I pressed my face into the pillow, the last of my sleep draining away as I breathed in the scent that was unmistakably Ruarc.
Vignettes of the previous night came filtering into my semi-conscious thoughts, making my thighs clench and a deep ache form low in my belly. The echoes of Ruarc’s monstrous cock pounding into me still remained, making little aftershocks shiver up my back and down my arms.
The soft sheets and comforter of the bed cradled me as I stubbornly refused to open my eyes.
Groping my arm across the bed, I expected to feel him but there was nothing. Cracking my eyes open as wide as they would go, I squinted across the room.
Curiosity piqued, I bid my heavy eyelids to open wider, taking in the foreign room. Vaguely, I remembered leaving Delirium. I’d been, well, delirious… as Ruarc guided me back through the throng of naked bodies and into the main house, up the stairs, and into this room.
His room.
My eyes adjusted, seeing more in the light of day than the darkness of the previous night had allowed.
The bed was larger than a king, the sheets a shimmering black silk softer than anything I’d ever touched in my life.
The walls were a deep slate gray, but the upholstery on the bed, sofas, and the curtains were in shades of navy and midnight black. I rolled onto my back, in awe at the elaborately molded and carved ceiling and the twisted chandelier that seemed to be welded from wrought iron to look like a gnarled thorn bush.
The mantle over the tall fireplace held fine vases and other sculpted art. The light was off, letting dawn light filter in the room, giving it a warm glow at odds with the vibe of its owner.
I sat up, feeling oddly bereft as I ran my hand over the vacant silk covered pillow next to my own.
Was it wrong to wish he was there?
Since I’d arrived here, this gothic estate felt like an elegant prison. A lavish imposing structure that would bite, chew, and swallow if I dared attempt to escape it.
It suited its owner.
But now, it felt less like a prison and more like…
Not a home, but a dwelling at the very least. A place where I resided. Like a rented villa. One you couldn’t leave.
I lacked the correct words for the twisted, trusting, yet apprehensive relationship between me and this place. Between me and the man who ruled it.
Ruarc had me twice more in this bed before both of us succumbed to exhaustion, my pussy so beaten, so thoroughly destroyed that I doubted I’d be able to sit properly for a few days. Add to that the bruises on my ass from his death grip as he pummeled into me from behind and yes… sitting was decidedly uncomfortable. I twisted, slipping from the sheets to place my feet on the warm floor and stand on wobbly legs.
I walked around the room, my feet padding over soft, almost velvety carpet, and polished hardwood. Last night, he’d been something other than the beast I’d grown to expect. He was still that, but he was more.
He’d given me a choice and I chose him. Something about having the power to say no and forfeiting it, giving it to him willingly…
It felt so right in its absolute wrongness.
Ruarc showed me he could be cruel. Terrifying. Monstrous.
But he’d also shown me thoughtfulness. That beneath the shadows cloaking his soul in a blanket of impenetrable darkness, he possessed the ability to feel.
Biting my lip, I padded to his bedroom door, hesitating before trying the handle. It opened with one turn of the smooth filigreed handle. My lips popped open as I pulled the door inward, peering out into the hall.
On this level of the house, there were rows of doors to either side of me and stairs leading both to the upper and lower floors. I pushed a foot out before remembering I was completely fucking naked. Right.
Quietly, I twisted the handle, pushing the door back until I heard the solemn click of the latch taking.
Rushing back across the floor, I used the fancy toilet in his massive bathroom before tip-toeing beneath the archway that opened to his massive walk-in. In the middle of the closet was a glass-topped console with drawers running down its height. Underneath the glass was a collection of blindingly bright watches nestled in soft fabric.
Heading for the racks instead, I ran my hand over the line of hanging button-down shirts, plucking one from its hanger and slipping it on.
I clenched my teeth against the smile trying to worm its way onto my lips, smoothing the shirt over my body. It reached well past the apex of my thighs, covering the bits that needed covering, rendering the need for pants obsolete. I opened one of the drawers in a smaller unit set in the wall, finding ties and silk napkins and little slips of cloth. I used one to bind my hair into a knot at the base of my neck, getting it out of my face.
I peered out into the hall again, surveying the ceiling for cameras.
Ruarc told me the entire house was filled with them. He told me I would never get out, locked door or no.
The worst part was I believed him.
No, the worst part was that even though I believed him, I still wanted to try.
Ruarc was steadfast in his principles.
Depending on what I did, how I acted, I was either punished or rewarded.
