Mind to Bend (Stolen Obsessions Book 1)

I knew Shane didn’t want me to overhear his conversation, and the part of me that wanted to please him was almost powerful enough to keep me moving. I was only in the hall because I was hungry and heading to the kitchen for a piece of fruit or something I could mindlessly snack on while I flitted around, recovering from the night’s antics. But when I heard them discussing me, I had to listen.

He killed Tim.

They said many things that should scare me, things I should be focusing on, but those words ring over and over in my head. My thoughts spin as I try to piece together how fucked my life is—how fucked I am. Tim is dead. It’s my fault, and no matter what he told Pax, I’m next.

Unsure of how I’m not in a full-blown panic attack, I run down the hall toward the foyer and away from Shane’s office. My only saving grace is that Shane didn’t see me, but I know Pax did. I listened behind the door only long enough to be sure of what I heard, but I ran when those reptilian green eyes connected with mine. I listened to the critical parts: the man I’ve been screwing these past weeks, living in sin-soaked ecstasy with, killed my husband and kidnapped me. It takes everything in me not to hurl my guts up.

The door to the office kicks open, and I tuck myself behind a ridiculous marble statue at the last possible second. Convinced I’ve succeeded, I let out a breath as Pax moves past me, but when he gets to the door, he looks right at me, and he fucking winks. Pax continues, leaving said door open behind him. He didn’t say a word, but I could hear him in my head beckoning me to run.

I’m not stupid enough to think this guy wants to help me. He wants to complicate matters for his cousin, but it’s my best chance. I already know the clothes Shane provided me with are refined and luxurious and unsuitable for any outdoor exhibition. I have a soft pair of slippers on my feet, but they’re the only footwear I have, except for the other colors to match the silky slips and shifts Shane prefers me to wear.

It’s spring but still early, and we’re in the mountains. I’ve been outside a few times for fresh air, and it’s never been warm. Shane wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and held my hand each time. While it was happening, it felt romantic; now, it feels frightening and possessive.

He killed Tim.

Shane has left me nothing to make my escape likely or probable. This is as good as it gets, and with that thought, I bound out of the house and run for my life.

It’s colder than I feared outside. The day is gray and overcast, lacking any extra warmth that might come from the sun rays. It’s fine. I feel so cold inside I might as well be dead. At that thought, I fly down the incredible staircase, praying to a God I’ve forsaken that I don’t go tumbling ass over teakettle.

If Shane catches me, he will figure out why I ran, and I have no clue how long he plans to let me live once we both know he killed Tim. There’s a massive difference between feeling dead and being dead.

I manage to keep my slippers as I dart through the manicured lawn and garden, but that doesn’t last long. We’re even higher up on the mountain than I realized. I hoped the incredible views from my window were overstating things a little—they weren’t. The terrain is rough. I’m not used to running on an incline or scaling mountains, and the landscape here is steep and rocky. I lose the slippers before I’ve gone a hundred yards.

I’m fast because I ran track in high school. But that was a long time ago, and I was never known for the more intense displays of strength that comes with the sport. I’m not pole vaulting anytime soon. Panting, out of shape, and wheezing, I curse myself for not running anymore. How did I let Tim take something so simple from me?

Someone could see you and tell them where we live.

Pine trees stick up, forcing me to dodge them, but their thin branches still scratch and tear at my skin. I’m crying, but the tears are drying on my cheeks with the wind whipping at my face.

My foot catches a sharp rock, the jagged stone breaking through my skin. I cry out, unable to stop myself from the sudden pain. The rock doesn’t dislodge, and each panicked step is agony. My hot blood flows, slickening each of my steps and removing my traction, making my stride even less sure than it was before. I’m slowing, exhausted, agonized, and miserable. But then Shane shouts my name.

His outraged voice rips down the side of the mountain, and I’m stunned by how it vibrates around me. I push myself despite the pain because I’m confident the last thing I want is for him to find me.

