Dark Desires by Candace Wondrak

Chapter Seven – Juliet

I stood in a kitchen that was both familiar and new. Everything was a little fuzzy, but at the same time, it was clear. Everything was clear to me. I shouldn’t be here. I didn’t belong in this house, with its old, yellowed walls and its peeling wallpaper. This wasn’t my house.

I… I didn’t know where I belonged, but I knew it wasn’t here.

And yet, even though I knew this in my heart of hearts, I couldn’t stop myself from walking through that kitchen, from going to the door in the back of it. I couldn’t stop myself from reaching for that doorknob, hesitation and unease written into every nerve in my body.

This wasn’t right. Something wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what that something was. I felt like I was going mad, like there were parts of me I couldn’t explain, as if I was being pulled in multiple different directions, all at once.

Lost. I felt so lost. Would I ever be found? Would I ever know where I belonged in this world? I wished I had the answers, but right now, all I had was the sinking feeling something waited for me in the basement.

Something dark, something cruel, something that would change everything.

“Daddy?” I spoke, my voice tentative and trembling. My heart felt like it beat too fast, far too fast as my fingers curled around the doorknob. I was seconds from opening it, seconds from seeing what I shouldn’t see, but I felt something cold breathing down the back of my neck.

I turned around, finding Daddy stood in the kitchen, two feet behind me. The look he wore was one of sheer sorrow, his eyebrows creased and his eyes heavy. His shoulders slumped, his clothes dirty. He did not look like the man I remembered. He looked so much older, as if the world had beaten him down.

“Daddy?” I asked again, taking a tiny step towards him, forgetting all about the basement and what waited for me within. “Daddy, what’s wrong? Can I help you? Let me—” Daddy always acted like the entire world sat on his shoulders. Surely he could let me in, give me some of the weight. I was strong enough. I could handle it. I believed I could.

But that was the thing about Daddy. He never believed in me. He always thought I was weak, too fragile to ever let go of, too pathetic to find my own way in this world, so he had to protect me. He had to protect me and everything I was by keeping me locked up. How many times had he told me he was only doing what was best for me?

So many times. So, so many.

He took a step toward me, reaching a hand out to hold onto my neck. Suddenly we weren’t in the kitchen anymore, but my bedroom, my back against the door, shadows dancing across his face in the nighttime air.

He almost didn’t look like himself. He looked two shades away from being a monster.

“Daddy, what are you doing?” I spoke when he did nothing, when he said nothing. He continued to hold onto my neck with a fierce expression on his face, shadows dancing across it until… until he was no longer Daddy.

Until the face looking down at me belonged to someone else, a man whose stare pierced everything I was, including my soul.

Markus Scott.

“Is this what you wanted?” Markus spoke with a scowl, his body clad in a dark suit, as it always was. The metal from his watch grazed my flesh, causing goosebumps to rise. When I was struck silent, he went on, “Cat got your tongue, Juliet?”

“Why are you here?” My words felt strange, off. Like I wasn’t really speaking them. Like I wasn’t myself. And being here, in my bedroom, pinned against the wall with Markus’s hand around my neck, I supposed it would be impossible to think straight.

This man was all-consuming. He was everything without trying. Every move he made, every word he spoke, was deliberate and strong and earth-shattering. It was almost like I didn’t feel worthy to be in his presence. After all, I was just me, and who was I but a frightened girl so far out of her element it was laughable?

His eyes, further darkened by shadows, tore at me with invisible strength. If his hand wasn’t currently around my neck, I think I’d fall to the floor, unable to keep myself up. How could I stay strong when every part of my body wanted to be weak, when I wanted to give in—to him, to his darkness, to everything he was. I never knew evil could wear such a handsome face, never knew cruelty could look so good. I never knew how weak I could be in the face of such a man.

“You know why I’m here,” Markus whispered. “For you. I’m here for you. It’s always been you.” The hand around my neck loosened, traveling down along my body, taking its time as it went. Over my fuzzy pajamas, over the unicorn design printed on them, stopping only when that hand reached the waistline of my pants.