Either way, something happened and the drudgery of my identical passing days was finally broken.
What was another couple of nights down in the basement if that was what he wanted to give me for my insolence? I could take it. Though I doubted I’d ever see the inside of that stone cell again.
Every time I pushed him, his limit moved.
He gave me that little bit more of an allowance.
Creeping from his bedroom, I found my way to the staircase and padded down, running my hand along the smooth wood of the banister.
I took in the beauty of the mansion.
Every other time I had been outside of the basement, or my room upstairs, I didn’t really have a lot of time to look around.
Eventually, I came to the foyer at the foot of the stairs where the front door loomed across a vacant expanse of parquet floor.
My heart beat uncomfortably hard and out of rhythm as I clutched the banister.
Just a little more.
I wanted to see just a little more before I left.
I recognized the entry to Delirium from the night before, and across from me in the other direction, the tucked away garage entrance. But there were other hallways branching off from the main atrium like veins from a heart.
Picking one at random, I wandered through a tall archway and went down a couple of steps into a beautifully furnished living area. I wandered through it, running my fingers over the lacquered surface of a grand piano before pushing through to an adjacent hallway.
The hall opened up further down into what looked like a grand library. A thrill went through me, my steps picking up pace before stopping suddenly.
A familiar voice echoed from the room to my right.
I slipped into the space, finding the man standing at open glass French doors with his back to me, talking on his phone. Wind blew the wispy curtains inward, making them billow around Nixon like restless wraiths.
“…then we just have to go higher on body disposal,” he said into the receiver.
I froze, not wanting him to hear me.
“What do you mean it can’t get higher?” he asked.
Body disposal?
If he was talking about body disposal then… was he talking to my Dad?
A ball formed in my throat.
“Tell him… then tell him again,” he was saying. “He doesn’t have choices, why don’t you understand that? You have the bargaining power here, not him. He needs you, not the other way around.”
Nixon paused and his hand came up to his face, rubbing over his eyes. His shoulders tensed. Rage rippled through his body.
“He’s not going to—look, I’ll make sure he doesn’t,” he said. “Just do it, old man or I’ll see to her end myself.”
He ended the call.
I backed away, but Nixon turned around on a dime, his cold gaze locking on me, registering surprise before suspicion took hold.
“How the hell did you get out of your room?”
I lifted my chin, holding my ground. “Ruarc left the door open.”
Apparently, that wasn’t the right answer.
Nixon came at me, toppling a tall side table in his haste, spurring me to run. He chased me, catching a handful of my hair to yank me to a shrieking stop.
“What? Did you think you were going to escape?” he taunted, releasing my hair in favor of twisting my arm up behind my back with a firm grip on my wrist. He pushed me, walking fast enough that I lost my footing trying to keep pace.
“What are you doing?” I hissed, struggling against his hold. “Let me go. I wasn’t doing anything!”
“Why’d you run, then, huh?”
I winced at the pain in my shoulder. “Because you were fucking chasing me, asshole.”
“Move!”
He walked us back into the foyer.
“Nixon.”
He stopped cold. I looked around for the source of the voice. Ruarc was on the stairs, looking down at us, his head cocked to one side, eyes blazing on Nixon with the wrath of a thousand suns.
“She got out. I found her by—”
“Release her immediately.”
“Ruarc?”
“Now, Nix,” he growled, his presence thundering like a fucking hurricane, making me recoil back from the violence in his eyes.
Nixon let go of my arm and I stumbled forward, clutching it to my chest, wincing at the sharp ache in my shoulder.
“She almost escaped. If I hadn’t—”
Ruarc’s gaze tracked to me. “Did she?”
I didn’t give an answer, shuffling away from Nixon, putting myself an equal distance between the two men.
“Because I was tracking her every move on the cameras just now. She had a wide open opportunity to walk out that front door,” he pointed to it, stabbing his fingers through the air like a blade. “And she didn’t.”
The men stared at each other, the air between them heavy with tension.
“Ruarc, you can’t trust—”
“Emily is free to move about the house as she pleases,” Ruarc said, seeming to make the decision on the spot, his words carving a hollow in my gut.
Nixon was first to drop his eyes, nodding. “As you wish,” he muttered, stalking away, a black cloud following in his wake.
“Where were you going?” Ruarc asked me when we were alone, coming the rest of the way down the stairs to meet me in the foyer. My skin pricked, singing with anticipation as he drew my arm away from my chest into his hands, checking for injury.
