Falling for the Villain by M. Robinson

CHAPTER TWELVE

Juliet

Ihad no sense of time. I didn’t even know how long he’d left me in that room alone. It could have been a few hours or a few days; everything was beginning to blend together. I wasn’t tied to the bed anymore, and I had the liberty to move around. My bones hurt, and my jaw was tender.

Every time I thought about why it was sore, my body tingled in a way it hadn’t before. I started to think about what it would be like to have him inside of me. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew this was a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome, textbook shit. My picture should be in the dictionary, next to the definition.

Of course, this was what he craved. He was a sick sociopath that I couldn’t stop thinking about. Something happened the last time we were together. I didn’t know if it was his dream that I witnessed, or him using my mouth as comfort, or maybe it was the fact that he finally told me his name.

All I knew was that I missed him terribly.

Thought about his handsome, devious face.

Dreamt of his hands, his tongue, his cock on me, in me.

What sick twisted game I was playing without knowing the rules or guidelines. It was becoming a slippery slope, my need for his presence, his attention, his body on top of mine.

My mind couldn’t decide what state it wanted to be in other than confused and tormented. I honestly didn’t know where it came from, all the emotions and feelings. Like a prey, I was caught in his spider web of lies and deceit, and the sad part was I wanted to believe I could change him. All the times he touched me and told me I was his.

It felt real.

Sincere.

Consuming.

I thought about him when I was alone and even when I was lying in his arms. It didn’t matter that I knew it was wrong.

Seedy.

Ugly.

And destroying.

I fantasized about all the things he could do to me.

Trying to take my thoughts and desires away from Donovan, Master… I grabbed the silk nightgown on the dresser and put it on. Next, I decided I should use the vanity that was in the corner of the room. Slowly, I made my way over to the seat and sat. Looking at myself in the mirror, I still didn’t recognize the woman staring back at me. Grabbing the brush, I began brushing my new shoulder-length blonde hair for the first time. Something about the repetition had me finally relaxed enough to take what felt like my first deep breath since being kidnapped by Donovan’s men.

Moments later, I heard the door unlock, followed by his footsteps. I’d recognize them anywhere; I didn’t have to turn to know who it was. I stopped brushing, imagining a world where he took the brush and ran it down my hair, holding me tight, telling me that he never wanted to let me go and that he was sorry.

I could be with a man like that.

A man who was strong but who knew my limitations and didn’t push them for his sick pleasure. And yet, I still liked the man standing behind me. As much as I wanted to cling to disgust, it was there, that feeling in my chest. Like denying your heart needed to beat was denying he had an effect on me.

“Donovan,” I murmured under my breath, loving the way it fell off my lips. Wanting so badly to have his hands on me again.

I waited for his next command, trying to internalize everything I was feeling, but I knew he could smell it on me, feel it in the thick air between us. It was evident he knew me better than I knew myself. My eyes met his when the door shut behind him. His stare went from calm to the treacherous storm that lived inside of him.

“Pet, where did you get that?” he questioned in an eerie tone.

I looked around the room, perplexed by what he was talking about. I didn’t know how to answer, and the last thing I wanted was to get it wrong again.

“When I ask you a question, I expect an answer. Why must you always test my patience, Juliet? It’s almost as if you want to provoke me.”

“I-I-I-I…”

“You-you-you … what?” he mocked, walking toward me.

I couldn’t take it anymore as my body and mind continued to betray me.

“I don’t know what you mean!” I found myself shouting, biting the inside of my cheek, and trying to suppress the emotions that were taking control of my being. I bit my cheek so hard I tasted blood, getting it on my lips.

“Is that any way to talk to your master? Where is your respect? Who am I, Juliet? Don’t make me ask you twice,” he growled it out in a way that was so terrifying I started to shake. I almost preferred the yelling.

I hesitated for a second. “Master…”

He grinned, folding his arms over his chest. “Who am I, pet?”

I swallowed hard. More games, more uncertainty.

“No … not Master. Who am I? I know you want to say it. Here’s your chance … call me by my name, just like you’ve been dying to.”

I whimpered. “I don’t want to play these games. Just do what you want to me.”

My stomach churned, and I could practically taste the bile at the back of my throat.

He was standing in front of me when he gripped onto the silk fabric by my chest, and in one fluid motion, he tore it in half—all the way down my body until the gown pooled by my feet. The solitary comfort I had was now stripped away from me. Once he was done, there was no movement or sound for several minutes, and I wondered if he was admiring my body or thinking of all the ways to invoke pain.

Leaning forward, he licked from one corner of my lip to the other. My blood was on his tongue, and our eyes never wavered as he slid it into his mouth and swallowed without any hesitation.

“Get up.”

I moved slowly, not wanting to upset him, and the second I stood, he threw the hairbrush across the room, and I was dropped to the ground. With my ass in the air and my forehead resting on the wooden floor, he snatched my arms and held them at my back.

“How many times do I have to tell you that this is how you address me when I walk into the room. Head down, ass up, arms locked behind you. You stay just like this until I tell you otherwise. Understood?”

I nodded, bracing myself for what was to come.

“Now, where did you get the nightgown and hairbrush, Juliet?”

“It was in the room when I woke up.”

“That motherfucker.”

“What—”

“What’s my name, pet?”

“I told you already. It’s Master.”

“If you don’t give me the answer that I want, I’m going to turn your sweet little ass bright red.”

