Fallen Rose

by Amelia Wilde

  “You are ridiculous,” Daphne says, but I can feel her giving in.

  I can also feel her resentment towards me, but that’s all right. It doesn’t matter if she hates me. As long as she’s safe. I’ve always protected my sisters, from the time we were little, when our father hit us, but it feels sharper now, more acute that I almost lost Haley. “Good.”

  “How long am I supposed to stay here?”

  “Until he forgets about you.” I try to sound soothing. Even though I’d like to keep her here forever, locked up in some tower like a fairy tale princess.

  “Like you’re going to forget about Haley when she’s gone?”

  My dear sister says the question sweetly, because she knows, she knows I’ll never forget about Haley. I will never get over her. “It’s different,” I say, which is a lie. It’s not different.

  She rolls her eyes. “It’s different because you love her.”

  The word love makes my skin turn hot and then cold and clammy. I’m careful not to look at Haley. I don’t want to see her reaction—either her hope or disappointment. “This isn’t about me,” I say, my teeth gritted.

  “Isn’t it?” she asks, her tone gentle, her expression knowing.

  I’m reminded that even though she’s innocent, she’s a woman now. A woman who sees through my bluster. Who knows I’m exactly as bad as the man I’m guarding her from. I didn’t get my reputation for nothing. The beast is too close to the surface. “This is about you being in over your head. I always knew you were naive, but I never thought you were a fool.”

  She gasps. Hurt simmers in her dark eyes. Anger, too.

  “You want to end up on a true crime podcast? Not on my watch. I’m sorry if I ever gave you the impression you had a choice in the matter. You’re staying here. End of story.”

  Chapter Eight

  Haley

  Leo’s house is laden with silence. The quiet bleeds into every room, thickening the air. Making it hard to breathe. Hard to walk. My feet feel like I’m dragging them through water. I’ve woken up late. Late in the day, I mean. The sun angles dimly through the second-floor windows. How did that happen? A person doesn’t just sleep all day and wake up to emptiness.

  “Leo?”

  My voice doesn’t reach as far as it should. I clear my throat and try again. The house is quiet. I’m quiet. We’re all quiet, like we’ve been tucked under blankets of insulation, like we’ve been buried in snow. Except I can see through the windows. Snow’s not falling today.

  No Eva in the guest bedroom.

  No Gerard at the top of the stairs.

  No Mrs. Page in the dining room.

  It takes forever to walk from one room to the next. I keep getting turned around. I think I’m near the den, but then I go in the door and it’s Leo’s bedroom. He’s not in here. I trace a careful path back to the stairs and go down.

  I reach his office door an eternity later. The door is shut tight. Jiggling the doorknob does absolutely nothing. Did he seriously lock me out of his office?

  If he’s in there now…

  I press my ear to the hardwood, a dull indignation at the center of my chest.

  And then I hear it.

  A wet, choked rasp.

  No. No, no, no. Leo’s in there, and he’s dying. I jerk my head away from the door but the sound only gets louder. I can hear him so clearly, but it won’t open. Smooth metal denies my scratches. “Please,” I beg the doorknob. It doesn’t turn. My hands slip on the surface. I pound at the wood with a fist but it’s solid, not like the flimsy doors in my house, it’s solid enough to keep me from him. An agonized wheeze fills the hall, echoes in my ears. I can’t find my phone. Where is my phone? There’s no time to call anyone. I just have to get inside.

  The doorknob rejects me. My hands slip off. I’m useless. So useless. I can’t even put pressure on the wound. Silence rings around my scrabbling at the doorknob. No sirens. No one is coming.

  I turn to look down the hall—Gerard has to have heard me—and when I turn back there’s no doorknob. “No.” It comes out on a whisper, my voice gone. All I have is my hands. I beat both fists against the door, again and again and again. It does nothing. Nothing. I beat harder. I’ll tear through the damn thing. I’ll tear it down. I clear my throat and try to shout for help again. A whisper. A pathetic whisper. Jesus.

  “Help,” I scream.

