Aligned: Volume 4 (7 page)

“You want me to slap you, and torture you, and own you.”
 

“Yes.”
 

I watch as his face grows darker and more controlling than I have ever seen. It’s the last thing I see before he flips me over and my body crashes into the couch.
 

He has my hands behind my back and immediately ties something around them to keep them in place. I test the strength, trying to wiggle out of it, but I can’t. I feel the fabric cut in slightly at my wrists as I try to move.
 

His body rises off mine, and I feel lost. Weird how one second of his body off mine will do that to me. And then his hand is ripping my shorts from my body just before his hand slaps my ass again hard. So hard, I cry out again.
 

“I’m going to fuck you so hard,” he says hitting me again.
 

“Oh fuck,” I moan as wetness drips down between my legs. Landon notices too and his hand immediately moves from my ass to my slick folds. He pulls the liquid up to my ass coating it before his hand slaps me again. The sting makes me come alive even more as a wave of emotion washes over me that I’ve never gotten from just the pain alone.
 

His fingers slip back in my seam before moving back to my ass. I moan at his every touch. I moan at every pain.
 

“You like that, baby,” Landon says seductively in my ear as he slaps me again. I pant but can’t catch my breath enough to respond. I feel his lips curl in a smile as he kisses my neck.
 

I feel his cock pushing at my ass. I feel him coating himself in the liquids he has spread there. But I don’t expect him to thrust inside my ass.
 

“Fuck,” I scream.
 

The pain though only makes me hotter. It only makes me want more and more.
 

“You’re so tight,” Landon moans as he begins moving inside me. I squirm beneath him as he moves. Each thrust gets me more and more excited. Each thrust drives me wild.
 

His balls hit my clit each time he moves sending warm pleasure up my body, but it’s not enough to send me over the edge. The pain I felt from him initially entering me is gone. My ass is practically numb from the slaps he delivered. I need more pain to get off.
 

He senses this, and his thrusts grow more urgent and wild. His slaps get harder and spread around my ass, but it’s still not enough. That’s when I feel his hands pressing at my throat. He presses harder with each thrust. He presses, and I feel the pain. He thrusts, and I feel the pleasure.
 

“I love you, Alex,” Landon screams as he pounds again putting more weight on my neck, causing just enough pain, and we both come. It’s not a beautiful come like we have experienced before. It’s dirty and rough and wrong. So wrong.
 

As soon as Landon releases inside me, he removes the binding from around my hands. He doesn’t collapse on top of me as he has before. Instead, he immediately picks me up and turns me to him so that I am sitting in his lap. He kisses me hard on the lips and it’s one of the most intimate moments I’ve ever experienced. Sitting on his lap completely naked and exposed.
 

I can’t believe I just enjoyed that. I can’t believe that I enjoyed that amount of pain.
Instead of releasing me, he flips me onto my stomach and grabs my arms tying them together behind my back. I continue to scream and kick trying to get him off me.
The flashback of being raped comes on strong. I feel the tears welling in my eyes as Landon holds me, but this time, I can’t keep them back. They fall hard and fast down my cheeks. I’m so fucked up. The rape. That’s why I like pain during sex. It’s because I was raped. It’s because I had sex with my rapist over and over and over. He conditioned me to like this. He fucking conditioned me to like fucking rough sex.
 

“Oh god.” I sob into Landon’s shoulder as my body shakes.
 

“Baby. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t know what came over me.”
 

I can’t respond to him. The tears fall faster. The terror at realizing Ethan did this to me is too strong. I can’t even fuck like a normal person. He’s ruined everything in my life.
 

Landon slowly moves me away from his shoulder so he can look at me. “You aren’t having a panic attack, are you?”
 

I shake my head as more tears fall. The look on his face is of devastation. Complete devastation at what he just did. Except he didn’t do anything. Ethan did.
 

I try to stop the sobbing to tell him that, but I can’t. It’s too much. The pain is too much.
 

Landon wraps his arms back around me squeezing me tighter than he ever has before. “I’m so sorry,” he says over and over again while I face the fact that I’m sick. I’m twisted. I like sex that reminds me of my rape. How do I move on from that?

Landon rocks me back and forth until both of our tears have run dry. Until we are both shivering from the cold of being naked and wet with tears and cum stains. Landon spots a throw blanket on the end of the couch and wraps me in it. I immediately feel warmer.
 

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I say in a soft voice.
 

His thumb wipes away the last remaining tear. “I have everything to be sorry for. I shouldn’t have hurt you. I don’t know why I did that. I thought you wanted it. But no woman wants that ...” His face scrunches in disgust of what he did.
 

I grab his face with both hands until he is looking at me. Really looking at me because he needs to hear this. He needs to hear that he’s not a monster. I am.
 

“I wanted that. I wanted the pain. I wanted you to hurt me.”
 

He closes his eyes like my words are too painful for him to hear. I shake his head forcing his eyes open and back on me.
 

“That was the best sex of my life. I’ve never come so hard. I’ve never felt so connected to someone before. It’s like you could read my every thought. You could understand what I wanted before I could. You did everything right.”

“Then why are you crying?” His eyes look hesitantly into mine.
 

I tuck a loose strand behind my ear. I haven’t told him. I can’t tell him everything, but he needs to know something.
 

“I was raped.”
 

“What? When?”
 

He moves to get up like he is going to go out right now and find my rapist. He moves with so much purpose and anger as he moves my body off him, and in seconds, he has his jeans and t-shirt back on. I am right in not telling him the complete truth. He can’t handle the truth. Not now.
 

“Landon ...” I grab his hand, and he immediately comes back to me. His arms travel all over my body like they are checking for evidence of rape that he didn’t see moments ago.
 

