15. Josie
The steam was so thick I could barely see the walls of the shower. I stood under the spray of the water, letting it beat down on my shoulders until my skin turned a soft, flushed pink.
Everything in this bathroom was like him, huge, dark stone, and cold until the heat turned on. I picked up a bar of soap, and it's scent filled my nose.
It was his smell. It was everywhere.
When I finally stepped out, the air felt chilly against my wet skin. I grabbed a towel, one so thick and white it felt like a cloud, and tucked it tightly over my chest.
I padded barefoot across the cold floor into his closet. I browsed through the long rows of shirts and suits hung in perfect lines. I walked down the center, my fingers trailing over the fabrics. Everything was black. Dark charcoal. Crisp, snowy white. There wasn't a single bright color in sight.
It was exactly like his mind—ordered, dark, and beautiful in a way that made you feel a little bit afraid.
I found a white linen shirt hanging near the end.
I pulled it off the hanger and let my towel drop to the floor.
The fabric was cool as it slid over my shoulders.
I buttoned it slowly, the hem falling all the way to the middle of my thighs.
The sleeves were so long they swallowed my hands, so I rolled them up until my wrists were bare, showing the faint, fading marks of where he had held me.
I stepped out of the bedroom and headed toward the stairs. The house was dead quiet, as I walked down the grand staircase, my bare feet making no sound.
"Tristan?" I whispered, but the house didn't answer.
I reached the bottom and followed a long, open hallway that led toward the back of the house. The walls were mostly glass, showing the dark silhouettes of the trees outside.
Then, I saw it.
In the center of a massive living room sat a grand piano. It was a deep, polished black, glowing under the faint moonlight streaming through the windows.
It looked lonely sitting there in the middle of all that empty space.
I stopped at the edge of the room, holding my breath. I looked left, then right. I was completely alone.
I walked toward it, my toes curling against the cold floor. I reached out and ran a finger along the smooth, lacquered wood. It felt cool and solid. I sat down on the bench, the linen shirt bunching up around my hips. I stared at the keys, rows of perfect ivory and ebony.
I hadn't played in a long time. My mother always said music was a distraction, a hobby for people who didn't have empires to run. But right now, with the house so quiet and the woods watching me, I needed to hear something beautiful.
I lifted my hands, my fingers hovering over the middle of the keyboard. I pressed down, just a single note. It was deep and clear, the sound vibrating through the floor and up into my chest. I closed my eyes and let my fingers find a melody I used to know by heart.
The notes came to me before I could even think about them. It was as if my hands had a memory of their own.
I closed my eyes, and for a moment, the dark, cold stone of the mansion faded away. I wasn't a grown woman in a stranger's house. I was small, sitting on a much larger bench, watching a pair of hands, larger than mine guide my fingers over the keys.
Was it my father? I tried to pull the face from the fog of my childhood, but it stayed blurry. I couldn't remember his voice or the way he smelled, but I remembered this song. He had taught it to me a lifetime ago, back before everything became about business, back before the world got so loud.
I played it again, my touch getting bolder. I pressed the pedal down, letting the notes bleed into one another.
I loved this song. It was the only thing I owned that my mother hadn't bought for me. It was the only thing in my life that didn't have a price tag attached to it.
I was so lost in the sound that I didn't see the shadow stretching across the floor from the doorway.
The final note lingered in the air, a soft, lonely sound that seemed to float up toward the high, dark ceiling. I let my hands stay on the keys for a second longer, my fingers still buzzing from the vibration of the strings.
"Where did you learn that?"
The voice came from behind me. It was deep, rough, and so close that I felt the vibration in the small of my back.
I gasped, my heart leaping into my throat.
I spun around on the bench. Tristan was standing just a few feet away, leaning against a stone pillar.
He was shirtless, wearing nothing but his dark trousers, and he looked like a god carved out of granite, his dark eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my skin prickle.
"I... I didn't see you there," I breathed, clutching the front of the shirt over my chest.
He just kept watching me, his gaze dropping to my bare thighs before meeting my eyes again. "The song, Josephine. Who taught you that?"
I looked down at the black and white keys, my mind racing, "I don't really know," I admitted, my voice barely a whisper, "I’ve known it forever. I think... I think maybe it was my father. It’s a blurry memory," I swallowed hard, feeling a lump in my throat, "It’s the only one I know by heart. The only song I never forgot."
Tristan didn't say anything for a long moment. He walked toward me, he didn't stop until he was standing right next to the bench.
He sat down beside me. The bench was wide, but he was a large man, and his thigh pressed firmly against mine. The rough fabric of his trousers felt electric against my bare skin.
"Teach me," he murmured.
I blinked at him, surprised. "What?"
"Teach me how to play it," he repeated.
A small, shy smile pulled at my lips. "Okay," I whispered.
