Obscene: A Dahlia Saga Novel

by Natalie Bennett

  “That’s not what we’re here to discuss. She’s no longer your concern.”

  Her face soured on the spot. I ignored her, reaching into my car through the window and popping the trunk.

  “Hurry up; I have to get home.”

  That part wasn’t a lie. I’d been so busy the last four days, my time with Katie was down to fucking in the shower or waking her up bright and early in the morning with my cock.

  I couldn’t get enough of her; she was my fixation.

  The day I could make the Chateau my permanent home, my life would be stress-free. Almost.

  Glenda brushed past me, heading for my trunk where she thought there would be an envelope of money waiting for her. You never exchanged sensitive material hand to hand in the open.

  “Where is it?”

  “You don’t see it?” Feigning confusion, I walked around to stand behind her, concealing my cut-throat razor up my sleeve.

  “No, wher—”

  I clamped a hand over her mouth, silencing her inevitable scream, and sliced from the jugular forward, aiming her blood spray into my trunk.

  Did she really think I would give her a dime of the money owed to me?

  I held her twitching body by the forehead, patiently waiting for her to bleed out before letting her land haphazardly in a small puddle of her own blood. I swore I would never let her hurt Katie anymore; this was me keeping that silent promise to both of us.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  We never discussed what he did with the bodies.

  Thinking about it, the last few days all we did was add more bruises to my body, and then he disappeared. I felt like I’d traded one prison for another, but now I was dangerously addicted to my jailor.

  When he wasn’t trying to hurt me, he was so gentle, almost treating me like I was fragile. It was almost harder to swallow. The tenderest touch left the darkest mark.

  I needed to purge all thoughts of him from my mind, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

  Yes, something was wrong with me, because I swore I was starting to love him. It didn’t make sense to me sometimes, but he made me realize home was not a place; it was a feeling. Every time I looked in his eyes, I was there. I’d never felt so carefree while being confined.

  Mason was not mentally ill, nor was he broken. He was a man who lived his life exactly the way he wanted. If it was true that it only took moments to fall in love, then I fell into the abyss long ago.

  He still didn’t leave me alone for very long, but I’m sure he had a job he’d been going off to the last couple of days. I wish I could say I was productive while he was off doing whatever it was he did.

  I tried to go into all the rooms with shut doors, excluding the basement and the room with his chair, but they were all locked tight.

  His home was ridiculously large. There was a twelve-meter indoor pool located on one side. Why one guy needed so much space was beyond me.

  I knew if I were going to figure out anything, it would all come from his office—which sat in the straight path of a camera.

  After turning up empty-handed in the knowledge department, I spent the remainder of my day holding one-sided conversations with myself and his dogs.

  When I woke up, it was dark out.

  I’d fallen asleep watching a ridiculous movie on Lifetime. It was ironic that my reality was more believable than that.

  Soft piano music lured me to the formal living room. Mason sat with his back to me, fingers moving over the keys. Leaning my head against the wall, I watched him from afar.

  He was always so well put together. His voice always soft and eloquent.

  He exuded power without any effort.

  Control wasn’t something I willingly wanted to give up, but he forced my compliance by sheer will when he was inside me.

  He was both madness and paradise. Falling for him was like slow motion suicide.

  “What kind of person do you think you are?” He stopped playing, asking me without turning around.

  Did he know I was there the whole time?

  “I would like to say good, but I think we know that isn’t entirely true,” I answered softly.

  He made a humming sound in his throat.

  “People tell you to be yourself, and then they judge you for it. Whether you’re good or bad, they’ll talk about you, anyway.” He looked at me, making a come-hither motion with his hand.

  Tightening the sash on my robe, I went to him, curling against him when he pulled me onto his lap.

  “Look at this piano. The white keys represent happiness, goodness, and light. The black keys represent everything to do with darkness. How do you decide which one is better than the other, when they both make music?”

  I understood exactly what he meant. He wanted me to be myself. The thoughts in my head were never meant to be shared with anyone else. Mason didn’t have to ask what they were, because he knew me better than I knew myself.

  He was my guardian angel sent straight from Hell. If I met the Devil, I’d never be able to thank him enough for giving me Mason Andreou.

  “Everything you say makes me want to stay with you forever. It’s the things you do and the secrets you keep that tell me I should run.”

  “You can’t run from me; I’ll always find you. We are forever.” He wrapped me in his arms, resting his head on mine. “Even in death, I’ll find a way to lay with your bones beneath the soil.”

  Pulling away from him, I stood up and turned to face him, cupping his face in my hands. So many unanswered questions hung between us. I wanted to trust him more than anything else, but something in my gut yelled at me to not give myself away completely.

  He reached up, easily pulling me down so my lips met his. The kiss started softly, quickly turning into something carnal. Our teeth clashed and our hands were all over each other, freeing one another from our clothes.

  His hands traveled up to grip my hips, slowly lowering me to sit on his lap, pushing inside me at the same time.

  I moaned into his mouth, wrapping my arms around his neck. Who needed foreplay when you had Mason?

