Twisted Fates (Pleasure House Book 5), Page 2

  “With you standing there staring at me like a big freak? I don't think so.”

  Lindsay's jaw clenched, and then his hands involuntarily did the same at his sides. Since she'd been damaged beyond the ability to sell only three days into her stay at the house, her training had abruptly stopped. She wasn't a nun, but she wasn't like the other girls, either. No discipline. No rules. She'd floated for years in a type of purgatory.

  She was beyond punishment. Who would dare after what she'd been through? And now? With her barely back inside the embrace of life? Could he start now?

  Lindsay took a slow steadying breath. No matter how much the guilt ate him up inside, he wouldn't let her play him.

  “I'm not going to watch you. I have a mess to clean.”

  She glanced at the floor where she'd vomited up the pills and looked suddenly embarrassed.

  “I'm a doctor, Shannon. This is nothing to me. Get in the shower.”

  “Turn around.” Despite her ordeal, her voice was firm and stronger than it should have been. A welcome relief.

  He bit back the urge to make further demands as well as the desire to take her and spank that attitude right out of her. Instead he turned away. It was the least he could give her after everything.

  Lindsay heard the robe hit the floor, the shower door open, and the water come on. When the door closed again, he turned around. He could barely make out her fuzzy outline through the mottled glass.

  He sighed and went to get a mop.

  Chapter Two

  Shannon couldn't stop shaking. And then she couldn't stop sobbing. She just stood, pressing her forehead against the tile, letting the warm water run over her. How close had she been to death? She hadn't seen a bright light or a tunnel. What if there was nothing? What if she'd almost walked into an eternal dark nothing? On purpose.

  She cried because she'd almost died, and she cried because she was still here. She couldn't decide which fate was worse.

  And why did it have to be him? Why did it have to be Lindsay? Of all the assholes in the world to just happen along. Why was he always saving her? Why couldn't he just let her go?

  The first time she hadn't needed courage. She'd already lost consciousness... already bleeding out. All that had to be done was... nothing. If no one had interfered, it would have been over. And this time? This time she'd thought about it and tried to work up the courage to do it. And then in some crazy mad moment, drunk on fear and exhaustion, she'd somehow found the will. Once the pills were down it was too late.

  Before she could panic or regret, she'd started to feel calm and drowsy. It was so easy to just lie down and rest and not think about it. There was no time to second guess as peaceful oblivion had slowly wrapped its seductive fingers around her.

  And then everything was peace. Finally.

  Waking up in the tub with him was just as awful and jarring as it had been waking up eight years ago in bed wrapped like a mummy. She'd never thanked him. And she didn't plan to this time, either.

  It was with some effort that she managed to stop crying. She heard him come back into the room. She couldn't let herself cry in front of him. She tried not to think about what he was doing out there. It was so mortifying. But he was no doubt the one who'd made her throw up.

  To get those pills out of her stomach.

  She could smell the bleach like he was cleaning up a crime scene.

  “Are you going to tell anyone?” she asked, the water still pelting down on her.

  “It's no one else's business. Finish up. I left you some clothes on the counter. Come out when you're dressed.”

  Shannon waited until she heard the comforting click of the door before she turned off the water. He'd left a towel hanging on a peg. She wrapped it around herself and stepped out of the shower. She wiped the steam off the mirror and grimaced at her reflection.

  Yep. They were still there. She turned this time and looked at her back. She hadn't looked in years. She regretted it the second she did. They weren't red anymore. Now they were white just like the ones on the front. Somehow they looked angrier and even more unnatural this color.

  Lindsay had left her a pair of lightweight sweatpants and a T-shirt. She finished drying off and put them on, thankful to not have to look at the scars anymore.

  She looked around the bathroom again. It was spotless and pristine now. He must have taken the bleach with him. He was probably afraid she'd drink it.

  He didn't have to worry. It would no doubt be months or years before she worked up the courage to try again. She was sure he'd keep her on suicide watch. It didn't matter. She wasn't going to do anything. Not for a while. The next time she was sure it would be even harder. She might have to find another method. She knew she wouldn't get away with pills again.

  He'd keep everything locked up. And if she asked for a sleeping pill after tonight, she was sure he'd stand over her and watch her swallow it, then check to make sure she had.

  When Shannon opened the door, her mouth fell open. She'd never been in Lindsay's suite before. It was as if she'd been transported into a lush botanical garden. There were orchids of all types and sizes growing in pots around the room. A dizzying variety of lush, exotic tropical flowers peaked out around the dense foliage that seemed to fill the room. Her feet sank into dark green carpet which was far enough away from the plants themselves that Lindsay's intricate watering system wouldn't get it wet.

  Small tubes protruded from the ceiling over this private jungle where water could fall like rain. After hitting the plants, it would swirl down drains in the concrete floor beneath the canopy of leaves.

  There were three bird cages. One held an African Grey parrot that looked far too intelligent for her liking. The other two had several happily chirping parakeets of different colors. They were bopping their heads up and down to music only they could hear as they sized Shannon up.

  It seemed weird now that she thought about it. Eight years and not once had she been in this room. She'd heard things, of course, but seeing it was a whole other experience. She'd never quite believed the descriptions. How could anybody maintain a room like this?

