by J Marie
After a few more seconds when I noticed his heart rate had remained steady, he finally spoke. “Why do you always have to push me?” he whispered softly above me.
“You said you anticipated this,” I countered.
“Yes, I did, but there is a time and a place for push and play, and eventually, you will learn to recognize those times. However, what I hadn’t anticipated is how dangerous the consequences could be for the both of us when you are unable to establish the difference.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You have no idea …” he began, “how easy it would be for me to go too far with you.” He pulled me back and placed his hand on the side of my face, tilting it up to meet his gaze. The heat in his hand warmed my still stinging cheek, and somehow, I found myself leaning into it, my body naturally seeking out warmth in the midst of the frigid darkness it had been subject to for so long. I had almost forgotten he had even spoken to me. “I know you don’t want to admit this,” he said, “but you are more fragile than you think, especially to me. And when you deliberately disobey me just to piss me off, it enrages me to the point where I could lose control and hurt you too much. I don’t want that to happen, but you make it so easy for to me to forget. That is why control is so important, Jaden. It’s safer, not just for you, but for the both of us. Do you understand now?”
In other words, do what he says because he might accidentally beat you to death. Got it.
I bowed my head, lowering my eyes to the floor for only a second and released a slow, deliberate breath before returning my gaze back to him. I hated these power struggles with him, hated the logical reasoning he had behind it all, and hated the fact that he was right. I didn’t know how much restraint he was capable of, but I did have a very good idea of what would happen should that restrain ever snap.
“Yes, Darren, I understand,” I said, glowering up into his eyes.
“Good girl,” he smiled and kissed me on the forehead. He then took my hand and headed toward the back door.
Chapter Fourteen
Listen
We walked outside and went down to the beach. The sun was beginning to set and we stopped so I could remove my shoes and walk freely in the sand. The perfectly white sand was so soft under my feet, and I relished in its enveloping warmth. As we headed to the water, Darren kept a firm grip on my hand, never letting me falter and making sure I stayed at his side.
I decided I should try to leave what had just happened back at the house and attempt to enjoy something for once. I didn’t want my attitude to ruin things for me again.
Reaching the shore, I couldn't help but feel compelled to put my feet in the crystal blue water, and I was a little surprised when Darren let go of my hand to let me. The water felt cool and refreshing as it splashed over my bare feet. I suddenly had the urge to go swimming, but I didn't think Darren would allow it.
I turned back around to face him, unable to contain my smile, and found him staring down at me, his hands in his pockets and a slight smirk on his face. The look he displayed made me uncomfortable as it softened with what I thought might have been something like adoration.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.” He grinned, shrugging his shoulders. “You’re just so cute when you're not pissing me off.”
I scoffed at that. “Cute? Me? I don’t think so.”
Cute? Pfft. My ass.
“Baby tiger cute,” he said with that shark grin.
“More like full grown tiger cute,” I countered.
“You’d have to be full grown for that.” He laughed.
“I am full grown!” I defended myself.
“Are you sure? I think you may have gotten the short end of the stick.” He winked at me.
My jaw nearly hit the sand. Was he calling me short?!
“Well, maybe someone else cheated and double dipped,” I shot back and walked off down the shore.
I could hear him laughing behind me as he caught up to my pace.
“Calm down, killer.” He chuckled. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing that you’re short.”
“I am not short,” I corrected. “I’m just an inch or two below average female height.”
“Relax. I like that you’re short. It just makes you cuter.”
I scowled at him in disgust, releasing an agitated grown. Why were we even having this irrelevant conversation?
“I am not cute,” I said quietly under my breath.
He chuckled, taking my hand again, and we continued down the beach toward the sunset while I kept my feet in reach of the water. And then I wondered with his new sense of calm if now would be a good time for a little family history.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked him softly, hoping he would sense the innocence in my voice.
“Of course,” he replied cautiously. “But I can’t guarantee I’ll answer it.”
I paused for a moment, hoping he would notice my trepidation.
“What was your childhood like?”
He was silent for a minute, surprised by my question, and I was sure he was calculating his answer. He said he would never lie to me, so I waited patiently for his impending truth.
“Let’s just say there wasn’t much time for me to be a child,” he said plainly.
“Why?”
“Because my father didn’t have time for children, and with my mother gone, he decided it was time to raise a man, not a boy.”
“What happened to your mother?”
“She died when I was eleven.”
“I'm sorry,” I said.
“From what I can remember of her, she was a lot like you. Tough, but she still knew her place when it came to my father,” Darren said giving me a side glare.
“Do you know how they met?”
“The same way I met you.”
“That's unfortunate,” I said before realizing I had actually said it out loud.
“How so?” he asked sharply.
“Because … don’t you think you'd feel better about your existence if you knew your mother had wanted to be there with your father in the first place?”
Fuck, I was bringing up an old argument now.
“She did,” he said, a little turned off by my audacity.
“What do you mean?”
