Chapter 158 - ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY EIGHT

Chapter 158: Chapter ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY EIGHT

ANGEL

I shook my head. That was a line I couldn’t cross. The last piece of myself I had left. The final wall between who I used to be and whatever I was becoming.

"Angel." He pulled back to look at me, his expression soft but his eyes burning with something that looked terrifyingly like love. His voice was thick with obsession. A hunger that would never be satisfied, no matter how much of me he consumed. "Say it back."

"I c-can’t." My voice broke on the word. "Please. Please don’t take this from me too. You’ve taken everything else. My freedom. My body. My mind. Just... let me keep this one thing. This one lie I can tell myself."

A dark look flickered across his face. "It’s not a lie, though." He positioned himself at my entrance, the thick head of his cock pressing against me but not pushing in. Teasing. Tormenting. I could feel how hard he was, how desperately he wanted to bury himself inside me, but he held back. Waiting. "That’s what scares you, isn’t it? It’s not that you can’t say it. It’s that you mean it. And meaning it terrifies you more than I ever could."

"Daddy—"

"The first time is always the hardest," he murmured, pressing forward just enough to make me gasp. "After that, it gets easier. I promise. The words won’t burn so much once you’ve let them out."

"You don’t understand—"

"I understand everything." He pushed in another inch, stretching me open around him, and my nails dug into his shoulders. "I understand that you’ve been fighting yourself harder than you’ve been fighting me. I understand that every time you look at me, you hate yourself for not hating me enough. I understand that you lie awake at night wondering what’s wrong with you, why you can’t stop wanting the monster who destroyed your life."

Another inch. Deeper. My breath came in ragged gasps.

"I’ve waited so long to hear you say it, Angel." His voice cracked on my name, fracturing like ice over deep water. "So fucking long. Through all of it—your hatred, your fear, your attempts to run, I kept waiting. Kept believing that someday you’d see. You’d understand. You’d love me back the way I love you."

"The way you love me?" I laughed, but it came out broken. "You call this love? Kidnapping me? Trapping me? Getting me pregnant so I can never escape?"

"Yes." He pushed deeper, another inch, another, until I could feel him everywhere. "This is exactly what love is. Love is obsession. Love is possession. Love is burning down the whole fucking world just to keep one person warm." His forehead dropped to mine. "Love is crawling out of your own grave because dying means never seeing her face again."

He bottomed out inside me.

"Daddy!" I cried out.

He was fully seated, buried to the hilt, so deep I could feel him in my chest. In my throat. Damien was burrowed deeply in all the places that had nothing to do with anatomy.

"I’ve burned for you," he whispered, "Literally. The scars on my back? That was me refusing to die because you were still out there. Still mine, even when you thought you were free."

I felt tears sliding down my temples, pooling in my hair.

"Do you know what it’s like?" He stayed still inside me, trembling with the effort of holding back. "Loving someone who hates you? Wanting someone who looks at you like you’re a monster? Knowing that you are a monster, but being completely fucking incapable of letting her go?"

"Damien—"

"Say it." His voice fractured again, and I realized with a shock that went through me like lightning that his eyes were wet. "Please, Angel. Give me this one thing. This one truth between us. I don’t care if you hate me tomorrow. I don’t care if you run. I don’t care if you stab me in my sleep or try to poison me." He laughed, "I just need to hear it. Once. I need to know that for one moment, one second, you loved me back."

"Why?" The question tore out of me. "Why does it matter so much? You have me. You’ve won. What difference do words make?"

"Because I’m drowning." His gaze intense with madness burned into mine. "I keep drowning in you, Angel. And I need to know—I need to know that I’m not drowning alone."

He started to move. Slow, deep strokes that hit something inside me that made my vision blur.

"Say you love me," he breathed against my lips. "Say it and mean it. Just once. That’s all I’m asking. One moment of truth. One moment where you stop fighting and just... let yourself feel what I know you feel."

His forehead pressed to mine. His breath ragged. His whole body shaking.

