The Sect (19 page)

I crossed my arms against my nude form, feeling shy again. “My body isn’t a gift.”

“On the contrary, Keaton,” he countered. His response was held with a slight hint of compassion and almost convinced me there could’ve been a human who had real emotions underneath the exterior. “Had you not been through what you had, maybe I’d agree. Right now, I don’t.”

Perplexed, I shifted my weight from the right to the left repeatedly, feeling as though the floor was a sheet of ice. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this.”

“Did you think I was going to force you?” He shook his head, answering his own question. “Give me permission, Keaton.”

“No,” I nearly shrilled, but felt unsure that a man who likely never asked permission for anything was asking it of me. “I don’t want it. I don’t want anything from you.”

“Oh, you do, princess. You want it and you need it.” Stepping forward, he lifted my chin. “He will take you by force and hurt you. I won’t.”

My head began to spin again. I reached out, searching for something to steady myself and wound up with my arms around his neck. “Help me to understand this, Noah.”

He looked at my arms, draped around his shoulders, and fingered the corner of his skewed smile; it faded as quickly as it appeared. “I’ve been where you were, Keaton,” he said, unable to keep my eye contact. “And I think you know what I mean.” He grabbed one of my arms down from his neck and directed my fingertips to touch the scar in his brow. “This isn’t the only thing the asshole left me with. But what I left him with?”

“Did you kill him?”

“Eventually,” he said without a mark of emotion.

Despite his admission to being a killer, I couldn’t stop moving forward as he stepped backward. His pull was a dangerous backdraft, threatening to burn me alive if I opened the door. The man standing before me was slowly dropping his hard exterior to reveal what lay beneath it all, the real Noah. The one I was drawn to from the moment our eyes met across the kitchen. It made me think that while I assumed he was a man in total control, he wasn’t. Reven had gotten inside his head. Reven was obviously very skilled with luring, seducing, and commanding the people he surrounded himself with. Knowing that, my hatred toward Noah for evoking my physical and, at times, mental reactions to him became a little less loathing.

Unfortunately, every time I reached out for him, he would continue to deny me. Frustrated when he pushed me away again, I spoke without trepidation. “Stop doing this. Please. I want to feel what Jayme felt when she was with you.”

Standing still, a brow curved with question. “What do you think she felt, Keaton?”

“She felt wanted…desired. And maybe she felt beautiful.” I held up my hands, making contact with his ribcage. His heart vibrated against my hand, picking up in pace with every passing second I stared at him.
 

“Keaton?” he called, gripping my hips firmly. “She didn’t feel an eighth of what you’re going to feel in about ten seconds. Believe me.”

When I dropped my hand, he rushed forward. His lips pressed against mine, sucking and biting the swell of my lips.
 

He reached down and abruptly spread my legs, thrusting me up in the air to straddle him. He knelt down, placing me down on the floor.
 

His body slid down mine, directing my legs to drape over his shoulders. Without a moment’s detour, his mouth found its way to the sensitive place that ached for him. The shock of his tongue against my clit sent a chill up my spine. The room fell away and I forgot about everything and everyone. The only thing I felt—the only thing that mattered—was this space and this time. I whimpered, my back arching as his tongue lashed around my swelling numb. He sucked at the swollen nub and slipped two fingers inside of me, rocking with the same rhythm he sucked my clit.

My body violently convulsed with pleasure; my hands reached out, searching for something to grasp onto as my body ignited with a burning fire. His fingers moved deftly, thrashing inside me. The sounds of my wetness echoed between us. Something hard and unrelenting coursed through my nervous system. When the pressure released, euphoria overwhelmed me, weakening my body as I fell back and quietly proclaimed what he made me feel.

My eyes jammed tight, unable to open when he slipped up my body and kissed me with a tenderness that made my body churn with opposing feelings. I clasped his head and our eyes locked on one another. “Please. I want it.” My eyes watered as my body continued to tremble. “Don’t make me beg for something I never had.”

“You have it now,” he whispered against my lips. “No one else gets this part of you, it’s only for me.” He pushed into me, hard and fully. “Consider this your first time.” The pain was only slight. I immediately began to adjust to his size. His hand dwarfed my neck as he leaned forward, rocking inside me at a steadily increasing pace.

He brushed his lips up my cheek until he found my ear. He bit it. Hard. My nails dug into his back in as my body tensed so severely my muscles grew sore. His cock slammed into my wet core, coating him in my arousal. My mouth drew open as quiet moans escaped my throat.
 

“No one can hear you,” he taunted me. “Release it to me.” His words were strained as he drove inside me over and over again, going deeper and faster.

No longer restrained, I screamed for him. I begged him never to stop. My body moved into an eerie numbness before a chilling burn took over and devoured me. With my eyes rolled back, I held him tightly, taxing my muscles with a strength as though I feared I’d fall through the concrete. Shaking and trembling, I screamed my pleasure. His thrusts became rigid and harsh. A quiet growl unfurled from deep inside his throat. His warmth expelled, overfilling me and pouring out of me as he continued to move in slow, deep strokes. He slanted forward, kissing me sweetly; a finger stroked down my cheek and fingered a tear as it escaped.

He had evoked a woman inside me I didn’t know was there—maybe it was a woman who was squelched before she could find out who she truly was.
 

“I’ve promised you that I’d keep your secret. I need you to keep mine. Don’t share this with anyone, Keaton, and I’m not talking about just staying silent. Your eyes and your body language have a way of giving you away. I need you to hide it from them. Can you do that?”