“She was the one who begged my father to buy her.”
“Why would she want that?”
“Because the life she came from was broken and miserable and she saw my father as her escape from something that could be potentially worse.”
Now, I was disgusted. His mother was nothing like me. She was weak.
“And that is where she and I are different,” I said turning to him, now piecing his puzzle together. “My life before you was not broken or miserable. It was happy and fulfilling, so if you're trying to justify your acquisition of me by thinking you're providing me with a better life, then you are mistaken.”
“Don’t you remember what I said to you before? I could provide you with a life worth living, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. You might not like it now, but eventually, you will get over it. Besides, you should be happy you don’t have to work some boring desk job or go to school anymore.”
“But I want to work and I want to go to school. I have dreams and goals I want to accomplish on my own and you are preventing me from doing that.”
“Jaden, I told you already, your only goal in life now is to please me and that should be enough for you. If you have a goal or a hobby you'd like to indulge in, I’ll do everything I can to make that happen. I may be a monster, but I still want you to be happy. Our children deserve to grow up in a happy household.”
“You’re out of your mind if think I’ll ever give you children,” I snarled, ripping my hand from his and storming back toward the house.
I didn’t know why I thought it was a good idea to turn my back to him, but I was obviously too pissed to think otherwise. His hand shot into my hair and he yanked me back toward his chest while his l
arge hand wrapped around the front of my throat, squeezing tightly but not fully cutting off my oxygen supply.
“You’ll do what I tell you, and that will be the end of it," he barked above me. “Unless you’d rather spend your defiance back in your cage?”
“No,” I gasped. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” I winced, pain now influencing my answers as I waited for my hair to rip from my scalp.
“That’s what I thought,” he growled, loosening his grip on my throat and then turning me around to grip my hand. Fucking asshole.
We were silent as we continued our walk along the beach heading back toward the house. I just focused on the scene of the sky and water ahead of me. The breeze of the ocean blew through my hair and as the sun finally went down, a chill began to creep over my skin. Being a natural redhead, I had read somewhere that we don’t adapt well to changes in temperature, and I found it so true as I was always cold when others were warm, and on days I did find myself too hot, I was a cranky little bitch about it.
“What day is it?” I asked, innocently, suddenly feeling brave again. I was hoping for some sense of time to finally come back into my life. I couldn’t even remember what day I had been taken.
“Friday,” he replied. Fuck, it must have been well over a week since I went missing.
“Will you be going into work tomorrow?”
“No. I’ll be working from my home office, but I’ll be around here and there,” he said with a hint of enthusiasm I found unsettling.
“Oh, goody,” I replied excitedly, but he sensed my sarcasm. He chuckled at me.
“There’s my little hellcat.” He smiled, tucking me into his side, shielding the chilling wind with his arm. “I thought I scared her away.”
“Fat chance,” I replied. “You don’t scare me.”
Ah, fuck, that was stupid.
“What the fuck did you just say?” he snarled, gripping my arm and wrenching me from his side.
God, this hot and cold shit was getting old. Would I ever learn? He gazed down at me with a fierce intensity I had not been prepared to meet. I peered up at him like a deer caught in headlights, unsure of what to do as I was quickly reminded of our earlier issues back in the house.
“Nothing,” I replied quietly.
“Nothing?” he said, raising his eyebrows. “You see? Even now, you’re terrified of me. I know you are and you should be. I can see it in your eyes, so why bother to lie? There’s no hiding anything from me, Jaden. When will you learn this?”
I tried to pull away from his grip, pissed off at his revelation, but this time, he refused to let me go.
“You just don’t get it, do you?” I suddenly yelled at him, breaking free of the headlights. “I’m not supposed to be here! Shit like this doesn’t happen to people like me! I’m a fighter—always have been, always will be—so you asking me to just give all that up and surrender my life to you doesn’t quite register! I don’t know how to give you what you want because it’s not in my nature and no amount of pain you threaten will change that!”
Darren cocked his head to the side as he stared down at me with that consuming wild ocean in his eyes. “That sounds like a challenge to me, Miss Wilder,” he said dangerously.
“No! Goddamn it! You’re not listening to m-”
“No, princess,” he cut me off sharply, “you’re not listening to me, and that’s the problem we keep running into. I understand your frustration. You had a life you worked hard to achieve, and now, it’s gone. Get over it. The life you will have with me will be far greater than any life you could ever have given yourself. You just have to surrender to it.”
“I can’t do that,” I said bitterly, a single tear of frustration slipping free of its confines, as I continued to push away from him. I wiped it away quickly before it became too noticeable.
“Yes, you can, Jaden, and you will. I’m not giving you any other choice.”
I felt my heart slam into my chest as though someone had just punched it with an iron glove. I felt hopeless and lost, drowning in an ocean I could never learn to swim in. The tide would always be far too strong for me to escape its pull.
