by Marie Skye
I looked around the room. It had a calm, serene feeling to it. Dr. Stiles had referred me to this place. Raine was her name. I wasn’t sure if I could trust someone by the name of Raine. “I’m good; I’m more worried about Emmalin. She seems to be doing okay one moment, and then the next day, it’s back to square one.”
She gently placed her hand on my forearm. “Mr. Mandrake. I’m asking how you are doing?”
I stared into her brown eyes before shutting my eyes and sighing. “I’m losing it. I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. For the first time in my life, I have absolutely no control over something, and it’s driving me fucking crazy, and all I want to do is kill something or someone.”
She nodded, giving me a small squeeze. “That’s a normal response. Very normal. Would you mind telling me about that day?”
I sat back in my chair. I remembered it perfectly. Noah and Abby were having breakfast. Pancakes with homemade applesauce. They wanted to eat it ‘German’ style. While they were eating it and discussing that morning’s episode of SpongeBob Squarepants, I silently dragged Emmalin out of the room into the nearby closet. She giggled while I pushed her in there.
“You have to be quiet.”
“What are you doing?”
I kneeled down on the floor, pulling her pajama pants down with me. “I said be quiet. They’ll be done in about ten minutes, and I need you to come no less than three times in my mouth.”
“Grayson,” she hissed, quickly bracing the wall as my mouth found her clit. I devoured her. I ate her out so fucking good. I smiled, remembering she had to cover her own mouth to prevent herself from screaming out.
I decided to skip that part.
"It started normal enough. We had breakfast with Noah and Abby. We cleaned them up, then got dressed. We had already decided we wanted to do some separate bonding time. Noah was really into the Avengers. He liked Thor. He wanted Thor everything. A few months ago, he made me a cape, so I told him I would wear it. Emmalin and Abby were going to do girly stuff, like get their nails done, shopping, things like that. Emmalin matched her dress with Abby's."
I paused, needing a minute.
"We'd been texting off and on throughout the day. At some point, she said she felt like something was off. She had a weird feeling, and I told her to come home, that Noah and I would be home within the hour. That was the last text I got from her. That was around one in the afternoon. Noah and I got home about two. I thought they would beat us home, but they didn't. Three o'clock came, and I thought, well maybe they decided to stop somewhere. Fuck, I wish that was true."
I ran my hand through my hair before I shakily poured myself a glass of water. "It took forever to get there. I was later told twenty minutes, but fuck it felt like hours. But you know what? It had been hours. It had been over eight hours. Eight hours that I didn't know what was going on. Eight hours that he tortured her and beat her to within an inch of her life. Eight hours where he raped her, repeatedly. He gave her a choice on that, though. I didn't know that for a while. He gave her a choice." I felt my eyes watering, and I quickly brushed them away. "He gave her a fucking choice. He said he was going to bring Abby down to make her watch him rape her, or bring Abby down, to kill Abby in front of her. Those were her choices." I stood up, needing to pace before I punched the wall. I turned back to face Raine. "How am I supposed to be strong for someone when I can barely keep it together?"
"You're being strong by being here, Mr. Mandrake. You're asking for help so you can help her. Don't see it as a weakness. Right now, she's broken. She's this beautiful, delicate flower that at the slightest touch will crumple up, so you need to learn how to handle this flower with care."
I looked at Raine, irritated with her fucking analogies, even if they did made sense. I sighed. "She needs to be replanted?"
Raine gave me a warm smile. "Exactly."
I finally headed home, with a new glimmer of hope that we could fix what needed fixing. That Emmalin was still in there somewhere. She was having more bad days than good. I lived for the good days. I craved them, but I wasn’t giving up on her. Even if she had.
I entered the apartment, and almost immediately noticed something different. I slowly made my way into the dining room, where the lights were dimmed, with just a few candles. The table was neatly arranged with a setting for two, and a bottle of wine sat in the middle. I turned at the sound of Emmalin entering the room. Her hair was swept to the side in curls, and she had on a dress. Even in the dim lighting, she was fucking beautiful. She looked down at her hands. I wanted to smile at how nervous she was.
