The Starkest Truth (A Breaking Insanity Novel Book 2) (20 page)

She dropped her hands. “I-I’m sorry.”

“You should be…very sorry.”

“Sh-she’s not happy, Eric. She tells me things—told me things. She thinks you are shutting her out. She’s s-scared.”

I cocked my head to the side, staring her down as her body shook. The fear she exemplified every time I came near her was genuine. The instability I instilled in her was still there. Instability only I could take the reins of. For now, I would give her a test. “Keep her company. Reassure her about me like you did at Parkland,” I said carefully, my words shocking her. “Make absolutely sure Nikki stays on bed rest. One mistake—”

“I won’t disappoint you. I promise.” She quickly dropped her head when I glared at her for committing infraction number six. “I’m sorry for interrupting you. I want you to know I’m here to make things better.”

“Was the lesson learned, April?”

“Y-yes, Eric. It was made very clear.” Her fingers flittered nervously in her lap. She turned her attention to the ground. “I won’t disappoint you this time.”

SITTING ON THE bed did very little to help me lower myself from the height of exasperation. Events from earlier continuously clouded my mind and played on a constant loop. The voice chanted at me:
Don’t trust him.

When I agreed to become Eric’s wife, I hoped things would maintain at the level they were or become better. Not only did I have the impression Eric faked the little changes I’d witnessed in him, he’d gotten worse. I was carefully led astray by Eric’s pretty words and the various talents hidden inside a body that made me climax intensely enough to make it feel as though I was on a completely different plane of existence.
 

I slipped out of bed and moved to the bathroom. I hoisted myself up on the counter and fiddled around with a specific spot above the medicine cabinet. The tile came loose, revealing my secret stash of medication. I took out a bottle of lithium and a shortened straw. I dispensed one pill and crushed it up on the counter with the bottom of the pill bottle. Leaning forward, I snorted it.
 

April made a noisy entrance into the bathroom and stared at my reflection in the mirror. “When I gave you that trick, I didn’t think you’d do it while you were pregnant, silly.”

I wiped my nose and glared at her. “You’re still here? He’s…letting you stay?”

She smiled brightly. “Can you believe it? He had somewhere to be, so it’s just you and me tonight.”

I couldn’t believe it. He always wanted me away from his exes. What was special about April? “Why is he letting you stay?”

“Because he knows you need a friend, and he knows I’m your bestie,” she responded.

I stared at her long enough to deplete her self-assuredness and reveal the truth. “Eric doesn’t do anything without an ulterior motive. What did you promise him?”

“Bestie, he’s your husband,” she beamed. “You know he’d do anything for you.”

She was beginning to sound like the cheerleader she was at Parkland. “How do you know Eric?”

“He told you, right?” She batted her eyelashes me, an attempt to proclaim innocence. “We used to be friends.”

“Did you fuck him?”

“Nikki! No.”

“You’re a liar!” Stepping forward, I pointed my index finger at her. “You fucked him, and if you fuck him, he screws you up and screws you over.” At that moment, I recalled Estelle’s words.
Saves, breaks, and remakes
. Being there for me after my mother’s death was the save. The attempts to break me were numerous. His various lies, the loss of my dog and my aunt. The stay in Parkland where he cut off communication with me to punish me.

If he knew April, and if he had many connections, he had a way to get his letters to me. He wanted me to suffer. And when I came back to him, he remade me. He made me think killing my father was necessary and my guilt was unnecessary. He made me want the pleasure over the pain. He switched my desires on and off to suit his need to be a sadist and mine to be a masochist when I became comfortable with the pleasure. As I began to crave the pain much more, he distracted me with the most intense pleasure I’d ever felt.

I spent too much time trying not to be like his ex-wife, thinking things were different. As I looked down at my stomach and shook my head, I realized, maybe, I was delusional.
 

“What’s the matter?” April asked in a small voice. “Don’t do that. He loves you. You are one very lucky woman.” She put her arms around me. “Let’s just go out to dinner. You snorted lithium, right? Should be okay. Do you know any half-empty places around here we can go?”

I was beyond the realm of upset; I couldn’t look at her.
 

She flipped my hair over my shoulders and held my chin. “Don’t be upset. It’s not good for your little girl or boy.”

My eyes lifted to hers with a blinding coldness.

Her cell phone buzzed. She reached in her back pocket and pulled it out. “I have a friend who lives here,” she said, busily typing a message. “He said there’s a great Indian restaurant we should try. It’s a little secret, so there shouldn’t be too many people there. Let’s go there, okay? We’ll go, and I’ll tell you everything.”

“My husband doesn’t really love me,” I droned. “I have everything to worry about.”

“Nikki—”

I put my hand in her face and gazed at my reflection in the mirror, paying the most attention to my stomach. “Who is the friend who texted you? Is it someone we’re supposed to meet with? Or is it just another one of Eric’s disciples to keep me in line? To keep me dumb and blind.”

Shaking her head, she attempted to place her phone in the back pocket of her jeans. I came forward and grabbed her phone from her hands. She tried to retrieve it, but wasn’t swift enough.
 

The text on her phone, from Mr. Wilcox, contained the name of the restaurant—I assumed April spoke of earlier—and a time.
 

“Preston?” I asked her incredulously. “You’re speaking with Preston?”

Through rapid blinking, she unsuccessfully tried to simulate tears. “I can seriously explain.”

