Last Week: A Dark Romance Page 9

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, taking a step towards him.

  He spun round, scooping up the papers and cramming them back in the box. “What are you doing down here?” he snapped. “Get out of here.”

  “No,” I replied, taking another step towards him. “Something’s wrong and I’m worried about you.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me. What could possibly be wrong with me?”

  “You look sad.”

  “I…” His voice faded away and it was as if something inside him snapped. His shoulders sagged, his chest deflated, his eyebrows fell, the colour drained from his cheeks. “Get out.” His voice was nothing more than a whisper.

  “Not until you tell me what’s wrong,” I said, sinking into the chair on my side of the desk.

  “You’ll be naked in the empty room for the rest of your stay if you don’t get out of here.” There was no strength to his words. It was like he was a different person to the one I knew.

  I leant forwards in the chair, reaching across the desk. “Talk to me, Ethan.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ETHAN

  All I wanted was for her to leave me alone but she refused to go. I tried every threat I had but she just sat there, her hand outstretched towards me.

  I could have dragged her from the room but I didn’t. Instead I said, “I think you should leave.”

  “I told you, I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me.”

  “No, leave the house. Go home.”

  “What?” she asked, looking confused. “But we’ve still got three more days together.”

  “If you’re worried about the money, I’ll still pay you.”

  “But why? I don’t understand.”

  “Because I think you should leave.”

  She folded her arms, her lips pouting. “Well I’m not going to.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I’m not going. I signed a contract to stay here a week and I’m going to stay for a week. That means three more days.”

  “Don’t you get it? I don’t want you to stay any longer. I want you to leave.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have made me sign the contract.”

  “Go! Get out of here,” I snapped, pointing at the door.

  “No. We had a deal. I last a week with you. I’ve got three days left.”

  “The deal’s off.”

  “I refuse to quit.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why the sudden change of heart? What’s going on Ethan? Have I done something wrong?”

  “No, it’s not you. It’s just…this. This is wrong. It’s all wrong.”

  “What is?”

  “This, this contract, our agreement. I shouldn’t be making you do this. You should go before it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  “For you.”

  She looked frightened, her expression changing as I turned away, looking out the window once more. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  I heard her get up and walk round the desk. She knelt next to me, putting her hand on top of mine. “What were you going to do to me at the end of the week?”

  I sighed, wanting to lie, wanting to gloss over the reality of just how fucked up I was. But I took one look in her eyes and the truth came pouring out of me. “I was going to break you, there, you happy? My plan was to take someone innocent and pure, someone who had never done anything wrong and deserved none of this. I was going to break you and then I was going to toss you aside.”

  “But why? I still don’t get it. Why would you want to do that?”

  “Because I’m a monster, okay? Is that what you want to hear? You want me to admit it. Fine, I’m a monster. I wanted to take an innocent woman and destroy her and the plan was going fine until…” His voice faded away.

  “Until what?”

  I looked down at her hand, sitting on top of mine as she waited patiently for me to answer. “Have you ever wondered what’s the point of life?”

  “Sure I have, hasn’t everyone?”

  “What’s the point of it all?”

  “Of life? That’s a pretty big question. Why are you asking me that?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. I don’t think there is a point. I think you need to decide what you want from life and get it. I thought I wanted money but that wasn’t enough. I wanted more. I’ve been a greedy man, Zoey. I’ve done so much damage to get where I am today. Every brick in this place is someone else’s pain and I caused it. I won’t cause any more. I don’t want to hurt you. I want you to go before I do.”

  She squeezed my hand. “Leaving will hurt me far more than staying.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t mean that. You should get out of here before you end up like me. You don’t want that, Zoey, trust me. I’m dead inside.”

  “No, you’re not,” she said, smiling up at me. “I know you’re not. It’s never too late to change, Ethan. If you’re not happy with who you are then become someone else. Trust me on this, I know all about it.”

  “It’s too late for that. I fucked things with my family, I fucked things with my life and now I’m fucking things with you. Get out of here, Zoey.”

  “How did you fuck up with your family?”

  “You’re not a therapist, I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “No, but it might help if you do.”

  I’ll write you a cheque now if you go. Hell, I’ll make it two million.”

  “I’m not going until the week is up.”

  “Ten million then. Think what you could do with ten million.”

  “I don’t want your money, Ethan. I want to spend the next three days with you.”

  “But why?”

  She shrugged. “Because I signed the contract.”

  “I could make you leave. I could throw you out.”

  “I’d come back.”

  “I could have you arrested, say you broke in here.”

  “You could, if you want to play it that way. Go ahead, Ethan. I won’t stop you.”

  “Damn it, Zoey, why are you doing this? Why not just go before you get hurt?”

  She stood up, looking down at me with a look on her face that I didn’t recognise. What was that? Was that warmth?

  “The only thing that would hurt me is leaving you alone when you’re in pain. I can handle anything else you can throw at me.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  She nodded. “If you want me, I shall be in my room, awaiting your next command.”

