Black Velvet (The Velvet Rooms Book 1)

by Linnea May

  She clears her throat, pausing for a moment before she continues speaking.

  “Mr. Bennett, if there’s anything wrong with Miss Red, you’ll have to tell us. Is she telling the truth? Did something about her not please you? If so, why didn’t you let us know?”

  I’m still rendered speechless, my mouth opening and shutting like a goldfish with no sound coming out, as I try to gather myself. I fail to comprehend what’s happening, managing only a stunned shake of my head as the woman on the other end of the line starts losing her patience.

  “Mr. Bennett?” she presses. “Are you still with me?”

  I have to say something. Something.

  My first instinct is to tell her that this must be a mistake because there is a Ruby Red in my house right now, and she has been here for the past three weeks, just as agreed upon.

  Everything is fine.

  Everything is fucking fine.

  Except that it’s not.

  “Mr. Bennett, I-”

  “Yes, it’s fine,” I croak. “It’s… something came up. Family emergency. I’m sorry, I was too preoccupied to contact the agency.”

  “Oh, I see,” Lisa says. She’s not sounding convinced, but if there’s one thing these guys are good at, it’s discretion.

  “Pay the girl the compensation,” I tell her.

  “Okay, thank you, Mr. Bennett,” she says. “I’ll get things sorted with her. Please, could you let us know next time? I know how stressful things like this can be, but we’re working in a very delicate business here. With very delicate subjects.”

  I roll my eyes, unbeknownst to her.

  “Yes, I’m sorry for the trouble,” I tell her. “But I have one question. This Ruby girl, did she do what she was told to, during the days when her window was open?”

  “According to her, she did,” Lisa tells me. “She’s been out and about, wearing everything that she was asked to.”

  I had just been able to breathe again, when her words take the air out of my lungs anew.

  Ruby, or whoever she is, didn’t wear any of the things I asked. She didn’t wear stockings under her skirt, and she didn’t understand why I got so mad at her in the beginning. She didn’t follow the most mundane commands, and she looked at me with a terror that looked so real it was bone-chilling.

  It looked real, because it was real.

  I made a mistake. I kidnapped the wrong woman.

  How could this fucking happen?

  “Oh, but she did mention something,” Lisa interrupts my distressed stream of thoughts. “Her red coat was stolen one night. I believe it was meant to be her token?”

  Yes.

  That fucking coat.

  I’d watched her run around in that coat for days, I watched her enter a bar wearing that same coat, and I watched her come out of that same bar in that very same coat.

  Or so I thought.

  “It was stolen in a bar?” I ask.

  “Yes, I think that’s what she said,” Lisa says, sounding surprised. “How did you-?”

  “Just a guess,” I hurry to say. “Listen. I have business to attend. Will you handle Miss Ruby and let her know I’m very sorry for the trouble?”

  “Yes, sure,” she replies. “So, I shouldn’t file for a new arrangement?”

  “No, not at this moment,” I tell her. “Goodbye.”

  I don’t wait for her final words before I end the call and throw the damn phone across the room. The noise as it hits the floor echoes through the hall, piercing through my head like a thousand knives.

  My chest is still tight, a cold wrath of panic closing in on me as I try to gather together the pieces of this fucked-up mix-up.

  She’s not Ruby Red. She even fucking told me, she’s not her.

  “Do you think I’m Ruby?” she said. “Because I’m not.”

  But I was too occupied to listen, too certain, too immersed in the game. Just like her when she first got here, I’m overwhelmed with questions – the most salient one banging against my skull with urgent precedence.

  If the girl upstairs is not Ruby Red, then who the hell is she?

  Chapter 42

  Liana

  “You stole that coat,” he says, pointing a trembling finger at me.

  My heart stops in shock.

  He knows.

  I don’t know what happened after he left my room. I don’t know what or who tipped him off. But I know that he knows.

  He knows I’m not the woman he thought I was.

  I stare up at him, my mouth partly opening as I try to come up with a reply, but the words escape me.

  “You stole that red fur coat,” he repeats, putting emphasis on every word. “Didn’t you?”

  “You’re scaring me, Master-”

  “Tell me!” he interrupts me.

  I hurry to nod. “Yes, I did.”

  His face changes again, now displaying the despair of someone who just lost something valuable forever.

  “You’re not Ruby Red,” he whispers.

  It’s not a question, but a statement. Yet I reply by shaking my head.

  “I’m not,” I whisper.

  He’s struggling for breath, and throwing his arms up in the air.

  “I fucked up,” he gasps, short of breath. “I so fucking fucked up.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I just remain in my spot, my fists clenching around the towel that I have wrapped around my body.

  “My name is Liana,” I say in a low voice. “I told you.”

  “Fuck,” he says. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuuuck!”

  I flinch when he raises his arms again, but he only does it to ruffle through his wild hair, holding his head with his hands as he stalks, pacing back and forth through the room.

  “Fuck!” he continues cursing. “This is not fucking happening!”

  He’s so loud and so wildly distraught that I’m scared of him for the first time in weeks. I want to move out of his range, but I don’t even dare get up on my feet.

