TORMENT: A DARK ROMANCE (PART ONE) (Torment Book 1)

by Haley Parker

  My little sister Chloe.

  “I’m fine, Chloe,” I told her in the same voice I always used when I didn’t want her to worry about me. “Go back to your room and work on your homework. You have a Spanish test tomorrow that you can’t afford to do bad on.” I had learned since my mother left the best way to handle situations like this one was to act like everything was fine and send Chloe back to her usual schedule, otherwise, she would start screaming and flipping out like the first few times my stepfather had pulled the fucked up crap he came up with.

  She paused. “Did you see the book I left in there for you?”

  I glanced at the paperback she had placed on the shelf, the same place she always left them for me. “Yeah, thanks.” I pushed my lips into one another and then dug my nails into my thighs, desperate to keep all emotion out of my voice. “Now go back to your room. You know it won’t be good if he catches you talking to me.”

  “I love you,” she whispered before I heard her feet retreat away from the door and back down the hall. I waited until I heard her bedroom door shut behind her before letting out my sigh of relief. I had never wanted a sister when I was younger, not for the reasons most people would assume. I knew I wouldn’t be jealous of her or anything, I just hated the idea of my mother and father bringing another child into the world I knew they would never take care of. Once she got here I made the decision that I would always protect her, no matter what the cost was. My stepfather barely acknowledged her, taking out all his pain and aggression on me, but in my mind, it was a small price to pay as long as he left her alone. I could never leave the fucked up town I had been forced to think of as more of a prison than a home without my little sister. But taking Chloe away meant having a plan and having a plan meant making money to execute that plan. And having money wasn’t something I had managed to figure out considering every business in our fucked up town wanted nothing to do with me. Hiring the girl who had killed one of the Woods brothers would never be a good look no matter how much time had passed. “I love you, too,” I responded out loud even though Chloe was well past the point of being able to hear me.

  The stress of the day had started to build up so heavily inside of my body that I feared I might explode if I didn’t get some relief the same way it always did when I had a run in with Hunter and a closet punishment in the same day. It had started to happen more often than I liked within the last year. I knew my stepfather did it on purpose just for another reason to remind me what a piece of shit I was.

  I leaned into the back of the closet, pressing my back into the shelf and listening extra carefully to make sure Chloe and my stepfather were nowhere nearby. Then I slipped my hand down the front of my pants to the waiting tenderness that had been begging for some relief since Hunter had put his hands on me in the middle of that grocery aisle.

  It was always the time of the week that became the most confusing to me. Not the hate that I dealt with on a daily basis or the way I somehow managed to stay sane through all of it. Not the way I held my head high even when the entire world was begging for me to fall apart. No, it was the way that Hunter Woods made my life a living hell but he was the only one who managed to make me cum when I needed it the most. The logic just wasn’t there, he was the person I hated the most and yet… no matter what other images I tried to place into my mind to get me off nothing would ever do the trick until I started to imagine what it would be like to be with Hunter. And, that day, just like every other was no different.

  I started the same way I always did. Rubbing slowly and tenderly while I thought about all the other men I had crushed on in the past. Even throwing some celebrities into the mix but no matter how hard I pushed myself or how hard I tried it did me no good. Hunter kept popping back into my brain. His ripped body and dark eyes. The way he put his hands on me and flung me around so effortlessly. He was so fucking strong and possessive. So fucking hot. None of it made any damn sense to me and yet there I was, rubbing my clit over and over again as my orgasm built up inside of me.

  “Is this what you want?” Hunter said from his spot over me, looking down at me as if I were a piece of meat he had to clean before throwing on the grill. “You want me to tell you how bad I want you even after what you did to my family, Bailey? Even after what a fucking bitch you were?”

  I nodded fiercely. “Yes, Hunter, yes.”

  “I’m the only one you can do this to you, isn’t that right?” He watched me stroking my wetness intently. “I’m the only one who can take you there, Bays?” He growled loudly as he watched me rubbing fiercely. “It’s because I own every part of you. Even the parts you don’t want to admit I control, I do. I have the whole town eating out of the palm of my hand, doing what I say when I say it, and now I even have your body doing what I say when I say it.”

  I moaned loudly, thrusting my fingers even deeper.

  “Look at how fucking wet you are,” he sneered in disapproval. “You were practically dripping through your fucking pants in the store earlier you were so turned on. What’s wrong with you? Why are you so fucked up? Why do you want me so fucking bad when I can’t stand you?” He leaned down so that he was right in front of me, placing both of his hands around my body and boxing me in. “You get off on it, don’t you? Being put in your place? It’s why imagining me here telling you how much I want you despite everything gets you so fucking hot, it’s why you can’t stop thinking about me no matter how hard you try or how much you try to fight it.” Hunter shook his head, allowing the dark specs of hair to fall gently across the top of his forehead. “You’re sick, Bays, so sick.” His dark eyes trailed down to my slit. “Harder. Rub yourself fucking harder.”

