Break Me: A Dark Romance Serial Read online

  Sex.

  Beat.

  Repeat.

  Beat.

  Beat.

  I guess I felt asleep in the armchair, my apron still on from the cooking. I woke up when someone started stroking my cheek gently. “Christian,” I murmured softly, glad for him to be home – finally.

  He grabbed me and I woke up with a start of shock as he carried me over to the couch, pulling me in his lap. I opened my weary eyes and rested them on him. I could never get enough of Christian. I wanted to drink it all in, but it seemed impossible, he was too agile, too fast, too slippery to commit to memory – or my heart.

  He was kissing me now. Deep. Hungry. Strong. I loved the taste of his tongue in my mouth, but I could feel the bitter aftertaste of liquor that I recognized as ouzo. I had always hated it, and I knew Christian had it in too large a dose that day.

  Should’ve known better, babydoll.

  He tugged on the strings of my apron, playing with me, grinning at me as he bit my lips softly.

  “I’m gonna have you,” he said in my ear and I groaned with pleasure. “Go into the kitchen,” he said, his voice rough with the desire I knew he felt for me. No matter how many times Christian hit me, degraded me, made me feel like I was nothing, I knew he still couldn’t resist.

  My hair was growing back, and it was long, luscious and a perfect shade of red. My eyes sparkled everytime he was near, and my body was slender and tight, just the way I liked it. Mentally, I thanked a friend from high school who dutifully taught me how to make myself throw up. I had been putting that practice to action for months, and he loved me.

  And I kept hoping things would change. Kept thinking I could make him respect me.

  Let me tell you babydoll, love isn’t the same thing as respect.

  I jumped up and giggled excitedly, letting him chase me into the kitchen. I darted around the kitchen table, running this way and that as he tried to hunt me down.

  Big bad wolf.

  He almost got me when I accidentally bumped into the table in a rush to get out of his way, and the knives I had laid out to dry started falling off, landing tip first in our hardwood floors.

  “Oh no,” I giggled softly, but already scared, so scared. “Let me pick those up quickly.”

  I rushed to pull the knives out of the floor, too afraid to meet his eye. He was standing still as a statue, staring at what I was doing, breathing like a raging bull.

  Meet your faith, little red riding hood.

  He came charging at me from the back, just as I had put the knives back on the table. He smacked me across the cheek, not to hard, not to soft. Just a taste of what was to come.

  He bent me over the table, like he was going to fuck me. He twisted my arms in the back until I mewled like a kitten, too afraid to make actual noise in the fear of him hurting me even worse.

  There was no reason for this.

  No reason whatsoever.

  But it was still happening.

  In a rush, he pulled down my skirt, revealing my trembling legs and my underwear, showing the scars I had made on my skin for anyone to see. As it was, he was the only audience, but that was enough.

  “You like playing with yourself?” he asked me softly, too sweet, too innocent. “You like carving things in your skin?”

  I shook my head feverishly, trying to assure him that I didn’t do it for my own pleasure. I knew better than to use actual words – anything could set him off at this point.

  He ripped into my scars, my barely healed wounds with his nails, scratching them until I whimpered for mercy. He was doing exactly what I did to myself, but it hurt that much more because it wasn’t me. It hurt because it was degrading, the lowest I could fall.

  I felt the blood pouring down my legs as he scratched and clawed away, but I stayed quiet. Stayed still.

  “I’ve got something even better for you, baby,” he whispered a promise in my ear, gently lifting a slender, but sharp knife from the kitchen table. A gift from his parents, for our anniversary. Mine had stopped calling – or caring – long ago.

  I looked at him in confusion as he toyed with the knife and my eyes widened in horror as he cut deep inside his own palm. “Christian!” I cried out, knowing it would be the thing to set him off, but still –even in that moment – loving him unconditionally.

  He looked at me manically and pulled my head closer and closer, until I was almost touching his bleeding palm. “Lick it up, baby,” he said softly, forcing my head down as I sputtered, my lips now covered in his blood.

  I coughed and cried and he finally let me go, dropping me to the floor.

  “You still want to play?” he asked angrily.

  I shook my head.

  “You still want to carve yourself like a fucking wood work?” he asked madly.

  I cried no.

  He came close, taking my chin softly between his hands and looking at me with soft, manic eyes. “I think you do, baby.”

  He placed the knife gently, but firmly in my arms and pulled my panties off with one smooth stroke. I whimpered in horror as I realized what he wanted me to do. I asked him to stop. I begged, I cried, I swallowed my pride.

  It didn’t help and he made me push the tip of the knife inside me.

  “You don’t know pain, babydoll,” he whispered to me as I cut, cut, cut.

  ***

  They told me later the police came before I did any real damage.

  Took me away before I cut up my own insides.

  Made me place a restraining order.

  Put me in a psych ward miles away for two months.

  Let me out – a new person.

  A sick bitch that still longed for the touch of her would-be killer.

  Chapter 18 – Want you

  A month later

  My dreams were peppered with two men now.

  Jack.

  Christian.

  Jack.

  Jack.

  Christian.

  It was hard to discern who made more appearances, just as it was getting harder to understand my thoughts in my conscious state. It was either Jack, or Christian – but it shouldn’t be either. It should be Opal. Me, and me alone. I was the one that mattered. I was the one that needed to make it out alive. They could take care of themselves.

  I knew I would never forget Christian. He was still there, in every dark corner of my mind. And of those there were many. He was promising to track me down, and I dreaded it at the same time as I desired his lethal touch.

  Jack was present, too, in the happy, hopeful bits. And of those, there wasn’t much left. Hope and happiness had been burn out of my body, cut out, thrown up and tossed away like garbage. Why was it though that I still dreamed of him? Sometimes even stronger than the dark things.

  Are you having a deja-vu yet? I sure am.

  You see, I’m telling you this once again as I lay beneath a man, letting him fuck me until he’ll inevitably collapse on top of me, breathing heavily and pumping the last of his cum into me.

  He’s got nothing on Jack.

  Got nothing on Christian.

  I let him finish, moan in the right places, and he does indeed fall on top of me. This one surprises me though. He rolls right back over and wiggles his eyebrows at me. “Up for another round?” he asks cheekily.

  I think it over for a moment, deciding that, what the hell – he knows the cost, he knows it’s for one fuck. Guess he wants to spend a bit more tonight. I let him pound me again.

  Just as he’s about to finish, my doorbell rings. He tries to keep going, but I’m impatient, so I push him off of me and get up.

  “I won’t be a moment,” I say sweetly as he rolls his eyes.

  “Are you for real?” he shouts after me, covering his hardness with a sheet as I put on a silky robe and go to the front door, ignoring him completely.

  As I approach the door and Pearl nips in and out between my feet, making me giggle, I get a strange feeling. I realize as I’m standing in front of the door, and the perso
n in front of it is obviously hanging on the doorbell, as its ringing becomes incessant, that this won’t be just a former customer looking for a hook up, or another night.

  I feel the tension.

  I feel the heat coming off of the door.

  Feel the temperament.

  I know it’s one of them.

  Rough Jack, who whispered soft things in my ear.

  Or sweet Christian, who cut ugly scars into my body.

  One of them is on the other side of this door, and my body knows it better than my mind does.

  Slowly, I place the security chain on the door. And even more slowly, I open it until it’s ajar, peeking out at my visitor.

  End of Act 1

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