by Robinson, M.
I wanted her to see me.
Truly see me for someone other than a villain. I didn’t know what had come over me, and I resisted the urge to take her back to her room. It was the order of things, and I was fucking it all up for her and for me.
My feet moved on their own accord, one step after the other until there were no more steps to take, no more feelings to hide, no more uncertainty to bask in.
Just her and me.
Two massive doors opened to my bedroom, and her eyes widened like a deer in headlights when I slowly revealed my paradise.
Setting her on her feet, she waited for my command.
“Good girl,” I praised, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “Go ahead, I’ll allow your questions this time.”
She didn’t waver. “Why?”
“Why what, pet?”
“Why did you let him take me into that room?”
I growled, pissed with myself. “I shouldn’t have, and for that…” Unable to hold back, I willingly gave her what she sought, “I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d said those two words to anybody.
I never apologized. I was never in the wrong. Yet, she needed to hear them, and I obliged her request.
I was sorry.
Wholeheartedly sorry.
She had the power to bring me to my knees, and a huge part of her was starting to see and realize it.
“Do you mean that?” she asked, her gaze filling up with fresh tears.
“I’ve never meant anything more in all my life, Juliet.”
She breathed out a heavy sigh. “I didn’t like it. Having him as my master. So please, I beg you, is that what you’re training me for? To sell me off to a man like him who will hurt me also?”
I flinched, showing her my true colors before speaking with conviction, “You’re mine. I give you my word.”
“Your word? Is that supposed to mean something?”
“My word is all I have.”
“Then what? You’ll share me? Like you did tonight?”
“Tonight was a mistake, and I won’t let it happen again.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re mine. Only mine.”
Her lips trembled. “And what about you?”
“What about me, pet?”
“Does that mean you’re mine too?”
“My, my, Juliet. Remember, pet, curiosity killed the cat.”
She smiled, despite herself. “You can’t do anything more than what you’ve already done to me.”
“And what’s that?”
“Made me yours.”
“Not quite, but we’re getting there.”
“Is this your plan?”
I arched an eyebrow, cocking my head to the side.
She answered my rebuttal without me having to say anything.
“Is your plan to make me crave you and the things you do to me?”
“I haven’t done anything you don’t want or need.”
She scoffed out in disgust, throwing her mask to the floor.
“If you would have said that to me yesterday or the day before, I would have laughed in your face.”
“And now?”
“Now, I don’t know what to think. You did that to me. Made me question everything. Are you proud of yourself?”
“I take pride in anything that involves you, Juliet.”
“I hate you,” she spat. “Do you hear me? I. Hate. You.”
Grinning, I stepped back and waited.
In less than a second, she dropped to her knees and apologized, “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, Master! But I do hate you! I do!” she screamed for herself. I already knew the truth.
I let her have her pity party, her temper tantrum, her defiance. It was the least I could do after what I’d put her through tonight. Crouching in front of her, I grabbed her chin to force her to look at me.
“You and I both know there’s a very thin line between love and hate, little girl.”
She swallowed hard, listening to my every word.
“I want you to hate me, but I also want you to love me.”
“Why? I don’t understand. Please make me understand.”
Nodding to the piano in the corner of my suite, I said, “Play for me, Juliet.”
“Ugh!” She jerked her chin away like a child. “Just answer my question! Why do you want me?”
“Why not?”
“Stop it! Stop with your games! I want to know the truth! I deserve to know the truth!”
“You don’t make demands, pet. That’s not your role to play.”
“Play? Exactly! This is just a game to you! I’m just a fucking game! Your play toy, your doll that you share with perverted bastards just like you are!”
My patience snapped, and I heard it loud and clear. Roughly gripping onto her chin again, I sneered, “I’m nothing like them, and don’t you ever fucking forget it.”
Meaning every last word.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Donovan
Yanking her chin out of my grasp, she lost her shit, and again, I allowed her to. I hated having to endure this emotional bullshit, considering I never had before.
I guessed we were both learning new things.
In a high pitch, she shouted, “You shared me! You shared me, Master! How could you do that to me? How could you let him hurt me?”
“How about we get your story straight, Juliet? I beat him within an inch of his life for you. I stopped him, didn’t I?”
“You still handed me right over to him, knowing what he wanted to do to me!”
“What bothers you more, pet? The fact that I let him hurt you, or the fact that you wish it was me who was doing so?”
“To hell with you!”
I lunged at her, and instantly she fell to her back with my body hovering above her petite frame. Caging her in my arms on the sides of her face, I leaned down, close to her lips, and spewed, “I’m already there, and I’ve been there since I was ten years old.”
She gasped, and her lips parted. Understanding my subtle yet pungent reply.
“Who is Sir?”
Through an overwhelmingly clenched jaw, I bit, “My father.”
She grimaced, not trying to hide it, hurting for me without me having to make her.
