Blood Red Rose (Rose and Thorn Book 1) Read online

  I shouldn’t have forced her into being submissive.

  And I most definitely shouldn’t have let that motherfucker Ellis touch her.

  Now, an irrational desire to stop what was happening took over me. I knew they’d played with her ass, with her mouth. I knew she’d tasted his cock and his cum. But I didn’t want to let him anywhere near her pussy, and the need to keep that special for myself overpowered any other emotion I was feeling. I used the pager to send him an urgent message, telling him to meet me in the REC room.

  He appeared moments later. At least the bastard knew not to defy me. If he’d gone against my orders, I would have unleashed hell on him.

  He strolled into the room, looking confident but a little worried at the same time, a peculiar mix that didn’t suit the cocky cunt. My gaze was hard on him, and I scrutinized him, torturing myself for the mistake I’d made by letting him near Harlow. Of course, I knew about his little transgressions. It hadn’t been long since I’d told him he needed to follow orders or he’d be quickly tossed out on the same street where I’d found him. That time he sneaked off with my girl – and Pia had helped him – made me lose faith in the young man before me. I’d had such high hopes for him, but he’d let me down on this particular task. It seemed as if he was still convinced he had some sort of claim on Harlow, even though I’d made it clear from the start she was mine and mine alone.

  “What do you need?” he asked me politely, but with the hint of an edge to his voice.

  The bastard was impatient, desperate to get to my girl and finally sink his cock inside her. The news I was about to deliver was going to be a big fucking disappointment to him.

  “I need you,” I answered plainly, noticing how his fingers twitched.

  He was wearing a robe like me, moments away from strolling into the playroom and fucking Harlow. Except that wasn’t going to happen now. I’d make sure of it.

  “I need you to run an errand for me,” I said simply, glancing at the screen.

  Harlow was with two women and a man now, the guy rubbing his cock all over her ass. I wanted to fucking kill him. They were on strict instructions though. She could be played with, but only Ellis and I were allowed in her sweet little cunt. That was the original plan, anyway. I’d changed my mind since then.

  “What, right now?” he asked incredulously, and I wanted to smack the look off his face.

  “Yes, fucking now,” I snarled. “You got a problem with that?”

  I could see the inner battle going on inside him. He didn’t like this one bit. My worst fears had been confirmed. He’d gotten too attached to my woman, and now I had to sever that connection before it festered and turned rotten. I knew Ellis like the back of my hand, and I could see the warning signs in him already. He was addicted to her, starting to think of Harlow as his girl when it had been clear since the beginning she only belonged to one man – and that man was me.

  “What’s the errand?” he asked brusquely, avoiding my question on purpose.

  His eyes were stormy, his expression thunderous. I wondered whether he would defy me. He’d been waiting so long for this.

  “I’ll brief you in a moment,” I went on. “But I’ll be going away for a week today.”

  I saw his eyes sparkle before he could hide it. He saw another opportunity, another chance to get exactly what he wanted from Harlow. But I’d be damned if I’d let him have it. She was fucking mine, and the mere thought of leaving her alone with Ellis and Pia made me fucking anxious. But I didn’t have a choice. My commitment couldn’t wait. I needed to deal with it.

  “I want you to take care of her while I’m gone,” I told Ellis, motioning towards the screen. “But one more change to the plan. You’re not fucking her pussy. Nobody is but me.”

  He looked crestfallen as he stared at me. I wondered if he’d question me, and he disappointed me by glaring and snapping right away.

  “What do you mean?” he demanded. “I need to fucking train her! You decided I’d have to do this, you put her in my care… I can’t train her fully without ever being inside her.”

  “It was a mistake, Ellis,” I told him with a groan. “You never should have touched her. Being with her made me realize that. I don’t want anyone but me to touch her anymore.”

  He was angry, fucking boiling over with rage, but instead of saying something, he just tightened his hands into fists and stared at me.

  “You don’t play fair, Thorn,” he told me darkly, and I let out a low chuckle.

