Page 31 of Daughter of a Monster

Barrett was already waiting at the door, so he comes in and stands directly in front of my desk. He looks up quickly then back at the ground. Taking a deep breath, he moves his feet apart and places his hands behind his back. He does this thing where he looks straight ahead but doesn’t focus on anything. A blank stare. It infuriates the hell out of me.

“I don’t know how it happened, sir. I had a guard stationed at the door, another at—”

“She could have fucking seen something!” I take a deep breath, attempting to calm myself. “How did she get so far without anyone noticing?”

His feet shuffle, but his gaze remains the same. “I’m uncertain, sir. It was my fault. It won’t happen again. I’ll dismiss the guard today.”

“And who was monitoring the cameras?” I sit at my desk and flick on the screens. They show static for a few seconds before the various rooms and passageways of the Sanctuary come to life. “Didn’t they notice a girl walking around in a fucking bathrobe?”

She is more than I expected her to be. More intelligent, more quick-witted, more defiant. More beautiful. The curve of her breasts exposed by the gap in her robe had been tantalizing. I would have given anything in that moment to lower my mouth and taste them. Feel how soft her flesh would be under my tongue. I’m frustrated by my weakness.

“They were startled by the storm.”

“The storm?” I scoff. What sort of guards get startled by the weather?

“It blew out a few windows and they went to investigate to make sure it wasn’t an intruder.”

“And in the meantime, they miss an actual intruder.” Opening my top drawer, I pull out a file. “Make sure it doesn’t happen again. Put a fucking tracker on her if you need to.”

“Yes, sir.” He salutes and I roll my eyes.

“I mean it, Barrett. She can’t become suspicious. The easiest way to keep someone prisoner is for them to think they are free.”

“Yes, sir.” Another salute.

“Go,” I order, waving my hand in dismissal. I don’t look up, but I hear the thud of his steps as he walks toward the door.

“And Barrett?” I call out.

“Sir?”

I look up briefly from the file. “Enough with the fucking salutes. You’re not in the military anymore.”

“Yes, sir.” He starts to raise his arm then shoves it back to his side with a grim smile and nods instead. “Yes, sir.”

The file tells me nothing I don’t already know. It can’t tell me why she gets under my skin, why I spend hours watching her, or why my heart beats just that little bit faster when she’s near. Shoving the file back into my drawer, I sit back, placing my feet on the desk.

Outside the storm howls. Due to the various time zones of my businesses, there’s plenty of work I could be doing. Video conferences with the managers of my clubs, emails back and forth with suppliers and my remote assistant, phone calls from my accountant I should be returning, but I can’t concentrate on any of that. Not while she’s haunting my thoughts. My eyes drift to the screen and I enlarge the image of her room. She’s in bed, asleep like she should be.

It’s only in sleep that the girl is still. When awake, she’s always in motion. Always fluid. Each time I look at her there is something different. Like the style of her hair. Sometimes it’s loose and free around her shoulders. Other times it is pulled into a messy bun which fans like a rainbow on top of her head. And then other times it’s pulled back fiercely from her face, the length twisting into a single curled tail that hangs down her back. The clothes she wears are discarded and changed many times a day. Her sweaters routinely change as to which shoulder they slide down, exposing delicate and smooth flesh marred by a scar. It is something she’s quite unaware of, her motion. It’s buried so deeply into her being she doesn’t even know of its existence.

Many times I’ve envisioned commanding her to be still. I’ve imagined what it would be like to have her under my control. For her to choose to obey me. I’ve wondered what it would be like to have her bound in submission, begging for me to touch her. But those are not the games I need her for, even if they haunt me.

But now, right now, she is still. Her hair is fanned out over the pillow. The covers of the bed hide everything but her shoulders. Her eyes are closed but I can see the blue-gray shade of them in my head. Her lips are plump and soft and full.

I want to taste them, lick them. I want to tug on them with my teeth and hear her moans. I want to fist her hair in my hands and jerk her head to my will.

I want everything.

Just these thoughts alone are enough for my cock to harden. It’s been years since I’ve even taken notice of a woman like I’ve taken notice of Berkley. And its only guilt that’s stopped me from doing anything about it.

I am not an animal.

I am not the same as her father. I will not force her. I will not bend her to my will. But that doesn’t mean the temptation is not there. Especially when she looks at me the way she does, like her mind is filled with the same images as mine. At the dinner table, color had crept up her cheeks and flushed at the base of her throat. She looked down as though she was embarrassed but her breathing had altered. I’d become so enchanted I couldn’t look away. It was like she was getting aroused before my very eyes. Maybe the therapist hadn’t been exaggerating when he detailed the visions which appeared in her mind whenever she felt anxious or panicked. I should have never let her join us at the dinner table. It was a moment of weakness. And now Ette expects it.

A quiet knock on the door pulls me out of my thoughts.

“Come in,” I say, pressing the lock release on the door.

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