A Beautiful Nightmare: A Novel

by Shana Vanterpool

  He stared carefully at me. “I don’t own you, Kinley. I apologize. You can sit where you want. Or stand awkwardly in the middle of the floor glaring with those sexy blue eyes. Seriously, Kinley, they’re the bluest eyes in the world. Do you have any idea what they do to me? Even now, they’re disrupting my soul.”

  I fake gagged.

  He grinned suddenly. “I love you.”

  I glared, but inside I forbade my damn heart from reacting. Don’t you dare, you needy whore! Love yourself. No one does it better than me anyway. But I didn’t do it the way I deserved. It was the hardest to love yourself, when loving others had nothing to do with you. I’d spent enough time psychoanalyzing others to know that loving myself only created far more chaos in my head. Because love could lie.

  “Stop smiling at me,” I grumbled. Stupid handsome smile. Stupid glowing gold eyes. Those stupid eyes were what got me into trouble in the first place.

  He immediately dropped it and returned to the carton of eggs on the counter. “Yes, Kinley.”

  “I’m sore.” He was much too happy pretending he hadn’t had me tied to the bed. “My shoulders are throbbing and my ankles hurt. My throat is raw from screaming for help. My eyes are swollen from crying, from waking up in this nightmare. My life is over. I can’t leave. I—” I quickly hurried to finish when his eyes glowered. “I just want you to know that this isn’t a fairytale. Yeah, we might’ve had something, but it’s gone now. It’s completely gone. Keeping me here won’t bring it back.”

  He defiantly ripped open the eggs and took out two, staring down at the delicate white orbs in his hands. “Yes it will.” And then he looked up at me, determination and defiance in his eyes. “When this is over, you will look at me the way you did when we made love. That was the first time anyone ever looked at me like that, the first person who could love me knowing who I was, what I was—there’s no way I’m letting that go. How do you like your eggs?”

  The ardor and intensity in his voice made chills break out across my skin. There was nothing shaking it, nothing convincing him to give this up. Deep down, I wondered if there would be. He had gone to all this trouble, created a kingdom in the clouds to keep me here, to bring back an emotion that only existed during a onetime hook up on my desk. That wasn’t a man who appeared to be thwarted.

  That wasn’t a man doing sane things.

  That was a man creating a dream out of an illusion. He had admitted to doing so before. There were women before me that had fallen for his physical appearance. Inside he wasn’t as flawless. He was a damaged war zone, having grown up in the murderous MK Gang, always being that inadequate son, never living up to his father’s unlawful expectations, being forced to leave his mother—Dash McKing was ravaged inside. I had to keep in mind, that on top of his mental illness, he was also broken, because it was important to discern between his brokenness and his illness. One could think clearly if he tried, and the other could try if he thought clearly. Meds helped. Mindfulness helped. There were options, but at the same time there weren’t. A lifelong mental illness in conjunction with a dark past had created a man who had me abducted, spoke of love that existed for a short time, and wouldn’t acknowledge the bruises on my wrists and ankles.

  So I gave in again. It would take time to convince him. Time to help him see that we were much better off on the street with everyone else, instead of blinded by the gold he embroidered on the walls.

  “Over easy.”

  His shoulders relaxed. “Okay …” He set the eggs back onto the counter and bent to open a cupboard, standing with a frying pan in his hand.

  I raised my eyebrow, but said nothing. He’d never get those eggs out of that pan. They’d stick like glue.

  “Do you normally cook?”

  He played with the stove, turning dials. “Eh. My housekeeper usually does the cooking.”

  “But now that we’re imprisoned in this skyscraper you have no choice but to?”

  He grunted.

  “I was so scared,” I whispered, having a moment of weakness.

  He looked at me, his eyes melting to butterscotch. “I apologize. I am sorry from the bottom of my soul that they did that to you. They’re understandings of their actions are in place now.”

  I looked down at my toes. “What does that mean?”

  “It means they’ll be chained to a bed far less expensive until they understand what they did to my queen.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Did you think I killed them?” My lack of reply made him growl low. “I’m not my father.”

