Veronica
My heart beat hard as he swam out to me, his dark head parting the water like a shark as, with two powerful strokes, he was at my side, then had me cornered, his arms trapping me at the edge of the pool.
“One thing I learned early in life is never let your enemies see your fear.” He moved in closer, his wet face inches from mine. “Never let them smell it on you because it’s like a fucking drug.” He inhaled deeply. “You can get high from it, Veronica.”
“Are you my enemy?” I asked, focusing on that one word. Unable to think about the rest. Knowing it was true.
“I’m not your friend, am I?”
“No.”
“Your eyes betray your desire, Veronica. Your hunger.”
“You don’t see very clearly, Stefan.”
“I see very clearly. And I read you like a fucking book.”
I looked away, very aware of his body so close to mine, very aware of how my lips parted and my tongue darted out to lick them. And how he watched that little involuntary movement so knowingly.
“You’re curious, Veronica. At least admit it to yourself. Or are you a coward?”
“I’m not a coward. And you’re wrong.”
“Am I?”
“Let me go.”
“I’m not touching you.”
His gaze roamed over my face, then dropped to my lips.
I dove down and slipped under his arm, swimming to the shallower edge of the pool. But before I could climb out, he was behind me, and this time, he was touching me. His body pressed against me, his chest to my back, trapping me.
“You want me to touch you,” he whispered in my ear. “Don’t you?”
When his lips closed around my earlobe, I sucked in a breath. It was like the sensation shot right through me. Shot down to my core, awakening something else. Something he seemed to do just by being around me.
One of his hands slid down to close over my waist, and he turned me so I faced him.
“What are you doing?” I asked, breathless, trapped.
“I told you I’d find a way for you to repay me.”
“What?” I panicked, looking to either side of him for an escape but knowing I’d go nowhere if he didn’t allow me to. Physically, I was no match.
“Shh. Just be quiet.”
Water dripped into my eyes, and I blinked. In that moment, his mouth closed over mine, wet and cool, the taste of chlorine clinging to his lips.
I made a sound and pushed against his chest. It’s what I should do. I should resist. But he didn’t budge and he didn’t release me, not with his body, not with his mouth. Instead, his lips teased mine open, the stubble on his jaw sharp against my cheek as he slid his tongue inside my mouth. Against my conscious will, I opened. He eased his tongue deeper, and I did something so against what my brain told me to do, which was to resist. Instead, I tasted him. I tasted his tongue, his lips, his breath, and for one brief moment, I kissed him back.
That was when Stefan broke the kiss.
I opened my eyes to find him watching me, his eyes darker, the victory inside them a mockery, shaming me.
“You want it, Veronica. You want it so fucking bad, I can smell it on you.”
——
Stefan
“Get off me,” Veronica shoved at me, but I wasn’t ready to let her go just yet.
“Make me.”
She tried again. “I mean it.”
“Or what? What will you do if I don’t let you go?”
Frustration lined her forehead. It took her a full minute to answer my question with her own.
“What can I do?”
She searched my face as if truly seeking an answer from me.
From me.
“Nothing. That’s the point,” I said.
“I’m a game to you.”
“No, not a game.”
“Then what? I don’t understand what you want with me. You tell me this marriage will be in name alone. You tell me you hate me, yet-”
“I told you I hate your name. There’s a difference between hating your name and hating you.”
“Does it matter?”
I could see her confusion and frustration visibly mounting as she frantically searched around her.
“I’m cold.”
She gasped when I wrapped my hands around her tiny waist and instantly tried to push them off. When I lifted her out of the pool and set her on the edge, she exhaled, her face flushing red, probably embarrassed at her panic.
I climbed out and got her towel, wrapping it over her shoulders as I sat beside her.
“Thanks.”
I nodded.
“I don’t understand what you want,” she said.
I looked at her sitting there, hugging the towel to herself, shivering in the heat. Her wet hair clung to her skin, and she refused to look at me for a long time.
What did I want? What did I want with her? This was a business transaction, ultimately. Money owed. She was here to pay off a debt.
But did I want to take it out of her skin?
What did that make me if I did? This wasn’t how I thought it would go, but having her here, having her close, warm and soft and so fucking innocent… I could have her, that was the point. I didn’t even have to make her. She wanted me, and I was using her desire against her. Taunting her with it.