  She walked out slowly, pausing in the doorway to add, “It’s never too late to change,” before leaving me alone.

  I put my head in my hands, wanting to punch the thoughts out of my head. None of this was going the way it was supposed to. I was supposed to be breaking her and instead I was falling for her. It was ridiculous, a complete stranger who I barely knew and I was falling for her. It was madness.

  It was ruining all my plans. But she wouldn’t leave. That left me with options and I needed to decide which to take.

  I could throw her out and start again with someone else, get back on track, get the job done. Not let Emilia win.

  I could run out the contract, see how hard I could push her in three days, see how much she would take before she broke.

  Or, and this idea scared me more than anything else, maybe I could keep her for longer than three days.

  Time to decide.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  ZOEY

  He didn’t come upstairs all day. I heard him only once. There was the sound of footsteps in the hall and then the front door opened and he was gone. I waited for a few minutes but he did not come back. In the end, I gave up listening out for him. He’d either come back or not. There wasn’t much I could do about it.

  I realised, as I sank into the armchair by my bed, how much I had changed. He had told me he was making the decisions for the week and I had accepted that so deeply, I did not try to reason why he might have left. That was up to him.

 
I felt surprisingly calm, even managing to read for a spell as I awaited his return. But my worries about him grew as the day went on. I was most worried that he might not come back, though I kept telling myself that wasn’t up to me.

  What if he did something stupid? Went out and got drunk? Got in a bar fight or worse?

  I could tell there was something he desperately wanted to tell me, something he was keeping to himself. I couldn’t work out what it was but it must have been serious. One moment, he was giving me the greatest pleasure imaginable, the next he was alone and looking so sad I wanted to wrap him in my arms and tell him it would be all right, whatever was hurting him, I would help with.

  He wanted to break me. That’s what he had said. Was that what he did with the others? Something told me there was more to it than that. If that was how he enjoyed himself, he wouldn’t have looked so tortured in his study. There was more to it but without him being willing to talk, I doubted I’d be able to find out what it was.

  By the time the sun set, he still hadn’t come back. I climbed into bed, unable to stop thinking about him. Tomorrow was one day closer to needing to leave. I’d been able to stay at least to see out the week. He hadn’t thrown me out like he’d threatened. But by the time I woke up, there would only be two days left. Was that long enough to find out the truth? To try and make him accept my help?

  I really did want to help. It was no longer about the money. It was about him. The only one round here who was broken was him. I had thought when I first met him that his life was one long pleasure ride without anything to trouble him. It turned out I was wrong. Money wasn’t the great panacea that I had thought it was. Not much of a revelation but at least I knew the truth. Anyone could be damaged. All I could do was try and help him.

  I had no one to turn to. I couldn’t talk things through with anyone else. He had my phone with my clothes, locked away somewhere in the house. I could only think things out for myself. It felt odd giving up control and no longer making decisions with someone I wanted to help so badly. It was a bit like being in love. I couldn’t explain why I felt that way, only that I did.

  It took a long time to get to sleep. My dreams were vividly dark, consisting of him looming over my bound body, his hand on my throat, his cock inside me, growling that I was his plaything, that I’d broken him and now he was going to break me.

  I woke up coated in sweat, surprised to find him standing over me. He had something in his hand that I couldn’t place. I blinked away the fuzziness of sleep and sat up. “Is that a tail?” I asked, blinking again.

  “Assume the position,” he said in a voice that suggested yesterday never happened.

  I did as he asked, slipping out of my dress and onto my knees, leaning down until my face was pressed into the blankets. Excitement rose in me as I felt him dripping something cold onto my ass. He ran his hand between my cheeks and I realised it was lube. I tensed up automatically as his finger ran over my ass. Was he going to go in there? Why else the lube?

  His hand ran down to my pussy, stroking my clit reverently and with infinite patience, making me groan into the blanket under my mouth as the minutes passed. “This is your new tail,” he said, running the faux fur down my back. “If you’re going to refuse to leave, that’s because you’re loyal, like a pet. Pets have tails.”

  The tip of something cold and hard pressed against my ass, the hole easy to access as I held my cheeks wide apart for him. It was a metal thing, like the butt plugs I’d seen in the drawer. But this one had a tail dangling down from it.

  The end of the plug nudged deeper, forcing its way into my ass. The pain was bad but it was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. It sounds odd but it was a discomfort that was pleasant, a duller version of being spanked, taking place deeper inside me. The plug slid back and forth as he rocked his hand before he started to steadily push, widening me, stretching me, making me realise just how good pain could feel.

  Every nerve in my ass was alive and on fire and just when I was sure he was done, another inch went into me. “Good girl,” he said, standing up as I tried to control my breathing. “Now crawl to your owner.”

  I looked up to see him sat in the armchair over by the window. I let go of my buttocks, feeling them grip the plug, the feel of the tail strange only because of how natural it felt. I climbed off the bed slowly, every motion making the plug grind inside me as I sank to all fours and crawled across to him.

