Unforgettable (Black Rose Doms Book 1)

by Rory Reynolds

  The same spark of jealous flickers inside me at the thought of one of the gorgeous submissives from the club with my Matthew. God, I’m in so much trouble. He’s not my Matthew. I’m just the girl who he rescued from a bad situation and feels like he’s responsible since my injuries occurred in his club.

  “Time for bed,” Matthew says, pulling me from my jealous thoughts. “I’m going to take a quick shower.”

  “Okay.” I crawl onto the big bed and lay on my stomach. The bed is the softest bed I’ve ever laid on. It feels like a cloud, and it smells of Matthew. I unabashedly watch him undress. He strips down to his black boxer briefs, his hands pause at the waistband. He looks at me, then strides into the bathroom, his underwear still in place.

  Not even going to lie… I wanted him to keep going. He confuses me—my reactions. I don’t like casual contact, and yet I crave Matthew’s touch. A week ago, I couldn’t imagine falling asleep next to a man, and now I want it more than anything. I’ve never felt desire or attraction before Matthew… I feel out of control. I want things that I’ve never wanted before. I don’t understand what it is about this man that makes me react completely different than I would with anyone else.

  I hear the shower turn on and try to imagine what Matthew looks like naked with water streaming down his muscular chest. Lord, I’ve sunk way far down the rabbit hole. I close my eyes and try to focus on something else. Anything besides these new and overwhelming desires of my body.

  I must fall asleep because the next thing I remember is Matthew crawling into bed. There is a flash of disappointment when he doesn’t pull me close, but I don’t have time to dwell on that. Matthew might not pull me close, but he does start combing his fingers through my hair. It feels so good that sleep quickly swallows me up again.

  I wake up to sunlight streaming in through a crack in the curtains. The space Matthew put between us last night is completely gone. He’s got me wrapped up in his strong arms, and it’s absolutely the perfect way to wake up. There isn’t an inch between us, and I love it. I relax back into him, my head on his chest directly over his heart, an arm wrapped around his waist. I even have one leg thrown over his.

  I don’t want this to end. I close my eyes and listen to the steady beat of his heart. I let the sound lull me back to sleep. My last thought before sleep consumes me is of home.

  “Take me with you tomorrow, please Matty, don’t leave me here,” I beg through my tears.

  He takes my face in his hands and refuses to let me look away. I can just barely make out his handsome features in the dark. “Love, you know I can’t just take you. They will say I kidnapped you and send me to jail. We have to do this the right way. I swear to you, I will find a way to get you out of this place.”

  I push my forehead to his, and he just holds me there. I have a feeling that this will be the last night we have together, and there is so much I should tell him. I know he’s older than me. I know this isn’t right, but I’ve been in love with him since the first time he pulled me out of a hidey-hole on my second day in this hellhole.

  He sees me. He’s been my protector, my friend. My everything. Matthew is the only person who has cared about me besides my mom. And she didn’t even love me enough to stay clean. She died chasing a high that was more important than her daughter.

  We lay snuggled against each other, silently soaking up the last hours we have. When the first light of dawn starts to creep through the window, I roll over so that my upper half is laying across his chest, my chin resting on my folded arms. “Matty, you know I’m in love with you, right?” I ask quietly.

  Pushing his fingers through the mess of my hair, he roughly pushes his lips to my forehead, scratching my skin a bit with his morning stubble. “Yeah, baby girl, I know.” his voice is rough with emotion as he continues, “God damn me to Hell, but I love you too. Doesn’t change anything though, you know that. You are everything to me, but at the same time, we can be nothing more than this until you’re eighteen. You understand that, right?”

  Smiling a sad smile, I nod my understanding then rest my head back down on his chest. “I’m going to miss you, Matty.”

  “Me too, love. Me, too.”

  The dream shifts to a different time. A different memory.

  Matthew is gone. I haven’t seen him in weeks. The Grants won’t let me out of the house. It’s summer vacation from school, and not even the younger kids are allowed outside to play.

