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My phone dings. Seems like Declan’s friends moved fast, because it’s pictures of the orphanage, taken by hand since satellite view wasn’t an option. I angle the device in such a way as to reduce the chances of being spied on by a camera to a minimum, swiping through them. Then, for better safety, I roll on my stomach and tuck the phone between two pillows, my face hovering right over it.
The first picture reveals a huge, dilapidated school building in the middle of a field of weather-beaten, overgrown grass. Wire fences with “Danger - Do Not Pass” signs surround it ominously. I narrow my eyes, my brows dipping as a feeling of familiarity takes over. Not that I could have been there before. More likely, Mom took me to similar places on her charity trips, which would make a lot of sense. What could look more noble than a jewelry designer donating her profits to orphaned children? It’s the perfect ruse for wealthy families to make even more money.
I can’t put my finger on why the place feels so familiar before the pictures disappear, swallowed away as if they’d never been there. Declan’s security window closed. I drop the phone beside me on the mattress, my eyes on the city lights. It doesn’t cease to amaze me how the orphan boy who went through hell has made it so far up in the modern world, especially when the torments of his past could rival those of a child born in slavery. Which is what he practically was.
My mind drifts back to the moment Zayne and I shared, to that dark dream in his past. I can still feel the whipping of the wind, I can sense the little boy watching me like a little animal from behind the wind-whipped rocks, then reaching out of the darkness with those curled little fingers.
I was there with Zayne, inside the last dream he ever had. Paired with the familiarity of the orphanage building, I can’t deny how strange this whole situation is. I don’t know what part of me that large, ominous building with barred windows spoke to, but I just can’t ignore it. I can almost hear the rustle of the nuns’ robes, the echoes of children. I can see them lining up for morning inspection. And among them, the boy.
I let the vision pull me in, allowing it to weigh me down.
My eyes are already drooping when the thudding outside the door returns. Propping myself on my elbows, I listen. There’s a shuffle and then a quiet rap on the door.
Grabbing the cover, I pull it up to my chin. I didn’t have the strength to pull on more than panties and a fresh tank top after my bath, my body still trembling from the savage way Zayne took me on the sofa. The joints at the apex of my thighs are pleasantly sore, reminding me of how he released himself inside me, and how much pleasure he took in watching me come apart for him. How he fell silent when I asked him about the process of selecting his victims, how he decided that they were like Top Boy.
Part of me feared what he would say, fully aware that, behind his beautiful face there’s a serial killer with a pattern. I still don’t know exactly what Zayne did with his victims, but the possibility of him having gutted them sends a vicious tremor through me. Especially since the supposed killer has just started to push my door open.
But no, he can’t be a murderer. I mean, he didn’t actually kill Top Boy. He made his life hell, yes, but a living hell. Some would argue that what he did to those boys when they became men was worse than killing them, but then again, others would not.
His shadowed outline blots out the twinkling lights as he comes to stand next to my bed. I watch him lower himself slowly, the fluffy mattress dipping under his weight as if a titan just sat down next to me. I can feel him drink in every feature of my face, able to see me clearly in the city lights coming in through the window behind him. The talent this man has to make me feel completely exposed when I’m not even naked is worrisome at best. Sitting here in silence, all I can make out is the contours of his face, craving to reach out and touch him. But I don’t.
“I tried to give you some space. To stay away from you.” His voice is thick. Heart-shattering. “But I don’t think I can go through with it.”
All I want to do is draw nearer to him, encourage him to touch me, yearning to feel those warm, large hands all over my body. And he wants it, too. One glance at his lap reveals he’s already got a hard-on.
It dawns on me that sex is the only way he knows how to bond. And, after everything he’s been through, of course it’s a twisted, sick way of bonding in which he dominates. He gives pain because it’s the only way he knows how to give pleasure since he’s never experienced them separately. He’s had nowhere to learn. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up experiencing pleasure in torture, as a means for his brain to cope with the inhumane things that were being done to him.
He’s probably never acknowledged emotional enmeshment as a basic human need. Having been ripped away from his mother’s arms when he was only a baby, he never knew her embrace, which means he didn’t even get the basics for emotional development.
“If I have a choice, I won’t have sex with you tonight,” I whisper, hoping that he can’t smell the arousal already damping my panties. His shoulders tense.
“I can’t leave here without...” His voice is low and hoarse with a longing that seems to torture him. “I need...”
But then he shakes his head and makes to get off the bed, as if this were a bad idea. I catch him with a hand on his biceps, my palm sliding over his naked skin. He stops moving, allowing my hand to explore its way up his arm. He’s naked but for the pair of sweatpants he’s wearing.
“Please, stay,” I whisper.
I can sense his confusion, but he lets me draw closer, my hands carefully exploring their way to his shoulders. Settling on my knees behind him, I try not to touch his back with my breasts. I can’t let this turn into anything sexual, even though every bit of me craves him like there’s no tomorrow. Somewhere in the back of my head, I realize that I haven’t wanted a drink in days, all my senses focused on him. Him, his secrets, his heart and his body were the only drug I craved.
“I know you wondered why I didn’t touch you the whole week,” he says as I rest my cheek on his shoulder, my fingers stroking a long scar on his back. “It’s not because I didn’t want to.” He takes a long, shaky breath. “Fuck knows I did. Every time I looked at you I felt like sinking my teeth into you.”
“Why?” I whisper. “What would be achieved by sinking your teeth into me?”
He catches my hand when I brush it down his arm, keeping it in his and studying my fingers for long moments. I look down over his shoulder, marveling at how white and fragile my hand is compared to his. It reminds me of how easy it would be for him to break me. It would take only a snap of his hand. This man whom I crave beyond rhyme or reason is a villain. Reversing the process that turned him into one is out of the question.
“It would make you mine,” he breathes. “I would own you in the real sense of the word. In the sense that matters.”
“You do own me now. I’m here, under your control. I agreed to it, and I wouldn’t be able to leave even if I wanted to. I’m dependent on you.”
He laughs.
“Dependent. Controlled. Coerced. Because you’d never choose to stay if you had a choice.”
“You don’t know that,” I say just as softly.
He turns his head, and I peel my face off his shoulder to look at him. His eyes are a blue abyss, waves crashing into the deep brown of my own irises.
“Don’t I? Then tell me, wild flame, if some hero came along and promised to whisk you away to a place where you wouldn’t have to hear from me ever again, what would you say?”
