Page 34 of Soul to Possess

Before Atticus had broken into my room, I’d already been thinking about the novels. The ones where things like that happened—where women were taken, claimed, pushed past the brink and remade into something new. I’d read those stories in secret, convinced myself they were fantasy, nothing more. But now I wasn’t so sure.

Was that why it felt so… hot?Had I primed myself for him? Set the stage with my own lust in the shower and again in the middle of the night, then left the door wide open in my mind for a man like him to walk through? The thought made my stomach churn—half with shame, half with something darker. Something needier.

My brain wouldn’t stop spinning, dragging me in loops I couldn’t make sense of. Every time I landed on an answer, it unraveled into more questions.Why didn’t I stop him?What does that say about me?Do I want more?The worst part wasn’t that I didn’t have the answers. It was that I wasn’t even sure I wanted them.

But one question rose to the top, louder than the rest:Do I want his help?Because he’d offered it—clearly, unequivocally. Not in words, but in presence. In pressure. In possession. His body around mine was a promise:I’m not letting go.And if the way he was curled against me now meant anything, there was no point pretending he’d let me walk out of here without a fight. That door had closed the moment I didn’t say the mans name while he was fucking me.

And still… there was a piece of him missing. A part he was hiding behind those emerald eyes and that sickeningly calm voice. I couldfeelit—just beneath the surface, just out of reach. Something broken. Something dangerous.

I pushed at his arm, gently, trying to ease the tension in my legs. They ached with the dull throb of overuse. My body was sore, not just from sex, but fromhim. From the violence of his need and the silence of my own.

Even the place between my thighs pulsed with awareness, the kind of ache that bordered on pain. I hadn’t had sex—realsex—in so long that I wasn’t sure how much of the soreness was from force and how much was from sheer unused sensitivity. But it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. That thoughtalone disturbed me. Shouldn’t it have hurt more? I pushed at him again.

He stirred behind me, but instead of letting go, his arm tightened like a chain. And for reasons I didn’t want to unpack yet, the part of me that had panicked only moments ago… went still again.“Why’re you shoving me, Bluebell?” His voice was rough with sleep, gravel and warmth all at once—and I hated the way it made something flutter low in my stomach. “I’ll tie you back up if I need to.”

I should’ve been afraid. Maybe I was. But my lips betrayed me, curving slightly as I answered, “I just need to move my legs. They’re aching.”

In an instant, the weight lifted from my stomach. His hands slid down to my hips, steady and sure, pulling me back against him like he’d missed me during the few inches we’d spent apart.I shifted onto my back, the tension in my thighs easing. For a moment, it almost felt… normal.

But then his nose brushed just behind my ear, and he inhaled like he needed to memorize me from the inside out. A sharp tingle danced across my skin in response. God.Whydid my body react like this to him? After everything?

“Better?” he murmured, arm locking tight around my waist like a promise I hadn’t asked for.

“Yeah,” I said, voice small, hesitant. “That’s… much better.”

I didn’t know where to look. Shame twisted inside me. Not for what he’d done—but for the fact that I didn’t immediately push him away. That I didn’t demand space or scream for Marvin or run barefoot out the front door. Iwantedto tell him to leave. But the fear was still there, tucked behind my ribs like a bruise: if I asked the wrong thing, would he tie me up again? Would he drag me back into that place where yes and no blurred into something else entirely?

And worse—would a part of me let him?

I needed space. Desperately. Space to think. To breathe. To figure out who the hell I even was after last night. But I couldn’t find the words. Everything I wanted to say sat frozen in my chest, unspoken and heavy.

It all felt surreal, like I was hovering somewhere above my body, watching it all from a distance. What happened last night didn’t feel like somethingIdid. It felt like something that had been donetome… or maybethroughme. I didn’t know. All I knew was the memories wouldn’t stop coming—unwelcome, vivid, and tangled in the heat of my own betrayal.

And he was still holding me. As if nothing had changed at all.

Chapter Eighteen

The smell of coffee hit first—warm, bitter, familiar. It drifted through the hall like nothing had happened. Like it was any other morning. Like I hadn’t just spent the morning pinned under a man who broke in, broke me, and then curled around me like a goddamn safety blanket. The bed was empty. The weight of him—gone.

I blinked at the ceiling, waiting for the rush of panic or shame to hit again. But all I felt was numb. I sat up slowly, pressing a palm to my forehead. My thighs ached. My mouth tasted sour. And my skin prickled with the ghost of hands that had no business feeling as gentle as they had after being anything but.

For a second, I wondered if I’d imagined it. If maybe the lines between fantasy and memory had blurred so completely that I’d conjured the entire night in some kind of fever dream. But when I stood, the dull, throbbing soreness between my legs told the truth. And the faint outline of a bruise around my wrist sealed it. I pulled on the robe that hung behind the door—thick, too-large, probably his—and followed the smell of coffee like I was following a lifeline. Or a noose.

He was in the kitchen, barefoot and humming something low and tuneless. He moved like a man who’d never held anyone down. Like he’d never heard someone gasp beneath him, or beg with their eyes when their mouth couldn’t form words. He cracked eggs with one hand, flipped bacon with the other, and when he looked up at me? He smiled.

“Morning, Bluebell.” He said it like it was some lazy Sunday. Like we’d slept in and made love and now he was making me breakfast because he couldn’t wait to feed me. “You sleep okay?”

I didn’t answer. My voice hadn’t followed me from the bedroom. He took another mug from the cupboard, poured steaming black coffee into it, and slid it across the counter like we did this every day. Like this was routine.

“I made breakfast,” he added, nodding toward the stove. “Bacon’s crispy, just how I like it. You hungry?”

Hungry.The word hit like a slap. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I wasn’t ready to speak—not to him, not to this version of him that was acting like he hadn’t spent the night rewiring my body without my permission. The casual ease in his face made my stomach twist.

Was this it? Was he just going to pretend? Did he think I wanted this now? That I’d been broken in like a new horse and now I’d trot along behind him, grateful for his attention and his breakfast?

“Hey,” he said, rounding the counter. “You okay? You look a little pale.”

He touched my cheek with the back of his fingers—soft, almost reverent. It made me flinch. Just barely. But his eyes caught it. Something flickered there. Brief. A crack in the smooth performance. But it vanished before I could make sense of it.

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