Me.
I wipe her wetness off on her own thigh, deliberately messy, streaking her skin with the proof of what I just took from her—and how easy it was in the end.
She flinches just a little at the contact.
I smile, satisfaction curling through me.
“I told you, you’d beg,” I whisper.
She closes her eyes like she doesn’t want to give me the satisfaction of seeing her acknowledgement but that’s the thing about satisfaction—it doesn’t need permission, doesn’t require her cooperation.
I grip her jaw, turn her face towards me, and study the wreckage I’ve made with deliberate attention.
Tears. Sweat. Lust. Shame.
She wears it all like she was born for it, like this is her natural state.
Maybe she was born for this.
Maybe this is the real version of her emerging at last.
Not the girl who sat in the back booth of that café, pretending to be untouchable.
Not the girl who walked with pepper spray and sharp keys like that ever protected anyone from what they actually want.
But this girl laid bare before me.
The one with swollen lips and broken pride and soaked thighs and eyes that still haven’t stopped looking for approval even whilst she glares.
“You think I’m a monster,” I say, fingers pressing into her chin until she winces. “And you’re right. I am.”
She doesn’t speak, knows better now.
She knows I’m not finished.
“But monsters don’t pretend to love you,” I continue. “They don’t lie to your face and cheat behind your back and tell you it was your fault when they snap your fucking ribs.”
Her lips part slightly.
I keep going.
“Monsters warn you. Monsters show up in the dark and tell you exactly what they are. And you—” I run my thumb across her bottom lip, dragging it down slowly, “—you came anyway.”
Her breath hitches in her chest.
And I lean in, just enough to taste the ruin on her skin.
“Which makes you sicker than me,” I whisper against her mouth.
I don’t kiss her properly.
That’s not what this is, not what this moment requires.
I rest my forehead against hers and whisper like a promise I fully intend to keep:
“I’m going to break you again tomorrow.”
The words don’t need force to land. They settle. Sink. Latch onto something already fractured inside her and tighten like a vice.