Darren didn’t care about my internal struggle; he didn’t care that my pride and independence weren’t used to being chained away and thought it should be so easy for me to let go. But it wasn’t. And it never would be.
“Can’t you see how unfair this is?” I said softly. “How wrong this all is?”
“Jaden,” Darren said as he gently but firmly gripped each of my shoulders. “I’m the kind of man who takes what he wants, when he wants, and without regret, simply because he can. Where you may see something as unfair or wrong, all I see are endless possibilities. I don’t believe in limits and, therefore, do not subject myself to them. You may hate it now, but I think you will come to enjoy your role in my life sooner than you think. Once you finally stop fighting me and give in, you’ll wonder why you ever fought me in the first place.”
“And what about my family? Am I supposed to just forget about them? Pretend they never existed?”
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m your family now. It’ll be easier for you to just let them go.”
I slowly shook my head back and forth. “How can you be so cruel when you have a family?” I shot back. He started to speak, but I cut him off before he could. “You say you want me to be happy, yet you force so much unnecessary pain on me.”
“You think me cruel?” he asked softly as he stepped up to me. His eyes bore down, drinking me up and swallowing me back. “You haven’t seen the depravity I could subject you to should you continue this argument, so stop pushing. The pain you feel is solely from your own inability to let go of what is no longer in your control. If you would just surrender yourself to me, I promise you will be free of that pain.”
“You’re practically asking me to walk on water.”
“I’m not asking, Jaden,” he said, cocking his head to the side. “This conversation is over and no longer up for debate. You will do what is expected of you and that will be the end of it.”
He then took my arm and tugged me back along the shore.
It’s not over, I said to myself. Not until you’re six feet under.
Chapter Fifteen
Compromise
I didn’t even realize it when we got back to the house. I felt numb inside, unable to cope with the depths of my reality. When we reached my room, Darren opened the door and ushered me inside then closed it behind him. I stood blankly in the room, clenching my fists at my side, unsure of what to do with myself when I felt the sudden slap of Darren’s hand make contact with my face. It wasn’t as hard as the other had been, but it was enough to distract me from the internal debate I was having with myself.
I looked up at him with a confused scowl on my face. “The fuck was that for?” I asked, rubbing my hand against the heat of my cheek.
“Stop cussing,” he ordered, pointing at me. “And I was just bringing you back to reality.” He placed his hands in his pockets, a tiny hint of a smirk in the corner of his lips.
I gave him a hard look. “Because reality is so much better than what’s going on in my head.”
“Don’t insult me, Jaden,” he warned, taking a step toward me. I instinctively put my left foot back, slowly turning my body to the side. “You will adjust eventually and realize the gift I am giving you.”
I actually laughed out loud a little.
“Yes, the gift of imprisonment for the rest of my life. How did I become so lucky?” I chuckled, waving my arms around for emphasis.
Darren then grabbed me and shoved me down onto the bed, his hands holding my upper arms in a vise grip as he stared at me.
“Sarcasm will get you nowhere with me,” he growled.
“Fuck you, Darren,” I retorted.
I didn’t know what the fuck it would take for me to just give it up and let him own me, but it just wasn’t in my blood. I did not have a submissive bone in my body, and I had a feeling that no matter what
he did to me, I would just pop back up like the weed he couldn’t kill. Maybe, in the end, he would come to respect and appreciate that. He did buy me for my strength, after all.
“If you insist,” he snarled with a snake-like grin.
Fuck.
He then pulled me forward, grabbing my wrists and wrenching my arms up to the headboard. I fought against him, fighting with everything I had, but he was too heavy for me to move. He straddled me and held my wrists with one hand above my head while he took out his phone. Pressing a button, my wrists were forced together through the bars of the metal headboard, effectively keeping my wrists in place above my head. My feet remained unrestrained and I wasn’t sure why. He had to know I would mess up his face with my foot the second I got the chance. But he stayed where he was, now straddling my legs, and pulled his shirt up over his head.
God, that body of his. So strong and toned under perfectly smooth skin. Even with all the scars and tattoos, to the naked eye, he was a beautiful sight to see. He had to work out like a maniac to retain his physique, and I couldn’t help but appreciate the results.
“You know what I think would be the most perfect tattoo on you?” he suddenly said as he gazed down at me, a smug smile on his face.
“I’m breathless to hear it,” I said sarcastically.
“My name,” he said darkly.
“What?”
“You heard me. I think it would be so sexy to see my name bolded permanently on to this perfect, beautiful skin of yours so that everyone who sees you will know right away that you’re mine.”
“I’d really rather you didn’t,” I said seriously.
“And remind me of what choice it is that you have again?”
“Darren, please,” I pleaded, sounding more annoyed than I should. “You don’t need to tattoo me to claim me.”
“You’re right, I don’t … but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”
I was silent now, hoping he wasn’t serious. “They would be so perfect,” he said reaching up and rubbing the underside of my wrists with his thumbs, “right here.”
