2. Chapter 2 – Peyton
Chapter 2 – Peyton
“ A re you sure you don’t need any help to get anything to the door?” I asked from the doorway to Mrs. Straight’s private apartment inside the main house two days later. She was leaving for her vacation, leaving me all alone on the estate until Mr. Bryce’s return, and the idea of solitude suddenly overwhelmed me after seeking it for so long.
“Oh, thank you dear, but I’m all set.” She smiled, slipping her arms into her sweater and buttoning it up. “You have my number and my daughter’s, as well as both of our emails. And if all else fails, Mr. Thomas is here every day with the landscape and maintenance teams, so go to him if you can’t get a hold of me.”
“I won’t bother you.” I tried reassuring us both, “Mr. Bryce and I will be perfectly fine while you enjoy family time.”
She beamed at me and rolled the large suitcase behind her as we left her space. “Just remember, if he’s crass or stand-offish—”
“Don’t take it personally.” I finished for her. The sweet woman had repeated that phrase multiple times over the last three days and the more she said it, the more I was questioning how sweet the old man was, after all.
She tsked her tongue goodheartedly, “Good. Well then,” She paused at the front door where Mr. Thomas, the head groundskeeper, took her bags down to her waiting car. “Best of luck.”
“Enjoy your vacation.” I gave her a gentle hug and waved her off as she left for the adventure she’d put off for years in place of keeping Mr. Bryce happy and cared for in her last decade of service to him.
When I closed the front door and typed in the code to the fancy alarm system on the wall, I looked around the grand home with a fresh set of eyes.
“Home,” I whispered, running my fingertips over the pristinely polished handrail of the double-twisting staircase. “Temporarily at least.”
I polished the silverware.
I folded and refolded sheets until the fitted ones stopped looking like a toddler did it.
I dusted woodwork that was flawless to begin with, but I had the time, so why not?
I organized the groceries that were delivered and then redid them for good measure .
And then I explored some rooms Mrs. Straight had glossed over on the first tour of the estate and ones we hadn’t gone back in since.
Bedrooms actually.
Mr. Bryce’s, to be exact.
The schedule for cleaning his personal bedroom, bathroom, and sitting rooms upstairs in his private wing only called for attention once a week, and they had just been done before my arrival. But I wanted a chance to familiarize myself with them while my new boss wasn’t in residence and hovering around any corner at any given time.
Being inside a stranger’s bedroom was nerve-wracking enough, without worrying about being caught like you were doing something wrong.
I stopped outside of his bedroom and looked up and down the hall, even though I knew I was completely alone inside the mansion. I shook my head and forced myself to turn the handle, granting myself access to my boss’s most personal space.
My tour of his space had been brief as we walked through the hallway a few days ago, but it was my first time inside the room. I expected it to feel old and outdated, but everything inside was masculine and modern, from the black furniture to the dark green walls that made the room feel dark and cave like even though it was daytime. It didn’t match the vibe of the rest of the house, and I wondered if his bedroom better resembled his personality or not.
I forced my feet to carry me through the large bedroom, avoiding looking at the massive custom bed that looked fit for an actual king, and walked into the closet.
I told myself it was so I could see if any dirty clothes needed washed or tidying to be done before his return, but in reality, I simply wanted to see what kind of clothes he wore.
Was he a suit-and-tie kind even in his own home ?
Did he wear those leisure smoking jackets like Hugh Heffner did?
Did he smoke a pipe?
No, I would have smelled it if he did.
As I walked into his closet, automatic lights turned on and his expansive wardrobe lit up with a warm glow. “Fancy.” I mused, walking deeper into the room. The scent of his cologne hit me when I neared the clean clothes hanging meticulously, but it wasn’t overpowering like most men. I couldn’t even pinpoint what scent it was as I leaned in to take a deeper breath.
It smelled like–the trees?
Nature.
Masculinity.
“Weird,” I whispered, running my fingers down the sleeve of a cream-colored sweater before pulling it off the rod to check the size and fit of it.
It was large and cut with a modern style that surprised me.
Maybe Lincoln Bryce tried to seem younger than he was.
But then again, who was he dressing to impress as a recluse?
I hung the sweater back up, barely fighting the urge to rub the soft sweater against my cheek to see if it felt as soft there as I imagined it would.
I ran my fingers over the other semi-casual clothing hanging and then even more surprising loungewear that was folded in drawers on the other side.
Loungewear of the sweatpants variety.
Gray sweatpants, to be specific. One pair laid on top of others in various colors, but that one pair caught my attention and wouldn’t let it go.
