by Lily White
Apparently, Meadow was working towards a journalism degree but hadn’t yet made it past the basic courses. Luckily, she’d managed to find a program that taught in both English and German, since she was as frustrated with the language barrier over there as I was with two particular men at the hotel.
According to her, mom was doing well in her new marriage and the man she’d married was halfway decent, but had no sense of humor to speak of. It was a far cry to who our father had been, but dad had been one in a million.
Hitting reply, I sent Meadow a response promising her I’d stay in touch on a more frequent basis. My hands must have hovered over the keys as I made my decision whether I’d be staying at Wishing Well or not. If it had been about Vincent alone, I would have begged my sister to buy me the next plane ticket to Germany, but I had Maurice to consider.
I couldn’t leave him to waste away beneath the abuse of his older brother. Not after the moment we shared today while eating lunch. Not after I’d seen for a few minutes at least that he had the potential to lead a normal life.
So instead of begging to be rescued, I told my sister how happy I was in my new job and that I’d write to her again in a week.
The day moved quickly after that, the sun setting on the horizon as I let myself into the garden of the hotel through the back employee gate. Seeing that it was six, I made my way to the kitchen to fetch Maurice’s dinner. Except when I arrived, I had two trays given to me on a metal courier cart and I glanced up at the kitchen manager in confusion. He glared back, too busy to politely explain.
“Vincent said two meals should be ready.” Having barked out the simple sentence, he stormed off to reprimand one of the cooks who was prepping food behind the line.
It didn’t take long for me to reach Maurice’s basement suite, or for me to find him in the same room as usual. “Dinnertime,” I announced.
The typical tapping of his fingers over a keyboard stopped immediately, his eyes flicking up, a forced smile stretching his lips. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing at the odd expression. Pushing the cart to the table, I asked, “Were you the one who ordered two meals?”
Nodding his head once, he answered, “I didn’t want you to be hungry.”
Praising him, I said, “That was very considerate of you, Maurice. Thank you.”
He responded in such a way that the words sounded foreign on his tongue. “You’re welcome.”
“Would you like to eat now?” I asked.
Cutting his head sharply to the left, he kept his eyes pinned on me. “Not yet.”
“Okay,” I said, dragging the word out, “what would you like to do instead?”
Already knowing the answer to my question, I waited for him to tell me he wanted to fuck. Except, he didn’t...
“Would you like to take a tour of my home?”
If I hadn’t been holding on to the handle of the push cart, I would have fallen over. “Um, sure,” I answered meekly, surprise weakening my voice.
Maurice must have noticed the odd reaction because his nostrils flared with anger, his shoulders hunching together as his eyes flicked to the computer screen. “Forget it,” he barked.
Shit...
“I’m sorry for looking like I didn’t want to walk around, it’s just that you surprised me with the suggestion.”
Shrugging a broad shoulder as if to dismiss what I said, anger rolled behind his startling green eyes. I refused to give up. “What made you think to give me a tour?”
His jaw ticked, uncertainty a shadow beneath his eyes. “The internet,” he practically whispered. “I looked it up and it said that friends show friends around their house.”
My heart shattered into a million fucking pieces. He was actually researching how to be normal. Gathering myself back together, I focused on a word that he’d said as I approached him. He refused to look up at me, but I stood next to him regardless. With a soft voice, I asked, “Am I your friend, Maurice?”
His gaze darted up to my face and back to his screen, pink darkening his cheeks. “Yes.”
I couldn’t help my smile. “Then give me the tour.”
Reluctantly, he stood from his seat and offered me his hand. I took it, squeezing his fingers between mine as he led me from the room. I should have known the tour wouldn’t be normal. Waking down the halls, he pushed open every door we passed saying, “Room. Another room. Another room. Bathroom. Another room. Room with weights. Therapy room. Room.”
We reached the last door, “Room with bed.” He tugged me inside.
I should have known we’d end up here. It occurred to me that Maurice wasn’t quite accurate on his definition of ‘friend.’
Glancing around the dark room, I could only see by the flickering light of candle sconces on the wall. There wasn’t much furniture to be found, just a giant bed positioned in the center of a wall, the mattress covered in black sheets. Unlike the hallway floors of dark marble, his bedroom floor was a thick, dark carpet. No wonder he spent so much time in the yellow room, the rest of this place felt like a large coffin.
Before I could return my attention to him, he was dragging me deeper inside to shove me down on the mattress. He started to crawl over me, but I stopped him by placing my hands on his strong shoulders. Almost immediately, his expression twisted with rejection, but I spoke before he could react. “Can we try a new way of ...”
“Fucking?” he asked.
I took a breath. “Of being together,” I corrected him. It was a struggle not to laugh when his head tilted like a confused puppy.
“There’s only one way, unless,” his hand found my ass, “you want to try my cock in that hole.”
Yeah, no. I wasn’t ready for that. “Just trust me, okay. I’m your friend, so I’d like to do something different. You’ll like it, I promise.”
It took him a minute of staring at me to finally nod his head and roll off me. Pushing to my knees, I climbed off the bed, his hand striking out to grab my wrist and stop me from leaving. Turning, I crooked a corner of my mouth. “I’m not going anywhere. I just need to move out of the way so you can sit down.”