She licked her lips, and fuck, did I want to pull those lips in my mouth. “Hi,” she said in a whisper.
“Hi.”
She looked at the table as she smoothed her dress down. “While you were at work, I wanted to do something for you, so I went to see your friend that owns the boutique.” I nodded. “I told her she didn’t have to, but she closed the store for me anyway. I told her you liked lace, and we picked this one.”
I stood there at first, because it took everything in me not to attack her and rip that dress off, throw everything off the table, and sink balls deep into her. I was focusing on trying to calm my dick down. “You’re exquisite, Emmalin.” She looked at me shyly in response to the compliment, then back at her hands, and slightly frowned. I stepped forward and caressed her face, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep my hands off of her. “I really mean it.” She reached up and placed her hand over mine. Fuck, I missed her touched. I missed her.
She cleared her throat, breaking our moment too soon. “I had dinner prepared.” She motioned toward the table. I took her hand in mine, pushing her seat out for her, and made sure to purposely graze my fingertips along her neck before moving to my seat. Before, she used to tense every time I touched her. This was progress.
She waited for me to sit, before removing the top of the food warmer. I laughed upon seeing what it was. “Chicago style hot dogs and fries?”
She shrugged. “I’ve never had them. Chace said these were the best ones in the city.”
I grabbed a few fries. “You talked to Chace?”
She nodded, taking a big bite out of her hotdog, and my mind immediately went elsewhere. After a few moments of chewing, she finally answered. “I didn’t know where to get them from. The best place, I should say. He said he would take care of it.”
I leaned back in my chair and smiled. Well, I’ll be damned. She went from barely leaving the room and living in her yoga pants, to wearing a sexy as hell dress, and even talked to someone other than me or a therapist. Progress indeed. Maybe I was close to getting my girl back after all.
“Is there a movie you want to watch, or do you think you just want to go to bed?” I was used to our nightly ritual. It was always either a movie or straight to bed. Some nights, she would let me hold her. Other nights, she would move to the edge of the bed. However, no matter what, she always made me double check that everything was locked. After everything that happened, for her safety, she said it made her feel better if all the doors had double locks on them.
“I’m okay with bed,” she said in a small voice. “But I’m not tired.”
I turned to look at her, and she had a small twinkle in her eye. “Not tired, huh?”
She bit her bottom lip as she shook her head. “No,” her voice was a little husky as she spoke, and I fucking swear my dick took that as an opportunity to pay attention. “Are you tired?”
I gazed at her up and down. She was still wearing her robe, and I knew damn well she was naked underneath. All I had to do was pull that belt and watch it fall open. Just one tug. One tug, and I could ravish her body. She cleared her throat, and I looked up at her. Her eyebrow was raised, and she had a slight grin on her face. Yes, I’d just been caught eye fucking her. Not fucking sorry. “No. I’m not tired.”
“We could play a game.”
I watched as she started to play with the belt of her robe. Twirling it around and through her f
ingers, almost as if she was deliberately taunting me with it. I swallowed hard. “What did you have in mind?” Then she released the string of the robe, and my eyes widened. I clenched my hands to prevent myself from throwing her against the wall. We hadn’t attempted sex till that one night, weeks ago, when she stopped me. She pulled out the string from the rest of the loops and tossed it to me, and I caught it.
“What can you do with this?”
My eyes narrowed. “Oh, I can do a lot with this.” My voice was deep, full of hunger, and I wanted to devour her.
“Good,” and with that she turned to walk out of the kitchen, but not before peering at me over her shoulder, in a teasing way, and dropping the rest of the silk robe over her shoulders, letting it pool on the floor as she graciously left the room. Fuck. Me.
She barely made it inside the bedroom before I pulled her to me, and she gasped. She started pulling me forward into the room, at the same time unbuttoning my shirt and pulling it from my pants. I grabbed her hands to stop her, even though my dick was straining against my pants. “Emmalin, if you’re not ready, we can wait.”