“So what happened?”
“If I tell you, what do I get out of it?”
Her steep breaths came out in ragged pants, her chest was rising and falling, and I knew if I touched in between her legs…
She’d be wet.
For me.
“I’ll play for you.”
“You’ll play for me regardless. Try again.”
“I’ll be a good girl. I promise. Please give me something, Master. Please…”
Looking her up and down, I thought about it for a second. My father didn’t try hiding what he’d done. It wasn’t the first time a slave would die at her master’s hand. Our world wasn’t for the weak, and if that meant someone died, then so be it.
Life went on.
“Did your father do something to your mother?”
“You could say that.”
“Tell me. What happened? Maybe I can help you.”
“Help me?” I jerked back.
“Yes, do you forget who I am?”
“I know who you are, Juliet. It’s one of the main reasons you’re here with me now.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I owe you no explanations. I owe you nothing.”
She actually batted her fucking lashes at me.
“For fuck sake. If you must know, the cat o’ nine tails, the same one that Troy used on you tonight. It was my father’s, and with his hand gripped over mine, he beat her with it until she took her last breath in front of my eyes.”
“Oh, Donovan,” she uttered in a breathless tone. My name fell off her lips.
In pity.
In pain.
In the realization that Donovan and Master were two
different men. At least when it came down to her, they were.
“When I say I’m untouchable, I mean it.”
I tried to see things through her eyes. With a heavy sigh, I hung my head.
“Juliet…”
She caressed the side of my face, touching me of her own free will for another first for us tonight.
“Your father made you this way.”
“No, Troy did.”
“I don’t understand.”
I shook my head. This conversation was over. I shouldn’t have indulged her, to begin with.
“That’s enough questions for tonight.”
“But—”
The stern expression on my face was enough to render her speechless. I stood, taking her with me.
“Be a good girl and sit on the edge of the bed for me. Understood?”
She nodded, and I turned to walk into my suite bathroom to grab the cold cream and a bandage. When I returned, she was sitting in the spot I told her to. In less than a couple of steps, I was standing in front of her with her eyes staring up at me. Grabbing the hem of her gown, I pulled it off her body and threw it toward the garbage. It was ruined; the mere sight of it would make me angry, but not as angry as I was taking in the wound on her thigh.
“Motherfucker,” I rasped, getting down on the balls of my feet to clean her up and tend to her wounds.
She was now naked before me, the way she was meant to be.
Her hand reached the side of my face, and with the back of her fingers, she caressed my cheek. Fresh tears spilled from her eyes.
“Thank you, Master. For apologizing, for taking care of me. For… I don’t know… everything.”
Unable to respond, I simply nodded instead.
“You swear, you promise that you’ll never share me again? With anyone? Even if I’m bad and you’re punishing me, it will always be by your hands?”
I kissed her fingers, stating, “I swear to you on my life.”
“Okay,” she breathed out. “I forgive you.”
Three little words I didn’t know I desperately wanted her to express until I heard them fall off her lips and into the palm of my hand. After I made her better, I kissed along her freshly cleaned wounds like my mouth would heal her.
“Now, you’ll play for me, pet. I need the music. Show me heaven … again.”
She grabbed my face, and her lips were over mine before I realized she was kissing me for the first time.
Excruciatingly slow.
Soft.
Tender.
As if she was my angel.
My willpower to stay away from her was fading more as the days went on. I actually looked forward to coming into her room. Wanting to be with her like she was my whole world, to see her smile, to watch her lips move, to listen to her play the piano for me.
But most of all, to have her in my arms.
In my bed.
Every night.
Every morning.
You see, she wasn’t the only one falling.
I was hers.
Only hers.
And I’d been so since the first time I’d seen her and knew who she was. I was falling for her. Fuck, I had already fallen for her, which was a deadly combination for a man like me. Because I knew the ending wouldn’t be happy. It couldn’t be; not between her and me, not at all.
To be in love was the biggest sign of vulnerability. I might as well have put a fucking bullseye on my forehead and hers too. Death always came early when you had something to lose. And Troy? He knew that, lived for it.
I slid my tongue into her mouth, and she moaned in delight.
Feeling me.
Tasting me.
Being one with me.
I pecked her lips one last time before she rasped, “I’ll play for you, Donovan, but please … just be you tonight. That’s what I need. That’s who I want. No Master. No pet. Just Juliet and Donovan.”
Bringing my attention to what she was implying. I would disappoint her. I wasn’t her hero. I had no idea how to be. How to be the man who would become one I’d forgotten, one I’d destroyed long ago. It didn’t matter. My dark heart wanted to try, even though my mind knew it was useless.
Standing up, I held my hand out for her to take. She did, and within moments she was sitting on the piano bench I’d purchased and dedicated to my mother. It wasn’t the one she played. That Baby Grand was in Juliet’s room. This was a replica of it.
