Violent Delights: A Dark Billionaire Romance

by Linnea May

  “You know I can’t tell you that,” I tell her. “And I won’t.”

  Chapter 33

  Liana

  So, he can’t tell me his name?

  You know that.

  Again, he’s implying that I know something that I actually don’t. It’s satisfying to realize that I must be right about my assumption, but it also scares me.

  I scare myself. I’m not using this information like a sane person should, but instead I’ve started to dig a hole for myself. Isn’t there a chance that he will find out about his mistake? And what about the other woman? What about the real Ruby Red? If she still expecting to be ‘kidnapped’ by him? And at what point, when it doesn‘t happen, will she contact him? Shouldn’t there be a woman out there who’s just as confused as I am? As confused as I am about being here, this other woman must be just as confused about not being here.

  “I know you can’t tell me,” I lie to him. “But I thought we could make an exception.”

  He shakes his head, his facial expression hardening. “We can’t.”

  “You’re stubborn,” I tell him, watching him with intent to make sure I’m not going too far.

  “No,” he objects, averting my eyes and focusing on the food in front of him. “I’m not stubborn, just strict. Flexibility is not really my thing when it comes to rules. Another thing you should know.”

  “You made an exception with this,” I say, gesturing toward the food. “And with giving me clothes. Didn’t you say those things weren’t part of the game either?”

  “Game?” he asks, sneering at me. “Stop calling it that.”

  I bite my lower lip. Okay, that one went too far. I have to be more careful, if I don’t want him to cut the conversation short again.

  “So, um, are you living here by yourself?” I ask, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, which only makes my question sound even more stupid.

  He furrows his eyebrows at me again.

  “Well, not at the moment,” he says. “You’re here, too.”

  I roll my eyes at him, something that would usually make him furious, but this time it causes him to laugh. This must be the first time I’ve ever seen him laugh out loud like this. There’s never been more than a quick chuckle or a smirk before.

  I smile at him, which causes his face to harden.

  “So, it’s just you otherwise?” I press, unwilling to let go of my line of questioning.

  He nods. “Yes, it’s just me.”

  “Isn’t it weird to live in such a big house all by yourself?” I ask. “Doesn’t it get lonely?”

  “A lot of people live by themselves,” he says. “That doesn’t mean they are lonely.”

  I nod. “Yes, sure, but-”

  “Do you live by yourself?” he interrupts me.

  I bring the coffee mug up to my face, taking a big sip, as if I was trying to hide behind it. My first instinct is to deny it and tell him that I’m living with my boyfriend. It’s not even because I want to lie to him, but because that’s what still pops into my head when I’m asked about my living situation. Luke and I haven’t been living together for that long, but it felt so natural to me that I still can’t believe it’s over.

  “Yes, I do,” I say. “As of late.”

  “And are you lonely?” he wants to know.

  I pause, placing the mug back on the table, absentmindedly turning it on the small bottom plate. The sun rays are playing on the cutlery, randomly blinding me with sharp flashes of light as he moves his fork and knife before me.

  “Yes,” I whisper solemnly without looking at him. “Yes, I am lonely.”

  I can feel his eyes on me, but I don’t reciprocate the gaze. I don’t even know why I’m telling him this. He doesn’t want to hear my little sob story. He just wants to have fun with his little sex slave and not be burdened with her emotional luggage.

  He doesn’t say a word, but reaches for his own coffee mug, taking his sweet time sipping from it. This is awkward for him, and he doesn’t know how to react.

  “This was my grandparents’ house,” he says after a few more moments of uncomfortable silence have passed between us. “I used to live here with them, partly grew up here. It feels more like home to me than any other place.”

  He pauses, waiting for me to lift my chin to look at him. Our eyes meet across the table, our gazes speaking silently to one another. His face speaks of concern and empathy. Even if he’s only faking it to make me feel better, he’s doing a really good job at it.

  “Maybe that’s why I don’t feel lonely,” he adds, his words heavy with meaning. “Despite the vast and empty halls. Every room echoes voices from the past. It’s hard to feel alone among them.”

  I’m struck by how beautiful his words are, just like the man who spoke them. It’s hard to imagine that this is the same man who enslaved me, the same man who locked me up, who whips and spanks me, and who fucks me like a savage.

  “Your grandparents?” I ask. “You lived here with your grandparents?”

  He nods. “Yes, they moved to Florida and gave this house to me.”

  “What about your parents?” I want to know.

  His face changes, and now he’s the one who’s avoiding my eyes.

  “They’re gone,” he says. “Not much to say about them.”

  “I’m sorry, I-”

  “Don’t worry, it happened a long time ago. I was still a kid,” he says. “It doesn’t bother me.”

  He takes a big bite of his toast and looks at me squarely, burying any hint of sadness that might have been there a second before.

  “What about your parents?” he asks.

  I’m confused at his question. He has never asked me anything personal, and I didn’t expect him to, especially after I found out that he thinks I’m just a whore he bought for his pleasure.

  “They‘re alive,” I reply. “I think.”

  He chuckles. “You think?”

