by Hannah Ford
I raced toward the window, and looked outside, just in time to see Conner Sheer’s car pulling out of the driveway and starting down the dirt road. The last thing I saw before they turned the corner was a glimpse of the back of Violet’s head, her ponytail bobbing as the car went over a bump and then disappeared from view.
“That’s it,” I said immediately. “I’m calling the police.”
I pulled my phone out, expecting Landon to try to stop me, the way he’d done in the past, but instead he just stood there, watching, his face impassive.
But my phone was dead.
NO SERVICE flashed across the screen. I stepped down into the massive great room that was off the kitchen, weaving around the square stone tables and sleek cream couches, willing my phone to pick up a signal.
“Where is there service in this house?” I demanded.
“Nowhere.”
“Bullshit. You’re one of the most famous tech moguls in the world, and you expect me to believe you own a house where there’s no cell service?” I was waving my phone around now like a crazy person in a cell phone commercial.
“There is cell service,” Landon said, his voice low. “But not on your phone.”
“What?”
“Your phone has been disconnected.”
“Why?”
“For your safety.”
And then I remembered. The call from that woman, Misty. The reporter who was doing the story on the stalking. I remembered Landon taking my phone from my hand, telling me he would get me another one. He must have disconnected it, then slipped it back into my purse.
I was angry, and my hand tightened around my phone. I resisted the urge to throw it across the room.
“Landon,” I said, and the word came out like a sob. “Let me use your phone.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I told you. I need to keep you safe.”
“You think this is safe?” I demanded. “Making me stand here in the kitchen like I’m some kind of helpless puppy while my sister takes off, going God knows where? If Violet isn’t safe, then I’m not safe.”
“Violet and Conner will be back.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.” He crossed the room to the sauce on the stove, which had started to bubble and smoke, and turned off the burner.
“Tell me,” I said, setting my phone down, my hands curling into fists by my side.
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me what they’re doing here. Why they ran away, why Violet hasn’t returned my calls. I know that you know.”
“Aven.”
“Stop saying my name like that!” I was pacing around now, my fists so tight that my nails bit into my skin. I was so fucking sick of this. Sick of Landon having all the power, sick of my sister keeping things from me, just sick of all of it.
I wasn’t some delicate flower that needed to be protected from whatever it was that was going on.
Landon knew.
Conner knew.
Violet knew.
I was the only one who didn’t know.
I needed answers.
I deserved answers.
And if Violet wasn’t here to give them to me, I was going to get them from Landon.
“You need to sit down, Aven” Landon said, and I hated how calm he was, how steely his voice sounded. He stepped down from the kitchen back into the cavernous great room where I was standing, and pulled a cream-colored cashmere blanket off the back of the couch. He held it up, as if he were going to cover me with it. “Sit down. I’ll make you some tea.”
“I don’t want some tea! I want to know what’s going on!” I rushed at him then, trying to rip the blanket from his hands, trying to do something, anything, to get a reaction out of him.
“Goddammit, Aven,” he growled. “You will do as I say.” He pulled back on the blanket.
We were caught in a tug of war, but he was too strong, and just when he was about to cede the impromptu game to me, the first thing he would have ever ceded to me, he dropped the blanket.
I was still tugging and I stumbled backwards, but he grabbed my wrists to keep me from falling, holding them so tight that I cried out.
“You want to know why she left with him?” he demanded. “You want to know?”
“Yes!”
His eyes blazed and for a moment I thought he was going to just blurt it out, but then he sighed and dropped my wrists, walked over to the kitchen table. He picked up one of the chairs and slammed it onto the floor, and the patterned glass vase that sat on top shook and threatened to topple over.
He took in a deep breath, and I took a step toward him.
“No,” he commanded. “Stay right there. If you come any closer, I’m going to want to punish you. And if I punish you, it’s going to be out of anger right now. And I do not want to do that.”
My body thrummed and pulsed at his words, and my core clenched. The places on my body where he’d spanked me, belted me, tied me, always aching in the background, intensified for a moment, and the desire I felt for him slid through me, warm and strong.
Suddenly, I was desperate for him to take this ache away from me, to take away the uncomfortableness and confusion I felt at what was going on with my sister.
I wanted him to take my body, to use me, to punish me, to take over and dominate me so that all I needed to think about were his demands.
The idea was unsettling.
He’s an addiction, I thought. I am addicted to Landon Sheer, the same way someone would be addicted to a drug.
I clenched my fists even tighter and railed against my baser instincts, the ones that urged me to fall to my knees. Of course, the fact that I didn’t do it wasn’t a victory, at least not for my self-control – because if he’d told me to do it, I would have.
“Landon,” I said, and I watched as he raised his head, stared out the window.
“Look at me.”
He turned, and my heart clenched. In his blue eyes, I saw torment, and not the kind I usually saw, the kind that looked like the leftover damage and destruction of a storm that had already raged.