  I try to scream. And fail. I am so fucking useless that I can’t even scream. My throat feels pinched tight. A hoarse whisper isn’t going to get anyone’s attention but I try again. “Help. Please, help.”

  Pain splinters through the side of my hand. My heart crashes in my throat. Pain has to be a good sign. It has to. The door shimmers in front of me. I’ll let my hands break, I’ll let the bones shatter, before I’ll stop.

  “Haley.”

  I don’t turn toward the sound of my name. It’s too easy to get turned around. Too easy to lose the door. I won’t lose him, I won’t, I won’t. “Help.” I get a whisper, but I need a scream. I need him.

  “Darling. Wake up.”

  I bring my hand down hard, the pain bruising now. Someone catches my hand. “Stop. No. Stop.” Arms now. Strong ones, wrapping around me from behind. Adrenaline surges, cold and silver through my veins. “I have to get to the door. Let go, let go—”

  “I need you to wake up. You’ll hurt yourself.”

  A big hand comes around to my face and shakes. It breaks my focus on the door. No, damn it, I can’t lose it. I don’t know where to kick, where to aim my punches, and there’s nowhere, because he’s behind me.

  “You’re dreaming.” Leo’s voice is pure, dark command, and it shatters the door, the dream, everything. “It’s not real. You’re safe. Wake up.”

  My body throws itself against his arms, struggling. Fighting to get free. The dream has shadows on me. Tendrils. The panic. It won’t let go. “Stop,” I gasp.

  “No. You were beating the shit out of the headboard.” He drags me back. Holds me to his chest. “Stop fighting or I’ll hold you down.”

  “I can’t stop.” Taking a normal breath is beyond me, too. They’re coming faster than I can control. I’m kicking at nothing. Meeting blankets and pillows. I dig one heel in and throw all my weight against him. It’s so close. The blood. The drowning gasps. They could pull me back under, and I wouldn’t resurface. “You have to make me.”

  Leo’s arms tense, his body braced behind mine. I’m a whirlwind. Everything is disjointed. He’s the only thing in the room that doesn’t spin. I can see the outline of his office door. I get one fist up, but he gathers it in and pins both my arms to my chest.

  “You were having a nightmare,” he says into my ear. There’s no power in shouting, I see now. I know now. He could own me without ever raising his voice. I need him to own me now. “You’re not with Caroline anymore. She can’t touch you. Rick can’t touch you. This is my house.”

  A lightning flash of memory, of fear. “It wasn’t about Caroline.” My lungs contract. Not enough air to breathe. Not enough to scream. “It was about you.”

  He goes absolutely still, the only movement of him a counterpressure against me. Against my struggling self. Shock vibrates through his body. “About me.”

  “You were shot.” I can feel a wave of sobs about to crest, and I don’t want it, I don’t want to cry about Ronan shooting Leo, I don’t want to cry about a nightmare. “You were dying. I could hear you breathing but I couldn’t get into your office. I couldn’t do anything. I was useless. Useless to protect you, to save you. You were dying behind that door, and I couldn’t do anything.”

  “Jesus,” he says on an exhale, and then we’re moving. It’s out of my hands. He’s too strong, and I’m in his arms, and I can’t stop him. Leo stands us both up and bends me over the bed.

  “I can’t stop.” It’s true. I’m resisting him, pushing up against his hands. It’s not enough.

  A low laugh. “Do you think for a moment I can’t stop you?”

  �
��You got hurt.” I hear the sound again. “Maybe—”

  He wrestles my arms behind my back. A drawer opens. His bedside table, I think, and then he’s binding my wrists together. So practiced. So measured. So mean. But not like he was. He’s different now, different since I told him about the dream, but I can’t place how. Leo keeps me down with one broad hand on my upper back. My cheek presses into soft covers that smell like him.

  The drawer snaps closed. Leo’s hand is at my waist, doing away with my panties, and when he’s finished he kicks my legs apart. “Wider,” he demands. Rough. Impatient. I inch my feet out. “Until your thighs burn, darling. Don’t make me wait.”

  A whimper escapes me. They’re burning now, and I’m at the edge of a precipice. Right on the threshold of another nightmare. The pressure on my upper back increases.

