“You are full of surprises Rose. I’m impressed. And do you sell any of these little projects?”
“Yes. God knows what Jim would say if he knew I almost matched my office wage selling them as ebooks.”
“That’s fantastic. Well done.”
“No, I don’t think that’s what he’d say.”
“It’s what I say. Jim can’t help being repressed. So can I read one?”
“I suppose you could read the start of the story Jim found. There’s nothing else, the rest are published and you’d have to buy them.”
She took him upstairs to the spare room and sat him down in front of the stationary computer. The thought of Mark reading about Daisy left her dizzy with mixed feelings; embarrassment, apprehension, desire… Would he recognize himself as the man from the bar? Letting him read it was the same as announcing she wanted him.
He began reading and she perched on the edge of the single bed clutching her wine, nervously watching him.
“This is really good, I had no idea you were so talented,” he said slowly when he was done. “My my, we do have a dark side don’t we?”
She blushed furiously.
“They’re just stories.”
“Longish dark hair? Icy blue eyes? Hmmm, anyone would think you’re writing about your brother-in-law.”
“No! Of course not. Well, anyway,” she said, changing the subject, “Jim’s furious.”
“He’ll come round. Besides, he’s too thick to even realise the guy you’re writing about is me. He’s acting like a kid. Don’t worry about it.”
“I am not writing about you,” she spluttered indignantly, her face beetroot.
“Whatever. What I want to know is what happens next? It’s pretty dark, what happens to the girl?”
“He takes her prisoner and she becomes his sex slave. But of course she ends up falling in love with him. You can’t beat Stockholm syndrome in a story.”
“And what do you know of being a sex slave?”
“I have a very good imagination.”
“What’s that saying? About writing what you know?”
“There’s also that one about artistic licence and imagination.”
She was trying so hard to be cool but his very nearness was making her head spin and her skin burn. Her heart hammered wildly when he sat next to her on the bed. Instantly she was transported back to that day fifteen years ago. The one and only time he had kissed her.
“You’re thinking about it too, aren’t you,” he said softly.
“Thinking about what?” she asked shakily through suddenly dry lips.
“You know what. The kiss, all those years ago. But you were fifteen, and I was twenty two. I wanted you so much, but Christ, you weren’t even legal. And you were dating my brother.”
“And now I’m married to your brother, in case you forgot.”
“I never forget it. I think about it every day.”
“It was so much easier when you were in Australia,” she said unthinkingly.
Oh God, that had come out a lot ruder than she’d intended. But he smiled at her.
“Yeah, but I had to come back. I had to leave my marriage far behind me.”
“The other side of the world is pretty far, I’d say,” she said, just happy they were no longer talking about the kiss. “You never did tell us what went wrong.”
“You’re right, I didn’t. I have this darkness Rose, there are things you don’t know about me. My wife knew. She even embraced it. She was like me too, in some ways. But sometimes it was too much, even for her.”
Rose was desperate to pry further but her natural shyness prevented her. She was also scared of what she might hear.
“You’re talking in riddles,” she said instead.
She was becoming increasingly aware that her skin was tingling and there was an achy wetness building between her legs. She hated her body right then for betraying her.
He reached out to brush a damp curl out of her eyes and she held her breath when his fingers grazed her forehead. Just that tiniest of touches made her heart pound.
“You were one of the reasons I went to Australia in the first place.”
“Me?” she asked shakily, not able to trust her own voice.
“Of course I wanted to go and explore the world. But I also had to get away from you. You were killing me Rose. I wanted you so bad but I couldn’t have you. A bit of me died inside when you married my brother.”
“I was pregnant. I was eighteen. I didn’t think I had a choice.”
“But you miscarried. Why did you stay? Why are you still with him now?”
Rose couldn’t even begin to explain to him why. Security. To honour her unborn child. Because they had tried for years after to have another child but the miscarriage had tragically rendered her infertile. Because she did love him, in her own way, once, a long time ago.
She said none of these things. Instead she shrugged.
He edged closer to her on the bed. She knew she should move, knew she should break the strange spell they had both fallen under, but she couldn’t. The predatory wolf eyes that had haunted her dreams for fifteen years were intently fixed on her, hopelessly rooting her to the spot.
How can two brothers be so different, she wondered? Jim, short, blonde and pleasant looking. Mark, tall dark and brooding. Mark seemed so wild and untamed, she was drawn to him on such a base, animal level. All she could think of in that moment was kissing him. She was drunk on the thought, the idea consumed her.
Then suddenly, he was. He captured her lips with his, pushing his tongue into her welcoming, eager, wet mouth. As soon as his tongue touched hers little sparks of pleasure went shooting straight to her nipples and pussy, like the three places were hotwired together.
