Takedown: An Enemies to Lovers Dark Romance

by Lana Hartley

  “Oh, Nathan.” She squirms under me, my cock full and threatening to explode on her.

  “Oh Nathan…” Her little fingers are lost in my thick dark hair as I kiss her neck. I glide inside of her and feel her precious body shutter against mine.

  Her mouth is open and she looks at me as I near to kiss her; she wants it all night—I can tell—and I plan to give it to her. I want to explore her every part and just get lost in her. This is how I connect with women, through sex.

  I want to be in her, and not just a physical way. I want to wander through her the way I used to wander through the woods as a boy; hoping to find all sorts of things, not just the relaxing shade from the sun, but snakes and butterflies and darkness and lightness that falls between the leaves and all that. Every person is made of such things, and I want to know all of Isadora’s fantastic forest things.

  I sink into her and give her one more thrust, then I spill out in her. I hold her still, her body vibrating after mine let’s go in one single pulsating thrust.

  We lie on the floor for a while afterward, in silent comfort, and gaze up at the chandelier again. I stare for a long time at the pattern on the wall, my eyes just going over everything, all the immaculate detail. Maybe you see things differently after sex, maybe my head is all jumbled, but I look at all the colors and how everything makes sense in this nonsensical way. Is that how love is? One person meeting the other and there are all these feelings and experiences and fears and secrets, but somehow these two people with all this going on make it work. It just works, and it’s so beautiful and hypnotizing.

  “Hey? You know those weird…what were they called? Those magic eye posters or whatever.”

  She giggles. “In the 90s? Yes.”

  “They were weird, right? The whole secret pattern? I feel like that’s how love is, like…I don’t know.”

  She looks at me. “Sex has messed with your brain, Nathan,” she says. “At least the chandelier hasn’t fallen on us.”

  “Nope. We’re still alive,” I say. I look over at her, her skin is glazed in a sex-dewy sweat. I turn on my side and kiss her arm, and she shuts her eyes.

  I keep my eyes wide open however, because there is nothing—absolutely nothing—I want to miss as I lie in this room with her. I stare at every detail of her body, from her face to her neck to her chest, how perfectly round her nipples are, to her little hips and her nice long legs, and I realize how perfect she is. You must always, as a lover, admire the person you’re able to spend this time with.

  I just want to study her so that when I go to bed tonight she is fresh in my mind. Every detail, the way she looks when I talk to her, the expression she makes. Everything. Her little ears and wide blue eyes. I want every detail of her plastered to my memory so I can have lovely fantasies about her before I drift off to sleep.

  I trace my knuckles along her body, down her side, and over her stomach. She turns and looks at me, and I lean forward and give her a soft kiss.

  “What we’ve shared in his room is something special, and I’m grateful,” I say.

  Ugh. Is that something Vincent would say?

  She smiles softly but doesn’t say what she’s thinking. This is what keeps me, and probably Vincent, too, on our toes. Isadora can be hard to read.

  “I like you, Nathan,” she reveals. Well, it’s not the biggest revelation, but I’ll take it.

  “Like…” she starts to go on. There’s more, so much more. It’s like cracking a fortune cookie with her. I wait and see what the little piece of paper inside that cookie will say.

  “I…like…think about you sometimes…” She smiles real big and looks at me, turning her head to meet my gaze. “In my room, late at night…”

  “You wish I was there?”

  “I do,” she says. “I…think of you a lot, too, in the daytime. I’ll be doing something and wish you were nearby. We’d catch each other’s eye and whatever we were doing previously would just, like, drop off. We’d have this crazy kiss, and then we’d just…”

  “Fuck?” I guess. It’s pretty easy to see where that was going.

  “I’d like to sleep with you every night, with you in my arms,” I tell her, and not just because it sounds sweet and romantic and nice, but because I actually mean it. I’m being honest. “I could be good for you, Isadora, not just to you.”

  It’s a powerful statement, and it fucks her mind the way I just fucked her body. At least I think it does.

  “That would be nice,” she says.

