Beauty and the Thorns

by Black, Stasia

  He lingers, his fingers rubbing along my lips, whispering against my clit and making my sex clench and spasm around nothing, missing his cock. “Please,” I whisper, not knowing what I’m asking for. More of his touch? His forgiveness?

  But my words have the opposite effect. He snatches his hand away. “Count.” His voice is ice cold again, and then comes the pain ripping across my ass as another blow lands.

  “Six!” I screech. “May I have another, Sir?”

  Another two land, one after another, never in the same spot twice, so I don’t know where to brace to expect it. I dance on my toes at the burning heat that feels like it’s searing through my flesh.

  But that’s when it hits me, clear as day: There’s nothing to do other than to give myself over to it. To stop fighting. To give myself to him, in spite of his anger.

  Because this is Logan. My Logan. In spite of everything, I have to still believe, underneath, I haven’t broken what we have—Daphne and Logan. He’s not a beast, in spite of what I once thought. He’s not using the full weight of his strength in these blows. He’s being the Master, still caring for me even as he doles out punishment.

  And to Logan, my Logan, I can trust and abandon myself over to whatever he has to give. My entire body relaxes as I give in.

  When the next spank comes, it reverberates throughout my body. It still hurts. It hurts a hell of a lot. But I allow myself to feel the sting, the heat, and to ride it. To ride it all the way through my body and out again until a strange euphoria settles over me.

  “Eight,” I gasp. “May I please have another, Sir?”

  Hesitation, and then the next comes. There’s the pain, no less sharp for the euphoria, but while my feet are planted on the ground, I’m also floating. Floating so high. My breathing slows, my grip on the couch flexes and then releases.

  “Nine, may I please have another, Sir,” I manage in a rush, anticipating the last, all fear and confusion gone.

  And when the last blow comes, it makes my body sing. For one shining moment, I feel so alive, my body electric, the world and all its worries a million miles away. I’m floating above it all. Safe like a cloud.

  And then comes his touch. Hot where it already burns but then slipping between my legs and stoking another kind of fire. My face drops to the side of the couch. I’ll go wherever he leads me. My body is pliant. I’m warm wax to be molded. “Thank you, Sir,” I breathe.

  “Damn you,” he hisses. “Damn you.”

  His warm heat disappears from behind me. I blink in confusion, still spiraling down. When I look over my shoulder, all I see is him disappearing up the stairs.

  What? Usually he never leaves my side after we— After a—

  I swallow and stand up, wincing at the sting in my ass. My hands immediately go to my backside, but every touch hurts. I want to sit down. I feel woozy. I’m overwhelmed. I want to be in Logan’s arms.

  But he’s not here. Why isn’t he here?

  Then there are footsteps on the stairs and my eyes fly up to see Logan coming back down, jar of salve in his hands. My entire body relaxes at the sight. He is going to take care of me. Tears spring to my eyes but I blink them back.

  But then the jar of salve comes flying through the air at me and I lift my hands and catch it barely in time.

  “I’ve called you a taxi.” Logan’s voice is low and arctic, his face blank of all emotion.

  “I- I don’t understand.” And I don’t. Everything still feels fuzzy after the places he just took my body. “This is my house.”

  Emotion lights his face now, but it’s not one I like. A cruel smile curls his lips. “Your house. But kitten, your father sold me this property, too. All that was once yours is now mine. I own you.”

  His words snap me out of my daze. “Dad would never sell Thornhill! My mother is—!!” My eyes shoot to the window. I can’t see my mother’s resting place from here, but it’s right out there. My mom is here, forever. All our memories are here. Dad wouldn’t— He couldn’t—

  “Your father sold your ancestral home without a second thought to save his precious company,” Logan continues. “Without even consulting you. That’s how much he values you and what you care about.”

  “And what are you going to do with it? Bulldoze the mausoleum and light my childhood home on fire to get your unholy revenge?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Logan rages, storming towards me, stopping only inches away from me, his face right in front of my face. The scars on his face are pale, but the rest of his skin is flushed and angry. “Your family took everything from me!”

