C6, PT. 2

He nuzzled her as she wept. “I thought you played me for a fool. All I had was his word to go on. I was tortured by thoughts of whether you used me to get away from your father or initiate you, so you could expand your horizons with other men.”

“Y-you’re sick.”

“Maybe.” He brought her hand to his face and rubbed his beard against her sensitive palm. “You didn’t leave me for your inheritance?”

Angrily, she tried to wriggle away. “No!”

“You never planned to marry someone like Baldwin, who came from the right background? Who your father approved of?”

“I already told you—”

“Indulge me.”

“Why would I…?” she began heatedly but stopped when he bit the fleshy part of her hand. “No, I wasn’t planning to marry someone from my circle.”

“You didn’t give up on me because you doubted I’d reach the level I’m at now?”

His voice deteriorated as he spoke. She closed her eyes against another surge of tears and shook her head.

“And you didn’t know he had anything on me?”

His voice was so rough, she could barely understand him.

“No,” she whispered.

He wrapped his arms around her and rocked to console both of them.

“I may not have left for those reasons, Roth, but I had others. Many others.”

“I know. Those, I can handle. It was the others I couldn’t do anything about that drove me crazy.”

Her breath hitched as he cupped her face and began to trail kisses down her cheek.

“I’m breaking our agreement. Sue me. I don’t care.” She sounded desperate to her own ears. “Roth, are you listening to me?”

“Mm.”

That masculine hum made her insides flutter. She cursed her body that didn’t know any better than to respond to this crazy alpha male. She struggled physically because emotionally, she was going under, and she couldn’t allow herself to be sucked in again. This was wrong. He was wrong for her. He always had been, and she had to get away before he… She made a desperate break for freedom and was elated when his arms dropped away. She scrambled forward, only to be unceremoniously flipped on her back. She was blinded by the unforgiving lights before they were blotted out by Roth as he crouched over her. She opened her mouth to shout, but the broad smile on his face stunned her into stupefied silence.

She had never seen him smile before. Not full out. Not so genuinely. It transformed his face into that of a stranger. Paired with his tousled hair, she doubted Mo and Johan would recognize the seemingly joyful, carefree man above her as their grim employer.

“Roth?”

“You always believed in me.”

She turned her face to the side, unable to bear the boyish wonder on his face. It was tearing her up inside.

“If you’d known Maximus was going to blackmail me, would you have let him do it?”

Her mouth worked. “I… I don’t know.”

“You wouldn’t have.” He kissed the curve of her jaw. “That’s why Maximus didn’t tell you. He knew you wouldn’t have agreed.”

“You don’t know that,” she choked as she pushed against his shoulders.

“I do now. You never intentionally tried to hurt me. I hurt you, so you hurt yourself.”

Her face went white as he speared her core. She made a sound like a wounded animal and rolled onto her belly to get away, but he came down on her back, pinning her. She buried her face in the plush runner and grappled for control as he emotionally dissected her into pieces.

“You never stopped being mine, did you?”

She hissed, fingernails digging into the carpet. If she wasn’t so choked up, she would have made a snide remark to put him in his place, but that was beyond her at the moment.

He brushed her hair aside and kissed her nape. “We’re going to do this right.” He ignored her shaking head and tugged at her hoodie to get at her neck. “So many opposing forces keeping us apart. They succeeded for a time, but we still made it. We’ll start fresh.”

“This won’t work.” Her voice was muffled by the carpet. “It never has. We’re violent and toxic.”

“We’re flawed and battle-scarred,” he acknowledged as he licked her ear. “But we’re also wiser and more durable.” He lifted and adjusted himself, so his erection pressed against her ass. “This hasn’t changed, though. The need. It’s worse than ever. Darker, stronger, so fucking painful.”

Her toes curled as he rocked against her.

“It gnaws at me constantly. It’s been there for years, an empty well that no one can fill. It’s been the same for you, hasn’t it?”

She clutched the carpet fibers in a desperate attempt to block out the simultaneous physical and emotional attack as he moved with enough force to make her bounce.

“Despite everything, that heat is still there, binding us together. I’m not giving it up and if you were honest with yourself, you don’t want to, either.”

Her hands fisted on either side of her head as she resisted the urge to raise her ass so he was in a better position to hit that part of her that still stupidly ached for him. This was crazy. He was crazy. She had to get out of here. “I’m leaving.”

He leaned down to tuck his lips against her ear. “What did I say about you leaving me? Not gonna fucking happen, princess. And now that I know all, I’m going to drown you in me until you can’t remember your fucking name.”

“Roth.”

She gasped when he nipped her ear.

“You’re dealing with Jamie, baby.”

She lost control and dissolved into tears. He crooned in her ear as he raised her bottom half until she was on her knees with her face still buried. She felt a draft as he dragged her pants and underwear down. He gripped her ass before his fingers slipped between her legs and began to play with her flesh as he whispered in her ear.

“I fucked up. Your dad fucked up. Your sisters fucked up. You fucked up. That’s done. We’ve gone through more shit in seven years than most couples will in a lifetime. We can get past this.”

Two fingers penetrated. He sighed as if he were the one getting relief.

“I need things from you. Things I can’t get from anyone else. I’ve been in survival mode all my life. My goal was to put as much distance between me and my background as possible. I thought I would feel something when I made my first million, but I felt nothing. No pride in my accomplishments, no satisfaction in how far I’d come. I figured I hadn’t gotten to the peak, so I worked more. Harder. I started rubbing shoulders with men like Maximus. I was getting somewhere. Then, I met you and everything changed.”

He gripped her neck, forcing her up so she was on all fours. He cupped her chin, forcing her to look at the elevator. His reflection smiled when his fingers were drenched in more of her.

“We make a pretty picture, don’t we, princess?”

He speared her slowly, dragging out every sensation. It was so quiet, she heard the squelch of her body greedily taking him in.

“Where was I?” he mused as his lips cruised along her hairline. “Oh, right. I laid eyes on a college student with messy curls, ink stains on her fingers, and a smile that made even a monster like me feel something. I listened to you tell my story with more passion and excitement than I’d ever felt. You treated me like a friend, celebrating the Langdon deal, even though I got it at your expense. You confided in me, trusted me when no one else ever had. It’s almost like you didn’t see what everyone else did. For the first time in my life, I felt something other than anger, hunger, impatience, fatigue. So much more, I didn’t know how to handle it. I still don’t.”

**This is a raw draft of Bitter Confessions. Please do not share or distribute.

Copyright © 2024 Mia Knight. All Rights Reserved.

Author's Note:

Most of this elevator scene didn't exist in the original. In the first draft, she does run to the elevator and pound on it. He does crouch over her and say some things, but it was basically a couple of lines and then he carries her back to the great room and they have the rest of the convo on the couch. I did take some lines from later in the chapter, but most of this is new and probably one of the biggest changes in the opening chapters.

I didn't think they would have sex in the beginning because I wanted to focus on all these topics, but I decided since she ran to the elevator we might as well expand upon it and since it's like a mirror... you know... 👀 I couldn't resist.

This line, "I hurt you, so you hurt yourself" hit me like a ton of bricks and I thought about it for days afterward. This scene basically wrote itself with Roth's dialogue just pouring out. I just let it flow and will touch up the scene on my final pass.

I hope you enjoy!