Blood Red Rose (Rose and Thorn Book 1) Page 9

  “What g-game?” I stuttered, my eyes following him around the room. I needed more information. But more than that, I needed to come again.

  He’d been playing with me for hours. I’d been in the dungeon since the early morning when he’d walked into my bedroom without warning and dragged me there by my hair, screaming and begging him to let up the pressure on my locks. But he didn’t, as if he knew exactly how wet his roughness made me.

  “I think you’ll like it.” He smiled and touched his fingers to my cheek, lightly caressing my blushing skin. “You always end up loving my games, don’t you, little one?”

  He wasn’t far enough yet, not completely helpless to my charms, not at that point I sometimes brought him to when he forgot every rule that the Mansion had made me memorize. He wasn’t calling me baby yet, wasn’t saying my name. But I knew he would get there just as well as I knew the throbbing ache between my legs would be rewarded or punished with another orgasm.

  “You can come as much as you want to…” He twirled a tendril of my highlighted hair between his fingers, smirking in my face. “But I don’t want to hear you speak again.”

  Sometimes he was so unspeakably cruel I wanted to hate him for it, but not that day. That day, the hours of foreplay he’d put me through meant I was ripe and ready, desperate for him to give me what he’d been building inside my body.

  “I’ll be quiet,” I whispered, and he laughed easily.

  “You won’t just be quiet.” His finger slipped over my lips and I licked him tentatively. “You won’t make a fucking sound, little one. I don’t want to hear a whimper or a sob. I don’t want to hear you beg. I don’t even want you to fucking gasp. You got that?”

  I raised my eyes to his and nodded wordlessly, and he patted my head.

  “Good little girl,” he said, his fingers trailing down my back, over my ass, and into my asshole.

  I was ready for it by then.

  I’d been fucked, trained, touched and used by men and women alike, with Ellis always standing front and center, supervising, watching, making them use me any way he saw fit. He wasn’t the cruelest of them all, but he loved to torture me most. Not just in physical ways – Ellis loved to break me down systematically, attacking my senses, my mind, and my body. But my soul hadn’t broken yet, and I knew he was waiting for it, that moment when I finally came apart completely.

  Yet there was still one last thing he hadn’t ripped away from me.

  I was still a virgin.

  He’d kept my pussy intact, never putting a toy or even his fingers inside me. With everything he and the others had done to me, I was grateful for the small mercy, at the same time terrified of it finally happening and eager to find out what it really felt like to be fucked.

  “Let’s get started, then.” He got off the chair and walked over to the chest of toys in the corner of the room.

  I’d gotten to know quite a few of them over the past few months. I wasn’t sure which one I craved most, but I knew which one I hated most.

  And that was the one he picked that night, smirking at me when he saw the fear I tried so desperately to hide when he brought it out. He knew I realized, that it was exactly the one I’d been terrified of this whole time. Now, he was going to use it to make me break my promise and punish me accordingly.

  “I can’t wait to break you,” he said as he approached me.

  The dildo in his hands was enormous, twice the size of the ones I’d been forced to take regularly up my ass. It was studded with metal that always hurt when he put it inside me. But he’d only ever tried to push the head of it into my asshole or mouth. Never the whole thing. I shook in anticipation of what I knew he was going to say, what he was going to do.

  “I wonder,” he muttered, his eyes almost manic. “What it will take to make that asshole rip…”

  “Please,” I whispered and was rewarded by a swift slap to my face that sent me reeling.

  He kneeled next to me.

  Took my chin in his hands.

  And told me something that would make me comply with every last demand he made.

  He told me he would kill me if I didn’t follow his rules.

  It was hours later. My throat was dry, my eyes straining because I’d tried so hard to keep my screams, moans and begging inside.

  Ellis was getting tired of me, I could tell. He looked impatient as he paced the room in an effort to find something else to break me with. I had taken the monstrous toy, but even he had to stop when he realized he would inflict permanent damage if he didn’t slow down.

