I race barefoot up to the door of Hollings Manor and pound against it with both fists, knowing I’ll barely make a sound. Exhaustion rips my nerves to pieces. I’m shaking with the effort it takes to stand. In only a thin hospital gown, my body is helpless against the biting chill. Winter is in the air, and it seems to mock me with its looming arrival: You failed.
“Blake!” My rasping shouts battle the wind for supremacy. “Blake!”
The door cracks, opened a fraction from the inside. I nearly collapse against it in relief.
“I’m here,” I say in between gasping breaths. “You…can’t…turn me away.”
“Excuse me?”
I flinch back as if struck. That voice. It’s not Blake’s cold rasp or Charles’s suave tenor. No… The soft tone could only belong to a woman. A young woman, I realize as the light from the foyer ghosts over her delicate features. She’s tall and slim, with white-blond hair curling prettily over her shoulders. Her dress is nothing like the wispy garments Blake chose for me, but a modestly cut navy-blue shift. Her green eyes watch me warily, drifting down to my bare toes.
“Blake?” she calls, her voice shaking.
“What is it?”
I stiffen at the gruff baritone before I see him cross the entryway over the woman’s shoulder. His hair is lazily slicked back, his shirt unbuttoned to reveal the panes of his chest. On bare feet, he approaches the door, and I barely recognize this relaxed, handsome stranger. Then he spots me, and Blake Lorenz returns with a vengeance. His cold eyes narrow over my trembling frame.
“Masha,” he says sharply, causing the woman to flinch. “Wait for me down the hall.”
She hesitates, her wide-eyed gaze on my face. “What is—”
“Go,” he commands, but the gentle tone differs from the callous way he orders me. He places a hand on Masha’s shoulder and steers her in the opposite direction. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
I watch her scurry away, this beautiful, perfect creature. Not too long ago, I knew how to emulate her. How to charm her. How to intimidate her.
I was her. Innocent and pretty, at a man’s beck and call. She even walks the way I used to: slowly and unhurried without a care in the world to delay her steps—or so she lets everyone think.
Blake Lorenz has done his best to destroy me since the day we met, but this… This guts me. I hunch over, clutching at the door for support. I hear him say something. Growl something, but I can’t understand what. The world spins for what feels like an eternity as a mocking whisper creeps through my thoughts: You thought you were the only one?
“Let go of the fucking door.”
I’m clinging to it for dear life, preventing him from slamming it shut. The harder he tries, the tighter my fingers grip the panel of wood. I shouldn’t be able to outmatch him, even at my full health.
For some reason, he’s not fighting me. “Let go—”
“What are you doing?” My entire body is jostled toward the entryway. Only now do I realize that I’m not on my feet, but being carried in arms like steel over the threshold. Robotically, I peel my fingers back one by one and watch the door rattle against its frame with a bang.
“You stupid little cunt,” he snarls into my hair. “I should have you whipped. I should have you…” He trails off, speaking too softly to decipher—because of her. He doesn’t want Masha to overhear.
Why that thought resonates so deeply, I can’t explain. Maybe it’s out of concern. She should know the man she’s dealing with.
I don’t find her lurking in the room he carries me into—the sitting area just off the main entrance. He switches a lamp on one-handed and then dumps my body onto a leather chaise—but he shoves a pillow beneath my head first. Confusion disrupts the indignation I should feel. That self-righteous need to fight for my property that brought me here. So I meet his gaze as best I can through watery vision, intending to state my case right to his face.
“You…you certainly move fast,” I croak without recognizing the sound of my voice.
He raises an eyebrow as his eyes cut to the doorway. If I’m not mistaken, a smile tugs at his mouth before a frown destroys any trace of humanity.
“Is this supposed to impress me, Snow?” He gestures to my body, inadvertently drawing my attention to the fact that the hospital gown is bunched up around my waist, baring everything to him from my thighs down. “I told you: It’s over—”
“You claim that Hollingses are liars,” I counter, struggling to haul myself into some semblance of a dignified position. I curl my legs beneath me, but I don’t feel strong enough to attempt standing. Even I can admit as much. “Maybe we are, but if you renege on our agreement, then you’re no better than we are.”
He scowls at the accusation.
“You told me that I couldn’t miss a single day with you. I’m here.”
“That you are.” He shifts his position to glower from the nearest window, out at the pitch-dark blackness beyond.
“Though.” My tone has him frowning and glancing back, his eyebrows knitted. “I didn’t sign up for this.”
“To be whored?” he wonders with such callousness that I cringe against the seat cushions. He grins at the show of weakness, but the expression doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s like he’s merely going through the motions.
“To be part of a harem,” I counter. The venom lacing my voice is a shock, and not only to me.
