Defaced: A Dark Romance Novel (15 page)

“That’s not answering my question.”

“You’re my patient now. I wouldn’t leave you unhealed.”

His dark eyes studied hers. “Is that all I am to you, your patient?”

She refused to be drawn into this trap. He was the one who’d had her kidnapped and locked her up. She wouldn’t be the one who confessed feelings to him—not that she had any feelings to confess. The only thing she felt about him was pity and irritation. A physical attraction didn’t count as emotion.

Rather than waiting for an answer that would never come, he asked another question.

“Why don’t you like to be touched, Flower?”

Her head snapped up. “That’s none of your business.”

“I own you now. Everything you are is my business.”

She turned her face from him, not wanting him to see the emotions swelling up inside her. “You can’t own my past.”

He reached out, his index finger touching her jaw, guiding her face back to his.

Monster leaned into her, and she caught her breath. She studied his mouth, the lush lips, the perfect Cupid’s bow. His mouth parted slightly, and her eyes slipped shut as he leaned in and kissed her.

They crawled across the floor to each other, climbing over the corpses of numerous murdered books to climb into each other’s arms. Lily wrapped her arms around his neck and crushed her breasts against his chest. He grabbed her thighs and pulled them around his hips, before pushing himself to standing and carrying her to the bed.

He threw her onto the mattress, dumping her on her back, and then joined her. He crawled up her body, glowering down at her.

“You destroyed my books,” he growled.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was a squeak.

“You know what happens when you upset me?”

“You punish me.”

“And how do I do that?”

“By touching me.” She could barely believe she’d breathed the words.

He sat up, straddling her thighs. Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he reached across to his left wrist, unbuttoned the cuff, and slowly rolled up the sleeve, exposing his strong, well muscled forearm. He was fair from the lack of sunlight, a spattering of dark hairs covering his skin. She watched, breath held, as he repeated the process with the other sleeve, the muscles in his forearm flexing as he used his hand.

“Unbutton your pants,” he told her.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Do as I tell you.”

Her heart pattered, her mouth running dry. How could she want something so badly, and yet be so terrified of it?

He stared at her. “I own you, Flower. Don’t make me angry.”

With shaking hands, her fingers went to the button of her pants. The whole of her insides felt as though they’d been replaced with fluttering insects. She’d never met someone who set her emotions warring in such a way. Even though she’d been furious with him only moments before, now she only wanted to know how far he was going to take her.

She worked the fastening free, and then he lifted his weight from her legs, allowing her to wriggle the pants down her hips. His fingers hooked beneath the elastic band of her underwear. “These, too.”

With her heart beating hard, she did as he said. Instead of settling his weight back on top of her legs, he caught her ankles and pulled them either side of his thighs so he now knelt between them.

She felt so exposed, him fully dressed, while she was completely naked from the waist down, her legs spread wantonly before him, allowing him to see right into the very core of what made her a woman.

Monster gave a slow, dangerous smile. “I have you now.”

His fingertips slid up the inside of her thigh, tickling a feather light path up to the apex of her thighs, making her squirm. She wanted to feel his fingers there again, to have him bring her to climax as he had before. Teasingly, he slid his finger between her folds, from the base of her perineum right up to her clit and back again. She gave a low moan, and threw her arms behind her head, resting them against the pillow. Her hips arched, wanting more.

“How can you say you hate to be touched, and yet each time I touch you, you are already wet?”

“It’s different with you,” she managed to gasp as he pushed one finger inside her.

“Why?”

She let out a whimper. “I don’t know.”

He added a second finger and she twisted her head against the pillow and groaned.

He thrust his fingers with more force. “Yes, you do. Tell me.”

“When you kept me alone for so long, I grew desperate for human contact.”

Another thrust. “There’s more.”

“It wasn’t the touch I was frightened of,” she said between gasps. “It was the intimacy.” She twisted her head again, trying to keep focus on what she wanted to say, while the building pleasure tightening low in her core threatened to take over. “I kept myself shut off from everyone for so long, I forgot how to be intimate. But then I met you, and I recognized myself.”

He stilled. “In what way?”

“You’re hurt, like me.”

He rewarded her by deepening his movement. “Who hurt you, Flower?”

“I did. I hurt me.”

“How?”

She squirmed against him, trying to find her release. “Please, Monster. Not now. I can’t talk about this now.” She ground her hips down on his hand, wanting more so badly, but she couldn’t talk about that. Definitely not now.

“You’ll tell me, though,” he insisted. “Not now, but soon.”

Right then, she’d have agreed to almost anything. “Yes, yes,” she panted. “I will.”