Social media videos I’d seen on repeat of fit, muscular men wearing nothing, but a pair of low-slung gray sweatpants and a baseball cap backward infiltrated my brain and suddenly my fast heart rate wasn’t from the excitement of creeping into my boss’s things.
But from something unfamiliar.
Lust.
“My, my, my, Mr. Bryce,” I hummed to myself and then closed the drawer. I walked from the closet and then from his room and wing all together before I could do something stupid, like snoop through his nightstand drawers from morbid curiosity.
Technically speaking, I had free access to every room in the house, so I wasn’t breaking any rules by being in his bedroom, but I still felt guilty.
Well, every room except one.
Mr. Bryce’s office was off-limits to everyone. Including Mrs. Straight.
She told me when I started, that was one of the few rules to follow without fail because if I broke it, I’d be breaking my contract and effectively terminating myself. Which was no problem for me, I was a rule follower to a fault.
There was no way I would break that one.
I moved back through the house and then left through the rear entrance, using my code to grant access in and out without sounding the alarm and alerting god knows who. My hours were seven am to six pm every day of the week, with a two-hour break from one to three in the middle of the day. Since Mr. Bryce was out of town until the following day at some point, I was free to retire to my room for the evening to do whatever I wanted.
To be honest, though, room was a generous term for the immaculate guest house I had all to myself a few hundred feet off the back of the main house on the other side of the pool. Apparently, Mr. Bryce’s desire for isolation didn’t end with his vast property, but inside of his home as well.
All the twelve guest rooms inside the house were empty.
As in bare walls, and pristinely polished light fixtures, but nothing else.
Every single one of them. The only space on the entire property that was available for guests to stay was in the guest house, physically removed from his home altogether.
Well, besides Mrs. Straight’s suite, which was still down three different hallways off the kitchen with its own private entrance separate from Mr. Bryce’s.
The man enjoyed his privacy; I supposed.
I eyed the large in-ground pool with the attached hot tub longingly as I walked to the guest house, aching to dip into both and enjoy the amenities while I had them.
The apartment I lived in with Tyson back home didn’t even have a washer and dryer hookup and the longer I spent on the Hartington Estate grounds, the less it felt like a job and more like a vacation.
After showering the day off, I climbed into bed with the intent of watching a show. After ten minutes had passed, I could no longer resist the allure of sleep, so I surrendered and snuggled in, preparing for a restful nap.
When I felt my body settle and my mind float away, the same dream I’d been having started seeping into my head like a dark and disturbed movie I yearned to see more of.
It happened almost every time I closed my eyes anymore. At first, I hated the dreams; the intensity left me feeling ill and hung over when I woke up with a sickly sweat clinging to my skin and a hazy brain. After a while, though, I stopped treating them like an invasion into my head and started looking at them as a sign .
I even went as far as asking a tarot card reader at a fair what it meant to have the same recurring dream every night.
And her answer had been simple as her aged eyes darkened and her brows rose.
“Fate, my dear.” She whispered with an eerie gleam to her voice. “You’re seeing your future.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was pretty sure my dreams showed my death and not my future. Because in a way, maybe she was right after all, and maybe my future was my death.
Death by the masked man in the woods who hunted me through the darkness for his pleasure.
And mine.
As sleep pulled me under, I felt my body relax physically before falling completely into the subconscious space I ached for so I could see him.
The masked man.
The dark shadow that lurked just out of sight as the forest came into view through dreamland. Just like every other dream, I found myself standing at the edge of a meadow, blinking through the darkness, and waiting for my eyes to adjust as if I had been dropped into the scene from above.
The message in the dream was easy to decipher, even if the dream itself confused me when I woke up.
The meadow was safe. It was light. There was security there that I desperately wanted and longed for. So one would think I’d walk out into it, letting the bright moonlight bask against my skin and offer its protection from the monsters lurking in the darkness behind me.
At least that’s what I had grown to resent every time I woke up from the dream in the beginning. Because not once, in the months since the dream started, had I walked out into that meadow and into safety .
Not a single time.
Instead, every single night, I turned and walked deeper into the darkness, feeling my way through the thick underbelly of the forest where light no longer existed until I could feel his stare on me from afar.
His.
My monster.
My biggest fear.
And also, my biggest admirer.
The man that was as obsessed with me as I had become with the dream. To him.
I felt his stare on my skin like a burst of cold air first. And then the hair on my neck rose as my nails dug into the bark of a tree while I contemplated which direction to turn in.
Left.
I always went left.
