Curious about the note, I snatched it and sank into my chair.
My dearest Clara,
I hope you had a good night’s sleep. I know I slept like the dead. It has been far too long since I can say that. My dreams were filled with thoughts of you.
My heart sped up, thinking I had somehow cracked through his shell. If I could only get him to see me as a person, rather than a thing, then there was hope he truly wouldn’t hurt me. Unfortunately, I scanned the next line.
I dreamt of all the ways I wish to restrain you and can’t wait to indulge my fantasies. I will be away until after lunch, and I have a task for you. Have you ever watched The Watchmen? It’s a movie I have a particular fondness for and it’s loaded on the tablet. You may do what you please until I return, except you must finish The Watchmen.
There are things we must discuss, and you’ll have a better understanding after enjoying that movie. There is darkness ahead of us, things which must be done. As you watch this movie, ask yourself ‘Who watches the Watchmen?’
Devotedly yours,
Your Monster.
He used my endearment against me, owning it and making it his own. I wish I had never coined that name for him because he did not have my permission to use it to refer to himself.
The note crumpled in my hand as I turned on the tablet. I knew this movie. It was one of my favorites as well, and I hated that we shared this. I hated it because I found the movie to be an under-recognized piece of literary brilliance.
I didn’t want to share that with him, but I dutifully turned on the movie and settled into my chair.
The premise was simple, who watches those who watch over the rest of us, especially when The Watchmen no longer have noble intentions? I found it a profound question, but how did this tie into My Monster?
Everything about the concept fascinated me, but for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why he wanted me to watch this. We had talked about the Phantom Tollbooth and jumping to the Island of Conclusions, but why did he want to discuss The Watchmen?
I became so engrossed in the movie that I missed the telltale turning of the lock. The door swung inward, leaving me to gape as he returned.
Curled up in my chair, panic overtook me as I scrambled to greet him as required. The action was so ingrained in my psyche, I could barely get out of my own way in my rush to comply.
“Stop.” His deep voice ended my chaotic scramble.
The tablet clattered to the floor as I tripped over my hands and feet.
“Please, Clara,” he gestured to my chair, “sit.”
Hesitation overcame me somewhere between stooping and standing. I hovered like a monkey, one hand stretched to the floor, the other windmilling in the air. When he moved past me and lowered himself into the chair, practically falling into it, I found my footing.
Scooting backward, I felt for the edge of the chair and sat my ass down. My entire body went on high alert. My hands trembled. My breathing came in short staccato bursts. And my heart hammered away inside my chest. There was a whole lot of flipping and flopping going on in my stomach and for a moment, I thought I’d be sick.
Despite all of that, I somehow managed to keep things together. Only from the look in his eyes, I wasn’t fooling anyone. I ducked my head and stared at my lap where I furiously worked at twisting my fingers into knots.
Wait a second! Where was his rope?
Everything stilled as I glanced around. His gaze bounced with mine, following the path from the door to his chair.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
I shook my head, not wanting to bring attention to the lack of rope. If he didn’t bring it, did that mean we wouldn’t spend the rest of the night together.
The things the rope did to me weren’t things I was ready to acknowledge. Intimate and yet terrifying at the same time, it brought us together as it cemented our roles as Master and slave.
He could do anything he wanted to me and I was powerless to resist. Not that I did. I should. Damn, I wish I could. But those sessions…they were…I couldn’t find the words to express what they meant to me. Oddly, they connected us.
Intimacy was the wrong word. We weren’t a couple, not by the longest stretch of the imagination. We were some twisted, sick thing when we were together. But with rope? Something shifted in the air between us.
“Ah.” He tilted his head back. “We will not be doing rope play today.”
He called it play, but it was anything but play. That was something innocent children did. They played on playgrounds. They played in their neighborhoods where they ran free.
What we did was not play. Hell, if I knew what it was, except that it transcended anything I’d experienced before. Shit, I couldn’t focus, and not paying attention around him generally landed me across his lap.
“Does that bother you?” His brow arched with his question.
“No Sir, I was just expecting it. You caught me off guard. Are we going to practice some more?”
His instruction on how I was to be the most pleasing and subservient slave never let up. It barely required any thought on my part to behave how he expected.
“I’m glad you’ve come to enjoy our sessions.”
That was not what I said, but I wasn’t foolish enough to admit it. I couldn’t. He always seemed to know when I lied.
I focused on my hands because I couldn’t bear looking into his eyes. There was some confusion on my part as to when I was permitted to look directly at him versus avert my gaze, but I was beginning to read his moods. We moved in an odd counterpoint, each one exquisitely sensitive to the other.
One might say we were like two dancers involved in a sensuous tango, prowling around each other, flying apart even as we were drawn recklessly together. Or rather, I found myself drawn ever more impulsively to him. I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the terrible hold he had over me.
“There will be no practice for now.” He retrieved the tablet from the floor. “Did you have time to watch the movie?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And tell me, what did you think?”
