Fear Me, Love Me

by Lilith Vincent

Dear readers, I am utterly thrilled to bring you yet another walking bouquet of red flags in a sexy suit with a big damn dick. What are we even doing here? Why are we like this? When is he coming over?

If they didn’t want us to crush on the villains, why did they make them so glorious? Jafar. Captain Hook. Kylo Ren. Lucius and Draco Malfoy. Scar. The Opera Ghost.

“So?” “What are you? A hemo-thingy?” Blue T-shirt asks. His friend punches his shoulder. “Dude, there’s no need for slurs. Just say lesbian.”

“What is wrong with you, you crazy bitch?” Hasn’t he realized? Everything

The rule that these boys have broken? I’m only allowed to bleed for him.

Vivienne Stone doesn’t know it, but she has a core of pure steel.

“We’ve never even done anything like this before.” I check the bullets in my gun. “What, rape a girl in a cemetery?”

There’s no need to tempt my beloved into doing something foolish like aiming it at me.

“I know, angel,” I murmur tenderly. “I’m nearly finished.” I never get to be tender with anyone. Whenever I say the words I’m nearly finished it’s usually because I’m torturing someone to death.

I’m making her crazy? She’s the one who’s so lovely and exquisite, and yet she’s not my wife and she’s not pregnant with my baby. Yet.

I finish tending to the gash on her arm and secure the bandage. Now she’s all better, I get to hurt her some more.

Vivienne loves to hurt. I love to make her cry. We’re a match made in hell.

“Say what you said the first time,” Vivienne whispers, her hands covering her face as if she’s afraid of what she’ll see in my eyes. “Vivienne. Look at me.” She hesitates, and then fearfully lowers her hands. I take her chin in my hand and make her look deep into my eyes so she can feel how much I mean this. “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

That’s my girl. That’s my good fucking angel of a girl.

“You’re only for me, angel. I killed that asshole who cut you, and if anyone else touches you, I will put a bullet in his head.”

“I don’t even know why you like me. I’m a mess. I’m ruined.” Vivienne looks down at herself and her eyes suddenly fill with tears. I lick the tears from her cheeks. If an angel can look at a monster like me with so much softness in her heart, then that monster is going to make her believe she’s beautiful. “Like you? I don’t fucking like you. I’m obsessed with you.”

Vivienne understands the world through her fingers, and I’m her favorite thing to touch.

“We make perfect sense, angel. Don’t worry about anyone else. They’ll all get it through their thick skulls when my baby starts to show in your belly.”

If Vivienne won’t ask for Barlow to get our family started, then I’ll fuck my own baby into her right now. Vivienne’s eyes fly open in alarm. “What did you just say? Tyrant, you can’t—” I thrust into her pussy with one swift movement. I can, and I fucking will.

Sex with him hurts, but he knows I love it when it hurts.

“Look at yourself being fucked,” he says raggedly, moving in and out of me. “My angel always looks beautiful, but she’s even prettier filled with my cock.”

“I love it when you touch yourself for me. Have you been humping your pillow and moaning my name?”

“I want it to last.” Being here with him means my world is filled with color and light, which is ironic considering I’m being fucked by the man with the darkest heart in Henson.

“What kind of diamond do you want on your finger?” I glare at him. “Pink? Yellow? How about an emerald? One that matches your eyes. You know what the hottest fucking thing is? Women in long white wedding dresses with a baby bump.”

“I’m a second-year student. I’m nineteen,” I tell him. Tyrant sucks on my nipple again. “Mm. Nice and fertile.” “And you’re…wait, I don’t even know how old you are.” “Thirty-four.” Jesus. Fifteen years older than me, a hardened criminal, and his cock is still lodged inside me. I’m making great life choices.

So you’re just going to have his baby? Someone who’s a bouquet of red flags living a life made from red flags?

Shame has wandered in after Common Sense to add her two cents. How could a man like him want a hopeless mess like you forever? You’re just a cum dumpster to him. He says he’s going to blow his load into you, and you just spread your legs.