No, this storm was going on right now, the ravaged look on his face confirming that the pain he was feeling was alive right in this moment.
He drew himself to his full height, and I already knew what he was going to do. He was going to insist I get back in the car, was going to drive me away from here and back to New York without telling me anything.
“You can’t protect me from this,” I said, summoning all my self-control. “Please, I …” My mouth went dry and I stepped up into the kitchen. “Tell me.”
And then his eyes hooded, and his jaw clenched into a strong line. He looked right at me, and when he spoke, his voice was cold.
“Your sister and my brother?” he said. “They’re related.”
The room felt like it was spinning.
My head went woozy, my knees went weak, and at the moment Landon stopped speaking the sun slid out from behind a cloud, its rays glinting off the snow-covered mountains outside.
It blinded me for a moment, illuminating the room, and I stepped backwards.
“Aven,” Landon rushed toward me, grabbing me before I fell down the stair that led back to the great room.
“What are you talking about?” I said, trying to pull away from him. “What are you talking about?”
“Just what I said.” He’d let me wrench out of his grasp, and now he took a step back from me. I could almost feel the desire radiating off of him -- I knew he was struggling between wanting to protect me and wanting to punish me for making him tell me, and for the way he was feeling toward me.
But his tone was even, devoid of emotion, as if he were a doctor delivering the kind of bad news that he’d delivered a million times before.
“That’s impossible,” I said, but then I heard myself asking, “How?” a second later.
“It’s not definite,” Landon said.
&nb
sp; “I didn’t ask if it was definite. I asked how?” I’d been looking down at the floor and now I glanced up sharply. Blood rushed to my head -- I felt like I was floating, or, worse, like I was about to have a panic attack. I fought against the sensation, trying to keep myself from losing my grip on reality.
“Your dad,” Landon said. “We have reason to believe he got Conner’s biological mother pregnant. She put the baby up for adoption, and we’re not sure, but we think that baby is Conner.”
“You knew,” I breathed.
Landon stayed silent for a moment. Then finally, “I didn’t know for sure. We still don’t.”
“You suspected.” Which was basically the same thing. The periphery of my vision began to go fuzzy. And then another thought, one that made my stomach turn. “You and I, we’re not –”
“No. It was Conner only.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Okay,” I said, running my hands through my hair and taking a deep breath. “Okay. Okay, okay, okay.” I started walking back toward the front door of the house, through the stone archway and into the foyer.
“Where are you going?” Landon asked, following me. “Aven.”
“I’m leaving. I need to find Violet.”
Landon sighed. “You need to calm down.”
“Calm down?” I pulled my sister’s coat off the hook by the door and shoved my arms into it. “No. I have to go find them.”
“Aven. Take the coat off.”
“They can’t have gotten far,” I said. “You know the area. You know where they might have gone. Another cabin, or a coffee shop, or a store, or something. You can take me there.”
“Aven.” Landon’s voice finally softened.
“Fine,” I said, anger bubbling in my veins, hot and bitter, even as I heard myself becoming hysterical, the pitch in my tone going up. “Fine, if you won’t help me, then I’ll go myself.”
Landon’s arm shot out, and he placed his palm flat on the door, holding it closed.
It was nothing but a gesture of dominance.
If he’d wanted to, he could have just used his fancy alarm system to make sure I couldn’t get out.
“Landon,” I said, but when I turned around, and he pushed me up against the back of the door.
And then he was sealing his mouth to mine, kissing me, his tongue pushing against my lips, parting them without my permission.
“Landon,” I moaned, but he kept kissing me. “Landon, please, I can’t…”
“Shh,” he said, kissing me again. “Shh, it’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”
My resolve weakened, my grip on it slipping –fighting him was like trying to hold onto water. As much as you tried, it was impossible.
“Shh,” he said again, and the stubble on his chin brushed against the soft skin on my neck, over my throat, the heat from his touch blazing through my entire body.
I felt like my skin was too tight, and the only thing that could loosen me out of it was him, stroking me, touching me, taking me.
“I can make you forget.” His voice came from low in his throat, and he pushed a strand of hair back from my face. His eyes raked over me hungrily, and his statement, even though it wasn’t a question, was as close to asking permission as he got.
It was like I was balanced on a precipice. I could go after my sister, tell her this was crazy, to stop this charade, to come home to New York with me.
Or I could give myself to this man, and forget.
His lips grazed my neck, my collarbone, his hand slipping under the back of my shirt to the small of my back.
I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders, buried my face in his chest.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Please, Landon, make me forget.”
He took my hand, leading up me up one of the winding staircases that rose out of the foyer, taking me up, up, up until we reached a landing on the second floor that was part of an open balcony.
We kept going, down a long hallway, past a row of closed stone doors, until we reached a final door at the very end of the hallway. It was made of weathered gray wood, and it was curved on the top, the frame made from the same stones that composed the archway downstairs.
