“Why do you let me do the things I do to you?” I whispered into the darkness.
She froze for a moment, then lightly chuckled. “I don’t have any other choice.” She pulled at her restraints to emphasise her point.
“But you had no restraints last time.”
I heard her breathe a sigh. It was almost like a sigh of resolution. “Like I said, I have no other choice.”
I kissed her nipple and nuzzled it with my teeth a little, but her comment seemed to play around in my head. “Why?” I asked, trying to search for the answer in her face.
She gave a sigh. “Because it feels like you’re all I’ve ever known.”
I stopped. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried hard to force the words from seeping into my head. Little did she know, I was all she ever knew. I was all she ever said she wanted. But what she had done was irreplaceable of all that. She needed to be punished. She needed to be branded. And that’s exactly what I was about to do.
“I need you to open your legs for me, Tyler, and tilt up those beautiful fucking hips of yours.”
She sighed. “Do you ever not swear?”
I sighed right back at her. “Do you ever not ask questions?”
I heard her annoyance. “Ask questions? I hardly know anything about you. All I know is you’re my stranger, you smell nice, you fuck like an animal, and you say your name’s Lotus. What is your real name? Who are you?”
I didn’t want her asking me those things. I was prepared for that and I knew it would come. I actually thought it would have been sooner than this but, for some reason, she always let me take control.
“I am the man of your dreams, Tyler. And, right now, I’m going to make your dreams come true.”
I plunged my finger into her again, feeling how wet she still was. I knew then that I had her. I knew she would relent and give into my commands.
Rising off her some more, I looked down at my sweet, beautiful devil woman as she wriggled underneath me. “Now, Tyler,” I said, caressing her bottom with my other hand. “I need you to lift up a little bit more. I’ll support you, but you need to raise your hips a bit further.” She did as she was told and my dick throbbed against my trousers.
Taking my finger from her pussy, I wandered down a little bit further until I was at another interesting part of her body. I immediately felt her tense, which I was expecting. I doubted anybody had ever been near her there before.
“Shh, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you, Tyler. I promise. Just feel.”
With my finger, wet from her pussy, I moistened her down there. I teased her for a while with my finger and, to my surprise, she responded. With my other hand, I started messaging her clit a little. Not too rough, but just enough to relax her and get her nice and ready for me. It wasn’t long before her moans were radiating around the room.
Knowing she was willing, I gently placed my finger into her ass. I wasn’t rough, as I knew that was not how she would want it. She was untouched down there, so I had to be careful not to push her too hard.
To my surprise, I felt her push herself down a little to meet me. She was enjoying this, which made it that much harder not to yank my trousers down and fuck her hard again.
“Lotus…,” she whispered, causing me to grip my eyes shut. I had to focus on what I was doing. I had to make sure she felt all the pleasure. This wasn’t about me now. Now was my build-up. I had to make her see there was just no living without me.
With one finger thrusting inside her, I bent my head and pushed my tongue into her pussy. She wriggled and moaned, and I could feel her wanting more. I could tell she just couldn’t get enough.
“Oh god!” I heard her shout as I started licking her clit relentlessly. I loved the taste of her. She was like the sweetest honey on earth. I couldn’t seem to get enough of it.
I mercilessly licked and thrust my way inside of her, fucking her beautiful ass with my finger. I knew the moment she was going to come. I could feel her tensing up. I could hear her breathing become more and more shallow. I could feel her clenching against my finger as her orgasm was about to rip her apart. And just before she was about to come, I pulled my finger out, took my face away from her pussy, and hovered over her. I placed my hand on her pussy and, with one finger inside her and another on her clit, I finished her off. She came, screaming my name, then I struck. I dived my head to her neck and sucked her with all my might. All this did was cause her to scream louder. She was still coming and I was still sucking. All I wanted was to fuck her senseless again.
As soon as I felt her calm, I eased my hand and my mouth away, watching as she closed her eyes. She looked beautiful with the tiny bit of moonlight resting on her face.
But then she moved slightly. Her head fell to the side, and it was then that I caught it. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it on her before now. The locket. The fucking locket I gave to her when we were young. What the fuck would she want with it now? Why the fuck was she still wearing it?
With that thought in my head, I shot up off the bed. How dare she think she could play me like this. How dare she think there was any connection with us after what she had done.
“Lotus, what’s wrong?”
I had to get out of there, fast. The rage was flowing through my veins. All I could see through my closed eyes were my parents. I needed out and I needed out fast.
With a quick tug, I loosened the ribbon that was holding her hands together on the bed. It wasn’t enough to free her, but enough for her to set herself free.
“Lotus?” she questioned, obviously wondering about my sudden change in temperament. But I wasn’t going to stick around to answer her. The moment I freed her enough, I was gone.
Chapter 21
Tyler
Buckinghamshire, 1996
“Do you like flowers, Tyler?” I nodded with a smile.
“When we get married, I’m going to buy you a flower every day until the day we die.”
