Tamara manages a smile, or maybe it’s a grimace. “No argument there.”
I take her hand in mine. “I was losing my mind. I really thought I’d kill you. I was sleepwalking and destroying the furniture and smashing windows without realizing it. I was hallucinating, seeing my father running at me with knives and lashing out at him, then I’d wake with my fists inside the holes I punched in the wall.” I hold up my hands, which are covered with new pink scars.
“You could have done other things besides send me away.” Her voice is tight and angry, her eyes accusing. “You could have had guards watch over you. You could have at least tried therapy. You didn’t even try.”
I swallow as my throat closes with guilt. “You’re right,” I tell her. “I see that now. I just… I felt like I was falling into a black hole, and I was never going to climb out of it. I thought that it wouldn’t be long before I went stark raving mad. I didn’t want you to be there for that. I’m really dangerous, Tamara, you know that.”
“And now? How are you now?” She’s looking at me intently. Like my answer is really important.
I don’t deserve her concern. I don’t deserve her, but I want her, and I’ll fight for her.
“I think I’m coming out of the worst of it. Bit by bit. I’ve been taking some prescription medicine that helps me sleep. When I’m less tired, I don’t hallucinate, and I’m not having the nightmares as often.” I lower my voice, even though I know the guard can’t hear us. “I’ve been hunting. A lot. It’s helped me. I think I needed that. Denying that need, on top of everything else that happened, might have been what tipped me over the edge.”
“So you’re better now?” she prods.
“Yes. I am.” I’m better now that I’m in the room with Tamara. Sending her away was a stupid, unforgivable mistake, and I am grateful beyond words that she’s agreed to let me see her. The dull fog of despair that’s been clinging to me is lifting. I can see more clearly now than I have in ages. “I’m going to be with you right through the trial. We’ll get you moved to a halfway house, I’m completely confident of that. And then I’ll see to it that they fast-track you for early release. Are they treating you all right here? If not, I’ll get you moved to another facility.”
“I can’t wait for the trial. I need you to get me out right away,” she says in a low voice.
“Why? Is someone hurting you?” A supernova of fury flares up inside me.
She grabs my hands and clings to them. The guard pretends not to see.
“Promise me you won’t leave me.” Her voice is low and intense.
“I promise.” My heart lifts with joy. “Never again. If you can put up with my fucked-up self, I’ll never leave you again. If the nightmares are too much, I’ll hire guards twenty-four hours a day to keep you safe from me. I’ll do anything. I’ll talk to a therapist, I’ll take medication—whatever needs to happen. I’ll build you a safe room if you need it. Or me. I’ll lock myself in a cage at night.” The words tumble from my mouth, one after the other, in a rush to grab her and bring her back to me.
Her eyes grow huge, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Promise me you won’t take her from me.”
“Take who?” Now I’m worried. Has she really lost her mind? When she killed those men, I thought she was doing it to get my attention. I didn’t think she’d gone crazy, but the look in her eyes right now is pure madness.
What have I done to her?
“My baby.”
Her baby?
“I’m almost six months pregnant. I couldn’t believe it, because I’m just starting to show, but I felt the baby move and went to the clinic, and they confirmed it. A little girl. The doctor said it’s unusual but not unheard of, that some girls who are naturally skinny and who are having their first child don’t show right up until the baby’s born. I haven’t had my period in years, and when you and I were together… I know you always used a condom, but…”
How did I not notice that she never got her period? I mean, I had her locked up for months.
Because I never think of anyone but myself.
Shock ices my blood. “Do you remember that time you ambushed me and we screwed right after? And I yelled out ‘fuck’?”
“Kind of?” She hugs herself, and more tears run down her cheeks.
“The condom ripped. That’s why I yelled. But I just… I didn’t think… I guess I was too busy going crazy to let myself worry about the fact that I might have gotten you pregnant.”
I’m going to be a father.
Me.
