Twisted: A Dark Romance (Barrowlands Book 1)

by Esme Devlin

  I twist the thick crunchy-cotton bedsheets around my body, pushing the duvet between my legs and hugging the pillow. I’m not ready to get up yet, even though I know I have to.

  He’s only been back, what, twenty-four hours? And already I’m exhausted at the thought of facing him again. I’m too weak to be around him, and yet deep down, the memory of how I felt when he was gone is still there. I was even weaker then, when I was pining for him. Desperate for his games and his excitement. Craving his harsh words with his soft touch. His gentle praises with his ruthless hands. The constant switching between those opposites and never knowing which one he’d choose for me next.

  I must be ill. I must have lost my mind. What has he done to me?

  The answer comes the same second the question crosses my thoughts.

  He has well and truly won.

  That’s what he’s done.

  All the minor victories he gave me along the way were just distractions.

  I was so busy trying to play the game, I never realized that he was building a wall around the board.

  And now I’m trapped. It’s not physical walls that are keeping me in. Baron is the walls. He is every corner and all four sides. Getting out would mean breaking him into pieces… and even if I had the strength, I don’t know if I have the heart. Even after everything he’s done, and everything he will do. I don’t know if I have the heart to crush him.

  The thought of escape has been the only thing keeping me sane. The only light in the darkness. Am I just pretending, though?

  It seems I’m the only one left with their head still stuck firmly in the sand. The only one still clinging on to hope.

  And I’m scared that in letting go of that hope, I’ll lose myself.

  I’m pulled from my pity party by the sound of the door unlocking. He must have locked me in. Silly man—I was never going to run. There is nowhere for me to go.

  Baron looms at the bottom of the bed, a dark silhouette against the light of the fire. I don’t have to look at him. I can see the shadow in the corner of my eye.

  “Did you miss me, sweet girl?”

  My mouth is so dry, but I won’t let it stop me. “Like a toothache.”

  He laughs.

  It would be a mistake to assume his laughter means he’s out of his mood, though.

  “Excellent. Are you hungry? Come, I brought you some food.”

  He brought me some food. That’s nice.

  I don’t want it.

  When I don’t come to him like a well-trained puppy, he pulls the curtains back and sits down on the edge of the bed.

  “What were you thinking about?” he asks.

  I stare up at him. “Giving up.”

  He turns around to look down at me. “You’re lying.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes.”

  I close my eyes. I’m not about to start another argument and set him off again.

  “Come. If you give up, you won’t see the surprise I have planned for you.” He gives me a gentle shove, and it has me opening my eyes.

  This man is giving me whiplash.

  “I’ve experienced your surprises. Not interested.”

  He laughs as if I’ve just complimented him. “I promise you will like this one.”

  Seemingly done with trying to convince me with his words, he reaches in and pulls the covers back. Cold air settles on my skin, and I dart up to get the covers back. This just gives him the space he needs to lift me up.

  He plucks me out of the bed like he’s picking a flower.

  I’m too tired to fight him anymore.

  Fighting gets me nowhere. Well, at least nowhere that I actually want to be.

  He puts me down in front of the fire, and that’s when I notice his surprise. Strawberries. A whole tray of them. Fresh, not dried, and dipped in something brown that could only be chocolate.

  I’ve never seen anything like it.

  I like strawberries, and I love chocolate.

  But what type of woman would eating them make me?

  The type that can be bought for a fucking strawberry, that’s who.

  “I don’t want to eat them.”

  “That’s fine,” he replies, taking me by surprise with his agreeable tone. “You can sit on my knee, and I’ll feed them to you.”

  I would raise my eyebrows if I could summon the energy for it, but I can’t. So instead, I just turn around, giving him my back.

  “My gran told me you love chocolate,” he continues.

  “She wasn’t lying.”

  He chuckles, and a moment later I feel his hands on my shoulders. “Then why won’t you eat?”

  Does he really not know?

  Surely nobody can be that ignorant.

  The fact that he went to even a scrap of effort with me shows that he clearly knows his actions went too far last night. Otherwise, why bother?

  But if this is his way of apologizing… he’s going to need to try harder.

  I turn around to face him, and his hands slide from my shoulders. “Look at us? I’m not even allowed clothes! You want me to sit on your knee—naked—while you feed me strawberries? Tell me, who does that benefit? Is this really for me, or is this just another way of you getting what you want and pretending it’s all for me? All of your games, all of your lessons, even your shitty apology—they’re for you, not me.”

  He takes a step back and tilts his head to the side.

  I remember when that used to scare me.

  My stomach would twist in knots.

  Not anymore. He’s already done his worst. What else could he possibly do now?

  We stand there, staring at each other, while I wait for him to answer me.

  He doesn’t, though.

  He turns and walks away.

  And I’m not about to watch him leave.

  The door closes behind him with a click, and I’m just staring into the flames.

  I take a couple of steps toward the fire. My skin goes from warm to hot to almost unbearable the closer I get. But I don’t mind the discomfort. At least it’s not the impossible mixture of numbness and frustration and hurt I was feeling a minute ago.

