Raw, A Dark Romance (9 page)

Unafraid, despite the rage burning in his eyes, I asked, “Why? Why do you do those things?”

“Why do you feel joy when you eat your favorite food? Why do you feel satisfied when you do your favorite things? Why? Can you tell me that? Then you’ve answered your own question.”

I understood and yet I didn’t. How had this man become so convinced that he wasn’t human? I saw the beast in him. There was no way to not see it. But I saw the human inside him, too.

In those quiet moments last night, when he showed the slightest tenderness. When he snuck into my room and stared down at me, thinking I was sleeping. When he watched me, wincing ever so slightly at the sight of my pain from his lashes. When he silently cringed with regret as he unshackled my wrists and ankles. I saw those moments. Every single one of them. He didn’t know it. Maybe because he himself didn’t realize what he was doing.

But that tenderness, it was real. And it, not the cruelty of the beast, was what I feared most. God help me if I fell in love with this man. God help me. Because I knew it would be a miracle if I survived.

And yet, I was drawn to him. Even as he blustered and shouted, I felt a magnetic draw, pulling me toward him. He was so beautiful and yet so dangerous, like a massive lion. Majestic and powerful. And just like that beast, I knew he had the strength and the instinct to rip me to pieces. But deep inside I believed he would subdue those feral drives because he felt something between us too and he wanted to understand it.

“Leave now. Before I change my mind,” he growled.

My brain told my legs to move. But they didn’t listen. Instead I stood in place and gazed into his eyes. There was so much turmoil in that man. More than there was inside me. Maybe that was why I felt so enraptured by him. We were two souls that had been shredded apart. Somehow, our brokenness wasn’t so ugly when we were like this, standing eye to eye, being open and honest and vulnerable.

“You hurt me,” I told him.

“I hurt them all.”

“Yes. I believe that. But do you feel this for them too?” I pressed my hand against his chest. “Do you feel anything for them?”

His mouth pulled into a thin line. “Nothing. As I feel for you.”

“Liar.”

His jaw ticced. He jerked his gaze away. “Leave, puta.”

I swung. My palm landed on his cheek. The large slapping sound echoed off the walls. “Stop calling me that. I’m not your whore. I never was. Not in my eyes and not in yours either.”

He shook me again, this time violently enough to rattle my teeth so hard I was afraid one might be knocked out. “What the fuck are you trying to do to me?”

I didn’t know the answer to that question. The truth was I had no idea why I hadn’t run out that door yet. Since I’d found out I had been bought and paid for, I’d been searching for an escape. I had one now. It had been handed to me on a silver platter.

But I hadn’t left.

Why?

I said, more to myself than to him, “There’s something about you—“

“There’s nothing good about me,” he interrupted, fingers tightening on my arms.

“But there is. I know. I see it.”

“You don’t see anything but what you want to see. You see the fantasy. A rich man who can buy you anything.”

Anger flashed in my gut. What the fuck? “Is that really what you believe? Really?” I smacked him again. As hard as I could. Across the face. He smiled. And that only made me more furious. “I think you know I don’t give a damn about your money. I don’t expect to marry a billionaire. Not you. Not any. All I need is a decent man who can support his family.”

Had I just said that?

Had I just admitted that I didn’t ever expect to marry a rich man? After hoping all these years that I would marry a man with tons of money so I could help children?

My dreams were stupid. Honorable. And good. But idiotic. And unrealistic.

No rich man would want me. Virgin or not.

I’m such an idiot.

“If you don’t care about money, why sign with an agency, puta?” he challenged, releasing me.

I rubbed one arm with the opposite hand. His fingers had bruised me. “Because my friend works for FI. I signed up as a favor to her. That’s what friends do for each other.”

He scoffed. “That is what friends do for each other? They sell each other to the highest bidder?”

My insides twisted. “She didn’t know.”

“If she works for Franchot then she knew.”

Dammit, this guy really knew how to push my buttons! I despised him for that. I shook my head so hard I got an instant headache. “Hell no. Absolutely not. My friend would never do something like that. Never!” I wanted to punch him. My hands curled into fists. My fingernails dug into my palms. “She didn’t know what Franchot was doing. And when I tell her, she’s going to be furious. She’ll quit her job.”

One side of his mouth curled up, producing a lopsided smile. “Ah, puta, you live in a fantasy world.”

I swung a fist at him, but he dodged the blow.

“No I don’t, and stop calling me that, you bastard.”

I swung at him again. This time he caught my wrist and jerked me against him, pinning my arm behind my back.

With my tits smashed against his hard, hot bulk, he glowered down at me. “You believe you can spend one hour or two with a man and know him. You believe you can change a fucked up monster like me into a human.”

I glared into his eyes. “I believe a ‘fucked up monster’ like you can change yourself. You just need a little help. Maybe a reason to change.”

He grabbed my other wrist and yanked it behind my back too. My purse slid off my shoulder, catching on his hand, clamped around both my wrists now like a shackle. His head dropped until only the breadth of a hair of space remained between his lips and mine. “And you are the reason I would change? Don’t kid yourself,
puta
. You are a whore to me. Just like all the others.”

“I don’t believe that, and neither do you.” Acting on some crazy, completely irrational impulse, I raised up on tiptoes, closing the distance between us.

The kiss was nothing like the first one we had shared. It wasn’t a tentative, patient seduction. It was violent and full of fury. No tenderness at all. Tongue, teeth, lips. They punished me for kissing him. And yet, my body responded. Lust thrummed through my center, heating my core, making me wet and ready for him.