I reached out and took his hand. It was huge compared to mine, his palm warm and rough. I guided his fingers toward the middle of the keyboard. "Start here," I said, my voice shaking just a little.
I placed my hand over his, and pressed his index finger down on the first note. The sound was deep and resonant.
"Now the next one," I prompted.
We sat there in the dark, the only light coming from the moon. I moved his hand slowly, guiding him through the simple melody. Every time our skin touched, a jolt of pure fire shot through me. I could feel his gaze on the side of my face, but I kept my eyes on our joined hands.
He was a fast learner. After a few minutes, he began to find the notes on his own, his hand moving in sync with mine. The music was slower now, deeper, more intimate. It wasn't just a song anymore, it was a conversation.
"Like this?" he asked, his voice vibrating against my ear as he leaned closer.
"Exactly like that," I breathed.
I turned my head to look at him, and found his face inches from mine. He didn't look at the piano anymore. He looked at my lips. His hand shifted, his fingers sliding from the keys to the back of my neck, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw just like he had on the street.
I leaned into him, my heart thudding against my ribs, waiting for the music to turn into something else entirely.
The lesson died in an instant. The music didn't fade, it broke as Tristan’s hand tightened on the back of my neck, his fingers tangling deep into my damp hair. He pulled my head back, forcing my throat to arch, and then he was on me.
His mouth crashing into mine with a hunger that made me gasp. My hands flew up, my fingers digging into the hard, knotted muscles of his bare shoulders.
His tongue pushed past my lips, claiming every inch of my mouth as if he were trying to swallow my very breath. I matched him, my teeth clashing against his, my body humming with a desperate, animal need I couldn't control.
His other hand left the piano keys and gripped my waist, his thick fingers sinking into the soft flesh of my hip, dragging me closer until there was no air left between us.
I felt the rough fabric of his trousers against my bare thighs. I climbed into his lap, my legs wrapping around his waist, the white linen shirt bunching up around my hips until it was nothing more than a scrap of fabric between us.
He palmed my back, his large hands covering so much of me, before sliding down to catch the underside of my thighs. He lifted me slightly, pressing me down onto his lap, and I let out a broken whimper against his lips.
He bit my lower lip, a sharp nip that made me arch my back and cry out, and then he was soothing the sting with his tongue, over and over, until I was shaking.
He pulled back just an inch, his breathing loud in the silent room. He looked wild, his hair messy and falling over his forehead, his eyes black with a heat that threatened to burn the house down.
I buried my face in the crook of his neck, my teeth grazing the corded muscle of his shoulder. I wanted to leave marks. I wanted to feel his skin under my fingernails. I wanted him to break me and put me back together, right here on the cold floor in the middle of the music.
And the next moment, he did exactly that.
His hand flew out, slamming the piano lid shut with a bang that echoed in the empty house. Before the sound could even die, he grabbed my waist with hands like iron claws and shoved me around. He forced my body down, my chest hitting the wood so hard the air left my lungs in a sharp gasp.
He pressed my face against the cold, polished top of the piano. The wood felt like ice against my cheek.
"Tristan—" I choked out, my fingers scrambling for a grip on the smooth surface.
"Shut up!" he barked.
He grabbed both of my wrists in one of his massive hands, yanking them behind my back until I felt the pull in my shoulders.
He pinned them there, his grip so tight it felt like my bones might snap.
He leaned his full weight onto me, crushing me into the piano, making me feel every inch of his hard frame.
He grabbed a handful of my hair, yanking my head back so I was forced to look at the dark shadows of the ceiling.
"I could do anything I want to you right now, and no one would hear you scream, not your mother, not the world. And I'm going to take exactly what I want, whether you're ready for it or not."
He let out a short, mean laugh that made my skin crawl in the best way. He shifted his weight, his knee forcing my legs apart, making me feel completely exposed and trapped under him.
I hated the way he talked to me. I hated the way he handled me like I was nothing. And yet, I felt a wild, dark thrill shoot through my veins. My heart was slamming against the wood of the piano.
I tried to twist my arm free, a small, weak struggle, but he only tightened his hold, his fingers digging deeper into my skin.
"That’s it," he whispered, "Keep trying. Keep pretending you don't want this."
He bit the shell of my ear, hard enough to make me yelp, and then he was pressing me down even further.
I closed my eyes, my face pressed into the dark wood, feeling smaller and more powerless than I ever had in my life. I loved it. I loved the way he stripped everything away until there was nothing left but him.
He reached down, his fingers impatiently, shoving the white linen shirt up until it bunched at the small of my back.
I felt his hand find me, the heat and the slickness I couldn't hide no matter how hard I tried to fight him. He didn't move to make it better. He just laughed, a low, dark sound against my neck.
He smeared it, dragging his hand up and down, over and over, until I was sobbing into the wood. He wasn't trying to be gentle, he was just preparing me for what he was about to take.