Her fingers began moving, playing the song she was earlier in the evening. The one Troy had told her to play in front of all of my guests, fully aware of what it meant to me.
What it did to me.
The pain and pleasure.
The sorrow and happiness.
The heaven and hell.
The only one able to soothe me. I couldn’t even think or focus. I just wanted to listen to the music, to the notes as they swept into the universe around me, becoming my air, my Eden, my soul. In one moment, she’d both broken me and then saved me again. Little by little, she was healing the broken man who lived inside of me—the one who wanted every last inch of her.
From her heart.
To her soul.
To her fucking pussy and every hole she had in her body. I wanted ownership of everything that could be and would be mine. I watched with the certainty of what she was doing to me. How she was breaking me down, faster and faster her fingers played the keys, getting lost in the symmetry of what she was evoking.
Once again, my feet moved on their own accord, like I was being yanked by a rope, a chain of nothing but agony and distress. Placing my hands on top of hers, I pressed down on the keys while she played the song perfectly.
She tensed, understanding I could play the piano just as she could. My fingers slowly ran across hers as we played in unison, as we became one in a way we never had before. Sharing the music. Sharing the joy, the pain. Sharing what made us feel, what cut the deepest, and what created the chaos of emotions that surrounded us and made us into monsters or men.
I remembered wanting to play like my mother. Even before my father took her away from me, I always had that thought in the back of my mind, that little voice would make itself known, and subconsciously I would think about what would happen if she was gone.
Where would the music go?
It needed a place to go. And that place had to be me. I made sure she taught me everything she knew, and sometimes I played for her when she needed heaven. I played for her just like she played for me. I needed it. Craved it. Not just for me, but for her.
I stared down at Juliet, lust pounding through every vessel in my body. I stood behind her and touched from her neck to her breasts, to where I wanted to be the most.
Her pussy.
She was wet.
Silky.
Tempting to eat.
I had yet to thrust my tongue into her heat. As if I was a possessed man, I stood in front of her now, and in one swift, sudden movement, I shut the top board of the piano and placed her on it instead. Her feet hit the keys, she gasped at the turn of events.
I slid her down to the edge, yearning to close the distance between us.
“Tell me, Juliet. Tell me what I want to hear. Who do you belong to?”
Her frenzied gaze found my serene one.
I was sedated.
Still.
At peace in this hell I lived in.
With her in my arms, everything just felt right. She opened her mouth, hesitating for a few seconds. As if she knew that once she said it, there was going back, only forward in this game of cat and mouse where I chased and she ran.
“I’m yours.”
My heady hands slid down her body, needing to touch her.
Own her.
Fuck her.
“Tell me again.”
“I’m yours, Donovan.”
My name.
The way she said my name.
I was somehow forgiven.
No longer a sinner.
No, I was a saint.
Revived.
Holy.
And for the first time in my life—deserving.
Spread wide, she was vulnerable, ready.
“Again,” I demanded in a harsher tone than I intended, needing to hear the soothing words like a balm to my soul.
“I’m yours,” she repeated while I kissed and licked my way down every last inch of her skin.
“Yes, you’re mine, Juliet.” Answering her question from earlier, I confessed, “And I’ve always, always, been yours.”
Juliet
My stomach fluttered.
My heart dropped.
With what he had just admitted to me.
Sitting on the bench, his eyes devoured me in a way he hadn’t before. Staring directly at the place no man besides him had ever seen. I was nothing, completely at his mercy, and yet I felt powerful as his breath exhaled across my core.
Cocking his head to the side, he narrowed his eyes at me. “By all means, Juliet, spread your legs wider for me.”
“I—”
He leaned forward, placing his tight grip on my waist, having my back fall against the top board.
“That wasn’t a suggestion. I want to fuck your cunt with my tongue.”
I angled up onto my elbows and did as I was told. Slowly, he eyed me up and down with a look I’d never seen before.
“Wider,” he roared in a primal tone.
I jumped, overwhelmed. Seeing this side of him emerge was unsettling and arousing. I looked into his vacant eyes, silently pleading for the man he was minutes ago.
He glanced down at my heat before quickly moving his calculated gaze back to my eyes.
“Touch your pretty little pussy. I want to watch you come for me, Juliet.”
“Can you—”
“No.”
He didn’t waver. Dark, tantalizing eyes eagerly waited for the show. Taking a deep, steady breath, I desired to please him. Spreading my legs further, I moved my jittery hand where he ordered me to touch myself, hissing upon contact on my clit. The nub was still sensitive from his assault the day before, where he’d slapped me into submission, throwing me into this euphoric hole.
I arched my back as he watched, waiting for him to tame me, to pick me up if I needed punishing. I wanted to be blacked out to see myself, my face, to know that I was who I believed I was when he told me to do the things I did. I needed that proof, that touch, that feeling washing over me again and again.