Page 33 of Depraved

With parted lips and rapidly blinking eyes, she stared up at me in fear. But there was something else hiding in the blue swirls of her irises, giving me the same feeling I got whenever she stared at me from her bedroom window. It gnawed at my bones, an exhilarating feeling of desire that made my groin ache. That was the best part of our midnight visits to the commissioner’s house, the desire she managed to radiate from two fucking floors up. It was toxic, yet addictive. Every goddamn time it felt the same. Powerful. Sinful. Bewitching. And every night I looked up at the girl in the window, I knew the day would come that my addiction to it would ruin me. Now, while I looked into her eyes, it warned me the time was nearing. My ruin was approaching fast.

At the brink of losing control, I yanked her to the side, loving the whimpering sounds that came out of her mouth. I pushed her down into the chair that stood in the corner, her tiny body slamming into the wooden seat.

“What are you doing?” Her voice was a plea even though she tried to sound fierce.

I grabbed some of the rope that was left on the floor and tied her wrists to the chair.

“Please don’t. Don’t do this.”

“It’s already done.”

Round and round and round, I tied the rope, tightening it, watching her flinch as the fibers cut into her flesh. It had to be this way. I had to teach her a lesson. She was not allowed to disrespect me or think she had the balls to fight me, or all this would be shot to shit. Plus, her fight was fucking with my resolve by making this all way more fun than it was supposed to be. It would make me lose control, something she wasn’t ready to handle.

I made quick work of tying her ankles to the chair as well before moving in behind her. “Try not to squirm or scream. The rope will tear through your flesh if you do.” She moaned when I placed the rope between her lips, and the sound made the tip of my cock throb.

Of course, she squirmed. Of course, she tried to scream. By the time I had moved back in front of her, there was already tiny beads of blood at the corners of her mouth. God, I loved witnessing this newfound fight of hers come to the surface.

“I’m going to get you something to eat, and even if it means I have to force it down your throat, you will eat whatever I give you.” About to walk out, I turned halfway and winked at her. “Don’t go anywhere.”

It probably wasn’t necessary to tie her to the chair. But I had to do something in order to regain control. Even though I loved her fight, I had to show her who had the true power here. It was the only way. If there was even a tiny part of her believing she had the strength to fight me, I might as well just give up right here, right now. None of us were fucking saints. Me, the least. To lie, to cheat, to steal and manipulate in order to get what I wanted wasn’t beyond me. I’d do it all in a heartbeat. I’d do it all for her.

I stormed to the kitchen, flung open the fridge, and grabbed the first two things I could find. A beer and some leftover mac and cheese. I was sick of this shit. This woman needed to eat something. She needed to pack some meat on those goddamn bones of hers. Her dad was a fucking coward for not standing up to her mother, allowing it to get out of hand. The fucker saw how his daughter was starving herself, how her mother was pushing her. Fuck. I didn’t even live there, and I knew. It didn’t take a special kind of stalker to figure it out.

“Granite, there you are.”

I closed the fridge and turned to face Onyx. “What?”

“He’s on the phone.”

“Who?”

“The PC, man. It’s the call we’ve been waiting for.”

I cursed. The whole goddamn morning I waited for that fucking phone call, and the fucker decided to call now. Now, when I really, really wanted to shove some food down Alyx’s throat.

I glanced from the food in my hand to Onyx. “You take the call.”

“What?”

“I got shit I need to deal with now.”

“What? Like eating lunch? Come on, man, this is the call we’ve been waiting for. The PC specifically asked to talk to you.”

I gave him a knowing look before rounding the kitchen table. “You can talk to him. Just set up the fucking meeting.”

“Granite—”

“Onyx.” I stopped and looked at him. “You’re the fucking VP. Start acting like it. Take the damn call.”

I stomped off, and Onyx called out, “You’re crazy, man!”

“Yeah. Don’t I know it.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

ALYX

I refused to cry. Not again. He’d already stolen too many of my tears and didn’t deserve another. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself this couldn’t be it, this couldn’t be the man I’d been watching for years, the more he gave me reason to believe it was. It really was him. And I really was wrong. In my head, I made him out to be something he wasn’t. He was nothing but a man with evil running through his veins. A man who would take and destroy and not give a shit. A man with nothing but a cruel heart that beat inside his chest—that was if he even had one.