  “This isn’t a fucking game,” I told him. “She’s been mine from the start. If you got attached to a little plaything, it’s your problem, not mine. She was always going to end up with me. She’s not yours. The sooner you accept it, the better off you’ll be. Any questions?”

  He stared at me with pure hatred in his eyes. In that moment, it was difficult for me to see him as the snot-nosed kid I took under my wing, the boy I had trained to take over my business, knowing I probably wouldn’t have a heir of my own. I wanted him to be my successor, yet since Harlow had come along, the man had done nothing but disappoint me. I wasn’t pleased with him, and I was going to tell him as much. I ruled kindly, but with a firm hand, and if Ellis didn’t learn his place, I would be sure to show it to him.

  “I understand,” he hissed, reminding me of a snake. “I’ll make sure to take care of her.”

  I stared at him, and he went on with his lips tightly pursed together.

  “I won’t lay a finger on her.”

  “Good,” I smiled. “Not a single fucking finger, or anything else either. I want you to make sure everyone stays the fuck away from my girl. And keep an eye out for Pia. She’s up to no damn good.”

  He nodded brusquely and turned to leave, but I grabbed his shoulder and forced him to turn back. His muscles tensed under my touch and I wondered when we’d grown this far apart. Our relationship didn’t used to be like this – it seemed that the crack between us had only deepened since Harlow came along.

  “Ellis,” I said, trying to keep my tone from going too formal. “You know I…”

  “I do,” he growled, seemingly even more uncomfortable than I was. “I know.”

  “Good,” I ground out, and let go of him.

  It was time for him to leave, yet he stood there, bristling with anger and unanswered questions. Part of me almost hoped he would come out and say it – accuse me of all the shit I’d done, tell me I’d toyed with the girl’s emotions as much as I had with his own. I was a selfish, sick prick but I couldn’t help myself. One time inside her and it had been decided. She would be mine and mine alone.

  “I’ll see you soon,” Ellis said uncomfortably.

  “A week from today,” I nodded. “Make sure everything goes like I instructed.”

  He nodded again and turned to leave. He was almost out of the room when I called after him. My gaze was focused on the screen where Harlow was being serviced by the two women and a man.

  “Yes?” he asked roughly, and I motioned to the screen.

  “She’s something else, isn’t she?” I asked thoughtfully.

  I was a fucking jackass.

  Ellis didn’t answer. He slammed the door on his way out, leaving me alone with my perverted thoughts about a girl who deserved someone so much better.

  Someone normal…

  17

  Harlow

  I didn’t remember how it ended.

  One second, I was strapped into the contraption, weeping freely and begging for mercy… and the next I woke up in my cloud-like bed with the duvets and pillows piled high around me. I vaguely remembered Pia forcing two pills between my lips and how dry they made my mouth feel. She’d said one was a sleeping pill, and the other was the morning after pill. I must have slept restlessly, and if it hadn’t been for the marks of the restraints around my ankles and wrists I would think I’d imagined losing my virginity.

  First, I inspected the ridges left over on my skin, the imprints not hurting but definitely there, my skin li
ghtly chafed and reddened from where they’d dug into me. And then I opened my legs, the nightie I was wearing riding up and revealing pink lace panties with a small red dot of blood on the fabric. It didn’t hurt, but it felt… different. I knew then that it hadn’t been a dream. I’d really been fucked, and I’d really enjoyed it.

  It was too painful to remember what had happened afterward. I wondered whether I’d ever get used to someone changing my clothes while I slept, probably seeing me naked. It was an invasion of privacy I didn’t appreciate, but of course, I couldn’t voice my concern in the mansion. Anything I said would be dismissed by Ellis or Pia – and I’d likely be punished for so much as daring to ask the burning questions on my mind.

  Still, I couldn’t shake the events of the previous day as I got out of bed and stretched my limbs. The first time I’d been fucked, the impossible connection I’d felt to Ellis when I felt him inside of me… It was something I wouldn’t be able to shake for quite a long time, and as much as I wanted to hate him, I couldn’t bring myself to do it as committedly as I had only the previous day. Now, there would always be that special connection, the first time that would bind us together for the rest of time.

