Then again, if he wants me to go, nobody said that I have to have the proper amount of TGBs. He’s the one making the rules, after all. He can just as easily break them.
That scares me. I’m enslaved by his rules. He has nothing guiding him but his word... and maybe his honor.
Are either of those things worth anything to me?
The gala will be a test. I’m sure of that. Stonehart will want to see how I behave in public with him.
He’s not an idiot. He knows I want revenge. He’ll be watching me closely for anything that might betray my intentions.
It will probably be best to forget about alerting anyone to my situation at the gala. If it goes well, I’ll have more opportunities to go places with him in the future. I can only make my move when we’re both comfortable with me out and about with him.
Then there’s the other annoying, pesky, lingering thing: Am I even sure I want revenge anymore?
I bristle. Of course I do. Of course I want revenge. I want revenge, vengeance, justice, freedom…
Except… if I were to take the last three days in isolation… would my life seem so bad?
I live in an enormous house built on a massive estate. I have a spectacular view of the ocean from a room that is bigger than a basketball court. I can come and go as I please. I have access to a grand library. A swimming pool. Exercise equipment. I have a closet full of clothes, the value of which is more than I can ever hope to earn even after a decade of work.
Somebody cooks for me. Somebody cleans for me. I have books. I have a huge, comfortable bed. I have Jeremy Stone—
I have the collar.
I have the collar. It was put on my neck by the man.
I have no freedom. I have a life structured by his crazy rules.
Just because he hasn’t been crazy for three days doesn’t mean my situation is any better.
After all, it was just four days ago that he made me eat the dove. Four nights ago, he tied me up and fucked me raw. A month ago he starved me in the dark.
I bolt upright in bed. My heart is racing. All thought of sleep is now forgotten. This is Stonehart I’m talking about. The same man who drugged me and ripped me from my life. The same man I vowed I would bring down the day I signed the contract.
I get up, wrapping a robe around myself, and stride to the huge glass wall. I touch one of the panels and look up at the night sky. The glass is cold beneath my fingertips.
Cold. Just like Stonehart can be.
No. Just like Stonehart is.
He is a cold-hearted bastard. Nothing says he’s changed. Why would he change? It’s gotten him very far in life!
I can’t let a few tolerable days sway my resolve.
I need to get back at him. I know that. I know it as well as I know my left hand from my right.
But, do I feel a pressing need for revenge, as I stand here, completely unrestricted and free to go wherever I want on the property? Do I feel that need, that desire, deep in my heart?
I strain for it… and come up empty. It’s not there anymore. It’s disappeared.
I shiver once and wrap my arms around myself. Am I really that weak? Have I given in already?
I touch the ever-present plastic ring around my neck. I wait for feelings of disgust and revulsion to bubble up to the surface…
But they do not come.
Stonehart has already conditioned me not to feel them.
“Damn it!” I cry out and strike my fist against the glass. The panel shudders under the blow.
I should want to be free, shouldn’t I? I should want to get away!
And yet, right now, those desires are as far off as the land on the other side of the ocean.
I’ve grown content. Comfortable. Maybe a little bit complacent.
It could be the optimist in me. I’ve always tried to make the best of my surroundings. That is how I got through high school with grades good enough to go to Yale in spite of living with an alcoholic mother.
Now, that trait is, undoubtedly, working against me.
I walk to the door and lean my forehead against the glass. I look at the spot on the ground where I found the dove not so long ago. If anything, that should remind me of why I need to fight.
I can’t forget the “TGB” I got that night at dinner.
I sigh, and turn to bed. Before my first step, I have a change of heart. I spin back, completing a full circle, and open the door.
Cool night air rushes in, making my skin rise in goosebumps. I breathe deep, loving the salty tang of the air.
I hesitate for a moment, and then step outside.
I guess that brief pause comes from my prior experience with the collar. Even though I know I’m allowed outside, that first step remains a struggle.
Wrapping my arms around myself against the cold, I walk into the empty night.