  A new social worker came yesterday, and something about the visit seemed to spook the Grants. This social worker was different. She didn’t just do a cursory check and leave, she went through the entire house and talked to each of us kids individually. Of course, none of us spoke one ill word of the Grants. We all learned that lesson when the old social worker reported directly to the Grants whatever we said.

  I hate not knowing why this last visit was different. Did Matthew finally find someone to listen to him? He promised he would get me out of this house. I wish I could contact him. Mrs. Perfect storms into the room I now share with three other girls—a trio of sisters that came to live here two weeks ago—and starts pulling trash bags out of a box and throwing them at us.

  “Pack your shit. You have five minutes.” She leaves without another word.

  Lydia, the youngest of the sisters, starts crying as the rest of us look at each other in confusion. None of us are stupid, we’ve all been in the system long enough to know the score. We start shoving our things into our trash bags. Lydia cries the whole time.

  Five minutes later, Mr. Perfect screams for everyone to get downstairs. Trash bags in hand, we march down the stairs expecting to see our new social worker. That’s what happens when you’re told to pack and given a black trash bag. A social worker comes and takes you away. Not that any of us would complain. Anywhere is better than here.

  I don’t know how much I’m going to be made to regret that thought. Within minutes, we are all loaded into a van… not a regular van with seats and stuff, a moving van. Cara, the oldest of the trio of sisters, puts up a fight when she realizes what’s happening. Mr. Perfect slaps her so hard she’s knocked to the ground. Nobody fights after that.

  Two days later, we arrive at Red House. That’s when I know I will never see Matthew again. I do my best to hang onto his memory. I cling to it like a security blanket. Slowly, bit by bit, we are stripped of our humanity. Each day, his memory becomes more and more vague, until he’s nothing more than a dream.

  A dream that promises to save me. A dream who swears he’ll keep me safe. A dream that says he loves me…

  Gentle hands shake me awake. “Come on, sweetheart,” the voice in my dream says. “It’s just a dream. Wake up.”

  I don’t want to wake up. I’m happiest when I’m dreaming of the blue-eyed boy who tells such sweet, sweet lies.

  “Wake up, love. You’re okay,” the voice coaxes. Consciousness prickles, but I resist. I push it aside so I can stay surrounded by the pretty lies. “Come back to me, Rosie,” the voice croons as gentle hands stroke through my hair and down my neck.

  I jerk out of sleep, instantly awake. Rosie. No one calls me that anymore. None of us kept our names after we were moved to Red House. The Grants gave me the name Tessa. We weren’t allowed to speak our real names under the threat of being beaten. When I escaped, I took my name back. It became a mantra for me. I would repeat, “I am Amara Rose Thompson” over and over again.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I—I don’t think so.” I shake my head, nervous.

  I study Matthew’s face, trying to see what my subconscious somehow already knew. Somehow, this man is the boy I’ve been dreaming of for years. If he’s the boy from my dreams, that means that my dreams are memories, and Matthew isn’t just some good Samaritan stranger.

  The Grants did their best to make sure I thought I was crazy. Those first weeks I would wake up screaming and crying for the boy—Matty. His name is right there in the forefront of my mind. As I look into the worried blue eyes o
f the man who saved me from Damon, I can’t keep from seeing the impossible, the boy from my dreams.

  All these years, I thought that my brain created my dreams as an escape. A coping mechanism. Something to keep hope alive within a hopeless situation. Instead of dreaming about the brave prince rescuing the princess, I dreamed up a blue-eyed boy to be my hero.

  My hero. I’ve thought of the boy in my dreams as my hero, and from the moment Damon pushed me into Matthew’s arms, I’ve thought of him as my hero.

  I take a deep breath and close my eyes, willing the dream-Matty to disappear. There has to be a reasonable explanation for this, I mean, he can’t possibly be the boy I dream about. Can he? Has he always looked so similar to Matthew? Or is it my subconscious putting the boy I called Matty into the position of my hero because he is my rescuer in so many ways?