He slammed me back against the wall and continued. It was a relentless, merciless discipline. My lips felt bruised. My body abused as hands squeezed and fingers clawed. I struggled, wriggling between his huge bulk and the wall, fighting for breath, for freedom from his onslaught and from the furious need slamming through my body. But he would not let me go. He shoved a knee between my thighs and leaned into me, using all two hundred and something pounds of lean, hard muscle to hold me in place. His hand replaced his knee and I cried out, the wanting so overwhelming tears were burning my cheeks.

“Don’t you get it?” he growled after breaking the kiss. His eyes were like daggers, piercing my soul, driving deep, where my most tender secrets lay hidden. “You won’t ever feel a warm embrace, only the burning embrace of my ropes. You won’t ever feel a gentle caress, only the cutting caress of my shackles. You won’t ever feel a sweet, passionate kiss, only the bite of my whip. That is all you can expect from me.

Hate me.

Fear me.

But don’t ever want me.” He stepped back and shoved me toward the door.

Hugging my purse to my chest, I stumbled out without looking back.

Fuck my luggage, all those new, expensive clothes FI had paid for.

Fuck Fallon Franchot, the bitch.

Fuck that bastard, Kace Ramos. If the sadistic billionaire, wanted hate, I’d give him hate.

I dragged my hand across my face. Tears. More tears.

I raised my eyes to the sky. “These are for you,
Karrie. All for you.”

I’d never sent one away before. But this one couldn’t stay. She was fucking with my head too much, making me think things, feel things…want thing. She had to go. Before it was too late. –Kace R.

“Kendall!” Sid raced to my side and flung her arms around me like a two-year-old greeting her long-lost daddy. “Ohmygod! You have to tell me everything! What was it like? Did you have a good time?” She leaned back. Brows scrunched. “What’s wrong? Are you crying? And where is your luggage?”

Did she really not know anything about her bitch of a boss and the prostitution?

“I have my purse. That’s all I need.” I dragged my hand across my face again, wiping away the tears burning my cheeks.

“But…the clothes. They were yours to keep.”

“I don’t give a damn about them. Let’s get back to the hotel and I’ll tell you everything.”

“Sure. Okay.” Sid’s expression narrowed. Her gaze flicked to the ginormous house behind me. “That’s some house, huh? Gorgeous. I bet it’s magnificent inside.”

I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to see the house again. I didn’t want to remember anything about it, or the man who lived in it. “It is magnificent.” The image of that horrid dungeon flashed in my head, and I knew it would be a long time before I would forget. A very long time. “But there’s a lot more going on in that place than you realize.”

“What do you mean?” Sid asked as she pulled open the driver’s side door of her rental car.

“Later.” Once we were both sitting in the car, I clicked the locks. “I don’t want you driving when you hear what I’m about to tell you.”

Sid slid me a side-eyed glance while clicking her seatbelt. “Come on. You can’t make me—“

“Later, Sid,” I interrupted, catching movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked. One of the bastard’s servants was dragging my luggage out to Sid’s rental car. She unlocked the doors so he could open one. He dumped the bags in the backseat. I said nothing until the doors were shut and locked. “Let’s get somewhere safe and private. Then we’ll talk.”

* * * * *

Sid harassed me the entire drive to the hotel. It was thirty very long, very tedious minutes of absolute torture--her begging and pleading, and me telling her no. But I was feeling pretty proud of myself by the time we pulled up to the Weston. This was the first time, ever, that I’d been able to stick to my guns with her.

Eons ago I’d let her talk me into chopping off all my hair and dying it black. It had taken me ages to grow it back. And that hadn’t been the worst of it. Trying to strip out the black had been a nightmare. I’d ended up looking like a clown—roots yellow and ends fire engine red.

Then there’d been that time when she’d talked me into joining a multi-level marketing organization that was later fined by the government for being a huge scam. I’d laid out hundreds of dollars for overpriced food supplements and a trip to a convention in Chicago.

And I’d caved when she’d begged me to sign with FI. Huge mistakes. Every single one of them. But especially the last one. Just those three mistakes had cost me my hair, a whole lot of money, and now a lot of pain. My ass was still sore. But that would never happen again. I’d learned a lesson. A very important one.

Never again would I let Sid talk me into anything I didn’t want to do.

At last we locked ourselves in Sid’s small but tidy hotel room. Clearly the chaperones didn’t get the same VIP treatment from FI as the whores.

Within seconds Sid was bouncing on the mattress, eyes full of eager anticipation. “Okay, we’re here,” she said, obviously about to die from anticipation. “We’re alone. What’s with all the super-secret, I-can’t-tell-you stuff?”

Emotionally and physically, I was exhausted. I flopped onto the bed. “Sid, there’s a lot you don’t know about FI.”

She shrugged. “What do you mean? Tell me.”

Tell her.

Tell her…

How would I tell her that she was working for a madam? That Franchot’s company prostituted girls against their will? That they sold virgins to billionaires across the globe without them knowing what they were in for? That they were masquerading as an elite matchmaking service while they were actually committing one of the most despicable crimes against humanity?

My throat clogged.

How?

Sid keyed into my reluctance. “Ken, what’s wrong?”

My eyes started leaking again. I blinked to try to keep them clear. “Sid, I don’t even know where to start.”

Sid gave a pout and blinked sad eyes at me. “Aw, Ken. Was it that great? It was so wonderful you’re crying? Are you sad that you have to leave him?”

Sad that I had to leave? God, did she have that wrong.

“No, Sid. It wasn’t wonderful. It was awful. It was a nightmare. And I don’t even know how to begin.” I clapped my hands over my face and closed my eyes. My heart was thumping so hard my breastbone ached. My insides were so twisted into knots I felt sick. “You don’t know who you’re working for, what kind of horrible things Fallon Franchot does. And I hate having to be the one to tell you.”