“Yes.” She didn’t intend on mincing her words.
“It’s not that I get pleasure from this, Flower. It’s that I don’t deserve anything less.”
“You need to stop blaming yourself for what your father did to you. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Perhaps not, but the years that followed have been. Don’t think for a moment that I’ve been living like a saint here since he’s passed.”
Her cheeks heated. She knew what he was saying. He was telling her there had been more prostitutes, that his work meant people were hurt, perhaps even killed.
Sudden anger boiled inside her. It was an anger which stemmed from many things—from the terrifying experience he’d put her through to bring her here, to her treatment when she’d first arrived, to her anger at him for not becoming a changed man once he’d found himself free of his father, to the anger she felt at a man she’d never met. A man who had thought it was okay to keep a child locked away from the world for the simple fact he was born with a port wine birthmark. Her rage swept through her like a forest fire caught on a wind, burning all other emotions from her soul. If he wanted to be punished so badly, then she’d give him what he wanted, and she’d use the satisfaction of doing so to put out the fire.
“You know what, you do deserve the pain.” She reached out and pushed him in the chest, shoving him back down on the bed. “Now keep the fuck still.”
She steadied her hand, knowing she couldn’t work on him if she couldn’t control the trembling that wanted to work its way through her body. She pressed down hard on the side of his head with her other hand, her fingers knotting in his hair. She tried not to think about the softness of the strands, or the way he was looking at her—as though she’d suddenly made him unsure if he could trust her.
Good, she thought, bitterly. That’s how I feel about you all the time.
She started the laser again, the machine clicking across his skin with the piercing light, eradicating the blood vessels that caused his dark birthmark. She pressed her lips together, her chin trembling, as she saw the pain in his expression. He didn’t fight it, he accepted it, and that made things all the worse.
He deserves this, she told herself. After everything he’s done, he can take a little more pain.
But if that was the truth, why was it breaking her heart to hurt him?
***
With the treatment complete, Lily handed Monster a new supply of the cream he would need for his skin, and he took her back to her room.
“What happens now?” she called even as the door was shut in her face and locked. She huffed out an angry breath. “Damn it!”
Monster had barely spoken to her since the treatment. Had he picked up on her anger toward him? Surely he couldn’t blame her for that, considering everything he’d put her through? Stupidly, she couldn’t stop the guilt from rising inside her. She hadn’t done anything wrong, yet she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t taken at least a little satisfaction in the pain she’d caused him.
You abused your position.
No, she hadn’t. She hadn’t done anything he hadn’t asked her to do.
Frustrated she’d been locked back inside her room, she did her best to occupy her time and thoughts. She showered, read, slept, and ate the meals that were brought to her, but when the hours stretched to days, she started to worry. She was reduced to banging on the door, shouting out Monster’s name. Where was he? What was he doing? Had she angered him so much that he’d revoked all of the rights he’d offered her recently?
Movement came at the door, and Lily’s heart leaped, hoping Monster had finally come to her. The door opened, but instead of Monster walking through, Marianna bustled in, a bowl of food on the tray in her hands.
“Marianna,” she said, clutching at the other woman’s arm as she set down the tray containing her lunch. “What’s going on? Why hasn’t he been to see me?”
“I’m sorry, Miss. Sir is busy with work.”
“Yes, I understand that,” she snapped, “but that hasn’t stopped him seeing me before. Is he taking care of his skin?”
She bobbed her head. “I believe so, Miss.”
Lily huffed in exasperation. “What about Tudor? Where’s he?”
“He’s busy as well, Miss. I’m sorry.”
Lily appraised the smaller woman. She could push right past her and head out to find Monster herself.
Marianna’s eyes widened, as though she’d read exactly what had passed through Lily’s mind. “Please, Miss. Don’t. You’ll get us both in trouble.”
Lily paused. “What did they do to you, Marianna? Were you stolen and brought here, like I was?”
Genuine confusion passed across the older woman’s face. “No, Miss. I wanted to work for Sir. I lived a life of great poverty before I came here to work. He’s good to me.”
“But you know he’s imprisoned me, though? I never asked to be brought here.”
She didn’t meet Lily’s eye. “I know that, Miss. I’m sorry, but it was necessary. He needed your help.”
“But I’m not helping him locked in this room!” she cried, starting to feel desperate.
“I’m sorry,” Marianna said, backing out of the room.
“No, wait!”
But the older woman moved with surprising speed, darting back out of the door and pulling the door shut with her. Lily slammed into the wood, her fingers grappling for the handle, but no sooner had she wrapped her hand around it than she heard the click of the lock clicking into place.
She balled her fists and slammed them against the wood. “Monster!” she yelled. “Come and face me, you coward! Let me out of this god damned room!”
Furious, she spun around. She wanted to take her rage and fury out on something—anything. He’d kissed her, been intimate with her in a way she hadn’t been with anyone for ten years, and then he’d locked her back in here and forgotten about her.
