by Anna Zaires
She listens to my explanation with evident fascination, those dark eyes of hers focused on my face the entire time. I like it, the way she absorbs knowledge like a sponge. It makes it fun for me to teach her, to show her different parts of my world. The few questions she asks are insightful, showing me that she understands exactly what I’m talking about.
“If that drug can erase memories, couldn’t it be used to treat PTSD and such?” she asks after I describe to her one of the startup’s more promising products, and I agree, having arrived at the same conclusion just minutes earlier.
I hadn’t anticipated this when I kidnapped her—the sheer enjoyment I would get out of spending time with her. When I first took her, I saw her solely as a sexual object, a beautiful girl who obsessed me so much I couldn’t get her out of my thoughts. I didn’t expect her to become my companion as well as my bedmate, didn’t realize I would enjoy simply being with her.
I didn’t know she would come to own me as much as I own her.
It really is for the best that she remembered to take the pill. Once we’re both healed, our life can go back to normal.
Our normal, at least.
I will have Nora with me, and I won’t let her out of my sight ever again.
* * *
It’s dark when we land. I lead a sleepy Nora off the plane, and we get in the car to drive home.
Home. It’s strange thinking of this place as home again. It was my home when I was a child, and I hated it. I hated everything about it, from the humid heat to the pungent smell of moist jungle vegetation. Yet when I got older, I found myself drawn to places just like this—to tropical locations that reminded me of the jungle where I grew up.
It took Nora’s presence here to make me realize I didn’t hate the estate after all. This place was never the object of my hatred—it was always the person it belonged to.
My father.
Nora nestles closer to me in the backseat, interrupting my musings, and yawns delicately into my shoulder. The sound is so kitten-like that I laugh and wrap my right arm around her waist, pulling her closer to me. “Sleepy?”
“Hmm-mm.” She rubs her face against my neck. “You smell good,” she mumbles.
And just like that, my cock turns rock-hard, reacting to the feel of her lips brushing against my skin.
Fuck. I blow out a frustrated breath as the car stops in front of the house. Ana and Rosa are standing on the front porch, ready to greet us, and my dick is bursting out of my pants. I shift to the side, trying to ease Nora away from me so my erection can subside. Her elbow brushes against my ribs, and I tense in pain, mentally cursing Majid to hell and back.
I can’t fucking wait to heal. Even sex earlier today hurt, especially when I set a harder pace at the end. Not that it lessened the pleasure much—I’m pretty sure I could fuck Nora on my deathbed and enjoy it—but it still annoyed me. I like pain with sex, but only when I’m the one doling it out.
On the plus side, my erection is no longer quite as visible.
“We’re there,” I tell Nora as she rubs her eyes and yawns again. “I’d carry you over the threshold, but I’m afraid I might not make it this time.”
She blinks, looking confused for a moment, but then a wide smile spreads across her face. She remembers too. “I’m no longer a new bride,” she says, grinning. “So you’re off the hook.”
I grin back at her, unusual contentment filling my chest, and open the car door.
As soon as we climb out, we’re attacked by two crying women. Or, more precisely, Nora is attacked. I just watch in bemusement as Ana and Rosa hug her, laughing and sobbing at the same time. After they’re done with Nora, they turn toward me, and Ana sobs harder as she catches a glimpse of my bandaged face. “Oh, pobrecito . . .” She lapses into Spanish like she sometimes does when she’s upset, and Nora and Rosa try to soothe her, saying that I’ll recover, that the important thing is that I’m alive.
The housekeeper’s concern is both touching and disconcerting. I’ve always been vaguely aware that the older woman cares about me, but I didn’t realize her feelings are this strong. For as long as I can recall, Ana has been a warm, comforting presence at the estate—someone who fed me, cleaned after me, and bandaged my childhood scrapes and bruises. I’ve never let her get too close, though, and for the first time I feel a twinge of regret about that. Neither she nor Rosa, the maid who’s Nora’s friend, try to hug me like they did my wife. They think I wouldn’t welcome it, and they’re probably right.