My heart exploded with love for this boy. He was so tall and getting bulkier now, but always had the cheekiest, lopsided grin you ever saw. His hair was still dark, almost black, but he had the most striking blue eyes I had ever encountered. He was simply beautiful.
“You don’t want to be thinking about marriage when you’re only thirteen, Dean. Don’t be silly,” I giggled.
Dean looked serious as he took my hand. “I’m not being silly,” he said, looking deep into my eyes. “I’m just stating a fact.”
*****
The moment I heard the door shut, I knew he wasn’t coming back. I didn’t know what I had done to cause him to get so upset with me, but I couldn’t think about that. I had to get my hands free. They were starting to ache now that the fun was obviously over.
Moving my hands around a bit, I was able to break free of the ribbon and sit up. My wrists and my neck felt a little sore, but not as sore as my heart felt. For some reason, the feeling of rejection was rising through me and it almost caused a little sob to escape.
I couldn’t understand it. What did I do wrong? What could I possibly have done that changed his attitude so drastically?
I shook my head, wondering what on earth was wrong with me. He was a deviant who snuck into my room, did the most erotic things to me, stalked me, and knew everything there was to know about me. So, why was it that I was the one obsessing over him, left wondering whether he would ever come back? It was almost like I was lost to him now. I was once his obsession. Now it looks as though I was just as sick with it as him.
Sighing, I got out of bed and made sure he definitely wasn’t in the apartment anymore. I walked into my bathroom and found that he turned the toilet paper the other way. “Mother fuc—” Don’t do it, Tyler. Don’t let him win. Deep breaths, just take deep breaths.
I stood there for a moment, eyes closed and breathing out my frustration. It still bugged the hell out of me. That would never change. Bending down, I switched the toilet paper back around before flicking on the overhead light by my mirror. When t
he light came on, it blinded me a little, but not so much that I didn’t notice the bite on the other side of my neck. What was it with him and marking me?
Sighing, I trailed a finger over the bruised area, gazing at my reflection. My hair looked like it had been dragged through a hedge backwards, but I was tied up and abused in the most glorious way.
Shaking my head, I realised I had let him near the one place no one had ever explored before. I thought it would hurt, but he just seemed so gentle, and it just felt so right, that I found myself wanting more. I never thought I would enjoy something like that, but he seemed to know exactly what he was doing. And it both frightened and excited me.
I cleaned myself up and got back into bed, but I didn’t think sleep would come easy. I was exhausted, but I was also wound up tightly. He seemed to suddenly blow hot and cold on me. I didn’t know whether I was coming or going.
I know I was mostly coming, but there was something about him that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I didn’t know whether to feel frightened, excited, anxious, or all of the above. All I knew was there was something familiar about him. There was something so tender and so right that it topped all of the rest of it. Treating me this way didn’t seem to matter in the grand scheme of things. Not when he was the only one since Dean that had made me feel this alive.
On instinct, I touched the angel wings, remembering the day he first gave them to me. He made me make a promise and I kept that promise, but Dean hadn’t kept his. He never returned and I never heard from him again. It took a year to stop looking over my shoulder, hoping he would come back. It was a year of crying into my pillow, jumping every time the phone rang or someone knocked on our door. In a sense, I still had never truly gotten over him. He was my first love, and that’s hard to beat. My stranger was doing a good job of it, though. He was the first man who has ever come close to Dean. He was the first man to ever make me feel things I’d never felt before. He was the first man to ever open my eyes and make me see the true Tyler breaking free. I knew I was a little dark in that respect.
I had a boyfriend named Alan once. The sex was okay, but I never felt it was enough. One evening, I asked him to fuck me hard from behind and spank me. He looked at me as though I had asked him to jump off a cliff.
Suffice it to say, we didn’t do it because he wasn’t comfortable about possibly hurting me. It was only a week or so after that we ended things between us. It was just as well. I was even shocked at myself for suggesting it, and to carry on as normal after that was not going to happen.
Sighing, I turned over in bed and stared at a shadow on the wall. I knew it was just the light from outside illuminating a section on the top of the wall, but it still looked kind of creepy nonetheless. It looked like a black crow with its beak open, its wings spread like it was ready to pounce on its prey. Maybe it was trying to tell me something. Maybe I was the prey. I knew I was my stranger’s prey. But I loved every second of it.
I stared up for what must have been several minutes. I watched as this creepy shadow seemed to morph into what looked like a vampire bat. Quite an apt shadow, I thought, in my sleepy haze, considering my stranger liked to bite me so much.
It was soon after that I found myself suddenly in the corner of my room. I was scared and frightened, hiding from something, but I didn’t know what.
From the shadows, a figure appeared. I thought he was a monster out to get me, but when he came closer, I realised it was Dean. My Dean was here!
My thumping heart slowed as the boy I loved when I was younger came and kneeled down beside me, smiling. I smiled back, feeling absolutely euphoric at the thought that he was here to save me. My Dean had come back, just as promised, and he’d come to rescue me from the monsters.
“Tyler, what are you doing?” he asked, a lopsided grin on his face.