“It’s a favorite of mine.”
“Oh, you’re familiar with it? You’ve seen it before?” He sounded surprised.
At least twenty times, but I wasn’t about to share that.
“It has a profound message most people miss.”
He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. His deep baritone rolled across my skin with the intimacy of a lover, making me shiver, as he quoted Latin.
“…noui consilia et ueteres quaecumque monets amici, ‘pone seram, cohibes.’ sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? qui nunc lasciuae furta puellae hac mercede silent crimen commune tacetur.”
My Monster could be a poet if he weren’t a kidnapper, and maybe worse. I refused to think about what he might be capable of, what he may have done, and foolishly believed I could somehow reach him. I translated the saying.
“I know that my friends always advise me to adopt: ‘Bolt her in, constrain her!’ But who can watch the watchmen? They keep quiet about the girl’s secrets and get her as their payment; everyone hushes it up.”
He gave a start. “You’re familiar with it?”
“That movie always spoke to me so I looked up its origins. That quote comes from a Roman satirist and speaks about marital infidelity, but calls into question what to do when the guards protecting against the wife’s promiscuousness fall for her seduction.”
“You never cease to amaze me. I did not expect this.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you’re one of the watchmen?”
He cocked his head. “I think we’ve firmly established I’m the villain in your story.”
I didn’t know what that meant. The entire premise of the quote was that those noble enough to guard the most valuable commodity a man had, his wife, were ultimately corruptible.
But what was My Monster in this scenario? My guard? Or the man who hired the guards to watch over me?
; “I will never understand you.” I scooted back into my seat and drew my legs up where I could hug them and disappear beneath his penetrating stare. “You don’t have to be the villain. You can choose to be good.” I believed this with every fiber of my being. If he could only see himself the way I saw him.
An expression crossed his face. I barely saw it before he buried it beneath a scowl, but in that moment, regret and something much more concerning had filled his face.
I saw the monster.
Chapter 29
I’m not entirely certain why I made Clara watch that movie, but I didn’t expect the woman to pull the rug out from under me.
Just like that damn book, we shared another connection. I wasn’t a man who believed in fate, but if there was some third lingering thread tying us together, I think my heart might just stop.
Regardless of that, her progress continued to astound me. I wasn’t like Kate. I didn’t have that special quality which bent others to my will except when it came to Clara.
She bent before my commands, never questioning any of the stringent demands I placed upon her. The way she rose from the chair, acting without thought, and although terribly ungraceful, told me she was ready.
My guts twisted and bile rose in my throat because I did that to her. With each passing day, I made her into the perfect slave.
She didn’t hate me, but she would. When she finally saw the monster lurking beneath the surface, she would run. Right now, she had some fantasy about how I really was a good guy and how I would never hurt her going on inside her head.
She believed a lie.
If she had any sense of self-preservation she would run, or at least raise a few defenses around me. Instead, she openly shared her thoughts and even some of her dreams.
Which was where the damn movie came in.
Moderately successful during its time, it never really hit big. Few remembered it, and those who did saw it only for the comic adaptation that it was. Shiny packaging and all. You know how it goes. Beneath the gloss and glitter, a menacing message awaited the astute viewer.
She got it though. She understood.
Only I wasn’t one of the watchmen. I wasn’t there to guard her from evil. I wasn’t there to save her. No, my purpose was something altogether different. I was the monster sent to kill the monsters.
Killing Zane Carson would seal my fate. If I didn’t go to prison for that—and let’s face it the chances were small anyone would care at all, he was a monster who needed to be put down—my life would still never be the same.
“Good and evil,” I said to Clara, keeping my voice low and controlled, “are not the same as black and white. They’re more complicated.”
“Not really. They are very much cut and dry.”
How foolish.
I arched a brow. “You don’t want to have a philosophical conversation with me about good and evil.”
“And why not?” The challenge in her eyes sparked an unhealthy reaction in me.
I’d done well keeping my lust controlled while in her presence, but when fire sparked in her eyes my entire body burned.
“Because, you want to believe things about me which aren’t true.”
“You’re not evil.” She crossed her arms over her chest, looking as if she believed the lie and she set her jaw with determination.
I pulled my attention from the gentle swell of her breasts, knowing I deserved a medal for the effort that took. Hunger for what her body offered ate at me from the inside out. I wanted her with a need powerful enough to destroy her. Yet, I did not succumb to my urges.
“We’re not discussing that.” I was the very definition of evil.
She hunched back in her chair, peeking at me through the dusty veil of her lashes. Her lower lip drew in and her expression set with her belief.
“This isn’t a battle you can win, Clara.”
Smart enough to know I used her name as a tool to mold her behavior, she flinched.
“Will you answer a question?” she cautiously asked.
“That depends on the question.” I gestured for her to continue, curious as to what she would ask.
“Will you let others touch me?”
I locked my jaw. That would never happen.
She gave a little nod, letting me know how transparent my reaction had been. I would have to watch myself, lest I give too much away.
