Chapter 16 Aurora
AURORA
I’ve been in Everett’s bed for hours.
I woke up here after passing out at breakfast earlier.
When I came to, my first instinct was to run to the door and test the handle. Years of being locked up by my parents has conditioned me to do so.
The door wasn’t locked. I was free to leave the room.
I didn’t want to. Couldn’t bear the thought of meeting Everett head-on just yet, as much as I itched to be near him.
And while I didn’t see him, I felt him.
All day, I’ve been surrounded by him, by the memories, by the objects he uses to stake his claim. I haven’t been alone, not really.
Especially not when he’s the one who’s brought me my meals, both lunch and dinner. I know it’s him. Whoever knocks never lingers, never says a word. Rylee or Elena would’ve greeted me, offered something. Anything.
Everett, though…
I sigh. Why won’t he come to our room?
Hours of turning him over in my mind, and I still can’t make sense of it. Why the man so intent on punishing me leaves my door unlocked. Why he bothers bringing me food but then leaves. Why he isn’t here, tormenting me the way he swore he would.
It doesn’t feel like mercy. I hate it. I hate his absence.
Darkness surrounds me and fuck, I’m tired, disappointed, and lonelier than I’ve ever been, curled beneath the covers in one of his shirts.
Where is he?
I sit up, about to go to him, before my sadness sinks deeper. My chin dips, shoulders slumping. I scold myself for remembering how he saved me from my parents.
But no matter how many times I tell myself that I’m an idiot, the longing for him doesn’t go away.
Footfalls in the hall snap me out of it.
The door pushes open.
My heart swoops. Everett’s here, standing in the doorway, looking every bit as dark and intense as he was that morning.
I reach for the lamp and switch it on, and it bathes the room in a warm light.
Words escape me.
Needing his kindness shouldn’t make me feel like I’m boiling from the inside.
He can never know that I’ve missed him. Ever.
“You’re up,” he says almost to himself. There’s longing in it. Regret.
Or I’m imagining things.
Impatience gets the better of me, which is why, out of everything I could’ve started with—like I missed you or Please don’t leave me again—what slips out is a clipped, “Where have you been?”
In that infuriating silence of his, he comes to the bed and unfastens my collar. His hands are warm and steady. The weight of his gaze drags across my skin until my chest feels tight.
I hold my breath as he presses me onto my stomach, the shift rough but careful. The plug is gone a second later, discarded in the bathroom’s wastebasket, but the phantom ache of it lingers.
When he returns, naked now, my throat works, but nothing comes out beyond a strangled moan. I can’t help it, he’s so beautiful.
He says nothing, but there’s no hesitation in him. His hands claim me, sliding over my body as he peels his shirt off my body.
Then I let him guide me by the small of my back toward the bathroom where the steam is waiting. His grip is unrelenting, and I’m furious at myself for the shiver of relief that comes when he showers me.
Especially since he goes about it in such an impersonal manner. Efficiently. Quickly.
I’m just another vase lying around his house, waiting to be cleaned. Another decorative bowl to sweep the dust off.
Or so he’d like it to seem. His body speaks for him, and by the end of the shower, he’s hard. I’m wet and wanting.
Neither of us says a word, not even when he ushers me to the closet.
The clean pajama pants do nothing to hide his erection and the way his cock jerks when Everett helps me into a long, black silk nightgown.
It’s when we get under the covers that I lose my patience all over again.
“Where have you been?” I repeat, desperate to know what’s so wrong with me that he hasn’t been here to fuck me. To ruin me further.
Why I’d want any of it is beyond me. I just do.
“I’ve been working.” He lies on his back, looking at me with his intense gray eyes. The fucked-up side of me craves his touch. The sensible side urges me to run away. “Come Monday, you’ll have your own commitments too.”
Commitments sound a lot like work.
I’ll get to work.
Me. Holy fucking shit.
I was never allowed to dream of a job. Of any sort of independence or a human interaction that my parents didn’t monitor.
“Really?” Excitement pushes past my exhaustion.
But, as always, suspicion is quick to follow.
Nothing good ever happens to me. “Wait. Why?”
“I’m not done with you.”
At that, I frown.
“Your parents haven’t seen you as broken as I would’ve liked,” he says with a quiet finality, eyes unreadable. “Go to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
He isn’t asking. He’s demanding.
That’s my husband. And I’m his foolish, obedient wife who closes her eyes and falls asleep on command.
The next morning, I wake up alone.
Many feelings assault me all at once—disappointment, relief, craving.
