Cruel Intentions | ✓

02 | DROWNING IN HIM

02
DROWNING
IN HIM

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THERE WAS SOMETHING about him. Perhaps it was the electrifying touches, the melting smiles, or the pretty words, but she couldn't stop thinking about him. Was he thinking about her too?

Kissing him felt like sinning. Were they a match made in hell? Were her demons as intoxicated with him as she was?

In a city so full of people, he was the only one on her mind. Day after day, she found herself standing outside his door. Being with him was euphoric.

I can't stop thinking about you, she would say when he let her in.

Yeah? he would reply, lips lifted into a seductive promise.

When he shut the door, it felt like they were in a bubble. Their own little, timeless world.

She spun around in her rose-colored dress she had worn just for him. She wanted to be his. She wanted him to see her and claim her. She hoped he wouldn't disappoint.

You're beautiful, he said.

He always knew just what to say. Always knew just what to do.

When he pulled her towards him, she let herself go without a fight. His hold on her was iron tight. He watched her like she was rare prey, like he couldn't wait to tear into her.

He would claim her roughly, leaving bruises on her delicate skin. She knew he liked the marks he made. Liked the way it sunk into her pale skin like poison.

Afterwards, he would run his hands down the trail of bruises scattered across her body, telling her he had never seen anything more beautiful.

Sometimes he would get angry when he saw scars that didn't belong to him.

What the fuck is this? he demanded, gripping her arm that had bruised from the pencil she dug into herself the day before.

I don't know, she said. His anger was mesmerizing.

When he hit her, she gasped at the fresh pain that sprinted down her spine. She had a feeling she was going to get new marks that night.

He gripped her wrists tightly, fingers digging into the cigarette burn from the night they had first met. Your skin isn't yours to hurt anymore, he said.

She nodded and he kissed her roughly. Sure enough, she was newly decorated where his fingers had dug into her neck and his teeth had sunk into her shoulder.

She didn't protest, though, because pain was real. Her pain made her feel alive, but more importantly, it made him feel good. So she let him do whatever he wanted, even if sometimes it hurt too much.

Sometimes she caught him wordlessly staring at her marked body.

It's okay, she would tell him, and he would smile dreamily at her, as if he was proud of her. It made her feel complete.

When she looked at her own reflection, all she saw was him. Him in the purple bruise on her neck; him in the black mark on her stomach; him in the red scar down her back.

She was swimming in endless thoughts of him. It felt like she was drowning.