Fallen: (A Psychological Dark Romance) (The Dark Necessities Prequels Book 2)

by Felicity Brandon

  Ethan snorted as he held her against him, using his right hand to pull open the front door. “If I didn’t love you, Lily, then you wouldn’t be coming with me in the first place.”

  Her face blanched at his words, Ethan’s meaning apparently more than understood, yet still she seemed to need to vocalize it. “You mean, you would have… killed me?”

  They were outside now, Ethan carrying her over the stones of the driveway as he replied. “In a heartbeat,” he muttered as he clutched Lily to his chest. “I wouldn’t take this from just anyone, little Lily. Only you could survive a brush with Ethan Reilly at this place.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lily

  She was hustled into the back seat of his car with ridiculous ease. Lily had wondered before at how strong Ethan appeared to be, but as he settled her into position, snuggling her body against a collection of blankets, she could barely believe how little the exertion seemed to have affected him. He slammed the door closed by her feet and for a moment Lily was cast into the silence of the car. She looked around, her brain trying to catch up with the rapid turn of events.

  He’d kidnapped her!

  The idea bounced around her mind.

  That was what was going on, right? Ethan had her bound and had taken her against her will. Lily had made it clear she didn’t want to go on this journey—she hadn’t even wanted to come to this place—let alone wherever he had in mind next, yet still he’d continued. And Ethan had made it clear he wasn’t going to stop. Lily was his now, and that meant she came with him, regardless of her consent or compliance.

  He climbed into the driver’s seat, turning his head to smile. “Comfortable?”

  Ethan’s tone dripped with sarcasm, and Lily bit back on the retort that threatened to rise in response. No, she wasn’t bloody comfortable! How could anybody be comfortable like this?

  “You’ll get used to it,” he told her, turning his attention back to the road ahead, and as the engine roared to life around her, Lily realized Ethan had heard her thoughts again.

  There was no getting away from it.

  There was no escaping Ethan.

  Lily’s eyes fluttered closed as the weight of that acknowledgement landed over her.

  No escaping.

  No escaping the man, and no escaping this intense connection they shared—the one that meant he could read her thoughts on demand—and that, sometimes, she could do the same.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Ethan’s voice pierced her thoughts, and Lily opened her eyes to catch sight of his blue eyes as he briefly turned to look down at her.

  “Hungry?” she parroted, as though her mind couldn’t comprehend the simple question.

  “Hmmm. Do you need food and refreshment?”

  Lily drew in a breath at the query. She supposed she must need something, but oddly, she’d never felt less hungry than she did now.

  “A little, sir,” she told him in the end, though Lily wasn’t sure why she pretended. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t be able to find out for himself anyway.

  “I’ll stop for food soon,” he promised, apparently unaware of Lily’s real feelings on the subject. “Just as soon as I put some miles between us and the house.”

  She exhaled at his verdict, neither pleased, nor worried by his decision. “Will you tell me about the house now, sir?

  Lily hated how pathetic her voice sounded, but at least he seemed to be responding to her—now that she was powerless in the back seat.

  “Maybe.” Ethan sounded undecided. “What do you want to know?”

  She paused at that. This whole fucking dialogue was so bizarre. There she was being driven to God knows where, while her wrists and ankles were bound with what looked like duct tape, and yet he seemed ready to open up. Lily’s heart pounded in her chest at the revelation, and yet still she continued. She wanted to know what that house meant to him, and why he had seemed even darker within its confines, but more than that, Lily just wanted to keep him talking. She needed some semblance of normality in this God awful situation.

  “You took me there, but you didn’t seem to like it much,” she began. “Why, sir? It was your family home, right? Why did you despise it so much?”

  Ethan sighed. “That’s a lot of questions,” he said with a chuckle.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Lily shifted as best she could without the use of her arms, rolling onto her side to take the pressure from her wrists. As she eyed the back of the front seat, she realized she was completely at Ethan’s mercy now. If he chose to brake sharply, there was nothing she could do to save herself from being flung against that seat, and her belly furled with the anxiety of that reality. She had no idea how long she was going to be able to abide the damn tape, either. Bondage during sex was once one thing, but this was something else. It wasn’t fun, and frankly, Lily didn’t like it.

  Ethan’s laughter deepened at that, and she flushed at the idea he had been listening in on her thoughts.

  “I thought you weren’t going to do that anymore?” she almost pleaded in response.

  He shook his head. “That all changed when the plan did,” he replied. “I know you don’t like it, but there’s a hell of a lot worse that will happen if you can’t learn to do as you’re told, Lily.”

  She inhaled. He was probably right, and that thought threatened to suffocate her completely.

  “It was my family home, yes,” he went on, apparently unconcerned with her response to his latest warning. “But it doesn’t hold many happy memories.”

  “What happened there, sir?”

  Lily wasn’t even sure she wanted to know, yet somehow, the words were out there.

  She just caught sight of Ethan’s shoulders tense. “My father.”

  His voice had taken on a peculiar croaky sound, and Lily knew at once that whatever was coming next wouldn’t be good.

  “Did he beat you?”

  Fuck, Lily! Her mind scrambled to keep up with her mouth, which was apparently on its own rampage.