  And then, between my legs—

  Cool leather.

  I can’t stop my frantic inhale, or hide it. My knees buckle at the kiss of the strap.

  “You remembered,” Leo says.

  Yes. Yes, I remember. I remember being bent over the bed in the guest bedroom. I remember how the leather felt like fire against my ass. I remember I like it when you cry. I remember everything.

  Leo slides the whole length of the strap over my pussy. “You’re out of control, darling.” He tests the theory by lifting his hand off my back. My whole body bucks. He pushes me back down with a disapproving sound. “Three should bring you back.”

  The strap meets my wet center again, and with a shock I see what he’s going to do. “Not there,” I beg.

  “Keep your thighs open, or it’ll be six.”

  “No—”

  The word is broken in two by the first blow. I turn my head and howl into the covers. My legs shake. My toes dig in. Leo doesn’t relent. He presses the strap against my pussy again—to warn me, I guess, of where it’s going to land—and draws it back.

  The worst part isn’t the pain. The worst part is how good it feels to scream. This hurt is one I recognize. It’s sharp, oh, god, it’s sharp, it hurts, but I know where it ends. It’s not the depthless panic of hearing him drown in his own blood. It’s just pain that Leo’s causing. Because he can. Because he lived. He didn’t die. I was there with him.

  Something unwinds, and tears run down my cheeks. Leo’s hand gentles on my back but doesn’t let up. “Hurts like a motherfucker,” he says softly.

  I get in a hitching breath. “Give me. The third one.”

  He does, and when it lands, I can’t tell if I’m moaning or sobbing. Both, I think. Both, and it’s humiliating, and it’s perfect. Because Leo’s alive. He drops to his knees behind me and then his mouth is hot on my aching, punished flesh. He spreads me wider with both hands, leaving me slumped over the bed. The softness of his tongue is intensified by the hard slap of the belt and my hips don’t know what to do. They rock back and forth. His tongue. The edge of the bed. His tongue. He licks higher, over even more sensitive, secret parts of me. The trembling is all pleasure now. All freedom.

  It doesn’t matter that my hands are tied. The nightmare is gone.

  Leo pushes his tongue into me.

  “Oh, I want, I want—”

  A slap to my ass stops my pointless begging. I don’t have to ask. He’ll give me what he wants to give me, and it’ll be just what I need. I lose myself in the pressure and glide of his tongue. He won’t stop. He just keeps pushing and pushing until I’m at the peak. Until I’m over it, coming on his tongue, and even then he keeps up his relentless assault on my clit. A soft, torturing thing that gives me aftershocks of orgasm. He makes a sound like he’s just eaten something unbearably sweet and stands up.

  Pushes my legs together. Makes me arch. He’s making me tighter for him. I realize it in a delirious haze just before he shoves the head of his cock into the place he’s just prepared.

  I’m still new at this. I have to stretch, even though we’ve fucked, even though I’ve been fucked by him. Leo shivers behind me. He has to let go for that to happen, I know now, he has to consciously decide to be that way. To be that revealing. It’s so hot. His fingers digging into my hips. His thickness filling me. He’s in control of himself. That’s what it is. He’s not the beast, not now. Something brought him back from the electric, boiling tension of the last few days.

  He’s in control of himself, and he’s in control of me.

  “I wasn’t your nightmare,” he says, tone almost conversational, but I can hear the raw need in his voice. “You weren’t dreaming about me. About me hurting you.”

  “No.” It’s hard to say anything else with him stroking into me, harder with every thrust, my hips hitting the edge of the bed with thud after thud. “Not you.”

  Leo does something at my wrists and my hands come free, but he doesn’t let them stay that way for long. He curls his fingers around both wrists and pins them to the bed so he’s over me. So he’s everywhere in the dark. In the moonlight. The head of him meets some inner place he hasn’t touched before and I spread my legs on instinct. Give him more room. He’s so big, he needs more room. He drops a kiss to my shoulder. A bite.

  He releases my wrists. One of his hands goes to my throat. The other between my legs. I whimper when his fingers meet the soreness from being strapped there. A pinch to the clit makes my legs give out for real. I’m held in place by his hands, and his cock, and if it weren’t for those things, I’d be a puddle on the floor.