  I mean, that goes without saying. I hate it when women say these types of things because there’s nothing real about it. It’s just a cute saying. It’s like fuzzy handcuffs. The real thing is better.

  “Uh huh.” I stare at the ceiling. I’m listless. I suddenly feel her hand on my body.

  “You want to know what I’m thinking?” she asks. “When I’m in my room at night, and I can’t sleep, it’s very dark and I’m very cozy; there’s no reason in the world that I shouldn’t be able to sleep, but you dominate my mind the way I want you to…”

  “Yeah?”

  Okay, this is getting good. The fortune cookie has cracked.

  “The way…I want you to dominate my body.”

  “What are you…oh…” Her hand reaches for my cock, which has already had so much fun, but she wants more. And I’m a young guy, and I think about sex every two-point-five seconds in the day.

  I feel her hand getting more aggressive, playing with me, shifting it about until it starts to move on her own. It wants to find her hand, but my pants keep it inside. She reaches up and unbuttons my pants and tells me to lie still. She wants to be on top.

  I have no qualms with this whatsoever.

  She climbs on top of me with a beaming smile on her face.

  “Hi.”

  “Hey,” I say. I gently touch her face and admire the gorgeous structure of it all.

  She straddles me and moves around on top of me. I’ve woken her up inside. Her sexual appetite has never been bigger. I wish Vincent was here to see this—without interfering of course.

  She moves around so that she can place me inside of her.

  “Oh…oh god, Nathan…” She places her hand against my chest, and I can see every expression she makes due to my cock, and this is so much better than taking her from behind. I like this position; I’m rarely in it.

  I shut my eyes and feel her warmth, her tightness as she squeezes her lips around me.

  “Oh…” I’ve never felt so good.

  She leans forward and kisses my mouth as she adjusts to my size, wriggling her sweet ass around on top of me. My tongue plunges inside her mouth, and I kiss her long, hard, and deep. She takes my wrists in her fingers and holds them tight, trying to control the moment.

  “You’re so hot, Nathan,” she giggles into my neck and moves against my cock, pulling up with her thighs so just the head of my dick rest between her lips. She smiles innocently then slams her ass down quickly, her pussy clenching my cock intensely. Fuck, I feel like I could come.

  I bite back a guttural groan and clench my fingers around her hips, trying to guide her along my cock.

  “So amazing, no wonder I think of you all night long,” she mewls as she grinds her tightness along my shaft. Her legs tremble around my thighs as she begins to fall apart, her small hands tightening around my wrists to maintain her balance.

  I let her take control and feel myself in those woods.

  I feel my bare feet against the moist dirt as I run and scurry about. I feel the wind the scent of nature around me. I hear things growing from the ground and rain as it starts to fall. I’m far from home, and I feel myself getting further and further away from all the things I have and closer to the sun, but the sun in this case is blonde hair.

  And it’s sweeping across my face. And her lips are gentle and persuasive. She gets her way, this woman.

  It feels so soft and safe, I get lost in it, and I think I can love her. Maybe I do.

  And then it happe
ns, our orgasms collide and she uncurls, her body jerking and spasming against me. I love watching her fall apart. I feel like I’m taking her to that magical place I went as a boy.

  We’re together, in the woods, and nothing can touch us.

  She rolls off me and seems to be in a less romantic mood than I am.

  “How many times have we done it?” she asks. She’s breathless and glowing. I lay next to her and stare at the chandelier. Why do I wish for it to fall? Who has such fantasies?

  I have dark fantasies, sometimes I wonder if she does, too. I glance at her and wonder what rolls through her head late at night, those midnight fantasies—the dark ones. Do they roll over her like storm clouds? Do I do obscene things to her in such fantasies?

  She gazes at me, and it’s a nice moment. She presses her lips against mine, and I shut my eyes and wait as her tongue slowly enters my mouth. She’s addicted. There’s this lingering addiction like the chandelier hanging above us. And I want the addiction to crash over me and nearly kill me—not the chandelier—I realize.

