Falling for the Villain

“Where?”

“What?”

“Where!” he demanded an answer.

I didn’t understand. “What? What!” I tried to scramble back as he grabbed my wrists and stared at them, his eyes roaming from the rope toward my face, down my body, and back up.

Trembling, I waited for him to talk. His lips pressed down into a hard, gorgeous line of cruelty I wish I could say was more terror than beauty.

“Where,” he repeated again slowly, his lips almost moving in a slow-motion cadence. “Did he touch you?”

“Who?”

He grabbed me harder, almost painfully squeezing my soft skin where the rope had burned against my skin. “The man who was in here, where did he fucking touch you?”

“Nowhere!” I yelled, a hot tear sliding down my cheek and colliding with my wrists, with his hands joining us together in my pain, his horror. “H-he came in and said something about me being his. I was kind of out of it, then he left—he left!”

“Motherfucker!” My captor jerked back, and his eyes dripped with hatred as he paced the room. Back and forth, he walked across the wood floor until he finally stopped and looked over his shoulder. “I’ll untie you.”

“What? Why?”

His nostrils flared. “You’ll know soon enough.”

Already I could see the erection in his slacks. The way he tried to adjust himself, move out of the light. He left for maybe a minute and returned with a knife. Slowly he cut through the ropes on my ankles and wrists, his whiskey breath on my face.

“Stand.”

“Wha—”

“NOW!” he growled from deep within his chest.

I shuffled to my feet. My body was so unbelievably sore. There I stood, naked in front of him. In one swift, rough motion, he clutched onto the back of my neck and forcefully threw my ass onto the bench of the piano.

I barely had time to register what was going on when he sneered, “Play.”

“Play wha—”

“Play,” he emphasized each letter.

I felt like this was a test that I was going to fail miserably at.

“Juliet,” he warned right next to my ear. “If you don’t start playing, I’m going to whip your fuc—”

My fingers began moving, and I played what came naturally to me. It was one of my favorite pieces to perform.

There was so much emotion.

So much depth.

Intensity.

Craze.

I played what I was feeling, all the hysteria he was putting me through with his multiple personalities.

One finger right behind the next, my hands danced from one end of the piano to the other. My body and head moving in sync with each other. I got lost in the music, in the vibrations, in the mania of the tips of my fingers, becoming one with the sounds I was evoking. Closing my eyes, I let myself be one with the melody and the life this song was breathing into me.

His vicious words.

His cruel demeanor.

This power he held over me from the moment I’d first seen him.

It was all overwhelming, consuming, breaking me into a million pieces.

Like a shattered doll.

A broken toy.

I. Was. His.

No mind of my own.

No thoughts for myself.

No opinion.

No talking back.

He was stripping everything away from me.

I wanted it to stop.

Please, God … make it stop.

The song was beginning to end, over too soon. I never wanted to let it go. I had to; he would make me. Giving me pleasure and pain was what he did best. I held on for as long as I could, seeking refuge in the only place I always could.

I didn’t want to open my eyes. When I did, this would be over—the high I was riding on would come to a complete stop.

I wouldn’t be Juliet…

I would only be his pet.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Donovan

I was sitting in the closet, all the way in the back corner, where he couldn’t see me at first. It didn’t matter how far back I hid in the darkness; he always found me.

I cried; I couldn’t help it.

I didn’t like it in here.

“Sir … please let me out. Please, Dad. I’ll be a good boy. I promise; I’ll be the best boy.”

He didn’t listen. He never did.

My body was shaking.

I was scared.

What would he do to me this time?

Tears streamed down my face; faster and faster, they fell down my cheeks as I waited for the punishment that always came.

“Shhh … baby … shhh…”

I recognized her soothing voice, knowing who was in my room with me.

“Play for me, Mama,” I murmured so low she wouldn’t hear what I said.

He didn’t like that. When I begged for her. It’d only make him meaner, madder, hurt me more than throwing me in my closet with the door locked on the other side so I couldn’t get out.

I was trapped.

Alone.

It wasn’t long before I heard her playing on my piano for me. She always did when she could get away from him, long enough to comfort my fear of him. He was never nice. He didn’t smile, or laugh, or play with me like I’d see in movies and television shows.