  My hand flattened out until I was fully palming my center, rubbing faster. “N-Now what, Hunter?” I whispered into the darkness. “Now what do you want me to do?”

  The specs of Hunter’s eyes turned to gold as he studied me in desire. “I want you to think about how hard you’re making me right now, Bailey, I want you to think about how big my cock is inside of my jeans because of you. How much I want you when I know I can never have you. I want you to think about all the women in this town who want to fuck me long and hard and the one that I want is the one I can never have because of the fucked up and delusional thing she did to my family.”

  “I want you,” I said loudly. “I want you too!”

  “Everybody wants me,” he assured me before leaning against my body even harder and boring his eyes into mine. “Cum for me, Bailey. Cum all over your fingers and when you’re finished think about how far you had to let your imagine slip to let this shit happen. How high you had to build yourself up to think that any of the shit I said could actually be true. How crazy you must actually be to think a man like me could ever want someone like you.”

  I cried out loudly and exploded all over my fingers, snapping my mouth shut in an effort to stop myself from screaming out in agony. My heart started to slow, coming down from the high of relief I had just been on. When I opened my eyes again Hunter was nowhere to be found and I was alone in the blackness of the small space. But my body and mind felt a million times better; like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, the way it always did when I got off to the image of Hunter in my mind.

  Hell, it was the only way I got off anymore.

  I pushed myself onto the side of my stomach and stared at the whiteness of the walls. I was thankful that no matter what happened the things that went on inside of my mind were my own. The thoughts I had and the actions I followed through with behind closed doors would never be anyone else’s but my own. They could take a lot from me but they would never be able to take that from me.

  Thank God, because if Hunter Woods ever knew he was the only man in the world who could make me cum then I would die of shame. Still, I couldn’t help the broken part of me that wondered if somehow, someway, in a universe a trillion miles away from where we were things could have been different between the two of us. If there was even the slightest chance he could have f
elt a fraction of the emotion I had felt for him since the second I laid eyes on him.

  Maybe I really was an idiot the way everyone said.

  5 - Now

  When I woke up the closet was still dark around me. I rubbed back and forth at my pupils, trying to get the sleep out of them before I inched forward and places the palms of my hands onto the back of the wood door. No light came from the slit underneath the door so I figured the sun must have gone done which meant I had been inside of the small space all day. I considered banging to get my stepfather’s attention. Sometimes he got so caught up that he would forget he locked me in. It was always a risk to remind him, though. Sometimes he would open the door and go back to his study without a word and other times he would call me every name in the book for disturbing him and make me stay inside even longer. I was just about to try and fall back asleep when I saw the hall light flicker to life underneath the door. I stood up straight as I heard his heavy footsteps moving toward me. He clicked the lock over and swung open the closet door, looking me up and down slowly before pushing his lips together and running one of his hands over the grayness that had started to take over his beard. He wasn’t a bad looking man for his age by any means; he was just an evil son of a bitch who had never suffered a day in his life.

  “My study,” he informed me before turning around.

  I stepped out and looked to the floor, relieved to find the water bottle Chloe always left outside the door for me waiting. I snapped it up and popped the top off, chugging eagerly as I made my way down the hall after him.

  “Now,” he barked loudly when I didn’t move fast enough.

  I picked up my pace and paused when I turned the corner to my stepfather’s study and saw that the lights were dimmed and a fire was raging inside of the fireplace. I gulped. “Where is Chloe?” I asked slowly.

  My stepfather ignored me, pushing my body out of the way and shutting the door behind us. “You really fucked me over with your little stunt today, Bailey.” Already trying to justify his actions.

  “Where is Chloe?” I asked him again, wondering why he continued with his run around when he knew it was always going to come back to the same thing. I wouldn’t even consider beginning until I knew where my little sister was.

  He sighed. “She’s sleeping at a friend's house.”

  My shoulders sagged in relief.

  “Do you have any idea how difficult it is having you as part of my family? The humiliation I’ve had to endure at the hands of you?” He pulled his suit jacket off and tossed it over the chair on the other side of his desk. “And, still, I let you stay here. I provide you with food and a clean place to live no matter how much you shame my good name.” He turned and looked me dead in the eye. “You don’t deserve it after what you did to that family. To this town.”

  Tears stung the back of my eyes but I pushed them back down. I could handle the hate and harshness from the rest of the town but not from him. Not when he was the only one who knew the truth.