This wasn’t a game. It wasn’t manipulation. This was Damien—the monster, the psychopath, the man who’d destroyed my life—Begging me for my heart.

And I wanted to give it to him.

"I love you," I whispered.

The words came out so quiet I wasn’t sure he’d heard them. But his whole body went rigid. His rhythm faltered, his hips stuttering against mine. His eyes flew open to meet mine, and what I saw in them—

Hope. Dark, desperate, terrified hope.

"Again." His voice was rough. "Fuck, Angel, say it again. I need to hear it again."

"I love you."

A groan escaped him. He started moving faster, harder, driving into me like he could fuck the words into permanence. He thrust into me as though he wanted to make them part of my DNA.

"Again. Keep saying it. Please. Please don’t ever stop."

"I love you." The words came easier now, just like he’d promised, spilling from my lips with every thrust. "I love you. I love you. I love you."

Each time I said it, the sex became less like fucking and more like... something else.

He bent down and kissed my tears—I hadn’t realized I was crying.

"You’re so beautiful when you cry for me," he whispered against my wet skin. "So fucking beautiful when you love me. My perfect girl. My Angel. Mine. Always and forever mine."

"Yours," I sobbed. I was surrendering. I was dying. But it also felt like I was being reborn into something new. Something that belonged to him completely. "I’m yours, Damien. I love you even though I don’t want to..."

"Shh," He kissed me, swallowing my confession. "Don’t hate yourself. Don’t ever hate yourself for loving me. This is the only pure thing I’ve ever had. The only good thing. You loving me is the only proof I have that I’m not completely damned."

Those words burrowed their way somewhere deep, awakening a part of me I thought had died long ago. It was hot, so hot, and I was combusting in the flames.

"I love you too." he gasped against my mouth. "I’ve loved you when I was hurting you. And even when you hated me. I’ve loved you through every moment of this nightmare that I created because I couldn’t—I couldn’t fucking stop myself—"

His hand found my clit, rubbing in tight circles, and the pleasure crested impossibly higher, building toward something that felt like it might destroy us both.

"You’re my religion, Angel. My reason for breathing. My reason for everything. And I know I don’t deserve you. I know I’m a monster. But I’m your monster. And I will spend the rest of my life making you glad you said those words. I swear to god, I will."

"Come for me," he commanded, his voice ragged but still demanding. "Come while you tell me you love me. Let me feel you shatter. Let’s feel what we are together."

"I love you—" The orgasm hit me like a wave dragging me under. "—I love you, I love you, I love you—"

I screamed his name as I broke apart, my body clenching around him, pleasure ripping through me in waves that seemed endless.

He came with me, his whole body seizing, spilling himself deep inside me with a groan that sounded like ecstasy and relief all tangled into one. He collapsed against me, burying his face in my neck.

For a long moment, we just existed in the aftermath.

Breathing hard. His softening cock still buried inside me, his weight pressing me into the mattress. He was heavy, crushing, and I didn’t want him to move. I didn’t want to lose this feeling of being completely surrounded by him. Consumed by him.

He gathered me in his arms eventually, rolling onto his side and pulling me against his chest. Damien was pressing kisses to my hair, my forehead, my tear-stained cheeks.

"That’s my good girl," he murmured, "I knew you still loved me. I always knew."

I felt... quiet. Peaceful.

My insides felt like a storm had finally passed through it and left nothing but stillness in its wake.

"Stay with me," I whispered to him, "Don’t play games anymore. Don’t disappear. I can’t—I can’t do the silence again."

He pulled back to look at me, his grey eyes soft in a way I’d rarely seen. His thumb traced my cheekbone, catching a lingering tear.

"I won’t leave," he said quietly. "Never again. You say the word, and I’m here. Always."

"Promise me."

"I promise." He kissed me, "We’re inevitable, Angel."

I snuggled into his arms, feeling his cum leaking out of me, feeling his baby growing inside me, and the last pieces of my resistance crumbling to dust.

I didn’t know what I was doing anymore.

I didn’t know anything at all.

Except this.

When he held me like this—I didn’t want to be anywhere else.