Chapter 8: Whitney 🌶️🌶️

That day Owen didn't let her go to class. He kept her with him until afternoon. From the breakfast table to the couch to the bedroom, he worked her over, kissed her, touched her — she didn't stop making sounds. Everything but actual penetration. Her breasts were rubbed raw red, nipples wet and sucked tight.

Eventually he went to take a cold shower. He packed quickly and had Diego drive him to Hartsfield-Jackson. His trips were usually three days minimum, sometimes two weeks. He always wanted his fill of her before leaving.

A man was a man, no matter how clean the face. The thing between his legs was scary big. That long, that thick, packed inside her cunt for two hours or more, dragging through her tight inner softness — of course she'd swell, and sometimes the next day she couldn't even close her legs.

He'd learned to pull back lately. So that day he hadn't actually fucked her — just made her come and come and squirt. Earlier in this, when he'd first claimed her, he hadn't been so careful. She'd been on school break, summer or winter, and he'd kept her in the apartment two solid weeks at a time. Mornings, nights, sometimes lunch.

No bra. No panties. The only thing he allowed her was his shirt. He could have her any way he wanted, any room, any time.

The size of him was bad. She'd needed a year to get used to it. Her body was narrow, the inside of her built tight. She didn't know how that tightness was his ruin — what made him fall apart, what made him addicted.

She'd hurt herself once. First summer of college, the swelling never went down, she ran a fever, the infection escalated. She wasn't even twenty. It felt biblically dirty. She'd raged. She'd run. She'd left home.

Where they were now had been earned the slow way, through every wrong they'd taken. You don't start with that level of calibration. If you do, it isn't love. It's strategy.

Love was an obsession out of your control — the selfish need to own a person, completely, and never enough. It wasn't a noble thing.

Aunt Helena's sixtieth birthday was coming up. Adelaide thought she'd swing by the estate while Owen was away. She hadn't been to the main house in months. The staff and the gate security knew her and dipped their heads.

She let herself enjoy walking in. Eleven years of memory in this house. If only nothing had ever happened. If he hadn't ripped her dress that night. If none of it had ever happened. The estate would have stayed hers.

The garden chair on the back patio was still there. She used to sit on him there. Sixteen, breasts just developing, leaning her front against his back, casual contact she hadn't understood she was doing.

Looking back, she'd been an idiot. She'd underestimated how much her body could pull and overestimated his patience. She'd been raised protected. She'd never seen anything dirty. She'd come out of the shower in just panties and run to his room. She'd rolled on his bed, dress hiked up, an inch of waist showing. She'd put her foot in his hand once and asked him to cut her toenails.

A cold remote man like Owen — once you were close to him, you started feeling chosen by him. Only-one chosen. That sense of being chosen turned into a high. It made you possessive. It made you not want him distant ever again.

Until she was fifteen, he'd been like a real brother. After she turned fifteen, he changed. He started staring at her, going still. She'd thought it was funny. She'd jump at him. He started avoiding her. Wouldn't smile. Banned her from his room. She didn't take the hint. She got more clingy. He'd yell at her. He'd send her out. Sometimes he was so cold she'd cry. Then he'd melt and stop being a cold ass for a minute.

For nearly two years Owen had lived in that particular hell. Then one day he was back to himself, with her, easy, even more easy than before. But she'd known something was different. He didn't pull back from her sitting in his lap anymore. He just didn't initiate.

She'd been less comfortable around him after that. The dark pull of his eyes. The way his breath got shallow. The set of his jaw. She'd backed off on her own.

Health class in high school. The teachers wouldn't go past the surface. The boys laughed at the diagrams. They were ugly about it — sound and faces.

Owen wouldn't have been like that at that age, would he. He'd have been quiet, above all of it, none of it would have hit his radar. Adelaide hadn't been able to picture him with that low ugly want.

By then Sutton was in college. Her boyfriend would drop her off. Adelaide had seen them make out at the door. She'd never seen Owen do anything like that with a woman.

Right after AP exams was her birthday. A bunch of teenagers freshly out of the chute, ready to blow off everything. The Westminster Schools senior class crowded into a nightclub off Buckhead, neon lights, electric music, alcohol, smoke, sweat. Some of the boys got bold and dragged her in for a close dance.

She'd had a few sweet drinks. Her head was floating. She didn't want them touching her. She didn't have the strength to fight them off. She was getting pulled around when a hand came in at her waist and yanked her clean out. If he hadn't blocked her she'd have fallen.

She looked up and through the flashing lights she saw his eyes.

She'd actually been scared. She hadn't been sure it was Owen at first.

That was the night she'd clutched his back and screamed her voice out and still couldn't keep the white sheet from spotting red.

That was when she'd learned. The man was a depraved animal in a tailored suit. What was kind in him was the same machine that could hurt.

"Addie — finally, it's been months." Helena's voice broke into her thinking. She turned and gave the small smile. "Aunt Helena. I came to see you."

Sutton came out behind her mother and smiled. For a second Adelaide could almost imagine nothing had happened.

Then a younger woman stepped out behind them.

Adelaide stalled. She knew immediately who that was.

Helena followed her line of sight, smiling. "Addie. This is Whitney. Owen's fiancée. Say hi, dear."