  And then there was the doctor himself. He'd changed into a pair of navy pajama pants and now casually lounged on a king-sized canopy bed with his back pressed against the wall. The duvet matched the dark green carpet. Light-colored mosquito netting hung around the outside of the bed as if they really were in a jungle with a dangerous insect threat. The netting had been pulled back and draped out of the way giving her a clear and unobstructed view of the doctor.

  Lindsay's chest and feet were bare. Shannon had never seen this much of him before, and it was doing a funny thing to her. He had a golden tan and... holy hell he worked out. She wanted to stop looking at him. Just stop staring. Look away!

  “Fuck me, harder, harder, harder.”

  Shannon startled and turned to find the African Gray parrot moving back and forth on the perch in his cage, chattering along.

  “Oh yes, Sir, fuck me!” It was no mystery what that bird had been exposed to in this room. Or maybe he was a mind-reading parrot.

  “Hush, Ralph.” Lindsay said, exasperated. “I now long for the days when he made commentary on psychotropic drugs and their side effects.” He opened the cage and the bird flew out and went to perch on one of the large tropical plants. One beady little eye watched them from behind a giant piece of foliage.

  Shannon stared at the bird, grateful for the distraction from darker thoughts and the even worse inappropriate thoughts about the doctor. The strangeness of a parrot that talked like a porn star was enough to derail anybody's mental train. She'd once watched a video of a raven proudly and clearly saying “You motherfucker”. But Ralph topped that.

  She turned back to find Lindsay watching her in that eerie shrink way he did—like he was reading the thoughts right out of her head and deciding how to diagnose her for the insurance company. What little numbered code would he put beside her name in his file? Except now, with him so... alm
ost naked, that intense look took on so many other shades of meaning.

  “We're going to go downstairs and have some tea and a talk,” he said, rising slowly from the bed.

  Shannon crossed her arms over her chest, her resistance flaring back to life. “There's nothing to talk about.”

  “Like hell there isn't.” He pointed at the door. “Go.”

  “Or what? You'll kill me? Beat me? Cut me? There's nothing you can do worse than what he did. And nothing you would do because you feel too guilty.”

  He'd stopped looking guilty and had started looking pissed. Pissed and... dear God, stop looking at his abs!

  “Are you finished psychoanalyzing me?” he asked. Though they both knew she was analyzing more than just his behavior.

  “I haven't decided yet. Why? Do you not like how it feels when it's aimed at you?”

  “Out. Now.” His voice had gone to a scary place she'd only heard a few times from him and never directed her way.

  She attempted a nonchalant shrug like he wasn't getting to her and walked out the door and down the stairs back to the kitchen. She could feel him behind her the whole way, like he'd attached himself to her as her new shadow.

  When they got there, he stopped beside the counter. She'd forgotten the mess she'd made with the chocolate frosting. That felt like a lifetime ago.

  “I assume you did this?” he asked. But it was really more a statement than a question.

  “And?” she challenged, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Clean it up.”

  She wanted to keep arguing with him. A twisted part of her wanted to see just how far she could push before he snapped, but her stupid self-preservation instinct was kicking back in again, and the last of her courage was fading fast.

  Shannon took the plate and glass and put them in the sink. Then she wiped the counter down.

  “Good. Now sit.”

  “Did you bring me back just so you could bark orders at me? Is this supposed to make me want to keep living? You've got a shitty bedside manner, Doc.”

  “Sir,” he said.

  “You're out of your mind if you think I'd ever give you a title.”

  She gave Brian one, but that was just because he scared the shit out of her and she never wanted to give him a reason to hurt her again.

  Lindsay turned away and put the tea kettle on, then pulled up a stool on the other side of the bar. He sat and stared her down until she finally looked away.

  “You will give me whatever I demand. Congratulations. You've become my personal project. You've got my full attention now.”

  She fought to keep the pathetic fucking flutter of excitement out of her stomach. She would not react to him that way. Gabe? Sure. Anton? Absolutely. Any of the other trainers but Brian? Fine. But never this man.

  It had been easy not to feel anything for Lindsay. The guilt, the way he handled her with kid gloves. It repulsed her. She'd always known she was kinky. Until Brian, the house had seemed like a dream come true. She needed a man who was in control. Lindsay was too weak because of all that guilt.

  Sure, he should feel guilty. She was glad he felt guilty. But his guilt didn't improve any aspect of her life. She didn't benefit from it. And it surely didn't press on that tightly wound hot button of need inside her.

  But something had shifted in him tonight.

  Now that he'd finally dropped some of the guilt and avoidance, something about him was having an unwelcome effect on her.

  He was a lot older than her. She wasn't sure by how much, but it was significant. Still, he was in amazing shape. The gray in his hair looked distinguished and sophisticated.

  “I've had about enough of your shit. This is twice I've saved your life now,” he said.

  “Saved it for what?” Shannon felt the hot tears gathering, the tears she'd been holding back behind bravado and anger. Fuck. She would not let him see her cry.

  But she couldn't help it. The tears slipped past all her defenses and rolled down her cheeks. She looked down at the bright pink polish on her nails.

