by Esme Devlin
I’m going to build a black castle, just for me and her, and she’s going to call it home.
I come up for air as my thoughts spiral and she moans under her breath. Her fingers grip tighter around my shoulder, as if she’s pulling me back down — but I resist her and stay in position.
She’s still panting, breathless under me, the rise and fall of her tits brushing against my chest. I want to hurt them, the image barrels into my mind and plays out like a twisted as fuck fantasy. She’s in my bed, I suck them until she’s bleeding while she claws at my back.
Enough.
“You done good, princess,” I tell her, leaning down and kissing her on the forehead.
My voice must affect her, or maybe it was the peck, but either way she stops panting and clears her throat. “I want to go now,” she says.
“Whatever you want,” I tell her.
I helped her back into the house and watched her eye her keys up as we crossed the courtyard.
The second she realized she wasn’t getting them she started fighting me again. But she tired quickly. I dragged her up the stairs with a hand covering her mouth — couldn’t be sure if Lucia would be home or not. I didn’t see her, but she has a way of sneaking up on you.
She doesn’t go in my bedroom though.
No one goes there.
Until now.
I turn the key in the lock and Grace looks at me, panic in her eyes but her mouth still covered by the flat of my hand. She tries to talk through it, but it’s like pissing into the wind.
Fucking useless.
I shove her into the bedroom but I don’t switch the lights on. Not yet.
“Take your clothes off,” I tell her, kicking my shoes off myself.
“What?!” She practically fucking shrieks. “Listen, I don’t know what happened back there. I was scared, terrified. In my head you were the thing keeping me away from everything around us, and I kissed you back. I didn’t mean it.”
“Good story,” I tell her. “Do you want the lights on or off, princess?”
“Malachy…” her voice breaks and it’s adorable as fuck. “Don’t.”
“Do I need to remind you who has the choices here? It’s one of us and today that person is not you.”
Chapter 15
Grace
The light beside his bed flicks on and my startled eyes blink rapidly. I take in the room, dominated by the huge high bed in the middle. Everything is dark, like him. Dark wood covering the walls. Black velvet drapes surrounding the bed. If Dracula was a teenager and had a bedroom, this is what I’d expect it to look like.
The window is boarded up with more dark wood shutters, locked with black metal fastenings and under it sits a chest. To the side, a writing desk, with large books open and smaller ones bound in leather and stacked beside it.
There are candelabras resting on the tops of various surfaces, and I see no light fitting attached to the ceiling.
My eyes drift to the bed where he’s sitting back, watching me through the semi-sheer drapes that hang in between the heavier velvet ones.
He sits forward and removes his t-shirt, throwing it down on the floor beside him lazily. When he lies back again, I imagine his stomach muscles clenching under all that ink.
A part of me is curious to see what the tattoos are, but a bigger part of me wouldn’t dare get close enough to find out.
“Have you not made me suffer enough?”
He pauses for a long minute and I shift uncomfortably as he eyes me up and down. “No. And you’ll never have suffered enough. There will always be more. But you’ll learn to enjoy it.”
“I doubt that very much,” I tell him.
“Don’t make me force you, Grace, you’ll be the only one who suffers.”
I try the keep him talking thing again, like last time. “What will you do?”
He swings his legs down and gets up off the bed. His huge frame almost blocks out the light from the lamp completely and I eye him up from his toes to his head.
I could never beat him.
My gaze drifts back down to the dried blood on his arm where I bit him, and the realization stabs at me again. The man doesn’t feel pain like normal people do. It didn’t seem to affect him at all.
He laughed in its face.
He fucking revelled in it.
I take a step back as he takes a step towards me.
“Oh, now you want to run?” His eyebrows flick up as if he’s daring me to do it, but I won’t.
“What are you going to do?” I repeat the words firmer this time, and he stops moving. It seems to work.
“Physically, or mentally?”
“Both,” I snipe back.
He smiles. “Curious little kitten. Where’s the fun in that?”
I take a step back again and watch him, but he doesn’t follow. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t sound like fun.”
He shrugs and then concedes, “Maybe not for you, at first.”
“Mentally?”
A smile tugs at his lips. “I’m going to make you feel the same way I did for ten years. I’m going to drive you to insanity.”
I swallow and nod. “Physically?”
“That depends on how you behave?”
“Well, what does good behavior look like?”
“You naked at my feet,” he says through a smirk, before glancing down to the spot in front of him.
I eye the door. Where the fuck is the key? In his pocket? Could I steal it?
For the first time since we entered the room, I take a step towards him.
His smile grows.
“You like the thought of that?”
I stay silent, just looking at him, and take another step. His eyes flick down to his crotch as if he’s daring me to go and get it.
