Page 24 of Splintered Desire

Monsters aren’t born; they're made. I really do believe that, but that doesn’t make him any less dangerous or me any less at his mercy.

He holds my gaze as he leans in, pressing his nose to my hair and taking a deep breath, his lids drooping as his eyes roll back in his head for a moment.

Alarm bells go off in my head as I feel his growing hardness press against my ass.

I don’t give myself time to think; I just move.

Spinning around, I don’t even feel the hair that stays tangled in his fingers as I pull away. I hold my breath as I look up at him and find a smile on his face. That’s fine. I intend to handle that for him.

I don’t have a lot of room to move, but I still throw all my weight into my fist and can’t stop the smile that pulls at my lips when I feel it make contact with his smug face.

His head snaps to the side, his hand moving up to hold his jaw before he works it back and forth a few times, and I damn near giggle when I see the line of blood that drips down from his lip.

Serves him right; maybe now he’ll keep his hands and dick to himself.

I half expect him to hit me back, but instead, he finds a way to catch me even more off guard.

He makes a show of licking at the blood running down his chin. The smile pulls at the cut, making it bleed more, which he doesn’t seem to mind at all. He wipes his chin free of anything he can’t get with his tongue before he throws his head back and barks a laugh.

“So much more feisty than I thought!” He sounds excited as he moves toward me, attempting to herd me into the corner, but there isn’t much I can do about it.

Except run.

“It’s not often someone throws a decent punch on the bag and for real. The skills to aim at a moving target are different, so tell me, little sister, who have you been getting into fights with?” His eyes are wide, pupils blown, and his breathing is erratic.

He’s enjoying this way more than he should be.

Without breaking eye contact, he reaches up to rub his thumb over his still-bleeding lip before quickly reaching out to wipe it over mine. I sputter and spit before quickly wiping my arm along my lips and spitting some more.

“Aww, don’t be like that. We’re family now after all.”

I don’t like the way he says “family,” as if it’s something dirty, but I’m too busy trying to make sure I didn’t just ingest his blood to comment.

It’s probably for the best; my mouth tends to get me in more trouble.

The whole time, he hasn’t stopped moving forward, and because of that, I’m still moving back, that is, until my back hits the wall of mirrors behind me.

Fuckkkkk.

Jace is so much bigger than I am; even with his slimmer build, he’s about a foot taller than me. He leans into my space, bracing his hands on the wall on either side of my head, and I can’t breathe.

I don’t like tight places, not in terms of the room's size, but the ability to move freely. His being so close with my back against the wall takes me right back to that day, in the closet, at his mercy.

No!

I shove his chest, not giving myself a moment to enjoy the fact that he stumbles back a step. I take off out of the gym and into the hall. I need to get to my room before I break down into a full-blown panic attack, but my brain is so scrambled I don’t even know where that is. Right now, I’ll settle for simply getting away from Jace.

I force myself to breathe despite the pain it causes me as my lungs burn and my muscles scream. Running after such an intense workout probably isn’t a great idea, but there’s nothing to be done about it now.

As if the universe can hear my thoughts, my leg cramps, and I stumble. My knee hits the ground, but I quickly get my hands out in front of me, half bear-crawling as I stumble and push myself forward.

I make it to the top of the stairs, turning the corner too hard. I slam my shoulder into the wall and let out a whimper of pain before I bite down on my lip.

The last thing I need is to wake up Dad or Diane.

One second, I’m frantically running, my bedroom door in sight. Next, I’m on the floor, the air leaving my lungs in a rush as I bite my lip hard enough to taste blood.

I’m so disoriented that it takes me a second to realize how I ended up on the ground.