The only person I want affection from—no, crave affection from—is Nora, and that’s a recent development.
After the three women are done with their emotional reunion, we all head into the house. Despite the late hour, Nora and I are hungry, and we devour the meal Ana prepared for us with record speed. Then, replete and exhausted, we go upstairs to our bedroom.
A quick shower and an equally quick fuck later, I drift off to sleep with Nora’s head pillowed on my uninjured shoulder.
I’m ready for our normal life to resume.
* * *
The scream that wakes me up is bloodcurdling. Full of desperation and terror, it bounces off the walls and floods my veins with adrenaline.
I’m on my feet and off the bed before I even realize what’s happening. As the sound dies down, I grab the gun hidden in my nightstand and simultaneously hit the light switch with the back of my hand.
The nightstand lamp turns on, illuminating the room, and I see Nora huddled in the middle of the bed, shaking under the blanket.
There’s no one else in the room, no visible threat.
My racing heartbeat begins to slow. We didn’t get attacked. The scream must’ve come from Nora.
She’s having yet another nightmare.
Fuck. The urge to do violence is almost too strong to be contained. It fills every cell of my body until I’m shaking with rage, with the need to kill and destroy every motherfucker responsible for this.
Starting potentially with myself.
Turning away, I draw in several deep breaths, trying to hold back the churning fury within me. There’s no one I can lash out at here, no enemy I can crush to take the edge off my temper.
There’s only Nora, who needs me to be calm and rational.
After a few seconds pass and I’m certain I won’t hurt her, I turn back to face her and put the gun back into the nightstand drawer. Then I climb back on the bed. My ribs and shoulder ache dully, and my head throbs from my sudden movements, but that pain is nothing compared to the heaviness in my chest.
“Nora, baby . . .” Leaning over her, I pull the blanket off her naked body and place my right hand on her shoulder to shake her awake. “Wake up, my pet. It’s just a dream.” Her skin is clammy to the touch, and the whimpering noises she’s making pain me more than any of Majid’s torture. Fresh rage wells up, but I suppress it, keeping my voice low and even. “Wake up, baby. You’re dreaming. It’s not real.”
She rolls over onto her back, still shaking, and I see that her eyes are open.
Open and unseeing as she gasps for air, her chest heaving and her hands clutching at the sheets in desperation.
She’s not having a dream—she’s in the middle of a full-blown panic attack, likely one caused by her nightmare.
I want to throw my head back and roar out my rage, but I don’t. She needs me now, and I won’t let her down.
Not ever again.
Rising to my knees, I straddle her hips and bend down to grasp her jaw in my right hand. “Nora, look at me.” I make the words a command, my tone harsh and demanding. “Look at me, my pet. Now.”
Despite her panic, she obeys, her conditioning too strong to be denied. Her eyes flick up to meet my gaze, and I see that her pupils are dilated, her irises nearly black. She’s also hyperventilating, her mouth open as she tries to draw in enough air.
Fuck and double fuck. My first instinct is to hold her against me, to be gentle and calming, but I remember her panic attack during sex the night bef
ore and the way nothing seemed to help her then.
Nothing except violence.
So instead of murmuring useless endearments, I lean down, propping myself up on my right elbow, and take her mouth in a hard, brutal kiss, using my grip on her jaw to keep her still. My lips smash against hers, and my teeth sink into her lower lip as I roughly push my tongue inside, invading her, hurting her. The sadistic monster inside me thrills with delight at the metallic taste of her blood, while the rest of me aches at her mind’s agony.
She gasps into my mouth, but the sound is different now, more startled than desperate. I can feel her chest expanding as she draws in a full breath, and I realize that my crude method of reaching her is working, that she’s now focusing on the physical rather than the mental pain. Her fists uncurl, her hands no longer grasping at the sheets, and she stills underneath me, her body tensing with a different sort of fear.
