Twisted Love: A Dark Romance

by CM Wondrak

  “Good girl,” he purred out the phrase, once again reaching to my face. He ran the backs of his fingers down my cheek, gazing at me intently, like I was his whole world. And I was. I knew I was, and I liked it. “You’ll always be my good girl, won’t you, Tenley?”

  I could not agree fast enough to that. “I will.” The way I said it, I believed it with my whole heart.

  “And you’ll always do as I say, won’t you?”

  I nodded again, eager to please him.

  “After they come, they’ll take me away. I’ll be gone for a while.” He paused, his hand falling away from my face, no longer caressing it gently. Instead, he ran that hand through his hair as he exhaled a loud sigh. “But I promise you, I will come back for you.”

  I didn’t like hearing that. I threw my arms around his neck, burying my face against his chest. “I don’t want you to go,” I murmured, feeling tears prickle my eyes. Crying made me feel like a baby, but I’d miss him too much. Pretending like I didn’t remember him, then not seeing him for a while… I didn’t know if I could do it. It might hurt too much.

  “I know,” he whispered, his voice low and rough but soothing to me all the same. “But I have to. I have no choice.”

  And he was right, because later that day, after he’d gone upstairs and left me alone, I heard pounding. Shouting. Voices I didn’t know, angry voices. More loud noises and grunts. I sat there, waiting, waiting to do as he’d asked, as he’d told me.

  I was a good girl. I was his good girl, and I would do exactly as he’d said: I would tell anyone who asked that I wasn’t hurt, and I didn’t remember how I got here. I didn’t remember any of it.

  The lie eventually became my reality. I lied so much, to so many people—doctors, my aunt, the lawyers who wanted to get further evidence to nail him with—I lied to them all, and I lied with no hesitation whatsoever, all because he’d asked me to.

  Him. The man standing on the grass before me in the darkness. The man who was no longer behind bars, in jail for kidnapping.

  For kidnapping me.

  All these years, I’d forgotten it all. I’d forgotten just how much that man meant to me, how he made me feel, only now… now I was old enough to understand the wanting, the desire. I’d been too young, too naive, too innocent, caught in his web willingly. But tonight, as I stood there, holding his intense, dark stare, I knew immediately I was back in his web.

  I’d never left it. I’d simply been waiting for him to return to me, to come back. He said he would, and now he was here. He was here, I was older, and things were very different compared to what they were when I was eight years old.

  I spoke his name, no more than a whisper that the breeze threatened to carry away: “Enzo.”

  Enzo Lee. My kidnapper. The man who’d been arrested and charged, but the man who had never hurt me. Never abused me. Never raped me. He’d kept himself off me because I was nothing more than a child, a child who wanted him in return but was too young to realize how deep the feelings I carried for him ran.

  Oh, yes. I was so much more fucked up than I could ever have known; I’d been in love with this man since the day I was born.

  I took another step towards him, drawn to him like a magnet, like a moth to the flame. Whether or not this man would destroy me, like he’d destroyed my parents, like he’d destroyed Kyle, didn’t matter. None of it mattered, because after all this time, I finally knew the truth. No more veiled mysteries, no more secrets. No more hiding behind lies.

  Enzo could take me, break me, utterly demolish me, and I would still crawl back to him for more.

  But he would never hurt me. I was his good girl. You didn’t hurt the one thing you’d been trying all these years to attain.

  I stepped onto the first step down, the first step off the deck. Though I wore nothing but my pajamas, I didn’t feel cold. Being in his presence, having that dark, penetrating stare eating me up as I approached him, made me feel so ungodly hot.

  Kayla thought she’d have to wrangle me away from the boys? Or the boys away from me? Hah. What a fucking joke. I’d never been interested in anyone because, subconsciously, I was waiting for him.

  Once my bare feet touched the grass, once I stood less than two feet in front of him, I whispered, “I remember.” My heart pounded rapidly in my chest, threatening to pop out at the excitement of this night, at the realization of the truth after all this time. It wasn’t a wonder why I felt so invisible to everyone in my life; all this time, I’d been living half a life, because I’d given Enzo my heart before he’d been taken from me.