He was shirtless, wearing nothing but loose pants hanging low over his hips. He’d been home all this time? Watching me from the camera feed. So, his not being there this morning was a staged test to see if I’d try escaping.
…and I’d passed his test.
“What if I did intend to leave?” I asked.
He smirked, looking younger than I’d ever seen him. Playful, almost.
His hard, sharp features softened as he languidly massaged my shoulder, his demeanor so relaxed it was hard not to feel at ease.
“You wouldn’t have,” he argued, that smirk turning from cute to infuriating in the breath of a single second.
Oh yeah? Wanna bet?
I gently pulled my arm from Ruarc’s grasp, my throat dry.
“So, where were you going?”
“I was looking for you,” I admitted, realizing it for the first time myself. I’d gone down that hallway under the guise of exploring, but really, around every bend, in every room, I’d been hoping to find him.
“You picked Zegna,” he said, his tone almost appreciative, as he rolled the shirt’s fabric between his fingers. Did I? I thought I just picked a shirt. Something told me that I’d have a stroke if he told me how much it cost.
“Do all your shirts have names?”
Ruarc laughed before his eyes cut sharply to mine, panicked as if the sound coming from his own mouth startled him. His jaw clenched tight, cheekbones flexing as he cleared his throat.
“It looks better on you than on me,” he said, eyeing me appreciatively. “Now, go back upstairs. I’ll bring you something to eat.”
He pushed a stray lock of my hair back from my face before brushing past me to stroll down a narrower hallway I had to assume led to a kitchen.
My lip caught between my teeth, watching him go. It was jarring sometimes when he was warm. Making me think unsafe thoughts. Treacherous things like maybe he was just misunderstood. Maybe he wasn’t so bad. Maybe… maybe I could love him. Each thought like a path leading to an ever darker part of a gnarled forest. If I wasn’t careful, I’d get lost, never able to find my way back.
And yet I knew in the marrow of my bones that Ruarc was the most dangerous thing in the room, and with him, I’d never be more safe.
How fucked up was that?
Once the sound of Ruarc’s footfalls faded from earshot, I rushed to the front door, my breaths unsteady as I shakily threw both wide open to the day. Sunlight bathed me in its warm glow and I shut my eyes, allowing it to paint the backs of my eyelids in gold.
I blinked into the brightness of the early afternoon, staring my freedom dead in the eye. Down at the bottom of the grand staircase there was a gravel drive, it curved around the front of the gothic mansion and spread out in two directions, winding out into the trees toward the road.
A cloud passed over the sun, suffusing the warm glow of the sun into a cold hue. I wavered, flinching back from the sudden chill in the air. He would only drag me back…
With shaking hands, I stepped back. Back again. And shut the heavy doors, uncaring that the sound boomed through the house.
Hot tears pooled in my eyes and I blinked them back as I ran back up the stairs, down the long hall, up onto the next floor and straight to my bedroom.
I buried myself beneath the covers, shivering despite their warmth.
By the time Ruarc came in, a tray balanced in his hands, the shaking had stopped, replaced by a ravenous hunger growling in the pit of my stomach like a starved animal.
He slid the tray onto the covers next to me.
On it there were two cups of coffee but one plate of food. Pancakes, with bacon and sunny side up eggs.
In a shot glass next to the tall glass of orange juice was one small white pill.
“What is that?” I asked, though I thought I might already know.
“It’s… just in case.”
“An emergency contraceptive?”
I shivered at the reminder of him inside of me.
He nodded. “If you’re not avoiding it, you’re asking for it. Take this and then we’ll start you on a regular course of pills tomorrow.”
The thought of possibly carrying his child bent my mind out of shape. I took the pill, throwing it to the back of my throat, chasing it down with hot coffee. Thank fuck one of us was thinking clearly. But the promise of more between the lines of what he said made my core tighten.
A regular course of pills.
I’d only need that if…
I cleared my throat. “Are you leaving?”
“Not yet,” he said, his eyes narrowing on me. “Why?”
I watched him take a sip of his coffee. A simple, totally benign action that every single adult human being on this earth did, and yet somehow he did it in a way that was superior. Like a king. Or a fucking god.
I am so fucked.
It was like learning who someone was in reverse. Getting all the bad, all the dirty, all the ugly, out of the way before glimpsing all the things that were pure and true and good.
Like the fact that he liked cream in his coffee. Or that he had a dimple in his right cheek when he smiled.
“What is it?” he pressed, setting his coffee back down on the tray while I picked at a piece of bacon.
“I think I heard something I wasn’t supposed to hear today.”
