Daughter…
The word dragged me to the surface. Higher and higher I rose, until the panic set in and I remembered exactly where I was. I cracked open my eyes, blinked until the blur went away, and fixed my sight on the tiny blinking red light of the electronic lock.
Daughter…
I pushed upwards and scanned the room as that haunting word lingered.
Daughter.
Not his daughter. I tried to grasp the loose threads of my memory, still caught between the waking world and my dreams. No, they hadn’t said his daughter, but they’d called me that and I didn’t understand why. I shoved the plush bedding aside and rose, wrapping my arms around my body as I shivered. It was cold this morning. One glance at the soft morning sunlight and I realized it was early…
Too early for him.
Thoughts of last night pushed in, panicked at first. Why the fuck had I gone down there? What the hell did I hope to find? Nothing that could save me…that was for sure. Not from this hell, or The Order.
I walked into the bathroom and glanced up at the cameras, hating that panicked feeling of him watching me, and tugged the pale pink nightdress over my head. Traitor.
I winced, tossed the garment to the floor, and wrapped my arms across my breasts before I stepped into the shower. I wore his clothes now. I used his makeup. I did what he told me, even as that screaming thing inside me kicked and bucked and howled in response.
It didn’t matter.
None of it mattered.
Steam rose instantly as I hit the faucets, filling the shower stall, leaving me to drop my hands and turn around. As I lifted my gaze, that blinking light on the camera dulled, smothered by the fog on the glass. I tilted my head backwards and stared at the shimmering blur until I finally closed my eyes.
I washed, shampooed, and conditioned, each strand smelling like he wanted. What he demanded. What he controlled.
I had to get out of here.
The need thrummed.
I had to find a way to get my control back, because if I didn’t…I’d lose myself forever. The thought of that was terrifying. I turned around and hit the faucets, ending the spray. The steam lingered, warm and wet, as I sucked in a breath, opened the shower stall, and stepped out.
Only I wasn’t alone…
He stood there.
Arms crossed.
Dark eyes fixed.
Malice burned in his stare.
Which made me shiver.
London never spoke as he grasped a thick white towel from the top of the pile and stepped toward me. Fear nailed me to the spot, even as my heart hammered and my knees turned weak.
“What you did last night was reckless,” he started, and dragged the towel over my shoulders. “But I can understand why you did it. It was a momentary lapse of judgment on your behalf. A remnant from your time in The Order as you adjust to your new surroundings. As you adjust to your place.”
Your place.
That venomous tone hit me.
“Lift your arms,” he ordered.
My hands trembled as they rose in the air, leaving him to wipe the beads of water that coursed down the sides of my breasts. He moved my long hair to the side, scrunching the strands as they dripped. I hated how my mind took over, how he made me feel young and weak and afraid and vulnerable.
“So, I’m going to overlook your error.” He dragged the towel down the line of my back and over the curve of my ass, lingering. My senses were on fire, tracking that crippling stare as he took in my body.
He can’t touch me…
He can’t fuck me…
He can’t hurt me…
Thump.
The towel dropped to the floor at my feet. I stared at the wall as he moved, grabbed a bottle of expensive lotion on the counter, and opened the lid. “Otherwise, I might assume you required some adjustment, Vivienne.” He squirted the creamy white lotion into his palm and moved back to me. “That this spirited need inside you requires a …heavier hand.”
I closed my eyes as his touch moved along the underside of my arm.
“Lower.”
My throat clenched, and revulsion burned as he smoothed the mess across my stomach. I knew instantly where this was going. His hand cupped my breast, spreading the lotion underneath with his fingers as his thumb grazed my nipple.
He never looked away.
Because he liked this.
The degradation.
The pain.
He lowered his gaze as he brushed my nipple once more. It tightened, puckered. Excitement glinted in that sickening stare. “I need to do your legs,” he instructed, his voice devoid of the emotion that raged in his eyes. One he hid from me. “Now.”
He hid it from me.
Now.
Just like he had last night.
Like he’d done before.
Every time he’s near me, like he’s fighting something, pushing me away and yet drawing me back, unable to stand the thought of me and yet…yet…yet he craves me. That thought punctured my mind like a thorn as he stepped to the side and jerked his head toward the bed. I saw it now, saw past the control and cruelty. I saw that man, the hotblooded man who invaded my room. I stepped into the bedroom to find my clothes laid out neatly on the bed.
The man who sets my clothes out every morning, and who rules what I wear to bed.
Who’d come to my rescue when I was lured out of my room by the two men he called sons.
Who’d abducted me from The Order…
And forced them to give me to him.
“Sit.”
I turned around and did as he instructed, lowering myself to the bed. He didn’t look my way, intent on the task at hand now that I was pliable and meek.
I was pliable…and meek.
He sat on the side of the bed and patted his thigh. “Your foot.”
I froze and my heartbeat thrashed in my ears as I whispered. “No.”
He jerked his gaze to mine, the shine savage and feral. “No?”
“N-no.”
There was a second of chilling silence before a twitch came at the corner of his eye. Then he lunged in an instant, twisted to grab my throat, and drove me back against the pillows. “NO?” he roared, and fury filled his stare as he loomed over me. “There is no NO in your vocabulary when you speak to me, do you understand that?”
I couldn’t move.
His hand clenched tighter as he shook me. “DO YOU UNDERSTAND!”
No…
No, I didn’t understand any of this.
His gaze narrowed as he pinned me to the bed. Sawing breaths came in the wake of his anger, the heat burning as he fixed on my parted lips, then lowered to the hold around my throat. It eased, no longer crushing. “You think I’m playing fucking games here?” He shifted that violent stare to mine. “You have no idea of the things I’ve done to have you. No idea of—”
He stopped himself, scowled, and looked at my mouth before he clenched his jaw and eased backwards. “So when I tell you to lift your fucking foot, Vivienne, lift your foot.”
He eased backwards further as he released his hold. I didn’t move, my gaze fixed on him as he straightened, composed himself, and said, “Let’s try this again. Your foot.”
He bent, grasped the bottle of lotion from the floor, and straightened.
But if he thought his outburst had scared me…
Then he was wrong.
He was wrong because he couldn’t break me.
Because he didn’t know me.
Because I had no brothers to come save me and no mother who’d ever cared.
Because I had me…and only me.
I lifted my foot as he straightened and placed my heel on his thigh. But I didn’t rise from the bed, didn’t cover myself, or hide myself at all. When he turned his head, I lifted my other leg and parted my thighs, letting him see what he wanted to see…
“You want me so bad,” I whispered, reaching down to cup my breast. “Then have me.”
He stared, clenching his jaw, his gaze riveted on the juncture of my thighs.
“You know I fucked myself when you left the last time,” I whispered. “Because you watched.”
I moved my hand down past my stomach, to my navel, brushing the top of my mound.
“You want your cock inside me. You want to feel me, taste me.”
He licked his lips.
“You want to take me down to your basement,” I pushed.
With every flare of his jaw.
Every second of silence.
I grew stronger.
Until with a snarl, he tossed the lotion on the bed beside me, rose, and walked out.
Boom!
I flinched at the slam of the door.
My heart echoed the sound.
Panicked and heavy in my chest, until, with a roll of my stomach, I pushed upwards and ran for the bathroom…to be sick.