The sound of crashing waves far below me reaches my ears. I walk through the damp grass and come up to the very edge of the cliff. I look down.
It’s a long fall. If I ever get desperate enough to jump…
I stop that line of thinking before it can spiral any further. It must be a testament to the utter uncertainty I feel right now. One moment, I’m content and at peace, and a second later, I’m contemplating suicide…?
No. Of course not. I’m not that far gone yet. It was just a stray thought. A stray, dangerous, stupid thought.
I go in search of the bench Stonehart showed me my first day outside. It’s located on a small hill that gives an even better view of the ocean.
I sit down and gaze at the sea. After a few long minutes, I turn back and look at the house.
There’s one light still on. I frown. By my estimation, it’s coming from Stonehart’s office. But didn’t he say he’d be gone for two days?
I guess the first day hasn’t technically begun yet. He must be leaving in the morning.
I yawn, and debate returning to bed. But for some reason, curiosity gets the better of me. I haven’t seen the inside of Stonehart’s office. I could—if I walked up to it and peered in through the window.
He only said that I’m not allowed to go inside. He didn’t mention anything about just looking.
Besides, right now, I feel like I need to talk to someone. For better or for worse, Stonehart is the only option.
My mind made up, I stand up and wander toward the source of light.
As I get closer, a voice at the back of my mind starts telling me this is a very bad idea. It warns me that if Stonehart learns that I’ve been sneaking around, he won’t be pleased at all.
I choose to ignore it. I’m not pushing my boundaries—not entirely. I am still abiding by his rules. Besides, shouldn’t he be pleased to know that I want to see him without being forced?
I come up to the window. The blinds are drawn. However, they don’t touch the windowsill. Feeling a little surge of rebellious excitement, I squat down and put my eyes against the glass to look inside.
The vision I see makes me wish I had never left my bed.
Stonehart is there. Oh yes, he’s undeniably in there. I can tell it’s him from the wide, naked muscles of his back, from the framed silhouette of his face, from the grunts that I hear through the window as he drives his hips in and out of a tiny, petite blond who’s splayed over his desk.
Her cries filter to my ears. “Oh yes!” she screams. “Yes, yes, yes!”
Bile rises in my throat. I know that voice. It belongs to the receptionist I met outside the private entrance to Stonehart’s boardroom. The one who looks like she’s barely of age.
“Harder, Mr. Stonehart!” she begs. “Yes, fuck me harder! Yes, yes, ooh!”
I twist away and nearly lose my balance as the sudden rise leaves me lightheaded. I flounder back, misplace my step, and fall with a thud against the window.
Immediately, the sounds inside stop.
Shit! I curse in my head. Shit, shit, shit!
“Mr. Stonehart?” The girl’s tremulous voice. “What was that?”
“Sta
y here,” he growls. I duck down and press myself flat against the siding as I hear the sudden swoosh of the blinds being pulled up.
Light spills out. My heart is thundering as loud as a galloping horse.
Stonehart’s shadow falls on the ground. I see the dark length of his erection, made longer by the falling light.
“Who’s there?” he says. “Lilly, is that you?”
I squeeze my eyes shut and pray that he doesn’t see me.
Please, please don’t let him see me.
After a minute, he grunts and turns away. I see the shadow retreat as he steps back.
“Did you see anything?” the girl asks.
“Probably an animal,” Stonehart answers.
“Oh,” the girl says, suddenly giggly. “Whew.” Then her voice becomes defensive. “Who’s Lilly?”
It hits me that she only knows me as ‘Miss Ryder’.
“Never mind,” Stonehart growls. “Wait here. I have to check something.”
The girl’s protests are lost on me as I push off from the side of the house and start to sprint back to the sunroom. If Stonehart went to check on me, and finds me out of bed… well, it wouldn’t take a genius to put two and two together.
I run straight through the bushes and over the wet grass, not bothering with the proper paths. I cry out when I stub my toe against something in the dark, nearly falling flat on my face in the process. But I catch my balance at the last moment and keep going.
