Page 170 of Wallflower

Death? She was ready for death?

I was right.

“No,” she chokes, attempting to recover from the orgasm I just ripped away from her.

My mind races to catch up, trying to make some rational fucking conclusion to what I just heard. But all I hear is “death" echoing around in my empty head, screamed in her distressed voice. “What did you just say?”

“No, no, no, no. That’s not what I meant. Fuck.” Her voice is panicked.Good.She should be fucking riddled with fear because of the shit that just fell from her lips.

“You wanted to die?” My hollow heart rips apart at the seams she used to piece me back together. “How could you?” My voice breaks. “You did this to me. Fucking ruined me! And you were just going to abandon me?”

“No, Rip. Listen to me,” she begs, tears accumulating in her hazel eyes. They shine in the pink light, swelling around the rims of her lashes, threatening to spill.

“How fucking dare you!” I bellow.

Her elevated cries fade into the background as I retreat inward, the whip in my hand burning my palm.

She thinks she can do this to me? Make me feel, make me fall, then leave me broken and bleeding? I was supposed to ruin her, shatter her so thoroughly she’d never recover.

I think I’ll do just that.

The tails of the flogger crack off her ass with a force I know I shouldn’t use, but I’m lost, untethered.

Over and over, I take this pain she caused out on her. Whipping the leather across her beautifully blooming skin.

Her moaning screams are music to my ears. Even as I lose control, she revels in the cataclysmic culmination of my fucked up emotions.

I’m spiralling deep into a cavern I rarely ever venture into.

The lines have blurred so thoroughly, I don’t know when the plan faded away and my actions became my own. When pleasing her became my conscious choice and not a way to eventually ruin her. I don’t know who I fucking am anymore. She’s fucked up the very foundation I stand upon, and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know if I hate it or I fucking like it. All I know is I’m furious with her for putting me in this position.

“What have you done to me?” I roar, voice cracking as I crash back into my body.

Something yawns open in my chest, the agony so insurmountable I know I’ll never be able to escape it.

I lash the flogger across her mangled tattoo, and she screams my name in the most glorious pitch.

“Pause,” she firmly states, but that’s not her safeword.

“Why?” I demand. “Why did you do this to me? What did I do to deserve it?”

I raise the flogger again. “Wait!” Rose shouts, something in her voice registering in my brain. “Dinosaur! Dinosaur! Dino?—“

“What!” I snap, the growl ripping from my throat.

“You don’t understand. Please, just listen to me. If when I’m done, you wish to continue, I’ll accept the lashes.”

My body quakes as the fury starts to leak from my system. I nod shallowly, giving her the silence she needs to spew whatever shit she came up with while I was fucking crumbling.

“I may have taken the flowers without thinking it through. But I didn’t want to be vulnerable again. If I had grabbed them when I first got to Bleakcrest, maybe I could have avoided everything I went through. I don’t know, it’s in the past now. But I didn’t want to feel unprotected again. I’ve always had something on me, ever since the first time. It’s stupid, I know, but it made me feel better.”

“Okay, so…what? You were going to poison yourself?”

“I thought about it.”

“Rose…”

“I don’t think I’d actually do it.”