He pulled both of my wrists high up my back until my shoulders burned. He held them there with one hand. He stepped closer, his heavy thighs forcing mine even wider apart, leaving me completely open.
Then, he thrust.
He didn't ease in. He slammed into me with a single motion that felt like being hit by a truck.
I let out a loud, broken gasp, my mouth hanging open against the polished wood.
It was a sudden, sharp stretch, a thick fullness that felt like it was going to tear me apart from the inside out.
My muscles cramped, trying to fight the invasion, and a sharp sting of heat flared through my hips.
The air left my lungs completely. I felt the hard, blunt force of him bottoming out, hitting deep inside me in a way that made my vision go dark for a split second.
It was too much and not enough all at once.
He didn't give me time to breathe. He grabbed my hair, pulling my head up, and started to move. His body slapping against mine with a sound that filled the empty hall. Each thrust was a heavy blow that pushed my face back down into the piano.
"Tristan," I choked out, the sound broken and small.
The sound of his palm hitting my skin was louder than anything.
The sting was immediate and blinding, a sharp, white-hot flash of pain that radiated across my backside and shot straight to the center of my chest. I cried out, my voice hitching into a sob, but the sound was cut short as he thrust again, harder, deeper, pinning me even flatter against the cold wood.
For every slide of his body against mine, there was the stinging slap of his hand against my flesh.
Slap. Thrust. Slap.
My skin was burning. I could feel the blood rushing to the surface, the heat of the impact matching the friction inside me.
He was being so careless with me. Each time his hand came down, it was with the full force of his frustration, as if he wanted to leave the permanent mark of his palm on my skin.
It made me feel small and cheap, like a piece of property he was breaking in, but the shame only made the fire in my belly burn hotter.
"You like being handled like this, don't you?" he asked and didn't wait for an answer. He grabbed my hair again, yanking my head up so he could see the tears leaking from my eyes.
He delivered one last, stinging blow, the hardest one yet and I felt my legs give way. If he hadn't been holding my wrists so tight behind my back, I would have collapsed onto the floor. I was hanging by his grip, my body twitching with every impact.
He shifted his grip, letting go of my wrists only to grab the back of my neck, his fingers squeezing until I felt like my head was being forced through the wood of the piano. While he kept up that punishing rhythm from behind, his other hand began to wander.
He didn't use his fingers to be kind. He used them to explore me.
He reached around, his hand sliding under my stomach to grab my breast, squeezing so hard I felt my eyes water.
But I was so lost in the blunt force of him thrusting into me that I didn't even realize he was reaching for the heavy gold necklace my mother had given me.
With a sudden jerk, he snapped the chain. I heard the tiny golden links pop and hit the floor like rain, but the sound was drowned out by another hard slap against my thigh, making my skin scream.
The hand that had been pinning my face to the cold wood suddenly fisted into my hair. He yanked my head back with a jerk, forcing my spine to arch painfully. My mouth fell open to catch a breath, but he didn't give me the chance.
He shoved two thick fingers deep into my throat.
I buckled, a wet, choked sound catching in my chest as I began to gag. He shoved them deeper, his knuckles bumping against my teeth, forcing me to swallow.
He moved his fingers in and out of my mouth with the same pace as his hips. My eyes streaming as my body fought the invasion from both ends.
Tristan finally pulled his fingers from my throat, leaving me gasping and coughing, my lungs burning for air.
He grabbed my shoulders and hauled me off the piano. My legs were like lead, shaking so hard I couldn't stand, and he didn't even try to help me up.
He shoved me down.
I hit the polished floor with a dull thud, my knees barking against the cold, hard wood. I stayed there, hunched over, my damp hair shielding my face as I tried to stop my head from spinning.
"Look up," he ordered.
I didn't move fast enough for him. He reached down and fisted his hand in my hair again, yanking my head back until I was forced to stare up at him.
He stood over me like a king over a beggar, his chest heaving, his body glowing with sweat in the moonlight.
He looked huge from this angle, terrifying and beautiful all at once.
He didn't say anything else. He just watched me with those dark, empty eyes for a second before he reached for himself.
I watched, frozen, as he began to move his hand. His jaw was set tight, the muscles in his neck standing out like cords.
Then, it happened.
He let out a groan, his grip on my hair tightening as his body jolted. I felt the first heavy splash hit my cheek. It was a shock against my skin, but he held my head steady, forcing me to take it. He didn't stop until he had covered me, my forehead, my nose, my chin and my lips.
I sat there on my knees, shivering on the cold floor, looking up at the man who had just stripped me of everything.
And I couldn't make sense of it. It wasn't like the last time. Something was missing. I looked up at him, my vision still a little blurry, trying to find a flicker of the man who had sat beside me at the piano only minutes ago.