  I ate breakfast alone and felt too fearful to leave my room. Ellis arrived an hour after my meal, when I was sitting on the floor with my legs crossed and a book in my lap, my finger holding the pages open.

  “What are you reading?”

  My heart beat steadily as I raised my eyes to his. He was leaning on the bookshelf, handsome and rugged as always. I wanted to hate him, but the uncertainty in my body wouldn’t let me commit to the feeling fully. I wondered if he’d felt the same thing I had when he fucked me. I’d had no doubt about it before, but now that he was standing before me, he didn’t seem fazed in the slightest. What had changed? It made me feel inadequate about my own feelings, the need for that rush of lust threatening to swallow me whole.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  He smirked, walking closer and sitting down on the floor next to me. He took the book out of my hands and snapped it shut so he could look at the cover.

  “You’re going to lose my page,” I muttered, but he ignored me completely and rolled his eyes at the cover of the book, making me blush.

  It was a romance novel. So what? Was I not allowed some escapism in this fucked-up prison he’d put me in? He was a fool if he thought I’d never hope for something more than these four walls.

  “Did you enjoy last night?” he asked suddenly, and every single hair on my body stood up.

  “You know I did,” I whispered, looking into his eyes.

  I wanted to find something, anything there. A sign that he had felt it too, some kind of feeling of affection for me. I wanted it for selfish reasons, not because I wanted to use him to escape, but because I was desperate for him to acknowledge the connection between us from the previous night. I’d never felt it between us before, and from the first taste, I was addicted.

  Yet Ellis didn’t show a hint of it. Instead, his vision became clouded and he smacked the book down on the floor.

  “I want to talk to you,” he said. “I have something to show you, but I want to talk first.”

  “Okay,” I said, doubt creeping into my voice. I hoped he hadn’t noticed it. “What about?”

  “I want to know more about you,” he said. “You, the girl you used to be. Tell me about it.”

  It was tempting, his offer. I was desperate to talk to someone about the girl I used to be, and when he offered to listen, I couldn’t resist. I started talking, about London, my London, Madame, Amber and Carina and all the other girls I had danced with. He listened to me with an expression of intense interest, and I realized I’d gone all the way back to my childhood, and I was talking about Mummy and Dad, all the memories flooding back.

  “When I was a little girl,” I said softly. “I loved horses. We never had a lot of money. We couldn’t afford riding lessons… But Mummy went to one of the places that offered them. I don’t know how she did it. I was so young back then I never even asked… but she convinced them to let me come in every few days to pet the horses. It was my favorite pasttime. I went there so often. Even after Mummy got cancer… even though it was hard. When I moved out, when I left Dad, I went a couple of times. The horses weren’t the same ones, but it always made me feel so calm.”

  I smiled fondly at the memory, and Ellis got up abruptly.

  “Come with me,” he growled, holding out a hand for me.

  I got up and took it. There were no sparks, no butterflies when I held his hand. Just a rush of fear through my veins as he forcibly pulled me out of the room, still only wearing the nightie and the stained panties. I felt self-conscious and shy as he dragged me down the hallway, his hand pulling on mine in a rough way that didn’t reveal any other feeling than anger aimed at me.

  I heard the chatter of the other girls, this time soft and conspiratorial. The tension in the hall was palpable. My raven-haired friend wasn’t sitting in the bay window, in fact, she was nowhere to be seen. Ellis dragged me to the hall and pushed me to the center of the room. I stumbled, clumsily pulling down the scrap of fabric covering my naked body.

  And then the door of the mansion opened wide.

  I stared outside as if it was a mythical place, like I was standing on the verge of two worlds colliding – one step forward and I would be free.