Murderer. Ruthless psychopath.
Daddy.
She’s crying so hard she’s shaking.
“They won’t even let me have utensils in here, Joshua. They’ll never let me keep my baby. They’ll take her away from me and put her up for adoption. Or once they do a DNA test and you prove you’re the father, they’ll let you have her but never let me see her. And there’s a serious chance that the only way you’ll be able to keep her is if you promise not to let me near her. Please, Joshua, please. I’m begging you. I’ll do anything if you get me out of here. Anything.”
A great calm descends on me.
“You want me to get you out of here? You want us to be a family? Then you have to promise me that you belong to me and that you’re mine forever. Promise that you forgive me for my stupid mistake and you’ll never try to leave me,” I say. And that is when I know that I am truly evil, for extorting her when she’s as helpless as she’ll ever be, but I also know that I will give everything I have to give Tamara and my daughter a good life. They will be safe and loved as I never was.
“I swear I’ll do whatever you want. Please, Joshua, please help me.” Her eyes are enormous, shimmering lakes of tears. “I want us to be a family. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I loved you so much that when you left me, I went crazy. You’re the strongest man I’ve ever known. You’re the man who can keep our daughter safe from the world. I’ll go down on my knees for you, Joshua, I’ll crawl for you. Just get me out of here. Get us out of here.” She glances down at her belly.
God, I love it when she begs.
“You will be my possession. My property. My slave and my lover.” I stare into her eyes, capturing her gaze. “I will punish you when I want, how I want, as hard as I want, and I won’t need a reason. I’m going to make a special collar just for you, and somewhere on your body, you’ll always be wearing it. Our daughter will never know that side of our life, but it will be there, always. We’ll have nannies to watch her when I want to take you. In private, you’ll call me Sir. I’ll fucking tie you down and spread you open and take you any time I want.”
I’m getting hard as I talk. The dark, dirty side of me is excited by what I’m doing to her right now. How I’m claiming her. How primal and right it feels.
“Yes,” she breathes. I can smell the musky scent of her arousal. “I will belong to you. I’ll be yours.”
Triumph makes me giddy. “Say ‘Yes, Sir’.”
“Yes, Sir.”
My smile turns cruel. “Yes to what, Tamara? The answer is very important.”
“Yes, I’ll be yours.” There’s an edge of desperation in her voice. “Your slave, your property, your fucktoy, your whipping post. As long as I can also be her mother.”
“Time’s up!” The guard calls, and Tamara stiffens with panic.
I hide my smile. Good. Let her feel afraid for a little while. It’ll make her that much more obedient when I get her out. “Hang in there. It won’t be long.”
Epilogue
Five years later…
Joshua
It’s a glorious summer day in a countryside village near Lyon, France. That’s where we fled to start our new lives after I paid for Tamara to be smuggled out of the hospital. Except her name is now Celeste, and mine is D’arcy.
With plastic surgery and colored contact lenses and fake ID, we slipped into our new roles easily. We both speak French fluently now, with no trace of an accent.
We live in a beautiful chateau that was once a medieval fortress. We’re surrounded by hundreds of acres of lavender fields, vineyards, and apple orchards.
My brother remains behind bars. I still have an entire team working undercover who are dedicated to watching him at all times. He’ll never be free again. I managed to recover the money he stole from me, after several years of effort.
We are still in touch with Ruiz and Astrid. Once they fell in love, Ruiz lost the urge to kill. His passion for vengeance was pushed aside by his passion for Astrid. They’re married, and the happy parents of a three-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy. Late-life parenting seems to agree with them. He owns a private security company that I funded. They all fly out to visit us during holidays.
I’m paying for Astrid’s daughters to go to college, and I have a team of men assigned to them too. That was at Astrid’s request. She still worries about her children. She should worry more about what would happen to any man who even looked at them the wrong way. His death would be long and painful.