“A harem?” he repeats as if tasting the word. He begins to pace with his hands clasped behind his back, oblivious to how his chest remains exposed. I suspect from the way his knuckles stand out in stark contrast to his skin that keeping his hands out of sight is the only way he can stop himself from using them. On me. “Whatever do you mean, Snowy?” He observes me shrewdly. “Did you think that you’d be the only woman I’d fuck?”
My face heats and the rush of blood triggers pain from my injury. I turn away. “Of course not.”
Maybe it’s the truth. A man who used me for pure entertainment would surely have other women at his beck and call.
“But I didn’t sign up for adultery.”
“Oh?” Something darkens his gaze, making the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end.
“I…” Even short, my hair encases me like a veil, giving me enough courage to spit an answer out: “Is she your wife?”
I hear him grunt. Out of shock? When I look up, that unsettling expression has strengthened, rendering his face unreadable. Again, his eyes cut to the doorway and I get the sense that I inferred too much. He doesn’t like the conclusion I’ve drawn about Masha.
But it’s obvious he cares for her, even in the way he talks down to me.
“And if she is?”
His nonchalance catches me off guard. Confirmation? Something terrible and sharp twists inside me, and suddenly, all other discomfort is forgotten. I kick my feet out and stand. Too quickly. Only the nearby coffee table can break my fall, and I land hard.
“Jesus Christ.”
He grabs me before I can move on my own. Blinking, I find the room spinning once more, morphing into the upstairs hallway and then my shadowed bedroom.
“Stay here,” he commands before lowering me onto the mattress.
I’m not sure if my head strikes the pillow by his intention or accident. But he leaves the room before I can decipher any hint of concern.
Alone in the darkness, I wait until I’m sure he’s descended the stairs before climbing to my feet. Moving at all is an ordeal I grit my teeth to endure. My head throbs and sweat glosses my limbs as I finally make it into my bathroom, using the wall for support. Here, I switch the light on and prepare to face my expression.
Oh God.
Horror drains what little color remains from my face. That can’t be me.
I glance around the room, hunting for another figure nearby who could cast such a ghastly reflection. All I find are shadows and silence. When I hobble to the counter, the person in the mirror does the same, her eyes wide and bloodshot with tears. Her bottom lip trembles, one of the few features I can recognize.
What Blake Lorenz classified as a “minor laceration” requires a bandage taped from my right eye almost to my chin. Spots of blood have seeped through, and I remember something the nurse told me that I shoved to the back of my mind before now: “You’ll need to make an appointment to remove the stitches.”
My hands shake as I carefully peel the tape back and remove the gauze. Then a gasp of horror escapes me. The area beneath my eye is bruised a violent shade of purple. Through the damage stretches a line sealed with a tiny row of black stitches. Dried and fresh blood cling to the rent skin. Despite everything, a sudden thought makes a bubble of hysterical laughter erupt from my chest. At least Daniel’s on his way to prison, because he wouldn’t want me now. Not without my money or my pretty face.
I’m still laughing, even as dread claws away every ounce of emotion I have left but shame and dread.
I’m a hollow shell, forced to scuttle back into the shadows of my bedroom.
You’re only beautiful like this, Snow. You’re only beautiful like this.
“I told you to stay in the fucking bed.”
I’m still hovering over the threshold when I spot him standing by my bed, his eyes gleaming through the darkness. I didn’t even hear him come in. He approaches me, heedless of how I scramble back, and snatches my arm, dragging me forward before shoving me onto the mattress.
I expect him to leave. I need him to.
Instead, his silhouette stubbornly lingers over the wall, blotting out what little moonlight has managed to seep in through the windows. I hear the rasp of sheets as he draws them back, revealing a sliver for me to slip beneath. Before I can mistake the gesture for one of kindness, he yanks the top sheet from the bed entirely.
“Lie down.”
My heart clenches unsteadily in my chest. He couldn’t mean to… Not now. I glance at the door, but the question I need to ask won’t escape my tongue. My head throbs; my body aches. I couldn’t stop him if I tried.
“You’re wondering if my wife is still here,” he deduces, stressing the word.
I grit my teeth, but he chuckles in triumph, sounding more unstable than gleeful.
“Oh, little Snow. I sent her away. If I were to allow her to catch me with a whore, it might as well be one worth divorcing over.”
The insult can only sting if I care what he thinks of me. Still, I wince. He chuckles again, or perhaps it’s just how he breathes: part growl, part grunt, huffing into the air.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that I won’t fuck you, even like this,” he warns, possessively sliding a hand beneath my gown, grazing my thigh. He’s warm.
I hiss at the fact, hating the greedy muscles that latch onto his heat. In my absence, the house remained devoid of any warmth.
“You came back to me,” he adds as his touch travels higher, swiping aside the hospital-issued garment. He has a clear view of my stomach now. My thighs. Between my legs… “You came back for this.” He shoves a finger inside me without preamble, and I can’t silence my cry.
