Lila POV
I have never hated my body before and I never needed to but right now, I loathed my traitorous body, cursed every damn part of me that responded to him, his touch, every promise hidden within his words.
He was a bastard filthy, twisted son of a bitch who kidnapped women, holding them against their will. He was a man without conscience, a psycho who didn't think twice about cutting off fingers and gifting them to his prisoners.
Yet his touch somehow managed to burn me from the inside out, causing my body to betray me in the worst possible way. The wetness currently pooled between my legs was the twisted evidence of my own depravity.
How could my body want him?
How could the mere prospect of him giving me pain melted together with pleasure make me want him?
Was it because he looked so much like Nikolai, the man I thought I loved once? Was it the similarities between them that started to pull me toward him? Or was I really as fucked up as most people in my family had suspected all these years?
Everything Nico said was true. Nikolai was a good lover, but there were nights I craved more, where I wished he would treat me more like a sex toy than a damn porcelain doll.
There were times when he fucked me from behind when I wished he would pull my hair and wrap his hand around my throat, to squeeze while pushing me to the very edge of what my body could take. I wanted him to tie me up, to make my body his playground, and to not hold anything back.
Some mornings I would stare at my naked body in the mirror, wishing I could see the bruised evidence of how thoroughly he had used me. I wanted him to paint my body with his pleasure, branding me, marking me as his. But he never did.
It was a part of me I suppressed every day, a part of me I didn't want to acknowledge. Like Nico had said earlier, it was all things society had dubbed as taboo, twisted and completely unacceptable.
And now, during the most fucked up time in my life, stuck in this horrific situation, the man who held me prisoner managed to make all those cravings and desires come back up to the surface.
Nico turned around and walked out of the room, leaving me alone with all the other men. For some reason I found it horrifying, being there without him.
When Damon approached me earlier, swearing at me, degrading me, threatening me, Nico stepped up and put a stop to it. Not that I think he was in any way concerned about my safety, but rather it being more a way of showing little brother who was in charge.
But still…I was secretly grateful. The entire time Damon had his hands on me I was wound so tight that my entire body went rigid, my wrists twisting in the cuffs, the metal slicing through my skin.
A smile crept up at the corner of his mouth, and his gaze dropped to my neck. When he lifted his hand, touching the spot where his mother's knife had nicked me, I shivered, never taking my eyes off him.
"You like pain." He kept on staring at the cut on my neck, his finger still softly touching my flesh.
I snorted. "What kind of person likes pain?"
"The kind of person who craves the rush of being forced toward the edge." He lifted his hand, his thumb carrying a tiny drop of blood. "The kind of person who desires to be pushed past her own limits."
The low hum of dark, sexual allure that hung around his every word sent a wave of electricity down my spine the way he had managed to sum up my entire past in two sentences boggled my mind.
Crave the rush of being forced to the edge…desires to be pushed past her limits.
That was me. That was my deepest, darkest desire for almost my entire adult life to have someone push my body, force me to go beyond what I thought I was capable of.
Yet I never allowed myself to embrace that part of me, never sought out the kind of person who would be able to satisfy that need deep within me which is why I ended up giving it to myself, by slicing through my own skin.
"You don't know me," was all I could say between clenched teeth.
"Oh, but I do, little pet." His palm touched my cheek, and he touched my lips with his thumb, staining my mouth with my own blood. "The scars on your thighs speak volumes."
Even though my mind urged me to jerk away from his touch, my body refused. The way his touch ignited a fire across my skin was too enticing, and I silently cursed my own fucking body for liking it.
He leaned closer. "Enjoy the rest of your evening, Miss Falcone."
When his palm left my cheek, I shuddered. The thought of being alone again, not having him close terrified me.
"No, please. Wait."
What the hell am I doing?
He gave me a sideway glance before turning back toward me. "Something I can do for you, Miss Falcone?"
"Please…don't…don't leave me alone."
The words burned the inside of my mouth, the fact that I was begging my captor not to leave.
But I couldn't let him walk away again, leaving me at the mercy of all the men around me, at the mercy of Damon.
A wicked grin spread along his face, the five o'clock shadow he had when I saw him the first time now a slightly longer, neatly trimmed beard.
"You think you're safer with me?"
"No, yes I don't know."
A few swift steps and he was right in front of me again, his eyes beaming down with amusement.
This close, right here, right now the resemblance between him and Nikolai momentarily took my breath away.
The only thing tearing them apart was the scar around Nico eye, adding more danger, more treacherous substance to the already nerve-racking intimidation that seemed to reach for the wretched decadence hidden deep within my soul.
There was also the elongated pupil that seemed to demand my attention every time I looked into his eyes.
"Which is it, lila? Yes, or no?"
I struggled to think, my mind a battlefield of thoughts that had no place inside my mind in the first place. Thoughts of Nikolai and the long nights we spent together.
Then thoughts of Nico, wondering no, knowing that he was the type of man who could give me what I've wanted for so long but it was so fucked up. He wanted to hurt me, wanted to kill me, yet my body was starting to crave him. How was that even possible?
Without warning he reached out, grabbed my ass in the palm of his hand, squeezing hard, his fingers digging into my flesh before slowly moving his hand downward.
With a jerk he pulled my leg up and cradled it between his arm and his hip. The desire that flared inside my core right at that second made me whimper, and made my body weep with desire.
"Do you think you're safer with me than with the rest of these men?"
My body overruled my mind, and I answered a soft, subtle, "Yes."
He slanted his head to the side, his irises almost completely black. "Wrong answer."
And then there was fire. It scorched my skin as I felt the slice of a blade across my inner thigh. I winced, closing my eyes as the pain suddenly consumed every nerve.
But then there was that familiar rush of relief, of life…of ecstasy and a moan escaped me, loving the way my desire and the pain all came together in a blast of twisted pleasure.
"Fuck," he cursed, and I opened my eyes only to see him stare down at the tiny trace of blood easing out of the wound, a wound he inflicted with the silver razor he still held in his other hand.
He cut me.
Nico cut me…and I loved it.
He looked up, and I saw the hunger that consumed him the same hunger that now burned inside me, hankering for more.
"You think you're safer with me, lila…but you're not. I'm the one you should stay away from, the monster you should fear."
The way he let go of my leg was as if touching me had caused him pain. Like he was the one who had been cut, and not me. He placed the rope back into my mouth and walked away.
The wound on my thigh pulsed with a stinging ache, but it felt good, liberating, bringing my insides to life and it felt even better knowing that Nico had been the one to inflict it.
What kind of twisted, warped person was I? What was wrong with me, with my body for wanting more, for wanting him to not walk away from me? For him to rather come back…and do it again?