  I start to shake my head but he’s not done, “And you,” he growls. “Bella donna. Beautiful poison.” He spits the last word and turns away.

  His words gut me, scooping me out like an ice cream scooper.

  For a long moment, there’s only silence in the room, both of us breathing hard. We are destroyed things. Broken. Irreparable.

  A sudden ping startles me. Logan pulls a phone out of his pocket. He doesn’t look at me. “Your taxi is here.”

  My taxi. Just like that, he’s kicking me out. Of my own house. That he bought out of revenge. This is so messed up.

  I walk towards the door. What’s there left to say?

  “Don’t forget the salve.”

  I look back at him searching for...something, anything in his eyes, but they’re hard, blue stone.

  I snatch the salve from where I’d dropped it on the couch before. And then I’m out the door. It’s only after he slams it behind me and I’m in the taxi zooming away from my childhood home that I remember Belladonna. The company. The research.

  Everything I worked my whole life for—he now has control of it. A man who hates me and my family.

  I look out the window. It all seemed so important, so vital, only weeks ago. Like there was nothing more important in the world. But now, as I glance out the back window, my ass smarting even though the seat is soft and plush, all I’m hoping for is a glimpse of him.

  Five

  Present Day

  Logan

  I watch from an upstairs window as she drives away. Am I fooling myself or do I see her hand pressed against the glass of the window as she looks back?

  I turn away. “Fucking idiot,” I roar and look around for something else to smash but I’ve already tossed and smashed her precious Thornhill to ruins. Shards of expensive vases and mirrors and plates and glass litter the marble floors. I’ve ripped paintings off the wall and slashed through the precious canvases. I played Nine Inch Nails on full blast in the ballroom while I spray-painted the tapestries and drew obscenities on the statues.

  The room I fucked and punished Daphne in was the one room that remained intact, and only because I fell asleep in the master suite last night before I could remember to drag my drunken ass back downstairs to desecrate it.

  I stretch my hand out and bring it to my nose. It’s still fragrant from her scent.

  Her scent that he probably knows now. Because she gave away what’s fucking mine. After she promised me, she gave it away. Like it all meant nothing.

  I roar and grab the leg of the four-poster bed, ripping and yanking until I separate the tall pole off the footboard. And then I attack the wall with the makeshift baseball bat, smashing and destroying and taking out my rage until dust and drywall rains down all around me and coats my sweat-soaked skin.

  I slump, exhausted, to the floor and bow my head. I didn’t sleep last night. How could I? When I’m used to her warm body, when I let myself imagine getting used to it forever— The pain sears fresh all over again but I don’t have the energy to destroy anything else. I lie down and lay my head on my arm. Cold. Uncomfortable. A shard of a vase cutting into my thigh.

  And I sleep.

  * * *

  7 years Ago

  The Quarantine Ward

  “I don’t want to go in again. We flipped for it and you lost. You go.”

  Pain screams through my face as their voices wake me from another
nightmare. But blinking my eyes open doesn’t make it any better. Maybe this is the nightmare and I’m still not awake. Please gods, let this all just be one long nightmare and let me wake up.

  But I don’t wake. Because this is real. The pain, oh fuck, the pain. How did I even sleep as long as I did through this?

  It’s all real. Half my face is gone. Chewed away by flesh-eating bacteria. My life is gone. And she hasn’t come to visit once in the month I’ve been here. Does she know what happened to me? Then again, why would they tell her? They were trying to get rid of me and they did a spectacular fucking job.

  Quarantine plastic surrounds my hospital bed. I can just make out the shape of the two nurses beyond, and then one finally lifts a flap and slips through.

  She’s covered in a blue suit, face mask, and thick hospital gloves as she approaches cautiously. “Mr. Wulfe. How are we doing today?” Her falsely cheerful voice is grating.