  “Fuck me, Katie.” Knotting a hand in my hair, he gently tugged my head back, urging me to move. I wasn’t sure what to do at first, but after a few experimental motions, it came naturally.

  The piano played an ugly melody as our bodies twisted together, hitting different keys. He buried his face between my breasts, nipping at the sensitive skin.

  When the bench rocked, he stood up with me still wrapped around him. I don’t think there was a spot in the room that went untouched; we fucked everywhere.

  He held me against the wall, keeping one leg wrapped around his waist, holding me in place by my throat while burying himself balls deep with every thrust.

  I lost count of how many times he made me come. When he turned me around to fuck my ass, my legs could no longer hold me up. The wall left an imprint on the side of my face.

  When I thought it was over, he forced me down to my knees, shoving his flaccid cock in my mouth.

  “Suck harder. Take me deeper.” He coached me the entire time until he held me by the hair and drove in and out of my mouth, stopping only when he was hard again.

  Our heavy breaths, moans, and grunts filled the air between us, mixing with the sound of skin smacking against sweaty skin.

  By the time we were done, he had bottomed out on top of me on the floor. We wore out the living room rug; carpet burns were up and down both my arms. The scratch marks on his back were trophies of my love.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I thought I was dreaming.

  Mason carried me to bed, and I was out like a light, his warm, solid body beside mine.

  When I heard what sounded like a soft whimper, I woke all the way up. Did he have another girl here?

  Turning my head, I looked over and saw he was sleeping. Moving as quietly as I could, I slid from beneath the comforter and got out of bed.

  Swiping my blue robe from the floor, I padded to the door, slip
ping out just to be met with a wet nose thrusting into my hand.

  Grabbing Max by his collar, I led him away from the room. He was the only one of the dogs that followed me around. I actually had no idea if Max was his name or not; Mason never told me what to call him, but it suited him well enough.

  “Stay here,” I whispered when we got outside the door Mason had led me through before. Max cocked his head but fortunately didn’t make a whiny fuss.

  Slowly exhaling, I gripped the knob and slipped inside. There had definitely been noises coming from inside the room and, sure enough, there was a brunette in the same position the blonde had been.

  When did he bring her here? How long ago was it?

  From the smell alone, she had urinated on herself more than once.

  She began to plead behind the gag strap the second she saw me. I shushed her as loud as I could, hoping she understood my silent plea for her to shut up. Creeping up to the chair, I gently touched her arm.

  “I need you to stay really quiet, okay?”

  Of course, I didn’t get a response, but she seemed to get the message. Searching the outside of the chair, I looked for the button he had hit before, finding it on the other side.

  I felt like Jigsaw had sent me to play a game. I swallowed my laugh, not wanting to freak out the girl in the chair any more than she already was.

  It wasn’t until after I hit the button that I realized why he had slit the blonde’s neck first.

  The restraints sprang free, gouging out chunks of skin in the process.

  “I’m sorry,” I stressed, wincing at her pain. Staring down at her bloody wrists, I wondered how the hell I was going to get the one off her face.

  “Just hang on,” I soothed, before rushing around the room. There were a variety of tools I had never seen before. With no time to examine them, I grabbed what looked like hedge clippers and raced back to the chair.

  “I’m just going to cut your head free,” I explained, lining up the clippers with the strap. They cut through without any issues, but the main part of the strap was still stuck to the girl’s face. Oh well, there wasn’t anything I could do about that.

  She was already using me to pull herself from the chair when it dawned on me; I wasn’t sure if the doors would open or not.

  Mason had got out of the basement somehow. That was her best hope.

  “Come on; we have to move fast.”

  Aside from her bleeding limbs, the girl could walk just fine. I only prayed she didn’t drop dead in the hallway from loss of blood.

  Max was no longer outside, but the bedroom door was still cracked as I’d left it. We moved together, quickly but silently, down the hall. My stomach was doing the hula-hoop, sneaking past the room.

  We made it to the bottom of the stairs and passed the front door when a throat cleared from the darkened drawing room. I froze. The brunette let out a muffled shriek and took off.

  Mason said one word in the language he’d used before, and the response was instant.

  The brunette made it a few steps before three black blurs raced through the foyer and launched themselves at her.

  I watched in awestruck horror as she was quite literally torn apart. The foyer was filled with the sound of snapping jaws, snarls, and garbled screams. I watched bloody white teeth sinking into flesh.

  They turned her body into a rag doll. One took a right, the other took a left, shaking their heads furiously back and forth, pulling in opposite directions. Bloodied saliva flew through the air. It was Max who delivered the final blow, going straight to the woman’s neck.

  A potent smell of dog and death permeated the air.

  A mess of what used to be a human being was all that was left behind when Mason called his hellhounds off. I knelt on the floor, transfixed by the brutality.

  “Unless you want to learn about anatomy, I suggest you follow me to grab a shovel,” he mused from the doorway.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  He gave me an all-white slip dress to put on before leading me into his backyard. It looked even bigger up close than it did from the window.

  “Come on; we can put her in the woods.” He pushed a wheelbarrow holding the brunette’s mangled body; I dragged a shovel.