Two steps to my left, I felt his breath on my cheek and gasped at the sensation. That breath could make me come all by itself; it had multiple times in the dream before that moment. Adrenaline rushed through my blood, and I took off running, swatting branches and bushes from my face as it cut my skin and caused more excitement to burn in my belly.
I felt the ghost of his hands in my wild hair as I tore through the darkness as he reached for me, yet I evaded him. For now. My freedom was always short-lived.
A few more twists, a duck, and a leap through the air before those fingers ensnarled their way into my long red locks, gaining purchase and ripping me backward off my feet completely.
“No!” I screamed as I flailed my arms out, trying to catch myself before my back landed on the ground with a solid thud. Stars danced in front of my eyes as my lungs clenched from the impact and refused to grant access to new oxygen, no matter how hard I tried to breathe.
Shadows of him moved around me as he slowly circled over my prone body, staring down at me. I could see the faint glow of his sinister smile beneath his mask before he moved with lightning speed, flipping me onto my stomach so I couldn’t see him at all.
“What a pretty little prize you are.” He growled against my ear as he straddled my back and pulled my head back to look up at the sky.
Fuck, he smelled so good; he always smelled so damn good. It was part of the conundrum he created inside of my brain each time he caught me.
“You always look so pretty for me.” He ran his face up the side of mine and I could feel the cool leather of his mask before his teeth bit my jaw. His mask left his mouth and jaw free and exposed, not that I would have been able to recognize him from those features alone if I saw him in the real world. But every time I saw glimpses of him in the dream, I knew he was mine.
My monster.
And I was his. I belonged to no one else in this world, and I didn’t want to. Even if I fought him each and every time he caught me.
“Tell me, Puppet,” He loosened his hold on my hair and wrapped his hand around my throat, “How many times will you come for me tonight?” I clawed at his hand as my body panicked for fresh air around the pressure of his hand. “Three?” He bit my ear and moaned when I rocked underneath him. “You’re feisty tonight, I bet you’ll come four times before I’m done with you.”
“Please let me go,” I begged in a hoarse whisper, drawing blood from his fingers where my nails broke the skin. “Please.”
“Your mouth does far better things than beg for freedom, Puppet.” He lowered his body to lie on mine, and I felt his other hand rake up the back of my thigh, bunching my already torn skirt as he went until he reached that telltale part of my body that always gave me away to him. I gasped when he pushed his fingers under my panties and instantly rubbed my wet, aching core. “Tonight we’ll start with this, though.” He pushed those thick fingers inside of me and I cried out in ecstasy from the feeling of him filling me. It felt almost as good as his cock would when he would finally push inside of me. “Fight me.” He demanded, tightening his hold on my neck again and cutting off my air supply. “Tell me to stop, Puppet. Prove to yourself that you don’t want this.”
“Stop!” I pushed my palms against the dirt to push up into him, trying to dislodge him from my back, but he was so big. So fucking big. Everywhere. “Don’t.”
The commands were weak, even to my ears, because we both knew I wanted the exact opposite.
He chuckled in my ear and then ripped my panties until they covered nothing but hung in tatters from my waist. This was the only time my dreams ever changed, after I begged him to stop. Sometimes he would play with me and make me come almost instantly. Sometimes he would edge me until I begged for release. Other times, he would sink into my body and push my face into the soft earth beneath me as I screamed with my ecstasy.
This dream was one I’d had before, though not as often. And I couldn’t tell if that was good or bad because the end result was always the same.
Ecstasy.
Though there would be pain before pleasure in this version.
His hand lifted from between my thighs and then laid against my bare ass cheek with a resounding slap as he spanked me powerfully .
“Fuck!” I screamed into the darkness as he released his hold on my throat and buried his fingers into my hair, pulling me up onto my knees so my ass was presented just how he like it. “No!” I shrieked when his hand landed blow after blow to my ass, even as my body arched back into position after each spank, ready and eager for another.
I may have said no, but I wanted more. The voice in my head screamed for it harder each time. I was so fucking psychotic.
I felt the brush of his hand against my ass cheek seconds before his cock pushed deep into my pussy. “That’s my good little, Puppet.” He groaned, giving away the effect our encounter was having on him as he bottomed out, stretching my pussy out around his massive cock.
So. Fucking. Big.
I arched my hips and spread my knees further to accommodate his punishing thrusts as he fucked me like the madman he really was, and he chuckled darkly. I pushed back into him, chasing the ecstasy he gave me when all of a sudden the dark sky above us broke away like someone punched a hole in it and blinding light shined through the spot.
