Bloom: A Dark Romance (The Order, 1) Read online

  I didn't want this opportunity taken away from me, so without any more hesitation, I inched forward and pressed my lips to his. It was strange, the feel of his bottom lip between mine. My breath hitched and it was hard to deny the slight chill that ran up my spine. I pulled away before I could explore the sensation any further.

  He slowly opened his eyes and grinned. “Good,” he said. “Now it's my turn.”

  I closed my eyes without having to be told and this seemed to make him happy. “You can ask a question now,” he said, “If you like.” His mouth was close to mine, ready to continue what he was doing. I could feel his warm breath on me, the smell of bergamot and something else on his clothes that I could not place.

  “Why?” It slipped out in a mouse's voice. It scurried away from me, impossible to catch.

  “Why what?”

  I realized his hands were still on top of mine only when I tried to move them. I instantly stilled, keeping my palms flat on my thighs so he couldn't touch the skin underneath. “Why did you pick me?”

  I heard him take a breath, felt it as he exhaled. “Why not you?” he asked, and the sentence made me open my eyes.

  Master Lyon was no longer as close, studying me with an unwavering stare. His free arm wrapped around the back of the couch like we were at the movies—I had seen couples do it many times in films, never dreaming or hoping it would happen to me in any real way. “You’re pretty and you aren’t a little girl,” he said, staring into the fire as if waiting for one of the logs to fall over. “And I read your file. You seemed...strong.” His eyes traveled to my scars again, the few faint ones near my knees that were barely visible. His thumb grazed my bare skin where there was a larger white mark.

  His hands left mine and I closed my eyes, unable to do anything else.

  “Open your mouth a little.”

  That was it. Question answered.

  I let out a sharp breath but did as I was told. I imagined I looked like a fish stranded on land, gasping for air.

  “Not so much.” I felt his fingers on either side of my face, correcting it into the right position. “That's better.”

  I tried to stay calm as I waited for his next move. It seemed like several minutes when in reality it couldn't have been more than a few seconds.

  This time, the kiss started out much the same as the last one he delivered, but it wasn't long before it deepened. His hand wound into my hair and I flinched, fearing the pain that would follow, but there wasn't any.

  “Kiss me back, ma petite,” he whispered against my lips. “Make me believe you want to be here.”

  The words took me aback. I wasn’t so naïve to think he believed I wanted to be with him, but I hadn’t expected him to shatter the illusion so completely. He seemed to like it so much. Bringing the ugly truth out of the darkness made him nearly vulnerable. Nearly.

  “How—” I had to take a moment to think of how to word my thoughts. I didn’t want to earn another violent response.

  His grin spread across my slightly parted lips. “Just do as I do. Try not to concentrate on me. Think only of how your body reacts.”

  I couldn’t help it. Me and my big mouth. “And what if my body…doesn’t react favorably?”

  He smiled again, this time gently biting my lower lip. “We can always work on that,” he said. “But there is no use lying to yourself.” He moved away a fraction; both of our eyes were open now. “Would you truly want to make it so hard on yourself?”

  I felt my forehead crease. “I don’t know what that means, sir.” My voice came out soft and meek. Like the doe he wanted. It was one of the only times I hadn’t willed it to be that way.

  My new Owner sighed. “The female body is not such a mystery,” he said. “I can tell you are not as repulsed by me as you would like me to believe. I can also tell that it would be easy to make your body…” I felt the tip of his nose graze the skin from the base of my neck to my cheek. “React favorably.”

  It reminded me of the night before, his hot tongue on my throat in contrast to the cool water running down. If I hadn’t been paying attention, I might have fallen for his trick. I might have let the goose bumps form, the flutter in my chest, the adrenaline fill my blood. But I knew what this was, and no matter how much make-believe they tried to make me swallow, I was awake now. I could see what every other girl at the Compound refused. What every follower blindly followed. I could see every dark, skeletal thing that crept beneath the masks and cloaks they all wore.