Cocking one brow, he pushed himself into a seated position on the edge of the bed. Placing my hands on his shoulders - noticing how big he was compared to me - I climbed up to straddle him. His hands immediately moved to cup my ass and I smiled realizing the need to do so was just a natural part of him.
Cupping his cheeks in my hands, I didn’t miss the way his brows tugged together. He was completely still, a snake ready to strike, a man afraid of what the small woman in his lap would do to him.
“I want to go slow this time.”
Maurice shook his head, his fingers gripping me tighter.
“Please?”
Another shake of his head.
Lowering my voice, I pressed my forehead to his. He winced, jerking his head away before I could ask, “Have you ever gone slow before?”
Frustration was a tick in his jaw. “No.”
Remaining patient, I asked, “Have you ever let a woman fuck you before?”
“No.”
“Would you like to try it with me?”
Uncertainty was obvious in his voice. “Okay.”
Realizing he didn’t like his face touched, I assumed kissing him was out of the question. Baby steps , I told myself as I gently pushed on his shoulders to make him lie back. “Can I take off your shirt?”
Several seconds passed, but he nodded his head. My fingertips dragged from his shoulders down to his waist, ripples of hard muscle like deep ridges as I touched his stomach.
Good God, what kind of body does this man have hidden beneath his shirt?
I lost my ability to breath when I lifted the hem, tugging it off him as he moved his arms and showed me. But as my stomach twisted in knots to see an almost perfect physique, anger clouded my eyes to notice the maze of scars that were small white lines across his torso. Knowing better than to focus on those scars or ask questions, I lifted my eyes to hi
s face. “You’re a work of art, Maurice. I’ve never seen someone so beautiful.”
Heat blazed behind his eyes, a primal edge to his gaze that made the butterflies in my stomach beat their wings harder. Without unlocking our gaze, I unbuttoned his jeans and freed his erection from his pants. My fingers wrapped the girth, a growl emanating from his chest, letting me know his patience to let me take the lead was running out.
Leaning down, I placed a kiss in the center of his chest and released his cock to unbutton my own pants. Moving so that I could drag them off my legs and kick them from my feet, I stood on the floor at the edge of the bed, and stripped off my shirt. There was no doubt on my mind this man was hungry, not with the way he stared at my breasts.
Slowly, I climbed back on top of him, my body ready, my breath held as I straddled his lap, positioned him so that he could sink inside my body, and lowered myself down. His hands immediately went to my waist, his lips parting as I began to move over him.
Dragging his hands up my body, he palmed my breasts, taking possession of them as he watched me move. I was driving myself to a climax when his patience finally snapped. But instead of shoving me over so that he could climb on top, he simply grabbed my hips, his grip firm, as he set a faster pace.
I came apart almost instantly, my palms on his shoulders, my head falling back as I let him use my body to find his own release, and when his hips bucked up, his cock sinking deeper inside me, I closed my eyes and realized that I was becoming addicted to the savage beast of man who had trusted me enough to call me his friend.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
After the time we spent in Maurice’s ‘room with a bed’, as he called it, we made it back to the ‘sunshine room’, as I called it, and ate dinner. Not much conversation was had, but I hadn’t expected it, at least until I asked about the reason for one yellow room in his basement.
My curiosity won me an angled brow, a moment of silence as he carefully placed his fork on his plate, pulled the cloth napkin from his lap and placed it on the table. A million thoughts rushed behind his downcast eyes, lines of sorrow written across his face.
His voice had little strength when he asked, “What has Vincent told you?” His eyes lifted to mine. “About me? About life before he brought me here?”
Not a damn thing... I thought, bitterly. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, he’d admitted Maurice had some issues, and that they’d lived in Paris before coming to the States.
“Not much. He said you lived in Paris before coming here. That you had a place in Paris and a farm outside the city with a well much like the one in the garden.”
Nodding, Maurice admitted, “I don’t remember that much about Paris. Or the farm. I was younger than Vincent when Maman died. But I do remember a room like this one. It was her favorite place. I could be calm for her in that room.”
My heart fractured again. And while trying to swallow past the knot of emotion his words conjured, I realized something about Maurice: it wasn’t that he couldn’t talk - his vocabulary and tone were normal in that moment - it was something else that made communication difficult for him. Maybe because we were ‘friends’, the words were coming easier to him.
“I’m sorry about your mom. My dad died a little over two years ago.”
Nodding, he refused to look at me. “I didn’t like my Papa. He was-“
His teeth clenched together so hard I could hear them scrape. Shaking it off, he said, “You should go,” his voice was tightly controlled.
A live wire, frayed at the end, Maurice struggled against some emotional turmoil, his energy - his pain - bleeding across the table. I opened my mouth to ask what I could do, I reached across, but pulled my hand back when his expression twisted, when it was all he could do to tell me to get out. Fear took hold of me, concern, and I found myself bolting for the hallway, running past the dancing flames of fire sconces to shove the key into the elevator slot, my fingers tapping the code as glass shattered in the distance and tears rolled down my cheeks.