“It happened before. I don’t really remember it.” I see Landon’s face turn a darker shade of red. His whole body tenses as I speak.
 

“He’s in jail. He got like twenty to life or something.”
 

Landon relaxes a little, but not enough to sit down next to me like I want him to.
 

“A lot of my panic attacks were about the rape. Although I’ve gotten past them.”
 

Landon looks down. I grab his face again and force him to look at me. “You helped me get past the panic and fear. But now...”
 

“Shit, Alex. I brought them back, didn’t I? When I hit you. When I hurt your neck. It brought back the panic and fear.” Landon stands paces the living room. “Why did you let me fucking do that?”
 

I stand keeping the blanket wrapped around me. “It’s not that. It didn’t bring back the panic and fear.”
 

“Then ...” I put my finger to his lips silencing him. I need to get this out, and I won’t be able to if he keeps interrupting me. If he keeps guessing the wrong conclusions.
 

“I’m sick. I like it rough. I like it painful. I can’t come without the pain. The rape must have done something to me. It must have made me like this. I’m sick.”
 

A small smile forms on his lips as he looks down at me and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. I close my eyes as he touches the spot where he bit me and then puts enough pressure on it that I flirted the line between alive and passing out.
 

“Alex, you’re beautiful. You’re strong. You’re stubborn. Independent to a fault. You have a lot of demons, but you are not sick.”
 

“Yes, I am.”
 

He smirks. “No, you’re not. You’re stubborn. You’re resilient. You’re impossible. And you like dirty, rough sex. You like to fuck in a way that most people would find sinful. Just because you were raped doesn’t mean anything. Many people like rough sex.”
 

He presses his body against mine and then his lips tug at my lip hard until blood seeps in our mouths mixing together. “There is nothing wrong with us. There is nothing wrong with you.”
 

“But I was raped. What if that triggered me to enjoy painful sex?”

He shakes his head. “Did these thoughts occur when we were having sex or after?”

“After, but I had panic attacks before when we tried to have sex.”
 

“Yeah, but the pain is what took those feelings away. I don’t think you enjoying rough sex has anything to do with the rape. And even if it did, you can’t let it control you. You have to decide what you want for yourself now.”
 

I nod. He might be right. Ethan raped me and then had normal sex with me after. He didn’t seem to be into the rough stuff with me, or maybe he was afraid the rough sex would trigger memories of the rape.
 

But the pain didn’t trigger the memories. It was Ethan. He brought back the panic attacks that Landon had helped heal.
 

“Now,” he says grabbing my hand and shaking me from my thoughts. “Come to bed with me.”

I smile, happy to be done talking. “Didn’t get enough of me?”
 

He smiles. “Not nearly enough. And we need to christen our new bed.”
 

I follow him but pause at the bottom of the stairs. “Are we going to have rough sex or normal?”
 

“Whatever you need.”
 

I think for a moment, but then realize that thinking is going to do nothing for me. I try to listen to my heart instead.

“Dirty.”
 

But light by light, you snuck into my world.
 

I thought I could never be a father after what mine did to me.
 

But you were born and you rescued me.

Yesterday was hard. Alex told me she had been raped. I about exploded when she told me that. I so badly wanted to hunt the bastard down and strangle him with my bare hands. I’ve never been so angry sober. Never. I always suspected that that was what had happened, but we never had any proof that it did. Now, we do. Now, it becomes real.
 

She’s known for far too long, though, without telling me. Just another secret we keep from each other. Just another lie by omission.
 

She won’t tell me anything else, though. Just that the bastard is in jail. She won’t tell me how or where or when. She says she doesn’t remember, but I know she does. I won’t force her, though. I don’t need to know, but she will tell me eventually. I have faith that she will. In the meantime, I get to imagine all of the horrible ways he could have done it. I get to imagine all of the horrible things I want to do to him.
 

The sex last night, though. That’s what I should really be focusing on. It was dark. It was dirty. It was rough. It was love. It was everything that either of us ever wanted.
 

But I can’t think about any of it. Instead, all I can think about is three days ago just before I left for Dallas. It seems like such a short time ago and such a long time ago all at the same time. It was the day I went in to a clinic and had blood drawn. It was the day I submitted my blood for a paternity test. When I was sitting in the chair with a needle in my arm, all I kept thinking about was this day couldn’t come soon enough. I kept thinking this couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be right. One night couldn’t result in pregnancy. One night couldn’t do that. Except one night did. I just don’t know if it was my one night or another.
 

Today, I find out. Today, I find out if Caroline will forever taint my life. Today, I find out if I have a future with Alex. Today, I find out if I’m going to be a father.
 

I pull my car into the garage of Caroline’s swanky Beverly Hills apartment and pull easily into a visitor’s parking spot just as I have done hundreds of times before. Each time before was for a booty call when we were dating. And even after we were dating.
 

I deserve this
, I think, as I climb out of my car. I’ve treated Caroline badly for years. I used her for sex. It’s no wonder the gods decided that my punishment would be to have a child with the woman I scorned.
 

I enter the building but don’t bother with the elevator. Instead, I take the stairs up to the fifth floor. It feels good to get my blood pumping a little as I climb the stairs. It shakes out some of the nerves so that by the time I reach her apartment door I’m not shaking as badly.
 

The door opens quickly as if she was waiting just on the other side for me to get here. I sneak in quickly, not wanting any of her neighbors to see me.
 

I don’t speak when I see her; I just pull her into a hug instead. When I let her go, that’s when I realize how much of a mess she is.
 
Dark, baggy circles hang under her eyes. She’s still in her pajamas and her hair is up in a messy bun. This isn’t Caroline. She would never spend a day like this, not unless she was sick.