“And you are so delicious in your exposure,” he interrupted. “Believe me, Miss Emmerson, you really are a stunning creature. I’ll look back on our time here fondly, but this love, this need… it needs to go. You need to go, sweetheart. Your sixty days need to wrap up sharp before this illusion of love — whatever the hell that even stands for — drives you insane.”
I couldn’t hold back the sobs. They ate me up. Pounding through my chest as I spluttered out my pleas.
“Don’t throw me out, master… I need to save my sister… I’ll be nothing without this… nothing without her… please, I need the sixty days…”
I wasn’t expecting the warmth of his arms around me. Wasn’t expecting the love in his grasp as he held me tight and pressed his lips to my ear.
And I certainly wasn’t expecting the words that came right out of them.
“You don’t need to save your sister from running from druggie cunts through the streets, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I already have.”Chapter ThirtyBrandonI may have been a monster, and may have been one for as long as I could remember, but that didn’t mean shit when it needed to. I felt Paige’s pain pretty fucking deep in my gut. Her tears ate me up inside. The urge to reach out and tell her that I was feeling some kind of love myself was almost more than I could keep a hold of.
Telling her I’d taken her sister from a torrent of potential doom was a blurt out I’d have to forgive myself for under the circumstances.
“Phoebe?! You saved Phoebe?!” she asked, her face a ghost of shock. “How? When? Why?”
I looked up at the internal camera on the wall opposite, all too aware that Eric was likely tuned in to this blabber fest.
“Let’s get you tidied up and settled for the night,” I told her, but she shied away as I reached out a hand.
“You really saved her? Please say you did! Please!”
My voice was nothing but a low growl in contrast to hers. “Not here,” I said. “This isn’t anything like a conversation for the live feed room. We’ve had enough ill-fitting words spoken here already.”
She gripped my fingers with a nod, and rose from the bed with a wince as I pulled her. I wasted no time in taking her out of that room and back along the landing to my own personal space, being sure to lock the door straight behind us should Eric decide to come investigating.
Paige was steadier than I’d have expected on her feet when I turned to face her. Her face was pale, eyes wide on mine, the love bite bruises darkening beautifully on her swan neck and down onto her sweet tits.
Even at the height of confessional bullshit, my dick was hungry for round two.
“Please tell me,” she said. “I need to know…”
I retreated to the window and lit up a cigarette, nicotine calling along with another round on that tight little slit.
“The night you arrived,” I told her. “I sent someone for her, to your campus. She came willingly.”
“And she’s safe? She’s really safe?!”
“As safe as a solid stint in a rehabilitation ward can make a desolate drug addict, yes.”
Her hand pressed to her chest, legs losing their solidity as she took in my words.
“Thank you,” she managed. “I had no idea… I’d never have thought you’d do that…”
That made fucking two of us.
The cigarette did little to ease my tension. It did little to ease anything, the sickening buzz of something running deep between us in this place was enough to set me on edge.
“Her recovery is in her court, not mine,” I added. “I’ve given her the option to take hold of her shit and set it in order, the rest is down to her.”
“She will…” Paige told me, and there was that optimism again, so alive. “I know she will…”
“You’ll see soon enough,” I said, and tossed my cigarette butt out the window.
Her steps in my direction were tiny. Her fresh round of bruises stiffening tight.
“I knew you were more than a monster,” she said, and her eyes were glowing with so fucking much.
Gratitude. Hope. Relief.
Love.
“Don’t underestimate my darkness,” I countered, but she didn’t register a word of it as her arms reached out and gripped me tight.
“Thank you, master,” she whispered and pressed her body so close, bruises be damned.
It took every scrap of resolve in me to place my hands on her shoulders and push her away. My eyes were fierce on hers when they met. They had to be.
“You can’t stay here,” I told her. “Whatever you think this is between us. Whatever you’re feeling… this life isn’t for you. I’m not for you.”
But she didn’t believe me.
Holy fuck how she didn’t believe me.
Her fingers joined mine on her shoulders and squeezed. “Whatever you’re feeling,” she mirrored. “I know it’s real. I know it’s real between us. It has to be. It can’t feel like this if it isn’t. Please, please just let me stay here. It’s not about the money… not if Phoebe is safe…”