Isolation: Book 2 of The Quarantine Series Read online

  Milo uses the opportunity to continue speaking.

  “Raven,” he uses a tone meant to pacify me. “I am not sorry for pursuing a relationship with you, but I am sorry for hurting you. You have already punished me for years—”

  “It’s not enough,” I cut him off. “You deserve to rot in hell for what you did.”

  “I already did,” Milo grinds out, sounding like he is at the end of his rope. “It’s been years. When will this suffering end?”

  “NEVER!” I yell at the top of my lungs.

  The loud word echoes through the silent room. It vibrates through us and bounces off the still walls. As the word settles in, a dark cloud takes over Milo.

  I wanted him covered in dark bruises like he covered my life in darkness.

  My blind punches are not effective, but I can sense the effect that word has on him. So I keep at it.

  “I will fight till my last breath if that’s what it takes for you to get it through your head that I'll never forgive you for what you did,” I egg him on. "Ever!"

  Milo’s jaw ticks at every one of my words. The fleeting anger in his eyes set in, and the tendons on his arms rise. I see him visibly grind his teeth.

  He looks like the calm before the storm.

  “Okay then,” Milo’s cold, detached tone is laced with a quiet fury that makes me inwardly shudder. “I will also fight you till my last breath if that’s what it takes to keep you.”

  Milo takes a step closer to me, and it takes everything inside me not to bolt.

  I stand my ground as Milo slowly reaches out and grabs one of my arms, flexing his fingers into me.

  “The difference between us is that I have no boundaries when it comes to you,” he says in an eeriely low voice. “Do you know what my first instinct was after you told me about him? I wanted to tie you up on my bed and fuck the idea out of your head. I wanted to roam the streets of New York to kill my own brother. I still haven’t decided if I'm going through with it or not.”

  I hear my own sharp inward breath at his words.

  Milo, the caretaker, has officially left the building.

  Hello, lust-crazed sociopath.

  The sociopath I want to hurt is reminding me why I ran in the first place. I walk backward until I hit the tall column in the middle of the room.

  I turn around when Milo crowds me with his proximity, and reach my palm out to flatten it on the column so the front of my body doesn’t crash into it.

  Milo is next to me within the second, glaring down.

  “What?” he growls. His rapid breathing indicates his palpable anger. “Are you scared, Raven? Have you ever considered that you wouldn’t have to be if you hadn’t played a part in all of this? None of this would have happened if you didn’t lead me on in the first place.”

  My eyes are wide from fear, but I refuse to let my nerves get the better of me right now.

  This is who I wanted to face. Wish granted. I need to confront him about his weak excuses.

  “So, what?” I lift my chin up in defiance.

  “So, what?” Milo’s brows shoot up, and he tilts his face with a cruel, taunting smile.

  “So, what?” I repeat. “If someone leads you on that doesn’t mean that they deserve it. What are you going to say next, you dressed that way, so you wanted it? Don’t make excuses for yourself. If a woman tells you to stop, you stop. No matter what! You taught me that yourself.”

  Milo looks at me like he is about to lose his shit even more.

  “It’s not an excuse. If I didn’t know what it was like to be with you I would have never gone down that road. You consumed me. Loving you was—”

  “Jesus!” I cut him off. “What you did was not love. Do you even understand the ramifications of your supposed love? You have no idea what it’s like to be betrayed by someone you trust unconditionally. You don’t know what it’s like to have basic rights taken away; the right to decide what you want to do with your own body.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like when your only chance at happiness is taken away. You fucked with my head for entertainment. You exercised complete control over my heart and brain until I was drowning. You kicked me to the curb after making sure I’d never be free of you.”

  I roughly grab his shirt collar, turning myself into the aggressor for a change. I look my assailant directly into his cold, dead eyes.

  “I had a fucking momentary memory lapse when I let you back in my life,” I hiss. “I was crazy to forget what you are capable of.”

  “You are right,” he growls. “You are crazy for underestimating me. Have you forgotten what I did to Ash or all the other fuckers I found out about while you were living it up in Paris? So, maybe it’s not in your best interest to piss me off right now.”

  “Others?” I choke on the word.

  Milo beat up one of my ex-lovers when he found out about him, but I only ever knew of one. How many has he done this to? I stare at him in disbelief.

  “What the fuck!” I scream. “What is wrong with you? Why do you have to be this way?”

  “Because I am obsessed with you,” he screams back. “Because I love yo—”

  “No!” I cry out as my hold on his collar tightens. I will kill him if he tells me again that he loves me. “You don’t deserve to say those words to me.”

  “I suffered for years, and you can’t even hear me say it?” Milo hisses. “I fucking love—”

  “SHUT UP!” I yell at the top of my lungs.