  “And I suppose I should be satisfied with them being tortured?”

  “Would you have rather me let them go unscathed?”

  I met his eyes. “I would have rather you let me go before it got to this point.”

  “You haven’t let me go. You said so yourself.”

  “That was before I pissed myself out of fear!” I shouted, not being able to stand the condescension in his eyes. Admitting I had feelings for him meant nothing because those feelings were gone. I was his prisoner.

  “Kinley.” He hung his head in regret. “What can I do to make that up to you? And don’t say to let you go.”

  “That’s all I want.” Sadness laced my every word.

  “Then I must let you down.” He returned to the eggs. “Butter or oil?”

  “I’m going back to bed.”

  To dream, to live in an alternate reality that didn’t reek of my mistakes and Dash’s instability.

  Or my lies.

  8.

  Even Blood Couldn’t Shatter This Lie

  The smell of burnt eggs permeated the air.

  Hours later and I could still smell his disastrous attempt at breakfast. My untouched plate still sat on the nightstand beside my bed. The toast was charred and the eggs were more like science experiments than items suitable for human consumption.

  I stared at the frayed ends of toast, picking out the grains of wheat and the smears of butter. There had to be a way out of here. If there was a way in for all of these things, then there was a way out for them as well. Unless he built this floor the way I mopped, by locking myself inside the room, then I could find a way. Because Dash didn’t look to be moveable. He thought, on both levels of subconscious and insanity, that this was something he wanted. How could I persuade a man who thought forever was more palatable if it had tea-colored walls?

  I lay in my bed, picking apart my room. There were four walls, not including my bathroom or closet. Their seams looked integrated well, and the floor had been applied the way they all were. Why did he think the exit was so hard to figure out?

  Why couldn’t I go into his side of the kingdom? This was no kingdom. Although there was enough tyranny and inequality to make me think there was, it wasn’t. This was a pretty illusion created to make me think forever was possible, that the love we shared as our hips connected was still alive.

  It was gone.

  Like Denny.

  Like the me he had resurrected. The old me was someone I feared. A girl who did what she had to do to survive, which meant breaking rules I didn’t implement, and using people who thought they were getting something from me in return. Taking and lying didn’t make me happy. Going through life ungrounded didn’t make me happy with myself.

  One of the reasons I chose this career had been purely selfish. If I could study others, figure out how they figured out who they were, then maybe I could figure it out as well. My lifestyle had granted me no breaks. I didn’t have time to stop and think about who I was as a person and whether the world approved. I had been on my own my entire life, and that meant learning things the only way I knew how, circumventing rules when I needed to and pretending I hadn’t done so when accused.

  My eyes skirted to the sensor on the wall. Why were the doors built with a touch sensor? How had he programmed my fingerprint when I hadn’t been here to do so? Maybe my sensors were unclaimed, and his were the only one that had been programmed.

&nbs
p; How could I love a man who locked me in a tower?

  I went over our meetings, sifting through the lust to any signs that he had this in him, until I managed to fall asleep. When I woke, I had nothing in my body, and instead remained in my position. The walls were taunting me.

  The sun through the barred windows were as well.

  There was so much damn gold in this place. The ultimate fabrication. But there was so much darkness as well. It existed in my lies, in his actions, in the past that had been my present only days before.

  The door in the wall slid open suddenly. Dash came in dressed in black sweats and a white tank top. His brown/black hair was damp and the smell of spicy male soup swirled around him when he deposited a mug of something hot and a plate of food on my nightstand.

  He sighed at my leftovers and picked up my plate. “Are you going to stay in bed all day?”

  I stared at the wall.

  “Will you at least eat?”

  I stared at the wall.

  With another sigh, he left, leaving the door open. I got up and examined where it went. It was like an old-fashioned sliding door that my parents used to have in our trailer. Only this version was mechanical. High-tech. No surprise there. Dash was eerily intelligent when it came to the inner workings of technology. I wondered who he’d be without his mental illness. Gorgeous, the son of a kingpin, with an eerie intelligence—he could rule the world. A shudder raced down my spine at the thought. As it was, Dash didn’t rule the world. Just me, his pillage.

