by K. V. Rose
He slides his hand up to my chin, squeezes my face so hard my lips press together. “I’ll be thinking about you,” he tells me, running his thumb over my bottom lip as he grabs my ass. “When I’m coming inside of Evora’s mouth tonight, I’ll be thinking about you, beautiful girl.”
My heart shatters with those words, my mind twisting inside out.
“Now get off of me and meet Dante in the hall. He’ll take you to a room that doesn’t smell like fucking pine.”
When I walk out of her room, I pull the king of hearts from my pocket.
And rip it in half.
Dante is watching me as he stands guard outside of her door, and I vaguely remember he hasn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. Then again, neither have I.
I don’t bother heading to my bedroom where Evora is waiting.
I head to my office, past the entertainment room, the living room, the dining room. So many fucking rooms in this house and I’d be content if they all burned to ash, as long as I had the one fucking room to hide in.
When I get to the closed door, the king of hearts shredded into dozens of pieces in my hand, Mamie steps out from the shadows and I almost pull my gun on her, the jagged edges of the playing card fluttering to the floor as my hand goes to my hip.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I ask her, my voice low, my jaw aching from clenching my teeth so hard.
Mamie narrows her blue eyes, smooths her hand over the plain, black shift dress she always wears. I swear she has one hundred of them.
“Evora is in your room,” she says, as if she didn’t just call me while Addison was fucking my leg to tell me just that.
I flex my fingers, clench my hands into fists.
Her eyes travel down, to the pieces of the playing card I just destroyed.
She arches a dark brow, meeting my gaze again, not a trace of fear in her eyes.
Mamie was gangraped by American soldiers during her time as a hooker, over a period of forty-eight hours. She ended up in the hospital, praying for death, before she was patched up and put back on the streets. Where I found her.
She never told me that story.
I read about it in the news after I decided to keep her.
The soldiers who did it to her were “never found.”
One of them had hired me. I killed him instead.
That earned even more of her loyalty toward me. Her bravery, though, where I’m concerned forgets one thing, I would never leave her alive to fester on the things I’d do to her if she pushed me.
“Why do you want to make this harder on the girl?” she questions me, in only a way Mamie would ever question me.
I don’t answer her.
“You think getting into her head will make yours feel better?” She taps the side of her head with her index finger. “You feel good screwing around in there, Max?” She steps closer to me, finger still to her head.
My nostrils flare and I imagine shoving her against the wall. I imagine my hands around her throat. I imagine all the ways I could make my head feel better.
I don’t touch her.
I only touch my staff if I want to kill them.
I’m close, right now, with Mamie. But not quite there.
“She’s a teenage girl. Find better prey. Be a man about fucking with someone’s mind, Max.” She grits her teeth, drops her hand, and looks down at the pieces of playing card between us again. “Her life is going to be misery from here on out, until she gets shot in the head after she’s served her purpose.”
My blood runs cold as I imagine Ollie. Where he’s been the past eighteen years. What could’ve happened to him.
Then I think about my father’s face looming over mine when I woke in his bedroom after he let his bodyguard, Coda, and two of his friends fuck me into unconsciousness. “You had to be stitched up. And for what, Maximus?”
It wasn’t long after that my mother took me and my brother. Wasn’t long after that we started using the playing cards.
Mamie knows nothing about that.
“You work for me,” I tell her, stepping toward her, and watching that spark of fear light up in her eyes as she steps back. Yeah. Everyone has it. “You don’t advise me. You don’t lecture me. And you don’t fucking tell me how to treat my own goddamn property.” I point at the mess I made of the card. “Clean that shit up, and don’t ever fucking cross this line between us again, do you understand? I’d hate to do it, Mamie, but I’ll put you right back where I found you if you keep fucking with me.”
I don’t see Max for four days.
Instead, Dante wakes me up every morning for breakfast, where I eat alone at the dining room table. I assume Mamie makes the food. It’s waiting at my place setting when I come to the kitchen, and it’s no longer tainted.
I’m not drugged anymore.
After breakfast, I work out in the gym. Then I go for walks around Max’s property outside, breathing in the stagnant, humid air of a southern summer. I might not know where we are, but you can’t fake this kind of heat. I’m convinced it only exists in the south.
I take a shower.
Eat lunch, again alone, save for Dante’s heavy, unnerving presence.
And after lunch, I’m confined to my room.
Until it starts all over again in the morning.
Max doesn’t come in the night.
I see no one but guards during the day.
I don’t say a single word aloud for four days.
But the night after Max ripped my heart out and Dante led me to a guest room, the next morning when I returned to mine, it no longer smelled like pine.
Lavender.
It smells like lavender instead.
On the fifth day, after lunch, I follow Dante to my room. He turns to me, nodding toward my door, and I think about going in, like I have been.
I think about doing what I’m told.
But I’m feeling restless, lost without knowing how much time I’m shackled here. How much time I have before I’m… Don’t think about it.
I don’t. Instead, I cross my arms over my chest, letting Dante know I’m kind of tired of wearing this figurative leash. If Max wanted me to remain docile, he shouldn’t have blown Ben’s head off.