Paul and Fletcher will be going off to college soon enough. I built an aviary for Paul so he could study birds up close. Fletcher’s a black belt in Tae Kwan Do.
My wife, my slave, my lover, was not able to go to law school, so I created a charitable foundation for her to run here in Lyon. It provides free legal services to battered women, and education and homes for them as they rebuild their lives.
My wife also helps me to plan out my hunts. She loves to do it.
My hunts span the continent of Europe. I have noticed that I am no longer drawn just to men who look like my father. One could say this is a sign that I’m less crazy then I used to be, but then again, I slowly torture and kill half a dozen men a year, so that’s probably giving myself too much credit.
I still have nightmares sometimes. We have a protocol in place for when that happens. She leaves the bedroom immediately, not trying to speak to me or interact with me in any way. She contacts my security team and they tranquilize me and then strap me down until I wake up. It happens every couple of months.
It’s a crazy, fucked-up way to live.
But then, we’re. Both of us, in our own special ways. That’s why we work. We’re two puzzle pieces who fit together perfectly and make a whole. Separated, we’re broken, empty vessels. Together we’re a unit, strong, unbreakable.
Celeste/Tamara and I have three blue-eyed children—Emilie, Francois, and Bastien—who are sweet and happy and deeply loved. I watch them all the time, secretly, searching for signs of madness. I know my wife does too. We have many animals here, and we watch the children play with their pet rabbits and puppies and kittens. They never try to hurt them.
Bastien is intense, fierce and focused like I am, but that is all. He has never shown the slightest inclination toward cruelty. He doesn’t even like it when we scold the animals for misbehaving. He gets right up in our faces and shakes his little finger, chastising us, fearless, if we raise our voices to his puppy. And Emilie and Francois are so kind and gentle, like their mother, that if they didn’t look just like me, I’d wonder who their father was.
It makes me wonder if what my wife believes is true—if I was made into the monster I am, rather than being cursed with it from birth.
But either way, I am still a cruel, cruel man.
That’s why I’m smiling to myself as I walk into the bedroom where my wife has been strapped down to a chair for the last hour. The children are with their beloved nanny, Marie, and I’ve got my wife all to myself until tomorrow morning.
The room is glorious, with flagstone floors, antique silk wallpaper and hand-painted wooden timbers running overhead. Our furniture is Louis XIV style – much of it modified so that I can restrain my wife in whatever position I want her to be in.
She looks up when I come in the bedroom. She’s naked, legs spread open and squirming with need. I have a vibrator inserted inside her, and I set it to go for thirty seconds at a time. Then it stops for a minute. Then it starts up again. Enough to get her desperately aroused. Not enough to let her come.
Very slowly, I unbutton my shirt as she glares at me.
“This isn’t fair, Sir,” she pants, speaking in English because we are alone.
“Oh, how sad.” I mock her with my tone and my eyes.
I carefully fold my shirt and lay it on top of the dresser. Just then the vibrator starts up again, and she cries out, eyes rolling back in her head. “Oh God, please, Sir… Please let me c-c-come… Uh… Oh God…”
I watch with interest as she writhes against the chains that hold her. Then I step out of my pants, fold them up neatly, and set them next to my shirt. Next I remove my socks and shoes. Finally, I walk over and unchain her. “You don’t move until I say so.”
“Yes, Sir,” she gasps. “Oh, oh, oh…” The vibrator starts up again.
With my toe, I nudge the silver bangle on her ankle—the one shaped like a collar. Our little secret.
“What did you do wrong?”
“I got dirt on my collar… But Sir…you asked me to pick herbs from the garden. There was no way for me to keep it clean— Oh, oh, oh, oh…”
I take pity on my beautiful wife, and I grab her hand and pull her to her feet. Then I slide the vibrator out of her and put it on the dresser on a tray next to my clothing. “Hands behind your back.”