  I don’t answer her asinine question. How the fuck does she think we are?

  “Time to change your bandage.”

  That has me alert. “No,” I manage to grunt out even though I immediately regret it because it pulls on my destroyed cheek and sends a fresh hell of blinding pain throughout my body.

  That’s the thing I didn’t know about pain. The wound is just in my head but nerves are a strange thing. They seem to connect all over my body. And so the pain shoots everywhere. My face is on fire but I’ll feel the pain in my belly. It curls me over into the fetal position.

  “You know we have to change the bandage regularly to keep away infection,” the nurse says, still in that fake cheerful tone.

  They changed it last night and it’s only ten in the morning, I want to tell her, but I can’t imagine getting out that many words. The final surgery to remove the last of the necrotic tissue and fluid was supposed to make things better but I swear the pain has only gotten worse. Maybe because they’ve dug away that much more of my face.

  When I first came in, I coded twice in the ICU. It’s been a month of this hell and a body can only stand so much.

  But the nurse keeps coming relentlessly forward.

  I try to shake my head but fuck, oh fuck, it hurts. I can’t help the pathetic whimper that escapes or the tears that film my eyes. Dammit. Godsdammit.

  The nurse reaches towards my face but I can see her fucking hands are shaking. She thinks she’s gonna change my bandage with shaking hands? Fuck that.

  I reach up to block her hands. She jumps back with a shriek at the barest contact. “Call the orderlies!”

  She scurries back towards the plastic flap.

  “Wait,” I grate out, trembling from the pain of speaking. “Pain meds.”

  But she’s already gone. The first few weeks, they gave me a morphine button but they said now I could only have pain meds at scheduled times to start weaning me off so I don’t get addicted.

  I flop my head back on the pillow, exhausted.

  Daphne, where are you? It’s a weak thought. I don’t want her to see me like this. She’s so young. And we never made each other any promises, not any real ones. We never even kissed. Why didn’t I kiss her?

  You were trying to be honorable. You were trying to respect her father.

  I cough out a bitter laugh that has me curling over in pain.

  “He’s in here. He struck out at me. He’s not in his right mind.”

  I blink up blearily at the voices. The nurse is back, but this time there are two orderlies with her. Big guys.

  I don’t get it at first, what they’re all doing here.

  “Be careful,” the nurse warns. “He’s the one with—you know. He’s the patient.”

  The two big guys hold up their hands as they approach. That’s when I see the fucking restraints they’re holding.

  “No.” I start to sit up in bed, then immediately collapse back.

  “We don’t want any trouble. We just want to make it safe for everyone.”

  What did she tell them? That the monster in quarantine attacked her?

  “I didn’t—” I try to defend myself but speaking is so painful and it doesn’t matter anyway. Their minds are already made up.

  “Let me sedate him first,” the second orderly says, like I’m not even in the room. He approaches with a needle.

  The fuck? They think they can just knock me out and tie me the fuck up? For how long? I’m not a damned animal. I’m still a man.

  But men can speak and reason and all I can do as they approach is grunt and shake my head and try feebly to hold them back. And finally thrash and scream until it takes both of them to hold me down to shove the needle in my arm until I descend into the nightmare hellscape of my dreams again.

  “Logan!” calls out the beautiful girl with the green-flecked amber eyes. “Logan, where are you? I can’t find you!” She’s surrounded by fire and reaching out blindly.

  I try to call for her but I have no voice and I can’t move, I’m tied down. I’m helpless as she’s burned alive, and then the fire comes for me, burning, burning, the flame endlessly searing my body from the inside out.

  * * *

  Present Day

  I jerk awake, my hands immediately going to my face, then to my hands and wrists. Free. I’m not tied to that fucking hospital bed anymore.