  Suddenly, he stops mid-motion, freezing for a moment, before he turns back to me, looking at me with worry painted across his face that is unlike anything I’ve seen on him before.

  “I’m so fucking sorry,” he says. “I made a mistake. I fucked up so badly.”

  He approaches me, going down on his knees in front of me, so we’re almost on eye level as his gaze fixates on mine.

  “I thought you were someone else,” he explains. “A woman named Ruby Red. I… hired her to do all of this. To role play with me.”

  I bite my lower lip. Well, there you go. I was right.

  “She… you were wearing that coat,” he adds, gesturing over to the hideous fur coat that’s hanging over the end of the bed. “That was the token that helped me recognize her. That coat. You had that coat, and the business card, and-”

  “I know,” I interrupt him. “I know.”

  He halts, staring at me with eyes widened in surprise.

  “What do you mean?” he asks.

  “I… I know what happened,” I utter. “I mean, I didn’t know at first, but I’ve known now for a while. I figured it out.”

  His facial expression changes from bewilderment to fury.

  “You what?!” he yells at me.

  I wince at his outburst, pulling the towel further up my chest as if I was trying to protect myself from his rage.

  “It’s okay,” I say, raising my hand in a soothing gesture to match my words. “I’m not mad at you. We’re good.”

  He raises his eyebrows, looking at me as if I just suggested we jump off a cliff together.

  “We’re good?!” he exclaims. “You fucking lied to me! How did you even know? Did you trick me?”

  “Trick you?” I ask. “No! It’s nothing like that. It was a simple mistake. You thought I was that Barbie doll at the bar, the woman whose coat I was wearing.”

  He looks at me through narrowed eyes, and I can tell that it takes all his s
trength to contain his anger. He’s clenching his fists and breathing erratically.

  “I had no idea what was going on,” I add. “I couldn’t make sense of anything, before I realized-”

  “When?” he interrupts me. “When did you realize what’s been going on here?”

  Our eyes lock on each other in a tense stare. He’s about an arm’s length away from me. I hate the distance between us. I want to curl up in his embrace and go back to the place where we were just a few minutes ago. A place that was overshadowed by a lie, but a safe and warm place, nonetheless.

  “When you called me Ruby,” I say. “That’s when I had a suspicion that you might think I was someone else.”

  My words cause a frown to form on his face.

  “I mean, I didn’t know for sure,” I try to save myself. “But there were so many things that suggested a mix-up. You always acted as if I should know what was going on, as if I should know how to-”

  “But you didn’t know, did you?” he hisses. “You thought I was just a fucked-up criminal who’d rape and kill you.”

  I look at him, knowing that his words are true, but it seems like so much time has passed since I was stricken with that terror. He was a different person to me back then.

  I was a different person.

  “In the beginning, yes, but-”

  “You made me a criminal!” he interrupts me. “And I am. What I did to you was wrong, and you knew it was wrong. You lied to me and made me believe that things were happening exactly as they were supposed to happen.”

  He pauses, clearing his throat before he continues speaking in that same threatening tone.

  “What’s your end game here?” he wants to know. “Did you want to blackmail me? Threaten to sue me so you could squeeze out some money from the twisted wealthy idiot?”

  “What? No!” I object. “How could you say that?”

  His accusations hurt. Does he really think I was playing him? Does none of this mean anything to him?

  “How could I say that?” he barks, scaring me as he straightens up, continuing to pace up and down the length of the room.

  I watch him as he tries to process his boiling rage. He’s panting and growling in anger, looking almost as if he was in pain.

  He probably is.

  Chapter 43

  Liana

  “Joseph, please-”

  “Don’t call me that!” he yells, pointing at me from afar. “It was a mistake to ever tell you my name. I never should have done that. All of this. All of this was a huge fucking mistake!”

  His voice is so loud and filled with pain that I can feel it rumbling in my own heavy chest.

  “Please-”

  I’m interrupted by him punching the wall next to the dresser. The sheer brutality of his fist ramming into the wall makes me jump to my feet and hurry away from him, clutching the towel around my body.

  He’s hyperventilating, his fist flying into the wall again and again, with so much force that plaster is falling down around him. But the biggest damage is what he’s inflicting on himself. His knuckles are leaving bloody prints on the white wall as he keeps punching it in a furious rampage. He’s growling with every punch, but it’s not the pain of the impact that tortures him.

  His agony runs deeper than that.

  “Stop it!” I yell at him from afar. “Jose-”

  I stop and correct myself. “Master! Stop it! You’re hurting yourself!”

  He keeps going, his bloody fist slamming into the wall again and again. Each impact feels like a dagger to my heart. Seeing him hurt himself over something I did to him is too much to bear. I’m choking, my heart racing in panic, as I watch helplessly.

  I can’t let this happen. I need to stop him.

  “Master!” I yell again, this time running toward him. His destructive frenzy scares the hell out of me, but my worry for him overpowers any sense of fear I might have for my own safety.

  “Master,” I say again, trying to calm my voice to a soothing tone, as I let go of the towel and wrap my arms around him from behind, evading his vicious fist. My embrace is fueled with trust and empathy running stronger than fright. My only concern is for him, his safety, his sanity.