She obeys instantly. I deliver half a dozen stinging slaps to her beautiful breasts, and she gasps in pain but doesn’t move. “That’s for complaining. Now bend over and put your hands on the bed.”
She hurries to obey.
I stalk up behind her and grab her by the hips. She’s so wet, so ready for me, that I enter in one brutal thrust. “Who owns this pussy?” I reach around to stroke the tiny pink pearl between her legs, and she moans and pushes back.
“You do, Sir!” She gasps with the effort of forming words. I’ve got her so aroused that she can barely speak.
“Damn straight.”
The scent of her arousal is a sweet aphrodisiac. She’s shaved bare for me, and her wet lips embrace me as we move in rhythm.
My beautiful, crazy wife.
She knew she’d get her ankle collar dirty. She went outside barefoot. I watched her on our security cameras. She dragged her ankle through the mud on purpose. She does these little things all the time. Defies me so I’ll have to punish her.
She craves the punishment, the anticipation spicing her pleasure. She knows I’ll never go too far with her. I am a master at dragging her to the edge of pain and ecstasy and then pulling her back just in time.
I am her master.
And she is moaning my name now, begging me to go harder.
I could draw it out, but there’s no need to be greedy. We’ve got all night.
So I fuck her hard, holding her still, pumping into her until I have her right where I want her. Giving her exactly what she needs. I love to pour glorious, mind-bending pleasure into her body, because she deserves it so very much. She deserves the whole universe, and I am dedicated to laying it at her feet.
When she comes, her tight sheath squeezes me so hard I’m tipped right over the edge with her. I explode into her, filling her with my sticky seed. Then I hold her tightly, staying inside her for a long time. Have I planted yet another baby in my lovely wife? I hope so. I love her pregnant, so glorious and ripe and swelling with new life. I love our children, those strange, tender, sweet little aliens who look like me and have been blessed with their mother’s kindness.
I slide out of her at last, and she sinks to her knees and kisses my feet, all the while murmuring, “Thank you for letting me come, Sir. Thank you, Sir.” Then she looks up at me. “Do you love me, Sir?”
Her one insecurity. I can never say it enough, so I say it all the time.
This woman saved me from a life of loneliness, a cold, empty existence that lacked in purpose. I was standing on the top of a mountain, alone, separated from humanity, breathing very thin air, when she came to join me and warmed my
icy soul.
She filled my life with warmth and unconditional love. She gave me beautiful children who showed me that I am not made of tainted meat after all. Perfect, kind, adored children, issued forth from my loins, and their happy smiles and sweet natures tell me that I was not born damned.
And I can love them, and I can love her, without wanting to ever cause them harm.
Because she loved me. Because she forgave the unforgiveable and found the good hidden deep, deep inside, where others feared to look.
I smile down at her, and I make sure to imbue my fond look with that hint of cruelty that turns her on so much. “I love you, baby. I love you so much I’d fucking die for you. Now get your ass in the tub. You’re a very dirty girl, and dirty girls need to be washed. And then punished.”
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Also by Ginger Talbot:
Thirty Days of Pain
A monster doesn't know how to love.
But maybe she can teach him...
If he doesn't break her first.
WILLOW
My uncle handed me over as collateral for a $5 million debt...
And the beast who claimed me knows no mercy.
I don't know if he has a soul, or if I can melt his frozen heart.
Sergei is a Russian mob boss, a cruel, evil man who draws pleasure from my pain.
My time to find the man inside the monster is running out.
If I don't save him, I won't be able to save myself.
SERGEI
Willow is just a pawn in my war against the Toporov family.
A delicious, sexy little pawn I can't wait to hurt in all the ways I know by heart.
I'm going to make her every nightmare come true.
But Willow has a hidden fire. She has a tender heart.
Too bad for her... Because I'm about to put her light out.
I'm about to make sure she never, ever loves me.
This is a dark romance, complete with trigger warnings! Part 1 of a complete 3 part series.
The Trials of Tamara Page 19