  “Your pussy loves that,” he growls into my ear. “You like when I hurt you.”

  “Just you,” I breathe as his fingers play at my clit, gentler now but no less insistent. He’s going to make me come again. “It loves you. Anything you do to me.”

  “The next time you try to hurt yourself for me, I’ll fuck your ass until you scream. I won’t stop for tears. I’m the only one who hurts you. Do you understand?”

  I can’t speak. I’m too close to a violent orgasm, one brought on by his words and his relentless fingers. Too close to coming apart. The nightmare carried me to the edge. Leo Morelli’s pushing me over. He’s the only one who can hurt me, and he does it so well.

  His grip tightens around my throat. He thrusts his cock home. “Please,” I choke out. “Yes.”

  “I’ll be your nightmare,” he says, and I come so hard I drag him over with me.

  Chapter Nine

  Leo

  The voicemail comes in too fucking early to be a polite call. Just after seven. I didn’t notice the call itself. I’ve been sitting in the only way I can at this moment, with my head in my hands, watching the corners of the room take on the hue of the dawn. At various intervals I look out the front windows of my house, down onto the driveway. From this smaller library and sitting room I have a clear view of anyone approaching the house from the road.

  Sleeping is becoming impossible. Fucking Haley last night, feeling her cunt ripple and clench around me, bought me three hours. Then came the pain. Then came the guilt. She was terrified when I found her in the bed. Cracking her fists against the headboard like it was a door to a prison cell. What she imagined was worse. My office. Not being able to get to me.

  A better man would have whispered sweet nothings to her and stroked her face until she fell back asleep.

  I’m not a better man.

  And Haley, for all her innocence, for all her sweetness, can’t stand gentleness. Not right now.

  So I have been awake. My back is killing me. Razors down my spine and across my ribs. And a restless, unsettled pit that can only be soothed in a way that’s not available to me in the daylight. That will have to wait.

  My phone buzzes again and I swipe it off the table by my chair.

  A voicemail from Lucian.

  Lucky me.

  I lean on the arm of the chair, prop my forehead in my hand, and hold the phone to my ear. I don’t particularly want to hear what Lucian has to say on his way home from his sex club. His recent involvement with my security team means I have to listen. I don’t trust how much he�
��s become involved. I don’t like how much he knows. My eldest brother is coming dangerously close to the real secret of what happened with Caroline, and I fucking hate that.

  I hate it so much I miss the beginning of the message and have to start over.

  “Learn to answer your phone when people call, Leo. Voicemail is for hired help and women you want to avoid. Elaine has had an interesting conversation with her mother.” He takes a barely noticeable breath. Elaine. That’s right. Has he been at the sex club with her? Without her? Why the hell is he up so early? I don’t care. “Caroline has been bribing Rick Joseph Jr. with a place in the Constantine family in exchange for doing her a favor.”

  The favor will be to kill me.

  “She wants him to kill you. Kill the Beast of Bishop’s Landing, and Caroline will make him a hero. She’ll make Haley his wife.”

  My spine goes up in flames at the suggestion. At this fucked-up promise that Caroline can’t make, but that she has made to Rick Joseph Jr. That’s why he kept his mouth shut while I beat the hell out of him. He thought he had something on me. He thought if he could survive me, he’d have a chance to get what he wants.

  An insidious voice hisses like a snake in the back of my mind. She would be better off with him. Hand-picked by the Constantines. He’d give her family back to her.

  It’s bullshit.

  What’s not bullshit is the thought underneath.

  She would be better off without me.

  Lucian’s voicemail continues.

  “—come to dinner—”

  What the fuck?

  I start the damn thing over and listen again.

  “I’m so pleased to accept your invitation, Leo. Of course we’ll come to dinner tonight. Happy to accept your thanks for helping to rescue the love of your life and then ensuring your safety while you shut yourself up in your room with her. Elaine can’t wait.”

  That’s where it ends.

  I let the phone fall onto the bedside table. “Fuck.”