  His mouth quirked into a smirk, and it was a smirk that could melt the clothes right off you. Dastardly, mischievous, unbelievably handsome. I stood eye-level with his chest, still feeling quite small before him. His arms were thick, even his shoulders bulged with muscle. He was every bit as enthralling as I remembered him being, maybe even more so because I was older and could appreciate the things I could not when I was younger.

  “Tenley,” he whispered my name, that rough and gravelly voice causing my knees to instantly weaken. I wanted to collapse into his arms, let his heat and his strength rush into me, fill me in ways nothing else ever could.

  It truly was a wonder I had felt like a zombie for so long. I’d been missing the one part of me that I craved above all else, the man who completed me.

  I took another step towards him, less than two inches between our bodies now. I could feel his breath as he gazed down at me, my head angled back so I could stare up at him. My hands itched; I wanted to touch him, to feel him, but I didn’t know if he was still mad at me for what I did with Kyle, for trying to make him jealous.

  Enzo should know there was no one else. There never had been anyone else. Not in my dreams, not in my daydreams, not ever.

  He did not touch me, as much as I wanted him to. Enzo simply said, “Come with me.” He turned on his heel and started to walk away. I followed him, because there was nowhere else for me to go.

  Back inside, where Aubree slept soundly? Fuck no.

  Enzo could lead me straight into hell, and I’d march there beside him with a smile on my face and a pep in my step, eager and thrilled to simply be near him again. Things had been complicated years ago; I’d been a child. Some might argue I was still a child, but those people could fuck right off. I was eighteen, legally an adult, and that… that changed things.

  No, that didn’t change anything; it just opened up new doors for us to walk through together.

  We headed around the house, through the yard between Aubree’s house and their neighbor’s. His car sat down the road, pulled off onto the ditch. I had no idea where we were going, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now, now that we were finally together again. Fate had a way of coming full circle, and I could not be happier.

  Happy. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d felt this happy.

  “Get in,” he muttered, and I did. I got in the front seat, feeling the old, worn leather beneath my legs creak as I sat down. Enzo got in the driver’s side, and within the next minute, he had the car started and we were on our way, wherever we were going.

  As the houses passed us by, I spoke, “Where are you taking me?” It didn’t really matter, of course, I was just curious. Curious to know if he would take us somewhere private, somewhere he and I could talk… or reacquaint ourselves with each other.

  He said nothing, which was fine. It wasn’t like I was going to reach for the door handle and fling myself out of this car. I was committed, no matter where we were going or what would happen after this. I remembered now, and I could not believe I’d let myself start to trust in the lie he’d told me to spout to people.

  Repressed memories? Bullshit. Enzo never hurt me, never laid a finger on me I didn’t want him to.

  He drove us out of town, taking us into a park with a trail. I was pretty sure the park closed at sundown, but that didn’t stop him from parking and getting out. I followed him like a lost puppy who’d finally found its master.
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br />   That’s what he was, anyway. To me, Enzo was everything. My master. My owner. My love and my heart. Some people didn’t think children capable of love, and maybe they weren’t—not in the way adults usually thought about love. Sex, intimate thoughts, all that stuff came with age and experience.

  But a child’s love? A child’s love was pure and innocent, given with no expectations. Enzo had had mine forever, and now that I was older, I wanted to give him everything I couldn’t before.

  The park was empty, no other cars to be seen. The parking lot was curved, and he’d taken the spot furthest in; you’d have to come off the road to see his car, and I hoped that meant we would have some privacy. No random cops showing up to break up our party.

  We walked down the trail, silent. My thoughts roamed, racing wildly in my head as I walked beside him. Every so often I shot a look at him, and he must have some weird superpower to sense when I was looking at him, for each and every time he flicked his dark eyes to me and made me look away, blushing.

  Yes, blushing. Me, Tenley Goddard, fucking blushing. It was crazy, and yet it felt so right.