  He smiled at me, patting the top of my head when I reached him. “Good girl,” he said. “Now let’s take you out for a walk.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  ETHAN

  She looked quite the sight, the tail dangling down from her ass as I watched her step down into the garden. I watched her shiver as the morning breeze struck her naked skin.

  I hadn’t gone out with the intention of buying her a tail. I had gone out to try and work out how the hell I was going to get her out of my house. I had thought so much in the study that my head hurt, the contents of the tin laid out in front of me, Emilia’s photo staring up at me. The only conclusion I’d reached was that I needed to get rid of Zoey. She was stopping me from going through with my plan. I’d brought her into the house to get into her head and take control and instead she’d done it to me.

  If she’d have gone of her own accord, it would have been all right but instead she had refused to leave, insisted that she remain until the contract was up. That was when the idea came to me.

  If I humiliated her beyond her limits, she’d leave. Then all I had to do was think how to do it. A tiny whisper in the back of mind said this was a bad idea, that I should accept her into my life, let her in. I shut that whisper down. I wasn’t going to let it win. I wasn’t going to let Emilia win.

  This was what she would have wanted, to see me fail again and again, see me give up where she hadn’t.

  So I bought her a tail. I was pretty sure that just seeing the size of the plug part that was going into her would be enough to send her packing. I never would have guessed she would agree to it, that she would remain presented to me, her cheeks spread, as I pushed it all the way into her.

  I could tell it was painful, the way she shuffled in place as the cold steel vanished into her ass. But then she just remained in place, awaiting my instructions.

  I tried humiliating her, making her crawl across the floor to me. She came as meekly as a kitten, forcing me to try and up my game, taking her out into the garden, naked and with the bushy tail sticking out of her ass, like a pet, like my pet.

  “Walk with me,” I said, leading the way across the still damp grass. She followed me silently. I could hear her breathing change, growing heavier the longer we travelled. I could only imagine how hard it was for her to submit. She had to break soon, surely.

  “Walk in front of me,” I said as we passed the side of the house. “Lean over that wall.”

  She turned to face me, shaking her head. “That wall faces the road. A car just went past. What if someone sees me?”

  “You wanted to stay for the week. You obey my commands, remember?”

  “Yes, Sir,” she said, her face falling. She looked as if she might refuse but then she walked away. I watched, amazed at how bold she was, so different to the quiet defeated woman I’d first met.

  The wall was higher than she thought. Only her head was visible to anyone who might drive past on the other side as long as she remained bent at the waist like that. As I approached her, I looked at her in a new light. I was a fool to deny it any longer. My plan wasn’t going to work. I couldn’t leave this world when it contained someone like her.

  I crossed the space that divided us, reaching down and slowly pulling the tail from her ass, kissing her neck as I did so. I let it fall to the floor, kissing my way down her spine until I was knelt behind her. I shoved her knees apart, pushing two fingers straight into her soaking wet pussy.

  She moaned above me and I smiled, wondering how she felt about being so naughty in public. She really was delightful.
A wave of inspiration hit me. That was why I had been so confused. I was happy. It had been so long since that had been the case that I’d completely forgotten what it felt like. I was genuinely happy.

  I thrust my fingers into her, my other hand on her clit, bringing her to the edge of an orgasm before kissing my way back up her, undoing my trousers as I went.

  I let them fall to the floor, my cock already rock hard and ready to be in her. With a bend of my knees, I pushed myself into her pussy, loving the way she gripped me so tightly, the warm wetness of her desire mingling with the heat of my arousal, my cock twitching already.

  I slid from her, leaving her groaning with frustration as I moved my cock upwards, teasing around her puckered hole, slowly nudging into her, using her wetness as lube. “You’re in my ass,” she muttered as I continued to glide into her tightness. “You’re all the way in my ass.”

  She let out a long moan as I pressed my hips against her ass, holding myself still, letting her get used to the size of me filling her. “I’ve never had someone all the way in my ass.”

  “You have now,” I replied, sliding back and then thrusting forwards a little quicker, listening to her breathing grow more ragged.

  I started to rock inside her, holding her hips, making sure I could go no further into her. I felt more connected to her than ever. She had given herself to me and I was rewarding her, showing her what life with me would be like. Yet just a few seconds ago, I was doing this to make her run. That was how far she’d reached inside my soul.

  I thrust again and she came, her climax seeming to come from nowhere. Her legs buckled and she almost fell, her body shaking as she let out a shriek of delight just as a car raced past on the road beyond my estate. “Did they see me?” she asked, glancing behind her. “Do you think they knew?”

  “Do you care?” I asked, thrusting so fast she was unable to reply. She came again, the second orgasm more powerful than the first. Edging her towards climax so many times had worked, she was coming so hard, it hurt my cock, the contractions of her muscles making it hard to thrust fast enough for me.