  “You were awake the entire time, weren’t you?” I accused.

  “I knew you would try and let her go, Katie. Though I have to say, I wasn’t expecting you to succeed in freeing her.

  “Here’s good.” He stopped walking, setting the wheelbarrow down.

  “Don’t look at me like that. Start digging.” He leaned against a tree, unbothered by the bloodstains all over his white T-shirt.

  Keeping my mouth clamped shut, I began to dig as he told me to, silently fuming. Of course he knew what I would do. He always did. I paused to glare at him when he started to laugh.

  “I’m a little confused. Are you mad because you got someone else killed? Or are you mad that I’m making you clean up your fuck-up?”

  “Fuck you, Mason!” I dug the shovel into the soft dirt, contemplating swinging it at him when he laughed again.

  How could he find anything amusing right now?

  “Katie.” He stepped forward, grabbing the handle of the shovel to stop my angry assault on the earth.

  “What?” I stared down at my dirty dress, unable to meet his stare head on. With a gentle tug, he pulled the shovel from my hands and tossed it aside.

  He pinched my chin, tilting my head to look at him. “No one compares to you.”

  “No one compares to me?”

  “Why did you really try to let her go? We both know it wasn’t to save her.” Dropping his hand, he moved closer, sliding his arms around my middle. Even covered in guts, he smelled like heaven.

  “Why did you bring her home?”

  “I take them apart and paint them, Katie. The only person I’m fucking is you. I’m yours just as much as you’re mine.”

  His words bled sincerity. I didn’t think he would ever hurt me—not outside of our sexual escapades.

  “You were jealous over nothing,” he smirked.

  “Whatever.” I buried my face in his chest to hide my smile.

  “Go back to the house and get some sleep. I’ll take care of this.” There was a commanding tone to his voice. He pressed a soft kiss on my lips before nudging me back towards the house.

  I felt his heavy stare at my back as I walked away. I could’ve run right then, screaming for help. I chose to walk inside instead.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I waited up for him, but he never came back.

  The next day, I kept myself busy by giving the dogs a bath. Dragging three stubborn man-beasts to a tub of water was more work than I thought it would be.

  When dinner time came and went, I made myself a veggie tray, wondering where Mason was.

  By midnight, he still hadn’t come back.

  Trekking upstairs when I could no longer stay awake, I kept telling myself he was fine and not to worry.

  Glancing down the hall, I spotted a door that was usually locked wide open.

  “Mason?” When I didn’t get an answer or hear anything from within, I crept forward.

  “Holy shit.” Feeling along the wall for a light switch, I flipped it on and stared into the room. It was a decent size, full of paintings, some covered, some on easels.

  Shelves of bare skulls lined the walls. They all looked smooth and clean. A few were cracked. One was missing the front corner. I tried to count how many there were when the answer came from behind me.

  “There’s twenty-four. Two are missing.”

  “Mason!” Whirling around, I took a step back, taking in his clean appearance and the belt in his hands.

  “Oh, you missed me all of a sudden?” he questioned, making no attempts to touch me.

  Something told me he had avoided me because he was pissed off or upset. His lack of affection told me I was correct.

  “You don’t trust me, Katie. I would move mountains for you if that’s what y
ou wanted. I’m not sure what else you want from me. ”

  What? Where was all this coming from?

  “Mason, I’m sorry, but I don’t know."

  “I don’t want to hear that.” He cut me off and took a slight step back. Was this over the brunette?

  “What do you want, then?”

  Before I could register what he was doing, the leather belt was around my neck like a leash. He pulled until it was tight, taking me down to the floor.

  “Mason,” I choked out his name as he dragged me down the hall, my skin squeaking from the marble floor. He kicked open the bedroom door and dragged me across the carpet.

  Lurching down, he grabbed a fistful of my hair, holding the belt pulled tight with the other. My eyes began to water; swallowing became a chore.

  “I want you on your knees. I want my name on your lips, begging for forgiveness. For Mercy. For death.”

  His zipper went down, his erection sprang free, and he pulled my hair hard enough to make it feel like it would detach from my head.

  I opened my mouth to scream, and he slammed inside, causing me to gag and choke on his cock. He held my head still, keeping the belt pulled snug. Saliva ran down my chin; my eyes watered as I kept fighting the urge to dry heave.

  My knees were exactly where he wanted them, cemented to the carpet; I did my best to suck and stroke him at the same time, fondling his balls when my arm got tired. I knew he needed to do this for his own reasons.

  With a pained moan, he thrust into my mouth one last time before pulling out, a bit of his come hitting the back of my throat. The rest landed on the floor in a tiny puddle.

  “Lick it up,” he harshly breathed out, jerking the belt still looped around my neck. I looked up at him through teary eyes before slowly lowering my face to the floor.

  I lapped his come up like I was a kitten starving for milk. The bittersweet taste was something I’d cherish forever.

  “Good girl,” he crooned, pulling me up by knotting a hand in my hair. He walked me backward towards the bed, studying my messy face with a serene look on his.