A fear that arouses the darkest, most predatory part of me—the part that wants to subjugate and devour her.
The rage that still simmers within me adds to this hunger, mingling with it and feeding upon it until I become this need, this mindless, terrible craving. My focus narrows, sharpens, until all I’m aware of is the silky feel of her lips, flavored with blood, and the curves of her naked body, small and helpless underneath mine. My cock stiffens to a painful hardness as she grabs my right forearm with both of her hands and makes a soft, agonized sound in the back of her throat.
Suddenly, the kiss is no longer enough. I have to have all of her.
Letting go of her jaw, I push myself up with one arm, rising onto my knees. She stares up at me, her lips swollen and tinged with red. She’s still panting, her chest rising and falling in rapid tempo, but the unseeing look in her eyes is gone. She’s with me—she’s fully present—and that’s all my inner demon requires at the moment.
I climb off her in one swift motion, ignoring the pang of pain in my ribs, and reach into the bedside drawer again. Only this time, instead of a gun, I pull out a braided leather flogger.
Nora’s eyes widen. “Julian?” Her voice is breathless with remnants of her panic.
“Turn over.” The words come out rough, betraying the violent need raging inside me. “Now.”
She hesitates for a moment, then rolls over onto her stomach.
“On your knees.”
She gets on all fours and turns her head to look at me, awaiting further instructions.
Such a well-trained pet. Her obedience heightens my lust, my desperate hunger to possess her. The position showcases her ass and exposes her pussy, causing my dick to swell up even more. I want to swallow her whole, lay claim to every inch of her. My muscles tense, and almost without thinking, I swing the flogger, letting the leather threads bite into the smooth skin of her buttocks.
She cries out, her eyes closing as her body stiffens, and the darkness inside me takes over, obliterating all remnants of rational thought. I watch, almost as if from a distance, as the flogger kisses her skin again and again, leaving pink marks and reddening streaks on her back, ass, and thighs. She flinches at the first few strokes, crying out in pain, but as I find a rhythm, her body begins to relax into the strokes, anticipating rather than resisting the sting. Her cries soften, and her pussy folds begin to glisten with moisture.
She’s responding to the flogging as if to a sensual caress.
My balls tighten as I drop the flogger and crawl up behind her, looping my right forearm under her hips to drag her toward me. My cock presses against her entrance, and I groan as I feel her slick heat rubbing against the tip, coating it with creamy moisture. She moans, arching her back, and I push into her, forcing her flesh to engulf me, to take me in.
Her pussy is unbelievably tight, her inner muscles squeezing me like a fist. It doesn’t matter how often I fuck her; each time, it’s new in some way, the sensations sharper and richer than in my memory. I could stay inside her forever, feeling her softness, her moist heat. Except I can’t—the primitive urge to move, to thrust into her, is too strong to be denied. My heartbeat drums loudly in my ears, my body pulsing with savage need.
I hold still for as long as I can, and then I begin to move, each thrust causing my groin to press against her pink, freshly flogged ass. She moans with every stroke, her body tightening around my invading cock, and the sensations build upon each other, intensifying to an unbearable degree. My skin prickles from my impending orgasm, and I begin to drive into her faster, harder, until I feel her contractions begin, her pussy rippling around me as she screams out my name.
It’s the last straw. The orgasm I’ve been holding off overtakes me with explosive force, and I erupt deep inside her with a hoarse groan, stunning pleasure rocketing through my body. It’s a bliss unlike any other—an ecstasy that goes far beyond physical satisfaction. It’s something I’ve experienced only with Nora.
Will ever experience only with Nora.
Breathing heavily, I withdraw from her body, letting her collapse on the bed. Then I lower myself onto my right side and gather her against me, knowing she needs tenderness after brutality.
And in a way, I need it too. I need to comfort her, to soothe her. To bind her to me when she’s at her most vulnerable, so I can ensure her love.