“Mas—”

Slap.

“This is what you want, isn’t it, Juliet?”

“No!”

Slap.

“No?”

Slap.

Slap.

Slap.

“I don’t like being lied to.”

“I’m not lying!”

“Bullshit!”

Slap.

Slap.

Slap.

“Call me by my name!”

I couldn’t take it anymore, screaming, “Donovan!”

No one could have prepared me for what happened next. It was like I had an out-of-body experience. I watched myself from above, falling to this deep, submissive slumber I didn’t think was possible.

I was exhausted from trying to be what he wanted.

Play his doll whenever he demanded it.

The realization was a rude awakening in my alternative state. I went from being scared to euphoric. It made my vision blur, and my eyes shut tight. I couldn’t get my legs to move. It was like I was permanently glued to that submissive position on the floor in front of him.

My emotions were all over the place.

My brain was hyperaware of everything.

My body felt strong yet weak.

I thought he carried me over to the bed and laid me in his arms until I saw nothing but darkness again.

Although, I swear…

I heard him talk to me.

Then say my name as he ran his fingers through my brushed hair, sharing, “You’ll never be her…”

Donovan

While she slept in my arms, I thought about my life.

“Nothing is the way it’s supposed to be, Juliet.”

She didn’t stir, she didn’t awake, so I kept going.

“I wish things could have been different. For you. For me. For us.”

I sat there, thinking about all the things I couldn’t change. Even if I wanted to, even if I tried— it wouldn’t matter. I would still be this man who was a monster.

A villain.

Her captor.

Exactly what that horrible bastard of a father made me. It was like he knew even then how to groom me into an exact replica so that when I looked at myself in the mirror, I didn’t see me anymore. I only saw him and my mother’s bloodied body.

I felt myself crawling on my hands and knees and then craving the need to default to what he deemed comfortable, normal. And now I was trapped, in a prison of my own making.

In a gilded cage.

A castle nobody was allowed to visit, with all the pretty things placed upon the shelves and at my service, but nobody to share them with, nobody to truly talk to because vulnerability only brought you death.

I knew that now.

Maybe I knew that then?

“I wasn’t always like this, you know? You wouldn’t leave my mind. I had to know who you are, were, what I could do to you because of what you did to me… It wasn’t your fault. But we always pay for our parents’ mistakes, right? Isn’t that the way it goes?”

My hands shook as I thought back on her brushing her hair with that specific brush, and I couldn’t exorcise the vision of my mother sitting on the bed and watching her soothing movements as she brushed her hair and told me in her own way that everything would one day be all right.

It was the hope that landed the final blow.

Not my father.

This unbearable weight was on my chest from the lies, secrets, and betrayal. The tightening in my throat and chest made it almost impossible to breathe; I was asphyxiating in it. I couldn’t tell the lies from the truth anymore. I groaned in pain, leaning against the headboard of her bed.

I could let her go and let this be the end of it all. She was mine. I owned her.

My possession to have and hold.

There was no going back for me, only a standstill.

Love, hurt, pain.

Hate.

It was all a tangled web.

I didn’t know the difference any more than Juliet did. I wouldn’t let her get the best of me, change who I was born to be. I had to continue on, with or without her consent.

This was only the beginning.

The ending was near…

There was so much I wanted to say, needed to tell her; however, I couldn’t form the words to explain to her why I was this villain. I had to get away from her. I was spending too much time in this room, with her in my arms. She shouldn’t be sleeping on my chest, in my presence. This wasn’t part of the process of making her my slave. It was the exact opposite. I was breaking all my own rules, and I couldn’t help it for the life of me.

I craved her in a way I’d never yearned for anyone. Especially a woman, a pet, a slave. Although, there was no holding back on hearing her scream my name.

“Donovan!”

I wanted to break her, only to piece her together again. She was an obstacle that I wouldn’t lose. I’d have her at my mercy, in my bed, with blood on my hands. I watched her for as long as I could remember, since that first concert I’d seen her when she was eighteen years old, and I was twenty-four. I waited on bated breath for her to be in my embrace. As much as I thought she was just going to be another pet, another beautiful thing I had in my possession, in the back of my mind, I always knew the truth. She belonged to me, and I belonged to her.

Mine.

Always and forever.

Mine.

There was something about her and not just what I knew, saw, and wanted. She had always been different, making a hard man like me go weak. I wasn’t supposed to fall for her, it wasn’t part of my plan, but I couldn’t stop myself.

I needed her.

Longed for her before she was ever in my arms.

There was no going back for me, only going forward with her by my side. Kissing her forehead, I let her go. Leaving her alone in her room, I remembered what it felt like to always be alone after my mother was killed. It was what he wanted, me weak and at his brutal mercy.

He’d taught me everything I know, making me hate who I’d turned into. There was no stopping what I’d become. I embraced it a long time ago. From the moment my father let me out of that closet, I was his to do what he pleased like I was with Juliet.

It was survival.

With a shaky hand, I grabbed my cell phone out of the pocket of my slacks and leaned against the door to her bedroom. Needing the support to hold me up for what I was about to do.

To say.

The phone rang only once when he answered.

I didn’t allow Troy to respond.

Simply stating, “She’s ready. Let the auction begin tonight.”

Fully aware I was only doing this to prove to myself that I didn’t love her, knowing in my dark heart that I was born loving her.