NINA “Oh my god, what if he bit me?!” “He won’t. Stand still. Maybe he’ll make you his new friend.” I stood still and Ark crept closer like he could understand what Olezka was saying. My gaze locked on the beast towering beside me, afraid that he’d stand over me and just bite my head off. But instead the dog sniffed my furry slippers that Lachlan had bought half a dozen pairs of, after I had endured new cuts on my feet. He was extra like that.The dog pulled my attention back to him as he slid even closer, sniffing my hands and the journal. I waited, holding my breath, and after a beat and a rub of his head along my thigh, he circled me once and twice, before he finally sat down near my feet, his tail flicking against my leg. “Well, look at that...” Olezka said, a flicker of surprise in his tone. “I was right. He wanted to befriend you.” “Do you think I can pet him?” I asked. Now that he had settled and hadn’t bit me, I wanted to run my fingers through his soft dark fur.
NINA It has been a week since that chase in the forest. And since then Jeremiah has been avoiding me.Me? I have been taking every chance to goad him, to rattle him and get on his nerves.I didn’t know what has happened to me but something had snapped inside me since that night, a part of me has become fearless because I saw the truth he didn’t want me to see. He wanted me.And maybe that’s why I have been having such visceral dreams about him touching me and pleasuring me, and painting me in his come. It started a week ago, when I had woken up, I was alone in my bed and not only covered in all the bruises from the night before but also their combined scents. And ever since I was having all these dreams where not only Lachlan but Jeremiah was also touching me, kissing me, licking me and fucking me. Sometimes it felt so real like I could taste him on my lips and tongue.But even though my feelings have become so complicated where my husband was concerned, and I felt that an impenetr
Flashback Continued...JEREMIAHWhen her sobs finally subsided, I told her to meet me in her room. And then, I waited on the terrace until I heard her footsteps slowly fade, leaving me alone in the silence she left behind.It took me a moment to gather myself. To suppress the rage. The guilt. The cold twist in my gut that told me I had almost lost her. And when I finally did, I myself went down to her room. There, I waited for her to come back, and the moment she stepped inside looking like a ghost of herself, I locked the door and scooped her up in my arms.I carried her to the bed and sat down with her in my lap, cradling her the way no one ever cradled me. And I doubted anyone ever gave her the same softness that I was missing in my childhood. It seemed we both were deprived of parents that shoukd care for us.She curled into me, her tears still silently flowing as she pulled her knees to her chest, trembling so badly I felt it in my bones. I pulled the blanket over her and tight
Flashback #7JEREMIAHThe moment I stepped into her bedroom, I knew she wasn’t there.The air felt hollow.The room too still.Her absence was like a physical thing in the room with me.And as I stood there for a moment, staring at her empty bed, I could see that the sheets were untouched and the pillow bore no imprint. I wondered where she was because I knew she wasn’t in the bathroom either. I didn’t know how but I could sense her absence and just the same way I could sense that something was wrong.A muscle ticked in my jaw.I didn’t want to admit it out loud, even to myself, but I had missed her.Her dark eyes, with that speck of silver. The curve of her lips when she smiled at me like I was something more than a monster. The way her small body curled into mine when she let herself be soft, trusting me to protect her, clinging to me like I was all she needed. And her sweet kisses— those innocent, needy, messy kisses that always left me undone.And, I missed it all. I had to go ba
JEREMIAH My phone rang on the nightstand, slicing through the dark hush of my bedroom. Startling me from my thoughts of my wife while I stood near the windows, staring down at the silver swept woods, thick and still under the night sky. My fingers gripped the glass of vodka I had poured myself. But I wasn’t really seeing anything. All I saw was her. The ghost of her mouth on mine. That fucking kiss that happened so suddenly and out of nowhere. It had kept me awake. It had made it impossible for me to fall asleep. I couldn’t, not when my mind went again and again to my wife and how she had unravelled beneath me in the forest, under my bruising touch and painful knife. And then she had kissed me. She had kissed me! And I had seen in her eyes that she had wanted to. The look in her dark eyes, that spark of silver in them had reminded me of the time when she’d rush into my arms like I was her salvation. Her entire fucking world. She used to kiss me like I was her oxyg
Flashback Continued....NINA I sat near the window, knees drawn to my chest, arms looped around them like they were the only thing holding me together. My eyes were fixed on the moon, round, silver and silent. But it wasn’t the moon I was seeing.Behind my eyelids, burning into the back of my skull, was the nightmare I couldn’t shake. The horror of what happened two nights ago. It played again and again like a broken film reel, rewinding without mercy. And taking a piece of my soul every time it did.The cold metal stirrups still haunted me. The humiliation of being forced to undress under the eyes of the men which included my father. While he had tried to avert his gaze, Zaman and his father had looked. They had stared at me with their leering gazes when the doctor had undressed me with forceful hands because I wouldn’t comply. I had tried to fight them but they had held me down like I was a cattle subjected to their whims. Their cruel fingers digging and making me feel less than a