His life story marks his face and it also marks that he survived it and has become so incredibly strong in spite of all that happened to him. I want to show the world his strength. I want to show him his strength and that the world can love him just like I d—
I choke on the bite of grapefruit I just took and scramble to reach for my water glass. Not that I lov— I mean, we’ve barely reconnected, and back in the day it was just a crush. It’s not that deep yet, not that intense.
“Daphne!” Logan’s already around the table and his hand pounds me on the back. “Are you all right?”
I sputter and hold up a hand. “I’m fine. Fine.” I cough again and finally get a long, cool drink of water. Then I push the chair back from the table. Logan jumps out of the way just in time.
“Daphne,” he says, his voice half concern, half warning.
“I’m fine.” I smile brightly. “I’m just going to get ready for the day. I cover my mouth and cough into my elbow, then smile again and turn around, bounding out the door.
I’ve been with him almost 24/7 for the past week and I just need a second. “Just a second,” I whisper to myself, huffing a bit of hair out of my face as I lean against the door. Then I cover my hands with my face.
I just haven’t had any time to process everything that’s happened. There’s just experience after experience after experience, with short bouts of heavy sleep in between, ever since I got over my illness last week.
I do a quick count of the nights and days. Shit, has it really been ten days since the ball? So much has happened. I unmasked the Beast, found Logan. Gave my virginity to the man of my dreams, the man I’ve always loved—
There’s that word again. Love. Do I really feel that for Logan? I mean, we made love last night— I cringe and slump against the wall. Because have we really? Have we made love? Or is this just more of my naiveté? In Logan’s mind, have we just been ‘fucking’?
But no, the things he’s said to me, it’s been more than that, surely…
…says the virgin.
Okay, recently devirginized, but still. What do I know about how men work?
He’s not ‘men’, he’s Logan.
I pace down the hall, arguments churning back and forth in my head. The wood creaks under my frantic steps. I pause at the top of the huge staircase. There’s a watery light coming from the first floor—from the front door.
Logan might be okay with me roaming the castle, but he’d probably get weird if I ran out the door. Because he’s a creepy stalker/psycho captor, whispers the rational part of me.
Yes, but he’s my creepy stalker. And deep down, he’s Logan. Ugh. I wish I had someone to talk to about all this.
Rachel. She’s the perfect person to talk about boys with. Then I shake my head. There’s no way I can tell her about all this.
But thinking about her now, gods, she must be so worried. I haven’t talked to her in days.
I pause halfway down the staircase. I’m about to turn and go back up when a familiar looking bag catches my eye. My purse! On the table next to the door. I skip down the rest of the stairs and grab it. Notebook, chapstick, an empty case for the glasses I’m wearing now. The pair Logan gave back to me.
At the bottom of my purse is my charger. My heart starts thumping double-time. Biting my lip, I go to the door. After a moment of hesitation, I push it open. The stoop is empty. There’s no phone.
Am I disappointed or relieved? I shut the door. Time to go back to Logan.
But before I grab my purse, something makes me open the side table’s drawer. And there’s my phone. Its screen is a little cracked and the battery’s dead, but I have the charger.
I plug it in. It’s been over a week since I’ve touched base with Rachel. I wince. Yeah, bad friend here. Okay, so for some of that I was super sick, but still. I should have called her as soon as I was better. She must be worried like crazy.
The phone’s so super-dead that it takes a few minutes for it to charge even enough to turn on. When it finally does, beep after beep sounds as messages start pouring in.
RACHEL: Hey babe, how’s vacation? Haven’t heard from you lately. Let me know you’re alive, lol
RACHEL: Daphne, this isn’t funny. Message or call, you’re starting to freak me out
RACHEL: Call me right now
RACHEL: I’m serious, bitch, call me or I’m gonna like file a missing person’s report. I’m officially freaked.
That was yesterday. Shit! I immediately dial her number.
“Daphne!” she answers, her voice frantic. “Finally!”
“Hey, Rachel.”
“I can’t believe it’s you.” Her voice is filled with relief. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.” I touch the window, tracing the patterns left by frost.
“Are you sure? You just disappeared! I know you said you needed to get away for some research but…what the actual fuck?”
I smile at her choice of words. “I know, Rachel. I know, and I’m sorry. Things have been…difficult.”
“I don’t know how to handle this. The press is closing in, asking for you. Nobody knows where you are. Adam Archer keeps calling. He even has private detectives looking for you. I’m this close to telling him to go ahead and file the missing person’s report.”
Shit, Adam. “Don’t do that. I’m alive. I’m fine.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m staying with…a friend. It’s complicated.” Understatement of the century.
Rachel blows out a frustrated breath. “Okay, then, when are you coming back?”
I shut my eyes, leaning my forehead against the freezing glass. “I don’t know. Soon.”
“Daphne,” her voice is half exasperated employee, half worried friend. “You gotta come back. The board is livid. I told them you were doing research and also taking time off for your birthday and the anniversary of your mother’s death, but they’re not buying it. I don’t know how much longer I can hold them off.”
“Not much longer,” I say quickly. Shit. I have to get back to New Olympus. Rachel’s right—I have too much responsibility. “I promise.”