  We took the main trail, but five minutes into the walk, Enzo made a sharp turn off the main path, his shoes crunching on the dead leaves and sticks below as he walked off the pavement. I followed, willing to walk over hot coals in order to be at his side. Getting my bare feet poked with sticks and stones wasn’t that difficult.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, breaking the silence of the night with my voice.

  Suddenly Enzo stopped, which then caused me to stop. He whirled on me, shadows dancing across his face as he began to walk towards me. I was not afraid of him, and yet the look he wore was downright murderous, so I backed myself up… right to a tree.

  The tree was cold, its bark rough and uneven; I could feel it through the pajamas, and I felt my whole body shiver when Enzo cornered me with his wide frame. He towered over me, his dark head angled down as his shadowy gaze ate me up once again. He looked like he either wanted to kill me or devour me whole, and honestly? I think I’d let him do either. If I was to die tonight, I supposed I’d die with a smile on my face.

  His hand shot out, and in a flash, he gripped my bottom jaw, fingers curling around me tightly, but not so hard it hurt. Just enough to make sure I knew who was the boss, which one of us was in charge here. And, hint hint, it wasn’t me.

  His tall frame slumped, his forehead resting against mine as he hissed out, “Tenley… you haven’t been a very good girl lately, have you?” His words came across as venom, acid, thrown at me with no remorse. He sounded so angry, but I supposed I couldn’t blame him. I did act out, because I wanted him to make a move.

  And look at where we were now. I had my memories back, and I was with him once again. All in all, Kyle’s death aside, I’d say everything worked out perfectly.

  “Maybe I’ve been a little bad,” I admitted, “but I only wanted to see you.” The hand curled around my jaw fell to hold my neck, and I breathed in a deep breath, feeling my chest press against his as I did so. God, we were so close. So close, and yet still not close enough. “You stopped calling. I needed you.”

  The fingers on my throat tightened just a bit to be uncomfortable, but not enough to cause pain. “You needed me, and so you decided to use someone else? Tenley.” Enzo whispered my name like a swearword. “A good girl wouldn’t do that. A good girl would wait and trust that her master would come for her.”

  I smiled at him. “But now I remember. I remember everything. Maybe being bad sometimes is worth it.” Probably not the right thing to say to him, but I didn’t care. Were we not here now because of me? Was tonight not because of me? Yeah, I should feel guilty about Kyle, but I didn’t. I didn’t care. The only person I cared about was right in front of me for the first time in ten years.

  He frowned at me, but his fingers loosened around my neck, his hand spreading lower on me, moving above my collarbone, just above my breasts. “You know that boy is dead because you decided to use him to make me jealous, don’t you?”

  Nodding once, I said, “Yes. You killed him and made it look like a suicide, just like my parents.” I could not tell whether Enzo liked the fact that I was not appalled or shocked, so I plowed on, “You’d do anything for me.” Including go to jail for ten years.

  Ten years. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that he got out after I turned eighteen. He had to have planned it, to know I would be old enough to fully take and claim as his own once he got out. If he hadn’t gone to jail, if he’d been free these last ten years… certain lines might’ve been crossed that the whole world would look down on and judge.

  An adult and a child was wrong, but an adult and an eighteen-year-old? Some might still judge, but the law was now on our side and not against us.

  “I would,” Enzo agreed in a murmur, his nose grazing mine. “I would do anything for you, Tenley, because you’re mine. You’ve always been mine.”

  My mouth was open; I was practically panting for him already. “Yes,” I whispered, “I’m yours.”

  “My what?”

  The answer came to me effortlessly, waiting to be said from the very beginning: “I’m your good girl.” And I was. I would forever be Enzo Lee’s good girl, no matter what happened after this, no matter where life took us. I would always be his and his alone.

  His chest let out a sound that was a mixture of a hum and a growl, a carnal, primal sound that I felt in my very core. His lower half pressed against mine, pinning me harder against the tree, and all breath was swept from my lungs when his lips danced across mine. I could feel something hard growing between his legs, his want, his arousal, and it made me a wonderful kind of content to know he still wanted me, even after all these years. His desire hadn’t diminished now that I was older.