“I’d like to call my father,” I tell Dante, locking my eyes with his, refusing to look away. He might be armed, and he might be every bit as imposing as Max, but he’s yet to hurt me. And while I have absolutely nothing to say to my father, I think he’d tell me the timeline I’m working with here. He’d probably like to rub it in my face, because Max isn’t the only one who gets off on sick forms of torture.
If I think about it too long, I can imagine my father palming my A-cup, before I got implants. I can imagine his mouth on me, his eyes on mine as he told me how much he loved that I didn’t yet remind him of a woman.
I don’t want to think about that.
I force it from my mind.
Instead, I watch Dante’s throat bob as he shifts on his feet. Interestingly, for a bodyguard armed to the teeth, for a man that works directly underneath a guy like Max, Dante seems nervous around me. But his tone is stern when he says, “You can’t.”
Hugging myself tighter, I glance down the long, dark hallway toward my bedroom. It’s empty. “Why not?” I ask, my gaze finding Dante’s again. “You can listen in,” I offer, as if I had a choice. But my father always made suggestions like that when he tried to persuade someone to his side. Gave them grace where there really was none. Dante would listen in no matter what I did or didn’t say. Still, it doesn’t hurt to play into his own desire for control. Seems like it’s the thing men want most in this world. As Max’s shadow, Dante is probably craving a lot of it.
“It won’t be long,” I add quickly, just as Dante’s brow furrows.
He no longer looks uncomfortable. He just seems annoyed. “Addison. Get in your room.”
I have the sudden urge to slap him, but his biceps bulging through his black dress shirt tell me that might not be a good idea. �
�Fine,” I snap, unable to control my temper completely. “Can you at least tell me how long I have here? Can you tell me if you’ve heard from my father? Can you tell me anything about my fucking life, Dante?” My chest heaves with those words, all of the pain from the last time I saw Max coming out and spewing all over the wrong person.
I drop my hands, step closer to Dante even as some rational part of my mind tells me that’s a terrible idea. But none of this is a great idea. My entire life has been one bad idea right after the fucking other.
Why not make it a little worse?
“We both know I’m fucked,” I tell Dante, and he keeps glaring at me, refusing to step back as I advance. We’re close enough that I have to tip my head back to look him in the eye. If I wasn’t so worked up, I might be scared of what I see there.
He looks like a dog might when you crowd it into a corner. When it starts to bare its teeth and snarl, right before it bites.
But I’ve been crowded into a corner my entire life. I want to sink my teeth into someone, too.
“We both know that no matter what happens, there’s no happy ending for me. I’ve known that my entire life.” I step closer, until my chest is nearly brushing his. I see a muscle tick in his jaw, but I don’t stop. “I think I deserve to know what’s happening to me. I think I deserve to know what my punishment is for being born to the wrong life. I think I deserve to know how much longer you’ll be following after me, your tail between your legs every time Max looks at you funny.”
His scowl deepens as he crosses his arms, as if to put something between us.
I don’t care. My heart is thundering in my chest and I’ve got a headache coming on behind my eyes, like a warning that I need to take a step back. I need to go to my room like a good girl. I need to calm down, do as I’m told. Accept the orders of a monster who won’t think twice about sending me to a life of sexual slavery.
But I don’t want to back down, because that life is this one.
I’m not free here.
I never was.
I point my finger in Dante’s face and watch his right eye twitch. “You like being his bitch, huh? You enjoy spending your life standing outside of doors and listening to him doing the important things on the other side of them, Dante?”
One more step, and we couldn’t get any closer unless he uncrosses his arms, which I think he’d only do at this point to hit me.
I’d enjoy the fight.
“Is he fucking you, too? Is that what this is? Are you his pet? Does he make you kneel? Is he going to sell you when you’re no longer useful?” My voice is lower, but my rage is so bright it’s nearly blinding. Max Bennett acts as if the world should be grateful he exists in it, and the world, in turn, bows at his feet.
I’m fucking sick of bowing at the feet of men.
“What is wrong with all of you?” I throw up both of my hands. “What’s wrong with you that you scurry around this house like fucking mice? You ask, ‘how high’ when Max says fucking ‘jump’. Don’t you have a mind of your own? Don’t you want to do things besides kiss his ass? Don’t you have dreams for your own life? Or are you always going to be nothing more than his slave?”
For a moment, nothing happens.
My chest is heaving, and Dante looks as if he’s clenching his jaw so tight, he might crack his teeth. And when he uncrosses his arms and lifts one hand, I feel certain he’s going to hit me. I’m ready for it, because I’m going to hit him back.
He has no real power over me.
He can’t sell me.
He won’t kill me, because Max would lose money on me.
I want this fight.
I’m tensed, ready for it, hands balled into fists at my side, every muscle in my body coiled for this.
But when his fingertips graze the side of my face instead, when his touch is soft and gentle and contained, and when he leans forward and his mouth comes crashing over mine, I don’t know how to react.
I’m frozen. My mind is blank.
His tongue flicks along the seam of my lips and they part for him, even though I have no control. My body just reacts, and my brain seems to…turn off.