Not knowing what I’d said or what I’d done, I pressed my back against the elevator wall as the doors slid closed, my body sinking to the ground, my head snapping up with the expectation that Vincent would be waiting when the doors slid open again.
He wasn’t. The employee halls were empty. The hotel silent except for the muted echo of conversations floating in from the lobby.
Forcing myself to my feet, I hit the button for the fifth floor and took the elevator up. My feet were practically dragging as I made my way to my room, let myself in and stripped away my clothes in route to the shower. By the time my skin had turned pink beneath the spray of hot water and steam, I glanced at a clock to see that I was expected in Vincent’s suite in a half hour.
I didn’t bother to dry my hair or care about the clothes I pulled on, and by the time I was knocking on Vincent’s door I resembled a drowned rat. His expression said as much when he pulled the door open, his lips slightly parted as if he’d planned to say something but had lost the words as soon as his eyes caught mine.
“That bad?” He finally asked after clearing his throat.
Stepping inside the suite, absolutely hating the man walking behind me, I didn’t stop until I was at the sidebar trying to remember what Vincent had mixed to make the drinks he always gave me.
I knew why I was here. I knew the demands he’d make of me, and when his hands landed on my shoulders, his fingers gripping down as if to massage the muscles, I flinched beneath his touch. “Not as bad as right now,” I answered. Picking up a bottle to read the label, I set it down, jerked away from his hold and turned to face him. “If you’re going to make demands of me, you could at least get me drunk.”
Arrogance cocked his brow, amusement curling his lips. “You act like you know why I wanted you up here.”
One slow blink and then: “What other reason could there be, Vincent? You told me I have no choice in anything. And knowing you, you’ll threaten me with kicking me out of the hotel, leaving me penniless and homeless unless you get your way. So, here I am.”
“Yes,” he responded, his thumb running across his lip in suspicion. “Here you are. Without a word of complaint, in fact. How very unlike you.”
I hadn’t intended to submit to anything on my way up to Vincent’s suite, but now that I was here - now that I had the opportunity - I decided to play my own games. Vincent wanted to force me to submit to his whims. I wanted answers. Perhaps by giving him what he wanted, by pretending that he still had the ability to hurt me, I could discover the information I needed to help Maurice.
“Will you make me a drink, or not?”
His shoulders shook with a bark of laughter. “Are you really that eager?”
I nodded my head. “Eager to get this over with.”
Leaning down, Vincent held his mouth a teasing inch from my ear. “Then why the need for the drink?” Pausing, his breath was a beat trailing down my neck. “Take off your shirt, Penelope.”
Stepping out from between Vincent and the sidebar, I stripped off the shirt that was damp at the shoulders and down the back from my hair. I hadn’t bothered to wear underwear beneath my frumpy clothes, hadn’t cared to seduce a man that was only using me for his own amusement.
Vincent’s smile was mistrustful, but he edged closer regardless. When he was near enough to reach out and touch me, I took a step back. “I have a question I want to ask.”
His eyes drifted from my breasts to my face. “I might have an answer.”
“Where did Maurice get all those scars on his chest?”
The humor in Vincent’s expression was gone, his body becoming still. “He let you see those?”
Confusion addled my thoughts. “Yes. Why?”
A line of concern wrinkled Vincent’s brow, his phone ringing from another room at the same time. Turning to glance in the direction of the sound, he asked, “What happened while you were down there tonight?”
Convinced he was going to be angry that I’d had sex with Maurice a
fter his explicit instruction not to, I said nothing as the phone went to voicemail only to immediately ring again. Cursing under his breath, Vincent shot me a look that could kill before marching into the other room to answer. What I heard from the other room trapped my breath in my lungs, worry seizing my heart between its crushing fingers.
“What do you mean he’s lost control? Damn it! Have his medication waiting for me by the elevator. I’ll be there in a second.”
The fall of angry steps preceded his booming question. “What in the hell have you done to my brother this time?”
“I -“ My mouth fell open to answer the question, my heart practically beating in my throat. “I don’t know. We were eating dinner and talking -“
Grabbing his suit jacket from the back of his sofa, Vincent’s gaze snapped to me. “Talking? About what?”
He’d made it halfway to the door before I answered, “About family.”
Stopping suddenly, Vincent spun on his heel to look my direction. “I want you to see the consequences of your actions. Put on your damn shirt and follow me.”
Grabbing the damp shirt from the floor, I was pulling it over my head as I chased behind him. “That was what I wanted to ask about. The scars, and Maurice’s reaction when I mentioned my dad.”
Climbing into the elevator, Vincent pressed the button to the lobby. “Your dad? Why would he give a damn about your dad?”
“He didn’t,” I explained, shoving my arm through a sleeve, “but it made him think of his dad-“
“Fuck,” Vincent breathed out, pinching the skin between his eyes in frustration. “Now I know why he’s destroying the basement.”
The elevator doors opened and John, the hotel manager stood waiting. Handing a small box to Vincent, he stepped away as Vincent stuck a key on the elevator panel and punched in the code for the basement. The doors slid shut as I asked my next question.
“What did he just give you and how do you know Maurice is destroying the basement?”