leave the house. Over the weeks, it had become a haven, the only home she had ever known, the only heaven in her life of hell. And she wasn’t ready to let it go, unsure if she would ever return, the part of her that still questioned herself constantly wondering if he would leave her in the city. She would miss the house, the deck, the routine. She would miss cooking and being herself, meeting Dr. Manson everyday and taking walks around the garden with Bessie. She would miss it all.
She shook her head and snapped the hair tie she’d put around her wrist. Dr. Manson had suggested tying a hair tie around her wrist and snapping it whenever a bad, baseless thought entered her mind. When she’d looked up an article on the same, it said that it trained the brain to feel punished for bad thoughts and so eventually, it became more manageable.
It had been a few weeks and she could attest that it did work for her. Training her brain into different thought patterns was something she had been working on actively. Some things she did on her own, like the hair tie, like the daily tasks, like writing something good about every day. Some things she needed help with, and the man who was a nightmare to so many people helped her.
Like she had told him how going into the bathtub reminded her of all the times she had tried to drown herself under the water, and he had simply started drawing her a bath every night. He picked her up and carried her in arms, sitting down on one end and making her sit on him, with her back to his front and him inside her, not moving, not fucking, just still, so she began to associate the tub and baths with him.
Another time, she’d told him about how in the past having her asshole touched made her feel sick and dirty, how the thought of it still made her stomach turn. And he, deviant, dominant he, had tied her ankles to her wrists until she was obscenely exposed, and put a vibrator on her clit, his cock in her pussy, and his thumb in her rosebud until she had forgotten it had even been there, lost in the sensations. The next morning, before he left, he had turned her over the couch and spanked her ass, lubing her up with her own juices, and put a small plug in her backside, telling her not to take it out, not to touch herself, not to do a thing to it until he returned. The entire day, the weight of the object in one hole and the emptiness of the object in another had messed with her nerves until she had been on the deck, naked, her legs spread over the arms of the chair just to let the cool breeze give her overheated skin some relief. That was how he’d found her, and he’d caged her on the chair, leaning over, and pushed himself inside her, double penetrating her in a way that had made her mindless with sensations, her screams echoing over the mountains until she passed out.
But it wasn’t just her sexual hang-ups he was helping her work through. It was emotional too.
She’d confessed to him how insecure she felt, how she feared he would leave her one day and she didn’t know if she could handle that. The next morning, he had taken her to the closet, and stood behind her. Brining up his hands, he had told her to close her eyes. She had, and immediately something cold, metallic had touched the skin around her neck, making her breath hitch. She had opened her eyes to see a gold, thin choker around her neck, the metal warming to her body temperature.
“Just like your hair tie,” he’d murmured with his lips against her neck. “When you feel that insecurity, touch this, remind yourself who claimed you, remind yourself of the last six years and how I never let you go once, and ask yourself if you ever think I’d let you go now. The world could tilt on its axis, flamma, and I’d still be the most certain thing in your life.” A soft kiss. “You’re the oxygen that feeds my flames—without you, my existence is questionable.”
She touched the gold chain around her neck as he locked the door, taking her toward the helicopter in the early morning light. As she walked to the waiting ride, a thrill of excitement shot up her spine. She’d been fascinated with the thing since she had seen it on her first morning. She got to the side of the black helicopter and she turned around to look at the house, a gray and black sleek marvel of architecture half on the cliff and a little under.
Looking at the house, she remembered the day she’d confessed in the dark of the night that she didn’t know where she would go if she ever had to be alone, that she had nothing on the outside. He had listened intently with his arms around her, and the next day, he’d taken her to the safe in the study.
***
“Sit,” he told her, and she took a seat. He sat down next to her, turning his whole body toward her, handing her a manila envelope.
“What’s this?” she asked, curious about the content as she pulled it out. She looked over a bunch of legal jargon, most of it flying over her head, and turned questioning eyes to him.
He pointed at the first document. “That is the deed to this house. It’s in your name—Lyla Blackthorne—and it’s all yours.”
Stunned, she looked down at the paper again, and sure enough the words ‘property’ and ‘belong’ and her name, her new name, were there. While she processed it, the enormity of it, he continued. “I had this house built for you. You’ll always have a place to go that is only yours.”