“You don’t need to. Leave.” Moving to the bedroom, I laid on the bed with my back to her.
 

I could hear April noisily sigh before sitting in front of me on the edge of the bed. “I met him at a party while he was attending the U of R. He was charming and sweet.” Sighing, she rubbed her eyes, smearing her mascara along the area underneath her eyes. “Don’t know what it is about him, but he has a serious skill. I’m not talking about the sex, but the way he can make you feel like no other person ever has. Like you’re the most important person in the world to him. When you live a life where you are the least important to everybody, it…can be easy to need it, you know?”

“And?” I urged hotly, upset she’d lied about fucking Eric.
 

“He…didn’t really want me. I kept trying to figure out why, but he kept thinking I was stalking him. One day I-I followed him somewhere I guess I wasn’t supposed to. He was meeting with someone. You know how you can look at someone and just know they are a deranged criminal? Well, the guy Eric met with was that. Definitely.
 

“When I asked Eric why he was with a man like that, he tried to shut me up. He told my parents I was crazy. He played on the things they thought weren’t right about me. He got his way. My parents sent me to Parkland because they trusted a stranger over their own daughter.
 

“And then you came around at Parkland, and he gave me a second chance. He told me if I made sure you stayed on the path he wanted you to, he would convince my parents to get me out and he would give me enough money to start over somewhere else.

“Preston came to visit me a few days before I was released. He promised me he would make sure Eric made good on his word if I did one thing for him. If once I got out, one of the first things I did was to make sure you and Preston met, but I’m not going to do that anymore. If you want me to leave, I’ll leave.”

I turned to glare at her from over my shoulder. “And the letters? Was my aunt responsible for having them blocked?”

She solemnly shook her head. “There weren’t any letters I knew about. I told you what he wanted me to say; his letters were returned. I don’t know if he really wrote any.”

The voice that was silenced by Eric, but increasingly vocal lately, seeped into my thoughts, filling my head with dirty truths. I held my head, taking elongated breaths in hopes it would remain dormant.

“Please, let me stay.” April slipped her hand into mine, taking it away from the side of my head.
 

Removing my hand from her hold, I turned my back on her. “Do what I asked you to do and leave.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice failing her.
 

Her slow and prodding footsteps gave me a headache. Sighing, I sat up slightly in bed. “Tomorrow. You can sleep here tonight, but tomorrow morning, I don’t want to see you here.”

Giddy, she jumped up and clapped your hands. “You know what I’m going to do for you bestie? I’m going to show you how grateful I am, and that I am your friend. I’m going to get you some food. I heard they have these things here called garbage plates.” She paused to stare at the ceiling. “I’ll get you one of those.” Turning with purpose she headed out of the bedroom.

Recalling that her car was parked down the street because she ran out of gas, I asked, “April? How are you going to—”

“I’ll hitchhike,” she said, her voice fading down the hall. I looked at her phone, left on the nightstand, and buried myself underneath the covers.

MY NAP WAS FITFUL, and when I’d finally met the line between peaceful sleep and dreaming, I felt a pressure on the bed, pulling my legs to part and gape open.
 

“Eric,” I groaned my discontent, keeping my eyes closed. “Stop apologizing by using sex. You can’t…uh.” I felt his mouth on me through my panties. He kept himself buried underneath the sheets and staked his claim between my thighs. Frustrated, I clasped my hand to my head and let his deft and skilled tongue take me elsewhere. His slow, teasing licks against my moist lace panties made me squirm and twist for more. Leisurely, he pulled the crotch of my underwear to the side and the warmth of his wet tongue slid up my slit, opening me. Pulling me apart with his fingers, he shoved his tongue inside my canal. His nose nuzzled against my clit, sending me on an ascension to euphoria. I ground my hips against him, and reached up for the headboard, enjoying the ride.

His thick tongue slid up and began to circle my clit in dizzying circles. The feeling swept me dangerously fast, inundating my vision with blind spots.

“Oh, God, Eric!”

He moved his tongue down, thrusting it deep inside me and snaked his arm around my thigh to access my bundle of nerves. His thumb moved around in circles, pressing against the most responsive part. The sound of him smacking and enjoying the taste of my arousal drove me over the edge.

As he gripped my thighs, steadying me for the climb, something inside me began to burn painfully.
 

My body angled off the bed and every nerve-ending began to sing in unison. I bawled at the ceiling, allowing it to take control over every part of me.
 

Coming down from my high, I kept my eyes tightly closed, trying to hold to my rightful anger again. It was lost in him. He kissed my clit repeatedly, teasing me by slowly tracing the fissure of my sex up and down, over and over again.

I sat up on my elbows, blinking away the hazy cloud of sleep. I slid the sheet down my body, uncovering him. Focusing on the top of the head in between my legs, things came into focus.
 

When Preston looked up at me with a grin, I jolted backward, bumping into the headboard.

Grasping my legs harshly, he tugged me back underneath his body. He positioned himself between my legs and pressed his body against me. He pinned my arms up above his head, easily restraining me with one of his hands. I opened my mouth to scream and he easily ripped my soaked panties from my body and stuffed them inside my mouth.
 

Through the moonlit room, I could see the gleam of his bright white teeth. I felt the thump of his erection against my naked sex. He came completely into view, revealing his nudeness.
 

The fight I enacted suddenly became amplified.