Beauty and the Rose: a Beauty and the Rose Novel Read online

  Even allowing the briefest thought spurs my feet faster and in no time, I’m pushing the door to Daphne’s room open.

  “How is my favorite—?” the words die in my throat, though, when I see Daphne spread out on the bed in nothing more than a slip of red lingerie. My mouth goes dry.

  “Hi,” she says shyly and wiggles her fingers at me in greeting.

  “What are you doing?” I look around, immediately zeroing in on the open window. “Daphne, it’s not safe. Your immune system is compromised right now and we can’t take any chances.” I rush over and shut the window with a harsh bang.

  I turn around to head back to the bed so that I can cover Daphne with the thick comforter. But what I’m not prepared for is the fury on her face.

  Or the pillow that comes zinging right at my head.

  “Wha—?” I yelp before getting smacked right in the face by the pillow. I look at Daphne in bewilderment but she’s just getting more ammunition, ready to launch pillow number two.

  “Daph!”

  She launches the pillow and I manage to get my arm up just in time to knock it out of the way as I stride toward the bed to head off any more attacks. They don’t hurt, but she doesn’t have the energy for this. She barely managed to get the second pillow the few feet away from the bed to even hit me, she’s already that tired.

  I sit on the bed beside her and grab her up in my arms. She struggles for the slightest bit before going slack.

  “Don’t you dare,” she hisses. Apparently she hasn’t completely given up the fight yet.

  “Dare what?” I asked, genuinely fucking bewildered. “Usually I can follow your moods, babe, but you got even me stumped.”

  “My moods? My moods?”

  I arch an eyebrow. “I feel like anywhere I step is a landmine.”

  She looks away from me, staring at the wall and biting her lip. So many times I’ve wished I could read her mind. If I could just see into that broiling brain of hers that’s always ten steps ahead, maybe I could finally feel like I understand what’s—

  She suddenly looks back at me, a desperation in her eyes I’ve never seen from her before. “Make love to me.”

  Her words make me harden instantly. Because I’m a selfish fuckwit like that and I want her, all the time. Any way I can get her.

  But I’m trying to be a better man. I peel her off of me. “Daph, no. We can’t. You’re way too tired for that.”

  “Says who? You? Suddenly you’re inside my body and know what I can and cannot take?” She’s challenging. Belligerent. Angry. And afraid.

  Because underneath everything else, I see her fear. I see her vulnerability.

  I might not understand everything that’s going on in her head. Or hell, maybe I don’t understand anything that’s going on in her head.

  But I can see she needs me right now. And I’ll always give my Daphne everything she needs.

  So I pull her against me and drop my lips to hers in the gentlest kiss imaginable. But Daphne’s not having it.

  She crushes her lips against mine and tears at my shirt. But it’s like she barely has patience for that, only shoving it past my abs far enough so that she can get to my bare skin. And then so that she can get to the button on my jeans.

  “Whoa whoa, Daph, maybe we should slow down?”

  But she just grins up at me, the shadows under her eyes doing nothing to diminish her beauty.

  She reaches into my pants and squeezes my ever-hardening length. “It doesn’t feel like you want to slow down.”

  I groan and devour her lips, because I can’t not. “You know that’s not the problem,” I murmur in her ear. “I’m trying to handle you with care.”

  “Don’t.” She leans up and bites my ear. “Just fuck me. Hard like I like it.”

  My cock lurches towards her like a heat seeking missile. Maybe if I’m extra careful… If I take it slow and watch her body for signals…

  But slow is not on Daphne’s radar tonight. She pushes me back on the bed—well, she applies the tiniest force to my chest and I go back because I know it’s what she wants. And then, before I can consider anything else, she’s climbing on top, straddling me.

  “Daphne—”

  But she silences me with a kiss. I’m not sure it’s passionate, but it certainly is desperate. My Daphne is desperate and it fucking kills me.