It was then I remembered exactly why I was there, cowering in the shadows. “I’m hiding in the shadows so the monster can’t find me.”
Dean laughed, but came closer. Leaning against my ear, I could feel his hot breath. “Tyler,” he whispered, making me shiver with the feel of his mouth so close to my ear, “you can’t hide in the shadows.”
“Why not?” I asked, wanting so much for him to take me away from here.
“Because it’s the shadows which are chasing you.”
I bolted up in my bed, sweat dripping. It was dark, I was scared. I couldn’t quite catch my breath. I flicked the light on in my room. Everything was still dark and quiet. So, so quiet.
Getting out of bed, I checked my bathroom and turned on my shower. Everything was still in place, the toilet roll as I left it.
As I jumped into the shower and let the warmth envelope me, I started wondering about what my dream meant. Why was Dean in it all of a sudden? Why was he so scary? Closing my eyes, I remembered what my last thought was before I went to sleep. I was thinking of Dean and looking up at the sinister shadows on my wall. It all made sense now. My fuzzy head cleared and I felt calm in the knowledge it was just my subconscious playing tricks on me. Dean would never hurt me. He always said I was his girl, and I always believed him. I still believe him to this day. I just wished I knew where he was and what he was doing right now. Just to know that he was alive and happy would be enough. It was the not knowing that frustrated and worried the hell out of me.
After calming down a little, I shut off the shower, dried myself, and headed back to bed. No shadows were haunting me now. Everything seemed normal—as normal as things could be, at least. I lay there waiting and hoping sleep would find me. It seemed I was more exhausted than I had thought, and I didn’t have too long to wait.
Chapter 22
Dean
Revenge is the naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
No amount of driving could help me. Normally, speed would help alleviate the pressures of the day, but I was wound up far too tightly tonight. What the fuck was she doing wearing that necklace? Why the fuck did she care enough about it to still wear it? It didn’t make any sense.
Smacking the steering wheel, I gripped it tightly. Of course! The witch was using her tricks again. I had been sucked into her voodoo spell. Well done, Tyler, but it won’t happen again.
I appreciate that she didn’t know who I was and had no clue what she was doing but, nevertheless, she was poison. And she used to be my cure. She always knew the right things to say and do. I cherished and loved her in a way that no one could ever come close.
It didn’t matter because Tyler had done a number on me now. I’d be a psychiatrist’s dream…if I ever had one. I was sick and twisted, but she was a little sick and twisted, too. I mean, who in their right mind lets a stranger roam their home and does nothing about it? Who in their right mind would let someone they didn’t know come into their home and do things to them that had never been done? In a sense, it frustrated me that she let me. I could be anyone, but she just opened her door and let me in. And I knew it wouldn’t be long before she let me into her heart. I just had to make sure she never thought she could enter mine because I didn’t have one, plain and simple.
Sighing, I signalled left to head towards the Barnes area. I had far more important things to deal with right now. I had to meet Jimmy in a half-hour so we could deal with a little…annoying matter. One of my men betrayed me and I couldn’t have that. No one betrays Dean Scozzari.
No one should ever dare.
Chapter 23
Tyler
Buckinghamshire, 1997
“What movie do you want to go see, Tyler? Our treat.” Dean smiled and Ian ran his fingers through his hair, waiting for me to answer.
“I’m not sure,” I said, biting my lip. “I would like to see Dumb and Dumber, but it’s rated twelve.”
Both Dean and Ian laughed. Ian placed his hand on my shoulder and gave me a gentle squeeze. “You’ve already forgotten that you’re twelve today?”
My eyes widened and we all laughed. “Oh, shoot. I gues
s I’m being a little blonde.”
Dean winked at me, making me blush. “Or a little beautiful.”
We stared at each other for a little while, then Ian cleared his throat. “Let’s go and line up for the tickets then.”
Nodding, we got the tickets and made our way to the theatre. We sat down with about ten minutes to spare before the film.
Ian turned to us. “I’m going to get some popcorn. Do you want some?”
Dean and I shook our heads, as Dean held up a packet of salt and vinegar Hula Hoops crisps. “I’m set, but thanks, Ian.” Ian nodded and went up the aisle to get his popcorn. Moments after, the room fell dark and everyone stopped talking and rustling with their packets of food.
Out of nowhere, Dean grabbed my left hand and held it gently. I looked up at him with a smile as he gently played with my fingers. “You have such delicate hands, Tyler. They’re so perfect. Why do you have to be so perfect?” he asked, the light from the movie screen bouncing off his eyes.
My breath caught. It always did when Dean was around. I loved him just as much as the very first day I met him. I knew I was only six back then, but I knew. It never changed. It just grew stronger the older I got.
“I wouldn’t say I’m perfect,” I whispered, his gentle touch making me shiver a little. He always knew how to make the goosebumps rise throughout me.
Dean ignored my comment and took a Hula Hoop out of his packet. He inspected the size for a moment, then turned to me with a smile. “One day, this will be a real one,” he said, placing it on my finger.