Her voice drops. “It’s not just the company. It’s your father. He’s…not doing well.”
Frost slices through me. I stand. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
“The nurses don’t know. It might be the stress and shock from learning we couldn’t reach you—”
“You told him that?” Fuck!
“I didn’t have a choice! You just disappeared! I didn’t know if you were on holiday like you said or dead in a ditch!”
“All right, all right,” I soothe. It’s not Rachel’s fault all this happened. “I understand. I’m sorry. I’ll be back—right away. Today. I’ll call you back in a few hours.” I have to vow several times to call before Rachel lets me end the call. I hang up and drop my phone into my purse.
I don’t have any time to waste. There’s too much riding on me—my company, the board, Adam’s expectations. My father’s life. I can’t stay here.
I have to convince Logan to let me go.
Twenty-Three
Logan
The door creaks open slowly and Daphne enters. She looks nervous, her cheeks flushed. If I had to guess, I’d say my little submissive feels guilty about something.
“Logan, I need to ask you something.”
“Yes?” I ask, lazily. I’m feeling magnanimous today. Perhaps I won’t punish her too harshly for breaking a rule.
She fidgets. My disobedient little kitten.
She lifts her chin. “I called my assistant.”
“You what?” I’m looming over her before I realized I’ve crossed the room.
She raises her chin and stares me down. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” I grit out. “We had an agreement when you came here.”
Her mouth falls open. “I didn’t agree to never contact the outside world! It’s my goddamn phone.”
“I thought
your time in the tower would teach you that nothing belongs to you. You have no privileges unless I give them to you.”
Her mouth falls open. “I thought…we were past all that.”
“Is that why you snuck out? To phone her behind my back?”
She flushes. Busted. “That’s not fair. I have a life. Friends. They were freaking out.”
She’s going to leave me. “You have no life anymore,” I roar. She’s changed everything, brought the sun back to my world, and she’s going to plunge me back into darkness.
Instead of flinching, she looks at me with pity. Her gaze softens. “Oh, Logan.” She cups my face with her hands. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
I jerk away. “Yes, it does. You agreed to do as I say. My game, my rules.”
She straightens, her hands fisting at her sides. “Your game is fucked up.”
“Oh Daphne.” My hands close on her arms. “You have no idea.”
* * *
Daphne
“Where are you taking me?” Please not the tower. Why did I think we were back to normal? What evidence did I have that Logan would be rational? He’s different, changed. Completely deranged.
When he glares down at me, the blue of his eyes reduced to an icy ring around blown pupils, my heart sinks. Logan is gone. There is only the Beast.
He drags me down a staircase—the opposite direction of the tower—and I sag with relief. Relief that’s short lived when he brings me into a cold stone room unlike any I’ve seen before. My mouth drops open.
A huge wooden X shaped cross dominates the middle of the room along with leather-topped tables, low benches with angled seats. Implements of such shapes and varieties I can’t even imagine what they could all be used for.
“What is this place?” I breath.
“My playroom.” He leads me to the middle of the room and positions me in front of the cross. I’m too busy gazing numbly at the wall of implements—everything from red handled crops to wooden paddles to wicked looking whips—that I don’t try to fight him.
“Play?”
“My sort of play.” He turns me to face the cross and cuffs my arms above my head before leaning in to whisper. “Welcome to the dungeon.”
* * *
Beast
My little submissive swallows, her eyes wide. “You’re crazy.”
“I’m not disputing it. You are at my mercy. I think it’s time you beg.”
“If you want me to beg, I will.”
“Not yet.” I thrust a rose sideways between her teeth, a makeshift gag. I brought a dozen roses down here in anticipation of showing her this place. This dungeon, these implements, this was another part of my gift to her. I was going to wait until she was stronger to put her through her paces but no.
I need to break her down until she needs me. Craves me. Will never leave…
As I peel away her leggings, I get a whiff of her arousal. She wants this as much as I do.
I cut off her shirt and bra, and grab another rose, running it down her back. She naked but for a see-through pair of panties. She shivers, but not from cold. I keep it warm down here. No, she’s already falling under my spell.
“Is this what you wanted, Daphne?” I murmur. “To know what I would do to keep you? The lengths I would go?” I run the rose down the cleft of her ass, smirking as she shifts her weight from foot to foot. “You want me to claim you, don’t you? Here?” I palm her ass, squeezing gently before giving the firm globe a smack. She jolts against the cross. “Do you need your Master to claim all of you?”
“You’re nuts,” she breathes, but her accusation holds no heat. I grab a fistful of her thick hair and ease her head back. She’s already panting, lips parted, nipples beaded. Her eyes are hooded and I bet if I checked her pussy, she’d be sopping wet.
“Doesn’t take much with you, does it?”
“Fuck you.”
“Oh, you most certainly will be. Fucked long and hard by me.”
Now she’s rocking her hips, seeking stimulation against the wooden cross.
“Ah ah,” I tsk. Time to turn in my rose for a sterner implement. I braid her hair loosely and tuck it over her shoulder, out of the way. I run my hands up and down her limbs and back, then select a flogger.