  He grinned like he had just figured me out. For a second, I believed he saw something. Something that I was not yet aware of and something that him in all his experience with buying women could only spot after years of practice. I didn’t know what it was exactly. Maybe my eyes were just as expressive as he said they were. Maybe he had just discovered something I didn’t want him to see, but that didn’t mean he knew me. It didn’t mean he would win.

  “It’s easier to just let it happen,” he said, his mouth close to my ear now. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, my heart beat just a fraction faster than normal. “Don’t deny the way your body responds.”

  Wasting no time, he continued our little kissing game. His tongue slipped into my mouth and I tentatively met it with mine. He let out a soft groan into my mouth and his grip on my hair tightened again, but not painfully. It was only enough to bring me closer, to hold me in place.

  “Much better, Doe,” he whispered before returning to his task.

  The music changed again, something slow and sweet. The bass was louder than previous songs and made the glass in the windows shake slightly whenever it came in. I tried to concentrate on this sound, the next time it would vibrate through the speakers strategically placed around the room, time them to my movements and his so I knew what to expect better. So I had something to concentrate on other than what he had just instructed me to do.

  I might not have been successful in physically escaping just yet, but I’d had practice in escaping since I was born. We all did it, to a certain extent. The girls who were brought up to believe in the teachings escaped the Compound filled with nothing but other girls and beatings if they stepped a toe out of line imagined their prince coming to save them one day. The ones who had been given up after they were old enough to know what was going on—or at least what was happening was wrong in some way—imagined their parents, their siblings they had left behind. One day getting back to them. That was until the daydreams were forced out of them and there was nothing left but hollow little girls. Pretty dolls to sit on golden shelves.

  Against what I told my body to do, it reacted. My nipples grew hard under the robe and warmth I had never felt before flooded me. I hated it. I hated how this man who had paid to do this to me was causing all this. I hated how he was pleased with how well he was teaching my body to betray my mind. Most of all, I hated myself. This wasn’t a fairytale and he wasn’t here to save me from anything. It was just a matter of time before he showed me his true self again and I was broken into more pieces than before.

  Suddenly, the hand in my hair twisted until I was wrenched free of my Owner and I was left panting as his eyes, full of fury, bore into mine.

  My scalp burned so badly that I whimpered and he didn’t stop tugging until I was out of my seat and somehow kneeling on the floor as he stared down at me, the veins in his arms more pronounced, his subtle smirk revealing a droplet of blood.

  I had done that. I had taken him off guard and ruined his fun; his little fantasy. I couldn’t help my own grin from spreading across my face.

  “I was wondering when you were going to show yourself,” he said, eerily calm as he wiped his lip with the thumb of his free hand.

  He switched his grip to the back of my neck, capturing me so tightly I thought I might pass out from the pressure applied there. My feet dragged as he lifted me unexpectedly and pulled me out of the room, down the hall, up the stairs, and to the room across from mine.

  As soon as I saw the bed I start
ed flailing. This was what I had earned. The light from the rest of the house was cut off as if severing a limb as he slammed the door behind us, tossing me on the ground like I was a used napkin. I felt my arms give out, unprepared for the hardwood as it rushed up towards my face. At least he was no longer touching me; I had a chance to move away from him and whatever he was about to do.

  “Kneel,” he said before I had the chance to take a breath.

  A light flicked on, dimmer than the rest of the house. My new wound and the new foreign plastic under my skin throbbed and I wondered if something had been torn.

  I heard him sigh, drawing my attention back towards his direction. The anger in his eyes was already gone. His gaze now only held intrigue. Excitement, even. My eyes scanned his face, searching for the blood I had drawn, but it had already stopped, the only evidence it was ever there a slight redness. I was disappointed to see it disappear already. It was so rare I could see one of my captors in pain and it was already over.

  “I will not ask again,” he said, more impatient now as he crossed his arms over his chest.