  Now, he was eager to fuck me up more, and I was scared more than ever.

  I was still tied up with the silk rope, the material now drenched in my own sweat. My pussy had drenched the ropes that held it open, and I was so embarrassed I could have cried because of that alone. Not because I was in pain, or tired, or because I wanted to come more. After twenty orgasms, they all blended into one painful fucking mess. But after he’d done that quickly, in less than half an hour, he’d forbidden me from coming again. So I was left stewing in quiet anger, with my pussy spasming and desperate to drench him. He wouldn’t let me, though. I was done coming, he’d said, done enjoying it. It was time for me to suffer.

  The only thing I wanted to do was the one thing I wasn’t allowed to.

  Scream.

  I wanted to scream my fucking heart out.

  Ellis must have seen how close to the edge I was, and he approached me, seemingly contemplating whether to deal his final blow. I knew what he was going to say before the words even left his mouth.

  “You’re going to lose your virginity tonight,” he said sweetly, his hands touching me lightly, his fingertips leaving goosebumps in their wake.

  I nodded, holding my mouth closed and looking up at him with my eyes wide and pleading. I wouldn’t say a word until he let me. I would do anything he wanted me to just so I could get a hit I’d never known I needed. Anything, anything he fucking wanted, for one orgasm. I didn’t even care how he made it happen anymore.

  “That’s when you get to come,” he went on. “That’s when my cunt gets to squirt. You know how it’s going to happen, little one?”

  I shook my head and he leaned down next to me, his voice a whisper in my ear.

  “You will be blindfolded.” His voice was a soft caress, his tongue flicking against the nape of my neck, making me shiver in absolute silence. “You will be bound. You will be in a cool, quiet room and you won’t be able to see a thing. But you get to scream and beg and whimper as much as you need to. You won’t be fucked by just me. You’ll be fucked by men and women all night. They’ll do whatever the fuck they want to you while I supervise. And the only rule they’ll be aware of…”

  He bit my ear and I bit my tongue so hard it bled. I couldn’t let myself make a sound. Not now, not yet.

  “…Is that they can’t stop until you’ve been passed out for over a minute,” he finished. “I’ll be counting the seconds, little one. I bet it will take a while.”

  He took my chin in his hands and lifted my face to look at him.

  I didn’t hide my tears. Instead, I stared at him with devotion and my bottom lip trembling. My eyes were brimming with tears as he rubbed a finger over my lips.

  “You don’t want to tell me how much you want that?” he taunted me, and I couldn’t help myself anymore.

  I opened my mouth and sobbed, tears running down my face in rivulets and mixing with my saliva. I was a mess in seconds, shaking and crying so uncontrollably and loudly I thought I would pass out from the panic alone. He kneeled next to me, his hands soft against my cheeks as he stroked me.

  “Shhh, baby,” he whispered, and my heart jumped. “Shhhh, it’s okay.”

  He let me collapse against him, and his fingers deftly worked the knots around my shaking limbs. What was impossible for me to do myself, he finished in a couple of seconds, and the ropes fell away from me, leaving me shaking and terrified, clutching him for comfort and so very desperate for
him to reassure me.

  And then he was sitting on the floor, and his strong hands had dragged me into his lap. I settled against him, curling up into the smallest ball I could and growing quiet again, my sobs subsiding but the panic remaining, reigning supreme in my broken body. I went perfectly still, perfectly quiet. My body was rigid as I anticipated his punishment. I’d never been more terrified. I kept remembering his words.

  If you make a fucking sound, I’m going to beat you black and blue.

  I could feel the bruises already, knowing exactly which spots he would choose to turn into pretty blooms of color. But he didn’t do anything. Just held onto me tightly, so close I could barely breathe. I clung to him, my body submitting completely. Not a single breath escaped my lips as I waited for him to change his mind.