Landon pulled a key fob out of his pocket and waved it in front of a keypad. The keypad glowed green. Landon entered a six-digit code, then opened the door and pulled me through.
We were in a walkway now, high off the ground and made of glass all around, including the floor. It must have wound around the back of the house, because through the glass the mountains sparkled in the background, snow-capped and high. I took a step toward Landon, and almost tripped.
The sensation of being on a glass walkway with nothing under me made it feel as if I were stepping off a ledge.
“Landon,” I grabbed for his arm, and he steadied me.
“Okay?” he asked gruffly.
I nodded, and we stood there for a beat, waiting for my vertigo to dissipate. Then his hand was on mine, and he was pulling me back down the walkway. The snow swirled around us, and since we were so high off the ground, it gave the disconcerting feeling that we were part of the storm.
At the end of the walkway was a stone turret -- a large curved structure that rose out of the ground, magnificently set against the snowy mountains behind it.
The glass walkway seemed to be the only way to access it. At the end of the walkway was another curved wooden door, the arch around it made of gray and white mosaic.
Landon reached into his pocket and pulled out a key, slid it into the door, and opened it. He pulled me into a small stone foyer, and shut the door behind us. A staircase rose up in front of us, curving toward the sky, going on seemingly forever.
Landon squeezed my hand.
“I am going to take you upstairs now,” he said, his voice heavy with meaning.
“Why are you saying it like that?” I asked, glancing toward the stairs nervously. “What’s up there?”
His lips parted slightly, and his shoulders pulled back, his breathing slightly increased. I could see the desire in his eyes, along with something else, something dark and hungry.
“What is it?” I demanded.
“You know your safe word?”
I nodded.
My heart thrummed against my ribcage, the reverberations giving the sensation of a million hummingbirds flying around inside of me, their wings beating against the inside of my skin.
We started up the winding stone staircase.
When we got to the top, there was another stone door, identical to the one downstairs.
He slid the key into the lock, took my hand, and pulled me inside.
It’s a torture room.
It was the first thought that entered my mind, and the force of it was so strong and terrifying that it wiped out any thoughts of the bombshell Landon had just dropped on me about Violet and Conner.
The room we were in had a stone floor, stone walls, and no windows. It was curved into the shape of a circle.
A platform bed sat smack dab in the middle. It was made up with a black comforter, metal shackles attached neatly on the bottom, cuffs at the top. On the walls hung all kinds of belts and whips, chains and spikes, handcuffs and other instruments I couldn’t identify.
Besides the bed, the only other pieces of furniture were things I didn’t recognize, but I could surmise what they were for – a padded bench that seemed to be used for spanking, a cage in the corner, a metal contraption that looked as if it was supposed to spread your legs in some way.
I turned around, not sure if I was going to make my way back through the door or not, but Landon was there, his eyes on mine.
He was watching me carefully.
“What is this?” I asked, even though I knew.
“This is where I want to punish you.” As he spoke, he drew me toward him, and I could feel his erection through his pants, hard and hot against my belly, even through the leggings I was wearing.
My pussy, ever the traitor, flooded with a moist warmth.
He took my wrists in his hands, applying gentle pressure, and I could feel my pulse beating against his touch.
Then he pulled away and began to walk toward the side of the room.
I closed my eyes and when I opened them, I raised my head toward the ceiling. I gasped. It was domed, made of glass, and across it was etched a replica of the mountains outside, each one dusted with a glittery substance that made it look like snow. The real snow swirled around the glass above us, making the etched mountains look life-like.
Landon hit a button on the side of the room, and the dome began to close as if we were in a stadium, two black panels coming out from either side and moving together. When they converged, the room was bathed in blackness for a second, and then the lights went on, dim and almost romantic.
Landon was still watching me from the other side of the room. I could tell he was waiting for my reaction. Of course I’d known he was into control, into BDSM even, rules and punishments. But this was another level. This was torture and instruments, pain and pleasure co-existing in a way that was foreign to me.
I had a choice.
I always had a choice. I didn’t have to stay here. I wasn’t a prisoner.
The overhead light glinted off one of the belts that hung along the wall, and it reminded me of that moment back in the kitchen, when the sun had glinted off the mountains.
That same feeling of dizziness washed over me, that same feeling of panic.
Here I was, with a man I hardly knew, a man I felt a connection to that I couldn’t explain.
And I’d found my sister, who apparently might be having an affair with a man who could be her brother.
I took a deep breath.
Then I got to my knees.
“Sir,” I said, my eyes on the floor. “Punish me.”
Landon dimmed the lights even further.
Then he crossed the room to me. I kept my eyes on the floor, wanting him to know that I was submitting to him, that I was here to do whatever he said, no matter what it was.
He reached down and tipped my chin up.
His thumb slid over my bottom lip, and he slipped it into my mouth just a tiny bit, and I sucked on it hungrily.