Hell (Black Heart Romance)

Despite her trying to flinch away, I turn her onto her back, so I can at least get a look at her face. When she tries to turn her face away, I take her by the jaw and tug.

She opens her eyes, and they find mine, and what I see there stirs something deep inside me. Something I didn’t know existed, something that’s never bothered me until now.

She’s broken. I’ve never seen someone so broken. And I’m the cause of it.

“Please.” It’s barely a whisper, nearly inaudible. “Please, untie me. I’m hurt.”

I do just that, confused by all this. Why do I care so much? So she had a rough time. Plenty of girls do. They’re my stock and trade. What makes me more money than any of the vanilla kink my club provides. I’ve even participated with a few of my clients, and I’ve witnessed the depth of their depravity. I’m well aware of the depths of my own, too—that’s one thing I’ve never kidded myself about. I know who I am, what I like, and what I’m willing to do to turn my fantasies into reality.

Why, then, do her tears stir up something like sympathy? I can’t remember the last time I felt genuinely sorry for someone. She might be the first in years.

Once her hands are free, she examines her right knee. Now I see it’s scratched and bleeding with what looks like a puncture mark. “There was a nail sticking out of the floor, and I tried to make you stop, but you didn’t. How could you do that to me?” she whispers, rocking back and forth as if to comfort herself.

“What did I do? I thought—”

“You know exactly what you did. What was all that talk before, in the library?”

“I don’t understand.”

“The safe word!” she screams, her face going red. “It was your idea to have a safe word. All the shit you put me through tonight was okay because I told myself there was a safe word I could use. I could stop it if I needed to. But what happened when I used it? Nothing! You ignored me!”

She has me at a loss. I hardly remember the specifics of what just happened. Was I in a trance? Certainly, there’ve been times when I was at the height of arousal, and nothing else around me mattered much. When I was able to ignore everything else in the world but the sensations rolling through my body. When the only thing in the world was satisfaction, and I was just on the cusp of achieving it.

But I never completely lost myself. There’s always been some sliver of my consciousness still alert, prepared to step in and take control if need be.

Did you ever intend on honoring a safe word at all? My inner consciousness recoils from the question, but there’s no escaping it. Not with Rowan’s hard, tear-filled, accusatory eyes boring holes into my skull. Is it possible I accepted her safe word as a way of shutting her up at the moment? A desperate attempt to keep her with me a little longer? Because I don’t even remember hearing her say it, though I have no doubt she did. I lost myself. I had no intention of keeping myself under control tonight, and I realize that now.

And look what I did.

I’m not sure what to do now. It’s rare for me to be in a situation like this, where there’s any sort of need to apologize for wrongdoing. I don’t apologize because I never think much about how my actions affect others. I live in a transactional world. So long as the books are balanced by the end of the day, I have no troubles.

This isn’t so easy to balance. Judging by the way she glares at me while protecting herself from me, I wonder if there’s any way I can undo what’s been done.

I reach for her since that’s what instinct tells me to do. I only want to hold her, to comfort her, to try in some way to explain what came over me tonight. There must be some way I can make her understand.

When she scrambles away from me, eyes filled with terror, I know it’s no use. There’s no coming back from this, at least not right now.

“Don’t touch me.” It’s a hiss filled with all the venom of a snake prepared to strike. “Don’t ever put your hands on me again. I don’t know what I was thinking, trusting you. Why I wanted to believe you. I forgot who you are.”

“And who would that be?” I ask, fighting to maintain my self-control.

“You’re a monster. You get off on hurting people. You’re no better than—” She cuts herself off, eyes darting away from mine. She’s too smart to say it, though there’s no question who she’s thinking about. I wonder what she would do if I told her right now at this very minute what became of him. How much joy I got out of watching him get taken apart piece by piece in that little room. How the memory had fueled more than one jerk-off session in the days since then. Remembering his screams, his pleas, rolling them around in my head the way I roll an exquisite wine over my tongue.