“What?” I gasped, squinting against the light as he kept fucking me. Another spot exploded in the sky, and more light broke through the cover of darkness. Where the beam of light hit the damp underbelly of the forest, the foliage shriveled up like it was being burned by the light until it evaporated into smoke and dust.
My monster growled from behind me as he fucked harder and deeper, as more light burned up the forest around us.
Another beam shot across the sky and landed on the mossy ground right in front of me and I watched in horror as the green life burned to brown dust. I reached forward to grab for the plants, like I could block the light from destroying them .
Burning pain erupted in my hand when my fingers touched the light, and I reared back from it as panic built in my stomach. “No!” I whispered in panic as my monster chuckled.
“Tell him I said hello, Puppet.” My monster said, leaning forward to lie against my back as he bit my ear. “Someday you’ll be all mine. Someday soon.”
I shook my head, not understanding what was happening. He never spoke that line in any of my other dreams. And the sky had never evaporated around us before, either.
What was happening?
I clawed at his arm as he kissed my cheek like he was saying goodbye, even though he was still buried deep inside my body when he spoke. “You’re mine, Peyton.” He growled, once again breaking the script from every other dream and using my real name instead of his favorite nickname for me. “Be ready for me when you wake up. Because you’ve always been mine, and I’m done sharing you.”
“No.” I gasped, no longer fighting against him, instead fighting for him. “Wait.”
The sky exploded around us, and I closed my eyes against the painful light and high-pitched noise as the entire dream evaporated around me.
I blinked my eyes rapidly, lurching forward as reality took hold again, dropping me back in the bedroom of the guest house at Hartington Estate. My skin was wet with perspiration, and I gasped for breath as I looked around, trying to figure out what happened.
Never before had my dream been interrupted. Never before had my monster abandoned me like that, causing me to cry out in agony as I felt trapped between two worlds, unfulfilled in both. “No.” I whispered, clawing at the bed sheets as the noise began again and I realized my phone was ringing a shrill, annoying sound .
That was what had disturbed my dream and torn me from my monster’s clutches before either of us found pleasure, like usual.
I ripped my phone off the nightstand and loudly groaned when I saw Tyson’s name flash across the screen, angry and worked up. And then my monster’s words fluttered back through my ears like he was right there with me again.
Tell him I said hello.
My monster was talking about Tyson like he knew what was breaking up our time together.
“Fuck.” I moaned, laying back flat on the bed in exasperation. I stared up at the ceiling panting, as I tried to reason with myself that I wasn’t a psychopath having a sexual affair with a shadow monster in my dreams while my douche canoe boyfriend called my phone for a third time.
Before I could come up with a better reason to ignore him besides the fact that I was aching for sexual release, I answered the phone and tried to slide out of the headspace where I was a slut for my stranger’s cock, and back to the dutiful girlfriend I’d been for the last four years to a man who never grew up to become the man I’d hoped he would.
“Hello?” I answered, rubbing my hand over my forehead.
“Why didn’t you answer the first two times I called?” Tyson snapped, and I rolled my eyes, sitting up in bed to hang my legs off the side, further forcing myself to leave my dream man in the darkness and return to the world of the living.
“I fell asleep. ”
“It’s not even ten pm.” He scoffed, “Do you ever do anything but sleep these days?”
I gritted my teeth and got out of bed so I could pace around the guest house as I forced my way through the conversation. “I was tired. It’s been a long few days.”
“Hmm.” He hummed and then moved on, in true Tyson fashion. “You want to video chat?”
Knowing that the only time he ever wanted to video was when he wanted to jack off while I sat there topless for him to stare at, I couldn’t help but cringe.
“I can’t right now.” Opening my fridge, I grabbed a water. “The service here isn’t great. I don’t think the Wi-Fi signal reaches out to the guest house.”
“The billionaire doesn’t have adequate Wi-Fi?” He replied like a child, “Well, then send me a picture at least.”
“Tyson.” I sighed, feeling sick to my stomach at the idea of taking yet another picture for him to jack off to. The man had an entire phone’s worth from our four years together, yet he always demanded more. And every time I did it lately, I got the ick from it like I was cheapening myself even though he was my boyfriend. A man I was supposed to love and do anything for.
Yet every chance I got; I imagined my dark monster instead of the man I was dating. Never mind the fact that every time I’d had sex with Tyson since my dreams started, it was that dark monster and his touch I imagined while I lay there and waited for Tyson to get done. I even managed to have more orgasms in the last few months because of the mental stimulation during sex than I had during all of our other encounters over the past four years.
“What?” He whined. “You go off for some soul searching and I’m left with nothing but my hand and you won’t even send me new nudes? Do you hear how selfish that sounds?”