  “You are direct about this, aren’t you, little one?”

  Ethan’s voice made her sex tighten, and for a moment, Lily held her breath, waiting to see if she’d pushed him too far.

  “I suppose I don’t mind,” he concluded in the end, sending waves of relief vibrating through Lily’s bound frame. “I’ve always found it easy sharing things with you.”

  Too easy.

  The thought popped into her mind before she could censor it, and Ethan twisted back to offer her a smile.

  “Right,” he agreed. “Maybe a little too easy. If I’d have kept my thoughts to myself the other night, then maybe you wouldn’t be bound in the back of my car right now.”

  That made Lily gulp. He was right—maybe she wouldn’t be—but that scenario wouldn’t have changed anything about Ethan. He would have still been a serial killer, but Lily would have been none the wiser. Her head ached with the confusion of it all, and yet somehow, she couldn’t force herself to be sorry for knowing the truth. However disturbing it was.

  “But, yes, little one, he did beat me, and my mother.”

  Ethan sounded pained as he made the admission, and even though the fucker had her bound with tape, Lily couldn’t help the way her heart went out to him at that moment.

  “Oh, God, Ethan,” she replied. “I mean, sir. I’m so sorry. Why? Why would he do that?”

  Ethan chuckled lightly. “He wasn’t a nice man,” he told her in a wistful tone. “Beyond that, I don’t know. I never asked him, and never intend to.”

  “So, he’s still alive?”

  She wasn’t sure if she should ask that question, but Ethan seemed in the mood to talk, and anyway, Lily was interested. His father had clearly influenced his son. Perhaps more than Ethan was prepared to admit.

  “Don’t!”

  His curt tone made her tense.

  “What, sir?”

  “Don’t imply that I’m like him. I’m nothing like him!”

  Lily could h
ear the hateful intonation in his words as he spat back the reply, and her chest tightened at the sound. “I’m sorry.”

  He exhaled. “It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.”

  A moment of silence fell over the car, and all she could do was lie there and wait. Until at last, Ethan’s words continued.

  “Yes, he’s alive. Rotting away in prison somewhere at Her Majesty’s pleasure,” Ethan hissed. “It’s no more than he deserves.”

  In prison? Somehow, Lily couldn’t wrap her head around Ethan’s words. Why would he still be in prison after all these years?

  Ethan gasped, the sound of the inhalation making Lily’s gaze dart to him reflexively. It sounded as though he was in pain.

  “Because he killed her.”

  There was strained silence as that admission settled between them.

  “He killed who?” Lily was filled with dread as she asked the question.

  “My mother.” Ethan swallowed as he seemed to force the words out. “That son of a bitch killed my mother.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ethan

  Ethan could barely believe he had told her, but as the words escaped his lips, an odd sense of clarity fell over him. The admission had been so awful that Ethan had never told another living soul about his mother’s plight—no one except Kitty and their brothers had any idea what had transpired. But living with that demon had started to drive him crazy, and as he told Lily, it was like a weight had finally been lifted from his chest.

  She was silent in the back, and he angled the rear-view mirror to catch a better look at her expression.

  “I-I don’t know what to say,” she admitted as she blinked at his gaze. “Bloody hell, Ethan. How do you… How do you even live with that?”

  Ethan wanted to laugh at her question, because the truth was he had no idea. He had lived with the grim reality for so many years that it just seemed normal now, but in his mind, he knew it wasn’t normal. Just like his crimes.

  None of it was normal, even if it was his norm.

  “I don’t know,” he answered with a sigh. “I just tried to get on with things after she died—for Kitty as much as anything. And, I think over time, I learned to bury the worst of the pain.”

  “Oh, Ethan.” Lily sounded crushed, and even more desperate than she’d been when he’d wrestled her to the ground and bound her. “I wish I could hold you. I’m so sorry.”

  He swallowed at her words, his mind allowing him to imagine the soft caress of Lily’s touch. Fuck, he wanted that, too.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty shitty,” he agreed. “But there you have it. Perhaps it explains some of the terrible things I’ve done.”

  “God, yeah,” she gasped from the back seat. “It has to. How could that not have messed you up, sir?”

  When Lily put it that way, Ethan felt obliged to concur, and yet he couldn’t help remembering that Kitty hadn’t felt the need to kill anyone. So, his behavior wasn’t a foregone conclusion. It couldn’t be. It had to be more than just his bad gene pool.

  It had to be him.

  “No wonder you didn’t want to be in that house,” Lily muttered. “No wonder it changed you.”

  Ethan glanced at the road ahead. There were few other cars around, and so far, no queues. Perhaps they could make the north of England in just a few hours? He hoped so. He didn’t like having Lily bound like this. Even though he knew she needed it at the moment, the reality was doing nothing for him. He’d rather have her up at the front with him, where he could touch her and hold her. He loved bondage, but he regretted the way they needed it now.

  “She died there—in the house.”

  The words were spilling from him now, as though the levee had been broken, and now there was no way to control the torrent.

  “Oh, God…” Each of Lily’s tortured gasps washed over him, offering him solace in some odd and unsettling way. “He killed her there?”