  The stool across from her scraped against the floor, then a moment later he was beside her.

  “Come here.”

  She wanted to resist him. She wanted to lash out again, but he was holding his arms open to her, and it had been so long since any man had done that.

  “Don't over think it,” he said.

  Shannon got off the stool and in a moment of weakness, she let him hold her. The tears came harder as she laid her head against his warm bare chest. He was too tall for her to reach his shoulder. She tensed when he started rubbing her back, not because he was touching her, but because of the scars—that loud screaming void between them.

  He shouldn't get to touch her in any way after that. Even though he saved her. Even though he hadn't directly made them. If he'd never brought her here...

  He was old enough to know better. She'd been a silly little twenty-three year old girl. He was a much older man and a psychiatrist, for God's sake. He knew better. And yet he'd brought her here. He'd exposed her to the monster who'd destroyed her and broken all her dreams and fantasies in a single afternoon.

  He'd taken any future of any kind she could have ever had. He'd taken her chance at freedom and a normal life in the real world. And he'd taken her chance of love or at the very least a real master. Yes, the house had been explained to her. She'd known—or thought she'd known—what she was signing on for.

  There was no guarantee of love in this package. And even so, it wouldn't be the kind the rest of the world fully understood or was used to. Shannon had been fine with that. She didn't do vanilla. She'd had one normal mainstream relationship long before the house. And even though the guy had been hot, she'd been so repulsed by his cloying efforts to please her that she'd ended the relationship before it had really begun.

  Even so, kinky relationships weren't cold and sterile. They were a closer bond than most realized. She'd hoped her kink would come packaged with love eventually. Unless the guy was made of stone it had to, right? Now she wasn't getting any of it, except suddenly Lindsay's arms around her, but just because he didn't want her to kill herself.

  She didn't want his pity.

  The kettle on the stove whistled and Lindsay stepped away to prepare their tea. Shannon sat back down at the bar stool and watched him set out the cups and saucers, the sugar and milk, and the tea. He scooped loose tea leaves into diffusers and set them inside the cups of hot water he'd just poured.

  He set the timer on the stove for four minutes and then turned back toward her, his arms crossed over the chest that looked like it belonged to a twenty-five year old underwear model.

  How old was he?

  “I made Earl Grey. Decaf so you'll be able to sleep,” he said.

  Like she'd be able to sleep. No doubt another Brian nightmare would be waiting for her to kickstart this whole horror show all over again the second her head touched the pillow.

  “That's fine,” she said. Though she was sure he wasn't really asking her opinion on the matter.

  “Do you take milk and sugar?”

  “Just milk.”

  He spent four agonizing minutes watching her while their tea steeped. She tried to pretend he was wearing a suit like normal. Thinking back to before the house, she remembered sitting in that lavender office of his in the city. Like everyone else, she'd thought Lindsay Smith was a woman. And gentle lavender walls, a fountain, and a row of orchids would seem to confirm that assumption—until he'd walked in and filled the entire room with such raw masculine energy that there could be no doubts.

  In that moment, the room had transformed and become utterly unapologetically male. She'd been attracted to him from the start. She'd been seeing him for months in therapy, talking about intimate details of her life, kink information slipping out at times because he was a “kink-friendly therapist” and that, combined with... well everything... it had been impossible to keep that aspect of her life under wraps. It just hadn't occurred to
her that she needed to hide it or protect herself from him.

  She'd just been unceremoniously dumped by someone she'd been having a 24/7 power exchange relationship with. She'd really thought he was the one, and she hadn't been handling the breakup well at all—or the reintegration into normal life where she was in charge of everything again. She hated that feeling. It was too much to worry about. Life was too busy, too fast. Too stressful. She just wanted a place where she could hide away and not worry about all of it. To not have fifty thousand things on a never ending to-do list and never enough hours in a day to do them all. That would be heaven.

  Over months, Lindsay had gained her trust, and then... he'd dropped the bombshell. He could give her what she needed. At first she'd thought he meant he wanted to keep her as his pet. Such a thought had occurred to her during more than one masturbatory session alone in her apartment after one of their increasingly intense appointments.

  He'd never touched her in any inappropriate way. He'd never made any innuendo. He'd been perfectly professional. Despite the age difference, she'd been a bit disappointed when he'd explained the house.

  So he hadn't meant to keep her for himself.

  But then she'd become excited again by all the new possibilities, and she let her attraction to him cloud her vision. The doctor was the worst mistake she'd made in her life.

  The timer went off, jerking her back into the reality where she found, much to her dismay, she was still attracted. And even worse, he was even better half naked than he was in a suit. Even her imagination hadn't been able to do the reality of a shirtless Lindsay Smith justice.

  And still, the most he'd ever touched her was minutes ago, standing there holding her while the water had boiled. She didn't want to think about that—to think she could want that. Especially not from him. The betrayal was too deep. There was too much bad history. She'd gotten used to seeing him as a hated piece of background furniture in her life. It was the one comforting constant. She needed it to stay that way.

  Shannon took a long, slow breath. She just had to get through tonight. Within a day or two he'd forget about her again. They would go back to polite avoidance.