In the recording Marlow was asking a hypnotized me, ‘How many men are in the room?’
‘Twelve,’ the strange me replied.
‘Oh my God!’ My voice was a gasp. How could he believe that about me? Me a whore? Why? Why would I do that? I didn’t need money. It was all so silly it was laughable. I closed my eyes and saw myself sitting in the red and gilt chair wearing nothing but the shiny black boots. And the false eyelashes. I snapped my eyes open. The image vanished. I was back in the clinical room with the night-vision recording still running. My head began to ache. I felt so confused. I should never have come here. I stood up to leave. I walked to the door and then I heard myself say in that weird monotone, ‘They’re coming up the stairs.’
And suddenly I began to shake. Goose bumps spread along my skin like wildfire. Something swelled in my brain. I shook my head. No. No. I walked out of the soundproof room but I could still hear my own voice. I walked to the door. No. No. I opened the door. What had they done to me? Oh my God! I couldn’t see properly. My eyes were filled with tears. I tried to blink them away, but more arrived. I reached the top of the stairs and put my foot down and missed, and in that second while my arms were pin-wheeling and I was falling, those seconds before my flailing hands caught the banister, I had a flashback.
It was almost like an electric shock. The sounds were too loud, the colors too bright. The images needle sharp. I was not allowed to be an observer. I was sucked into it. It felt more real than the room I had been sitting in, the cold leather of the chair against the backs of my legs, the cold hard feel of the banister, the pain on my knee from where it had knocked the edge of the wall, the cold of the stair under my bare foot, where I had lost my shoe.
I was not watching the flashback.
I was living it.
I was walking down the corridor of my recurring dreams. It was cold. Only now I recognized it clearly as the east wing of Marlborough Hall. That was where Mummy and I lived. I had woken up frightened with a strange dream of crows calling to me and I was going to see Mummy. As I walked I became more and more frightened. I reached Mummy’s door and I turned the knob and I saw it.
I saw Ivana. And she saw me. Slowly she turned her head and looked at me. She seemed unhurried. She was holding a pillow over Mummy’s head and her eyes—her eyes were chilly. She hated me. I stared, astonished. I didn’t know what to do. Mummy’s hands were clawed on the sheets. I couldn’t even scream. She left Mummy and she started to walk toward me. And I turned around and ran. I ran to the end of the corridor toward the stairs. She reached the stairs at the same time as I did.
I felt her hands push me and then I was falling. I fell and fell and fell. Until the floor opened up beneath me and everything collapsed into a black hole, the stairs, the pain, the sound of Blanca screaming my name from the direction of the kitchen, my memories, all disappeared into it.
For a while I could not catch my breath and then I doubled over and vomited. The smell horrified me. I grasped the banister and ran down the stairs of Marlow’s office. I opened the door and ran into the street. I ran up it screaming. I wore no shoes, but I did not feel the cold.
Chapter 31
Marlow
The scream was blood-curdling. The hairs at the back of my neck rose. That was her voice. I began to run in the direction of her scream. I found her up the road. Her feet were bare and dirty. She whirled around at my approach, her hands raised as if to strike. Under the street lamp her eyes were as wild and crazy as a blood-mad raptor. Her lips were almost blue in her startling white face. There was a bruise on one side of her cheek. She opened her mouth in a great roar and sprang at me. But not in attack.
She wanted to curl up in my arms.
I caught her, weak, defenseless and terrified, and squeezed her hard against my chest. She was trembling and her body was as cold as a corpse. I got her out of the road and onto the sidewalk.
‘I’ve remembered. I know who the white owl is.’ Her voice was a thin, high screech. She began to sob as if her heart was broken and would never again mend.
I felt waves of pity and anger wash into my chest simultaneously. I did not know what she had remembered, but I didn’t care. I was not her hypnotist. I was her man. I didn’t care what she had done in the past—she was my woman and I loved her with every fiber of my being. I’d die before I’d let anyone hurt her.