I cross the room and get down on my knees at his feet, my wide eyes staring into his silvery blue ones. My fingers inch around his hard thighs, and he lets out a breath as my hands inch further up, following his hard rear and coming around to his pockets.
It’s on my right side. The key. There wasn’t any mistaking it.
But I can’t let him think I’m behaving myself because I want this. To suck him off.
“If I do what you say will you let me go?”
“You’re not doing what I say,” he says, shaking his head and looking down at me like he’s disappointed. Like I’m misbehaving.
What good is having the key when I’m meters away from the door, and he stands between me and it?
I need a phone. I need help. I need to get away but I need to be smart about it.
He will have a phone.
I stand up and take my suede biker jacket off. His smile is back. My t-shirt comes next and I throw it on the floor beside us along with the jacket.
His eyes rake over my body and I feel it almost as much as I would a physical caress.
“Didn’t know you had that,” he states, nodding at the little half sleeve. I tend to keep it covered. It’s just random shit that doesn’t mean much to me but seemed like a good idea at the time.
“Well, now you do,” I state.
“You on the pill?”
I flinch at the directness of his question, and what it means. “No.”
He nods. “Good.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m clean darlin, don’t you worry. You ever done it before?”
I look away before shaking my head. “N. No.”
He takes me by the shoulders and pulls me in towards him. “Good.”
Then he rubs firmly, up and down my arms, as if I’m cold. Seemingly finished, he takes a step back from me. “I have things to do. I’ll be back in an hour. I want you naked in that bed waiting for me.”
Not a fucking chance.
He makes for the door but stops abruptly and comes back to me, dropping to his knees and running his hands up and down my legs.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
He winks. “Checking you’re not about to get my arse
lifted by the police, darlin.”
I stand there staring at him while he pats me up and down. Satisfied, he makes for the door again and this time he walks straight through it.
Where the fuck is my phone? I can’t even remember the last time I had it? Did I bring it into the house or leave it in the car?
I honestly can’t remember.
I look around, somehow feeling even more nervous now that I’m alone in here. My eyes drift to the bed.
An hour.
Sixty minutes until I’m expected to be in there.
I might be a virgin but I’m not fucking thick. I know where it goes. I know what happens. Kate told me it hurts, but only the first time.
My feet carry me across the room towards the bed and I pull back the sheer gauze and the heavier velvet. I’m curious about the man — and seeing where he sleeps is like opening a curtain into his life.
How many others have slept there, I wonder?
Has he done this before? And what comes after?
Or is this the first time, perhaps? A thing reserved solely for me, because in his twisted mind I’m to blame for the things they said about him.
I believe Jamie now. I didn’t want to believe it, and perhaps that was stupid of me, but at the time it felt like I was protecting myself. Protecting that little girl.
Denying it now would be failing to see the writing on the wall when it’s written in bright crimson blood.
Malachy Hunter wants to hurt me.
I’m not going to let him, though.
Not again.
The hour turns out to be much less than that. Or at least, it feels that way.
I walked around the room for a while, touching things but being careful to put them back exactly the way I found them. I checked every single wooden panel, trying to see if there was a hidden door behind it.
I thought since it was such an old house, there might have been a chance.
But no such luck.
My body spins around quickly when he returns. I’m not where I’m supposed to be. Will he care?
“Do you want to make a deal with the devil?” He cocks his head to the side.
My shoulders relax. Is he regretting this, now that he’s calmed down? Reflected?
I feel a tiny spark of hope low in my belly at the thought of it. Perhaps this is his way of getting out, without admitting he’s done wrong.
I don’t give a fuck if he admits it, I just want to go home.
But I won’t sell my soul for a half-penny.
“Depends what the deal is?”
He smirks and walks towards me. “You’re going to tell your little boyfriend and your brother that we’re together.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I want you to,” he says, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. As if his wants and wishes are my only focus in life.
“Sounds like a one-sided deal to me,” I tell him.
“Have I not done enough for you already?”
“You’ve done more than enough,” I snap back.
He takes his bottom lip into his mouth and bites it, flicking his eyebrows at me. “Fine. I can be a reasonable man when the mood takes me. You play your part, and I won’t fuck you. Yet,” he says, adding a shrug in on the end. “And your mum gets to keep her business.”
“And I just have to tell them that? Nothing else?”
I don’t bother telling him that it won’t work, that me pretending won’t be believable.
“Can I go home?”
He narrows his eyes at me. “In the morning.”
One night. I don’t even know what time it is, I’ve lost all sense of it. I can survive one night, though.
“Deal.”
“Good girl. Now strip and get to bed, you’ve got school tomorrow.”
Chapter 16
Malachy
I changed tactics.
There was a job I had to finish, but I thought about her the whole time I worked. Her soft lips, her even softer neck. Her black hair that smells like clean shit. The shadow where both of her tits meet.