My back bows, pressing my head against the mattress and triggering a throb in my skull that has me seeing stars. If only the pain were the worst part. Anything but the fire he brings to life with one curling, twisting swipe of that searching digit.
“Because you crave it.”
I cringe from the brutal accusation, turning my face toward the sheets. He finds me anyway, sinking his hand into my hair to drag me back to face him. I groan. The world is spinning now, with him at the constant center.
His clenching jaw is my only warning before he mounts the bed, easily batting his way between my closing thighs. With his grip on my hair, he guides where I look—up at him as his free hand shoves between us, flicking my gown out of the way. He settles himself between my splayed legs as if he belongs there, even when I’m dazed and bleeding. Even if I’m half dead. He owns me, and he’ll take what he wants.
I shiver as his fingers trace the curve of my rib cage, ghosting up…higher.
“I saw the way you looked at yourself,” he admits, his breath nuzzling my breasts as his creeping fingers displace my gown further. “With pity.” He laughs as my skin heats with shame.
His hand sweeps over my stomach and hooks beneath my waist, flipping me over. My head lolls at the sudden shift. The doctor warned I could have a concussion and to return immediately if I felt unusual pressure. I’m all pressure, building to a painful, crushing degree. I let my face sink into the sheets, inhaling my scent, alarmed to find it mingled with his.
Already, he’s permeated the cotton. “But you don’t even know…”
Nails rake down my spine and over the curve of my ass. Right before my thigh, the sharp ridges bite down, drawing a scream I barely manage to smother. Almost as quickly as the assault came, he soothes over the area with his palm. Then he draws it back and smacks the same spot.
“You don’t know how fucking beautiful you look like this.” He nudges my face toward him and strokes along the line of burning stitches. “It gets me hard just thinking about the things I could do to you,” he admits.
With his next pass, he presses against the wound, just enough to make it sting more. “The bruises I could leave over your skin. The ways I could make you scream. Your pain is a drug, Snow.” He inhales raggedly, his gaze unfocused. God, that’s how he looks now: drugged. “It’s fucking hell. And you came back.”
I tense in warning, even before his fingers encircle my throat, clenching so tightly that I choke. Then he releases his grip and tugs the rest of the gown away, leaving me bared to him fully.
“You came back knowing that I’d fuck you. That I’d bite you—” His head lowers, teeth bared.
A protest stammers from my lips, but it’s too late. He nips the swell of my breast. Laves with his tongue. As air flutters from my lungs, he bites down so hard that my vision goes white for a split second. I can’t even form a proper scream—just a gasp. My hand shoves against his shoulder, but he doesn’t even budge.
“You knew,” he accuses against damp, sore flesh. “And you came back anyway. Say it.”
I flinch as he strikes me again. Not to bruise, merely to sting. To feel.
His heavy groan betrays the erection hardening against my lower back. He wasn’t lying; hurting me arouses him. My pain gets him off. “Say it—”
“I-I came back.”
The obedience doesn’t save me from another quick strike to my hip, followed by another chilling stroke of his fingers to seal in the injury. He lingers there, lazily tracing a path to my thigh. I can sense his control fracturing. His hands shake. His breaths quicken, ruffling my hair and drying the sweat slicking my shoulders. Something is holding him back, and my stomach drops at the prospect.
“Tell me what you want from me,” he demands.
My answer comes without thinking. “My money. My shares.”
My life.
He laughs again as if all of those things are already burned and broken, but there’s no real joy in it. Just the hollow echoes of a pain I know I’ll never explore in full.
Suddenly, he flips me over again, forcing me to face him. His mouth captures mine before I can even think to resist. He’s ruthless, prying my lips apart with his tongue, grunting at my taste. At the same time, I hear his zipper come undone, and he maneuvers me with one hand, positioning my thighs to rest against his hips, with my back arched and my spine curved at his discretion. His teeth capture my bottom lip and bite down hard before he pulls away and slides both hands beneath my hips.
I shiver in anticipation as the swollen head of him seeks my entrance. Flexing his hips, he guides himself into me through force and feel, squeezing past tensing muscle to take me deep on the first thrust.
My head falls back, a moan escaping me, melding with his satisfied groan.
“So fucking tight,” he bites out, grinding his fingers into my skin. His next thrust is shallow, almost mockingly so. He’s stingy with the grating friction, sending shudders down my spine. “Take it, Snow,” he rasps through gritted teeth.
Only now do I register how he watches my hips and the subtle, twitching motions I wasn’t even aware of. My body is a traitor, chasing a sensation it shouldn’t crave.
“Fuck…don’t. Don’t…stop.” He flexes his grip, urging me to him. Slowly. Harder. Faster.
The slap of sweat-soaked flesh makes my cheeks flame. I’d do anything to block it out. My hands scramble at my sides, but one look at him makes me clench the sheets instead.