Was it wrong for me to want him to touch me? Was something wrong with me for feeling a low ache in my stomach, a heat growing in the place between my legs? I had to be out of my mind to want a man like Markus to do anything to me, let alone touch me and bring my body to life. I knew what he could do with those hands, what horrible, awful things they were capable of… and yet that didn’t seem to stop me from wanting him to take this little encounter a step further.

To remind me of why I was so weak in his presence.

“Tell me you don’t want this,” Markus murmured, his body blocking out the rest of the room. Heck, the rest of the world. I didn’t care where Daddy was, didn’t care about what was happening in the basement. All I cared about was the man before me, the power he held over me, and the lengths I was willing to go, the things I was ready to overlook, just to feel alive.

His fingers toyed with the band around my waist, grazing the skin on my lower stomach. “Tell me you don’t want this, and maybe I’ll stop.”

I said nothing. It was like my voice failed me—that, or I didn’t even try. Either way, Markus got his answer, and within the next moment, that hand of his slipped further down… though this time, it went between my bare skin and my clothes. I inhaled sharply the moment I felt his hand curl around me, my eyes locking with his.

Once you were in the devil’s trap, he never let you go. He was the biggest sin of all. I guess I really was as weak and pathetic as Daddy always accused me of being. The first sign of danger appeared, and instead of running away, I stayed in his arms even though I knew it would lead me to my doom.

Let the world end. Let it all come crumbling down around me. It didn’t matter. I was just a girl who, for once, made her own decisions. Just a girl, and he was just a boy. Well, more like a man, but still.

I was transfixed, watching Markus’s face as he touched me, as he played me just like he’d played me before, only better. Better this time, because I knew what was happening, because I knew the lengths my body could be stretched to, how it felt to lose myself in physical ecstasy. I could not shut my eyes, for if I did, I’d miss his face.

My prince charming was no prince, but was that really so bad? It was kind of poetic, in a way, to meet the man of your dreams after years apart and have that same man be your end. Not a love story, but a tragedy.

The thing was, I didn’t want a tragic end.

What did I want? I’d settle for everything.

My breathing was weak and erratic, and no matter how hard I tried, I could not seem to fill my lungs with an appropriate amount of breath, not while Markus stared down at me, not while I lost myself in those black eyes, while his hand touched me in all the right ways. The heat inside me only grew, an invisible pressure building in my lower half. He was relentless, just as he always was, only this time, I was not in my own head enough to want to stop him.

A strange sound escaped me the moment I felt myself starting to unravel. When it happened, when Markus’s fingers pushed me over the edge, everything inside of me exploded, searing heat and bodily pleasure mixing and mingling, taking hold of everything I was and everything I would be. The orgasm was powerful, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say the world had stopped turning.

Maybe it did. Maybe this was it for me.

Once I got control of myself, once the orgasm no longer had me in its forceful grip, Markus pulled his hand out, and my body felt the loss of his instantly. He stared at me, his eyes seeming blacker in the darkness. “Do you want more, Juliet?”

What could I say other than a breathy, “Yes.” Yes, I wanted more. Yes, I needed more. Yes, yes, yes. There were those the devil took unwilling, the ones who fought him and tried their best to get away… and then there was me, the girl who’d go with him anywhere.

The hand that had not been touching me rose to my face, tenderly running down the side of my cheek. Markus said nothing, but that same hand fell to mine, and he pulled me along, away from the door, away from where I was frozen. He brought me to the bed, where he laid me down.

On this bed again, it didn’t feel quite right. I’d rather do it literally anywhere else, but I supposed beggars couldn’t be choosers and all that. If this was where it had to happen, then it’s where it would happen, where we would become one and I’d know what it felt like to give myself to someone else so fully there was no turning back.

This was it. No more hesitation.

Markus reached for the buttons on his suit jacket, undoing them one by one, shrugging the jacket off his shoulders and revealing the long-sleeved black shirt underneath. A red tie hung around his neck, and after he folded the jacket and placed it on my nightstand, he loosened his tie and set it on top of the bundled jacket.

Then his watch came off.

Then he… he started to roll up his sleeves.

Wait, what?

I sat up, something tugging at my heart, and I said, “What are you—” I could get nothing else out, for Markus’s hands pushed me to lay back down. It was then I saw I was not in my bedroom anymore, not laying down at all—but on a wall. A cold, tiled wall, and in Markus’s hands sat a shiny scalpel.

