I shake my head with a whimper, feeling like a child who doesn’t want to get out of bed. I’m vulnerable and stripped down to my core, left with no pride or bluster.
“Yes, Flower. I’ll make it quick. Can you stand?”
I shake my head again.
“Good.” Monster carefully picks me up, cradling me close. A deep rumble of approval vibrates his chest. “This is one of the things I missed most. Carrying you. Tiring you out so much you had no choice but to rely on me.” I vaguely register the change of scenery as he takes me out of my makeshift prison and into an unfamiliar bathroom. Either he’s changed apartments since I ran away, or he has an entire unit constructed for my torture and punishment.
“You didn’t tire me out,” I mumble. “Not back then. You beat me down, stabbed me, waterboarded—”
“Shh,” Monster interrupts. “That was some time ago. I spent triple the time healing and fixing you than I did harming you. I didn’t hurt you after promising not to. You know this, Flower. You know I kept to my word.”
“For all of a month.”
“If you hadn’t run, you would have had nearly a year of proof that I will never hurt you again.” He sets me on a white countertop before peeking into a glass-enclosed shower and turning it on. The sound of rushing water fills the room, shortly followed by pleasant steam. Monster starts stripping off his clothes; I purposely look away, not wanting to see his body.
“You should look,” Monster comments, stepping up to me and pulling the sweat-dampened shirt off my body. I’m too exhausted to protest, or to feel shy over my nudity. After what he did to me, I don’t know that anything has the power to make me shy anymore. “You’re going to getverywell reacquainted with every part of my anatomy soon enough.”
“Pass,” I mumble.
He chuckles. “Too tired to even come up with clever quips. I like that.” He kisses my nose. “I should’ve done this to you more often back then. Kept you nice and wrung out so you couldn’t even think up a plan to run, let alone execute one.”
I find enough strength to lift my head and glare at Monster. “Fixating on me isn’t going to change the fact that your brother’s dead, or that you’re a piece of—”
Monster snaps a hand around my neck, applying just enough pressure to restrict my breathing and effectively cut off my words. Adrenaline lights me up, and fingers fly to his wrist, desperately trying to pry off his hold.Why did I provoke him?Why do I always have to open my big mouth? Now, Monster looksmurderous.
Bringing up his brother was always a surefire way to piss him off.
“Don’t,” Monster says harshly. “Don’t bring Sam into this, Scarlett. You won’t like what I do when you provoke me.”
“You’re still a child throwing a tantrum,” I hiss. “Playing with one toy to distract you from the loss ofanother—”
His grip tightens until I can hardly get any air, and panic overwhelms me, speeding my heart and tightening my muscles. He’s going to kill me. He’s gonna—
“I’m not the same man you ran from,” he whispers furiously. “I’m no longer crazed with grief. Now, my insanity is controlled. If you provoke me, there will be consequences.”
He glares at me for several moments, letting the message really sink in. My lungs start to burn from the lack of oxygen, and as soon as Monster sees me wince from the pain, he slowly releases his hold on my throat. He cups my nape and leisurely lowers his lips until they press against the soft skin of my throat, right over my pulse.
The duality between him taking my breath away—notin the good way—and then kissing the spot he was just gripping… it dazes me with confusion. It almost seems like his goal is to keep me off-balance, and he’s succeeding.
“Come on,” Monster says, taking a step away from me. He lifts me down from the counter by my waist, then leads me into the shower by my hand.
When he turns back around to face me, positioning me beneath the hot spray, I glimpse something on his chest that I wish I hadn’t. Something that nearly makes my heart stop.
Over his heart sits a pink oleander flower… and wrapped around it, written in gorgeous black cursive, ismy name.
Chapter Eight
Greyson
My little Flower is exhausted by the time I take her back into her room, eyes drooping and motions slow. She stumbles while we walk, so I scoop her up and hold her against my chest. She’s tiny, and her weight feels indescribablyrightin my arms. Like I’m meant to be right here with her. Like this is fate.
I try to sit Scarlett down at the metal table so I can change the sullied bedsheets, but she panics, so I set her at the foot of the bed, waiting a few moments to make sure she doesn’t tip over.
A single hour of a medium-intensity punishment has taken all the fight out of her, at least for tonight. I really don’t know why I didn’t think to keep her more wrung out and sexually satisfied back when I had her—probably because we’d only been sleeping together for a week when she made her escape. I wasn’t properly prepared, and I was still experiencing pretty severe mood swings. While those haven’t disappeared, I have learned to manage them better, and I’ll take care not to subject Scarlett to the worst of them.
She watches with dazed eyes and an adorably sleepy expression as I strip and remake the bed. When I’m done, she climbs right beneath the covers, her eyes immediately closing. I kneel by the bed and stroke a few tendrils of hair out of her eyes. I want to stay with her, to holdher, but experience tells me that it’ll disturb her sleep. I don’t want to run that risk on her first day here.
She tries to shift away from my touch; I simply move with her, leaning a bit farther over the bed. Eventually, she gives a frustrated sigh and turns her back to me.