  The discomfort blocks all of that out.

  I wonder if this is why Ruby always liked the fire so much?

  I’ve learned more about my best friend in the time I’ve been away from her than I did in all the years I was with her. Ruby taught me so much about the world that can’t be learned from magazines and newspapers.

  But I never actually walked in her footsteps. I never experienced the things she did.

  All those years of being hurt and toyed with, used and humiliated, and she still barged through my curtain every day with a smile on her face and a giggle simmering under the surface.

  It’s only now that I’m realizing just how hard that must have been. To keep up an act, all the fucking time.

  But right now, with the fire scorching against my skin, it’s hard to hold on to the numb feeling. Was that her secret? Engulf the pain with something even worse? Did she cauterize her body every night just to save a tiny piece of her soul?

  “Get away from there.”

  I’m pulled from my thoughts when hands yank me back from the fire. I was so deep inside my own head that I didn’t even hear him come back into the room.

  I turn around just to see him shaking his head at me. “Don’t do that,” he says.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ll burn yourself, that’s why.”

  A laugh escapes me. “I used to think you cared. Now? Now I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t.”

  He lets out a sigh. “I care about you burning yourself.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I do. Here,” he says, throwing a bundle into my arms. “You can get dressed now.”

  I look down and find the same as I always find. A black dress and a pair of stockings. He turns his back, his hand massaging away the pressure in his neck.

  I don’t waste any time in puttin
g the clothes on.

  The moment I’m dressed, I ask him again, “Why?”

  “Bad memories,” he says, his back still to me.

  “What, did you burn yourself as a child or something?”

  That would explain the mask.

  He spins around to face me. “No. Don’t be so ridiculous.”

  “Then what?”

  “I have a complicated relationship with fire,” he replies with a shrug.

  I scoff. “So complicated you held me over a counter full of candles just last night?”

  “That was different,” he says. “I was in control of that. I wouldn’t have let you hurt yourself, no matter what you choose to believe.”

  “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  He takes a step toward me. And then another one. He’s at my side, but I stay in place. “How about we stop dancing around the elephant in the room, hmm?”

  He’s walking around me now, but I don’t watch him. He likes it when I’m flinching at his every move. I won’t flinch, though. I have no reason to give him what he wants. “From where I’m standing, the elephant in the room is you.”

  He laughs, his mood shifting instantly. I think he’s trying to drag me into another one of his games. “Just say it, Sapphire. Spit it out. Tell me how you feel about me. Tell me what an utter cunt I am.”

  My eyes go to him now, and he stops directly in front of me. I swallow. “I shouldn’t have gone for your mask. I don’t know why it was wrong, just that for whatever reason—it was. But what you did feels worse. Much worse. You humiliated me.”

  “You betrayed my trust,” he shoots back.

  “You betrayed my trust, too.”

  He sighs.

  “I could threaten you, you know that, right? I could do what I did last night. I can bend you to my will so easily, sweet girl. But I’m trying to be better. I’m asking you to help me.”

  I stare up at him. “Why would I do that?”

  He lifts his shoulder in a shrug. “Because I’m going to try to make you happy.”

  I shake my head. He says that so often but forgets it so quickly. Why would this time be any different? He wants me to believe I can bend him to my will, but that’s not the case.

  You can’t control a psychopath.

  He can’t even control himself.

  I clear my throat. “I wish I could believe that.”

  “I’m only asking for a chance to prove it.”

  Staring up at him, I can’t even tell if he’s lying. I can’t see his face. Can’t see if his eyes are looking to the left. But I do have an idea to see if he’s serious. “I want my room back.”

  He pauses for a long time and then turns around, giving me his back. “Fine. Deal.”

  “Ah, not so fast,” I say, feeling bolder and equally suspicious. “Get rid of the cameras. When I want to be alone, I want to be alone.”

  “After what happened? Absolutely not.”

  “Then no deal.” I brush past him and head for the strawberries.

  I’m happy to eat them now that he knows it’s not going to change a thing. I have no shame. I pick one up and pop it in my mouth. It’s quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever tasted.

  He chuckles behind me. “Fine. I’ll have them taken down.”

  I turn around to face him, taking a strawberry with me. They really are delicious. “No. You’re going to take them down. Personally. And you’re going to take me to wherever you used to watch me and prove it.”

  Never have I ever felt this brave before.

  Never have I ever told him what to do.

  The thought has a nervous weight settling in the pit of my stomach.

  The fact that he’s just staring at me doesn’t help.

  He moves toward me, quick as ever, and pushes me back against the table where the food is sitting. His hand locks around my wrist, leaving the strawberry in midair just inches from my mouth. That feeling returns quickly. The one that catches my breath. The one that has my heart racing inside my chest.

  Then he laughs, as if he’s pleased with himself. “Just checking. We can’t have you feeling brave all the time, can we?”

