Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 2) Read online

  DESCENDED

  BOOK TWO

  ROSE DEVEREUX

  Copyright © 2016 by Rose Devereux

  Cover design by Sarah Hansen at Okay Creations

  Ebook formatting by Jesse Gordon

  All rights reserved. No part of this e-book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  “One last thing before you go, my lovely Sophie.”

  As if Marc held an invisible rope drawing me back to him, I stopped. Desperate to feel something solid and real, I clutched the door frame.

  “What?” I asked.

  There was a long pause, and then the cold sound of metal tinkling.

  I closed my eyes. A little chain. Handcuffs. The handcuffs he would use to vanquish me if I lost my mind and stayed.

  “You don’t think you’re here by accident, do you?” he asked.

  I frowned. His words made no sense.

  Here by accident. What did he…?

  A long shiver snaked through me. I gripped the door frame so hard my fingers went numb.

  “What do you mean?” I whispered.

  I could almost feel his cool power infusing the air. “You think I haven’t had a hand in your being here?”

  I turned slowly and looked at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He crossed his ankles. “Then I’ll explain. Your editor, Katherine, is quite an accommodating person. Persistent, too. She knows how to get the stories she wants, even from someone as reluctant as I was.”

  “You spoke to her?”

  “Several times. I called her from my office on at least three occasions.”

  The room seemed to spin around me. “No,” I said, shaking my head. “She talked to Eleanor.”

  “I asked Katherine to keep my involvement private. If I was going to give her access, I wanted control.” He snapped the handcuffs shut with a sound that I felt in my spine. “She was kind enough to email me dossiers of her writers. She sent quite a lovely picture of you. Your innocence comes through even in photographs. I must admit, I was captivated.”

  I felt a coldness, like ice melting over my heart. “You knew about me?” I whispered.

  He gave me a faint, almost pitying smile. “I didn’t just know about you, Sophie. Don’t you see? I chose you. You were mine before you boarded the plane in New York.”

  I stared at him. I was struck silent.

  All I could feel was my racing pulse and the shameful burn of humiliation.

  A minute went by before I could think again. And then a hundred thoughts battered my brain, with one rising to the top.

  This changes everything.

  He’d targeted me. Chosen me as his prey after he’d endured eight long years of deprivation.

  And he’d tricked me into believing it was all my decision.

  The last ten days tore to shreds in my memory, reordering themselves into something I could hardly understand. Chaining myself to a bed was nothing compared to this.

  “So that’s why Katherine offered me another assignment,” I whispered, disbelieving.

  Marc smiled. “And it’s why she’ll send you to Provence to house hunt with me. The more she cooperates, the more I do. She wants an exclusive article about the vacation home I buy, and she’ll get it as long as I get you.”

  My fingernails pierced into my palms. Damn Katherine. Damn both of them. I was not their pawn.

  “You told me to ask her about that trip,” I said, my face blazing. “You wanted me to think I was talking her into it.”

  He waved away my fury with a flicker of his hand. “I wanted it to be your choice, that’s all.”

  “It turns out none of this was my choice.” Arms crossed like armor, I shook my head. “And all this time I thought Katherine sent me to France because I earned it.”

  “She did,” he said, his tone both tough and soothing. “After I requested you, she told me you were her first choice all along.”

  I twisted my mouth. “Or maybe she told you what you wanted to hear. As you said, she knows how to get the stories she wants.”

  “She was telling the truth, Sophie. You’re very talented. I’ve read every article you’ve every written.”

  I peered into his face, trying to find the elusive truth in those steely gray eyes. Marc didn’t take half-measures. If he’d read every article, then he’d done much, much more.

  “That’s not all, is it?” I said, my voice a jagged blade. “How much did you know about me?”

  He shrugged. “Quite a lot. As much as I could uncover. Once I began to suspect my desire for you, I had a duty to find out who you were.”

  “You stalked me.”

  He smiled. “I performed due diligence on a journalist like any smart businessman would do.”

  “Journalist, or victim?”

  “Victims don’t choose their fate.”

  I wanted to claw his skin and draw blood. Every time I thought I’d made a point, he ducked around it and made me feel like a child. He was always three steps ahead.

  I planted my hands on my hips. “How did you know I’d give in to you, anyway?”

  “I could see it in your eyes, even in photographs. You looked…breakable.”

  My skin tremored as a thought began to form in my mind. Suddenly it became a horrible certainty I couldn’t ignore. “You knew my parents died, didn’t you?” I said in a shocked half-whisper.