  “Well, the sperm donor who’s supposed to be my father did nothing but drink and hit me and my mother until she finally had the guts to kick him out when I was nine,” I tell him. “And my mother married another asshole shortly after that and had another kid with him. He’s not as bad as my father used to be, but he hates me and I hate him. They are still up in Maine, we barely talk.”

  “So you’re not from here?”

  I shake my head. “No, I moved here for a job.”

  He turns to me, drawing in his eyebrows as his casts me a skeptical look.

  Damn, that was stupid. Who would move to a different state just to become a whore?

  “Er, not this job,” I correct myself. “I mean, it-”

  “I don’t need to know,” he interrupts me. “But I’m sorry to hear about your family.”

  Now he’s the one trying to console me just like I did for him before.

  We continue to eat in silence for a few moments. There’s so much more I want to know about him. There was such a deep sadness behind his words when he talked about this house and how its halls are filled with voices from the past. I wonder if those voices also echo fights and yelling, as they would in my family’s home.

  “How did your parents die?” I dare to ask, certain that he will deny me a response.

  “Car accident,” he says. “My father was wasted and drove their car into a ravine. Killed them both, but luckily no one else was hurt. I was with my grandparents at the time.”

  “Fuck,” I gasp, unable to come up with a better remark.

  “Amen to that,” he says. “Guess we both have that in common, fucked-up fathers.”

  He casts me a weird look, questioning, searching, as if he was trying to find something else hidden behind my exterior.

  “I guess so,” I say, raising my coffee mug to him in a toast.

  Chapter 34

  Joseph

  I check the time once we’re done eating our food, and I‘m relieved to see that I still have a few minutes before I have to get on my way to Boston.

  Time has
flown by while we were sitting here eating together. We have been downstairs for more than an hour, but it didn’t feel like any time had passed at all. Talking to her comes so easily to me, it feels natural, right. I shouldn’t be surprised to learn what I did about her family‘s past. No girl ends up as an escort if she grew up in a healthy family environment. There’s always something wrong with them, and just like in her case, it’s most often the father to blame.

  I guess the same could be said about me, but I refrain from blaming my father for anything that I’ve done or who I’ve become. He doesn’t deserve the attention. He hasn’t even earned the right to be blamed for my misdeeds.

  I pour us another coffee, not ready to return Ruby to her room upstairs. This will be an exception. I won’t bring her downstairs again because it would be a stupid thing for me to do. But since it’s just this one time, I might as well make the most of it.

  She’s holding on to her coffee mug, looking so innocent, almost too prim and proper in the outfit I gave her to wear, and it’s hard to believe she’s a prostitute. She strikes me as too smart and timid for that profession. I wonder what was really behind it.

  Maybe she’s in trouble? A good girl who made a bad decision, or somehow got caught up in some kind of shady business and now owes a bunch of money to some bad people, perhaps?

  Or maybe she simply enjoys it, though knowing her as I do, I can’t believe that.

  I would love to ask her, but that would be such a big breach. We can talk about our families, but not about her real job, and definitely not about the reason why she’s here.

  “There’s something else I’m curious about,” she says, casting me a cautious look.

  “I’m not surprised to hear that,” I say, leaning back in my chair, as I beckon her to continue speaking. “What is it?”

  “Your tattoos,” she says. “They are quite… peculiar.”

  I smile to myself. “That’s an interesting word for it.”

  “What do they mean?” she adds. “I mean, why did you get those particular ones?”

  I hesitate, looking at her as I contemplate my answer. The truth may scare her, and it would tell her a lot more about me, and I’m not sure that I want to share. I’d rather say nothing than to lie to her.

  “They remind me of something,” I say, deliberately being vague in my answer. “Or rather of someone.”

  “Your father?” she guesses.

  I snort.

  “Fuck no,” I say. “He doesn’t deserve to be remembered.”

  “Well, who then?” Ruby presses, leaning forward with interest.

  “Myself,” I tell her. “They remind me of the person I used to be but no longer want to be.”

  Her eyes flicker with anxious fascination. “What kind of person?”

  “An angry person, very angry,” I reply. “I was an angry child, and I wasn’t very good at handling my emotions. I let it out on other people.”

  “So you beat up other kids?”

  “Yes, a lot,” I confirm. “I constantly was getting into trouble, and I wasn’t shy about using my fists. I’ve always been tall and strong, and I used it to my advantage. I did some real damage.”

  That’s the understatement of the year, but she doesn’t need to hear the entire truth. She doesn’t need to know that I almost killed another boy when I was sixteen. She doesn’t need to know that I robbed him of his ability to walk for the rest of his life, and she doesn’t need to know that I took out an eye from another kid shortly before that. Those two were only the tip of the iceberg, but they were also the last ones.

  I will never get those images out of my head, no matter how hard I try. They will haunt me forever. The boy, lying on the floor before me in a puddle of his own blood, motionless, so badly ravaged that I wasn’t the only one who thought he was dead. He survived, his life was changed forever, while I continue to walk the Earth being able to use both of my legs. No amount of money that my family paid out to him will ever make up for the fact that he will never walk again. He can’t forget about that day, and when I - with the help of my grandfather - decided to make a change in my life, I wanted to make sure that I could never forget about it either.

