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Wrapped around my throat.
Controlling me.
My gaze darted to the lingerie laid out separately. The soft pink lace bra sat on top of the satin thong, the front so fucking narrow it’d slip between my lips with the first step. Revulsion burned, making me feel sick. Everything about this was calculated, right down to the fucking material. My breaths were hard and heavy. At least it wasn’t red. That color, I couldn’t stomach.
This was the third day…and the third outfit, each one expertly chosen and displayed for me like I was some kind of dog in training.Wear the pretty clothes, Vivienne, and do exactly what you’re told.I gripped the bedsheet still wrapped around my body. Three days I’d worn the same thing…and I was starting to smell.
I glanced over my shoulder at the locked door.
I didn’t want to be here.
Not in this room…or in this place.
But refusing him would only have me locked away forever. He’d never let me free, not until I played by his rules. I turned back to the clothes waiting for me. Because that’s just the kind of man London St. James was…
A vile fucking bastard.
Hate moved through me, trembling and snarling. I strode for the bathroom, working the knotted sheet from around my body and let it fall to the floor. Cold tiles stung my toes as I moved into the bathroom and stepped into the shower. The hiss was instant, the hot water steaming up the stall. I inched closer to the spray, dropping my head backwards, letting the heat pound against my shoulders and carry me away from this hell, for a few seconds at least.
Until the bitterness moved in.
It invaded with a thought, and then the past followed.
The past where I was a nobody, not seen, not heard. Certainly not wanted. I opened my eyes, squeezed shampoo into my hand, and lathered my hair.
I'd tried so hard to keep away from the past. The months I'd spent at The Order were focused on surviving the present. Still, in the quiet of the night between the rounds of the guards, the past had crept in. First it was the house I was meant to call home and the couple who were not my parents. They were barely in my life at all, apart from the rules…so many fucking rules.
No answering the door…
No giving out your address.
No speaking to anyone not approved by your mother or myself.
Rules and laws.
Still, it had been better than the flickers of memory from before them. The‘place’they'd kept us in was no more than a jail for kids. My fake parents told me it was foster care, that my real mother had‘issues’relating to drugs and had abandoned me at birth. Not wanted. Not worthy…
Only to be used.
And that’s exactly what London St. James wanted to do. I was under no illusions about that.
Ward,he called me.
Ward with limitations, though.
He couldn’t fuck me, the contract wouldn’t allow it.
I raked conditioner through my hair and set to work scrubbing and shaving. At least this time I was alone. I lifted my gaze to the small, neat camera fixed in the corner of the bathroom and fought the need to flip the bastard off. That wouldn’t get me out of here though, would it? Wouldn’t get me free…
Wouldn’t let me…run.
The word hummed in my head as I dragged the razor along, then between, my legs. I glanced up at the camera. Was he watching? I'd bet he was. I straightened and dropped my head backwards into the spray. I'd bet he was fucking riveted to the screen.
I hit the faucets, switched off the water, and stepped out, my gaze moving to the expensive bottles of perfume and makeup lined along the vanity as I grabbed a towel from the warming rack and dried, buffing my tawny skin.
La Prairie and Guerlain. The names meant nothing to me, but I knew designer when I saw it. I draped the towel around my body and stepped closer, dragging my fingers across the purple Raptain jar and shimmering platinum vial next to it. I hadn’t allowed myself to touch them before. I hadn’t even allowed myself to even look at them. I didn’t want to acknowledge what they represented…or the bastard who'd bought them.
My fingers trembled for a second before I lashed out, smacking the glassware. Bottles scattered, clashing before they tipped and rolled. The moment they did, that panicked feeling ignited inside me. I stumbled forward, grabbed the vials, and righted them, shifting the goddamn things until they were perfect once more.
