A Dark Romance (18+)

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I felt the warmth of the soft sunlight caressing my skin, gentle and soothing, like the tenderest of whispers against my body. For a fleeting moment, I cocooned myself in the comforting embrace enveloping me, his arms wrapped tightly around me as if shielding me from the world. His scent, musky and intoxicating, surrounded me, drowning out every other sensation. But then it hit me-a tidal wave of pain crashing over me, raw and unrelenting, threatening to drown me in its ferocity.

My body felt like it had been shattered and pieced back together with jagged shards. My head throbbed as though someone had taken a hammer to it, each beat echoing through my skull. My throat was raw, parched as if I had screamed into the void until I had no voice left to give. Tears stung my swollen eyes, a reminder of the ocean of grief and anguish I had shed. Every muscle in my body ached with a dull, gnawing intensity, yet there were places where the pain was sharper, more piercing, impossible to ignore.

The lower half of me felt alien-foreign and numb, as though the pain had overpowered my ability to feel. My ass felt marked with phantom claws, every touch of the air against them igniting a sharp sting. My chest throbbed, my breasts tender and bruised as if cruel teeth had claimed them. And the most intimate parts of me-the parts I couldn't even think about without shame and horror-felt torn apart. I could still feel the holes stretch, the ache of something too large, too intrusive, leaving its mark deep inside me. My hips, my backside, my very core-everything burned, raw and violated.

I lay still, too afraid to move, too terrified to see the physical evidence of the damage I already felt. My mind was a whirlpool of fragmented memories, flashes of red light and twisted shadows. The room came back to me then-a dark, suffocating place I could barely stand to think about. The *red room*.

I clenched my eyes shut, willing the images away, but they came nonetheless. The way Adam looked at me there, the way his demeanor shifted, unrecognizable and primal. He called me his kitten, his little pet, stripping me not just of my rights but of my humanity. My voice, my will, my very essence became meaningless in that room. It was a place where the lines of pain and pleasure blurred, where he turned into something monstrous and expected me to follow.

I wanted to scream, to cry, to claw my way out of my own skin and erase every second of it. But instead, I lay there, cocooned in his embrace, paralyzed by the weight of my own shattered soul.

I felt the stir of his body before his eyes fluttered open. His gaze met mine, soft and intimate, as though he saw nothing else in the world. Then came that smile-his devastating, heart-stopping smile that could weaken even the strongest resolve. He leaned in, brushing a feather-light kiss against my bruised lips. The touch was tender, yet it sent a jolt of pain through me, and I whimpered softly.

His lips, too, bore marks from the night before, faint cuts and dried blood that matched the chaos of my own. Seeing them, a bittersweet pride swelled in me. I had fought back, even if it barely showed.

"Good morning, sweetie," he murmured, his voice deep and warm, pulling me into a strong embrace.

A sharp pain radiated through my body, and the words tumbled out before I could stop them. "Ouch... ouch..." It became a mantra of sorts, my aches and bruises making themselves known.