  “Love, you’re starting to worry me, what is it? Did you have another nightmare?”

  I shake my head. “Honestly, I really don’t know what I am at the moment. I had a dream, but now I’m wondering if it’s not actually a memory.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Do I? Will he think I’m crazy if I tell him that I’ve been dreaming about him—or a boy who looks like him—for years? Maybe I am crazy.

  “I—I think I dreamed about you,” I shake my head again, trying to dispel the dream-Matty from my mind. “It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve had these dreams for as long as I can remember. Usually after…” I close my eyes, stopping that train of thought in its tracks. I don’t want to go there right now—maybe not ever. “This dream is both my favorite and my least favorite.”

  Matthew’s not looking at me like I’m crazy. He actually looks… excited?

  “Why is it both your favorite and least favorite?”

  I chew on the inside of my cheek, not sure that I want to answer. I close my eyes, take a deep, steadying breath, then decide to tell him the truth. “It’s my least favorite because I know I’ll never see you again. And it’s my favorite because…” I hesitate.

  If this is my dream boy, how will he react to me saying my favorite part is that he tells me he loves me? On the same token, what if he isn’t the boy? What if I tell him I dream of a boy who I now can’t seem to disentangle dream from reality?

  Matthew gently cups my cheek and looks at me imploringly. “You can tell me anything, love. I’m not going anywhere.”

  How does he always know what to say? With one assurance that he isn’t going to disappear on me no matter what I tell him, he’s alleviated my worries.

  “It’s my favorite because you admit that you love me.”

  Matthew sucks in a breath, and there is an intensity about him that I’ve never seen before. “Do you remember?” he asks with so much hope it’s painful. “Do you know who I am, my Rosie?”

  And just like that, it comes flooding back. All the things I stuffed into a box in the back of my mind. Memories of my mother. Us laughing and dancing in the kitchen to 80s music before I lost her the first time to addiction. The memory of her healthy and happy is a knife to my heart because now that I remember the happy times, I also see her body prone on the floor, the needle still protruding from her arm. The funeral where the only two people in attendance were my social worker and me.

  Then it’s Matthew. Matthew as a teenaged boy teasing me. Making me smile when smiling was the last thing I wanted to do. Matthew protecting me from our foster parents. Matthew finding me. No matter where I hid, he always came to pull me out. Whether it was from a tree, under the old porch, or from my own dark thoughts. He was always there. Until he wasn’t.

  I don’t realize I’m crying until Matthew wipes the tears from my cheeks. “You’re my Matty. You’ve always been my Matty.”

  His eyes close tightly, and he leans his forehead against mine. I wrap my arms around his neck and hold him to me. Hoping against all hope that this isn’t just another wonderful yet extremely realistic dream.

  “And you’re my Rosie.”

  “I thought you were just a dream. They told me you didn’t exist when I woke up crying for you. After a while, I believed them. I thought that I was crazy. That I was just making up a hero that would take me away.”

  “Sweetheart, I am very real. I’m flattered that your subconscious thought I was hero material,” he says teasingly.

  “In all fairness, conscious me thinks you are pretty heroic too.” The man saved me from Damon, paid I’m not even sure how much money to free me of his contract. He’s given me a place to live and a security detail—no matter how over the top that is, it’s sweet. Not to mention, he has provided me with medical care to help my body heal from Damon’s beating. You don’t get much more heroic than that in my book.

  “Good to know.”

  Matthew kisses my forehead, then rolls to his side, pulling me with him. I snuggle into his arms. There is so much that we need to discuss, but not now. Now, we find comfort and solace within each other’s arms. Reality will sneak up on us soon enough. No need to rush it along.

  10

  Matthew

  She fucking remembers.

  Finally.

  I should be at the club taking care of business, but I’m not about to leave this bed right now. I have my Rosie back, and I will not let her go again. Never again. She’s been through so much because I didn’t save her from the Grants in time. I won’t fail her a second time. She’s mine, and I take care of what’s mine. Always.