  Isadora suddenly shoots up and messes with her hair, pulling it over to the other side of her face. She is gorgeous, I broke her wall of troubles and now she’s glowing like some brand-new summer morning.

  “You know what I think?”—she looks down at me—“I think men feel a lot more than they let on, but they’re afraid to express themselves, so they leave girls staying up all night wondering what they’re thinking. Such a man wouldn’t speak about whatever it is he’s thinking about, and this leaves the girl tired and cranky and unsure of everything. It complicates things, all because men can’t talk about whatever they’re feeling.” Her hand suddenly moves over and grabs my flask. I thought she was going to grab my cock again.

  She takes an enormous swig, and I think she pretty much just drained everything in it. I look back at the chandelier.

  “You know?” she says. She wants some type of interaction. “I mean, like right now, what are you thinking?” She drinks more of my whiskey. The woman is going to town on it.

  I’m kind of hungry, but I’m not about to say that.

  Think, Nathan, before you speak for a change.

  “I think we’re just afraid…sometimes.” I shrug. “We like to feel like we’re in control, and if we…you know, open up…” I sit up and reach for my flask. It’s empty. She killed it. “Then we’ll feel like…vulnerable.”

  “But—I mean, I know—and I appreciate you saying that, Nathan.” She reaches out and squeezes the muscle of my upper arm. “But it’s okay. Tell me, tell about your biggest fears, I want to know.”

  “Um…” fears? “Losing you.” I’m quite serious. I hope she doesn’t laugh. I mean, what is she looking for? Everyone has fears. Sharks. Bears. House fires in the middle of the night.

  “I just want you…all the time. And I’m afraid that maybe, I’m not good enough. Men worry the same as women.”

  She eyes me, and she’s very focused, as if I have something growing out of my face.

  “Anyway, what’s your biggest fear?”

  She looks at me. “Having my heart broken. Men are hard to read, like I was saying.”

  “And like I was saying—we’re scared. There you go, how’s that. You want to know our fears— we’re fucking scared of everything.”

  She laughs.

  “Women terrify us,” I say. She laughs so hard that she snorts. It’s kind of cute.

  “Oh, Nathan.” She lay down and looks up at the chandelier, still laughing.

  “Well, that’s something.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, you want to know what I’m thinking now?” I ask. She’s a bit giggly.

  “Sure, Nathan.”

  “I’m thinking that I want more whiskey.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have drunk it all then.”

  “You drank it. Drunk it, whatever.”

  She laughs at my little problem getting the words right.

  “You can’t even talk right, you’re an alcoholic.”

  “I’m not! How can I be an alcoholic when you drink all my whiskey?”

  “It’s good. You drink a lot, Nathan.”

  “No, I don’t. So…tell me, what was the latest thing you were thinking in your room, like at night, when you think of me?”

  “Oh…well, you come in—you’re not drunk, and you stare at me. I don’t know you’re there because I’m asleep. And you…you reach down and touch my foot, and I still don’t wake up. You get hard, watching my naked body just lost in sleep, and it excites you because you feel this power over me. I suddenly open my eyes, and there you are. I grab your wrist and pull on it, and I want its strength and all of your strength on me.”

  “I have this bad dream sometimes,” I decide to get real with her. “I’m a little boy, in the woods, and I can’t find my why home. Something is chasing me; it’s big and scary, some kind of animal, and I just know it’s going to attack me—kill me even. But when I see you, I swear I don’t feel scared. Every day I see you, I never have that nightmare that night… after seeing you.”

  Isadora

  “I’m glad you’ve made yourself more comfortable with your betrothal,” Queen Illeana’s voice cuts into the air. Now, the sanctum of my soon-to-be past bedroom is violated as her words break through my thoughts.

  Heat rushes to my face. It could be an innocent phrase, surely, that my mother opened with, but I’m certain that she intended to be impactful. I shouldn’t feel shame or embarrassment. Mostly, I feel shock. The once innocent world I occupied feels much more mature now, and I’m not sure how I feel about these worlds colliding.