  So I kiss her back. In spite of the alarm bells going off in my head about how her being on top is the most taxing position for her, and how limited her energy levels are, and—

  I wrap my arms around her to help hold her in place, and I kiss the woman I love back.

  It’s a shameful rush. Giving us what we both want so desperately, but in the back of my mind, a chorus of voices chant: you’re hurting her, you’re hurting her, you’re hurting her—

  I’m about to push her away when she suddenly collapses to the side, feebly reaching for her pillow.

  “Daphne!” I exclaim, but she turns her face away from me.

  “Go away,” she says weakly into the pillow, still not letting me see her face.

  “Daph, what the hell just happened?”

  Finally she shoves the pillow to the side and glares at me. “I don’t have enough fucking energy to seduce my fucking boyfriend, that’s what.”

  First of all, her boyfriend? The term is ridiculous for what we are. And secondly, when did she get so foulmouthed?

  She turns her face away again. “I just keep sticking my foot in it. I didn’t mean to say you’re my boyfriend. I know we’ve never, like, defined things…” Her voice turns bitter. “Especially now that we can’t even fuck.”

  This woman… I shake my head at her. Have I taught her nothing? Then again, I’ve been so concerned with her external well-being that I’ve been neglecting the appetite I helped her develop. And sex was always the place where the two of us went to find clarity.

  I lean over her and capture her wrists, pinning them on either side of her body. “I think you should take one of the sleeping pills the doctor prescribed tonight,” I say in my lowest, most dangerous voice. It’s the voice of the Master. “You’ll need your rest for what I have planned for you tomorrow.”

  I’m hovering so close above her, I feel the shiver that runs through her body, head to toe. Even in the middle of everything she’s going through, I can still affect her.

  I want to curl myself behind her and clutch her to me, to prove to myself that she’s real and she’s not going anywhere.

  But her needs come first and I need her anticipating tomorrow. Her life is in chaos and she needs order.

  She needs her Master.

  So I peel myself away from the bed and release her wrists. “Until tomorrow. Sleep now and sleep soundly.”

  Five

  Daphne

  I wake midmorning, feeling refreshed for the first time in days. I actually slept. Soundly, the whole night through. Usually my sleep is full of nightmare terrors.

  But last night?

  Quiet. If I had dreams, I don’t remember them.

  Is that really his power over me? He orders me to sleep soundly…and I do? Or was it because I knew that behind those words, there would come action?

  No more time to mull things over because there he is, pushing the door open with the morning breakfast tray.

  But unlike normal, he doesn’t set it up over my lap. He lays the tray on my nightstand and sits beside me on the bed.

  Right beside me.

  So close, I feel the blazing heat of his thigh against my side. It makes sparks zing elsewhere throughout my body.

  They don’t tell you this. But just because you’re sick, it doesn’t mean the rest of your body just shuts off. Maybe if we were doing traditional chemotherapy… But we’re not. And I feel just as needy as ever, maybe even more—but instead Logan’s been pulling away.

  There’s just been so much distance between us. Even at a physical level. I’ve missed sleeping with him because I’m stuck on this narrow hospital bed. So much
distance.

  Until now.

  What does this mean? Why is he suddenly being like this? Because of my pathetic attempts to seduce him yesterday?

  Then again, maybe he’s as hard up as I am.

  “I can feel your thoughts spinning a million miles an hour.” Logan looks down at me gravely. “It’s time for all that to stop.”

  I squirm a little uneasily. “What’s gotten into you?” I’ve gotten used to the easy banter between us. But Logan’s not having any of it.

  He leans over. He’s not wearing the mask over the ruined half of his face anymore, but he’s still every inch the Master. More than ever, maybe, because there’s no obstruction to his ice blue eyes blazing into mine.

  “I am Logan. But I’m also your Master. And it’s time you remember that.”

  I reach up to caress his face but he catches my wrist in a firm grasp and stretches it over my head.