God, for the first time, it’s like he’s…open. Endless blue stretches onward, devouring me, inviting me to stare. To gape. What a tormented, hellish creature he is. There’s an agony in his gaze he doesn’t even try to hide. In fact, he dares me to turn away as he grinds his pelvis into mine, forcing me to take as much of him as I can. My nerves tighten, wanting more than anything to hide from his scrutiny. But I can’t. I won’t.
He has me drowning all over again, fucking his way into my very soul.
With a curse, he throws his head back, hissing as if furious with his body for daring to climax now. He swivels his hips to stave it off. Too late. He howls as his release floods me, and he slumps with the force of it. I’m pinned beneath him, forced to suffer the full brunt of his weight as his mouth finds the crook of my shoulder. He holds himself inside me, plugging the flow of his seed, making me feel him. Swell with him.
My breaths come in rapid pants, my thoughts scattered. There’s none of that terrifying numbing pleasure like before. Just tension. Building…tightening…
“Even now, you still want more…”
I jerk in place as he wrenches himself out of me, gazing down as my thighs draw together. With a harsh shove of his hand, he drags them apart, hunching forward like a predator over prey. There’s no warning. No explanation.
He merely lowers his head to the slick gulf between my thighs. I see his mouth open. His tongue protrudes.
Then silence as blood rushes to my ears. Then screaming. Thrashing. Moaning. I’m a puppet on a string, clawing at the shoulders of my master. But he’s cruel. He makes me jump and jerk for his pleasure. With stabbing, quick motions of his tongue, he makes me dance like a madwoman over the bed. Then his teeth grind my clit and everything shatters.
The orgasm punches its way out of me without any say. Any reason. I know I’m wetter, releasing a flood of liquid that pools on his tongue. He tells me so, rasping the words in awe, in between desperate laps.
“Soaked…Snow,” he accuses before stabbing with his tongue. Then his fingers. Then his cock again until all I can do is lie limp beneath the assault as the wet sounds create a violent soundtrack to every thrust.
Exhausted, he finally collapses beside me, his fingers sinking into my hair like a leash to keep me close.
I don’t know if he falls asleep or if I merely lose consciousness. All I’m sure of is darkness and confusion as a shout jars me into awareness.
“Fuck… Get the fuck away from me!”
A hand slams into my side, shoving me from the bed. I land in a heap of twisted limbs, a whine ripped from my lips. I see stars again. Vomit threatens to crawl up my throat, and I clamp a hand over my mouth to force it back down. And the entire time, my assailant rages against me.
“Get the fuck off me! Get off!”
The mattress lurches beneath his weight, and I curl up, a pathetic ball waiting for his next attack. The headboard clamors against the wall as twisted sheets rasp against slick flesh. I suck in a breath and find the strength to finally look up.
Blake is thrashing over the bed, swiping at the air. I flinch as his fist strikes flesh with a thud—but it’s not mine. It’s his stomach. His legs. His side.
He’s hurting himself.
“B-Blake…” I drag myself to my knees, clutching the mattress for balance.
He doesn’t hear me. His large body dominates my bed, making me question how we’ve ever shared such a small space. Because we have. For God only knows how long, he was beside me, still inside me.
“Blake.”
He grunts, kicking the blankets off, lashing out with clenched fists. “Fuck. Get the fuck away from me!” He swipes through the air and finds his knee, pummeling. Clawing.
Suddenly, I know the source of all those scars.
Alarm makes me reckless. I waver on the edge of the bed, as close to him as I dare. Tentatively, I reach out, ghosting the flat of his back as he twists onto his side. “Blake!”
He continues to writhe, cursing. Groaning. When his head wrenches in my direction again, his eyes open, unseeing, and my breath catches at that endless blue.
“Brandt…”
I say that name without thinking, pressing my palm more firmly against his chest. His heartbeat rails against me, thrumming like mad. He throws off heat, yet he’s shivering at the same time, his teeth chattering. That listless look leaves his gaze, and he blinks, focusing on my face.
For some reason, I stay here, a prime target, as every cell in my body urges me to run. There’s something about him in this moment that I can’t resist. Something about that lost, lonely look, gone in the blink of an eye. I’ve only ever seen that expression on one other man.
I saw it in a courtroom.
“You had a nightmare,” I tell him as his breathing steadies.
He finally seems to realize where he is, and he yanks my sheets off in disgust before lurching from the mattress, naked. He undressed fully without my realizing, and the scars on his back are on full display. Silently, he approaches the doorway, swaying on his feet. Near the threshold, his eyes cut in my direction, hooded and shadowed.
His first impulse seems to be to slam the door. At the last second, he lets it go to swing on the hinges. And I’m left staring after him, confused as to what the hell just happened.
I doubt I’ll ever know.