She let out a small moan of need and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, drawing him closer, deepening the kiss. He began tenderly kissing the soft skin of her throat, lingering on the centre where her pulse fluttered like a trapped moth. She threw back her head in rapture, her eyes tightly closed.
She felt fingers at her neck, softly stroking her, then growing more insistent. Then they tightened around her throat.
“You’re hurting me,” she said in alarm.
But his grip only tightened even more. She wiggled under his grasp and tried uselessly to push him away by his shoulders but he was so much stronger than her.
“You’re so beautiful,” he breathed against her neck, licking and nibbling her there until she was writhing, partly in desire, partly to escape.
With a growl, he pushed her down on the bed so he was lying on top of her, crushing her with his weight. He held her down by the neck and with his free hand he ripped open her jeans and unceremoniously parted her wet labia and fingered her clit hard.
She jerked beneath him, the rough attention on the sensitive nerve endings sending jolts of hurting pleasure shooting outwards from her clit.
“Let me go,” she finally managed to get out, thrashing beneath him.
He did, leaving her lying there panting on the bed. With the weight of him gone she didn’t know whether she was relieved or disappointed. She rubbed her tender neck, her thoughts jumbled and tumbling and chaotic.
“You bloody strangled me,” she said.
“I didn’t do it hard. It won’t leave marks. And it’s not like you tried to stop me.”
“Yes I did!”
“If you say so.”
“Jesus Christ Mark, you tried to kill me. What is wrong with you?”
“Define wrong. Wrong is just individual perception.”
“Err, let me think. Oh, I know, how about fucking strangling someone?”
Rose didn’t swear, as a general rule. What was it with this man, she wondered? He brought out the devil in her.
“I should go,” he said.
“Yes, you really should.”
But even as she said it a huge rush of sadness and disappointment washed over her. Don’t go, she ached to say. It was right there, on
the tip of her tongue.
“Goodbye Rose.”
He left her in turmoil, positively delirious in disbelief. What the hell had just happened? He was strangling me, she thought darkly. Like Daisy was strangled in the story. It was a strange and terrible similarity and one which left her utterly confused. The front door slammed and she had never felt so alone before in her life.
It was no good, she was going mad sitting there with just her own fevered thoughts for company. Damn Mark. And damn her husband. The only thing to take her mind off it was to write. She took her place at the computer and reread what had happened to Daisy thus far. After a minute of silent contemplation she began to type.
“You really should be more careful who you go picking up in bars.”
He let go of my neck and I doubled over, coughing and clutching my bruised, damaged windpipe.
“What do you want from me?” I managed to choke out.
When I was bent double I watched him do up his jeans and adjust his clothes. I wanted to run but I couldn’t even stand up straight. I continued to watch helplessly when he opened the back door of the van. I couldn’t believe I had been so stupid as to be lead into a trap like this. I glimpsed a leather holdall, which he was now rummaging through. I seized the moment. His back was turned, and gathering together every last ounce of strength I managed to right myself and throw my half naked body past the barrier of the van
I only got two or three paces when he grabbed me by my long black hair and pulled me back again. My yelp of pain was pathetic and barely audible seeing as I had almost been choked to death.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, slamming me up against the brick wall.
The air left me in a rush when the sharp brickwork thumped into my back, scraping my bare skin. I didn’t have time to assess the damage though, I was more concerned about the hypodermic needle which he stabbed painfully into my upper arm. It took effect almost instantly. The last thing I remember is him catching me as my legs gave way underneath me . Then blackness.
I had no idea how long I’d been out or where I was. The events of the evening came to me in quick flashes, like stills from a film. Fucking the gorgeous stranger in the car park. The sudden switch from hot sex to blind terror. I let out a small moan of fear, which made me aware of the bad taste in my mouth, like a small animal had crawled in there and died. I was thirsty too, so thirsty my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and my throat felt closed up.
I realised that I was lying on my side and my wrists and ankles were bound. The floor was cold and hard and bit into my tender bare skin. Bare skin, I thought. The realisation that I was completely naked filled me with a fresh dread so intense I began to shake uncontrollably and whimper like a baby.
I tried to calm my racing thoughts and forced open my eyes. Whatever I had been injected with had left me groggy and I was still fighting sleep. The first thing I saw was my hands, which were tied together with rope and clutched to my naked chest. Then I slowly became aware of my surroundings.
At first my brain didn’t compute what my eyes were seeing. I couldn’t be locked in a cage. That was insane. It was completely outside the realms of possibility.
But I was.
Shakily I hauled myself to my feet, which proved to be a precarious balancing act. It looked like I was in a large basement. My cage was roughly six foot high by six foot wide. There was an identical cage next to mine about arm’s length away. It was empty. There were no other furnishings, just the concrete floor and stone walls. A bare low wattage bulb hung from the ceiling. There were two doors directly opposite me. I stepped towards the bars and rattled them with my bound hands.