  My robe was disorganized, but still covering me enough to keep my naked body concealed. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed, I just didn’t want to tempt him in a certain direction any more than his thoughts were already traveling.

  I scrambled to my knees, burning them on the hardwood as I stared between them, each place where the planks met threatening to make things worse. I wanted to stand, to run, to get away, but years of experience had taught me that these things, like dreams and fantasies, weren’t real. They were just ideas; little figments that fragmented as soon as they were within reach, brittle as thin ice.

  My breathing had slowed, but it still stung my lungs as if I wasn’t supplying them with enough oxygen. My hands shook as I placed them on my thighs the way I had been taught to sit like a patient dog. I didn’t know why I was reacting this way. I was used to the pain, someone hurting me physically for some wrong I had committed. I no longer became scared. I no longer feared pain. At least I was alive, I would tell myself in the dark as I nursed welts and bruises. At least I was still breathing. As long as my heart beat, there was a chance.

  But this was different. Whenever I had been punished in the past, it had been through anger, to teach a lesson, to show that I was no better than anyone else at the Compound. He was not angry. He was not trying to prove his power or my lack of choice. He was calm. He showed more passion when he was sliding the dish across the table last night than he did now.

  “Do you know why I brought you in here?” he asked, voice just as cool as before.

  Instinct told me to keep my eyes on the floor, but I remembered that he didn’t like that. He wanted to see my so-called expressive eyes. He wanted to know that I was afraid, thinking about all of the possible outcomes of this situation I had gotten myself into.

  When I looked up, the thing immediately facing me was the bed. It seemed like any other, apart from the sheets, how high it was off of the ground, how large it was, how clean it looked. I hadn’t slept in a clean bed since I was a child, and even then it wasn’t clean. Not really. The sight made my skin break out in goose bumps, my stomach lurch so hard that it physically hurt.

  I was so caught up in it that I didn’t notice him leaning down in front of me until his finger was under my chin, tilting my head upwards “Doe, are you going to answer me or make things worse for yourself?”

  I swallowed hard and he could feel it; he smiled. The first time I tried to answer, my voice came out raw, unintelligible. I couldn’t tell if they were words or just a jumble of emotions taking physical form. When I opened my mouth again, I concentrated with everything I could to make my voice steady. “To sleep with me, sir?” I hadn’t intended it to sound like a question, but I couldn’t bring myself to form it into a fact. I couldn’t make it real before he did. At least there was still the smallest chance that it wasn’t my reality if I didn’t bring it forth myself.

  I expected his amusement, his patronizing words as he told me I was correct. I wasn’t prepared for a full laugh. This wasn’t the soft, breathy laughter I had come to know. This was solid, genuine. It was as if I had taken him off guard in a serious situation. Like I had tripped at a funeral.

  He placed a hand on my head as if he was comforting me for my own foolishness. I was afraid to look at him so my gaze had returned to the floor, where I wouldn’t be able to tell if he was on the verge of laughing more or hitting me.

  I heard the fabric of his clothing shift as he stood in the otherwise silent room. The music down downstairs had disappeared as if it had been physically cut. The door to this room was thick enough to block out all other sound. Even if there was such a scenario where someone would come to my rescue, they wouldn’t be able to hear anything that went on inside of these four walls.

  “Stand up, ma petite,” he instructed, and he didn’t have to tell me twice. Standing meant I was at least on the same level in some small way.

  My knees ached as my legs trembled with the effort of not letting them lock. He took my hand, leading me to the bed. I wanted to obey if only to save myself from more punishment, but as hard as I tried, as soon as we were within arm’s distance my feet were planted where I stood. My elbow locked into place as he kept tugging and he only turned towards me when he felt the resistance.

  He was still calm, gentle even. “Je ne vais quand même pas te baiser, Biche,” he said, a twinge of humor still in his voice.

  I’m not gong to fuck you, Doe.