“Grayson, I think…”
“You think? Think isn’t good enough, Emmalin. I need you to be 100 percent sure before we do this. I don’t want to rush you, baby.”
“Grayson, I think that unless you plan on safewording me, remove your clothes, because I plan on coming, with or without your assistance.” She licked her bottom lip. She was threatening me. She was fucking threatening me. Grayson fucking Mandrake. Who the fuck does she think she is? She’s fucking mine, that’s who. My slut. My vixen. My heart. My world, and more importantly… My love.
I took a half step back. “Take off my belt.”
She quickly complied. All the while, I was doing what I did best. Looking for that inkling like I always did. This time was different. This time I was looking for uncertainty and fear. I didn’t know who she was doing this for. Me or her. Before I had time to say anything, she dropped to her knees and slid my member into her mouth. I was quickly caught off guard by both her wicked mouth and her sudden need for dominance. Either way, I was hard as fuck.
My hands tightened in her hair as I fucked her mouth, and not once did she let up. She tickled the end with the tip of her tongue, and I nearly fucking lost it. I felt my balls tightening, and I was so fucking close, but the need to feel the tightness of her warm pussy; that’s where I planned on coming tonight. I started to ease away from her mouth, and she held the back of my thighs to keep me steady.
“Fuck, Emmalin, I’m close, stop.” She kept going. I finally had to pull her off of me, and she made a popping sound as I lifted her up. “Were you trying to make me come?”
She took a small step back. “I was really into it, and you were really liking it.’”
“Of course I did.” Then I paused and took note of her body language. I really took note. I stepped into her space and lightly trailed her skin, tracing down the curve of her body, and she lightly tensed. I reached down and cupped her pussy. She wasn’t wet at all. I sighed. “Were you trying to get me to come so we wouldn’t have sex?”
Her silence said it all, as she stared at me with her big green eyes. I walked over and put on a pair of shorts, retrieving a shirt for her. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes.
“Grayson,” she whispered.
“It’s okay. Let’s go to bed.”
“It’s just that you’ve been so patient with me, and I’m trying. I know you have needs, and I just thought…”
“Thought what?” I snapped back, angrier than I intended. “That an attempt at seducing me would suffice? That lying to me would’ve been best?” Fuck. Reign it in, Mandrake.
She looked down at her feet. “Never mind,” she whispered, as she turned to walk out of the room.
“Where are you going, Emmalin?” I shouted after her.
She ignored me as she kept walking.
I laid in bed, pissed. Mostly at myself. All the counseling sessions I went to went right out the window, and I ended up doing the exact opposite of what they trained me on. For all I know, I set us back. I looked over at Emmalin’s side of the bed. It was still empty. It’d been at least an hour. I sighed, getting up, going to track her down.
She was in the one place she always ended up. The library. I knocked before entering, so she knew I was there. She looked at me over her shoulder, and I waited for her to acknowledge me, and she slightly nodded. I sat in front of her on the windowsill. “Hey.”
She quickly wiped her tears away. “Hey,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry I blew up at you. I shouldn’t have done that. I know this whole situation has been a complete nightmare for you, and for me to get pissed, I had no right. But it kills me to know that you think you had to do this because you think this is what I need. I’m completely on your terms, Emmalin, a million percent. I need you to know and understand, that.”
“I want you so bad, but I’m scared. I feel like a part of me is going to clam up, but I don’t want it to always be like that with you. I don’t want it to be like that. I want to feel you. I really do, but I don’t know if I can stop myself from going back to that night.”
“So, let me help you fight it. Let me help you not go back there ever again. Let me do it my way. Our way.”
She regarded me uncertainly. “I don’t know.”
“Do you trust me?”
“With my soul,” she said with no hesitation.
I stood up, and reached for her hand. I knew where we needed to go to fight her demons.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Emmalin
Our car pulled outside of a familiar house. A house I had only been to one time. I nervously glanced over at Grayson before looking back at the house. "Here?"
