figure out what where we're going to go and what we're going to do. Right now, however, my brain throbs and my heartbeat feels jagged in my chest. Fast and then slow, like it's beating to a rhythm I can't hear. I don't want to talk anymore. I don't want him to touch me, either. I shove at his shoulder again, but he doesn't let me go. He lets my hair go and I sigh in relief as the pain abruptly ends. But he drags his hand down my cheek and to my throat and I automatically move away from his touch. My neck is a sensitive place and the old injury is the main reason, but it's not the only reason.

I'm not scared of him, but I don't want him to touch me there, either.

He freezes, his fingertips grazing the skin below my jaw. His eyes go dark and blank. I see the change come over his face like a dark cloud passing over the sky. My wet hair is dripping onto my shoulders and down my breasts and back. The air is sticky, but still. Through the thin walls of the motel, I can hear loud music being played somewhere down on the street. For a minute, he doesn't move, but his body is vibrating with tension. I wonder if he's going to leave, storm out of the room and slam the door behind him. He's horny and wants to fuck, so I wonder if he'll find someone else. I wonder how many other women there's been since me. I wonder how many he's hurt and how many he's fucked. He thinks he loves me, but he's also an animal, a predator. He's been out of his cage for a long time now. Maybe I won't satisfy him anymore. Maybe I won't be enough.

But that's all wishful thinking, of course.

He grabs my arm and yanks me toward the bathroom door so fast, I lose my balance and almost fall to my knees. He throws an arm around my waist and hauls me up, carrying me out into the main room and tossing me on the bed. I realize I screamed only after the sound is echoing in the corners of the room. Instinctually, I roll onto my side, trying to scramble off the bed and get on my feet, but he doesn't allow me to. He shoves me onto my back and although my brain is telling me to run, I go limp, trying to calm myself down. He likes taking me off guard. He likes when I try to escape. I don't want to play his game. My chest heaves and it's hard to breathe in the hot, stifling room, but I lay still and flat. He throws open my legs, trying to get a reaction, but I don't give it to him.

“Fuck!” he screams, pounding his fists into the mattress on either side of my hips. “Why are you doing this, Joanie?” I take a breath before I answer, trying to ease the lump in my throat.

“What do you want?” I ask, lightly. I open my legs wider, lifting my knees on either side of his ribs, but purposefully not touching him. I don't know what will happen if I touch him. At this point, he's so angry he might finish what he started and strangle me to death. “If you want to fuck, do it. Get it over with.”

“Stop it,” he says, his voice dropping to a dangerous low.

“I can be whoever you want me to be,” I say, and I don't know why I just don't shut up. But I can't. “I can be Daisy. Or I can be someone else. Whoever you want.”

“Stop,” he repeats, a flicker of fire flaring up behind his eyes.

“I can scream and cry and beg you to stop if that's what you want,” I say, softly. “Then after you're done, you can leave me the fuck alone.” Another flare of fire shoots up behind his stare. He's beyond being angry now. His anger has turned to something deeper, something more bizarre. I can't look away from him as the realization comes over me.

He's
terrified
.

After everything this man has put me through,  seeing the look of fear come over his face is almost a triumph. He thinks he loves me and it's been his excuse to wreak havoc on my life. But his love also makes him weak. The thought hits me right in my heart, annoyingly. After all these years, all the pain he's put me through, he still has a hold on me. I hate him, but in that moment, I can see that picture of him as a boy that I stole all those years ago. As hard as it is to believe, he was once a smiling boy on a bicycle. A boy who wasn't depraved or perverted or sick. A boy who was capable of love and compassion and caring. A boy who wasn't yet a psychopath.

“All I want,” he says, the veins in his neck tight, “is for you to stop acting like this.” Then he shoves me over onto my stomach and flattens himself on top of me. I can hardly breathe with the weight of him pressing down on me, but I don't fight him. I just lay still under him, wondering what he has in store for me. “I'm going to make you love me again,” he says, his lips brushing against my ear.

