AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Olivia
For a moment after I opened my eyes, the next morning was just another day. I blinked at the plain white walls, the masculine chocolate curtains, and the light pouring in at the edges. Marlow’s flat. I was naked between the scratchy sheets—mental note: go to Liberty’s and get some proper cotton ones.
And then it came, tumbling, sliding, hurting. Rocking my world. Questions hurtling towards me like an avalanche.
Twelve men at a time!
An involuntary sob hit the back of my throat. I covered my eyes instinctively as if I could stop the ugly thoughts and images. I felt strong hands grip my wrists and pull my palms away from my eyes. Marlow was crouched in front of me, buck-naked, his eyes were shining. In the morning light he looked so brown and big and sturdy. So full of vigor. I gazed at him in awe. It was almost like being in a dream.
‘I love you, Olivia,’ he said softly, his voice as caressing as velvet. ‘And there’s not one fucking thing about you I’d change.’
I opened my mouth. He was so amazing, so kind. But how could he look at me as anything other than a prostitute. At that moment I just wanted to disappear. I felt so unworthy of him. Tears stung at the back of eyes.
‘Not one fucking thing,’ he repeated.
‘But … I … was a whore,’ I choked, tears rolling down my cheeks.
‘Yeah, you were. Now tell me why I can’t love you.’
I stared at him. I had no answer.
He smiled tenderly. ‘You are beautiful, delicate and damaged, a terrifying combination to most people. They won’t know how to love you. But I know.’
‘But—’
‘There is only one but.’
‘What?’ I whispered, suddenly frightened. Even the tears dried.
He gazed into my eyes. ‘Do you still want to be a slave at the Invisible Society?’
I recoiled as if struck. Even the thought sickened me. ‘No. Absolutely not.’
‘Then there is no other ‘but’ to worry about, is there?’ He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. ‘I don’t know if I would have fallen in love with that unhappy, pitiful woman who needed the toxic combination of sex and danger to get her rocks off that you were, before you lost your memory and had to start again. But I do know that I worship you as you are now. To me there is no other you. This is the real you. And this you is everything I could ever have dreamed of.’
‘But I feel so ashamed of what I’ve done.’
‘It’s not your fault. You were just a child, an innocent, blameless child, when he twisted and over-sexualized you. What could you have done?’
I frowned. ‘So you don’t mind?’
‘Mind?’ he snarled. His jaw clenched and a vein beat at the side of his neck. ‘I mind so much it burns. I want to kill that pervert who did that to you. And while I’m at it I want to chop off the dicks of all those bastards in that sick society’ He shook his head. ‘But I can’t. So I won’t let myself fester in hate, I’ll just love you more.’
I licked my lips nervously. ‘What if … we’re out and someone who has … uh … someone who knows what I have done comes up and says something nasty to you?’
‘Look at me. Do I look like one of your lily-livered English toffs to you? I’m without my hat and boots, but I grew up on a ranch east of the Rockies. We don’t let nobody disrespect our women.’
‘I’ll only bring you down,’ I muttered.
‘Oh sweet child. You don’t get it at all, do you? Until you came into my life I was staring at guilt in the bottom of a bottle of whiskey every night. I had nothing, nothing to live for.’
I was full of doubts, the inside of my head like a knotted rope. I could see the knots but I couldn’t undo them. ‘I’m afraid.’
‘Of what?’
‘The only thing I remembered last night was what happened on the day my mother died, but everything else I know only from what I heard in the recordings. I’m scared I will slowly start remembering more and more and I just don’t want to remember any more of what I did in that horrible society.’
‘If you remember something that upsets you, then you’ll tell me about it, and we’ll deal with it.’