She’d come back to herself and that was enough. She was out of the labyrinth of her mind. The maze had not led her to the minotaur. It had brought her to me.
I stroked her hair tenderly.
‘Do you know?’ she asked.
I frowned. ‘No,’ I said. ‘You never could go all the way.’
‘It’s too horrible to tell,’ she whispered into my chest.
‘It’s all right. It’s all right,’ I repeated again and again.
She looked up at me, her eyes blurred with tears. I took my jacket off and put it over her shoulders. ‘I’m taking you home,’ I said.
Chapter 32
Olivia
I tried to stand, but my knees gave way and I would have fallen to the ground if he had not caught me. He put his strong arms under my knees and back and carried me to his car.
In the car I turned my face away from him. The whole time he knew. I felt tainted and filled with self-loathing. Shame was like a thorn bush growing deep inside my chest. Stretching, blooming, willfully tearing, carelessly drawing blood.
I remembered his silky, seductive voice. ‘You have escaped the cage. Your wings are stretched out. Now fly.’
Maybe one day I would thank him for showing me these things about myself. Not today. Today I was too cut up. I had believed that I belonged with him, you see. I had believed that I belonged to him. I was the tattoo on his body.
The journey seemed to be over very fast. He opened my side of the door and gathered me to him. He held me so close I could feel his heartbeat. As steady as a Swiss watch. He carried me up the stairs.
‘You’re cold,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you in bed.’
‘No, I need a shower. I’m dirty.’
‘You’re not dirty. You’re the cleanest person I know.’
‘I need a shower,’ I said, my voice breaking.
He carried me straight into the shower. When he put me down I swayed slightly and he tightened his hold on my body. The tiles were cold under my feet. I shivered from the loss of his body warmth. He stripped me quickly. Goose bumps peppered my skin.
‘I know. I know you’re cold,’ he murmured soothingly. Still holding onto me he leaned away from me. I heard the sound of water splashing and then he was gently guiding me under the hot stream. I sighed. Barely able to move I closed my eyes. He was still holding onto my forearms. Strength seeped from his hands into my skin. I felt safe. For the first time in a very long time I felt safe. Utterly safe.
Tears began to flow out of my eyes. I thought he wouldn’t know. Not with the water rushing over my face, but he said softly, ‘Don’t cry, princess. No more tears for you. I’m here now.’
That only made me cry even harder. My body shuddered with sobs. He held me as I bawled my eyes out. I cried for ages until I was exhausted. I slumped onto his chest. He made a move. He was going to take me out.
‘Soap. I’m still filthy,’ I whispered.
He pressed me against his body. ‘You’re not filthy,’ he snarled.
‘Soap,’ I breathed weakly.
His jaw was clenched tight but he leaned me against the tiles and reached for the soap. It smelt of apples. Clean. Fresh. Crisp. Everything I was not. With gentle circles he washed my soiled shoulders, my dirty neck, my gross arms, my foul forearms, my lusty hands, my unclean fingers. All those wicked men. I had let them all abuse me. I had been wet and sticky for their perverted desires. I had let them fuck me. I had let them come inside me. Grubby, grubby Olivia. I didn’t deserve this clean, wonderful man.
Tenderly, he did my breasts, letting the bar slide over my nipple. I wanted to thrust forward, but I
was too ashamed, too polluted to touch a man like him. The soap traveled across to my armpits, down to my ribs, my stomach, my hips.
When he reached the unspeakably mucky, disgusting area between my legs he began to slide the soap through the curls. Slowly he rubbed his hand on the mound until it lathered creamy and white. He gently cleaned between the creases. My thighs drifted open of their own accord. This was the part that reeked of all the other men. This was the dirtiest part. He must have understood because he spent more time washing it. When his palm made contact with my clit, the sensation was electric and I jumped with shock.
His hands moved down to my thighs, my calves, my feet, paying particular attention to my grimy soles. The water turned muddy. He turned me around and did my back and the stinking cleft between my buttocks. The nameless men had used me well. How had I not seen it? Slowly, he turned me around.
