Page 41 of Swallow Your Sorries

The little bitch had tried an Uno reverse.

Tried to mark me, claim me with my own essence on that sweet little tongue of hers.

Did she think it’d repulse me?

Pissme off?

All it did was make me harder because it was so fucking cute.

Everything about her is.

Her lightly freckled face had looked so innocent, her pouty pink lips so soft and wet as they quivered under my boot. I can still feel the subtle recoil of her plump ass trembling against my cock when I brought her into a chokehold, pinning her to my chest. My elbow still tingles from the little pinpricks of her pink nails, so tiny and useless as they dug into my flesh. Her little breathy moans that jiggled her breasts still coo in my ear as do her pathetic whimpers, begging me to stop. To let go.

And when I did, the vision of her terrified face beneath my dick was enough to make me shoot cum on her instead.

What would it have looked like? Decorating her face as she blinked those big, doe-like eyes so filled with feigned innocence up at me. I’m already claiming that innocence, real or not, as my own.

She’s marked.

All mine.

Off-limits to any male.

Had I barred her from the male population simply because, despite it all, I had a heart? Because I didn’t want the brutes to fuck her so badly I would no longer enjoy messing with her myself? Or was it something deeper? Something darker that made me claim her as mine. Something that lurked since the first time I saw her at the studio and crept into my dreams despite my hatred. Something I felt the moment she appeared in that news interview.

When I think about it, my lust isn’t so surprising. I want to dominate her.

I want to thoroughly fuck her, break her ineveryway possible. So why would sex be off the table when it’s the most intimate act humanly possible?

I can spread her wide, reach in, and demolish her insides too.

Mine.It tastes so fucking good on my tongue.She isn’t just my target but my toy, my little doll to ruin. And once I do, my obsession will end.

My flashbacks will go away, and so will the lust.

Then I’ll make her go away, but not before I’m fully satiated.

Beaulieu is my dream. My lifeline, or so she’d said. She won’t leave because of one golden shower. No, it’ll take far more to make her snap, and I don’t want to snap her just yet.

I shift on the dining room bench in an attempt to distract my hardening cock and fish Eloisa’s phone out of my pocket. It’s the same phone I’d gotten her three years ago. I’m astonished that the relic still works, but more than that, I’m impressed by the care she’s given it. It looks brand new, free of scratches and dirt as if it’s her most prized possession.

I hit the power button.

What a dummy.No passcode, yet she had one last time, so what changed?

I stroll through her boring apps as Zedd sets into Stassi over a spread of breakfast items, none of which Stassi has touched.

“Where were you?” Zedd asks, buttering a croissant. “You didn’t come home last night and then this morning you just popped up at school like you weren’t missing for the entire summer?”

“I was with Mum,” Stassi says, avoiding eye contact.

“And she isn’t saying shit, either.”

Opening Eloisa’s contact list, I find less than ten numbers, three of which belong to healthcare workers like Dentist Fairfield. There are three conversation threads from female names, all of which congratulate her on her bogus scholarship. Then there’smum,but nodad.No Jarett Ginhart, who’s been M.I.A for three years.

“You weren’t home last night?” Étienne’s cool voice rings out. He’s talking to Stassi, but he’s fixated on Aria, who’s shrinking before our eyes.

Stassi looks at Aria, her mouth gaping, but no words come out.

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