His other hand comes around my waist as he yanks me toward him, and my body is flush against his. He’s bulky muscle and blazing heat and his mouth is skillful, his tongue gentle as it twirls along mine.
His hand on my face comes to my hair, threading through my strands and pulling just slightly, tipping my head up, giving him better access to my mouth.
Despite what I’ve done—with Max, with my father and his men, with someone else I should’ve never touched like this—this feels like my first, real kiss.
And just like that, thoughts of Max making my head spin even as I lean into Dante, I know what I need to do.
My mantra of, someone will come for me, turns to someone is already here for me.
My fingers go to his hair, wrapping around the base of his neck as I push further into him. He concedes a step, his back against the wall.
His hands go lower, slipping beneath the waistband of my sweats. He turns his head to catch his breath, and my mouth is on his jaw. I flick my tongue there, up, toward his ear as I stand on my tiptoes to reach him.
His fingers tighten against my skin and I feel him panting, his chest rising and falling rapidly, and his cock hard against my stomach.
“We shouldn’t do this,” he manages to say as I kiss behind his ear, the side of his neck, having to pull him down toward me.
“We should,” I insist. “Don’t stop.”
He groans, and turns his head back to me, reaching up with one hand to grab my face. His mouth is on mine again and when he pushes me toward my room, I go willingly, stepping backward, our lips never leaving one another.
He reaches behind me, opens my door and we crash into the wall as we stumble inside. I keep walking backward, my hands coming to his face as I pull him with me.
When the back of my legs hit the bed, he freezes, tearing his mouth away from mine. I lock my hands behind his neck, unwilling to let him go.
We stare at one another, his brow pressed to mine, his lips swollen and red.
I say nothing, letting him make this decision, but if he makes the wrong one…well, Max isn’t the only person in this house who’s good at playing mind games.
This is it.
This is the way out.
If I fuck him, he’ll help me. He’ll get me out of here. This is it.
I don’t know where I’ll go. I have no idea what I can do when I leave here. Danik isn’t an option. My father isn’t an option.
None of those places are safe. None of them were ever made for me. But when Dante seems to come to a decision, when he shoves me backward on the bed, starts unbuttoning his shirt, I don’t care.
I’ll get out of here first, and I’ll figure out where I’m going later.
Anywhere is fucking better than here.
I release him, shove down my pants, kick them off from around my ankles and onto the floor before I lie back on the bed. Dante’s body isn’t as lean as Max’s. Instead, he’s rippling abs, bulky muscle. He has a tattoo on his inner forearm, a string of letters and numbers that remind me of a barcode. A brand.
His eyes are heavy on mine as he undoes his belt. But he takes both guns out of his holsters first, sets them on the nightstand carefully, never taking his eyes off of me.
I realize I’m still in my underwear, and I know I need to take them off. I know I need to get ready for this, because it’s what I want, and it’s what I need to do. But suddenly, I feel a wave of anxiety crashing over me, my stomach twisting into knots.
Of all the things I’ve done, all the things I’ve seen, I’ve yet to do anything sexual with a man that didn’t want to harm me. That didn’t want to force me. Even the guards I attempted to seduce, just like I am now, they had already caused me pain.
And Danik…I shove him back into the box in my mind.
Dante pushes down his black pants, and I see the outline of
his cock through his boxer briefs. I can feel his eyes on me as he steps out of his pants. I know I need to get myself together, because if I hesitate, if I look like I don’t want this, that’ll give him the confirmation he needs to stop.
To back out. Ruin my chance of an escape.
I don’t even know why he’s doing this. I don’t know what he did before he came into Max’s hands, what my provocation in the hallway meant to him but…I don’t care.
I hook my fingers into the waistband of my underwear, and I hold his gaze as I pull them down. Past my thighs, over my knees, until I can let go and kick them off with my feet.
He comes to the bed, leaving his boxers on, positioning himself over me, knees on either side of my hips, hands on either side of my head. “You’ve never done this before.”
I almost laugh out loud. I wonder if that’s what Max thinks. If that’s why he won’t fuck me. He really thinks I’m a virgin? The idea would be hilarious, if it wasn’t so fucking sad.
My hands go to Dante’s shoulders, and I like that he lets me touch him. Something Max would never do.
I think about lying to him. Telling him it’s my first time. But if I confess the truth, that’s another secret between us. Another reason for him to help me, because he knows things he shouldn’t.
“Yes,” I tell him quietly. “I have.”
I watch him swallow, watch his green-brown eyes widen in surprise. “You have?” he whispers, stunned.
A small smile plays on my lips. “He thinks I haven’t?”
Dante averts his gaze, for one second, then shakes his head in agreement.
“Surprise,” I tell him, mouthing the word with the faintest trace of sound.
He stares at me, unblinking, for several seconds. I wonder if he’ll betray me now. I wonder if this was a ploy all along. A way for Max to find out without asking me, knowing I might lie.
But then Dante huffs a small laugh and simply says, “I should’ve known a girl as hot as you are would’ve found a boy willing to break all the rules for you before I showed up.”
Then I’m stunned into silence, a strange, unfamiliar warmth creeping into my chest, emotions threatening to strangle me. Ruin this.