‘Close your eyes.’
I did as he asked.
He washed my face and then my hair. I felt the slippery soapsuds slide softly down my body.
‘Open your eyes.’
I looked at him.
‘You’re totally clean now,’ he said softly.
I slid down the tiles and spread my knees wide.
‘Wash me inside. It’s the dirtiest place of all,’ I said.
He hunkered down. His hair was wet and plastered to his body. His eyelashes were thick and black and his eyes were glittering with anger.
‘You’re clean inside, Olivia,’ he said through clenched teeth.
‘You don’t understand. You have to wash me,’ I begged.
‘I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry for what they did to you. But you’re not dirty.’
‘You don’t get it.’
‘No, you don’t get it. I don’t care what you’ve done or how many men you’ve been with. It doesn’t even matter to me if you enjoyed it. I don’t give a flying fuck about any of those things. I just want you just as you are. You’re clean, baby.’
I shuddered. I felt as if I was bleeding inside. All the things he had said—they meant nothing. I just knew I needed to be clean again. ‘Please,’ I begged.
The rigidness went out of him. An expression crossed his face. It could have been profound pity or even savage anguish. He closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them he was transformed. His eyes were like the weathered stony face of a mountain. It had stood its ground for centuries and it would remain unchanged and immovable for centuries more.
He rose up and soaped his fingers. He sat on his heels and tenderly inserted two soapy fingers inside. I gasped. I gasped at what we were doing. I gasped at that man. At his kindness. Surely he could not be mine. His eyes never faltered. Very gently he moved his fingers inside me, washing me clean. Then he pulled his fingers out and let the water pound the suds away before he put them back inside me. I watched the lather and all the mess of unclean fluids, mine and all the other men’s, gush down the sinkhole. He did it until his hands came out clean. I saw that the pads of his fingers were beginning to crinkle.
‘It’s done,’ he said softly.
I nodded. I placed my palms on the floor and tried to push myself up, but it seemed too great an effort. He grabbed me under my arms and pulled me up and leaned me against the tile.
‘One last thing,’ he said and went down on his haunches again. The space was so thick with steam his head seemed to rise out of clouds of white. Like being in a misty dream.
‘Don’t,’ I objected, but my voice lacked strength.
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I love you.’
He pulled apart my lower lips and leaning forward plunged his long, searing tongue as deeply into me as he could. Shocking heat exploded at my core, the ripples fanning out into my bloodstream. It was insane but at the edges of my consciousness was an instinct to want him, no matter what. I put my hands on his head, grabbed handfuls of his wet hair, and leaned my head back against the tiles.
Water flooded down over my face. I was so tired I felt floaty. My brain felt as though it was wrapped in cotton wool. Crikey, what did he just say? Surely I must have misheard him. Silly Vivi, of course you misheard. Something inside me broke at the thought.
What he was doing between my legs seemed to be happening to someone else. All the fire licking up my belly couldn’t be happening to me. I closed my eyes as the water rained down on me and he covered my clit with his warm velvety mouth and began to suck. It felt so damn good. New blood began to pump into my tired, aching limbs. Desire began to course through my body. My nipples ached for the feel of his fingers.
I looked down at him.
The movement made his eyes flicker open. They were smoky with desire. He extended his tongue and teased and tortured the tip of my clit until I wanted to scream. I rubbed his face in my sex.
‘I’m coming,’ I warned breathlessly and he opened his mouth to receive all my juices. I slumped against the wall, limp and spent.
He shut off the water, dried me. I felt his cock, thick and full and unspent, brush against me. I should have done something for him, I thought vaguely as he carried me to his bed. The sheets smelt of lavender. I sat curled in his bathrobe while he dried my hair. Afterwards he fluffed the pillows and put me to bed. Empty and drained I lay on the pillow and looked up at him. He kissed the crown of my head over and over again, and each time he promised to take care of me until the day he died. Then he looked down at me with quiet strength until I fell into a deep sleep.