  His body is hard and tense when I first force my touch on him, but I can feel him relax instantly. The towel falls to the floor, leaving me naked and exposed as I press myself against his strong and rough body.

  His fist comes to a halt, pressed against the wall while his breathing settles to a calmer rhythm.

  “Master,” I whisper. “Please, don’t do this to yourself. You’re hurting me more than you hurt yourself.”

  He’s shaking, slowly moving his fist away from the wall, while his other hand finds mine, grasping it in a tight grip. I flinch in surprise when he turns around in a sudden motion, pulling me toward him in a close embrace. I know he doesn’t want me to see it, but I notice the threat of tears shimmering in his eyes before he pulls me in for a kiss, taking my face between both his hands while our tongues entwine in desperate need for each other.

  I can smell the blood on his knuckles as it gets smeared across my cheek, mixing with the tears that are running down my face.

  He breaks our kiss, staring into my teary eyes with a gaze of dark significance.

  “You have to leave,” he whispers.

  I gasp in shock.

  “No,” I object. “I don’t want to leave.”

  But he shakes his head.

  “You have to leave, now,” he insists. “I’ll pay you whatever you ask for, but you cannot stay here. Not after what has happened.”

  “What?” I breathe. “You can’t be serious.”

  I place my hands on his, wincing as I touch the blood on his right knuckles.

  “Master, I don’t want to leave,” I say, my lips trembling as I suppress the urge to cry. “I want to stay here. I lo-”

  “No,” he interrupts, shaking me. “You betrayed me. You made me a criminal. You knew, and you didn’t tell me. This was supposed to be my game, my rules, under my control. You took all of that away from me and made the game yours.”

  I try to shake my head at his accusations, but I can’t because he still holds me in a tight grip.

  He pauses, adding a hysteric laugh between his ranting.

  “I gave you a fucking collar,” he adds. “A fucking collar.”

  I choke up under another rush of tears that takes away my ability to speak.

  “You may not be a whore, but you can’t be trusted,” he hisses. “You bewitched me like a fucking succubus. You made me lose myself, and play fucking boyfriend and girlfriend with you. I fell for your fucking tricks. You made me believe things that weren’t there.”

  “That’s not true!” I disagree. “I never tricked you. I didn’t mean for this to happen, but I never played you. Everything has been honest and real. Everything we did was true-”

  “No!” he barks. “It was all based on a lie, an imbalance of knowledge that put you in power. You fucking witch!”

  I’m sobbing in his hold, simultaneously glaring up at him with determination. He’s angry, but I can tell that he’s not really angry at me. He’s angry at himself.

  “The only person who fell for anything was me,” I say through compressed lips. “I fell for you. I may not be the woman you ordered, but I want to be yours.”

  I halt for a moment, trying to regain my composure.

  “I’m proud to wear your collar,” I say in a suppressed whisper. “I don’t do it because you pay me to.”

  Despite the ferocity of a hurt beast still apparent in his gaze, I can see him softening to my words. He has every reason to feel betrayed, and he’s told me enough about himself and his past to enable me to make sense of this outburst.

  He’s all about control, a safe setting, an agreed upon arrangement, set in a safe and consensual setting. His mistake and my knowledge about it turned all of this upside down.

  He nee
ds to know that he’s not to blame, and that I had to intention of playing him.

  “You might have made a mistake,” I breathe, fixating on his tormented gaze. “You didn’t take the woman you ordered, but you did take the right woman.”

  His eyes flicker with confusion.

  “This was meant to happen,” I add. “It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

  Chapter 44

  Joseph

  She’s still doing it. Her spell is still working on me.

  Her words, her touch, all of it embraces me with a soothing warmth that terrifies me to the bone. This shouldn’t be happening. None of this.

  I haven’t lost control like this in years, and it’s all because of her.

  “You betrayed me,” I accuse her again. It takes all my strength not to let her tears get to me. Who knows if they’re real? Who knows if anything she says or makes me feel is real? She’s a liar.

  She touches my hands, seemingly unfazed by the blood that’s running down one of them.

  “I didn’t want to betray you,” she says. “I wanted to be with you. That’s why I didn’t say anything. I was scared you’d make me leave.”

  She pauses, biting her lower lip, as she seeks my eyes with a pained face.

  “And now you are,” she utters. “Now you want me to leave.”

  I let go of her. She’s robbing me of my sanity. I need room to breathe, room to process the extent of what has happened with her.

  I kidnapped a woman. I took her away from her life. There might even be a police report on her.

  “People are searching for you,” I tell her. “You need to go home. You need to get away from me.”

  “No!” she protests, wrapping her arms around her naked body. “I want to stay-”

  “You can’t!” I yell at her. “We can’t act as if this was okay, as if it was right for me to bring you here, to make you my slave, to fuck you, to…”

  I stop myself before I say something truly stupid. But she finishes the sentence for me.

  “To love me,” she whispers, her eyes glistening with tears as she casts me a hurt look. “Isn’t that what you were going to say?”