  She must know… Have I really done anything wrong? I insisted with Vincent and Nathan that I wouldn’t truly give up my virginity to either of them, not until an official bedding ceremony, and that’s what I intend to do. But there’s something about the way that my mother says anything that makes my whole body on edge at just a breath from her. My mother knows how to get under my skin. I notice it now, now that I’m not so innocent. The woman has barely trained me to rule, and now I’m going to have two kings at my side. My mother hates to share power. I gather my composure and aim to give her a simple answer, hopefully unburdened by any of my worries.

  “Yes, Nathan has a sharp wit, and Vincent a sweet heart,” I explain. “It’s easy to fall for them both.”

  “Oh, yes, I’m sure letting them put their hands on you made falling for them so much easier,” the queen says.

  I turn to see the queen raising her eyebrows.

  “Mother?” My voice comes out higher than I’d like it to be. “How did you know?”

  She laughs. It isn’t a sound that I hear often, and it is a little off-putting now, though I feel terrible for thinking so. It’s just jarring, that’s all. She’s a very serious woman, so laughter is an odd addition to the otherwise fixture that is her stern personality. “I am the queen,” she offers. It isn’t a terrible explanation, I realize. “There’s little that I don’t know, if anything at all.”

  I raise my eyebrows. She’s right.

  “In my palace, I know everything that happens.” Her terse smile as her hands squeeze my shoulders leaves me unsettled.

  Vincent

  The halved ruby red grapefruit seems melodramatic against the cream backdrop of the royal china, waiting for Princess Isadora to lift the royal spoon and have breakfast. I wonder why I’m thinking about grapefruits and the crown’s dishes at all, until a familiar male steps stalk into the dining room.

  “Nathan.” I nod.

  He looks every bit as thrilled to see me as I am to see him. I’m a little surprised that the slasher in a horror movie demeanour Nathan always seems to have seems to be curling up around the edges. “Isadora must know you’re here already, so she’s taking her time to show up.” The sneer on his face tells me that he’s bothered by just how much I obviously care for Isadora. He doesn’t sit, but reaches to grab a muffin from one of the cake stands on the enormous dining table.


  It pisses me right the fuck off. Because this wily asshole shouldn’t be anywhere near her. “Are you even capable of loving her? Or is she just a golden-haired pawn in your latest scheme?” I spit the words back at him, standing up now and looking him right in the eyes.

  “Do you think some meathead such as yourself isn’t too brutish for someone as smart as Isadora? There’s settling and there’s going far beneath…” Nathan lets his words trail off. That’s probably the first smart thing he’s done since we started verbally sparring over Isadora. But we both know that was too fucking far. I’m not just a cock and a set of fighting arms, and petty insults tell me Nathan’s distracted.

  Still, I’m the brutish one, and it all makes sense because right now I want to punch a hole into Nathan’s head then throw him off the nearest cliff. My blood rushes through my veins like a hot geyser ready to erupt, and I don’t need to make him feel vindicated, but I’m quickly losing my cool.

  “How I feel about Isadora, truly, is none of your business.” Nathan’s thumb rolls down the tin containing the muffin and then he tosses it at me. “Get some fiber, you look like you might burst.”

  I catch it and crumble it in my hands, decimating it over the grapefruit I’d been about to eat. Who can eat a grapefruit if it’s covered in muffin? Maybe after I stab the serrated edge of the grapefruit spoon into Nathan’s chest I’ll eat a muffin.

  “Get over yourself and keep whatever shit you have planned away from Isadora; she doesn’t deserve anything you have to offer.” I can offer my own low blow.

  Nathan raises an eyebrow, and that smug look of satisfaction on his face keeps my blood boiling. “Actually, I’m off to tea with Isadora and Queen Illeana.” He wields the words like a victory. “Did she not tell you that she’d be with me instead of breakfast with you?” Nathan turns around to leave, and I ignore him best I can, which isn’t that difficult because now I’m thinking about how I’m not going to see Isadora yet. I can’t believe just how disappointed that makes me feel, how it can distract even my hottest rage, but I am infatuated with her like I’ve never felt before.