“Will you let others hurt me?”
Astonished by the directness of her question, I didn’t answer, but her gaze dropped to where I gripped the armrest of the chair. My knuckles had turned white. Gently, I released my death grip on the chair.
“Not if I can help it, sweet Clara.” While I shouldn’t reward the directness of her questions, she deserved something. “But I may not be able to stop them.”
“Why would you let someone hurt me?”
“I hurt you every day. What difference does it matter who does it?”
“Because you don’t enjoy it.”
“My cock says otherwise.” Not once during our time together had I hidden the evidence of my arousal. Each time I spanked her, my cock lengthened and pressed into her belly, insistent and hungry for more. When I tied her in the ropes, my dick tented my pants, desperate to poke through and sink into her wet heat.
“Will you let others rape me? Is that what you’re waiting for?” The blood suddenly drained from her face and she gasped. “Oh my God, is that what you’re doing? You’re training me to be another man’s slave? Is that why you don’t touch me?”
Tears pooled in her eyes, but she wiped them away before they fell. At this point, a sane man, a compassionate man, would go to her, gather her in his arms, and give her all the reassurances that her fears would never happen. He would protect her. He would defend her.
But I was not that man. I would do neither.
I steeled myself for the response I must give. “What I do with you is none of your concern. Your job is to simply exist for my pleasure. You belong to me. What little sympathy I show you is a gift. Don’t expect more.” I didn’t know if she heard the emphasis I placed, or the possession it implied.
She rocked in her chair, arms wrapped around her knees as tears ran down her cheeks.
“But last night…”
“What about last night?” My entire body stilled. Had she been awake when I crawled in to sleep beside her?
“You curled up to me.”
Heat filled my cheeks, part shame, part anger, and part embarrassment for revealing something I shouldn’t have. That had been a moment of weakness, one I would not repeat. My words came out a low, throaty growl.
“What are you supposed to do when I enter a room?”
She gulped and her tiny fingers clutched at her pants. Her chin tucked to her chest and I could barely hear her answer.
“I’m supposed to greet you in the Welcoming Pose.”
“And why didn’t you?”
“Because…” More tears tumbled down her cheeks. They gathered at the delicate point of her chin and fell from there. She gave a sniff. “I was afraid.”
“Doesn’t matter what you feel,” I snapped.
“I thought you were going to…to…”
I knew exactly what she thought, but this wasn’t something I could let go. I lifted my hand and ticked off her transgressions.
“You didn’t greet me as required. You lied to me—”
“I didn’t lie!”
“You pretended to be asleep!”
My roar caused her to squeak, and while I didn’t think it was possible, she made herself even smaller, somehow managing to curl into a tighter ball. Terror pulled at her face and all the color in her lips disappeared. Her chin quivered and her entire body shook with the force of my anger.
I shouldn’t have crawled into her bed. It had been wrong, and I knew it was a mistake. Why did I do it? I didn’t have an answer last night, but I knew now. Everything Clara thought about me was true. But for one night, I had wanted to simply hold her in my arms a
nd not be the monster in her nightmares.
Damage had been done. Which left no option but to undo the mistake.
I pointed to the bed. “Ten strikes of the cane. Five for not greeting me as required and five for lying about being asleep.”
She vaulted out of the chair and raced to the foot of the bed. Her conditioning squeezed my guts because there hadn’t been a moment of hesitation as she bent over the bed and pressed her palms overhead. Her fingers dug into the thick downy comforter as she braced for what was to come.
Yes, my dear Clara, you are ready.
I would notify Chambers. It was time to begin.
The few times I used the cane on her before, I soothed the intense sting between strikes, taking time to shamelessly place my hand on her bare skin. I didn’t allow myself that luxury now and didn’t grant her the reprieve my touch gave. Instead, I went to the cane and tapped it over her heart-shaped ass.
“Remove your pants.”
With a gasp, she reached back and shimmied out of her clothes, baring her backside. Her hands went over her head and the low huffing of her breaths filled my ears as she prepared for what would come.
She didn’t know how much this would hurt. I needed to lay a line of marks up and down her legs and across her ass. They needed to be easily recognized in a video. And that wasn’t all. There needed to be more; more cane marks and more bruises, all in varying stages of healing.
Clara’s body would become a tapestry of the brutality expected of a man like me. Zane Carson would know how such things healed. He needed to understand how thoroughly I used my slave and how much pleasure I derived from punishing her flesh.
Without warning, I placed my hand between her shoulder blades, pressing her deep into the bed. This was going to hurt. She gave a startled grunt and then howled with the first strike of the cane.
I’m so sorry, my sweet Clara. Forgive me.
I gave her no time to process the first strike before laying down the second. And I used enough force to ensure the darkest bruise. My guts twisted and I threw up a little in my mouth with the brutality I subjected her to with the cane. As she screamed, I swallowed my vomit.
Embracing Fate: A Captive Hearts Novel Page 24