  Every so often, Rose lifts her head from my chest and looks at me. I know she has something she wants to ask me, but for some reason, she keeps chickening out. My heart aches at the stark differences between the woman lying in my arms and the spirited girl I used to know. I want to demand that she tell me whatever it is that’s on her mind. I don’t want any secrets between us. Through pure force of will, I manage to wait her out.

  “Are you going to make me your slave now that I remember?”

  Never, is the first thought that screams through my head. The second is to claim her, own her, keep her. Which is followed quickly with my third thought that I’m a colossal jackass for being hard as a rock at the thought of her being mine in all ways.

  Fuck.

  I’ve never wanted to have a slave. Yes, I’m a dominant. Yes, I enjoy meting out pain and pleasure to willing submissives, but I haven’t ever considered turning one of my casual arrangements into a more permanent situation. I choose to remain unattached because I’m unable to love any woman the way they deserve.

  The submission of a submissive is a beautiful thing and shouldn’t be tainted by the hate that lives inside me. The hatred that has fueled me the last ten years as I’ve systematically taken out one human trafficking ring after another. Freeing abused and exploited women and children have hardened me. Losing Rose broke something inside of me. Some integral part that lets me feel a deeper connection with people.

  The minute Rose was thrust into my arms again, I realized that part of me wasn’t broken, it was missing. When she disappeared, Rose took that piece of me with her. Now that she’s back, I can see a world of possibilities. Of course, I could never give my heart to another. It’s always been Rose’s. I want everything with this woman.

  I can imagine a whole future with her. I will keep her forever in whatever capacity she will allow. My bastard cock is rock-hard as the image of Rose naked and kneeling at my feet pops into my head. She’d open her sweet lips for my cock. I can almost feel the velvety smooth texture of her tongue licking at me as I push between her lips.

  Every cell in my body is screaming at me to take her now. I can’t do that, though. She doesn’t understand what she’s asking me. Even if I do want her to be my submissive, she’s not ready for that. She’s not ready for any kind of relationship right now. She needs a friend. A protector. That is precisely what I’m going to be for her. If and when she is ready for more, I’ll be that too.

  “What makes you think I would want you to be my slave?”

  As soon as t
he question leaves my lips, she tenses, and I realize she took my question the wrong way. Her eyes glass over with tears. “I…” she struggles to form words and instead starts to push away from me.

  Grabbing her up as tight and close as I can without hurting her still healing back, I quickly work to fix the damage I’ve done to her fragile self-esteem. “No, love, that’s not what I meant. I want you. I want you so fucking bad, you have no idea.”

  She scoffs at me and rolls her eyes. “Yeah, right. I’m damaged goods.”

  “Don’t talk about yourself like that. I want you. Of course I want you. What I don’t understand is why you assume that I want to make you a slave. Considering what you’ve been through, I’d have to be a heartless prick to ask that of you right now.”

  Whatever comeback she has dies on her lips as she reconsiders her words. I can tell she doesn’t believe me. God, how can she not know how fucking beautiful she is? Even laid up in recovery, I fought off a perpetual hard-on. Instead of giving her a chance to come up with another excuse, I grab her hand and place it on top of my cock. Her warm little palm feels like a branding iron. One touch and she owns me. One touch will never be enough.

  Fuck me.

  Her eyes light up in shock when she realizes how hard I am.

  “This is what you do to me, love.” Rose’s fingers flex around my cock, just that one bit of pressure, and I’m ready to blow.

  The shocked look slowly melts away and is replaced by desire. The tension flows from her body until she’s relaxed against me again. Every inch of her naked body is pressed against mine. My boxers are the only thing between us. My cock throbs for more while at the same time, my brain is telling me to grab her hand and stop her before I lose control.

  The light pressure of her hand slowly disappears, and I let out the breath I was holding. My head flops back on the pillow, and I do my best to think unsexy thoughts—baseball, golf, bowling. Anything but the feel of her soft skin pressed to my hard muscles.