Unable to answer, our eyes locked for only a moment before he released me. After pulling out of me, he stood and began to redress. As the feeling he ignited began to burn out, I felt a familiar feeling. Shame washed over me, punishing me with self-depreciating thoughts over what I had allowed to happen, and my unfettered response to what he did to me.
 

I quickly pulled my dress back over my body. He reached in his pocket, retrieving a handkerchief, and tossed it at me. With my eyes down, I cleaned myself up. The swirling inside my gut became a sinking pit of disgust and humiliation. I wanted to hate him, but I couldn’t deny what he made me feel. Sex repulsed me, but I sexually desired him. The contradictory feelings made my head pound.
 

The more I engaged in eye contact with him, the more the lingering thick heat emanated from the both of us.

He immediately stepped backward, holding up his hand. “Don’t make me regret this. I only did it because…Fuck!” He thrust his hand into his hair, his face showing the torment I felt inside. “I don’t remember my reasons anymore.”

“Because you know what it feels like and you knew what he was going to do to me. I hate to say I appreciated it.” I fiddled with my fingers as my hands rested in front of my body. “How can I appreciate what I’d recall as my first time when it was here? Like this. With you. It’s the worst scenario.”

“You’re being a bitch about this, you know?” he snapped, his question obviously rhetorical. “It could’ve been a much worse scenario. Are you always this ungrateful? I saved your ass upstairs. Those men would’ve torn you apart. I saved your ass just now. I continuously save you in ways you don’t even realize. Don’t make Reven right about you; a rich bitch who couldn’t appreciate what she had because she thought some lunatic ruined it for her. Continue to be stupid and you’re going to get yourself killed because you don’t get the point. Jayme is gone,” he pointed to his temple, “but Nadine? You need to take pointers from her.”

“Why?” I snapped, my voice trembling in anger. “Because she’s the most obedient?”

“She’s not brainwashed. What she understands is this: The strong don’t break, they give in only because they need to find a way to survive.”

I glared at him. “Maybe you’re brainwashed, too.”

He charged toward me, throwing me up against the wall so hard, I became dizzy. “Don’t ever fucking say that to me, Keaton. You have no idea what I’ve gone through. But what I’m not—nor will I ever be—is brainwashed.” He released me with a slam.

I swept the tears from my cheeks, angry that they dared to fall. “You do these tiny little things that make me think you might actually be a decent guy, and then turn around and become so cruel. Maybe there is something wrong with me because I keep trying to see kindness in your cruelty. I guess maybe you’re not brainwashed…yet. You’re biding your time, fighting with it. But, that man—Reven—is changing you.” I clasped my head, wondering if my assumptions were off base in an effort to erase what was the truth. “I have to believe that. I have to believe I didn’t spread my legs—willingly or unwillingly—to another monster.” I shook my head as I averted my eyes. “You say I should keep my mouth closed and never let on that something is going on between us, but could you be any more obvious? You weren’t obvious with Jayme. You were very convincing with her, but…”

Frowning, he raised a midnight black brow at me. “I wasn’t obvious with Jayme? Because—I don’t know why the hell I’m telling you this, but—it should’ve been you. I only thought about you. I only wanted you. It’s the only way I could fuck her the way I did.”

“I don’t care.” I tried to sound indifferent, but my voice trembled, revealing something else.
 

“You do. You know it was you I wanted. And you? It makes me a bastard to say this, but I have to say it. Watching your reaction as I screwed another woman, made me harder. You were so jealous and pissed off I could physically feel it. Keaton…I made you crave me just like I said you would.” His hand clutched the back of my head, tangling in my hair and keeping me still. He pressed the palm of his other hand down the middle of my torso, burning me further. A fire in his eyes showed me just how much he wanted me, and I wanted him. I wanted what someone else was given that only I should’ve had.

The seed of fear and the memories of the deplorable things he did to my body choked me.
 

“I want to possess you.” He held me tighter, his lips grazing down the length of my nose. “I want to say that if anyone here tried to force themselves on you, they would die. Not soon, not on your timetable, but trust me, they will die. I want to say that, but I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?” I asked with a sob.

“You still don’t understand how this works,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re pulling Reven’s attention, and the more you pull, the more he will want to control you. Eventually, he will try to find a way to make sure you’ll never see me again.”

My hands were on his back, feeling the scars underneath his shirt. As I touched each one, the strength of his hold began to wane and his blinking slowed. “At this point, in this place, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. There is no such thing as happiness or true friendship here. It seems Reven programmed it to be that way.”

Dropping his hold on me, his head snapped to the door, a frown deepened the lines around his mouth. “Good. Hopefully, you can be more convincing with him than you were with me just now. He thinks he knows everything about me, but he doesn’t. If he knows about you, he’s going to manipulate the way you feel—” He lost his breath and had trouble swallowing. “What happened with Jayme will happen again. If not with her, it will be with someone else. And it will happen to you, too. But it will not be by force. I don’t care what I have to do to make sure that happens, but I’m going to do everything in my power to prevent it.” He kissed my forehead gently, and the heat on my skin made it tingle.
 

His hand wrapped around my throat, choking me. In a panic, I stared up at him, confused and struggling for breath. When I tried to fight him off, he gripped my wrists harshly, cutting off my circulation. The moment my vision began to fuzz over with white spots, he released me. “It had to look convincing,” he said as he eyed my neck. “We don’t want people thinking I brought you in the deprivation room to fuck you, and whisper sweet nothings in your ear to make you look at me the way you are now, do we? Go to your bedroom and wait for instructions in the morning.” He had left me before I had a chance to respond to the massive maelstrom he threw me into.