He nodded.
I looked down at my clothes. A pair of jeans and my oversized sweater with the hole. Not exactly appropriate for this place, considering what everyone was or wasn’t wearing the last time I was here. "But I'm not wearing white."
He reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. "They know who you belong to. Trust me." He got out of the car and came over to my side, opening the door. I shakily reached for his hand. The elderly lady at the front smiled as we entered.
"Mr. Mandrake, Ms. Ross. Lovely to see you." She smiled kindly.
"Juno, pleasure, as always." Grayson pulled me closer to his side as we walked toward the back, to the elevators that automatically opened as we arrived. I was nervous on the way down. As soon as the door opened, I sucked in a deep breath, and briefly hesitated as we started walking out. I started to play with the hole in my sweater and moved to walk behind Grayson. He slowed down, and glanced behind at me, slightly frowning. He lifted my chin so I had to look at him. "Hey. You don't cower when you're with me, do you hear me?”
I nervously swallowed as I looked around the room, and I tugged on my sweater. In the corner, was a woman with a body of a model. I bet she didn't have any faded bruises on her body that were done out of pure hate. She looked like a fucking goddess, as she stood there with her long jet black hair, almond shaped eyes, and silk lingerie that left little to the imagination.
“I’m just a little self-conscious and nervous.”
He kissed the top of my head. “You’re safe here. And so fucking beautiful. Don’t ever forget that.” He grabbed my hand, leading me through the hall. People walked past us, giving us both respectable nods. For some reason, this all seemed different than the last time I was here. None of the men had that greedy-like look as before. This time it was a nod, as if they were showing me some kind of respect. We finally made our way to Grayson’s room.
“Would you like anything? Something to eat or drink, perhaps? I can have anything you’d like brought up. Anything is at your service here, ranging from whatever you like. From the simplest— such as a bowl of cereal— to the most complex.”
“Like what?” I gazed at him inquisitively.
He shrugged, walking toward
me, and started kneading my shoulders. “Purple yams.” He lifted my arms to remove my sweater, and I smiled.
“Yams aren’t complex.”
“The purple ones probably are.” He wiggled his brows as he unbuttoned my jeans and slowly pulled them down. I felt trepidation starting to kick in slightly, as he started to back me into the St. Andrews Cross.
“Did you know that the mummy of King Ramses II was sent to France in the 70’s, and he needed a passport? For his occupation, they put King. Deceased.”
I let out a giggle. Then I started laughing. “You and your useless trivia.”
He bent down and kissed me lightly on the lips. “Thank you, and it worked. You’re all strapped in, babe.”
I looked down. I was strapped in and didn’t even realize it. Damn, he worked fast.
“I want you to focus on me, and only me, okay? My movements, my thoughts, nothing else. Understand?” I slowly nodded. He pushed my hair back from my face as he adjusted the cross, and it started to move. He moved behind me, getting whatever he needed from the closet. All of a sudden, the lights dimmed.
I worked on steadying my breathing. Last time, I was blindfolded. Was he going to blindfold me again? Was he going to use that drug again to relax me? I sure as hell could use it right about now to calm down. I took another deep breath as I began to move again.
Something soft moved across my back, and my skin prickled.
“Who owns your pleasure?” he whispered in my ear.
“You do,” I murmured.
“But that hasn’t been the case lately, has it? You’ve been holding back from me, haven’t you?”
I noted the different tone in his voice. This wasn’t the at home Grayson that I was familiar with. This wasn’t the calm, collected, and cool Grayson. This was the dominant Grayson. The Grayson that commanded even more attention; who was going to break me, and oh, how I wanted him to break me.
“Haven’t you?” he asked again.
“Yes.”
I felt his body heat leave my back, and I whimpered at his sudden disappearance. The lights shut off completely, leaving just the glow of a few red bulbs that lit up around me. Grayson now walked around in complete shadow. The room filled with music suddenly and I recognized the tune of Closer by Kings of Leon.