  I knew there was no way of me escaping, yet the fantasy felt too good to let go of it just yet. But then I saw people moving in, two large, broad-shouldered men blocking the sunlight from coming into the room as they walked inside. They were shielding something with their bodies, but I couldn’t see well because of the sunlight. They moved inside, and I watched with genuine curiosity as a girl stepped out from the shadows.

  The second I realized who it was my stomach twisted into a thousand painful knots. I thought I would scream and fall to my knees, but instead, I just stood there uselessly, staring at the girl before me.

  She was my age, and she wore a simple outfit like she always had when I’d known her, a plain blue dress with a small flower print and a pair of old sneakers. Her red hair was wild and beautiful, and I wanted to weep at the sight of her.

  Amber.

  He’d taken Amber.

  I ran towards her, and judging by her easy but confused smile, I knew she didn’t know what she was in for yet. The hall went silent as the other girls welcomed our new arrival. Some covered up, others stopped what they were doing. It seemed as if all of us, with the exception of the cruel man behind me, knew this wasn’t right.

  She didn’t belong there.

  Before Amber could say a word, I turned towards Ellis and a look of pure hatred took over my face. I wanted to kill him, wipe that fucking smirk off his face the first second I could. I ran to him, my fists pummeling against his chest, not giving a shit whether I’d get punished for it. He needed to get it through his thick skull that this was fucking wrong, that he’d seriously messed up by taking her. She wasn’t like me. She was an innocent girl, unable to handle whatever he would’ve done to her.

  “Take her back!” I screamed at him while everyone watched in utter silence, too stunned to speak. “You can’t do this! She doesn’t deserve this, she’s innocent! You need to take her the fuck back!”

  “Watch your tongue,” Ellis said mockingly. “If she’s such an innocent little girl she probably shouldn’t hear you cursing.”

  “Fuck you!” I snarled.

  As if that was important right now.

  She looked just like she had back at home in London, and her mere presence made me want to weep. She shouldn’t have been there, but neither should I. And all I wanted to do was hold her, take comfort in her embrace. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I needed to get her out of there and fast.

  “Hi,” I whispered, and she hugged me easily, not knowing what she’d walked into.

  “Hi!” she exclaimed with excitement. “I’m so happy to see you, Harlow!”

>   The world froze when she said my name. I waited for the blow to rain on her, for someone to correct her. But everyone else seemed as dismayed about her presence as I was. Everyone except for him.

  “We were all so worried when you left,” she said. “Especially Madame… And Carina! But when we got notice of you coming here to study dancing in more depth we knew you did the right thing. God, it’s been months, hasn’t it?”

  I nodded miserably. What else could I have said? I was relieved someone had fed her the fake story, but I didn’t know how long they’d let the illusion last. And the thought of being away from it all, from my life, for months at a time, made me depressed. Had it really been that long since I’d been taken? I couldn’t believe it.

  “It has been amazing,” I somehow managed to reply, and she beamed at me brightly. “I’ve learned a lot.”

  “I couldn’t believe my luck when they came to collect me,” she gushed. “No one could. I am so excited to start studying with you!”

  I cringed at the thought.

  “I’m sorry they woke you up for my arrival,” Amber grinned, motioning at my outfit. “I hope I haven’t disturbed you too much. You look…”

  She gave me a once-over, seemingly surprised and at a loss for words on how to finish her sentence. I didn’t want her to. Instead, I pulled her in for another hug. She smelled of baby powder and violets like she always did. I’d missed that scent, and I’d missed her. I didn’t want her there, but I would do whatever it took to keep her safe and I would fucking kill Ellis later. I wasn’t going to let him get away with this.

  “Come on, let’s find your room,” I told her gently, and she nodded with excitement. “Did you bring anything with you?”

  “Yes,” she nodded. “My stuff’s with them…”

  She motioned toward the guards curiously, but I steered her away, up the stairs. I didn’t want anyone’s attention on her. Somehow, my protective instincts kicked in. I wasn’t going to let her get hurt in any shape or form. Perhaps she was still blissfully unaware of the fact, but I knew neither of us was getting away anytime soon. Not unless my sleeping pill plan worked…