I look up at him, “You did this?”
He answers with a nod.
As many scars as there are, I notice there aren’t any fresh ones, “What made you stop?”
After I say it, I realize that I don’t know whether Colson has stopped. I don’t know how often he feels the need to slice into his own body. I want to ask him why he does it, but before I can, I feel something brush against my shoulder and the sharp pinch of the belt as he cinches it taut around my throat.
He twists the slack around one hand and drags his gaze up and down my body, “I found a different vice.”
It feels like a slight. I don’t like the idea of being a vice. Vices are flippant, symptoms of bigger problems that change when they’re of no more use and no longer satisfy a need. They’re placeholders for the real things you can’t have.
My jaw tightens, “Another unsustainable coping strategy?”
Colson tightens the belt, pulling me forward until I’m back on all fours between his knees, “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” he growls, “You’d love to say I’m just some asshole who used you and put you out tomorrow morning with the trash.”
I also don’t like him assuming what I’m thinking.
“Did Dana and Leah ask about your scars, too?” I jab through my constricted windpipe, “What’d you tell them?”
“Jealous girl…” Colson grins, “don’t worry, all that was before I ever laid eyes on you. Since then, I’ve been all yours. But they knew not to ask. They weren’t brats like you.”
I brace myself against his chest, ignoring the dangerous reality that Colson’s belt is wrapped around my throat and I’m sitting here bickering with him like a jealous idiot about whether other girls are aware of his pattern of self-harm.
“But that’s why you’re here,” his tone softens, “you’re not an accident, Brett. You’re more than enough to sustain me. You try to act so hateful, but it never works because while you’re busy talking shit, your pussy’s so wet for me it hurts.” He tightens the belt again, making my breaths go shallow, “I love the fight you give me, but it’ll always end the same—with you begging for my dick. All of it.” He sweeps his nose back and forth against mine, groaning his last words, “Because you’re my best girl, aren’t you?”
What an arrogant asshole.
A beautiful one, but arrogant, nonetheless.
“You’re so full of shit, Colson,” I hiss with my last gasp of air.
This time, when I feel the strap tighten, all I can hear is my pulse in my ears as my face starts to throb. Colson smiles when he sees the spark of panic in my eyes, but doesn’t let up. I hold his eyes, like we’re engaged in a macabre staring contest. I dig my nails into his chest as hot tears pool in the creases of my eyes, which only seems to turn him on more. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out, not even a cough of choked air. Finally, when the throbbing begins to sound like a drumbeat in my ear, I frantically tap his chest with the palm of my hand.
To my utter relief, Colson releases his grip and I fall with a gasp between his knees, my forehead pressed against his chest as I whimper through each breath.
He gently cups my face and lifts my chin, brushing my hair away from my eyes, “Baby, I’ll fight you all night, and I’ll always win. Just tell me when you’ve had enough so I can put your pieces back together to make you whole again.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and tense my muscles beneath his touch. He’s right, I’m so wet for him right now and it does hurt. Now, I just want to feel him squeeze his belt around my throat again and decide when I’m allowed to breathe and when I’m not. It’s both horrifying and exhilarating.
“Do it again,” my shaky whisper pleads with him.
It doesn’t sound like my voice, but it is.
I push his knees down and climb over his legs into his lap. And this time, when he tightens his belt, I stay submerged longer in his oxygen-deprived euphoria. Instead of struggling against his iron grip, I grind against him with desperation and brush my breasts across his face while I do it. This time, the tears streaming down the corners of my eyes feel like a dam breaking and the first breath he gives me feels like waking up after a years-long hibernation.
Before I can open my eyes, I feel Colson’s tongue trail up my face and lick the saltwater from beneath my eyes, “You’re such a good girl for me,” his deep voice rumbles in my ear.
I’m crazy—certifiable—clinging to this man after he nearly choked me unconscious. I shouldn’t trust him as much as I do.
“What happens after you get your fix?” I ask between breaths, “Do you move on to your next obsession?”
That’s how it usually works, isn’t it? Aren’t infatuations and vices like fireworks; intense displays of shock and awe until they inevitably fizzle out into darkness?
“No,” Colson pulls the belt loose from my neck and drops it onto the bed next to him. Then he reaches up with both hands and gently rubs his thumbs over the red blotches forming on my throat, “It never ends because there’s nothing after you. I don’t get bored because I’m consumed by you and I’ll always need to chase you. You are, in the most concrete and unequivocal sense—” he wraps my curls around his fist and gently brings my forehead to his, “my only.”
“Is that why you stopped cutting yourself?” I press my palm against his chest, feeling a tiny shred of guilt that I have no business feeling, “Please don’t put that on me.”
Colson gazes up at me with an expression I can only describe as admiration. After a few seconds, he reaches behind his back to his pocket. When he brings his hand back around, he’s gripping something black in his fist. He rests his hand on his stomach, inches from my pelvis, and flips open a black knife with a sharp click. The blade is about four inches long, black metal with a serrated bottom that gives way to a smooth, razor-sharp edge.
“I can show you how it feels,” he slowly toggles the blade back and forth like a metronome, “when you’re so numb that you start to wonder if you’re already dead. But when that cold blade slices through your flesh and draws blood,” he smiles with a long blink, “it’s like finally taking a breath when you’re about to drown.”
Finally, I scratch the itch and ask him what I really want to know, “What makes you feel so numb?”
Colson stares down at my abdomen, as if in a trance, and sways his knife back and forth at the same pace.
“You remind me of who I used to be, a long time ago,” he tightens his grip on my waist with one hand and lifts his knife with the other, “and when I saw you for the first time, it felt like I found myself again.”
When he touches the dark blade to my skin, all the air leaves my lungs and I don’t dare move while he tracks white lines up to my ribs. Goosebumps skitter over my shoulders and down my back as I watch him trace spiderwebs over my torso. Before long, he drops his hand and slides his thumb between my thighs where I’m leaving a slick spot on his stomach. My breath catches when he brushes over my clit, running circles over it while he teases my skin and threatens to nick me any moment.
My eyes flutter as I move with his hand, the tip of his blade catching and leaving a constellation of tiny red dots over my torso. The orgasm builds deep in my belly, eliciting a high-pitched moan as it slowly works its way to my core.
“Do you like the pain I give you?” Colson murmurs as my hips roll against his hand. “Do you love what I can give you, that no one else can?” his voice crescendos as my muscles tense, sending a shockwave down my legs.
I don’t feel his knife at first. I don’t feel him slice the blade across my rib at the exact moment the wave of ecstasy crashes into me. But soon enough, the stinging pain tears through the dopamine like a tornado splintering barn wood. I let out a scream, shuddering and cursing as I watch a red ribbon unfurl across my skin and slowly seep down my torso.
It’s a superficial cut, but enough to shock me and hurt like hell. It’s an instant high, a wave of adrenaline I want to wrap myself in like a blanket. I close my eyes so all I hear is me sucking deep breaths through my teeth and all I feel is Colson’s hands running over my skin.
“Open your eyes, baby,” his lilting voice brings me back, “you’re not dead yet.”