“Hello?” I called out to the empty room. ‘Will somebody help me?”
Then I started to scream for help at the top of my voice. I screamed until my throat felt like razorblades. I screamed until I could scream no more. I sunk uselessly to me knees, hitching sobs racking my body, utterly exhausted and spent.
I was so far in the depths of despair, completely drowning in my own misery that at first I didn’t notice my captor had entered the basement. A wave of fresh terror and a tiny smidgen of hope coursed through me.
“Please,” I babbled, my throat hurting with every last word, “let me go, I’ll do anything you want just let me go. I’m so thirsty I need water, oh God, please help me.”
He stood in front of my cage as I scrambled ungainly to my feet, clutching my arms to my chest and keeping my legs firmly closed. He eyed me dispassionately.
“Don’t cry. Do exactly as I say or I will hurt you. I will hurt you a lot, do you understand?”
No, I wanted to scream, I don’t fucking understand. I don’t understand anything.
“Please,” I begged, “let me go...”
My pleading gave way to funny little mewling sounds that were half sobs, half hiccups.
“Shut up. You will learn. And you will learn quickly.” He reached into his jean pocket and pulled out a key. “Your training will begin now.”
Rose got up and sat on the bed, staring in disbelief at the computer. Where exactly was this story going? Yes, the stories she wrote were always a little kinky. Her stuff was light BDSM, of the gentle spanking and fluffy handcuffs variety. But this? It was dark. Where was it coming from?
She decided to turn in for the night, minus one husband and just her own darkness for company.
THE NEXT DAY
The headache had been getting steadily worse all day. It was now lunchtime and she felt sick with the agony pulsing in her brain. She couldn’t stop thinking about last night, how Jim had crawled into bed after three in the morning, stinking of beer and fags. Any questions she’d asked had fallen on deaf ears. He’d told her to go to sleep, that they’d talk in the morning. But of course they hadn’t. She’d left him this morning snoring in the bed. She just hoped that his hangover would be crippling.
She made her excuses at noon and left for home, craving nothing more than her darkened bedroom and a couple of aspirins.
As soon as she opened the front door she kicked off her sensible court shoe and headed straight for the stairs. Bed first. Drugs later.
When she pushed open the bedroom door she got the biggest shock of her life. All she could do was stare in mind numbing disbelief at the sight which greeted her. Jim was being violently ridden by a young blonde. Rose took in the lithe, youthful body and the small perky tits jumping in time to her manic bouncing. It felt to Rose like she was stood there for an eternity when in reality it was just seconds.
Her paralysis broke as soon as Jim spotted her.
“Fuck,” he spluttered, pushing the blonde off of him.
“Get that whore out of my house,” she said in a voice so cold she didn’t recognise herself.
“Oh my God Jim, you said she wouldn’t be back ‘til six,” the blonde whined, stumbling round the bedroom and picking her clothes up off the floor.
Rose found a bra that was way too small to be hers and threw it at the younger woman.
“Get the fuck out,” she spat at her, “before I fucking kill you.”
In that moment her rage was so pure and strong she had no doubt that she was capable of it. The blonde seemed to sense this and made a quick exit.
“Call me baby,” she said to Jim over her bare shoulder.
Jim winced at her words as surely as if she had slapped him across the face.
“Rose, I’m so sorry, you were never meant you to see that.”
“No shit.”
Part of her wanted to cry, the other half wanted to beat the living shit out of him.
“I love you Rose, she means nothing, you need to know that. Oh Jesus I’m so sorry.”
“I can’t deal with this right now. Please, just go.”
“Rose, honey, can’t we talk about it?”
She turned the full force of her hate filled gaze upon him and he visibly withered.
“I am going into the kitchen. You are going to leave right now. If you say on
e more word to me, I swear to God I will scratch your eyes out.”
With that she turned heel and left.
Once in the kitchen she slammed the door and clung to a work surface for support. Her legs threatened to buckle under her and she fought down the sudden urge to throw up. She closed her eyes and it was as if the image of her husband and his whore were burnt into her retina. She could see it all in the sharpest detail and she suspected she would continue to do so for a long time to come.
Relief and misery washed over her in equal measure when she heard the front door slam. Then she let open the floodgates of her grief, slumped to the floor and sobbed out her broken heart.
After twenty minutes of tears she made a huge effort to pull herself together. She thought about imposing herself upon a girlfriend. Lots of wine and a friendly ear might go some way to alleviating her heartache.
Instead it was Mark’s number she dialled. It wasn’t even a conscious decision to do so and she knew she should hang up. He picked it up after one ring, as if sensing her indecision…
End of Sample.
Brit Flick Sweethearts: A Rom-Com With Spanking Page 9