  “I won’t touch you,” he promised me, the words whispered against my hair. “I promise you, Harlow, I’m not going to hurt you tonight.”

  I gasped when he moved his mouth to mine and swallowed my exhale, kissing me with desperate need and a yearning I couldn’t fulfill. It wasn’t the first time I wondered whether I was, unbeknownst to me, involved in some sort of love triangle. It felt like he was a million miles away with his mind, but the kiss was greedy and reckless, needing me to respond. His body wanted me, but his mind was somewhere else.

  “Okay,” I finally said, the words painful in my dry throat after hours of being tortured. “Okay, it’s okay, that’s okay.”

  He couldn’t stop kissing me. He grabbed me by my throat and pinned me against the wall, kissing me like I was the sweetest little whore he’d ever had. I responded, but my eyes remained open, and I watched every expression under the sun dance over his face. Anger, denial. Fear, need, longing, wanting, regret. It was all there.

  “Promise me you won’t come,” he whispered against my lips. “No coming, baby, no coming tonight.”

  “None,” I whispered, overwhelmed by the intensity of my feelings for this man. This jackass, this kidnapper. This man who hurt, tortured, whipped, and teased me into submission. It dawned on me that I was probably in love with him, with this specific kind of loving hatred he exhibited towards me. I was obsessed with his sick fucking games, addicted to his pain, smitten with him, everything that made him Ellis. “I won’t come, I won’t come once, I promise.”

  “But I will,” he said needily. “I will, Harlow, right? You’ll make me… You’ll drink from my cock like it’s a faucet, baby…”

  I blushed at his words but kept nodding because it was the only thing I knew how to do anymore. He positioned me on my knees and got up himself, taking out his hard cock and pushing it into my throat without waiting for my mouth to adjust to his girth and length. He started to fuck me mercilessly, and I took it. Not just because I had to, but because he’d taught me to do this.

  Playing with other women for his pleasure, being tortured by men while he watched. It was all done so I’d be trained properly, trained into a perfect little whore just for him, built to his liking, pieced together for his cum. He could do whatever he wanted to me, and I would take it willingly. I would suffer through it all for him.

  What Ellis didn’t know though, was that I fucking loathed him.

  I’d submitted my body to him. I’d let him have every last orifice, save for my pussy, and I was planning on escaping before he took my last shred of innocence away from me. I was going to hunt him down once I got the fuck out of there. I was going to make sure he was punished for every single crime he’d committed, not just with me, but with every innocent, brainwashed girl under his care.

  “Please,” I whispered. “Let me have it, let me drink your cum, let me be yours, let me be your slut.”

  “One last time,” he whispered. “One last time before tonight, baby. Open fucking wide.”

  14

  Harlow

  It was supposed to happen the next day.

  Ellis had told me Pia would be paying me a visit, and I couldn’t sleep all night, wondering what the next day might entail. The mute maid arrived first, and she left a trolley as usual. I got out of bed, stretching lazily and glancing at myself in the mirror.

  I was wearing a silk teddy with white lace adorning the edges, and my hair looked all messed up but still pretty, thanks to those highlights.

  Sitting down on the chair, I pulled the trolley closer and was disappointed to only find bland oatmeal and water on the plate. I’d realized by then that before things happened, I was usually served a small meal, meant to prepare me for the events of the day. I assumed Pia wanted me to look my best for my big performance.

  After I ate, I spent a couple of hours reading a romance novel from the bookshelf in my room, and I did my stretches like I had started doing. I knew I had to keep my hopes high and my body ready. The second I got out of the mansion, I would return to my dancing life, and I would need to be prepared. I was already going to suffer because I hadn’t been training properly for months. But I would do my best to keep my body in shape.