I burst through the glass door, chest heaving. I don’t wait for it to close properly before diving in my bed and ducking under the covers.
The room is silent. My breathing is hard and fast. Adrenaline has my body wound tight as a guitar string. One pluck and I’ll snap in two.
I strain my ears for Stonehart’s entrance while trying to calm my heart rate at the same time. I can’t pretend to be asleep if I’m gasping like a maniac.
My breaths slow. I haven’t heard anybody enter the room. I let myself relax, thinking that the danger has passed…
Then I hear his voice.
“Lilly.” It’s a hushed whisper. “Lilly. Are you asleep?”
I pretend not to hear him and regulate my breaths to be slow and deep, like in a slumber.
He walks to me. I can hear his footsteps against the tiles. My insides clench with apprehension at his approach.
“Lilly, Lilly, Lilly,” he chuckles. “What are you doing here?”
I open my eyes sleepily, pretending to just be waking up. “Jeremy?” I say, going for my best confused voice. “Why are you here?”
He looks quite impressive wearing nothing but a pair of Giorgio Armani sleeping pants. The pale moonlight illumines the hard lines of his chest.
I don’t look at his face. If I meet his eyes, I’m terrified he’ll see my guilt. Even worse, I won’t be able to hide my reaction to what I saw going on in his office if I look at him now. All my emotions would come jumbling out.
“I’m here to check up on my favorite girl, of course,” he says, lowering himself on the edge of the bed. He reaches out and starts stroking my hair. “I’m leaving early tomorrow morning and wanted to see you before I go.”
I want to recoil from his touch, knowing where his hands have just been, but that would betray my act. So, instead, I lie there, not moving, and answer, “I know. I saw the note.”
“Did you?” he muses. “And was there anything else you saw recently that was of interest to you?”
My whole body tenses.
He knows.
“No,” I answer meekly.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “Nothing at all? Nothing you would like to admit to?” His hand tightens in my hair. I whimper as pain shoots through my skull. He pulls my head up, making my neck crane at an awkward ankle, and hisses in my ear, “What I like even less than liars, Lilly,” he tells me, “are cowards.”
I close my eyes tight and will the pain to go away.
“Now,” he continues. “Are you absolutely sure there’s nothing you’d like to tell me?” His voice drops to a menacing whisper. “Think very carefully before you answer. It can be the difference between a happy existence for you, and one that becomes… trying.”
I’m too far gone to repent now. I know all Stonehart has to do to figure out I was outside is look at the cameras.
Idiot! What was I thinking, trying to pretend I was asleep?
The only difference, I’m sure, is that if I admit to things now, I will be subject to immediate punishment. If he finds out later, by himself… well, he’ll have probably cooled off somewhat. And anyway, it will buy me an extra two days to prepare myself for whatever he decides to do to me on his return.
“No,” I whisper finally.
Stonehart releases my hair. His voice turns warm. “Then I guess I was mistaken.” He leans down and kisses my cheek. “Sleep tight, Lilly.”
He stands up. I breathe a sigh of relief. As I hear his footsteps start to echo away, some of my tense muscles relax a little.
I managed to avoid punishment. For now.
Then his footsteps stop. My heart lurches up to my throat. I crack an eye open and look at him.
Slowly, he turns around.
“Tell me,” he says, dark eyes glistening, “why I see wet footprints leading from the door to your bed?”
Chapter Nine
Stonehart yanks the leash forward. It pulls on my neck and sends me splattering to the floor.
“Up,” he barks. “Get up, Lilly!”
Trembling, I return to my hands and knees. I’m blindfolded, so I have no idea where I am. I’ve long since lost all sense of orientation.
I’ve been crawling on the floor behind Stonehart for what seems like hours. A shooting pain runs through both my wrists from the placement of my palms on the floor. My knees are already bruised. And I can’t see a damn thing.