Markus stared at me. “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” His long legs brought him closer to me, and I found my hands were chained above my head somehow. He brought the blade to my cheek as he whispered, “So naive you are for thinking I could ever stomach you, Juliet.”

No, no, this was all wrong. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

I tried to speak, but I was still very much out of breath from before, my body still all hot and bothered after the orgasm. I’d wanted more. I’d wanted so much more, and now I knew how foolish it was. How stupid I was.

“Goodbye,” Markus whispered, and then he brought the scalpel down, pushing it into my gut.

I woke with a start, eyes flying open. I stared at the white ceiling above me, sunlight shining through the curtains of the room. No Markus nearby, no chains in the basement. No scalpel or anything like that. I wasn’t back at home, where Daddy could walk in and see. I was here, in the Scott household, as lost as ever.

Only… only more lost, if that was possible. My body was still so hot, the space between my legs especially.

I did not bother to sit up, for I didn’t want to get up. When I closed my eyes, I didn’t see the Markus that had me chained up in the basement, the one who’d stabbed me awake. No, instead I saw the Markus in my room, the man who’d cornered me against the door and slipped his hand down me, touched me, made me feel things I never thought I would.

My thighs squeezed together of their own accord, and a secret part of me wished that scene in my dream would play out in real life, that Markus would make me feel those things again. I shouldn’t want anything like that, and yet I couldn’t shake the desire.

I’d never… well, being stuck in that house for so long, I never let myself think of those things, because I knew Daddy would never want me to. But being here, knowing I would probably never get out of this house, what was the harm in letting my imagination fly? What was the harm in going after what I wanted? I already knew it was only a matter of time before death came knocking for me and I’d have to answer the door. I didn’t see a use in waiting.

Even good girls wanted to feel alive, to have their bodies drown in physical bliss every now and then. That didn’t make them bad girls, did it?

It was a damned good thing Daddy wasn’t here to see what I did next—and what I did next was not something I’d ever done before. Almost instinctual, but I had help with the thought of Markus and what he’d done to me, both in the dream and in real life. I shut my eyes, spread my legs a bit, and let my own hand wander its way down.

I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t be doing this, but the thing was, I wanted to. I wanted to do it more than anything in my whole life.

When my fingers curved around my body, I found the space was slick, like my body had gotten so turned on from the dream it had reacted while I was still sleeping. I didn’t try to stick a finger inside of me, instead choosing to mimic what Markus had done, paying all of my attention to that nub of skin at my apex, the swollen, aching thing. I discovered it felt better when my fingers were slick with my own arousal, and then I got to work.

It… wasn’t exactly the same as it had been when Markus did it, mostly because it wasn’t just me receiving. It was also me giving, so it was like I had to focus on both aspects at once. It would be easy to overthink something like this.

But then I forced my mind to stop thinking about what I was doing, to only focus on how good it felt. I imagined Markus, his face, his frowns and his sneers. I imagined how good he looked in that suit, how deliberate his movements were when he took it off. I pictured how the man looked as his hand explored the area between my legs.

In my head, in that moment, he was both a god and the devil. He was everything. My body started to flush with heat, my cheeks flaming. My breath began to grow faster, irregular. I did not stop touching myself, and when I recognized the fact that my body inched closer and closer to a climax, I continued to push myself.

What would it be like to feel his skin on mine, unfettered by clothing and his usual restraint? What would it feel like to forget who I was, to forget everything I was, and simply belong to him?

Something inside of me exploded, and I bit my bottom lip to keep myself from crying out loudly. My muscles spasmed, the space between my legs hot and wanting. My eyelids snapped shut as everything in me tensed up, a whole-body reaction to my thoughts and the work of my hand.

Once the brunt of the orgasm was over, I lay there for a while, getting my breathing under control. I slipped my hand out of my shorts and rolled onto my side, hugging my pillow, wiping the slickness of my fingers between it and the sheet below.