With a scream of rage, she tore the sheets off the bed, picked up one of the pillows and threw it at the wall. She kicked out at the heavy, wooden chair, but only succeeded in hurting her bare foot, so she reached out and shoved the chair over. It hit the floor with a crash, but still her fury hadn’t dissipated. She needed to destroy something, rip something to shreds until she was left panting and exhausted.
Her gaze scanned the room and finally alighted on the shelf of books.
Not giving herself time to think, she ran over and shoved her hand into the shelf. With a swipe of her arm, she sent the books—mostly hard-covers, and a few paperbacks—fluttering to the floor. Like a starving man to a meal, she dropped to her knees and picked up the first book she came to. The covers flapped open, and she took a handful of pages in her other hand and tore right down the middle.
With a crazed howl of delight, she threw the pages into the air and they fluttered down around her like confetti.
I’ve lost my mind, she thought abstractly, but that didn’t stop her from grabbing the next book and repeating the process, and then another, and another.
So lost in the destruction, she didn’t even notice the bedroom door opening.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Lily glanced up to find Monster standing in front of her. His face was white with fury, his dark eyes even darker than before. His hands were clenched fists at his side.
“I said,” he repeated slowly, biting out each word. “What the hell are you doing?”
The madness finally faded away and she looked around to find herself sitting in a lake of torn paper and jumbled words.
“I ... I … wanted to get your attention.”
“You’ve certainly succeeded in doing that,” he snarled.
Dropping to one knee, he reached out and pulled several of the ruined books toward him.
The rage dropped from his shoulders and he shook his head in dismay. “Oh, Flower. How could you?”
She caught a glimpse of the cover of the book he held so preciously against his body, as though she’d killed his favor
ite pet.
The Elephant Man.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and she meant it.
He lifted his eyes to hers. “These books were the only thing I had from my childhood that meant anything. They were the only comfort and joy I had in my life. They were my escapism, and you’ve just destroyed them.”
“Well, perhaps you shouldn’t have put me in a position where I would want to destroy them.” She couldn’t help the bite in her voice. “Take some responsibility, Monster. You lock me up in here, and expect me not to retaliate?”
“I had other things going on. I was trying to keep you safe.”
She snorted. “Keep me safe? As far as I can tell, the only person who has ever put me in danger is you.”
He placed the ruined book onto the ground between them, but kept his head lowered. “I didn’t know you then. I didn’t understand what I was doing.”
“Ignorance is not an excuse.”
He lifted his eyes to hers. “And if I let you go now, if I offered to have you flown home, would you go?”
A rush of hot and then cold swept across her body. “Is that what you want? You want me to go?”
“No. I want your answer.”
She wrestled internally with herself. “I don’t like to leave a job unfinished.”
“That’s not answering my question.”
“You’re my patient now. I wouldn’t leave you unhealed.”
His dark eyes studied hers. “Is that all I am to you, your patient?”
She refused to be drawn into this trap. He was the one who’d had her kidnapped and locked her up. She wouldn’t be the one who confessed feelings to him—not that she had any feelings to confess. The only thing she felt about him was pity and irritation. A physical attraction didn’t count as emotion.
Rather than waiting for an answer that would never come, he asked another question.
“Why don’t you like to be touched, Flower?”
Her head snapped up. “That’s none of your business.”
“I own you now. Everything you are is my business.”
She turned her face from him, not wanting him to see the emotions swelling up inside her. “You can’t own my past.”
He reached out, his index finger touching her jaw, guiding her face back to his.
Monster leaned into her, and she caught her breath. She studied his mouth, the lush lips, the perfect Cupid’s bow. His mouth parted slightly, and her eyes slipped shut as he leaned in and kissed her.
They crawled across the floor to each other, climbing over the corpses of numerous murdered books to climb into each other’s arms. Lily wrapped her arms around his neck and crushed her breasts against his chest. He grabbed her thighs and pulled them around his hips, before pushing himself to standing and carrying her to the bed.
He threw her onto the mattress, dumping her on her back, and then joined her. He crawled up her body, glowering down at her.
“You destroyed my books,” he growled.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was a squeak.
“You know what happens when you upset me?”
“You punish me.”
“And how do I do that?”
“By touching me.” She could barely believe she’d breathed the words.
He sat up, straddling her thighs. Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he reached across to his left wrist, unbuttoned the cuff, and slowly rolled up the sleeve, exposing his strong, well muscled forearm. He was fair from the lack of sunlight, a spattering of dark hairs covering his skin. She watched, breath held, as he repeated the process with the other sleeve, the muscles in his forearm flexing as he used his hand.
“Unbutton your pants,” he told her.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Do as I tell you.”
Her heart pattered, her mouth running dry. How could she want something so badly, and yet be so terrified of it?
He stared at her. “I own you, Flower. Don’t make me angry.”
With shaking hands, her fingers went to the button of her pants. The whole of her insides felt as though they’d been replaced with fluttering insects. She’d never met someone who set her emotions warring in such a way. Even though she’d been furious with him only moments before, now she only wanted to know how far he was going to take her.