  “NO!” he roars back, equally as loud. “You will listen to the fucking words. I love—”

  I don’t let Milo finish the sentence, and slam my lips onto his. I push him up against the column as hard as I can. One of my arms goes around his neck to grip his hair.

  Milo is frozen from shock but suddenly moves at an all-mighty speed as it dawns on him what I just did.

  He grabs my ass to pick me up. My legs naturally wrap around his waist. I lean further into him, forcing his back to hit the column harder.

  I kiss him fiercely.

  Rough.

  Demanding.

  Hateful.

  Milo pulls me tighter into him with the arm he has around my waist. His other hand frantically grabs at the hem of my dress to slide it up to my hips.

  Both of my hands travel between us to unbuckle his belt and undo his pant buttons. I pull down his zipper and reach inside his boxers to pull out his dick.

  Neither of us come up for air as I aggressively stroke his tongue with mine and his dick with my hand.

  With one hand holding his throbbing cock, I use my other to pull my thong to the side.

  I slide him into my folds to position him, lift my body slightly off his, and slam myself down.

  “Fuck!” Milo finally breaks the kiss to pant.

  I place my palm flat on the column with the other hand around Milo’s neck, using the support to rock myself against him.

  He is looking at me with nothing but awe, unable to speak. Both of us stare at each other in shock.

  Milo slides his hands up from my thighs up to my ass and moves us backward till my back hits the wall by the window.

  I slide my hands across Milo’s chest to his sleeve to peel his jacket off. He alternates his hands so I can peel off each sleeve, tossing the jacket over his shoulder.

  He bends his knees slightly and starts to grind into me. Unable to find any support, I reach out for the window curtain next to me and pull at it for leverage as he hits every spot on my sex.

  “God,” I bite down on my bottom lip, digging my heels into his back.

  Milo moves us off the wall and walks with me in his arms. A loud thud, followed by the sound of something falling on the floor, jolts my senses from the lust surrounding me.

  “What the fuck was that?” I look around in the dark.

  Milo doesn’t respond. We bump into something else en route, but this time I don’t bother asking what shattered.

  I don’t need lights to know that Milo’s darkened eyes are on a single track right now. He reaches the living room and pushes us both down onto the soft rug.

  Before my back can hit the rug, I wrap my legs around his waist and shove at his shoulders, indicating to turn us over so I can straddle him.

  Lifting myself up, I brace a palm on his chest and sink further onto him.

  “Holy shit, baby!” Milo trembles under me.

  His hands are gripping my waist, but I pull his wrists off and pin them by his head. Tightening my hold on his wrist, I start riding him.

  “Use my shirt,” he groans.

  “What?”

  “If you are trying to restrain me, pull my shirt over my head, and leave it there. It will free your hands. I want to feel your hands all over my body,” he says in between broken breaths.

  I still my movements and narrow my eyes at him. Milo lifts his head as I stare down.

  “I know a hate fuck when I see one,” he explains casually with an arrogant smile. “I don’t care. I’ll take you in any way I can, and you are not having any reactions right now.”

  Of course, he knows. I let go of his wrists, and Milo holds his arms up straight above his head.

  Peeling his shirt off, I leave it right over his head, so his arms stay locked.

  Milo is built like superman. He can tear through that flimsy shirt anytime he wants to.

  But I do it anyway because I need visual proof that I am not what Mia suggested.

  Right now, I am not a fucking victim.

  I am not weak.

  I am in charge.

  I repeat those mantras. I scream them in my head and stare down at him. Milo lifts his head to catch my lips with his. I push him back down, refusing to let him have any say over this.

  I remove my jacket, untie the knot of my wraparound dress to slide it off me, and undo my bra.

  It’s a cold day, and the heat is turned off in this house. I should be freezing, but my whole body is on fire. My blood is sizzling, and my bones are burning.

  Milo’s body vibrates under me. He sounds like he is going out of his mind. He is grunting like an animal with each thrust, trying to reign in control.

  I roll my hips and grind into him harder. I can feel Milo writhing under me.

  My palm lands flat on his chest while the other fists into his hair. I keep slamming into him until I come with tears seeping out of my eyes.

  Numbness.

  Oblivion.

  I couldn’t find the weed, but a different drug gave me exactly what I needed.

  Once again, the assailant who is the cause of this ruin is the one to calm me down.

  Having seen me set off, Milo moves quickly to peel off the T-shirt banded around his arms and lifts to a seated position. He pulls me closer onto his lap.

  With a strong hand on my waist, he starts to move me to his will as if I am a limp rag doll.

  His eyes bore into mine, and he keeps up a steady punishing pace until I have no more energy left.

  My senses heighten as he sends aftershocks throughout my overstimulated system.

