Chapter 39
“So… What’s your favourite dinosaur?”
“What?” Mr. Smythe questions, slightly shocked, from next to me. Clearly, he’s an oblivious motherfucker, because in response to his ostentatious parrot shirt, I wore a dark billowy shirt with surfing Tyrannosaurus Rex’s on it.
“I saw the paperweight on your desk, figured you’d have one.” I shrug, following his casually dressed form down the hall to my waiting flower.
“I am not a child. I’ve never had, or will ever have, a favourite dinosaur.” He looks at me like I’m the fucking weirdo. Who doesn’t have a favourite dinosaur? Mine changes based on my mood, and right now, I wish I had a pet Ankylosaurus to smash him through a wall with its club tail.
It’s going to be so much easier to kill him after this.
In an attempt to not fly off the handle, I pay attention to my surroundings. Upon leaving Maximus’s office, Reid, the butler, led us back toward the main entrance, directing us to a far staircase. Once ascended, Maximus and I walked side by side down a hallway lit with soft pink lighting.
Silence hangs between us until Mr. Smythe stops before a door with Blossom written in black script. Is this her room? Fireworks detonate through my system while I wait for him to grant me access.
“Please notify me if anything is not to your liking, Mr. Morgan. I aim to please.”
Great. Get fucking lost. I’m about ready to combust.
Maximus reaches for the door knob, but I intercept. “May I?”
“Of course,” he responds. “There’s been a call button installed in your flower’s room. Please don’t hesitate to use it if needed.”
Something shifts beneath my skin, fist clenching inside my pants pocket. “Don’t call her that.” My mouth moves before I can stop it. The slight widening of his eyes brand him shocked at being talked to with such authority. But she’s my flower. No one else’s.
“Apologies. Carry on.” Backing away, Maximus waits for me to swing the door open in some grand gesture meant to infuse fear.
That’s not how I’ll break Rose. I’ve spent the mounting hours between us devising the perfect plan to have her shedding that thick skin. And when she’s finally a soft and fragile thing within my grasp, I’ll shatter her so thoroughly she’ll never be the same.
Slipping into her pink lit room through the smallest opening I can manage, the game begins.
The door snicks closed while I’m struck dumb by the woman dozing on the bed before me, hem of the black dress creeping up her thighs.
The lights illuminate the soft pink satin sheets shining beneath her.
She looks innocent, vulnerable, ready to be devoured and claimed.
The hunger inside me threatens to take over, but I shove it away.
I like to play with my toys before breaking them.
“Karson? Is that you?” her soft voice calls out. I’m half tempted to reply “yes” just to see what she’ll say. But anticipating the way her lush body will tense at my voice, I can’t lie. Not this time.
“Who’s Karson?”
Rose’s eyelids lift lazily, autumn irises locking onto mine. Her gasp is a comical squeak of surprise, and she rolls off the opposite side of the bed, a muffled thump sounding as she hits the thick grey carpeting.
“There’s no escape, flower,” I drawl. “Crawl to me.”
She muffles a grunt, and then a huff, remaining on the opposite side of the large white, wooden bed.
Everything in here is clean, gentle-looking, like a child’s room. It’s off-putting. I don’t know why she was put in this room, it’s nothing like her.
Then it hits me.
That’s why she’s in here.
It would unsettle her more, not having anything she could find comfort in. This room was meant to chip away at her, which is my fucking job. My irritation with Maximus flares once again, but her squeak of a voice brings me back.
“Help.”
“Problem?” I taunt.
“Maybe…” she replies.
Moving across the room, I round the corner of the bed. Her glazed eyes look up, and I realize she’s not sober. I shouldn’t have expected any less from an underground brothel.
The back of Rose’s tight strapless dress is caught on an anchor hook mounted to the bed frame, rendering her immobile.
Her intoxicated body not having the strength or coherency to pull free.
The image of utilizing that anchor, binding her to it, fully at my mercy, flits through my mind, sending all my blood flow south.
Kneeling beside her, I chuckle at the annoyed look on her face.
The old me would rip her free from this dress, and leave it hanging in tatters still stuck to the bed.
However, every fibre of my being wants to peel her out of it slowly, stoke the fire burning within me to an inferno before I unleash myself upon her.
My fingers work carefully to untangle her, not wanting to ruin the fabric more than it already is.
Of her own volition, Rose leans in. Her nose brushes up my neck as she breathes me in.
I freeze, every cell stiff and unmoving.
No one touches me, not without permission.
Jerking back, I ask, “Did you just smell me?”