But I thought about the bigger picture, too. This way might take longer, but it’s cleaner. And if there’s one thing I know how to do well, it’s wait.
This way causes maximum impact for all three of them.
She won’t leave my side, and even if that means I’m not sticking my cock inside her — I’m alright with that. For now. It’ll be worth it to watch her brother try to stop me. To watch the jealousy flash in Jamie’s eyes.
Since she’s just standing there watching me and not bothering to move, I figure she’s maybe forgotten how to take her clothes off.
So I show her how it’s done.
Everything comes off and gets tossed on the floor. And then I get into bed and watch her from between the curtains.
She just stands there.
“We had a deal, princess. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“Will you turn the light off? Please.” She adds the last word in, as always, like it’s an afterthought. One day I will teach her proper manners, but since I can’t fuck her, today is not that day.
I lean over and switch the lamp off and the room is plunged into darkness. The sound of clothes rustling drifts to my ears followed by her light footsteps as she crosses the floor quickly.
“Your room is freezing,” she says.
“You’ll get used to it,” I tell her.
She snorts in reply.
“It’s warm under the covers.”
I hear her shifting at the far end of the bed and I turn around to face her. But she doesn’t respond. She goes quiet for a long time and I wonder if she’s relaxed a bit, because I’m not touching her.
“When did this start?”
“When did what start?”
“Your…” she hesitates for too long and I prop myself up in bed.
“Spit it out,” I tell her.
“Your urges? Desires? I don’t know what the fuck to call it.”
I think on it for a minute, trying to remember. Probably about the same time I started playing with the wee man between my legs. “Don’t know exactly. Twelve… maybe thirteen?”
“But you were only ten when you…”
She trails off again, but this time it’s because I’m laughing. “Do you want to know a secret, Grace?”
“Shoot,” she says.
“I never touched you that day.”
She pauses for a while before she replies. “I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you want, everyone else does and I don’t give two fucks what they think. But between me and you, whatever you think happened — didn’t.”
“Jamie said he found you on top of me, smothered in blood. Kissing me. Touching me.” Her voice breaks at the end and maybe there is a small part of me that feels pity for her, but it’s quickly overshadowed by the hate I feel for everyone else — including her.
“Your mum never had Casualty on the TV on a Saturday night? It was on at 9pm. Maybe you were too young,” I concede.
“What?”
“I thought I was doing CPR.”
She lies still and quiet for a long time. I wonder if she believes me or she just doesn’t want to argue with me again.
After a while I give up on her answering and close my eyes.
Chapter 17
Grace
I must have drifted off.
I wake up in a panic.
I had that thing where you feel like you’re falling and you wake up jolting in the mattress.
But a thick arm stops me from moving too much.
It’s wrapped around my stomach, his fingers curled under between the small of my waist and the bedsheets.
My eyes blink a few times but there is no light in this room, none at all.
I feel his chest move steadily at my back. Up and down. He’s sleeping, at least I think he is. Taking his wrist, I try to pull his arm up so I can break free of his grasp but it’s hopeless. He wakes up
— or maybe he was always awake — and pulls me even further down into his chest.
His other arm slides around my neck and he holds me tight in place. I feel the hard length of his cock press into me.
He promised he wouldn’t.
I try again to break free, panic rising in my chest but the sound of him shushing snakes its way to my ears. His grip around my waist, around my neck, tightens, locking me in place.
“Malachy,” I say. I don’t know whether I’m shouting at him or begging him, but he needs to let me go. We had a deal.
His head lifts off the pillow and nestles my ear. “We’re together. I’ve never been together with anyone in my life but this is what you do, isn’t it?”
“You promised you wouldn’t.”
He uses his arm to grind my hips against him, biting down on my neck at the same time. I can’t stop the tiny ember of pleasure that glows inside me at his touch.
What the fuck does that make me?
The hand around my neck traces down and his fingers brush over my nipples, igniting another tiny fire deep within me.
This is fucked up. Morally wrong. I hate myself, but I don’t think I hate him.
I think I believe him, and if what he’s saying is true, then I understand why he is the way he is.
But this is still wrong. He’s still fucked up. He’s not sane.
“Please,” I beg him. This is the last time I’ll do it. I won’t beg again. He wants to break me and I won’t let him have those broken pieces.
He rolls me over onto my back and slides on top of me, crushing me down into the mattress. My heart races and I hold my breath, waiting for the pain.
Waiting to close my eyes and hide inside my own body.
But he just kisses me. Softly.
And I wonder how a man so hard and cold can be capable of kissing someone this way?
His hands slide up the sides of my body, down my arms, across my face. His weight crushes me, but I no longer care. It feels good.
If I don’t think about anything other than how it feels right now, I don’t have to be scared of him.
His body shifts and I feel the length of him between my legs. It’s hard, soft, hot. Right there.