Guilt reared its ugly head inside me, shame for what I did. I shouldn’t have done it. And if I had to do it, I shouldn’t have thought about Markus. He wasn’t the kind of man anyone should voluntarily want. He was cruel and vicious—and so, so mean. I didn’t like him.

I mean, was he a very attractive man? Yes, yes he was. He was also dangerous and a killer, not to mention older than me. He was older than Will, for goodness sakes. He was older than Theo, and way older than Jaxon, who was about the only guy who was near my age, besides Bennet.

Oh, God. What did I do? The next time I saw him, all I’d be able to think about was the dream and how I’d touched myself after. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Get it together, I told myself.

Eventually, I had to get up. Couldn’t spend the whole day wallowing and hating myself in bed, although I supposed I could. No one would stop me. But I didn’t want to spend what might be the last days on this earth hating myself. The longer I spent in that bed, the more I thought about what I’d done in it. It was that simple.

After breakfast, Will dropped me off at Theo’s office so he could catch some sleep—because, again, I couldn’t be trusted to be on my own in this house anymore. I’d already helped Theo clean, his cabinets were already organized, so there was nothing else I could really do beside sit there and wonder why my life had come to this.

I didn’t believe in reincarnation, but if I did, I’d think I really angered someone in a past life to deserve this.

Theo sat at his desk, a few feet away from me. His desk was clean of papers, for once, no charts or anything like that nearby. Today, he wore slacks, like he always did, along with a button-down blue shirt. Thin-rimmed glasses sat on his nose, and his amber eyes were on me, as if he expected me to break the silence.

And, what would you know, I did, mostly because the longer we sat there in silence together, the more my mind drifted off, and obviously I didn’t want that. Let Theo take front and center in my thoughts, at least for now.

“So, what do you do when you don’t have any work?” I asked. My legs were crossed, and I just could not get comfortable in the chair I sat in. I kept shifting positions, trying to find the right spot.

His shoulders shrugged. “Usually I find something else to do, but everything I normally do, you’ve already helped me with.” His voice sounded gentle and warm; he was probably the only man in this house I believed was genuine in his concern. The only real kindness in this sea of chaos.

“Sounds like a boring life,” I muttered, and then a bitter chuckle left me. “Not that I have any room to talk.”

Theo was quiet for a moment. “Did you really never leave the house?”

“Not really. When I was younger, my dad was it for me. I listened to him and took his words to heart. And then I grew up a little and tried to go out there in the world. I wasn’t running away. I just… I wanted to see what it was like, and it scared me. My dad found me not even hours later, and he—” I stopped myself from confessing a bit too much. Theo didn’t need to know what Daddy did to me after that.

But, it seemed, Theo did want to hear, for he leaned forward on his desk, setting his arms on them as he stared at me, brown eyebrows creasing just a bit. “What did he do?”

“He… he locked me in my room. Normally, when I did something wrong, he put me in my room to remind me that I was being a petulant child. He’d let me use the bathroom and bring up food for me, but he’d keep me in there. Not that time, though. He didn’t let me use the bathroom, and he didn’t—” My voice caught, and I had to break eye contact with Theo.

I shouldn’t be telling him any of this. I knew that. It was like I was too comfortable in Theo’s presence, that he brought it out of me, somehow.

“He didn’t feed you?” Theo finished for me, and I was sluggish in drawing my stare back to his. The worry I saw in his amber gaze made something in me twist; it was like he really cared, which was dumb. There was no way he actually cared about me or what I’d been through.

A few seconds passed before I admitted, “No.”

“Why didn’t you bring any of this up when you first got here? I asked about abuse, Juliet—”

“No, you asked if he hurt me. If he hit me. If…” I quieted, because I was sure we both remembered those particular questions. My sex life, or lack of one. How much I exercised. All very strange questions… even stranger now that I was thinking about it. “I don’t see why it matters, anyway. It isn’t like I’m here to live. I’m a prisoner here, just like I was at home.” I sounded bitter.

“Maybe, if you would’ve said something, Markus wouldn’t have done what he did. Maybe he would’ve gone easier on you,” Theo muttered, shaking his head somewhat. “Starving you and locking you in a room—you do realize that’s not what fathers should do?”

“He was only trying to protect me.”

“No, that’s his version of the story. That’s not the truth, though. You know that.”