She doesn’t notice the snarl marring my face, her lids fallen shut once again. “You smell good…expensive.” A small smile spreads across her lips, and I rip the remaining material from the hook.
“What are you on?” I demand, firmly taking her chin and tilting it up.
She snickers. “I don’t know.”
“Liar. Open your eyes.”
Rose’s lashes flutter, the soft pink lights amplifying the blush spreading across her cheeks.
“I’m only going to ask one more time, what did you take?”
“What’s going to happen if I don’t answer?” she coos.
I swallow, her eyes tracking the bob of my Adam’s apple. It’s wrong to punish her when she doesn’t know the rules, the repercussions of noncompliance. But fuck, do I ever want to reprimand her. “Do you really want to find out?”
She shrugs. Fucking shrugs. Completely unfazed by the threat I pose.
“What are you going to do? Cut me? Stab me? Take me against my will? Get in line.”
“What are you on?” I growl.
“Fuck off,” she huffs in response, head falling back against the mattress, eyes shut.
Any control I was wielding shatters. I grab her by the biceps, hauling her up off the floor. Faster than either of us can register, I've got her laid across my lap on the bed.
“What the fuck?” she breathes, tensing in my hold, scared of what’s to come. That pleases me.
I palm her ass as my other hand holds her in place at the back of her neck. “Last time, flower,” I rumble, fingers grazing down over the swell of her ass to toy with the hem of the dress. “What did you take?”
Anticipation thrums through me as her silence lingers. Pushing the dress up, I expose her. There’s no panties obstructing my view, and I wonder if it was her choice, hoping it would soften me up.
Rose mumbles into the blankets, body loosening as my light touch traces the curve of her skin, trailing gently down the back of her thigh then back up.
The hand at the back of her neck moves into her dark waves, fisting tight, pulling her face up and out of the sheets. My palm cracks off her ass and she yelps. She looks so fucking perfect arched and spread out across my thighs. It makes me ache.
I spank her again, and this time her pain sounds like pleasure.
“Is that all you’ve got?” she murmurs, lit up on something she won’t divulge. Circling her hips, she taunts me.
I take the bait like a lust-driven fool, ricocheting my hand off her soft, reddening skin.
This time her moan of pleasure isn’t hidden and it does unholy things to my thoughts. I’m trying to exercise restraint, control, create the gradual build up that I need. It makes the finale cataclysmic.
“You call that a spank, bitch?”
Oh, the gall of this woman. Trying to bait me?
ME? She has no idea whose lap she’s in. That the man beneath her makes others cry with just a look.
My poor flower’s a single taunt away from being tethered and flogged.
One more snide jab from being bound upside down and made to choke on my dick until she feels like her head will explode from the pressure.
I refuse to let her get to me, ignoring her tease, even if she wants me to spank her harder.
“Tell me, flower. Are you wet for me?”
Silence.
It doesn’t matter if she responds. I know she is. I can see the slickness gleaming on her naked skin.
I let her marinate in the sting resonating through her ass as I descend the zipper of her dress. Her back is wrapped and bandaged beneath the fabric, fresh blood seeping through where her spine hit the bed frame.
“Did they touch you after I left?”
“Yes,” she whispers. Finally, an answer.
My eyes shoot to the camera in the corner, promising violence. “There must have been a communication issue, I apologize,” I grind out. “May I look?”
“I don’t care.”
I shift beneath her, pulling a knife from my pocket.
I was let through with it this time, the brokered deal allowing me more leeway than before.
I cut downward from where the zipper ends to the bottom of the dress.
Pulling the shreds of fabric back, she’s completely naked in my lap.
Though, all I care about is who I’m going to bleed out for disobeying my direct orders.
Rose doesn’t shift, doesn’t so much as tense up in pain, when I peel away the bandages. Her tattoo is mangled, wounds stitched poorly. “Flower?”
“Hmm?”
“Did you give him your tears?”
“No.”
All this and she didn’t crumble? I’m even more sure of my plan now, it's perfectly tailored.
I re-pocket my blade then slide my hands under her. Lifting Rose off me, I place her gently on the mattress. Her interest is piqued as she watches me move around the bed.
“Nice shirt,” she chuckles as I stand before her, slowly unbuttoning it.
Her breath catches when the full expanse of my chest is revealed. Crossing the room, I stretch my six foot four stature to its limits and hang my shirt off the surveillance camera, obscuring its visibility.
When I turn back to her, she’s propped up on her arm, eating me up from across the room. I suppose it works to my advantage that she finds me attractive.
“What happened?” she inquires as I close in.