I hear his zipper pulled rough. My underwear is ripped down. It scrapes the front of my thighs and calves.

He's between my thighs again. I feel his erection seeking out the moisture. He rubs it up and down my slit and then thrusts into me with a grunt. I cry out as he pulls my hips back.

I'm almost off the ground. He rocks into me several times hard and fast. His body pounds mine. I'm building up again from the pause in the spankings. He orgasms before I can.

He grunts and finishes using me. He pulls back. I'm holding the bed, spent but frustrated. I am close to tears. I don’t even know why.

My ass cheeks are on fire, they match my cheeks. My jaw trembles. He leaves the room before I can even comprehend what's happened.

His semen is dripping down my thigh again. I feel dirty but it's soothed by a sickening, depraved happiness. The pain in my heart is making me happy on a level I never want to explore.

My arms and legs are weak. I feel like I've done one of my harder runs. I stand up and fight my legs from buckling. I look around for my underwear but they're gone, again. I pull on my jeans and shirt. A tear slips from my eye as I get my boots on. I wipe it away and grab my coat. When I get to the doorway my hand almost refuses to grab the handle.

I look back at the room. It isn’t how I imagined the night panning out. In a place in my heart, larger than I want to admit to, I imagined he couldn’t get enough of me. I imagined those ten texts were him reaching out. Not him checking to make sure I was alive, so he could use me for a few minutes.

His mixed signals are epic and worthy of a girl's. My heart breaks when I think about leaving Sebastian for this. I know he would never treat me this way. He is the right choice. He is the normal I want.

This, this room is a darkness and a sickness and an underworld that I want no part of. The excitement is there and the forbidden desires but they are chased down with a bitter feeling that I can't forgive him for. A feeling he has made me want.

I pull my phone out and text Sebastian with trembling fingers.

'Meet me tomorrow at my dorm. I won't have this number anymore.'

'You sure?' His response is instant. Like he was waiting for me.

'I need you too help me become the girl I want to be. 8pm my dorm. Goodnight.'

He doesn’t respond. I put the phone on the bed and walk to the elevator. I can hear the water in the kitchen. I press the button. I'm frozen. It isn’t the lonely. It's so much worse. It's emptiness but it's also like a world war inside of me. I want to run to him. I want to kiss him and attack him and slap him. I want him to hold me.

Thankfully, I have just an ounce of self-respect left. I don’t want to force him to do it. I want him to want to do it. It doesn’t feel like too much to expect. Too much to ask for.

"Don't leave." He speaks softly behind me. The elevator opens. I don’t move. I can't.

I also can't face him. My ass is on fire. My jeans are making my cheeks sting.

I begged him to humiliate me.

I can't look at him when I say it, "I don’t want your money anymore. Or anything. I'll make it work on my own." I step in as the door is closing. I hear him leap and press the button but I press the M and collapse against the wall. I'm a sobbing wreck when the elevator moves.

It dings and I miss it somehow. The door closes. I don’t push any buttons. I curl into a ball in the corner. It opens again. Feet step in. Matte leather shoes with squared tips and dark-grey dress pants. I hear him push a button. I want to kick his feet out from under him but I'm frozen in terror. Not of him, but of me. Me and the dark places I will allow myself to be taken.

He bends down and picks me up off the floor. He holds me to his chest and kisses the top of my head. He walks into the apartment when the doors open again. It's dark and warm but I've never been in a colder room.

He carries me to a room. He flicks on a light. It's a huge master bathroom. He turns on the shower. I flinch. He pulls my coat out of my hands and lifts my arms in the air. He pulls my shirt off and my bandeau.

"No. Please don’t." I whisper. He undoes my jeans and pulls them down. He kneels and removes my boots and jeans. He kisses the front of my thigh once.

He stands.

His eyes look dead. Like how mine used to look, before he beat the ever-loving hell out of me and woke me up.

He looks at me expectantly. I reach up and undo the buttons of his dress shirt. What's underneath is so different from what's on the outside. He's always dressed like he's attending meetings all day.

Underneath he has a huge cross tattoo done in almost Celtic looking artwork. The banding is thick and winding. The top of the cross is just under his left pec. The t of the cross spans the bottom of his entire left rib cage. The bottom of the cross goes from the t on his pec to his hipbone. A name is delicately sketched onto the cross in the very middle. I trace it with my fingertips. The name doesn’t belong to me and it doesn’t feel like it's mine. For the first time in my life, the name of the dead doesn’t belong to me.