  I settled on pressing my sensor roughly. The only way I could slam my door.

  I returned to my bed, and faded …

  My body was starving, my heart as well, but I refused to exist within his nightmare without fighting with a few of my own. I wouldn’t eat his food, or drink his drinks, or speak to someone who didn’t care enough about me to let me go.

  How could you love someone when you were doing everything to break them?

  He didn’t love me. I would have to ride this out, and hope my scars wouldn’t be everlasting.

  But Dash wasn’t as willing. He came into my room, shouted, and then left. I gave him nothing, not a single reply. I could sense his rage in the air, seeping between the walls—Dash McKing was about to break. But so was I. Fading away was drifting on my own, and that was one more thing he had done to me.

  My entire life had gone up in flames. All he wanted was for me to accept this nightmare?

  He barreled into my room today. There were two plates on my nightstand already, breakfast and lunch. My mugs had been cleared in exchange for water.

  He slammed his fist against the wall. “Get up, Kinley. I can’t keep wasting food on your tantrums. The fresh supply is almost gone. Get up.”

  His body jostled the bed, and then he hovered over me. He grabbed my chin and forced my eyes on his. “It’s almost been a week. You’re losing weight. Please eat.” He bent to press his lips to my chapped ones, his breath blowing out with his groan.

  I closed my eyes when his stayed open and yanked my face free.

  His hand settled on my back. “Eat. Or I’ll crawl into bed and hold you.”

  My eyes snapped open. I must’ve made a move, because he grunted.

  “Eat,” he ordered darkly.

  I reached for my blanket to hide beneath, but he grabbed it and pulled it away from my body. Then he grabbed my chin and shoved something wet and sour into my mouth.

  I spit it up. His eyes were gleaming, glossy with his twisted reality and … lack of sleep? Had he not been sleeping? He picked up the piece of canned pineapple, and then put it back into my mouth. “Eat,” he growled, but his tone wobbled, sounding more like a sob. “You have to eat.” He plucked another piece from my plate and placed it into my mouth more gently. It was the best tasting thing I’d had in my mouth in … a week? It had to have been a week since I went for my last run. “Good girl,” he breathed, inserting another piece of pineapple covered in sweet syrup between my lips.

  The pleasure in his voice sickened me. I didn’t want to please him. I knocked his hand away and rolled back over. Handsome psycho. Even on the edge of a complete mental breakdown, his face was undeniably attractive. His disheveled hair, hard jaw, the gold in his eyes wavering like a mirage. He was a false image that held too much darkness to see through. When I got close enough there was nothing there.

  Something inside of me felt guilty for thinking that. There was something there. Dash had had moments in my office where he was a sexy normal confident man. He’d had relationships with women that had lasted years. He could be that man, but at the same, time he wouldn’t be. Dash would never be like everyone else. The fact that he was forcing pineapple into my mouth on a bed I had been tied to a week ago was a testament to that.

  Beneath my rage, I had to admit it was sad. Sad to be so powerful, yet wrought with mental illness. To think pineapples and ropes were better than the answer no.

  My eyes filled with tears. I shouldn’t feel bad for my abductor, but I had spent many hours trying to find the real Dash to know that for every hour I spent looking, I lost far more.

  “Damn it, Kinley.” He grabbed my upper arm and forced me on my back. “I’ll kiss you again if you don’t eat.” He raised his eyebrow threateningly. “You don’t think I will? I’ll kiss you. I’ve dreamed about it for six months. You don’t even have to kiss me back. And who’s to say I’ll want to stop once I do?” He leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine. A low groan emanated from his chest. “You taste like pineapples,” he whispered against my lips, worrying me.

  The longing in his voice was too much. His lips were warm and soft against my still lips. He moved his against me earnestly, the taste of banana on his breath. With the scent of pineapples thick in the air around us, it smelled like we were in the Bahamas. An oasis with crystal blue water and smooth warm sand. Just one more ugly lie.