  My breath hitches when I feel a soft leather cuff circle my wrist and cinch tight. I look up at Logan, at Master, but apparently I’m not going to have any control in this session. Because the next thing I know, he’s coming at me with a sleeping mask. He settles it over my face, completely blocking out my vision.

  “Relax,” he intones in a low, mesmerizing voice. “Your job is to keep every single muscle absolutely relaxed, no matter what I do to you. If you start to tense up, you’ll be punished. And I promise you won’t like my punishment.”

  Goosebumps prickle all over my body. I don’t know about that, I’ve enjoyed his punishments in the past.

  Within minutes, he has all four of my limbs tied down and with the distinctive noise of a scissor’s snip, the filmy fabric of my nightgown comes away from my skin. I can’t help gasping as my nipples pebble, not so much from the cold air as from his bold actions.

  My stomach clenches and my toes curl in anticipation.

  Master draws back. “What did I say about tensing your muscles?”

  No, I wasn’t, I was just— But I know better than to speak my paltry excuses out loud.

  Will he punish me now? My heart rate speeds up and my thighs clench together.

  A light swat hits my thighs, a switch from a leather riding crop? But it’s nothing more than the barest stinging sensation before it’s gone, the merest promise of a touch.

  And then the Master’s voice is in my ear. “The punishment will mean an automatic cooldown time period of five minutes every time you tense your muscles.”

  An achingly soft, featherlight touch that might actually be a…feather traces down the center of my chest and then up and around my breast.

  I give into the sensation and gasp, “Are involuntary shudders allowed?”

  He leans in again, the hot air of his breath tingling the hairs fluttering near my ear. “We’ll take it on a case-by-case basis.”

  How can he make me want to laugh and go supernova at the same time? Not fair not fair not f—

  “Oooooohhh yes,” the pleasured moan comes from a place deep inside of me, “please gods do that thing again with your fingers.”

  But his fingers are gone, as is the rest of him. Even his weight is gone from the bed.

  I want to whine out my frustration. I didn’t mean to tense up. You try having the sexiest man of your dreams in bed with his hands all over you and not ‘tensing’ with excitement. Ha. Tense. I’ll show him tense.

  I pull at the restraints on my wrists, but only lightly. I want as much energy as possible for whatever Logan has up his sleeve…whenever he actually gets to it.

  But the next touch on my skin isn’t a feather and it isn’t a crop.

  It’s Logan’s hands. I melt under his touch.

  “Shhh,” he says in his low, haunting voice. “No more play. You’re mine and tonight we’re both going to remember it.”

  He pulls the mask off my face and I’m met with his startling blue eyes, right as his hands come up to cup my face. But it’s not like usual. He isn’t holding my face so that he can lean in and kiss me.

  No, it’s like he’s a blind man, trying to learn my face for the first time. His thumbs explore my nose, the shape of my eyebrow, the slope of my top lip, and then my bottom one. When I gasp, expecting him to slide his thumb inside my mouth, he only skirts along the open seam before dancing away to explore my jaw and the delicate place where it connects to my neck.

  And the look on his face the entire time he does it—like he’s awed. Like I’m a forbidden museum and he’s finally allowed to touch the exhibit for the first time.

  But no, it’s so much more than that, because our eyes are locked the entire time, and each external touch is connected to an internal touch, this zing of intimacy I didn’t know could exist.

  And my face is just the beginning. His exploratory massage continues down my neck, outwards to each shoulder, down my arms.

  I’ve melted into the mattress at this point, but I don’t want to miss a thing, so I keep my eyes drowsily open.

  I swear though, if he does all this just to put me to bed, I’m going to kill him. If this turns out to be another soothing exercise to help Daphne sleep because she’s too sick, that might actually fucking break me.

  But then I see all sorts of implements on the table beside him in an open bag. There’s the feather and the crop, yes. But also big fat candles with luxuriant looking wax. I’ve heard what these are for but obviously, never tried them for myself.

  Master catches me looking and his eyes go dark.

  “I want everything with you,” I whisper.

  I see the pain enter his eyes. Pain and indecision.