“We’re on a break.” I reminded him. When I brought up the fact that I was taking the three-month-long job a few hours away, he demanded we take a much-needed break. He claimed he wasn’t going to be “stuck waiting around for me.” All of my friends were getting married and having kids, and I was back to semi-single with a suitcase full of baggage tagging along in the shape of a grown man-child who didn’t know how to survive without me but wouldn’t actually commit to me.
Why the fuck did I even answer the call like I owed him anything?
I took a sip of my water and fought down the nausea the entire conversation was causing me and tried to remind myself that deep down I loved Tyson, and it was only because of my midlife crisis in dreamland that I was left lacking the connection we’d built for years. “Look, Ty,”
“Peyton, this is bullshit.” Tyson interrupted me and I sighed, letting him talk over me like usual. “You wanted to take this job and in a way, I agree we needed some space so we could desire each other again,” He said and my brows rose to my hairline in surprise. He didn’t desire me anymore? Then why was he always demanding sex and nudes? “But if you’re going to blow me off like this, I’m going to have to go to someone else to satisfy my needs.” Excuse me? “I’m a man for Christ’s sake, Peyton. I need to come.”
I gritted my teeth and fought so hard to keep my words down like usual when he said insensitive things like that to me. “Ty, I’m not going to send you nudes,” I stated firmly. “And if you feel you need to go elsewhere for your sexual needs, then that’s your decision to make.”
Long before the job listing ever crossed my computer screen a few weeks ago, I knew I needed to break up with him for real. I just had no clue how to start over again as an adult with mutual friends and mutual financials and all of that headache. I was pretty sure that was the only reason I hung on as long as I did.
“Whatever.” He snapped. “Just remember you pushed me into someone else’s bed when you’re the one crying about me moving on. ”
“I—” My voice rose in response, ready to tell him where to shove his stupid ego and miniature penis when the call clicked in my ear, signaling that he hung up.
I screeched in frustration and slammed my phone down on the counter. “Piece of shit.” I hissed, shaking my head and then rolling my shoulders so the frustration of being denied sexual satisfaction in my dream and life beating me down for too long wouldn’t choke me out completely.
For a while, I gazed out the window, and as I did, my vision blurred and I stared unseeingly. I was stuck between happiness and emptiness, and some days it felt like I only ever felt alive when I was asleep living a fantasy.
I needed to figure out how to make my real life and my fantasy similar. But short of lurking in the woods waiting for a stranger to chase me down and fuck me, I was low on options.
Unless .
I glanced at my laptop, resting on the coffee table in the living room, contemplating another dive into the captivating lifestyle website I stumbled upon by chance. The one with different tabs for different kinks. I randomly made an account a week before I placed my application for the housekeeping job, and I could almost directly correlate a change in my emotions and actions to that same night. It was like I was finally taking control of my life, first with the site and then with the job.
Sure, I knew joining a kink sex site where people hooked up, chatted, and shared personal bits of their lives wasn’t exactly something a person in a relationship should do, but I also knew deep down that Ty and I weren’t meant to be. I just hadn’t come to terms with it enough to make that last cut. So instead, I lurked on the website, seeing if there was something meaningful about my new interests .
My profile was essentially blank, giving only brief answers to the standard questions and an avatar for the photo.
That first night I searched the site, I found the kink I thought described my weird obsession with being chased. For some reason, I hadn’t been brave enough to click it yet. What if I was right and officially had a label for the perverse desires in my brain that made me feel more like a weirdo than I already was? Never mind the fact that I was pretty sure once I labeled my obsession, I’d never be able to go back.
Back to normal. Back to boring.
Yet part of me already knew I could never go back because deep down I had a need and I would continue to go crazy until I fulfilled it.
Before I could stop myself, I opened my laptop, starting an incognito tab because I didn’t need my new boss’s internet provider knowing how fucked in the head I actually was, and then went to the kinky site.
Sitting cross-legged on the couch, I held my fingertips over the keypad, hovering over the title of the kink I was most interested in.
Primal.
The word beckoned to me, and also terrified me, but what did I have to lose by exploring it?
My sanity? Gone.
My relationship? Over.
My dignity? Overrated.
My finger clicked the icon, and the page changed, blooming into another expansive amount of options with pictures and lists to further explore the interest.
My heartbeat picked up and my body throbbed needily as I read each listing until I found the one I wanted.
The Chase .
The new screen exploded with videos, pictures, stories, and articles all related to the kink of being and giving chase for sexual pleasure.
And for the first time in so long, I felt like I was home.