My tears pour as I move through the trees and rocks. I’m slowing, and I know I can’t keep this up for much longer. The pain is intense. Rocks, debris, and only God knows what else is packed inside the injury by the force of my steps. I need to hide, find a place to rest, and let him calm down enough to slow his search before I have a chance to get out of here.

But I never get the chance.

His body collides with mine, out of nowhere. I would have heard him coming if it weren’t for my panting and mewling, pained noises. If I thought for a moment the time we spent together would make him soft on me, Shane forcibly removes that illusion as my body collides with the hard stone.

My head spins from the impact, but his hand braces the worst of the force on my skull. The protective gesture doesn’t last. That same hand moves to the back of my hair, gripping tight and forcing my face even harder into the rough and sharp stone. He’s on top of me, feral noises spilling from his mouth. The entirety of his weight presses into my back like a death sentence.

My thin nightgown clings to my sweat-soaked body, and now that I’ve stopped running, I’m freezing. The only warm parts of me are the points of contact between us. Shane gasps, not saying anything as he watches me. I can see his face, but I can’t look at him, which doesn’t matter since his incensed eyes soak up my tears as surely as the stone beneath me.

He still hasn’t said anything as he moves the hand on my hair to my neck and squeezes. I look at him now, terrified by this turn of events, except I don’t find the kind of blind rage on his face that I saw when Tim choked me. His ocean-blue eyes consume me, and a silent snarl twists his features. Everything about this is so unlike Shane. He’s always speaking, always guiding me through what’s happening, and I am sure that even if he killed me, he would describe his actions as I died. I wonder if this is how Tim died.

I don’t have the breath to ask, and he doesn’t seem inclined to answer my unspoken questions. Instead, he’s silent as he squeezes until I see stars. I’ve never been so afraid, never felt so small and helpless, and that’s saying something. I’m mortifyingly wet, and I can’t even begin to understand why my life being in danger arouses me, but fuck, it does.

This world is not worth it. None of this is worth it. I’ve never seen quite so clearly how fucking redundant my existence is.

Shane loosens his grip, and I breathe in a rush of oxygen. My nipples harden, and I’m tingling from head to toe, buzzing like I’m high, and aching for relief from this unbearable tension coiling inside me. My stupid body thinks if he fucks me, I’ll be safe. Or maybe I am that messed up.

I have enough sanity and breath to choke out, “Just kill me, just kill me like you killed Tim.”

My words dig at him, I can see it on his face, and I think he will end me. I’m not going to face myself or the way I hate the things I’ve done and the person I became. I don’t think about the afterlife, I spent most of my actual life doing that, and I figure I will find out soon enough.

Even though I’m fucking terrified, I’ve accepted my death.

Except, he doesn’t kill me.

He closes his hand again and brings me to the edge of unconsciousness. When I’m about to pass out, he lets me breathe. This time he shoves his tongue roughly against mine and tastes my panicked breaths. The next time he chokes me, his tongue finds my ear, and his teeth clamp tightly around the lobe.

A humiliating slew of noises tumbles out of me while he’s still silent. His disgusted expression looks closer to hatred than lust, which is devastating, but he’s using my body, and I can’t help its response to him. My hips are bucking, and I don’t want to stop myself. They still as he steals enough of my air for things to start going black.

I can’t take this. My nerves are shattering while Shane controls my breath and repeatedly takes me to the edge of unconsciousness. I’m sopping wet, almost unconscious, and in the seconds I can think, I hate us both so goddamn much.

I do pass out, and when I wake up, I’m still on the cutting rocks. Only a minute or two must have passed, but Shane’s got my soaked nightgown up around my hips and propped my knees up. The stones dig into my knees, but he doesn’t even pause at the pathetic sounds I make. I feel the cold breeze on my cunt, and I’m not surprised he’s going to fuck me one more time before he kills me.

Maybe he’ll fuck you after too. A small, insidious voice whispers from the back of my mind.