——
Stefan
“Look at me, Veronica.”
She did, and her pale eyes searched mine. Inside them, I saw humiliation. I saw sadness. Uncertainty. I saw vulnerability, and I saw a loneliness, a longing, a hope that I recognized. One I couldn’t ignore. One that threatened to resurrect a part of me I’d buried long ago.
One I intended on keeping buried.
I knew only one way to shut it down, and I needed to shut it the fuck down. Now.
Anger boiled inside me. Rage at my own weakness. My weakness around her.
“I own you,” I said, gripping her jaw harder than I needed to and bringing her face to me.
“Stop!”
“When I want to fucking kiss you, I’ll fucking kiss you.” To prove my point, I mashed my lips over hers. This time, they didn’t open. They didn’t yield like they had just a few moments ago.
Good. That was good. That was the point.
I released her, and she tried to scramble away, scraping her thigh on the edge of the pool as she tried to slip out of my grasp but ending up on her back instead, with me on top of her.
“Stop it.”
She struggled beneath me, but the sick thing was, it only excited me. Her fight turned me on, and I knew the instant that fact registered for her.
“You don’t fucking want me to stop.” I kissed her again, this time slipping one hand between her legs and gripping her sex.
She gasped, and I tightened my hold on her pussy.
“You. Don’t. Fucking. Want. Me. To. Stop, Veronica.”
The next kiss was rough, my teeth cutting into her soft lip, the metallic taste of blood, of her blood, making me groan.
“Admit it,” I demanded.
“I don’t want it!” she cried out, frantic now beneath me, her little fists pounding my shoulders, her hands curling into my hair, pulling hard.
“More,” I said, kissing her again, squeezing her cunt. “It only makes my cock harder.”
“This isn’t you. I know it. I know it.”
“You know nothing. I could make you.”
“You won’t! You said it.”
“I could. And you’d be wet for me.”
“No.”
“What if I slip my hand into your suit, Veronica?”
She shook her head frantically but only managed to spread her legs wider in her effort to free herself from me.
“Would it make you feel better if you pretended I made you do it?”
“Please,” she begged.
“Please? Is that a yes?”
“No. Stefan, let me go. This isn’t you.”
I shot up, straddling her, released her pussy, and wrapped my hand around her throat. “This is exactly me!” I roared, years of anger vocalizing now. How in hell did she think she knew me when I didn’t know myself?
I squeezed, and she gripped my forearm, trying to pull me off. Her face reddened, her eyes wide as saucers, and the sick thing was, the fear in them only set ablaze a thing already burning like a fucking brand inside me.
“I killed my father with my bare hands, Veronica. You think I won’t hurt you?”
“Self-defense isn’t the same as murder,” she managed, tears streaming out of the corners of her eyes.
“Your fear makes me hard,” I whispered close to her face. “That should scare the fucking shit out of you.” I squeezed once more, then let go of her throat and straightened to loom over her. She brought her hands to her throat and turned her head, coughing. I watched until finally, she shifted her gaze back to me.
“It does,” she muttered. “You do. You scare the shit out of me.”
Her eyes trapped me, the tables turning, even in the sound of defeat in her voice.
“You win, Stefan. Don’t you think I know that? That you’ve already won?”
I sat up straighter, my weight on my thighs, so I no longer crushed her.
“You told me you wouldn’t be a beast to me, but look at you,” she said. “You can make me do whatever you want. We both know that. You can take whatever you want, you can take every single thing away from me. You can force me-”
Her voice broke, and she never finished that part.
“You can lock me away, and there wouldn’t be a thing I could do about it. But you know what’s even more fucked-up than you getting off on my fear?”
Her voice cracked, tears pooled in her eyes.
“The fact that I know, that I believe with all my heart, it’s not what you want. It’s not who you are.”
I blinked several times and ran a hand through my hair.
She shifted beneath me, slid her legs out from underneath mine, and stumbled to stand. She grabbed her towel and held it to her chest, another barrier between me and her as I knelt at her feet. Unable to move. Unable even to look at her.
Beneath her.
She kept a wide berth as she staggered backward and away, toward the house. I turned to watch her go, watch her run, water dripping from her as she disappeared inside.
And all I could do was sit there. All I could do was nothing.
I was a monster. I knew it. I had known it for a long time.