  He’s making sure I’m still scared of him, and I fell straight into his trap.

  I swallow down the lump in my throat.

  He takes a step back. “Anything for you, sweet girl. Now put your face on and come with me.”

  23

  Baron

  There is no show tonight, but there are still guests needing to be entertained. We sit in the club, me in my chair and Sapphire on my knee. Girls dance around poles on the stage and music pounds against my ribcage. The whole thing is rather tame and boring.

  At least she’s with me, though, even if she is different.

  Braver.

  Just slightly, but it’s noticeable.

  I feel like I’m walking along a razor’s edge with her. Too much, and I’ll scare her back into that shell I despise, too little, and she’ll stop being scared of me.

  I don’t know what the fuck to do.

  And patience has never been my virtue.

  I’ll give her a few days. Last night her room was bleached until it almost looked white. I sat on the chair and didn’t sleep a wink so she could have my bed to herself. I took the cameras down with my own two hands. I had the mattress burned and put a new one in for her. The windows have been open all day, but it still smells like blood—and I’m the one with the metal nose.

  She’s happy, though.

  Apparently.

  Celeste says to give her time. Give her space. Let her come around on her own.

  Then tell her everything.

  Let her in.

  I’m not so sure about that.

  For me to let her in, she’d have to let me in first. For her to let me in, she’d have to love me. And I don’t want that.

  Fear is stronger than love, and you can never have both.

  And she’s not going to stay scared of me if I spend all my time dipping strawberries in fucking chocolate. That was Celeste’s idea, too.

  I accept the fact that it seemed to work, but I also happen to think my original idea would have worked just as well.

  Oh well.

  She’s here now. Curled up on my knee with half-lidded eyes. I stroke her hair and draw circles on her thigh. She squirms every time my hand strays. It amuses me.

  But we could do this anywhere.

  We could be in my bed right now.

  She told me she wanted to come here.

  She feels safer with a crowd because she knows in order to fuck her, I’d have to stomach other people seeing her. She didn’t tell me that, but I know that’s what she was thinking. Sometimes, she is smarter than she looks.

  But she’s wrong.

  I could bend her over the chair right now, and every soul in this room would avert their eyes if I told them to.

  I could. But I won’t.

  Patience.

  Give her time.

  I’m giving her time.

  Trying to.

  “Can I go to bed now?”

  It’s still a few hours until dawn. The music will go off shortly. Money will be exchanged, doors will be locked, clothes will be removed.

  But I don’t want to leave her.

  “My bed or yours?”

  She lifts her perfectly arched eyebrow at me.

  I chuckle.

  Was worth a try.

  I stand up with her still in my arms and nod to Andrei—not that he’s paying much attention. He’s looking at the blonde sucking him off like he wants to start sucking her off.

  “I can walk, you know.”

  She waits until we’re out of the room to drop that little grenade, and she does it so I don’t need to make a big public spectacle of her insolence. See, she really is smarter than she looks.

  But I don’t let her walk. I don’t even let on that I’ve registered her comment.

  I don’t say a thing until we are outside her room and I finally p
ut her down.

  “So… this is goodnight then…”

  This is goodnight… but I don’t want it to be.

  She lets out a breath and looks to the side. “See how much easier this is when you’re…”

  Her words trail off.

  She swallows.

  “When I’m what?”

  I push her against the wall and lift her up, wrapping her legs around my waist. Boxing her in. Rendering her helpless.

  A cry escapes her lips.

  She thinks it’ll help her—it won’t. She’s wrong.

  Do the cries of a lamb stop the wolf in his tracks?

  Of course not.

  The cries draw the wolf.

  The wolf goes for the neck.

  The lamb gets carried away.

  Nature.

  The Bible says the wolf shall dwell with the lamb. Isaiah 11:6. Yes, I have studied the Bible. In the new world, there will be a new religion, and I had to work out which bits I wanted to keep.

  An eye for an eye?

  I respect that.

  Wolves and lambs living together in peace?

  Lambs must remember their place.

  And she is my lamb.

  “What are you doing?” she asks, snapping me back to the actual conversation.

  Another one of her silly questions. This one, I choose to ignore.

  I’ll replace it with a more pressing matter.

  “Tell me, sweet girl, how do you feel about me?”

  She stutters over her words. Stumbles so much, the thing that comes from her mouth is incomprehensible.

  That tells me more than coherent words ever could.

  She lets out a sigh and tries to look me in the eye. It’s a valiant attempt at bravado that fools neither of us. “I can’t answer that question.”

  I’m grinning beneath my mask.

  This is perfect.

  What happened between us in that shower, I’ll remember that night until the day I die. It was… beautiful. It was beautiful, and she deserved that.

  But this is exceptional.

  This is what makes her exquisite, and what makes us unique.

  The puzzle that needs to be solved.

  Could I fuck her right here?

  I couldn’t kiss her. I couldn’t bite her. I couldn’t taste her.

  Yes, I enjoy being able to kiss her. Bite her. Taste her.