“I never loved you,” I murmur into the rough sheets, but he's already moving, running his hands lightly down my ribs. I clench my stomach and gasp, fighting the urge to scream.

“I know every inch of you,” he says and I know he's right. He knows every scar, every sensitive spot, every ticklish place on my body. He presses his mouth the spot in between my shoulder blades, flicking his hot tongue out to taste my skin. I can feel like it like a needle prick, sharp and slightly painful. He run his hands down the swell of my hips and then over my ass, digging his fingers into my soft flesh. “Everywhere you like to be touched.” His words are just as sharp as his tongue, slicing through my brain even though his tone is light. I squeeze my eyes shut as he runs his fingers between my ass cheeks, spreading me open to his gaze. He presses another kiss to the small of my back and I gasp and squirm, but I can't escape him. “Everywhere you pretend you don't like to be touched,” he whispers and then he drags his teeth across the swell of my ass. I have to bite my lip to keep from moaning when he licks a path across my skin and dips his tongue in between. He opens me up and swirls his tongue around the sensitive spot. I buck my hips, trying to get away, but I know I can't. I don't really want to, either. It feels too good.

He knows exactly what I like.

He slaps my ass with a loud smack and I can't stop myself from letting out a moan at the surprising pain. As he sucks and licks at me, his hands don't stop. They smack and pinch and caress me until my fingers are balled up in the sheets above my head and I can taste the coppery tinge of blood in my mouth from biting my lip too hard. My stomach is clenched hard and my body is begging to come, but I know he's not done torturing me yet. He's not done trying to prove his point. I squirm against my body's natural inclination to move into him, but I can't stop myself. I arch my back, raising my hips off the mattress, wanting him more and more and deeper and deeper. I want him inside of me, fucking me, however painful it may be. I'm his slave, time and time again. That's the role he's forced me into. Some things never change, apparently.

He doesn't appease me though. He pulls his mouth away instead, his hands still kneading the back of my thighs. He pinches the skin right below my ass and my whole body clenches tight. If his cock had been inside of me, I would've come. But since he's torturing me, it's frustrating instead of blissful. I scream into the mattress, pissed at myself for letting him do it to me. A few minutes ago, I was cold to his touch but now he has me all screwed up. I don't want him, but I do. Same old story of my life. I keep trying to leave weak, stupid Joan behind but he won't let me.

He tickles the back of my knee with his fingers, lifting my leg and rolling me onto my side. I don't fight him – my body is useless against him. He drags his teeth across my knee and I shiver. He's hitting all of my spots and I can't do anything to stop him. My nipples are hard and begging for attention. I'm wet, but he ignores that too. Instead he rears back and brings my foot up to his mouth. His fingers cut into my ankle as he lightly bites my heel.

“Look at me,” he commands and I don't think – I open my eyes and find his. I didn't even realize I'd had them closed, but black spots dance in front of my vision and I know I must've had them squeezed shut. He licks a slow line up the arch of my foot and I jerk forward. I want to touch myself, but if I do, he'll win. So I keep my hands above my head even though my pussy is throbbing. I want him to force his big fingers inside of me. Or better yet, his cock. I want him to fuck me into oblivion. But I don't know what will happen if he does. I might just split apart at the seams and lose my mind for good. I feel like I'm on the brink already.

“How the fuck do you look better than I remember?” he says, sliding down my leg with a hungry look on his face. “You think you can make yourself ugly to me?” He kisses a spot on my thigh and my breath catches in my throat as he runs his eyes over the thin scars that mark it. My body is full of scars; most of them, he's given me. These are new scars though, scars that I've given myself. He studies them quietly, his nostrils flaring and his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows hard. He runs his thumb across the raised skin and I bite my tongue. I want to explain, but I don't owe him one. He's the reason I started cutting myself. He's the reason I needed a disgusting release like that. Like everything else that's wrong in my life, he's the culprit.