She worked the fastening free, and then he lifted his weight from her legs, allowing her to wriggle the pants down her hips. His fingers hooked beneath the elastic band of her underwear. “These, too.”
With her heart beating hard, she did as he said. Instead of settling his weight back on top of her legs, he caught her ankles and pulled them either side of his thighs so he now knelt between them.
She felt so exposed, him fully dressed, while she was completely naked from the waist down, her legs spread wantonly before him, allowing him to see right into the very core of what made her a woman.
Monster gave a slow, dangerous smile. “I have you now.”
His fingertips slid up the inside of her thigh, tickling a feather light path up to the apex of her thighs, making her squirm. She wanted to feel his fingers there again, to have him bring her to climax as he had before. Teasingly, he slid his finger between her folds, from the base of her perineum right up to her clit and back again. She gave a low moan, and threw her arms behind her head, resting them against the pillow. Her hips arched, wanting more.
“How can you say you hate to be touched, and yet each time I touch you, you are already wet?”
“It’s different with you,” she managed to gasp as he pushed one finger inside her.
“Why?”
She let out a whimper. “I don’t know.”
He added a second finger and she twisted her head against the pillow and groaned.
He thrust his fingers with more force. “Yes, you do. Tell me.”
“When you kept me alone for so long, I grew desperate for human contact.”
Another thrust. “There’s more.”
“It wasn’t the touch I was frightened of,” she said between gasps. “It was the intimacy.” She twisted her head again, trying to keep focus on what she wanted to say, while the building pleasure tightening low in her core threatened to take over. “I kept myself shut off from everyone for so long, I forgot how to be intimate. But then I met you, and I recognized myself.”
He stilled. “In what way?”
“You’re hurt, like me.”
He rewarded her by deepening his movement. “Who hurt you, Flower?”
“I did. I hurt me.”
“How?”
She squirmed against him, trying to find her release. “Please, Monster. Not now. I can’t talk about this now.” She ground her hips down on his hand, wanting more so badly, but she couldn’t talk about that. Definitely not now.
“You’ll tell me, though,” he insisted. “Not now, but soon.”
Right then, she’d have agreed to almost anything. “Yes, yes,” she panted. “I will.”
“Good girl.”
He lowered his face between her thighs, and his hot mouth closed over her clit. She groaned in pleasure, arching her hips up to press herself further against his mouth. His tongue curled around the sensitive bundle of nerves, teasing her with slow strokes and then gentle flicks. His fingers pressed deep inside her, alternating the rhythm with his tongue.
Lily writhed and arched beneath his attention.
“Please,” she begged. “I want you.”
She wanted to touch him, too. Intimacy went two ways, and still he was holding back from her.
“When I finally take you, Flower, I want you to be begging for it.”
“I am,” she cried, “I am begging!”
But he curled his fingers inward, finding the sweet spot on her inside wall, and her orgasm broke over her, washing all thoughts and words away from anywhere reachable. She was a ball of sensation, her toes curling, her back bowing from the bed. Her eyes rolled and the orgasm flattened her again and again, leaving her as a sweat-s
oaked, trembling mess on the mattress.
Before she’d even had time to recover, Monster climbed from the bed.
Quickly, she forced herself to sitting. “Hey, where do you think you’re going?”
He started to unroll the sleeves of his shirt. “I have work to do.”
“Seriously? You’re just going to leave me like this again?”
“I’m not sure what else you expected. You didn’t seem to be complaining too much a minute ago, and I was supposed to have been punishing you.”
“Really? ’Cause it seems to me the punishment was actually leaving me here for days with no contact.”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
She reached out and grabbed her pants to cover herself up. She couldn’t talk to him when she was half naked. “You know exactly what I mean. Is this how it’s going to be with us?” she demanded. “One of us does something wrong, and then the other one punishes them for it? This is hardly going to be a good basis for a healthy relationship.”
Frustratingly, he laughed. “Flower, I have absolutely no idea how to have a so-called ‘healthy’ relationship. Fucked up is all I know.”
Monster (Nine Years Earlier)
He wasn’t with his father when he died. His father would never have allowed him to witness such a moment of weakness, of utter vulnerability.
Monster knew something was seriously wrong when his father finally stopped showing up for his lessons. After twenty years, he’d never missed a single one, so something had to have happened.
Even when the cancer had ravaged his father’s now frail body, he still turned up on time, though Monster found it was him who led the lessons, instead of his parent.
But then one day, he didn’t show.
He was informed by Tudor Mattocks, his father’s right hand man. He laid his hand on Monster’s arm as way of comfort and said, “Your father passed during the night. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Monster nodded. “Thank you for telling me.”
He felt dizzy, unhinged. Despite his father’s cruelty, he’d been the one constant presence in Monster’s life, and now he was no longer there. He’d never again hear his footsteps, or sit in on one of his lessons, both terrified of getting something wrong and receiving a blow, while also desperately wanting to please his father and be on the receiving end of his praise. It was a bitter kind of love. A love that truly transcended love and hate.
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