“Good girl.”

He lowered his face between her thighs, and his hot mouth closed over her clit. She groaned in pleasure, arching her hips up to press herself further against his mouth. His tongue curled around the sensitive bundle of nerves, teasing her with slow strokes and then gentle flicks. His fingers pressed deep inside her, alternating the rhythm with his tongue.

Lily writhed and arched beneath his attention.

“Please,” she begged. “I want you.”

She wanted to touch him, too. Intimacy went two ways, and still he was holding back from her.

“When I finally take you, Flower, I want you to be begging for it.”

“I am,” she cried, “I am begging!”

But he curled his fingers inward, finding the sweet spot on her inside wall, and her orgasm broke over her, washing all thoughts and words away from anywhere reachable. She was a ball of sensation, her toes curling, her back bowing from the bed. Her eyes rolled and the orgasm flattened her again and again, leaving her as a sweat-soaked, trembling mess on the mattress.

Before she’d even had time to recover, Monster climbed from the bed.

Quickly, she forced herself to sitting. “Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

He started to unroll the sleeves of his shirt. “I have work to do.”

“Seriously? You’re just going to leave me like this again?”

“I’m not sure what else you expected. You didn’t seem to be complaining too much a minute ago, and I was supposed to have been punishing you.”

“Really? ’Cause it seems to me the punishment was actually leaving me here for days with no contact.”

His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

She reached out and grabbed her pants to cover herself up. She couldn’t talk to him when she was half naked. “You know exactly what I mean. Is this how it’s going to be with us?” she demanded. “One of us does something wrong, and then the other one punishes them for it? This is hardly going to be a good basis for a healthy relationship.”

Frustratingly, he laughed. “Flower, I have absolutely no idea how to have a so-called ‘healthy’ relationship. Fucked up is all I know.”

Monster (Nine Years Earlier)

He wasn’t with
his father when he died. His father would never have allowed him to witness such a moment of weakness, of utter vulnerability.

Monster knew something was seriously wrong when his father finally stopped showing up for his lessons. After twenty years, he’d never missed a single one, so something had to have happened.

Even when the cancer had ravaged his father’s now frail body, he still turned up on time, though Monster found it was him who led the lessons, instead of his parent.

But then one day, he didn’t show.

He was informed by Tudor Mattocks, his father’s right hand man. He laid his hand on Monster’s arm as way of comfort and said, “Your father passed during the night. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Monster nodded. “Thank you for telling me.”

He felt dizzy, unhinged. Despite his father’s cruelty, he’d been the one constant presence in Monster’s life, and now he was no longer there. He’d never again hear his footsteps, or sit in on one of his lessons, both terrified of getting something wrong and receiving a blow, while also desperately wanting to please his father and be on the receiving end of his praise. It was a bitter kind of love. A love that truly transcended love and hate.

Tudor bowed his head and said, “You are the master of the house now.”

Not giving Monster time to respond, he turned on his heel and walked from the room.

He left the door wide open.

Monster’s heart beat hard, high in his chest, so it seemed to crawl up his throat. What did this mean? If he left the room without permission, what would the repercussion be? His father was no longer here to beat him. Would Tudor complete the task now his father was unable to?

But Monster was a big man now. His father had provided work out equipment, and he could easily spend several hours a day on the treadmill or lifting weights. This had bulked out his muscle and trained his body to a peak of physical fitness. He wouldn’t allow Tudor to lift a hand to him.

But you’ve let your father hit you for more than twenty years
.

He pushed the thought away. That was different.

With his mouth drying, and adrenaline powering through his veins, he took a couple of slow, tentative steps toward the open doorway. He had no chaperone, no threat of his father emerging from the shadows and demanding to know what he was doing out of his room.

A figure moved ahead, and Monster froze, his heart thumping, his palms slicked with sweat. His mind morphed the person into that of his father, smaller now, since the cancer had riddled his body, emerging back from death to punish the disobedience of his only son.

But then he blinked and the reality of the true identity of the person before him emerged. It was the elderly woman who had been bringing his meals to him recently.

She caught sight of him and ducked her head. “Good morning, sir.”

Wasn’t she going to question him? Demand to know what he was doing out of his room unsupervised?

Instead, she said, “Would you like your breakfast in the kitchen this morning, sir?”

Still the woman’s eyes didn’t make contact with his face. He knew he was a fearsome looking creature, one the staff couldn’t even bring themselves to look at.

“Umm, yes. That would be fine, thank you.”

He’d found himself in a parallel world, and he no longer recognized the house he’d lived in his entire life.