After noticing the wet footprints, Stonehart wasted no time dragging me from my bed and slapping me across the cheek to send me to the floor.
“Stay there,” he commanded, “unless you’ve developed a new taste for pain.”
He turned away and left, as easy as that. I was reduced to emitting small whimpers against the cold, familiar floor tiles.
When he returned, he had a black leather leash in one hand, a gag and a blindfold in the other. I didn’t try to fight when he clipped the leash through my collar. I knew how little good it would do me.
“You lie like a dog,” he said, “so, you’ll be treated as one. From now on, unless I say otherwise, you will only travel on hands and knees.” He gave the leash a tug. “And only as far as this leash will let you.”
Next, he tossed the gag and blindfold at me. “Put those on,” he said.
I had no choice but to comply. As I tied the black silk around my eyes, all I could think of was my overwhelming hatred for him. A hatred rekindled by the events of tonight.
Had I wavered in my resolve before? Well, no more.
“Good,” Stonehart said when I was finished. “I’m glad you can still follow instruction, if only on occasion. Now,” he continued, “take off your clothes.”
I didn’t move. He could humiliate me as much as he wanted, but I refused to help him do it. Even if that attitude brought me pain in the future, my mind was set.
Stonehart tugged the leash toward him. “Do not make me repeat myself,” he warned, his voice low and dangerous. “There are worse things I can do to you than this, Lilly, so don’t give me any extra motivation.”
That threat was enough to make me reconsider my position.
When I’d stripped, Stonehart barked a cruel laugh. “Funny how quickly fortunes change, eh, Lilly?”
He tugged me forward.
I hate you, I thought the entire time I was forced to crawl after him. I hate you. I hate you. I HATE YOU!
Eventually, we wound up… somewhere. Stonehart pulled something that sounded like a curtain aside and kicked me in. I bit down against the pain that shot through my side.
“Don
’t make a sound, Lilly-flower,” he warned. “not a single noise. Otherwise, I will get angry.”
I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around myself against the cold.
And that’s where I am now. Huddling, naked, alone, and friendless, in some forgotten corner of Stonehart’s mansion.
I hate him. I hate the collar. I hate the contract. I hate how he treats me. I’ll never be more to him than a plaything. That’s all I’ll ever be to him. I know.
I hate myself for sometimes secretly wishing for more.
My fingers itch to pull the blindfold off. I clamp my nails into the meat of my hand. Stonehart did not give me permission. He did not forbid it, but I think it’s safe to assume it was implied.
A moment later, I hear a door come open. Next comes a high, bubbly, female voice.
“Oh, Mr. Stonehart, I’ve never been in here.”
I hear her shriek and land with a thud on something soft. Probably a mattress. Next comes the sound of heated foreplay.
Disgust builds in my throat as I bite down the sobs that try to escape. This is what he wants, isn’t it? He wants me to listen to him fuck some other woman. He wants it to affect me. He wants to show me how worthless I am.
And really, what better way is there of demonstrating the kind of weak, pathetic, useless, and utterly wretched creature I have become? As the girl’s moans get louder and louder, swirling together with Stonehart’s heavy pants, I finally see the true hopelessness of my situation.
It doesn’t matter what I do. In the end, Stonehart will always have control. It doesn’t matter what we shared—or, more accurately, what I thought we shared. Those things will not change Stonehart. They will not change his relationship toward me. A few days after he calls me his girlfriend in front of Esteban and offers me the position as Chief of Dextran, he fucks his likely-underage secretary in the office I am forbidden from entering!
Her moans get louder. I want to throw up. I can’t take being in this little hole, made an unwilling spectator to the gruesome act. Is it designed to evoke jealousy in me?
No—no! I don’t think Stonehart is that sentimental. All this is about showing me how little power I have.
“Oh, Mr. Stonehart! Yes, yes, yes, yes!” the girl cries. I grimace. I’ve never screamed like that, have I? It sounds so… fake.
Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) Page 26