“Let’s get you warmed up.” I snap the flogger, letting the leather strands rain on her back. Her shoulders immediately relax as she accepts the sensations. The thudding strands give her a massage, with a light sting mixed in.
Her pale limbs are rosy by the time I’m done. And her back is arched, her body rising to meet the flogger.
“Good girl.”
She sighs at my praise. I slip a hand between her mons and the cross, finding her smooth folds and stroking them. Her juices coat my fingers.
How can she not realize she was born for this? Made for me? Why is she so quick to throw it away?
I grit my teeth and pull away. She whimpers but doesn’t fight when I undo her bindings and lead her to a spanking bench. She bends over willingly, offering up her bottom to my most depraved whims.
I hook my fingers into the side of her panties and jerk outwards, tearing the lace. I let the flimsy scraps fall to the floor. “Count,” I order and let my hand fall on her reddened ass. After five, her voice is choked with tears. Her hips wiggle a little but she doesn’t try to escape.
And I fall to my knees. “Good girl. You’ve earned your reward.” I tip her over further, baring her sweet cunt to my mouth. I lick up all her juices and probe her ass with my tongue as she squeals.
“You like that, dirty girl?” My cock is a steel bar pressed to the front of my slacks. I rim her dark whorl with the tip of my finger before pressing inside. “Breathe out and bear down,” I order, and smack her ass when she doesn’t immediately comply. Her tight ass swallows my thick finger and I reward her, tickling her clit until she cums with a cry.
“Fuck me.” I can’t shuck out of my pants fast enough. Thank gods I had all this furniture custom made for multiple uses. I prop her the way I want her and sink into her hot cunt, pounding her from behind. Her inner muscles flutter as her orgasm goes on and on. “That’s it, kitten. Cum on your Master’s cock.”
I grab a handful of her hair and draw her head back, keeping her back arched. Her little cries are maddening and I roar, slamming my hips into her until the sturdy bench shakes. I fuck her like a wild man. An animal. A Beast.
When I cum and pull out, she’s still shaking with aftershocks. I cup her ass, enjoying the heat searing my palm.
“Soon, I will take all of you,” I promise as I gather her into my arms. I expect her to flinch and protest—she’s gone from virgin to dungeon in a few short days—but she snuggles against me. A happy, sated sub.
“Logan,” she murmurs, twining her arms around my neck, bringing me closer to kiss me.
And I’m lost. I could lock her away forever, make her depend on me for food, shelter, human interaction, become her everything, but it wouldn’t change the truth.
Without her my life is meaningless.
I need her more than she needs me.
* * *
“Please, Logan,” she whispers softly. “Just hear me out.”
I’ve bathed and fed Daphne, and we’re back in the library, in front of the fire. She waited until we were cozy, laughing at old inside jokes, before setting down her hot chocolate and facing me. “I need to go see my father. He’s not well.”
I rise and go to stand at the mantel. Who told Daphne to speak softly during negotiations? Because it’s working. I can’t bear to meet her trusting gaze.
“I know you say he did terrible things to you—”
“He did do terrible things.” I say to the gilt framed mirror above the fireplace. The reflective surface is old and warped, obscuring my marred face.
“Logan, he’s the only father I’ve got. Please.”
“No.”
“The old Logan would help me,” she murmurs almost to herself. “He had compassion.”
/> “The old Logan is dead. Coded twice, remember?”
She’s quiet, but I feel the weight of her gaze on my back. Her hope. I thought it’d be easier when she knew who I was, accepted it. Fuck me, it’s not.
“Logan, if there’s anything left of the man you were—”
“There isn’t.” I laugh bitterly. “Because of them.”
Soft footfalls on the carpet herald her. She touches my back, urging me to turn.
I almost back away before I remind myself that she’s not the predator. I am. But she puts her hands on either side of my face. She doesn’t flinch when her soft hands touch marred skin. She looks me right in the eye. “You don’t have to be like them.”
I’m nothing like them. But when it comes to her, there’s no line I won’t cross.
“You’re staying here,” I order, hardening myself. “And that’s final.”
Twenty-Four
Logan
The next morning, I’m settled by the fire in the library when I hear a door open and close. I’m on my feet, pounding down the hall. She wouldn’t just leave, would she?
She’s standing in the hall, her head stuck in a closet. “I’m looking for a coat.” She pulls out a heavy fur—a leftover from the former owner’s wife—and makes a face.
I take the coat from her. “Why?”
“I want to walk in the garden.”
“It’s too cold.”
“Please, Logan.”
It’s getting harder and harder to say no to her.
“Fine,” I mutter. “But the second I think you’re too cold and order you back inside, you obey, understand? You’re still recovering.”
She nods, smiling. And after I’ve bundled her up and shrugged on my great coat, I hold out my hand. She takes it, drapes it over her shoulders and tucks herself into my side.
We head out together, braving the bitter cold to view the sad winter garden. She’s so small it takes two of her steps to match my long stride. I slow for her benefit, keeping a careful eye on her flushed cheeks. How have I lived so long without her smile? Without her near? Her presence at my side feels so right.
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