Tears welled up in her eyes as she clutched the document to her chest, the gesture, the thought, more important than he’d ever know.
He picked up a second document, his hypnotic dual light and dark eyes steady on hers. “This—” he handed her the second document “—is a marriage license, officially declaring you Mrs. Blackthorne. So you own everything I own, and you can go anywhere in the world and have a name.”
Fuck.
“But we didn’t get married,” she pointed out, not understanding how he’d gotten it done.
“In the eyes of the law, we did.” The statement was enough in itself. It hadn’t been lawful whatever he’d done to make it possible, but he’d done that.
He had given her a home and a name, a place and a person to belong, space to learn who she was and what her individuality was, her likes and dislikes, her hopes and inhibitions. He had given her the ability to dream.
Without a word, she crashed her lips into his, thanking him the only way she could, by pouring everything she was feeling into that one kiss, letting him understand what it meant to her. He gripped her jaw like he always did, his tongue twining with hers, and accepted what she gave, demanding more, demanding everything, merging them so completely until she didn’t know where she ended and where he began.
After long, long minutes of kissing, she pulled back, her lips swollen, her eyes shining. “I think I’m in love with you.”
He brushed his nose against hers, his eyes soft on her. “I know that you are.”
And though he didn’t say he loved her back, though she didn’t know if he felt it, it was enough. Everything he had been for years, everything he had been for weeks, everything he had done to empower her, it was enough.
He had given her many gifts but his biggest, most beautiful had been freedom. What she’d thought of as a prison in the beginning had instead been a safe space for her to be, to explore herself, to live without fear.
She was free.
She was fearless.
She was flying.
And it was all because of him.
And that was more than enough.
***
The feel of his hand on her back brought her back to the present as he picked her up and put her in. She sat still as he strapped her in, her heart beating in happy rhythms as she watched him, his dark hair, his permanent scruff, his mismatched, hypnotic, devilish eyes. He gripped her jaw and gave her a hard, quick kiss.
“You love me,” he stated, as he had begun stating every day since she’d told him.
“I love you,” she confirmed, brushing her nose against his.
He kissed her again and pulled back, shutting the door at her side. She saw him walk lithely to the pilot’s side and climb in with an agility that belied how often he’d done this. He shut his door and strapped himself in, and she watched with absorption as he began to push some buttons that made no sense to her. He put on his headgear and indicated to hers, and she put it on, eager to see what happened next.
After he did some checks, he pushed a button that sent vibrations running through her body as the blades of the helicopter started to move. Gripping the edges of her seat, heart pounding, her stomach dropped as the ground slowly began to move lower. They dipped forward slightly before steadying, hovering, and she absorbed the entire vista of the mountains, the cliffs, the sea, the beach, the house, spread out below for her to feast her eyes upon.
“Wow,” she breathed out, still amazed that she could see something like this when a few months ago all she’d expected out of life had been a clean end. She had changed since then, evolved, grown. Like a tree that had been cut and ravaged and pulled until nothing remained for the eye to see. He hadn’t seen the ripped roots, the bleeding stump, the utter destruction. No, he had seen life. He had taken the single root, put it in a controlled, safe environment, and fed it sunlight and water and affection in his own way until a new shoot had emerged, new roots had planted, new flowers had bloomed.
Eyes glued to the vista below as they got higher and higher, she felt her stomach twist with every vibration and glide of the helicopter. She turned to see him, watching the little smile on his lips as he took them across the mountains inland toward the city—Gladestone.
He had told her about it one day when she’d asked about where she had been, where the complex had been. He’d told her about Gladestone, a city that emerged in the 1800s, known for its mining and textile industrial prowess. It was a fast-paced city, a place where people didn’t sleep and crime didn’t stop. It was one of the key locations for The Syndicate’s operations, something she’d learned from him later. That was what had brought him to Gladestone all those years ago in the first place. It was a dark, polluted settlement of mostly people who had something or the other to do with the underworld—be in humans, organs, animals, murderers, or more.
After about half an hour of flying, she got to see the first of the tall factory chimneys from a distance.
“That’s Gladestone’s outskirts,” he told her, his voice loud and crackling with static in her headphones. Factories after factories passed under her, the view so drastically different from the one she’d seen around home.