  He wanted me for me, and I wanted him in return. What more was there to say?

  He kissed me. He kissed me hard and fast and it was everything I expected and more. Enzo stole the air from my lungs and the strength from my body. If his frame wasn’t pressed against mine, if his hand didn’t still hold onto my neck and collarbone, I doubted I’d be left standing after a kiss like that.

  Not that I had anything to compare it to, but it was fire. Absolute destruction of everything I thought I knew, everything I thought I was. He took me, molded me, formed me into someone new and I was a willing slave, thrilled to be of service.

  His stubble grazed my chin, scratched my cheeks, but it didn’t matter. Having his lips on mine was like coming home, finally finding where I belonged after all this time. Passion and hunger, fiery heat and yearning burned deep within my body, my bottom half grinding against his and eliciting a low moan from his throat.

  Enzo was unhurried in pulling his mouth off mine, breathing raggedly as he stared at me through slit eyes. The hand around my collarbone rose to my throat once more, gripping my neck in a dominant, possessive gesture. “You taste better than I ever imagined you would,” he whispered, his other hand finding its way to my hip, tugging down the pajama bottoms resting there. “Let me see how you feel, Tenley. Is that little pussy of yours wet for me?”

  My eyes rolled into the back of my head as I felt his other hand graze my panties. My thighs had practically been permanently clenched the moment I saw him standing there behind Aubree’s house, so I didn’t doubt I was wet for him. My whole body was on overdrive, grasping, needing, wanting. Why wouldn’t the most intimate part of me be slick with need?

  His fingers slipped between my panties and my skin, curving along my body as they moved to my core, sliding against the folds of skin and circling the rim of my entrance. My body gave his fingers no resistance, and it felt so unbelievably good to have him touch me there—my hips moved along his hand, digging my clit against his palm, before I even knew my body was reacting that way.

  Instinct, I guess. A primal urge to have him touch me more, to beg him to lead me to the precipice of my pleasure.

  “Oh, fuck,” Enzo whispered, pressing hi
s nose against my cheek as he stroked me, fingers around my clit as he rubbed it. “You’re practically dripping.”

  I let out a muffled sound, my back sore as it leaned against the tree, but I would not move from this spot, not while his hand was around my throat and his other hand was between my legs, touching me, making me see stars and feel the promises they whispered.

  “You like that?” he asked, to which I could only nod. My voice right now would fail me, I knew without a doubt. The words would come out garbled and incoherent; my mind was somewhere else, lost to the feeling of his hand at my apex. “Tenley… what am I going to do with you?”

  I could think of a few things he could do to me right now, a few things I knew would never get old, but I couldn’t say them, not while he increased the speed of which he rubbed me. My hips rocked along his hand, and I whimpered as I felt everything in me start to unravel. My whole sense of self, obliterated the moment pleasure surged through me, swallowing me up within moments.

  A strangled cry left my lips, and if he wasn’t there holding me up, I would’ve collapsed. The heated pleasure surging through my entire body, causing every muscle of mine to constrict and tense, made me blind and dizzy, but I wanted more. I needed more. So, so much more.

  A single word left Enzo’s lips as he watched me come, as he watched the orgasm unravel me, “Mine.”

  Mine. There was no denying it, no arguing with him. I was his in every way; I always had been, even if I’d pushed him from my mind and temporarily forgotten who he was to me. Never again. Never again would I forget this man or the things he made me feel.

  “Every part of you is mine,” he growled out, his hand dipping back, a single finger sliding inside of me, filling me up in one fluid motion. I was already panting thanks to the orgasm, but once I felt that finger in me, my eyelids cracked open to see his face close to mine, watching me. And then that finger started pumping in and out of me, doing things to me we both wished a different part of him was.

  I didn’t want to wait any longer. I craved him more than anything before in my life, needed him as surely as I needed the air I breathed. There was only one thing that would make me feel fuller than his finger did, and that was the hard dick pressing against his pants.