A vein in his temple jumped. He pushed the tray closer to me.
“Eat something.”
I obediently ate a forkful of pancakes drenched in syrup.
“How long has Nixon worked here?”
“He doesn’t work here as much as he works for me,” he answered, his eyes watching me intently over the rim of his coffee cup. “Why?”
I looked down, using the plate to distract me. I split one of the strips of bacon, biting into it.
“When I ran into him he was on a phone call. I heard some of it.”
I hazarded a look up at his face, which was still calm so I kept going.
“He was talking about body disposal.”
“He would be. Coordinating that is one of his duties.”
Look at me, having a perfectly normal conversation with a man who had ‘body disposal’ on his resume right next to ‘stalker’ and ‘sadist.’
I nodded, coughing to get control of a rogue laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.
“He was arguing about the cost of body disposal. I think he might’ve been talking to my dad.”
His stubbled jaw clenched almost imperceptibly as he lowered his cup from his mouth.
“You learned all that from what? Hearing half a conversation?”
I swallowed, putting down my fork.
“I said I thought I heard something I wasn’t supposed to hear. I’m telling you just in case you know more about it. I don’t want my dad to get hurt.”
His jaw clenched harder now, its already sharp line firming even further. There was something there. He wasn’t giving anything away, and his suspicion was clear, but there was something he wasn’t saying to me.
“What did your father tell you about the disposal service he offered us?”
“Nothing,” I answered truthfully. “I found out what he was doing, what you were doing by mistake, that night I ran into you in the basement. If he had it his way, I still wouldn’t know.”
“I see. So then you have no idea what you might or might not have overheard during Nixon’s call.”
I rolled my eyes. He was right, I didn’t know the bulk of what he did or what he talked about with my dad, or what Nixon was talking about on the phone; but I knew what I heard. I knew for a fact that he brought bodies to my father to process off the books. I knew that much. I wasn’t in the know, but I wasn’t clueless either.
“You can ask him if you want. He said that the cost needed to be higher, that he–my dad–had the power or something like that.”
Ruarc’s expression went blank, a mask pulled over any emotion he might’ve been feeling just under the surface.
“He’s my right-hand man, he tells me everything.” His tongue was sharp, dressing me down with his eyes. “If you want to make claims like that, you better have the proof to back it up.”
I bristled at the harsh edge to his words, the meager amount of food I’d manage to ingest souring in my gut.
“Forget I said anything. I just… thought you should know.”
His lips flattened and he sucked his cheeks in, emphasizing his already sky-high cheekbones.
“There are things you don’t know or understand about me or my business, Emily, and it would benefit us both if you remained ignorant of them. Don’t get involved.”
“Okay,” I almost snapped, hating how he was talking to me like I was some naive child who wouldn’t have a chance of understanding him or the violent things he did. “I just thought the conversation was weird and maybe you should know. Don’t believe me, I don’t really care. I don’t have proof, like you said. Ask Nixon. Or better yet, ask my dad. That’s who I think he was talking to anyway.”
He discarded his empty coffee cup on the tray with a clatter, pushing tattooed fingers through his dark hair.
His silence was worse than when he spoke.
“Do you have any more intel for me? Conversations you weren’t supposed to hear? Things you weren’t supposed to see?” he asked. I ignored the sarcastic edge in his voice, sipping my quickly cooling coffee before responding.
“No. But if you’re taking requests, any chance I could get my hands on a phone?”
“No.”
His answer was so flat, I almost laughed.
“Thought so. Can’t blame a shooter for shooting,” I said, shrugging. I looked up, spotting the smallest smirk on his face.
“This house has three libraries. You’ll die before you read every available book. If you’re bored, start there.”
“About that. Any chance you could order something that was published in this century, this decade would be even better. Something… spicy.”
His smirk grew, he smiled and then he laughed.
Warmth exploded in my chest. I couldn’t explain how absurdly happy it made me that I could make him laugh. It disarmed me, presenting an ordinary, approachable version of himself I never knew I’d be able to access. His handsome features became beautiful when he smiled. He brushed his hair back.
“Am I not enough for you?”
It was my turn to laugh and shrug. “I need something to keep me company when you leave me for days at a time.”
“Hmmm,” he purred, the treble of his tone making my skin prickle. “Suppose I’ll need to rearrange my schedule then.”
He rose, stretching, before heading to the door.
“Was that a yes?”
“Yes, little lamb, I’ll order your filthy books.”
Ruarc moved to close the door behind him, but then released the handle, leaving it open.