  “Kinley,” he whispered, urging my lips open. “I won’t stop.”

  I believed him. Because when he said it, it sounded like he had already made the decision to keep going. I pushed his shoulders. “Get off.”

  “No,” he said, holding my face in his tight grasp.

  “Stop.” We couldn’t do this.

  “Your lips are mine.” His eyes opened and I saw the hungry madness in them.

  And like the traitor my vagina had been from the beginning, she awoke from her slumber. That hunger was predatory, sexy, wanting. It was so addictive. I’d gotten high on it many times in my office. But my vagina didn’t know things were different now. We couldn’t let the man who imprisoned us make us hungry too. But he looked so wanting …

  “If you kiss me back I’ll let you be.”

  I stared into his gold starving gaze. And … nodded.

  He wasted no time. He pressed his lips to mine with a guttural growl and urged them open with his tongue. The taste of pineapples and bananas clashed. I focused on feeling nothing as his lips ravaged me. But kissing him back was part of the deal. I gave in slightly, suckling on his bottom lip. But unfortunately that was the wrong choice. He moved to lie between my legs, pressing himself against me. My legs rose to make room for him as his tongue slipped into my mouth. It was hot and wet, thrusting me back to the tropical oasis. He cradled my face tenderly while kissing me roughly. It was a strange feeling to be held but attacked, as though I was safe within his wreckage.

  “It’s okay,” he promised.

  No, I thought desperately. I can’t do this with him again.

  He ground his hips against me, losing himself in my mouth. His body weight felt magnified. He was so much man everywhere. I was suddenly a woman beneath an unhinged man and I was trying to forget everything as it happened.

  No, I begged myself. Stop!

  My vagina registered the hard mound of his erection and demanded I let her have control. The last time I let her have control, Dash had been inside of me before I could register the sound of my pantyhose ripping.

  Dash couldn’t be inside of me aga
in. I tried to push him off, but he grabbed my wrists and pinned them above my head. Then he laid into my mouth like a starving man. He made love to my lips, a deep passionate stroke of his hips, caressing my clitoris, tasting my excitement—that’s how deep his kiss went. As he did so, he ground himself against me, humping me so roughly I could feel every hard thick inch of him.

  His fingers threaded in mine and he humped me harder, searching for his end, stuck in a daze I fought with all my heart not to feel. His heavy large body enveloped me. His scent, like male soap and sweat, swirled around me. The taste of banana and pineapples had gone a long time ago. Now it was his tongue, my tongue, the hot wetness of our mouths merging into one sublime taste.

  The second I lifted my own hips, to feel him too, my eyes snapped open. It was too late. My second of weakness was all he needed. He tore his lips free and buried his face in my neck, groaning into my ear as he orgasmed. Heat erupted from his groin, and he pressed himself against me so hard I could feel his end soak into my pajamas.

  The grip he had on my wrists slackened. His arms fell away; his weight sunk onto me fully. I was still breathing hard, guilty and ashamed, when I heard him rumble.

  Was he sleeping?

  His snore deepened, answering me.

  “Are you kidding me?” I shoved his shoulders. “Dash?”

  In response, he burrowed deeper. His arms came beneath me, encapsulating me so completely my breasts rose with his breaths. My legs were opened so wide he could fit perfectly. I lay there, stunned. This wasn’t happening. With a frustrated growl, I brought my legs around his waist to relieve the pressure on my hip joints.

  His lips were on my skin. His warm breath kissed my shoulder. He was so heavy it was hard to breathe. My arms still lay above my head where he pinned them there. Animal. My shoulders screamed in pain, still sore from being trussed. I had no choice but to bring them down and settle them on his back.

  To an onlooker, it looked like I was embracing the man of my dreams. My arms and legs were around him, like his were me, and our scent and breaths were mingling in a way that created an admittedly enjoyable scent. Whatever he had on smelled different than his usual cologne. This was heavier, a thick musky scent mixed with the faint aroma of pineapple. The scent unwillingly wrapped around me, making it so every breath I took I was inhaling him.