“You weren’t—” I stare at him, wide-eyed.
“No, I was not a virgin, Anastasia. When my stepsister and I were teenagers, I fell in love with her. We tried to deny ourselves for a very long time, but teenage desires are difficult things to fight. We had an affair—I lost my innocence to her, although my father had stolen hers well before that. I was the only man who ever touched her that she wanted, though. The only one she loved.” He shudders, and I see tears dripping down the bridge of his nose, dampening the blanket. “My father flew into a jealous rage when he found out. He—took her—in front of me. He abused her until she died, while I was forced to watch. He told me, very clearly, that it was my fault. That if I had not touched her, if I had not given in to myfilthydesire, that she would be alive. And I have not touched another woman since, until tonight. Not a single one of my little dolls.”
Oh god, it all makes so much sense.Every last piece clicks into place, and I feel sick and horrified, not at Alexandre but at his father. A man who had managed to take a son with a good soul and twist him into this, a man who is still good at heart but so damaged down to the very depths of himself that he only knows how to express it in the strangest of ways. A man who, as a teenager, had been convinced that having sex with a woman he loved was the cause of her death, and as a result repressed his natural desires for years, his ways of showing love and care becoming more and more warped as the years passed.
I believe that he never hurt any of those girls that he bought. That he only wanted to give them something as beautiful as what he saw when he looked at them, to protect them from men like his father. And yet, they’d all been so damaged too, probably used and abused in ways that I don’t want to begin to imagine, that they’d all found some way to escape him, believing him to be warped and twisted and dangerous.
“You’ll leave me too now,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t have touched you, shouldn’t have let—but Iwanted—more than any of the others, more than—”
“Did you go into their rooms too?” I ask quietly. “Did you watch them while they slept, and—”
Alexandre looks up at me, startled. “What? No. Only you, Ana, since Margot, you’ve been the only girl who I wanted so badly that I—I couldn’t stop myself. I’m sorry that I’ve made you dirty, I’m sorry—”
“Alexandre.” I grab his hands, squeezing them until he looks up at me. “You haven’t. Your father was a cruel, awful person, and he lied to you. There’s nothing dirty or wrong about sex if both of us want it. You wanted it, right?”
He swallows, nodding slowly. He’s never looked so young or boyish as he does at this moment, looking at me through dark tear-drenched lashes, clinging to my hands. “Yes,” he whispers, his voice thickly accented. “Yes, I wanted you, Anastasia. So badly, I could have come the moment I was inside of you, you felt so good—”
“And I wanted you. You didn’t make me do anything. I wanted it. I talked you into it. So there’s nothing dirty or bad here. Just two people who desire each other.”And one who owns the other,I think, but I don’t say it. I don’t think it matters right now—maybe it won’t ever matter. I don’t feel like Alexandre’s possession right now. I feel like the only thing keeping him from spiraling, which is a strange position to be in, after everything.
“I’m not going to leave you,” I whisper, clinging to his hands. And then, before he can say anything, I lean forward and kiss him.
He freezes for a moment, and I think he’s going to push me away. But he doesn’t, and after a moment, he softens, his hands moving, wrapping around mine. Then suddenly, before I know what’s happening, he’s spilling me onto my back, pushing my legs apart, stretching over me. His dark hair flops rakishly into his face, his expression soft and vulnerable, his blue eyes searching mine.
“Anastasia,” he whispers, and then he kisses me again.
He’s inside of me before I realize what’s happening, rock-hard, his cock sliding between my folds and piercing my sore body, but I don’t mind. I wrap my legs around his hips, pulling him in, deep and then deeper still, winding my arms around his neck. “I love you, Anastasia,” he whispers brokenly against my lips, and a thrill of uncertainty and fear ripples over me, but I hear myself whispering back to him.
“I think I love you too,” I murmur, arching against him, feeling my nipples brush against his chest as he moves against me, thrusting slowly, so that I feel every inch of his thick, throbbing cock, how aroused he is for me, how much he wants me.
“You can’t leave me,” he groans, kissing me again. “Don’t ever leave me, Anastasia, don’t—”
“You own me,” I point out, tilting my chin up to look at him. “How can I—”
“It doesn’t matter.” He shakes his head. “The others left me, but you can’t. You can’t ever leave. You’re the most valuable thing I possess, Anastasia, the best piece of my collection. I can’t bear to lose you, I love you—I couldn’t bear it if you left me—”
I can hear the desperation in his words, the obsession, feel the way he thrusts faster with each statement, harder, as if he’s possessing me with his cock now too, taking a new, deeper kind of ownership of me, and somewhere deep down I know I should be terrified. I know I should be afraid of this new level of obsession, but I can’t find it in myself to be. Alexandre is as broken in his own way as I am in mine. I want to believe that it’s the broken pieces of each other that fit together in this way, that we can find each other, heal each other, that I can fall for him safely.
That I don’t have to feel guilty about the pleasure rippling over every inch of my skin, the way he stops fucking me long enough to slide down between my legs and lick me to a screaming orgasm, his tongue circling my clit as if he hasn’t been celibate for probably more than a decade, making me clench my thighs around his head until he comes up and kisses me with the tang of my own arousal still on his lips, thrusting into me again hard while I’m still fluttering around his cock. That I don’t have to feel bad that I cling to him, arching against him, that I think the wordsmaking lovewhen he thrusts into me hard, triggering my third orgasm of the night as I feel him start to shudder, his cum filling me hotly, spilling out onto my thighs while he’s still vibrating inside of me, still fucking me, that I can feel myself falling for him.
That I think I love him.
He’s been kinder to me than any man has in a long time,I think defensively as I lie there afterward, curled naked in his arms, held against him tightly as he falls asleep again without letting me up to go clean myself in the bathroom. I know this isn’t right in so many ways.Or maybe it’s just unconventional,I tell myself.Maybe it doesn’t fucking matter if we’re both happy.
I know I’m conveniently forgetting so much that he’s done to me, even just tonight. But I can’t stop myself. I want this. The pleasure, the happiness, the feeling of having found someone who understands me and who I understand in return.
Alexandre is broken, but so am I.
Maybe that’s what I’m meant for, now. To slot the broken pieces of myself against someone else, and if we cut each other until we bleed?
At least we’ll bleed out together.
* * *
The next morning,it’s his bathtub that Alexandre carries me to in order to clean up, and he slides into it with me, a copper tub big enough for both of us. When we’re both scrubbed pink, he brings me back to bed, dressing and bringing me breakfast, and then he puts me in the maid outfit as always. “I’m having a dinner party with a few friends tonight,” he announces as I eat. “Yvette will be there—I know that doesn’t please you,” he adds, frowning. “But she is my friend. I’m going out to get some things while you clean, but I’ll be back earlier than usual. You can clean this room too,” he adds magnanimously, as if he’s given me some kind of gift. “The only room you can’t go into now is the study,petit.”
There’s a slight warning to his tone, but I don’t take it too much to heart. I know better to go in there by now, and anyway, there’s not any reason left for me to do so.
“Okay,” I say softly. “Do I have to eat on the floor while your friends are here?”