  Even though it was in his own language, the curse sounded foregien on his tounge. It didn’t exactly seem wrong, some small vulgarity coming from a man like him; one who lived in this world where buying and selling girls for their bodies was as natural as going on a morning stroll. Still, it seemed uncharacteristic of his usual polite manner of speaking. It told me perhaps more than he intended. He was out of control in some small, imperceptible way. Like the blood I had drawn, it was a miniscule symbol of my own power in a powerless world.

  He pulled me the rest of the way to the bed until we were both standing in front of the large frame. “Sit down,” he said, his voice back to its usual calm, neutral tone. “Put your hands at your sides.”

  I looked up at him as he waited, expecting him to go across the room and into the closet, where he no doubt hid his instruments of torture in case company dropped by. He didn't move at all, keeping his eyes on me and his arms over his chest. I did as I was told, my legs already giving out from the control I had to keep over them to stop their shaking. The bare backs of my thighs met soft, smooth blankets and the mattress underneath was firm, yet my weight sank into it just enough that if I was somewhere else, if was someone else, alone with this bed, I wouldn't ever want to leave it. The beds I had slept on were always threadbare and uneven, stained from use and scared young girls who had been taken from—more like given up by—their parents. This was more than I deserved, more than I was ever given, and it wasn't given on purpose. It was an exposition, a prelude.

  “I assume you've been hit with a belt before,” he said in the same soft voice, making me flinch despite its gentle tone.

  I nodded without thinking and stopped myself. “Yes, sir.”

  He took a deep breath and sighed as he undid his belt. The sound of it was familiar, like coming home. There was an odd, sick comfort to the sound. I knew this. I knew it better than this man or this house.

  When it had cleared his belt loops, cutting through the air, I found him staring at me again, the belt in his hands and held lengthwise in front of him. “This is the most calm I have yet seen you,” he said. I could tell he was trying to conceal his surprise at my reaction, but the slight tilt of his head and cock of his brows gave him away.

  Another small thing I could claim as my own. His confusion.

  “Do you like being hit?” he asked, the smile appearing again.

  It was a genuine question. He wasn't trying to scare me with it; he really wanted to know.

/>   “No, sir,” I answered.

  He stared as if he had caught me in a lie, but if he really thought I was lying he didn't say so. “I'm going to come towards you,” he said, “I would advise you not move.”

  I could feel my eyes widening and I tried to stop them before he could see. He had turned from conversational to serious with each step he took closer to me and the bed.

  My mind raced with all the things he could do with his belt, his weight, his imposing figure that was so much larger than my own. He could wrap the belt around my neck and watch as I slowly lost concsiousness; he could whip it against any part of my body. He could tie me to the bed, to the ceiling, to him if he wanted. And I would sit there, unmoving, and let him. There was no point in fighting when there was no immediate escape. I would only anger him and make things worse. I would only paint myself as even less trustworthy and he would never let his guard down. I would never have a chance.

  I knew that whatever it was, if I was stupid enough to think it would do anything in my favor, I wouldn't be able to fight him off. I wouldn't be able to escape. In the end, that was the most terrifying thing. Not being hurt, not being beaten, not being the star in some awful man's fantasies come to life, and not even being violated beyond repair. It was the fact that once these things happened—and they would; I wasn't about to try and convince myself otherwise—I would be less and less each time and more of what he wanted. More of what he had paid for, whether I pretended I liked him or not. Inside, I would know the truth. I would know that I was no longer the person I had been before the events took place. I would be in more pieces, more fragments that eventually even I wouldn't be able to grasp.

  I felt him behind me, the mattress dipping with his weight. I tried to ignore his slight scent of spice, the feel of his strong hands around my wrists as he brought them behind my back and secured them with the belt. It was tight, but not so bad that it hurt. It stretched the skin on my chest and throat, straining the stitches and the new tracker the tiniest bit—just enough to remind me that they were still there.