  “And it’s not like you can help me out around here. Fuck, you can’t even go to the grocery store without tarnishing my name. That little stunt you pulled today is going to make it difficult for me, now I have to send other people out to do the job I expected from you. It takes away from manpower I needed to have focused on other things.” He was full of shit and both of us knew it. He had millions of dollars; the thought that his stepdaughter wouldn’t be able to run to the grocery store for him anymore being a problem for him came off as laughable. “But do I ever complain?” he asked me.

  Actually, you do, every second of the day.

  “Do I ever say a word about it? No.” He shook his head. “No, I don’t, because I made a commitment to your mother. A commitment to look after you no matter how bad things got. But I have to be honest, Bailey, I’m starting to think that you’re ungrateful for all that I’ve done.”

  I forced my features to stay still. I wasn’t ungrateful, I was very aware of every single thing he did for me. Every fucked up and tumorous thing. “I don’t mean to be,” I told him because it was what was expected of me.

  “Doesn’t matter what you mean,” he told me before crossing to the other side of the room and sitting down on the leather sofa that rested in front of one of his many bookshelves. “I’m telling you what it is.” He pushed his hands into his lap, folding them into a tight pile. “You can either be better or you can’t. You can either redeem yourself or you cant. It’s up to you. But if you aren’t sorry I’m going to have to ask you to leave my house. Of course, I’ll make sure I keep an extra close eye on Chloe.” The threat was evident in his voice. “Why don’t you think about it?”

  “I don’t need to think about it,” I said instantly. He raised his eyebrows and I looked at the spot above his forehead, desperate to not look him in the eye before I sat down on the floor crossing one of my legs over the other and watching him intently. “I want to make amends.”

  He grinned. “Excellent.”

  A door on the other side of the room opened like clockwork and a woman trailed inside, walking silently across the room toward my stepfather. I studied her carefully, taking in her freshly scrubbed face and long brown hair that was clearly a wig. I had never seen her before so I came to the conclusion that she must have been new. I always wondered where he found them, always wondered if they were hired or had willing participation in his sick little tirade. I wasn’t sure why I cared one way or another. Either way, it was happening, they were there.

  She crawled onto my stepfather’s lap and looked up at him. “Baby,” she purred loudly, slipping her hand around his neck and nuzzling into his chin. I cringed even before my stepfather grabbed her by the back of her head and squeezed., knowing she had made a mistake. “What did I tell you? No fucking talking.”

  The woman yelped loudly but only nodded, looking over at me once he released her and taking in my presence. Her eyes went wide the same way it always did when my stepfather’s whores realized he had clearly dressed them up to look exactly like me. I shook my head at her once, pleading with her to not comment on it, if she did I wouldn’t be the one who had to pay the consequence. She obeyed, smart unlike some of the others who had shown up, and snapped her mouth shut.

  My stepfather had never touched me, never came anywhere near me, reminding me that I repulsed him in every way possible. No, he never touched me himself. Instead, he made me pay in other ways. Humiliating and degrading ways that I never planned on telling another human about for as long as I lived.

  “Bailey,” he said in a low voice.

  I cleared my throat. “I’m a loser,” I said in a clear and even tone. “I’m such a fucking loser.” The woman on his lap gasped but my stepfather grabbed her and started kissing her neck in response. “I’m a failure to you and everyone else,” I said, reminding myself that the words weren’t true. “I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve to be a part of this family.”

  My stepfather grinned against his girl, the hardness in his suit pants more evident by the second. “Keep going,” he ordered when I didn’t say anything for a few more beats as I watched the disgusting scene unfold before me.

  “I’m nothing,” I said a little louder. “It’s all I will ever be.”

  My stepfather grunted in approval and a little bit of me died inside. There were so many things going on inside of my family’s house I would never tell another soul about. So many skeletons hiding in the closets just waiting to pop out, so many secrets buried as deep as a graveyard.

  One of the deepest being that the night Aron had been killed, the night everyone in the whole damn world would hold against me until the day I died, the night that had ripped my entire universe apart.

  Well, I hadn’t been the one driving the car that night.

  Tell them the truth, you hear me?

  Trust me, I know my brothers.

  You tell them the truth, Bailey.

  They will make your life hell otherwise.

  The memories echoed into m
y brain as my body went stiff. “I’m a loser,” I repeated over and over again. “I don’t deserve what you’ve done for me.”

  No, I hadn’t been the one driving at all.

  My stepfather had.

  Trust me, I know my brothers.

  Trust me, I know my brothers.

  Aron hadn’t been wrong, not even a little bit.

  *End Of Part One!

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