I’m afraid of dying, but who isn’t? I’m so scared of Shane. What I’m not afraid of is his cock inside me, and I find myself responding to the conditioning. I grind myself against him. I might as well come one more time before I go, and that fucked-up part of me that loves danger knows it will be the best of my limited experience.

“I’m relieved you still want me to take that cunt, Angel. But that won’t do for your punishment.”

The sound of his voice almost breaks me. First, I’m so relieved I almost cry, but then his words sink in.

Punishment, not death.

A finger probes my tight ass, and I shiver as his spit slips between my cheeks. That finger dips inside, gently at first, and I’m not in pain so much as humiliated by my position and the saliva dripping over me. When he shoves his entire finger in, I moan—I like what he’s doing to me.

But that doesn’t last.

Shane spreads my ass cheeks, spits once more on my last virgin hole, and plunges his much too-large cock deep inside me. Burning agony doesn’t begin to describe it. It hurts so bad that my vision blackens around the edges as it did when he choked me. My strangled screams turn my stomach worse than the pain.

“Exactly, Angel. That’s exactly how I felt when I realized you ran from me.”

His fingers dig into my hips, leaving bruises as he forcefully stuffs his cock deep into my ass. That swell of relief at his voice crashes into me again, and I curse my stupid heart for trusting him.

“Please, stop!” I scream. It hurts so fucking bad I want to die. It hurts so fucking bad I regret running. It hurts so bad that when I register my own juices dripping down my thighs, I know I am broken.

His hips still, but he’s deep inside me, stretching me further than ever.

“You told me you didn’t want a safe word. You told me you didn’t want consent. Now you’re going to learn your lesson.”

I did say those things after he told me he planned to take my virginity. And that turned me on so badly I didn’t even consider the consequences; I just fucked him.

“Shane, it hurts, please.”

“Do you want a safeword, after all, Angel?”

“Stop!” I scream at the top of my lungs. Part of me wants him to, and the other can’t bear to establish the boundary of a safeword with him. I want Shane to abuse my boundaries.

“Seraphina, you need this. You need to understand who you belong to and what happens to you when you run.”

He’s sheathed inside me, and he starts moving again. The smacking sound of his balls colliding with my cunt humiliates and arouses me, but the pain is intense.

“It hurts!” I wail, wishing more than anything I had avoided this, even if that meant staying in the house while trying to bide my time. Hell, even if that meant staying with the man who killed Tim. And why couldn’t I say I wanted a safeword?

Because you don’t want one.

I’m crying hard, tears pouring down my cheeks, and he’s pumping himself into my ass. I don’t even know if he’s enjoying it. He’s not grunting how he usually does, and he’s not filling my ears with his pretty filth.

“I hate that you made me do this to you,” he says, answering my unspoken question. “I’m not going to come from this, Seraphina, but you are. You’re going to come so hard, you’ll see God right before I rip my cock out of your ass and remind you that I’m the Devil and you’re in hell.”

I can’t believe his control as he does what he said he would. His cock is as hard as the rocks beneath me, but he doesn’t even look at me. I’m so tight around him that it’s agony, and even though I know who he is now, his indifference hurts the worst.

I’m his perfect, pretty slut. I’m his whore.

Another voice screams in the back of my mind—the voice he put there during our twisted sessions.

You need to please him! The desperate voice wails, and it feels like I’m dying when I glance over my shoulder and see how little he cares for this, for me.

Shane tilts my hips so that his cock doesn’t go as deep. Of course it still aches, but in this position, his cock rubs at something pleasurable deep inside me.

Oh fuck.

At the same time, he reaches around the front of me and plays with my clit. The pleasure is intense, mixed with all the pain. My body is desperate for the relief an orgasm will bring, and my mind is desperate to please him even though I hate myself with every fiber of my being. Just like the well-trained whore I am, I go off like a rocket, my empty cunt pulsing desperately, wishing his fingers were inside while my overstuffed ass clenches around him.

True to his words, Shane doesn’t come; he brings me to see God before ripping his cock out of my ass and reminding me that he’s the Devil and I’m in hell.