Quote
—You’re the only thing I want to touch—
Chapter 33
Olivia
For a moment after I opened my eyes, the next morning was just another day. I blinked at the plain white walls, the masculine chocolate curtains, and the light pouring in at the edges. Marlow’s flat. I was naked between the scratchy sheets—mental note: go to Liberty’s and get some proper cotton ones.
And then it came, tumbling, sliding, hurting. Rocking my world. Questions hurtling towards me like an avalanche.
Twelve men at a time!
An involuntary sob hit the back of my throat. I covered my eyes instinctively as if I could stop the ugly thoughts and images. I felt strong hands grip my wrists and pull my palms away from my eyes. Marlow was crouched in front of me, buck-naked, his eyes were shining. In the morning light he looked so brown and big and sturdy. So full of vigor. I gazed at him in awe. It was almost like being in a dream.
‘I love you, Olivia,’ he said softly, his voice as caressing as velvet. ‘And there’s not one fucking thing about you I’d change.’
I opened my mouth. He was so amazing, so kind. But how could he look at me as anything other than a prostitute. At that moment I just wanted to disappear. I felt so unworthy of him. Tears stung at the back of eyes.
‘Not one fucking thing,’ he repeated.
‘But … I … was a whore,’ I choked, tears rolling down my cheeks.
‘Yeah, you were. Now tell me why I can’t love you.’
I stared at him. I had no answer.
He smiled tenderly. ‘You are beautiful, delicate and damaged, a terrifying combination to most people. They won’t know how to love you. But I know.’
‘But—’
‘There is only one but.’
‘What?’ I whispered, suddenly frightened. Even the tears dried.
He gazed into my eyes. ‘Do you still want to be a slave at the Invisible Society?’
I recoiled as if struck. Even the thought sickened me. ‘No. Absolutely not.’
‘Then there is no other ‘but’ to worry about, is there?’ He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. ‘I don’t know if I would have fallen in love with that unhappy, pitiful woman who needed the toxic combination of sex and danger to get her rocks off that you were, before you lost your memory and had to start again. But I do know that I worship you as you are now. To me there is no other you. This is the real you. And this you is everything I could ever have dreamed of.’
‘But I feel so ashamed of what I’ve done.’
‘It’s not your fault. You were just a child, an innocent, blameless child, when he twisted and over-sexualized you. What could you have done?’
I frowned. ‘So you don’t mind?’
‘Mind?’ he snarled. His jaw clenched and a vein beat at the side of his neck. ‘I mind so much it burns. I want to kill that pervert who did that to you. And while I’m at it I want to chop off the dicks of all those bastards in that sick society’ He shook his head. ‘But I can’t. So I won’t let myself fester in hate, I’ll just love you more.’
I licked my lips nervously. ‘What if … we’re out and someone who has … uh … someone who knows what I have done comes up and says something nasty to you?’
‘Look at me. Do I look like one of your lily-livered English toffs to you? I’m without my hat and boots, but I grew up on a ranch east of the Rockies. We don’t let nobody disrespect our women.’
‘I’ll only bring you down,’ I muttered.
‘Oh sweet child. You don’t get it at all, do you? Until you came into my life I was staring at guilt in the bottom of a bottle of whiskey every night. I had nothing, nothing to live for.’
I was full of doubts, the inside of my head like a knotted rope. I could see the knots but I couldn’t undo them. ‘I’m afraid.’
‘Of what?’
‘The only thing I remembered last night was what happened on the day my mother died, but everything else I know only from what I heard in the recordings. I’m scared I will slowly start remembering more and more and I just don’t want to remember any more of what I did in that horrible society.’
‘If you remember something that upsets you, then you’ll tell me about it, and we’ll deal with it.’
‘We?’
‘Yes, we. You’re the color of my blood, Olivia. What hurts you hurts me. There is no difference between your skin and mine.’
His Frozen Heart: A Mountain Man Romance Page 48