  “No. Stop it. And don’t look away.” If my hands were free, I’d grab his face and force him to look at me. “I want everything.”

  But by his face, I see that he still doesn’t understand. He still sees this, me, as something to fix.

  “This is your fault, you know. You taught me how to want things, and now I do. I want the big life and I want you and I want kids—” his eyes go wide and shit, I didn’t mean to say that, so I hurry on— “and I want…everything. I want an explosive sex life and decades under the sunshine.” I look over his beloved face. “I want to grow old by your side.”

  He drops his big body to mine and cradles my face. “You will. We will. I’ll find a cure.”

  I shake my head. I’m not just looking for false platitudes. I know some people like to hear people say it’s okay, that everything’s going to be okay. But that’s bullshit. There’s no cure for this. My mom died. I watched her die.

  “You’re not listening,” I say, exasperated. “You just want to fix, fix, fix.”

  “I’m going to,” he asserts, as if there’s no other possible outcome.

  I sigh. Maybe that’s how it has to be in his head. He literally can’t fathom there being any other outcome. But that’s a game I can’t play. And I can’t pretend for his sake. If I try, it will start to build up between us and Logan refuses to allow that so—

  “I don’t know what to do with you,” I mutter, banging my head back against the pillow.

  “Do nothing,” he says, laying the whisper of a kiss across first one nipple and then the next. “Let me take care of all the doing. Lay back and let me give you a big life. Explosive sex. Let me make you want things and then give them to you.”

  I giggle at him repeating my words back to me verbatim. At least he’s a good listener, even if he’s ignoring the underlying gist of what I was saying and diving straight for the sex. Shocker.

  “You think too much, little genius. No more thinking. No more talking. Give in. Relax your muscles or I stop. That’s your only instruction.”

  A small part of me wants to balk. I want to keep arguing with him. I want to pick a fight and push him away.

  “I want to fight the whole world,” I whisper, a tear sliding out my eye. Embarrassed, I try to wipe it away but of course my hands are tied.

  “Don’t hide from me. Never hide from me,” Logan says, eyes searching mine and seeing too much. “You wa
nt to fight, you fight me. You want to rage, you rage at me.”

  He disarms me with those few words.

  I go limp on the bed, all my anger diffusing and running out of me like water out of a drying sponge. Wait, what? That’s not how this works. Usually when I’m feeling bad, nothing can take away the anger. Except that it slowly fades into a gray depression.

  But Logan’s hands are on my body, massaging up and down. In non-erogenous areas, but then again, everywhere he touches seems to light up my body like a glow stick. And the last thing I’m feeling is depressed.

  Finally, I do as my Master commands.

  I stop thinking.

  And it’s so fucking glorious.

  Quiet. The million racing, worried thoughts have finally quieted. There’s a beautiful, crystal-clear silence in my head.

  More tears spill out of my eyes, but this time they’re from happiness. It feels good, so I obey his one order. I relax my entire body and struggle to keep it relaxed even as the Master begins his ministrations.

  First comes a sharp prickle from the top part of my foot. I’m glad he didn’t blindfold me again, because while most of the time I lie back with my eyes closed, focusing on the sensation, I like having the option of opening my eyes. I love to watch the intent look on Logan’s face as he runs the object that looks like a poky pizza cutter up my leg, so slowly and with such intense concentration. Watching him is half the high.

  Next he’s back with the feather, but he stops soon when he sees that I can’t help but tense up when it tickles me.

  I can barely suppress my smile when he picks up one of the big wax candles. He sets it on the bed, then pulls off his shirt in that sexy way that men do, pulling from the back shoulders and tugging it off over his head. Liquid swoops through my stomach down to my sex at seeing his muscles and the dark trail of hair that leads between his sharply defined V.

  He’s usually so buttoned up, any chance seeing his skin feels like a treat. And to think, he’s mine now. I can see this whenever I want. The giddy schoolgirl feeling is swept away by dread. Until you get sicker and die.