Chapter Eighteen
“A-Aiden?”
My heart lunges in my chest, beating sporadically against the hood of the car.
Hiscar.
The dim light coming from around the corner doesn’t allow me much vision, but I feel him.
It’s impossible not to when I smell his clean, unmistakable scent mingling with the rain.
The bottom of my stomach hurts with that strange awareness I always had for him.
That damn awareness is like an incurable disease refusing to leave my body.
I try to lift my head and look at him, but he smashes my cheek back down against the wet hood.
“What are you doing —”
He grabs a fistful of my hair harshly. “Shut the fuck up, Elsa.”
I whimper around the pain ripping at my skull and the uncomfortable position he’s forcing me into. The car’s cold, wet metal digs into my stomach the more I try to move.
When I open my mouth to say something, he pulls me up by my hair so I’m staring at his dark eyes.
His plain black T-shirt is soaked, sticking to his muscles like a second skin. The rain forms rivulets down his hard face, his strong jawline and the bump on his lips due to his fight with Xander.
He appears angry.
No. Lethal.
It could be because of the dark or the rain or the desolate streets, but a chill of terror spreads over my skin.
This is Aiden’s true form. The soulless, unfeeling psycho.
“Shh, not a fucking word.” His left eye twitches. “You don’t want to test me right now.”
My lips tremble and it’s not because of the cold or the rain.
“Aunt is just upstairs.” I try to threaten. “She’ll come down for me.”
His lips brush my ear as he whispers in a cruel voice, “Then why aren’t you screaming?”
Before I can think about that, he bites the shell of my ear. Hard. So hard that I think he’s after my flesh.
I shriek, but his hand clamps around my mouth, turning it into a muffled, haunted sound.
The type victims make when they’re kidnapped in the middle of the night.
“Do you like blood on your hands?” he asks with a dark, chilling tone.
My back snaps at the image.
Blood on my hands.
In my hair.
In my —
“If I killed Xan today, it would’ve been all because of you.”
I mumble against his hand, but he only pulls me harder by my hair. “Do you know that I feel murderous when someone touches you? Is that why you pulled that fucking stunt?”
I shake my head, tears rimming my eyes and mixing with the pouring rain.
God. He’s a psycho. A sick sonofabitch.
Then why am I not fighting?
Fucking fight, Elsa. You’re a fighter.
My limbs remain locked in place no matter how much I beg them to move.
“Answer me.”
I mumble an unintelligible sound. He’s blocking my mouth, how the hell am I supposed to answer?
“Scream or fight and I’ll fuck you raw against the car until the entire neighbourhood learns my name. Understood?”
I swallow, nodding once.
He removes his hand from my mouth, but he pins me to the hood of the car with a strong hand around my nape.
“You’re using Kim against me,” I pant, my voice hoarse and raw. “Is it such a surprise that I’d decide to use your friend against you?”
“Hmm. Maybe I should get rid of all said friends.”
My ears ring at his dispassionate tone. He’s… serious. They’re not his friends in the way Kim is to me. If they pose any threats to his plans, they become disposable.
Absolutely nothing.
His complete disregard for human emotions is scary.
No. It’s terrifying.
What’s more horrifying is the fact that someone of his calibre has this sick fixation on me.
“You started those rumours about me.” Shut up. Shut up, don’t provoke him. No matter how much I reprimand myself, the words won’t stop spilling like venom from my throat. “It’s because of you I’m labelled a slut. It’s because of you no one approaches me.”
“And no one will.” He’s at my face, so close that we breathe each other’s air. “Do you know why, sweetheart?”
“Why?” I murmur.
“Because you were always mine. You just didn’t know it yet.”
He yanks my dress up and air slaps my bare thighs, causing goosebumps to erupt all over my skin. I clamp my eyes shut as he pulls my boy shorts down, leaving me naked and exposed to the rain and his merciless gaze.
“If you were going to take what you wanted anyway, why did you ask me to be yours? Was it a mindfuck? A play? Did it turn you on to see me hanging onto false hope, thinking I had a say in anything you do to me?” I choke on the words. My voice is so emotional, so angry, that I feel it crackling down like thunder with the raindrops.
“I told you. That was your chance to make the first move, but I was right. You don’t want nice. You want me to take your will, don’t you?”
“Get off me, you sick bastard.”
“You’re sick with me, sweetheart. You’re so wet, I can smell you in the fucking air.”
He thrusts a finger inside me and my ears heat with shame when he finds no resistance.
No pressure.
No nothing.