Home.
It still sent disbelief coursing through her when she said that.
The cityscape come across the view after a few minutes, the factories and warehouses falling away to show cleaner, taller buildings. The first glimmer of the black hole opened in her mind in months watching the city that had destroyed her.
“Where’s the Club District?” she shouted over the mouthpiece.
He pointed right. “Over there. You used to live farther in that direction.”
She touched her choker, taking a deep breath, and snapped her hair tie again, rooting herself in the present. It was fine. She was fine. She was not the same girl who had given in to the black hole. She was new and she would be fine.
Dainn circled a tall building, one of the tallest in the skylines, and she saw a helipad on top of the roof. “We’re going down.”
She gave a thumbs up sign, and held onto her straps, her stomach whooping as they descended. She regulated her breathing, knowing it would take some getting used to for this to feel normal, and they touched the roof.
Within moments, once the helicopter was set, he pushed more buttons and turned it off, the blades slowing down until they stopped.
Unbuckling himself, he jumped down from the pilot’s cockpit and came around to her, getting her out and on the roof in record time.
Her knees shook but she stood with his support, feeling the wind on her face, the sun on her skin, the view—although beautiful in its own way—marred by her memories. She hated this city and hated its people.
“Mr. Blackthorne, welcome.”
The voice from a woman on the side made her turn. A pretty woman in some kind of a uniform led them toward an elevator.
“Thank you, Fiona.” He pasted a charming smile on his face and took her hand. “I hope you have our suite ready? My wife is tired from the trip.”
For the first time, she saw why people fell for his facade without seeing who he was underneath. The woman ate it up, and to be honest, so did she, especially the ‘wife’ part.
“Of course, Mr. Blackthorne.” The woman pressed a keycard to a fancy, fancy elevator. “Should I tell Moonflame to expect you tonight?”
“Yes, please. Thank you, Fiona.”
The elevator doors closed and Lyla watched in fascination as his smile dropped, his usual, neutral expression back on his face, his eyes hidden behind the dark shades he had worn. He took his phone out from his suit pocket, the other holding hers, and operated it with one hand.
And she liked that. She liked that he was real with her, just as he was, no pretenses.
“Dainn,” she tugged his hand.
“Hmm?”
“Moonflame?”
He paused, looking at her, knowing she was asking him about the sex club they had met in once years ago, a sex club that had been a nightmare for her.
“Why are you going there tonight?”
He pocketed his phone, turning to her. “We are going there tonight. I bought the club after that night in the maze. Changed things up. We are going because I want you to experience what an actual sex club is like.”
She looked at his chest exposed by his unbuttoned shirt. “Are you… do you force people there?”
“Not if they don’t want to be forced.”
People wanted to be forced? What the fuck?
She felt his breath on her cheek. “Close your eyes.”
Her eyes shuttered immediately.
“Now imagine me,” his voice wrote seduction on her skin. “Imagine me pushing you down and you struggling to get away. Deep down, you know I wouldn’t hurt you, but this is a game, and so we pretend. I pretend and chase you, you pretend and run. I catch you—” her breath hitched as his hands skimmed over her sides “—and push you face down into the bed. You pretend to struggle, you want to get away from me, but I tie you up, you can’t move. So you scream.”
His hand suddenly covered her mouth, his voice in her ear as he came behind her. “I muffle your screams, take my hand lower, choke you until you stop.”
Memories collided with the fantasy inside her, her body trembling as he kept weaving the words over her. “So you stop screaming, stop struggling. And then I push my cock inside your tight little cunt—” his hand cupped her over her jeans “—and if you make one noise, I’ll choke you.”
She could hear her loud breathing, almost pants at the visual he created in her mind.
“Would you want this fantasy?”
Before she could say another word, the elevator doors opened and so did her eyes, flying to see the three people staring at her with wide eyes. She could imagine what they looked like—a small woman with a large man looming behind her, his hand over her mouth and between her legs.
The said hand gave her a little squeeze before he let go, twining their fingers together again and taking her with him.
He was rewriting her sexual experiences, and she trusted him to do it.
‘With you, I would,’ she told him like always.
‘There would never be anyone else,’ he promised as always.
