Secret Beast by Amelia Wilde

Author:Amelia Wilde [Wilde, Amelia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dangerous Press
Published: 2021-02-22T18:30:00+00:00

13

Haley

No tears. They burn at the corners of my eyes. They sting. They threaten and taunt. But they don’t fall. No. I don’t let them. All the way up to my room. He’s left me without clothes again, and that’s part of it, isn’t it? I fold myself into perfect sheets, turn out the lights, and stare at the ceiling. Part of it is knowing that he has everything, and I have nothing.

I fall asleep thinking about that. Everything. Nothing. Clothes. No clothes. Someone has to pick up my discarded things from the dining room floor. It’s not Leo, I’m sure of that. He steps over them with his shining shoes and his expensive clothes and disappears into this enormous building. His bedroom is at the other end of the hall. It feels like a thousand miles.

My dreams are unsteady. One minute my feet are on the deck of a ship and I can’t get my balance. The next I’m swimming. The next I’m on dry land, rocks pressing into my soft belly. A shadow above me. A man standing over me. Isn’t that always the way? A man, casting his shadow onto your body like he has any right to block the sun.

Or every right to block the sun. To be the sun.

Cold, white light wakes me up the next morning, I point my toes under the covers and try to push away how embarrassing this is. The feeling won’t be pushed away. Won’t be bribed. It digs both heels into my chest and sinks its weight into my bones.

Why do I like what he does to me, even when I hate it?

Why does it make me wet and aching between my legs?

Why, why, why? Pleasure—even twisted pleasure—wasn’t part of the contract, but complete access was. And Leo has dug down to the parts of me I didn’t think about before. There was no time. There was no space. Now there’s nothing but time.

Time to shower. To dry my hair. To decide to leave the robe hanging where it is. I’m not numb. I still feel everything he did to me last night and everything he made me do. Crying would be a relief but his voice whispers no tears in my ear and I can’t, I can’t.

What I can do is fold myself into the chair by the window and read. Most of my book remained intact. I go back to the first chapter and wait for a box to arrive.

Minutes tick by. Hours. No soft knock at the door. No box. No food. I don’t know what to think. He hates me. He pleasured me. Leo is a Morelli and I’m a Constantine, and there can never be any kind of affection between us. He’s using me as the means to an end. I’m using him as the means to an end. I don’t know which of us is using the other more. Me? Him?

It’s enough to give a girl whiplash.

In the early afternoon a tray arrives. Chicken noodle soup, with fat oyster crackers to go with it.

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