I pull his shirt off and notice the scars along his bicep. They run thick and deep. When I touch them they slow my stroke like a speed bump would. I undo his zipper slowly and gently. I slide his pants past his groin and knees. I drop to my knee and lift his feet to remove his shoes and socks. There is huge scar on his left thigh. It's massive. I can see the staple marks. Like Frankenstein would have. His body is hard but not chiseled or sculpted the way Sebastian's is. It's meaty though.

"Where did you get these scars?"

"I was hard on myself as a kid."

I leave it at that and run my finger along it, but he stops my hand and lifts me off the ground. The bathroom is humid and filled with steam from the shower.

He steps in and pulls me to him. He presses my head against his cross. Her cross. Our cross.

Chapter Eighteen

The shower was steamy and relaxing. I felt like he let me in by letting me see his scars and tattoos. He has seven tattoos. They're not all huge like the cross but they're bigger than I would have imagined. His back ribcage has a quote. I peel back the covers of the blankets he has wrapped us both in and look at it.

'If you prick us do we not bleed?

If you tickle us do we not laugh?

If you poison us do we not die?

And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? '

It's Shakespeare. I remember it from Lit. I brush my hands across the words and wonder if he will ever find peace. His hand moves like a snake and snatches mine. He pulls it up and turns his face and kisses the back of it. "Go to sleep."

I shake my head, "I can't. Someone got me all worked up and now I'm kind of buzzing."

A grin plays upon his lips.

"You came. In case you forgot."

I laugh, "I forgot. I think you should remind me how it felt, jog my memory."

He shakes his head, "I think I like you how you are now." He opens his eyes and looks at me, "Do you want me?"

I fight the pathetic face I know I'm wearing. I nod.

"What do you say?" He's being cocky. He wants me to beg.

My natural instinct is to fight against him when he's being that way. Acting submissive is not a natural state for me. It's there from the torture. I don’t fear him anymore and have a harder time submitting to his attitude. I rip my arm from him and climb from the bed.

I smirk and walk to his closet. I pull a pair of jogging pants and a t-shirt from the shelves of the huge walk in. I walk out and pull my long hair into a bun and tuck the ends in to make it stay. It won't but it gives me something to do with my hands, beyond scratch his eyes out.

"Where are you going? In my clothes?"

"You won't miss them. You don’t wear anything but Armani. I'm pretty sure these are from Old Navy. You probably didn’t even know you had them."

He snorts, "Get back here." His tone is the one from the chair. I smirk and shake my head. My legs break into a run. I grab my jacket and boots and bolt for the stairs. I unlock the door to the stairs and pull it open fast. I can see him running in his boxers. I fly down the stairs barefoot and out into the lobby. I can hear the elevator. I've played this game before. I tug on my boots and run out the front door as the valet opens it. My boots slip a bit in the snow. I tug on my coat and let the fresh air wash me clean of the shame I'm battling.

"Sarah." He shouts, barefoot from the awning.

I look back and wave, "Goodbye Eli. It was nice seeing you again." I shout into the blizzard.

"Wait for me. Give me one minute. Please." He yells back and then he's gone. He sounds angry and demanding but he said please and he never says it. It makes butterflies in my tummy. I pull my hood up and tug on my mitts. His jogging pants are warmer than my jeans but I still don’t wait long. I turn and start to walk. I hear him come jogging up beside me. I glance at him and sigh. He looks sexy in his hoodie and sweats.

I grin, "I like casual Eli. I mean don’t get me wrong, I like the suits and dress pants and groomed thing you have going on, but this is nice too."

"What are you doing?" He asks looking intimidating.

I shrug, "I want pancakes."

"I'll make you pancakes."

I laugh and turn around to walk backwards, "I don’t want your pancakes. I want normal pancakes. Not head game pancakes. Not maybe I'll make you happy or maybe I'll scare the shit out of you. You know?"

He squints, "You're awfully playful and free suddenly. Where is the girl from the elevator?" His voice is mocking my pain and embarrassment.

I jam my mitts into my pockets and shrug, "She's in here. I think there are a few of us in here. Besides, I'm on to you. I see your ploy."

He laughs, "Ha. You think you do." He does something I don’t expect. "When I was a kid I used to do this all the time. My dad would take us to our cabin in Aspen and I would do anything to not be with them. When Emalyn was gone they canceled their divorce. They stayed together, hating each other and drinking. I would stand out on the deck and catch snow flakes till I was nearly frozen solid." He tilts his head back and lets the snow fall on his tongue.