It might be cold-blooded, but I don’t leave important things like that to chance.
She turns around to face me and buries her face in the crook of my neck, her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. “Hold me, Julian,” she whispers, and I do.
I will always hold her, no matter what.
Part II: The Healing
Chapter 4
Nora
“Julian, do you have a minute?”
Entering my husband’s office, I walk over to his desk. He looks up to greet me, and I marvel yet again at the tremendous progress he’s made in his recovery over the past six weeks.
His arm cast is gone now, as are all the bandages. Julian tackled healing the same way as he approaches any goal: with single-minded ruthlessness and determination. As soon as Dr. Goldberg approved removal of the cast, Julian dove headfirst into physical therapy, spending hours each day on exercises designed to restore mobility and function to the left side of his body. With his scars beginning to fade, there are days when I almost forget that he was so badly injured—that he had gone through hell and emerged relatively unscathed.
Even his eye implant doesn’t seem jarring to me anymore. Our stay at the clinic in Switzerland and all the procedures cost Julian millions—I saw the bill in his inbox—but the doctors did a phenomenal job with his face. The implant matches Julian’s real eye so perfectly that when he looks at me straight on, it’s almost impossible to tell that it’s fake. I have no idea how they managed to make it that exact shade of blue, but they did, right down to every striation and natural color variation. The fake pupil even shrinks in bright light and dilates when Julian is excited or aroused, thanks to a biofeedback device Julian wears as a watch. The watch measures his pulse and skin conductance and sends the information to the implant, allowing for the most natural-looking responses. The only thing the implant doesn’t do is replicate normal eye motion . . . or allow Julian to see from it.
“That part—the connection to the brain—will take a few more years,” Julian told me a couple of weeks ago. “They’re working on it now in a lab in Israel.”
So yeah, the implant is remarkably lifelike. And Julian is learning to minimize the weirdness of only one eye moving by turning his entire head to look at something straight on—like the way he’s looking at me now.
“What is it, my pet?” he asks, smiling. His beautiful lips are fully healed now, and the fading scars on his left cheek add a dangerous, yet appealing edge to his looks. It’s as if a bit of his inner darkness is visible on his face now, but instead of repelling me, it draws me to him even more.
Probably because I need that darkness now—it’s the only thing keeping me sane these days.
“Monsieur Bernard just told me that he has a fri
end who’d be interested in displaying my paintings,” I say, trying to sound like world-class art instructors give me those kinds of news all the time. “He apparently owns an art gallery in Paris.”
Julian’s eyebrows rise. “Is that right?”
I nod, barely able to contain my excitement. “Yes, can you believe it? Monsieur Bernard sent him photos of my latest works, and the gallery owner said they’re exactly what he’s been looking for.”
“That’s wonderful, baby.” Julian’s smile widens, and he reaches over to pull me down into his lap. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Thank you.” I want to jump up and down, but I settle for looping my arms around his neck and planting an excited kiss on his mouth. Of course, as soon as our lips touch, Julian takes over the kiss, turning my spontaneous expression of gratitude into a prolonged sensual assault that leaves me breathless and dazed.
When he finally lets me come up for air, it takes me a second to remember how I ended up on his lap.
“I’m so proud of you,” Julian repeats, his voice soft as he looks at me. I can feel the bulge of his erection, but he doesn’t take it further. Instead, he gives me a warm smile and says, “I will have to thank Monsieur Bernard for taking those photos. If the gallery owner does end up displaying your work, perhaps we’ll take a little trip to Paris.”
“Really?” I gape at him. This is the first time Julian’s indicated that we might not be staying on the estate all the time. And to go to Paris? I can hardly believe my ears.
He nods, still smiling. “Sure. Al-Quadar is no longer a threat. It’s as safe as it’s ever likely to be, so with sufficient security, I don’t see why we can’t visit Paris in a bit—especially if there’s a compelling reason to do so.”