“Don’t worry about it leaking out. You should be pregnant by now.” “I’m worried about your car.” The black leather is pristine. It’s a crime to make a mess on it. “Then let me clean you up.”

“Give your boyfriend a kiss good night.” I growl the words like a threat. “You’re not my—” I slam my mouth over hers. She’s right, I’m not her boyfriend. I’m her lover. Her stalker. Her obsessed future husband and the father of her children.

The pharmacist stares hard at his keyboard. “Has your partner taken Plan B before?” My smile widens. “She’s not my partner. Yet. For some reason, this sweet little thing seems to be afraid of me. Do you have any dating tips?”

When I get back into my car, I throw half a dozen carrier bags full of Plan B pills into the trunk. I hope no young couples are making mistakes in the dorms around Henson University for the next week, or their babies are going to be courtesy of Tyrant Mercer.

I don’t like spilling excessive amounts of blood in the Larch Avenue club. It’s a bitch to get it out of the expensive carpets. But the concrete floor here? A few buckets of water sluiced over them and it’s like no one ever died.

Apparently his guilty conscience is eating at him because seeing me has confirmed his worst fears. He’s going to die tonight, and it’s going to be painful.

“Was one of them your daughter? Your girlfriend?” I stand on his throat and lean in close. “She’s the mother of my children. Rot in hell, you piece of shit. Pray I don’t die too soon, because when I follow you down there, I’m going to rip your soul into tiny, painful little pieces while you scream in agony for the rest of eternity.”

Under different circumstances, I might have considered the daughter of an assassin, a murderer, or a scam artist, but I’m not getting cozy with a politician. There is a fucking line.

The matter of my marriage and my future is settled. I’m having Vivienne or no one.

That’s a good one. Love makes us feel alive? I’ve been painfully aware I’m alive my whole life, not lovingly aware.

Every painting we study is about tragedy, blood, violence, despair. In other words, life. That’s the way things are, not the way we pretend they are on birthday cards or in ads for cell phones or Christmas movies.

“Every essay you’ve written for me is about pain, or how suffering is the only emotion that can be trusted.” I frown at her. “That’s not true. I wrote an essay about the joy expressed in Millais’s Ophelia.” “Vivienne,” Colleen sighs, sounding exasperated. “Your thesis was that she was happy because she was about to die.

I’m not about to kill myself if that’s what she’s afraid of. I have plenty of goals and plans for the future. I never cut so deep that there’s no going back.

She wanted to know if something was troubling me, and I could have told her about Tyrant. I could have said, Tyrant Mercer has been forcing me into his car and fucking me raw, and I’m never sure if I said I wanted it to happen. He doesn’t care if I want it to happen.

Everyone knows messed-up people snap together like magnets. My mess is sad girl shit. Tyrant’s mess is intestines and bullets.

Use me. Make me feel like there’s a point to my existence, even if it’s just as a hole for you to fuck.

and he traces his fingers over the spot where we’re joined. “So full of me, angel. My cock, my cum. Beautiful.”

“Scream for help if you want to.” A man has forced his way into my bedroom, tied me up, and started screwing me in my sleep. I should be screaming the place down. “I-I’m fine. Sorry about the noise,”

“I was just, um, doing some yoga.” “Okay. Talk to you later.” Footsteps retreat down the corridor. Tyrant laughs under his breath. “I’m yoga now?”

My eyes slowly close. Bliss. Trussed up, mouth full, and pinned down by Tyrant’s cock is the safest I’ve felt in a long time.

“I’m going to make everything perfect for you, angel. You and this baby are going to have everything you want. All you have to do is give me your life and soul when I ask for it. Are you ready for that? Never question me. Never doubt me. Do everything I say, and I’ll give you everything you want.”

Tyrant’s good girl is being helplessly fucked into the mattress. My pussy is tightening hungrily on his cock. I’m whimpering against the gag. I’m your good girl.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Vivienne?” His voice is shaking with fury. I stop dead in the street, my mind racing. There’s plenty wrong with me, but his tone makes it sound like there’s one specific thing to which he’s referring.