“No, I…”

“If that was true, don’t you think every other parent in the world would be doing the same? But they’re not, and if they do, they’re terrible people who shouldn’t be parents.”

I muttered, “You’d know a lot about terrible people, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I do. I work for them,” he admitted. “This family does a lot of things—a lot of things most people cannot imagine doing. I’ll be the first one to confess they are criminals, but even the Scotts have lines they don’t cross. Children are one of them.”

“But they can rape and kill just fine.”

Theo said nothing for a few moments, simply stared at me as if he couldn’t quite understand. “The Scotts aside, what your father did to you your whole life was wrong, Juliet. I hope you know that.”

I said nothing, and I turned my chin down, staring at the ground. I’d never really wanted to talk about Daddy, for this reason entirely. I think I knew… but I didn’t want to face reality. How could anyone want to hear the one person in their life, their only family, was not the good man he said he was?

A killer, working for Markus. A man who hurt his own child by keeping her locked up, under the guise of safety.

I must’ve been too lost in my own thoughts, for I didn’t hear Theo get up. The next moment, he was beside me, kneeling. Hesitantly, he took one of my hands in his, and I felt just how warm he was, how smooth his hand was. Not the hand of a killer, not calloused or dry in any way. His touch was as inviting as his gaze, and it took everything in me to not lean in toward him, to not fall out of the chair and let him wrap those arms around me.

“Your father isn’t here,” Theo spoke.

“But I’m still a prisoner,” I muttered, and even though it was a mistake, I found my head lifting, meeting his gaze. It struck me right then: Theo Ward was actually a really cute guy. A square jaw, high cheekbones, a perfectly molded nose below his glasses. Even those glasses—some people looked silly in glasses, but Theo wore them well.

“Yes, and I’m sorry for that. Things are… well, no one knows what goes on in Markus’s head beside Markus. I still hold true to what I said before,” he paused, fingers curling around my hand tighter. “This isn’t just about your father. It’s about you, too.”

“Why? I’m nothing special.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Juliet. You are special,” he said, commanding as he held my gaze. Right then, he sounded so certain, so sure of what he said, I knew I’d believe whatever he said next without question. “You have lived a life that would break a lot of other people, but you’re still strong. You’re a different breed than any man or woman in this house.”

I wanted to argue with him, but as I stared into his eyes, I found I couldn’t. I didn’t feel strong. Not at all. I felt… at this particular point in time, I didn’t know what I felt.

Theo’s other hand lifted to my cheek, gingerly tucking some of my hair behind my ear. The motion was almost too intimate, and I fought the urge to blush. “Don’t let any of them drag you down. I think the last thing Markus wants to do is hurt you.”

I had to pull away from him then. I got to my feet, took two steps away from Theo, giving him my back as I shook my head furiously. When I turned to face him once more, I found he’d stood with me. “How can you say that? How can you say that when he locked me in the basement with a dead body? When he made me watch, tried to get me to… to…”

The good doctor was by my side in the next moment, wrapping his arms around me much as he’d done the day I’d come to his office in tears after watching that video, only this time there was no trace of hesitation. This time he did it reflexively, without thinking, and I, in turn, buried my face into his chest, against the smooth fabric of his shirt.

Comfort came in short supply here, and Theo’s arms did feel really, really nice.

“Markus is only good at one thing, and that’s control,” Theo spoke, leaning his chin on the top of my head. His breathing was steady, and yet I could hear his heart. Maybe it was just me, but I swore I could hear it speeding up a bit. “When he finds something he can’t control, he reacts how he’s been taught to: by doing whatever will get him that control back. He doesn’t care about hurting anyone else in order to regain that control.”

I listened to him, knowing he was right. He had to be. Markus lost it when someone didn’t listen to him, when he was not fully in control. He went absolutely out of his mind, and when he did, he was downright terrifying.

“But you? Has he ever hurt you? When you refused to take the pills, he hurt Jaxon. When you ran away, he had Bennet bring in someone else to kill.”

“He locked me in there,” I whispered.

“Without knowing your father did much the same. How long were you down there?”

I shook my head against his chest, ever so slightly. “I don’t know. Felt like forever.”