  “Yes.” Ethan’s eyes flitted shut for a moment as he recalled the terrible night once again. “He locked her in the cellar—as he often did—but then, one night, he never let her out again. It was the last time I ever saw her. Or heard her.”

  Though technically, that wasn’t true. If he concentrated, Ethan swore he could still hear his mother’s cries. He heard them as clearly as he heard Lily’s thoughts. As clearly as he heard her voice.

  “Oh, fuck, Ethan.” Lily was shaking her head as she went on. “In the cellar? The same place I…” Her voice trailed away as the thought washed over her.

  “Yes,” he replied in a stonier tone. “The same place you locked me into, little one.”

  Lily bit her lip at his confirmation, her expression fallen, and for the first time since he picked her up from the roadside, she finally seemed to understand the seriousness of her transgression.

  Lily

  They traveled on in silence, but there was no peace in Lily’s mind. All she could imagine every time she closed her eyes was Ethan’s poor mother trapped in that dark, dank place, and then Ethan—her lover—and how he must have felt when he realized she had locked him into the same menacing tomb. Sentencing him to the same bleak fate.

  No wonder he was so enraged with her. No wonder he was so disappointed.

  What the fuck had she done?

  “You didn’t know.” His voice broke the intense train of thought. “How could you have known?”

  Lily pulled in a shaky breath. She didn’t always like having him in her head, but sometimes it had its benefits. Sometimes, it meant she didn’t have to say aloud the terrible things she was thinking.

  “Even so,” she replied in a breathy tone. “Even so, I’m sorry. I would never have done that if I’d known.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “We dealt with that yesterday.”

  Lily’s eyes closed as she recalled the excruciating way Ethan had dealt with that matter, and her clitoris pulsed longingly. She still hadn’t been able to come since they’d left his house, although last night’s sex session had managed some of the need.

  The sound of his dark laughter reverberated around the car.

  “Is that what you’re thinking about?”

  “No,” she gasped, her eyes opening to find he’d twisted his head toward her. His knowing gaze had more than her cheeks burning with embarrassment, it made her writhe with need.

  “Well, okay, yes,” she conceded. “But it’s not like that, sir. I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself. I was just remembering.”

  “Hmmm.” The resonance of his tone made her pussy clench. “Well, make sure you do. We don’t want you forgetting what landed you in trouble in the first place.”

  As if she could. Lily had effectively sentenced the man she loved to death when she skipped out of the house and left him locked in the cellar. If he hadn’t managed to get himself out, then she didn’t like to think about what might have happened.

  Ethan had been right. She had deserved that punishment. Maybe she deserved more.

  “Thank you, sir,” she murmured.

  He shifted behind the wheel. “What for?”

  “For telling me about your parents. I can’t even imagine what you’ve gone through, but I’m pleased you can talk to me.”

  The glance over his shoulder only lasted a fraction of a second, but it was long enough for Lily to catch sight of the way his lips curled, and the butterflies in her stomach fluttered their wings with excitement. She could barely keep up. One moment the man terrified her, and the next he was electrifying.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ethan

  Once they were well out of the south, Ethan pulled over and helped Lily up into a sitting position. He was sorely tempted to release the binds on her ankles, or even retape her wrists in front of her, but he didn’t. He knew better than to let those fluttering eyelashes and that forest green gaze affect him. The last time he had let his defenses down, Lily had trapped him in the cellar. He may have punished her for that act of defiance, b
ut that didn’t mean he could forget it.

  And it would be a long time before he trusted her again.

  “Have a drink,” he instructed, unscrewing the cap from the water bottle and holding it out in front of her mouth.

  She moved toward it gingerly, parting her lips as he tipped the liquid into her mouth. Ethan watched as she drained most of the bottle, before he settled in beside her in the back seat.

  “I’ll stop at the next service station,” he told her. “And get us something to eat.”

  Lily nodded. “Okay. Thank you, sir.”

  Her gaze landed at the side of his face, and he turned to meet it.

  “Am I allowed to ask where we’re going now?” she asked tentatively.

  “You can ask,” he replied matter-of-factly, “but I’m not going to answer you.”

  She sighed at that, the look of her making him smile. The little petulant routine might be tired, but it never failed to rouse his cock all the same. His flower needed a damn good spanking, but he’d been reticent to deliver another since his belt. He didn’t want to crucify her tender skin—just do enough to remind her who was in charge.

  “Can I ask another question then?” Lily’s eyes implored him. “Please, sir.”

  Ethan shook his head. She was incessant, and yet he did feel better for having divulged the information about his parents. “Go on.”

  Lily took a breath, her body tensing. “What will life be like now, sir—for us, I mean?”

  He stared at her for a moment. That was her question! Ethan wouldn’t have seen that coming in a hundred years, and it seemed his visions had abandoned him since Lily arrived. There was no time to meditate anymore, let alone try and make sense of what he saw. “Good, I hope,” he answered. “You’re going to learn how to yield, and I’m going to play your big strong provider.”

  She giggled at that, but Ethan wasn’t sure if the response was nervous or mocking. “Anything else?” she murmured. “Will I still get to do the things I like? Will you have time to paint, sir?”