  Milo takes one of my nipples in his mouth and starts to flick it with his tongue. I immediately start to moan out another earth-shattering orgasm.

  “Oh my God,” I throw my head back and feel Milo biting and nibbling on my neck.

  “Fuck!” Milo pants during his own climax.

  Milo barely pulls out of me before falling backward on the rug, with me on top of him.

  He covers my back with both of his arms and buries his nose in my hair to sigh in content.

  Slumping against his chest, I melt into him. I just threw the biggest tantrum. Hysterics. Theatrics.

  And it feels like he just fucked it all out of me. My legs feel paralyzed, and I am… completely spent.

  -----------

  Milo

  I lift my head to see a mass of black hair all over my chest and a chaotic scene around me.

  I don’t recall drifting off.

  I try to stretch one of my sore arms out. Fuck. I taste blood in my mouth. There is also dried blood on my chest and neck from where Raven scratched me.

  The house is in worse condition than I am. The place looks like a hurricane hit it.

  We knocked over the side table lamp. There is broken glass on the floor. While I was fucking her against the wall by the window, Raven grabbed the curtains. I pulled her to the floor before she let go. The curtain, along with the rod, fell down.

  I can’t get myself to care about any of the damages right now, but I do take a mental note. I’ll clean up as much as I can. I will write them a check for the rest.

  Raven is lying dormant on my chest, hopefully sleeping. My cock stirs every time I breathe her in, but I am careful not to move.

  If she gets a couple hours of sleep it might be worth it to refrain from fucking her again right now.

  I smooth down her hair by gently untangling the knots with my fingers. Her hair is a mess, she has hickeys all over her neck, and I bet her makeup is all smudged.

  She looks like the chaos around us.

  This scene is exactly what I wished for; burning everything down that’s in my path till we are both surrounded by nothing but chaos.

  Our path is now clear with no external obstacles.

  Now that my wish has been granted, why is it making me uneasy about the way this girl is unraveling? I can handle Raven becoming unhinged, but I don’t think she can.

  I have never seen her lose her shit like this before. Perhaps my past actions pushed her much further than I ever thought possible.

  Alternately, this could merely be a result of normal human anger bubbling to the surface.

  Anger is a justified emotion based on our history.

  While I felt obligated to defend the relationship we had and the memories I cherish, Raven’s assessment of our history is correct.

  My assumption of a seventeen-year-old Raven’s level of maturity was wrong. She was an understanding person who lacked strong emotions.

  I misjudged her non-reactive nature for maturity. I expected her to voice it if she didn’t want me as she did with other men.

  But I wasn’t just another man. I held a position of power over her, and she felt pressured to go along with my desires.

  I should have waited until Raven was eighteen to pursue her. I already knew that, but it’s been reasserted.

  As a minor her decisions were not her own. I was a functioning adult by seventeen. We acted so alike; I assumed that she was too.

  I never thought turning eighteen made a difference. It clearly did.

  I had to hide our relationship because I didn’t wait for that milestone. I never realized it made her feel that cheap.

  A tainted relationship at an early age can ruin your self-worth. I was older. It was my responsibility to understand that and address what was happening between us, even when she acted squeamishly.

  My own stunted growth rivaled Raven’s.

  Fucking absentee parents.

  These bad decisions of mine led us both down a path of darkness.

  I look down at the girl I dragged into the dark with me. I breathe her in deeply and finally feel her stir.

  “Rave?” I say in my hoarse voice.

  As soon as Raven lifts her head to look at me, I trail my fingers down and between us to slip into her folds. I have waited as long as I could.

  Fuck. She is still dripping.

  Lifting my own head, I tilt it to nibble at her ear. Both of our chests are moving fast. Our faces are covered with the same animalistic lust.

  We have to talk about the fucked up shit from tonight, but not at this very moment. No words pass between us. We both know what we want.

  “Get on your knees,” I order in a low voice, eyes boring into her with steel cold hunger.

  “Only if you say please,” Raven tries to sass back.

  I usually love her feisty side, but Raven is finally not shuddering out of fear. My mind is on a single track before that changes.

  I flip her over so she is on her back.

  “Milo!”

  I lift up and flip her over again, so she is on her stomach. With a hand under her waist I pull her up to her knees. Raven’s palms naturally fall flat on the floor, so she is on all fours.

  I grab the thong that she never took off, and slide it down to the back of her knees.

  “I am dying to be inside you again,” I breathe. “Spread your legs wider.”

  I take my jeans and boxers off and position myself behind her while Raven complies on shaky legs.

  Prying her thighs open even more with one hand, I use the other to give myself a long stroke.

  I stare at her perfect ass in the air, grab her hips tightly with both hands to pull her butt back, and sheath myself inside her in one hard thrust.

  “Fuck,” Raven cries out and pushes her ass back even more.