“It wasn’t even a full day. He brought you out, didn’t he? He didn’t let one of the others get you out.” Theo spoke with authority, knowing Markus better than me. “If I had to guess, I’d say he wanted both to make sure you were all right and to be your savior.”

“I don’t understand why.” Markus would never, ever be my savior. He might draw me in in spite of everything he’d done—to me, to other people—but he would never be anything more than a handsome devil, keeping me locked up in this house until he tired of me, until he got what he wanted from Daddy.

One of his arms moved somewhat, and I felt his hand smooth down my hair, petting me, almost. “Like I said before,” he whispered, “it’s you.” He pulled his top half away from me, and I instantly tilted my head back to meet his eyes. The hand on my hair had moved to the side, now cupping my cheek. “It’s always been you.”

But why? Why had it always been me? I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand. I’d met Markus two years ago at that masquerade, but it wasn’t like we’d talked for long. He’d seen my face, said some cryptic things, and then he was out of my life.

I’d thought forever, but I’d been proven wrong on that.

I opened my mouth to say something, though I wasn’t sure what exactly I’d say, but whatever words might’ve come out of my mouth didn’t get a chance to, mostly because Theo’s hand on my cheek moved. Just a hair, just a bit… enough to push me into silence. Enough to make me realize I kind of liked the feeling of his hand on me.

His thumb danced across my cheek, stopping when it touched the corner of my mouth. My eyelids felt heavy all of a sudden, and it took everything in me to keep them open, to stare up at Theo and wonder what he was thinking. Did he like touching me as much as I did? Did he like holding me close and comforting me?

“Theo.” His name escaped me, but anything else was stopped by that wandering thumb and the feeling of it running along my bottom lip, teasing, tempting. I caught myself wondering what it would be like to kiss him.

I shouldn’t want to kiss any of these men, and yet I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

“You’re the only one here who calls me that,” he spoke, his voice a bare whisper, his thumb still running along my bottom lip. “I’m Doc to everyone else, the one who’s always here to fix things, to stitch people up. Not a person, but a job.” That wandering thumb of his dipped to my chin, and his hand tilted my face up even more.

I wanted to tell him he wasn’t just his job, that he was a person, a good man. The best man here, probably. But I didn’t, because I felt like any words I might’ve said in that moment wouldn’t be nearly enough. My lack of people skills shining through. When in doubt, just keep quiet.

Keep quiet and lose yourself in the warmth of his eyes.

“I think,” Theo whispered, his face so close to mine I could feel his hot breath blooming on my skin, warming me up further, “I think I understand now.” The arm still around my back held onto me with a firm grip, and I couldn’t pull myself out of this embrace, even if I’d tried.

The thing was, I didn’t want to.

“I think I get it,” he murmured.

I was seconds from asking him what he thought he understood, but as it turned out, I couldn’t—because Theo had lowered his face to mine, pressing his mouth onto mine in a soft, warm kiss that took hold of everything I was.

It happened both too fast and too slow. My mind was a jumbled mess, because I didn’t anticipate this. I was frozen in place, a recipient of the kiss but not someone who returned it with fervor.

Oh, I wanted to kiss him back. I wanted my lips to latch onto his and never let go, because as soon as this kiss ended, we’d be back to reality. And sometimes, reality could be a terrible, awful thing.

Right when I started to kiss him back, when my eyelids finally fluttered shut, Theo pulled himself off me, taking a few steps back and causing me to stumble forward at the abruptness of it all. I opened my eyes to see him shaking his head.

“I’m sorry,” he spoke quickly. “I shouldn’t have done that. Can we please forget that happened? I hate to ask you this, but please, don’t… don’t, uh, tell anyone I did that.” His amber gaze felt less warm suddenly, as if the man himself was currently trying to close himself and his feelings off.

I gave him a gentle smile, because what else was I supposed to do? A smile and a nod, a wordless promise I would not go telling anyone with ears that he’d kissed me. But the thing was, I’d started to kiss him back. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to feel something good without simultaneously being terrified of the man I was with. Was that so wrong?

Apparently it was, for Theo refused to look at me for longer than a second or two the rest of the day. It hurt more than words ever could have.