What's home, if not the first place you run away from? What's love, if not that unexplainable, blazing feeling which comes after a period of hate?
Reputable for her catchy appearance, her over-niceness, her obsession with cartoon animations and her...
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Camila Cabello - Shameless.
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AT FIRST, I AM STARTLED; beyond startled even.
Did he...did this man just ask me for something? He didn't bark out an order and he wasn't an intercontinental ass about it, he calmly asked me to 'let him treat my cheek.'
Jesus. All today's events are enough to give me whiplash.
I look at him, dazed and partially delirious from how handsome he is, even with those bruises. I think it brings tears to my eyes. But my subconscious slaps some sense into me and I'm back to fuming at him. His ethereal features fade into nothingness, and he suddenly has two horns and a long goatee.
I snap my parted lips close, tightening them into a thin line.
"Get the fuck away from me!" I snap, pushing him completely away from me.
When he regains his balance at a safe distance, I hop down the sink top, pressing my back against the counter and tilting my head up to meet his aggrandized gaze.
"Don't fucking come near me!" My respiration is uneven and violent. "You don't...slap me, and get to play paramedics!"
His Adam's apple bobs. "I just want to treat you, Alaina." His voice is hoarse and soft at the same time; full of...is that hollow in his pitch, regret?
Fuck him.
"I can treat myself!" I grit, looking at him with disgust. "Don't feel guilty about what you did. You've been doing it ever since and you didn't bother yourself with doctoring me!"
It would have been a different thing if he came in here and hoisted me up his bathroom counter to apologize. But no, he became handsy with me, like that's supposed to make up for the fact that he slapped me and has been bruising me since I signed his stupid fucking contract.
He does not say anything, so I continue.
"The contract doesn't give you room to mishandle me, Mr. Ash. The next time you do that, I'm leaving your dungeon and I'll sue you for assault."
"No, you won't." His response is tethering on the edge of calmness and insanity.
"Yes." I deadpan. "I will."
Something snaps in his eyes. Something dangerous. Something that I'll always fear and cower beneath even if I'm Wonder fucking Woman.
He begins to step towards me, slowly. "You can leave my house only if I force myself on you, or ask you to do something that isn't in the contract. And I haven't done any of these things."
My breathing scatters at his grave sentences. The man who asked me to let him treat me is long gone.