When he drops his head and presses his lips to the spot, I try to steel myself for what's coming next. I want his rough mouth on my clit more than anything. But he doesn't move closer. He swirls his tongue over the raised scars and then lifts his eyes to meet mine again. Then I gasp when he bites down on the skin, hard. I throw my head back and a strangled cry rips from my throat as he breaks skin. I don't think I've made a noise like that since the last time he fucked me. I can't stop myself from dropping my hands to his face and gripping his hair and his ear, whatever I can grab ahold of. He holds my leg to his mouth even when I jerk against him. I watch as a drop of thick red blood rolls down my inner thigh until I can't see it anymore. I know the sheets are going to be stained in the morning. He rolls his tongue around, licking up some of my blood. His saliva stings against my fresh wound and I moan loudly again. I don't even care what sounds I'm making anymore. The pain feels too good.

I liked sleeping with my husband. Sleeping with him made me feel safe and loved and soft and normal. Fucking Elliot is nothing like that. I liked sleeping with my husband, but I missed fucking. It's messy and painful and it's left me scarred and injured, but there's nothing else in the world like it. He molded me and trained me to be the kind of lover he wanted. The strange thing is, while he was molding me to fit him, he was adapting to me as well. He found every sensitive spot on me, explored every inch of me, claimed every spot of my skin as his own. Now he's giving me a new scar to match my old healed ones. I arch my back again as he sucks on the bite mark, letting go of his ear and sliding two fingers inside of myself. I'm dripping wet and my fingers aren't enough, but I don't care. I need something. I pump my fingers inside of myself, adding a third because I need more, but he pulls away from my thigh with a light popping sound and grabs my wrist.

“Don't,” he says, the word clipped. He's just as turned on as I am, but he's going to keep drawing it out. He wants to make me scream and beg. The screaming is what turns him on the most. He drags my fingers to his mouth and sucks them clean. Then he dips his face close to my clit and I shiver with anticipation. But he doesn't suck and lick on me like I want. Instead he blows out a slow stream of air that cools as it hits my hot skin and I jerk against the torturous feeling. His face is still blank, too calm, but I'm not fooled. He's about to lose control.

He pushes himself up on his knees and pulls his shirt over his head. Then he unfastens his jeans and shoves them down his hips, his cock bobbing in front of him, stretching up all the way to his stomach. He doesn't even bother to pull his jeans all the way off before he's shoving my legs open wide and positioning himself in between them. He grabs my wrists and shoves them into the mattress on other side of my face. He's grown impatient, apparently. He's done taking his time. I turn my head away, not knowing if I can look at him when he does it. I'm disgusting and I'm weak and I hate myself, almost as much as I hate him.

“Do you want me?” he asks, his breath tickling my ear. “I want to know.” His fingers are digging into my wrists and his body is heavy on top of mine. I can barely breath. The sweat and heat from our bodies mingles together. It's stifling. But I raise my knees and open my legs as wide as I can, waiting for him to invade me. The anticipation makes the milliseconds tick by like hours. “I want to hear you say it,” he says, his lips grazing my earlobe.

“Tell me what you want to hear and I'll say it,” I whisper, even though I'm close enough to begging for his cock on my own. I want him to know I'm still in control, no matter if it's the truth or not. I don't want him to have this effect on me, but I have no choice in the matter. I'm just as much his sex doll as I ever was. I was his slave from the first moment he saw me eight years ago, in that bar in the middle of Austin. He knows it and I know it and we're the only ones in on the secret because everyone else who knows it is dead.

“Goddammit Joanie,” he growls, his tone sending an uncontrollable shiver down my spine. Then he thrusts into me, hard, and I try not to scream in surprise and pain, but I can't help it. My throat is dry and the scream is ragged and hoarse. He wraps one arm around my waist and slides his free hand into my hair. “Always so stubborn,” he says, his lips pressed to my cheek. Then he tightens his arm around me, so tight that I couldn't get free even if I wanted to. He's so strong. He cups my skull, his fingertips digging into my scalp. “You're still my Joanie, whether you want to admit it or not.”