  The marks on my skin resemble the scars left on my victims. They aren’t pretty, and they don’t look anything like the kinds of tattoo men usually get, but they serve a purpose. They aren’t designed to be vain decorations, but rather to help me never to forget.

  “So you really hurt people?” she asks, her voice tight and concerned.

  I nod. “Yes, I really hurt people.”

  Ruby’s eyes are locked on me, observing me. I can see her mind working, processing what I just explained. She doesn’t look scared, but only because she’s working so hard at hiding it.

  “I don’t anymore,” I tell her. “And I would never hurt you.”

  She takes a deep breath, relaxing her shoulders a little.

  “I want to believe that,” she says, sounding anything but convinced.

  Seeing her like this drives me insane. That real and raw fear pervading her entire being. She’s too good of an actress - or too tricked into thinking that all of this is real. I don’t want her to feel this way, not like this. It fucking bothers me.

  “You can trust me on that,” I tell her, reaching for her hand on the table. She doesn’t flinch, but welcomes my touch as a reassurance, intertwining her fingers with mine as she smiles at me.

  “I have no choice, do I?” she says.

  The smile on her face is lined with sadness. I wish she wouldn’t look at me like that.

  “Will you let me clear the table?” she asks, nodding toward the dishes in front of us.

  I raise an eyebrow at her. “Why?”

  “I would like to,” she says, shrugging. “I haven’t done anything since I… got here. I’d like to be useful.”

  “You are useful to me,” I tell her. “Very much so.”

  The blush that rises on her cheeks is so much more appealing than her frightened sorrow from before.

  “Alright, if it makes you happy, clear the table,” I say.

  Ruby smiles as she gets up from her seat, gathering our plates and carrying them over to the kitchen as my eyes follow her. She knows that I’m watching her, and she makes sure to move her hips in a way that emphasizes her round ass in those tight jeans I bought for her. I knew she’d look delicious in them.

  She deliberately bends over, taunting me by poking her ass out as she places the dishes on the counter top. The effect it has on me is clearly visible in my crotch. I rub across the hardness between my legs, checking my watch one more time.

  “You said you wanted to be useful,” I say, as I get up from my chair to follow her to where she’s standing in the kitchen.

  She turns around to face me, a mischievous smirk brightening her pretty face when she sees me unbuckling my belt.

  Chapter 35

  Liana

  He left. This is the first time he’s left the house since I’ve been here, at least as far as I know. He could have left at times when I was taking a nap. I have so little to do, and I am often so exhausted from the things we do together that midday naps have become a habit.

  Today is different. I was still stirred up from our shower session when he took me downstairs to have breakfast with him. He may think that I was trying to be a good girl for him, but when he fucked me on the kitchen counter, it really was all about me. I took what I needed from him, savoring it as he rammed his considerable length inside me, climaxing in record time.

  He looked confused when I thanked him afterward, but equally pleased. He never mentioned anything about leaving, but now that I see a car driving away, I’m all the more happy about that kitchen quickie. I so desperately needed it, and I hate the longing sadness that overcomes me as I realize I’m alone.

  The windows in my room are facing in such a way that it tells me very little about this house and its location. I cannot see the entrance or the driveway from here, but I can guess tha
t it must be to the left, around the corner.

  I wonder why he didn’t tell me that he was leaving. Does he not want me to realize that I’m here by myself?

  After he fucked me in the kitchen, he urged me to go back to my room immediately, not even letting me finish up clearing the table.

  “It will be dealt with,” he said when I asked about it, and I figured that he meant that he would take care of it. But he left just a few moments after locking the door to my room, visibly in a hurry.

  I’m standing at the window, looking out across the vast landscape surrounding the mansion. I wonder if he’d tell me where we are if I ask. It’s very unlikely, and I have a feeling that this is just another part of the deal, not knowing where we are. If this is all a paid and planned set-up, I’m pretty sure there’s also a time frame attached to it. A time frame I’m supposed to know about, so I can’t ask him about that either.

  A part of me wishes I really was the woman he ordered, or at least that I knew what she knows about this. She probably knows a lot more about him, too. His name, his age, his occupation, mundane stuff like that.

  Not knowing bothers me. I may have figured out bits and pieces, but I still have so many questions. And even worse, I feel myself getting attached to this man, and I’m sure that’s definitely not part of the deal.

  It’s just a twist of fate that I’m here under his control instead of the woman he originally thought he was getting. Me of all people. In my mind, I’ve been traveling to dark places like what this whole experience has been like, many times before. I’ve touched myself to the fantasies buzzing in my brain of being bound and forced to obey. I’ve begged Luke to spank and choke me when we were together, but he was appalled by me, and he told me I was broken and sick.

  I always knew I wasn’t normal, and I knew I wasn’t attracted to normal. I stayed with Luke because I hoped those dark desires would go away. If you act normal long enough, it must become part of the routine, right?