  Fuck, I haven’t had the nightmares that take me back to that time in months. I scrub my face as I come back to myself, then get to my feet. I look at the destruction all around me and hear my mentor’s voice in my head: Dr. Knox, who took me in when I was disfigured and broken, thrown away by everyone and anyone. Don’t expect life to be fair. This rage will do nothing but destroy you. Instead, use that energy to create. If you must destroy, destroy only those who are your enemies, not yourself.

  I was alone, cast away by everyone, locked away in that quarantine ward, when Dr. Knox found me. He made everything possible. He set me on my course. And for a while everything seemed so clear. I was clear. I had purpose and drive and I knew who I was.

  But now?

  “What do I fucking want?” I ask out loud, kicking out at a particularly large piece of vase that managed to survive, sending it flying across the floor and into the wall.

  Her face immediately comes to mind.

  Daphne.

  I want her. I thought I wanted revenge but deep down, she’s what I’ve always wanted.

  Even if she doesn’t want you back? Even if she’s faithless?

  I can never trust her, not now.

  But I can still possess her.

  Don’t expect life to be fair. And possession is nine-tenths of the law. If she’s mine, he can never have her. She’ll be in my bed. Her ass under my belt, submitting so beautifully.

  If I can’t have love, then I’ll break and enslave her to my mastery. No, she’s not done with me. She’ll never be rid of me. Not in this life or the next, I’ll imprint myself so deeply on her. There will be no escape.

  I stand and pull my phone from my trouser pocket. I pull up her contact and begin my message, then hit send:

  Over your previous stay, you earned back 10 of the 130 Belladonna patents I own. I’ll expect you back at the castle at sundown tomorrow to begin earning the rest back.

  Almost immediately, I see the icon that says she’s read my text, but it’s more than an hour before she finally texts back, just two letters, but they’re all I need: OK.

  Six

  Present Day

  Daphne

  “I don’t understand.” Rachel sounds as defeated as I feel.

  I stay bent over my suitcase so I don’t have to face her, but that just means I can’t ignore the damn ring glittering on my finger.

  “If I don’t go back, we won’t have a company. Belladonna will cease to exist.”

  “I can’t believe all this,” Rachel says. I told her the bare minimum, the castle, the patents. How I’ve been negotiating with Logan Wulfe, my father’s former student, to take back ownership of my father’s research.

  I’ve lef
t out the exact details of our negotiations. Especially how they involve me naked and bared to Logan’s belt.

  “You don’t have to believe it. Just know I’ll do what it takes to get those patents back. Whatever it takes.” I force my cheeks to rise in a tight and tooth-achy smile. “It won’t be like last time. I won’t just disappear, I promise. I have my phone—” I hold up the cell with the freshly fixed screen. “And I’ll check in.”

  “You better. Or I’ll tell the press where you are.”

  My smile turns into a grimace. I can only imagine Logan’s reaction to a flood of paparazzi on his lawn.

  “I’ll be fine, I promise.”

  Rachel’s silence says it all. She doesn’t believe me. Hell, I don’t believe me. But Logan would never really hurt me. As angry as he was, he confined his punishment to a kinky game. A kinky game we both love to play. He wants a piece of ass, not a pound of flesh.

  But he had wanted more. When he let me go, I saw the man he was, the couple we could be.

  And then I threw it all away. Logan sees my actions as betrayal but I have to convince him otherwise. I have no choice. He holds my past, present and my future in his hands. I own you.

  I unlock my phone and check my texts. The last one from Logan makes me shiver:

  Over your previous stay, you earned back 10 of the 130 Belladonna patents I own. I’ll expect you back at the castle at sundown tomorrow to begin earning the rest back.

  And my reply: Ok.

  On my way. I add. Then I tuck my phone in my pocket and close my suitcase. The zipper is loud in the quiet. The sound is so smooth and unwavering, so final.

  “All packed,” I say with mock cheer. “I called my dad and told him I’d be on break, but I’d check in.” Dad was so excited—he’d already heard of my engagement from my goddamn fiancé. I kept the conversation short. “I put you down as a second emergency contact in case something happens and the nurse can’t get a hold of me.”