With no other option, he headed toward the kitchen. Tudor stood at the kitchen counter. “Your coffee and newspaper, sir,” the man said, motioning toward the two items sitting on the counter. “We have a busy day today. We have the unfortunate arrangement of your father’s funeral to attend to, and then you need to be briefed about your father’s business.”

“I know my father’s business,” he snapped.

Tudor ducked his head. “Of course, my apologies.”

His father had been teaching him about all of the contracts they held for years now. He knew each of their opposition’s identities and weaknesses. He knew which of the contracts were of most importance to them, and which ones could be dropped or used as bargaining chips. He knew exactly how much money each contract was worth, together with their outlay.

He also knew the dangers of the business—how, when millions of dollars could change hands in one deal, other people always wanted a piece of the action, and were willing to do anything to get it.

A number of loud bangs came from the direction of the front door.

Tudor pressed his lips together, his nostrils flaring. “I’ll get rid of them, sir.”

The other man turned in the direction of the front door and walked, hurriedly, but straight-backed.

Monster remained focused on the front door. Voices low and urgent drifted down to him, and then came a louder shout, and the sound of a door slamming. He tensed, his hand resting on the kitchen counter as though to steady himself.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” A man with coffee colored skin and jet black hair came barging into the kitchen. He spoke to Tudor as he stormed in, his neck twisted to watch to Tudor over his shoulder as he walked. “If the son of a bitch is dead, his business needs to go to me. No one will uphold any of the contracts if there’s no one to run the business.”

“There is someone.” Monster spoke, his voice rich and commanding, and the man turned in surprise. “There is me.”

The new arrival’s eyes widened, instantly focusing on the huge birthmark down one side of Monster’s face.

“What the fuck? Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?”

Slowly, Monster shook his head. “No joke. I will be taking over my father’s business.”

“Like hell you will, you fucking freak. Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“I’m his son. He left his business to me.”

His mouth dropped open. “You’re his son?”

“Yes, I am.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me? That handsome son of a bitch sired a freak?” Laughter burst from his lips and Monster’s rage boiled deep within him.

“I am what I am,” he said. “But my father raised me to take over his business when this day came, and that’s exactly what I intend on doing.”

“But no one else knows about you? He kept you hidden all this time?” His hand reached into the back of his pants.

“Monster …” Tudor warned.

The man twisted to look at Tudor, a baffled, disbelieving expression on his face. “What did you just call him?”

Quickly, Monster reached out and slid the biggest knife out of the block which stood on the counter next to him.

Sensing movement, the man spun back around, pulling the gun from the waistband of his pants. “Don’t fucking try anything,” he warned. “I’ll shoot you here and now, motherfucker. No one else even knows you exist. This business was supposed to be mine now. He owed me this!”

“No,” said Monster. “He owed
me
this.”

Lunging forward, he dived down, going for the other man’s legs. The man let off a shot, but it went way over Monster’s head.

Monster hit the man’s legs, throwing him backward. The gun flew out of his hand, and Monster raised the knife and plunged it deep into the man’s throat. His eyes rolled, and a strange gurgling sound emitted from his mouth. His hands clutched feebly at the knife, but he either didn’t have the strength to pull it out, or he knew it would do no good.

Monster knelt up, and sat and watched the light go out of the man’s eyes. A cold numbness settled into his heart, into his soul. The tortured concerns of a bullied child no longer bothered him. He was a strong and powerful man, with money and power at his feet. He understood now why his father did what he did. He also understood why he could not allow his father’s enemies to see his face. Would it frighten them? Perhaps. But most likely they would laugh at him, pity him, and no longer respect him. He couldn’t risk that.

He looked up to find Tudor holding a gun, though it wasn’t pointed at him.

“You had a weapon,” Monster said. “Yet you didn’t shoot him.”

“You needed to understand exactly what you’re getting into. I wanted to make sure you had the ability to taste blood if it was needed.”

“I think I’ve proved I have that ability.”

Tudor nodded. “Yes, you do.”

“This will be the last stranger to see me,” he told Tudor. “I want a wall built right around the property. Make it ten feet high, and topped with barbed wire. I want armed men positioned around the wall twenty-four seven. Not a single other person is going to get into this property without my knowledge and permission. If someone so much as glances in this direction, I want to know about it.”

Tudor bowed his head. “Yes, sir. When would you like construction to start?”

“Right away. And arrange for this mess to be cleared up.”

“What about the funeral.”

“He doesn’t deserve a funeral.”

As Monster walked away, toward the room that would now be his office, he realized he hadn’t shed a single tear for his father.