Tristan let go of my hair, his hand dropping to his side. He didn't pick me up in his arms this time. He didn't even look me in the eye. He just stood there for a moment, watching the way I trembled.
Without a word, he turned away, toward the far end of the room. I watched him go, feeling smaller than I ever had. He reached the bar and I heard the clink of glass against glass. He poured himself a drink.
He took a long swig, his back still turned to me, the muscles in his shoulders flexing under the dim light.
"Go upstairs," he said.
I swallowed hard, my throat still feeling the ghost of his fingers, "Tristan?"
He turned then, leaning his lower back against the bar, the glass held loosely in his hand. He looked at me over the rim.
"Freshen up and go to bed, Josephine," he muttered, "I have something I need to take care of. Business that won't wait for the sun to come up. I’ll be back in a few hours," he added, "Don't wait up for me."
He looked like a man who had just finished a workout, not a man who had just dismantled someone's soul on a piano.
He grabbed a fresh black shirt from a chair and pulled it on. Without another word, he walked toward the heavy front doors.
I kneeled there in the middle of the dark spacious room, covered in him, watching as he walked out.
I eventually forced myself to move, my muscles pulling and aching with every inch. I felt heavy, my body thumping against the floor like something broken.
I made it back to the bathroom. I didn't turn on the lights, I didn't want to see the red marks on my thighs or ass or the way my hair was a tangled nest. I just stepped into the shower and turned the water on as hot as I could stand it.
The steam rose up. My throat felt swollen, a constant reminder of his fingers, and every time I moved my arms, I felt the ghost of his grip on my wrists.
I felt used—roughly, carelessly used—like a piece of paper he had crumpled up and tossed aside.
It’s just how he is—a voice in my head said, my eyes stinging as the water poured over my face.
He’s a dark man. He has a dark world. This is just how he shows he wants me.
I tried to push down the memory of the way he had looked at me, the coldness, the way he had walked away without a word.
It was okay. The violence was just a different kind of passion. He had business to take care of; he was stressed. That had to be it.
I walked into his bedroom. The bed was massive, I slid between the sheets, the silk feeling cold. I curled into a ball, my knees tucked against my chest, trying to find a warm spot in the middle of all that empty space.
I stared at the door, waiting for the sound of his car. My body was exhausted, but my mind was spinning, trying to build a bridge between the man who played the piano with me and the man who had broken me on the piano.
I reached for my phone on the nightstand, the screen glowing bright and harsh in the dark room. I had left it there when Tristan and I first walked through the door after the dinner.
A sudden, sharp ache to hear my mother's voice hit me, a desperate need to connect to anything that felt familiar.
I tapped the screen, my fingers trembling, but the signal bars stayed empty. No service. No internet. The house was cut off from everything and everyone.
I sighed and set the phone back down. I rolled onto my side and squeezed my eyes shut, feeling the deep, throbbing ache in every muscle. I pulled the covers up to my chin, letting the exhaustion finally drag me down into a dark, heavy sleep.
I woke up slowly, my head feeling heavy and my throat still dry. I reached out a hand, sliding it across the silk sheets, expecting to feel the heat of a body or the rough texture of a man's skin.
The bed was cold.
I blinked my eyes open, staring at the empty pillow beside me. It was perfectly smooth, without a single dent. Tristan hadn't come back to bed. He hadn't come back to hold me. I felt a hollow ache in my chest, a cold lump of disappointment that settled deep in my stomach.
I rolled onto my side, my muscles groaning with the movement. Every part of me felt stiff and bruised. I reached for the nightstand, my fingers searching for the familiar glass casing of my phone. I needed to see the time.
My hand brushed against the empty wood.
I frowned, pushing myself up on my elbows. I looked at the spot where I had left it. There was nothing there. Just the dark wood of the table. I checked the floor, thinking maybe I had knocked it off in my sleep, but the rug was empty.
"Tristan?" I called out but no one answered.
I sat up fully, the duvet sliding down to my waist. I scanned the room, my heart starting to beat a little faster. My phone was gone, my handbag was gone.
I went to swing my legs out of bed, intending to stand up and search the bathroom, but something caught.
A sharp, heavy weight yanked back on my right leg.
I gasped, my breath hitching as I was pulled back onto the mattress. It wasn't the sheets getting tangled. It was a cold, biting pressure right above my foot.
I grabbed the edge of the thick duvet and threw it back with a violent snap of my wrists.
I froze.
Wrapped tightly around my ankle was a thick band of dull, black iron. It was heavy and wide, biting into my skin. Attached to the band was a long, dark chain, its heavy links snaking across the grey sheets and disappearing through a small, reinforced hole in the wall.
I stared at it, my brain refusing to understand what I was seeing. I gave my leg a small, tentative tug. The metal didn't move. The chain let out a low, clinking sound that seemed to echo through the entire house.
What...?