  While I stretched, I glanced at the camera above me. It was always blinking red, and for the umpteenth time, I wondered who was looking at the feed. It must have been Ellis or one of the other guards who had played with me. Maybe even a woman… Pia could have been watching. She seemed obsessed with anything I did and had scolded me on numerous occasions for eating too much or drinking too little. She seemed almost more paranoid about my weight than I was, and I often wondered why she was fixating on me so much with so many other girls in the house.

  I decided to stroll around the house for a while. I hadn’t exactly made any friends there because I didn’t want to feel guilty when I finally got my chance to escape. I needed to look after myself. My goal was to escape, not to make friends. The only girl I saw every day without fail was the skinny dark-haired one who always sat in the bay window. She was there no matter what time of the day I came. Sometimes I decided to see if she was sitting there very early, and she always was. Part of me wondered whether she ever moved. I hadn’t seen her in motion yet.

  I saw her again that morning. She looked beautiful as ever, but also painfully thin. Her skin was stretched over her bones, and I wondered whether she ate at all.

  Just like I always did, I sat down next to her in the bay window. She never acknowledged me, but for some reason, I found her presence soothing. We stared out at the sea together, and I asked myself whether I’d ever be able to go out there, to feel the ocean and the sand between my toes. I didn’t know how to swim, but I was excited to learn someday. I’d have to get out of my prison first, though…

  Still busy staring outside, I barely noticed the girl next to me. It took me a couple of seconds to realize she’d turned toward me and was staring at me intently.

  I returned her gaze, the intensity of her eyes making me wonder what she was going to say. Yet she didn’t speak a word, just kept looking at me in that way, which was almost a little disturbing.

  “What?” I whispered, surprised by her sudden interaction. She’d ignored me for months – what had changed now?

  She held out a hand and I reached out to her. She took my hand in hers and placed a small object in my palm. I realized we were alone in the room, nervously looking around us only to find no one around. It was very early, and while I heard the chatter of the girls in the hall, there was nobody in the living area.

  “For what?” I asked her, and she motioned towards the hall.

  The main door.

  She’d just given me the card that unlocked the main door.

  She stood up and walked over to the hallway leading into the hall. I followed her, too entranced to say a word about what she was doing. Maybe she was like the maid, maybe her tongue had been cut out and that’s why she was unable to speak.

  We walked into the main hall together. I noticed there was only one guard this early in the morning, and he looked at us with desire in his eyes as we walked in. The girl next to me seemed to be aware of his attention, and she stroked her body with slow, tantalizi
ng motions as he watched her. He cleared his throat and looked around to make sure we were alone, then approached her slowly, already forgetting about me.

  The raven-haired girl winked at me, and I walked away, stunned. Was she really going to help me escape? And get herself into big trouble in the process… If she was distracting the guard, there was no way she’d be able to escape with me. So, she was sacrificing herself for someone she barely knew.

  I didn’t have time to wonder about it.

  I just walked towards the main door, glancing over my shoulder to find the guard kissing her neck while the girl watched me. As I was walking, I stumbled, and the card fell from my grasp. My heart was beating a million miles a minute when I bent down to get it, but there was someone else faster than me.

  An elegant hand reached down, long lacquered fingers wrapping around the card and picking it up.

  “Lost something?” she asked, and my cheeks burned with fire as I looked up at her.

  Pia.

  She’d just ruined my one chance of escaping this place, the best one I’d gotten so far. And she was wearing a serene smile as she did it, twirling the card between her fingers.

  “Someone must have dropped it,” I replied calmly. “I was just about to return it. It looks like your guard is preoccupied.”

  I motioned towards my new friend and the guard that was now openly kissing the girl’s breasts. But Pia didn’t look away from me, her gaze harsh as she stared me down. She wasn’t going to go down easy. She knew I was trying to escape, but she didn’t have any proof so she couldn’t do a thing. Still, I worried about a possible punishment until a fake as fuck smile lit up her stunning face.

  “Not a bother,” she said. “We’ll deal with him. And we’ll make sure she doesn’t get out of her cage again.”

  Cage?