I’m a mess.
Before I can sort through this clutter of emotions, my eyes latch onto a piece of paper on the empty side of the bed.
A note waits there, not Everett.
Disappointment burns my throat, then shame for being foolish and hoping he’d be there.
As upset as I am, I’m also curious. I pick it up, reading Everett’s instructions in his elegant script.
There’s a new butt plug in the vanity for you. You have food waiting in the kitchen. Eat or not, I don’t care.
You’re on your own from now on.
E.
“Asshole,” I curse, though my chest tightens. I flatten my hand over my heart, where I ache the most, crumpling his note with the other.
Has this been his plan all along? To get me hooked on his sick games, then leave me?
I get up, throw away the offending piece of paper, and open the blinds. It strikes me that it isn’t really morning. Seems closer to late afternoon.
“You know what?” No one answers, obviously. “I’m getting out of here because I want to leave the room. Me.”
Despite my heavy heart, I pick myself up, brush my teeth, and leave the room.
The expensive fabric of my nightgown falls delicately over my naked body, swaying with me as I walk down the silent halls.
The main floor is as quiet and peaceful as the second one. The last of the day’s warm light floods from the expansive windows, but there’s no other sign that the outer world exists either.
The staff is gone too. Same as yesterday, there’s no one in sight.
There’s just me and Everett, wherever he is.
I don’t search for my husband as I pad into the joint area of the living and dining room. I don’t wish to catch him here, wearing his loungewear or jeans and drinking coffee in his kitchen.
I do hope for it.
I hope for him, in the way that warms my heart and tears it up at the same time.
Let go, I’ve got you.
My fingers meet cool marble as I swipe them over the pristine kitchen island. Fresh fruit has been placed in a black ceramic bowl at the center. A full breakfast waits for me on the dining table, but no Everett.
I’m not hungry though. Not for food.
I close my eyes, leaning against one of the chairs to keep from falling.
This… This is where he sat. Where he watched me as my body went limp.
You’re no good to me dead, I think I heard him murmur as he carried me to bed. Warmth infused into his words. A touch of kindness.
It must’ve been a slip-up. Or my tired, stupid brain latched onto the idea of having a loving husband.
We shared a moment.
That moment was a lie. If it weren’t, he would’ve spent yesterday with me. He wouldn’t have been distant.
Footfalls from somewhere around the house reach my ears.
My face goes hot, then cold. My heart beats wildly as I listen for him.
As I wait for the inevitable.
Being zapped.
Nothing happens. No one’s coming for me.
The prisoner in a beautiful dress with nothing underneath. With a collar around her neck. A butt plug inside her.
These damn rings I’m wearing.
My stomach dips, my soul crushed under the weight of this loneliness.
“No.” Determined, I whisper into the empty room. “I’m done being alone. Done.”
He married me. He fucked me. It’s his fault I’ve grown attached.
He’s the one to blame for how messed up my head is right now.
Like it or not, I’m his problem as much as he is mine.
And that is that. I’m going to find him.
“Everett?” My voice bounces off the high ceilings as I tread the halls.
He gives me nothing. I have no idea where he is or what he’s doing.
This silence fuels my anger, quickening my steps. My need to tell Everett he can’t just play these mind games and force me to feel things is strong.
I’m a human being. I’ve been tortured enough. Have been cast aside for twenty-two years.
I won’t be ignored anymore, much less by a man who went through all the trouble of making me his wife.
He can be a mean, sexy monster. But I can’t stand this—this feeling like I’m nowhere near being anyone’s first or even second choice.
The sad thing is, I’m not even thinking about running away, not really.
Technically, I could try to make a break for it tomorrow, during my commitment.
It isn’t what I want anymore. I want this, my fucked-up, twisted marriage, to work.
So I keep searching for him. Every room down the expansive hall is a possibility. I stick my head into an empty den. An empty TV room. Another room that’s literally empty. There’s nothing there.
No Everett either.
Maybe he’d respond to being taunted. That always seems to get his attention.
“Oh, husband?”
An obnoxious silence answers my obnoxious call.
The monster is either working, avoiding me, or both.
My teeth graze the wound on my lip.
“What’s this?” I stumble upon a locked door. The handle won’t budge.
My brow furrows. My curiosity piques. It’s enough to assuage this loneliness inside me. For now.
I let my hands run over the carved dark wood, over the door that I assume protects Everett’s secrets. That’s what locked usually means. That someone’s hiding something.
What’s he got there?