Chapter 32
Imogen
I’m so sore that every step I take this morning is a reminder of last night. An evening that started out so perfectly and
then ended so horribly—with Lincoln leaving me alone in the dark. And I hate the dark, not that he’d know that because I’d
never tell him. After he dug up all those old wounds from my childhood and my past, he left me wide open and bleeding.
He tended to my body so gently, carefully washing me. But my body will heal much quicker than my heart. I let him inside me,
not just literally, and he still left. I know I got upset and defensive when I thought he accused me of lying. But I realized
my mistake and immediately afterward I went back to being his perfect little angel. Passive and submissive and never emotional
or needy. And he left me anyway. Used me and walked away.
Perhaps it was me closing off like that made him turn away. I don’t know what to do anymore. Being closed off and unemotional
is how I survive. That’s how I was taught to survive. And Larissa wouldn’t lie to me. She prepared me the best way she knew
how. But Lincoln isn’t like any of those men she warned me about. He’s different, and so maybe all of that preparation is
meaningless where he’s concerned.
I shower and dress and head downstairs, hoping to see him while also praying that I don’t.
What if my body remembers how good he made me feel and I melt into a puddle at his feet?
What if I’m too needy? Too clingy? What if he’s tired of me already and tosses me aside to find his next virgin?
One who doesn’t run her mouth too much or react emotionally to being made to feel like a liar.
I see now that that’s when it all started to go wrong. But I despise being accused of lying. Unconsciously I scratch at the
healed scar on the inside of my wrist—the burn from a poker, and my constant reminder that lying is bad. My grandfather caught
me sneaking one of his books from his library, and when I told him it was the first time it happened, he showed me a video
of me doing it the week before. I can still smell the burning flesh, still feel the cruel sting of his words when he called
me a lying little bitch.
I never lied to him again.
“Would you like some breakfast, mademoiselle?” Pierre’s voice jolts me from the memory of searing pain and burned skin and
I realize I’ve wandered into the kitchen in a daze. And I am dazed. Overwhelmed with all the new and confusing sensations
and the way they’re making me question everything I’ve ever known—rocking the very bedrock of who I am.
I take a breath. One, two, buckle my shoe. I need to remember who I am. Need familiarity so that I can think clearly and remember my goals. Lincoln is a distraction.
Larissa warned me of this very thing.
“Yes please, Pierre. Oatmeal would be nice.”
He simply smiles and opens a cupboard.
“No pancakes and bacon this morning?” Lincoln’s deep voice almost knocks me off my feet. He steps up behind me, the heat from
his body at my back. Yes, definitely a distraction.
I twist around, my heart fluttering and my throat closing over as I stare up into his deep brown eyes. He’s still not wearing his mask and I’m glad about that, at least. Happy that he clearly doesn’t feel the need to, now that I’ve seen every part of him. “N-no, sir.”
His right eye twitches, but other than that his face remains passive. Then he brushes past me and takes a seat at the breakfast
table. When Pierre serves our food, he leaves us, quietly muttering about some carrots and potatoes. Suddenly it’s just Lincoln
and me, and the room is thick with unspoken words.
I desperately want to break the silence. I want to talk about last night and the expectations of this new dynamic of our relationship,
but I’m too scared. Not of Lincoln per se, but of doing or saying the wrong thing. What if I make this already-tense situation
worse? And what if I already messed up and he’s considering whether I’m worth the effort of keeping around? What if I’m useless
to him now? And just like that, I realize I’m already in too deep. Because more than any of that, I’m worried about his rejection.
I think it would break me.
“Why are you eating oatmeal?” he eventually says, and I don’t miss the hint of annoyance in his tone.
I glance at the bowl, full of perfectly nutritious food that I decided to eat, and wonder what about it has made him so grumpy.
Unless it’s just me he’s grumpy with in general. “I—I . . . It’s healthy and nutritious,” I blurt out my well-practiced mantra.
Fuck him and his condescending attitude. Not everyone grew up with the kind of luxury he can afford.
He grinds his jaw, eyes raking over my face and torso. I’m wearing a cute little white sundress today, the one I was wearing
that day in the library when I caught him watching me. “You will no longer wear panties without my permission when I am in
the house, Imogen.”
He goes back to his scrambled eggs and wheat toast like he didn’t just say the most bizarre and random thing ever.
What the hell does that have to do with oatmeal?
I know I should bow my head and eat my breakfast. I’m his property and he can do whatever the hell he likes with me.
I hear Larissa’s voice in my head. Emotions are weakness.
Never let them see your weakness. Do I heed her advice, which I seem to rely on less and less lately?
It served me well on my grandfather’s estate, but I’ve
already figured out the same rules don’t apply here. And something about the way Lincoln is sitting there, smug and arrogant
and distant, snaps something inside me. “Excuse me?”
He looks up, arching an eyebrow. “Did you not hear what I said?”
“I heard you, but I don’t understand you. We were talking about oatmeal and then . . . then you said . . .” I stop talking,
aware of my tone going up an octave, my words coming out fast and reckless.
“For the purposes of clarity, I said that you are not to wear panties when I am in the house. Is there something about that
particular request that you don’t understand?”
Yes! Why the hell you’re making it! I want to shout, but instead I tighten my grip on my spoon and channel all my confusion and anger into the poor defenseless
piece of silverware. “May I ask for what purpose, sir?” I ask, the hint of snark still there in my tone, unable to stop this
new defiant side I’m discovering from spilling free. I don’t hate it. And I don’t miss his reaction to it either. His lips
most definitely twitched, like he was trying to suppress a smirk.
“I would have thought that fairly obvious. No?”
Jackass! “Not entirely.”
He wipes his mouth with his napkin and pushes back his chair. “When I slip my hand beneath your dress, or into your leggings,
I want nothing between my fingers and your cunt.” He walks around the table until he’s standing directly in front of me, and
I’m looking right at his groin area, where I can already see the outline of his semihard dick through his pants. “If I wish
to bend you over this table and fuck you, I don’t want panties getting in my way. Does that answer your question?”
My brain misfires. I’m equal parts indignant and turned on.
I have so many questions about the practicalities of such an insane request, but I clamp my lips together, the only way to stop myself from asking them.
Is this my life now? Do I become his little pet to play with and use when he pleases?
Was I completely wrong thinking he was any different to all the men I was warned about?
Tears burn behind my eyes and my throat constricts tightly with the effort of keeping them in.
He holds out his hand. “With that in mind, do you have something for me?”
I look up into his face and he’s staring at me, eyes sparkling with hunger. He’s waiting for my panties, isn’t he? Right now
at the breakfast table. I take a breath and recite the nursery rhyme again until it calms me.
Then, obediently, I stand and slip my underwear off before pressing them into his hand. He closes his palm over the soft white
material and then walks out of the room without another word.
I sit back down at the table and allow myself the luxury of one single solitary tear. I hate Lincoln Knight.