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“You can love a monster, it can even love you back, but that doesn’t change its nature.” ~ Eliza Crewe
money and power do not wash away a man’s sins and make him pure. It just buys him a larger closet in which to hide his skeletons.
Did I just step into an alternate reality? Fuck, if so, I hope ice cream is calorie-free here because I’m going to eat a gallon of it when I get home.
Thank you for looking after me, Atlas. I’m lucky you decided you wanted to be my friend.” I smile. “I don’t want to be your friend, Ivy. I want to fuck you.”
“We’ll see about humility, little one, when you’re tied to my bed begging me to fuck you. And you will, Ivy, mark my words.”
He might be older and wiser, but the man will only have power over me if I let him.
Beautiful flowers for a beautiful woman, but you smell far sweeter.
“Roll your eyes at me again, Ivy. I dare you. It will give me the perfect excuse to put you over my knee.”
“I don’t date, Ivy. I fuck. And I intend to fuck you in every conceivable way, but right now I want to eat you out before we get coffee. And something you should know—I hate waiting.”
This thing, whatever is happening between Atlas and me, is moving at warp speed. For a girl who has always been cautious, I question what makes him so different? What is it about Atlas that makes me go from the girl who risk assesses everything to the girl who juggles with grenades?
I have no idea why Ivy affects me the way she does, but I do know I’ll slaughter anyone who thinks they can target her to get to me.
“You can be whoever you need to be out there, but you’ll always be my hero even if the only person you’re saving me from is myself.”
“Stop staring at me.” I point my fork at Atlas after swallowing the mouthful of pancake in my mouth. A mouth he hasn’t taken his eyes off since we sat down for breakfast at the mom and pop cafe I dragged him to. “Stop making those little moans and I’ll stop picturing your lips wrapped around my cock.”
“If anyone touches you, I’ll cut their fingers off and shove them down their throats.”
As stunning as a butterfly oblivious to its demise, she walks toward me smiling shyly, completely unaware of how simple it will be for me to pull off her pretty wings so she can’t fly away.
Her innocence shines to me like a beacon in the dark. Her small frame and barely five-foot stature call to a primal part of me, all of it corruptible by someone evil enough to do so—namely me.
I ease a finger inside her, marveling at how damn tight she is, knowing she’s going to struggle to take my cock, and finding I like that more than I should.
“You are so fucking beautiful. It makes me want to gouge out the eyes of every man who looks at you.”
“You got a little something on your hand, boss,” he remarks. “Hmm…I know. It was dessert.” “Was it good?” Oh my god. Stop talking. Please stop talking. “Oh yeah but then I always did have a thing for cherries.” I’m gonna kill him in his sleep.
How a man can go from fucking me with a knife to washing my hair, I don’t know.
There is a sweetness inside him, a side that wants to nurture and protect, behind the savage ruthlessness he shows the world. But I’m not sure there is an equal balance.
“Tell me, Ivy. Tell me you get me. This body is mine, this heart is mine, and if I have my way I’ll steal your soul from the reaper himself to bind you to me for an eternity. Now tell me you fucking understand me,” he roars.
“You’re mine now, Ivy. It will be my ring on your finger and my seed in your belly. If you try to run from me again, I’ll lock you up, shackle you to me figuratively and literally to keep you by my side. Don’t push me, baby, because you’ll never win, not against me,” he warns me before licking away my tears.
“I’m not a good man, Ivy, but I can be good to you.”
“I don’t do half-assed things. This”—he indicates between the two of us before gripping my hips and pulling me against his erection—“is about as real as it gets. I’ve never felt about anyone what I do for you. I do not give one single fuck how fast it is. When you know, you know. It’s you and me, Ivy. Yesterday, today, tomorrow.”
Would she think I was a deviant or be so fucking turned on she’d spread her legs and welcome me inside?
People who have darkness in their veins are drawn to the light, whether to cultivate it or cut it out from existence.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Looks like I might get a grandkid or two from you after all.”
I feel her heart beating wildly, like a fluttering bird trapped within a cage.
I’m all she needs. It was always part of my plan to alienate her from everyone else because I don’t want to have to share her.
“I’m not a worry wart. I just don’t want you to get ill. If you get sick we can’t fuck.”
“You can push all you want, Ivy, but you’ll have to pry my cold dead fingers off you before I let you go anywhere.”
He would kill, cheat, lie, and steal to get what he wants. There is literally nothing Atlas won’t do to keep me here.
“Do you want the truth or a lie?”
“Over seven billion people in the world and somehow I found the one destined to be mine.”
“So you decided to take my safe haven and destroy it?” “I wanted to be your safe haven!” I yell at her. “I wanted you to need me like I need you. Every day I lived with the knowledge that you had one foot out the door, ready to run, but I couldn’t let that happen. I can’t fucking live without you, Ivy.”
“I fell in love with a monster.” “And he loves you right back.”
Ivy doesn’t need a hero to carry her away, she needs a villain to cut and slay anyone who stands in her path. Lucky for her, a little blood never bothered me.
“Do you want the truth or a lie?”