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‘Los Angeles,’ he said. He gunned the bike and rode off again, as I rested the side of my helmeted head on his back and watched the coastline pass us by.
After a while he made me shut the visor again and we rode for a while longer until the bike stopped again and he helped me dismount. Once we were inside the apartment he took the helmet off and for a moment I thought things might be okay, but then he had said the words ‘club whore’.
Hearing those two words slammed the door shut on the faint hope I’d had since we’d left the compound. Hope that he might let me go. Hope that it might all be some insane nightmare that I could wake up from.
But it was real.
Club.
Whore.
I’d trembled, remembering the way Murphy had held me down as I was waxed. A useless, painful gesture for an auction that didn’t happen. But it was still there, my reddened skin now smooth and hairless, and itching like crazy, a reminder that whoever decided to hold me down and rape me first would be able to see what they’d fashioned me into. A fuck-me doll. A piece of merchandise.
I couldn’t bear the thought of what they would do to me. Faceless men dressed in leather who would press themselves onto me so I couldn’t breathe, who would make sure that whatever they did hurt me so that I screamed.
But then he offered me a choice.
And, among all my fear, he had leaned down and kissed me.
And I had kissed him back.
But it was more than just a kiss.
He had taken me away from that horrible place, away from the auction and brought me here.
Dornan, surprisingly, was the one to break the moment. I saw the moon hanging low in the full-length window at the other end of the hallway we were standing in. And something else — something large and round glittered in the distance. A ferris wheel lit up in the night.
‘What is that?’ I murmured, craning my neck to see. Dornan started down the hallway, gesturing for me to follow. I didn’t move for a moment, watching him stride away with purpose. His leather cut hugged his solid shoulders, the white t-shirt underneath offering a peek at the tattoos that adorned his arms. His dark hair was shorter than it had been the last time I’d seen him just days ago, and I wondered if he’d cut it for me. Of course not. That would be ridiculous.
Though, this entire situation was ridiculous.
I followed him, passing a bedroom on one side, a living room on the other. At the end of the hallway the apartment opened up, a kitchen and breakfast bar on the right. The left side of the apartment housed a small leather sofa and a glass dining table with chairs tucked neatly beneath it. But the real view, the one that had made me divert my gaze from the delicious-looking man in front of me, was outside.
Dornan seemed to read my thoughts, opening the glass sliding door and stepping out onto a balcony big enough to hold a table, two chairs and him, with room left over. We were on the second storey, and beneath us the ocean lapped at the shoreline lazily. I stepped out behind him, greeted by fresh salty air that stuck to my skin in tiny droplets of moisture.
The apartment itself was nothing fancy, but to a girl who’d been cooped up in a cell for the better part of a week, it was beautiful.
‘Is this where you live?’ I breathed, coming to stand beside him at the edge of the balcony.
My question seemed to amuse him. He took his eyes from the water to look at me.
‘No,’ he replied, ‘it’s where you live, now.’
Instinctively, as I had always done before, I put my hand to my chest, searching for my locket. Damn. The events of the past week slammed into me, and I gripped the balcony when my knees turned to liquid. It was only a moment, but he noticed.
‘You all right?’ he asked, and his concern killed me. I nodded, my hand still resting over the bare space where my locket used to sit; where my wellworn photo of Luis had rested. Gone. All of it, gone.
I kept swallowing, trying to clear the lump in my throat, but it wouldn’t go away. My grief consumed me like wildfire, tears spilling from my eyes as I stared at the water below. I thought of climbing up on the railing and stepping off, landing on the sidewalk that ran along the beach. I raised myself up on tiptoes to get a good look underneath me. Not high enough. I’d probably break bones, but I doubted I would die.
Don’t be an idiot, I chastised myself. I couldn’t kill myself.
‘What was his name?’ Dornan asked. ‘Your boyfriend.’
I swiped my hand across my face, wiping away the tears that clung to my skin.
‘Este,’ I said, my stomach twisting violently at the mention of him. ‘Esteban.’
Dornan nodded. ‘It’s probably not worth much, but I’m sorry for what happened to him.’ His hand pressed into the small of my back, and I felt a little less alone.