  He kept his gaze trained on me. “Yes, Sophie. I found their obituaries. My heart broke when I read them. I felt terrible for you.”

  I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw ached. I remembered sitting with him at lunch, my broken heart on full display as I’d told him what happened. His reaction had been so convincing. And so goddamn false.

  My eyes swam with hot tears. “You felt terrible for me, yet you allowed me tell you about it like a fool when you already knew.”

  “I wanted to hear it from your lips,” he said. “I needed to know your feelings. It was important that I understood you, considering what I had planned for you.”

  I glared at him. “Planned for me? All you did was push me away, over and over again.”

  He reached up and took my hand. Though I tried to pull it back, he held it too tightly. Under his calm manner was a simmering force, a dark heat that skittered up my arm like an electric charge.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “When you arrived, everything changed. You were so…perfect. I’ve always loved innocence, but yours was real. I felt something for you from the start. A responsibility. I wanted you, but I couldn’t bear to destroy you. I fought with myself from the moment I saw you. But every time I tried, I failed.” He kissed the back of my hand and let it go. “The fact is, your desire is too strong for
me.”

  I gaped at him. He was so calculating, a master of flipping reality on its head. “My desire? Don’t you dare.”

  “Don’t dare tell the truth?” he asked, brows lifting. “You’d never been fucked properly and you radiated it with every breath. All I have to do is look at you to see years of craving in your eyes. You need me. And I need you.”

  I need you.

  His words flowed over me, making me feel warm and weak.

  I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted to be incensed. Goddamn it, I deserved to be.

  But I’d never felt so singled out, so…special. He made it so easy to hate him, and so hard.

  Didn’t he realize? I was just an ordinary girl. I didn’t inflame passions, certainly not in a man like this from half a world away.

  I knotted my hands together, trying to keep my tone strong. “But why me?” I asked, a quiver in my voice betraying me. “Why now?”

  He let out a long breath. “At first I just wanted to vet the journalist writing my family’s story. I read your resume and some of your articles, and I was very impressed. But when I saw your picture, Sophie…” He trailed off. His eyes were like an iron cage I couldn’t escape from.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “I loathed myself for what I wanted to do to you,” he said. “I had to have you. I’m sorry.”

  A warm droplet of wetness trickled down my thigh. I was not excited. I couldn’t be. I was on my way out the door.

  Wasn’t I?

  The strap of my handbag felt like a brick on my shoulder. I’d forgotten to put on panties, and there was nothing to stop my wetness, or disguise it.

  Marc reached under the hem of my dress.

  My lips parted as my breath came faster. All I had to do was turn around and go. I had my article, and my Parisian adventure. I never needed to see this manipulative, impossible, tormented man again.

  So why couldn’t I move? Why did I feel paralyzed, unable to remember why I’d been furious only sixty seconds ago?

  He stroked my pussy as if I were a skittish colt. Wetness flooded his fingers as I lost my last hope of control and tipped my hips toward him.

  “That’s it,” he murmured huskily. “Just like that.”

  I was frozen in place, a marble statue he was bringing to life. Arousal lit like a bonfire between my legs, catching every nerve in its path and flaming across my skin.

  His cock was huge, a thick, long outline under the sheet. I stared at it, my lips open, saliva pooling under my tongue as I imagined sucking him. He caressed my clit back and forth, with a gentle rhythm that wore my defiance down to dust.

  I despised him, and I’d never wanted him more.

  Five minutes ago, I’d been on the brink of freedom. Now I was lost. So lost I couldn’t find my way back.

  I came with a shuddering rush that seemed to stop my heart. I gripped his wrist with both hands and cried out as blissful spasms whipped through me. My handbag slid down to my bent elbow, but I hardly noticed it. I couldn’t see or breathe.

  I was his. Every atom inside me burst apart and disappeared in a shower of white light. My knees shook, barely holding my weight.

  “Marc,” I whispered through trembling lips.

  “Yes,” he murmured. “Say the name of the man who owns you.”

  A slave to my instincts, I moaned and bucked against him. Please, let this moment never end. Let my whole life be just like this, with him.

  When I could open my eyes again, I found Marc watching my face. He held the handcuffs in one hand and my drenched pussy in the other. His curved, sexy mouth told me everything I needed to know.

  He’d won this round. He’d won every round so far, and he planned to keep doing it.

  God help me, I’d given him exactly what he wanted.

  Bastard.

  He’d lied to me. Maybe he’d wanted me, but he’d deceived me. And now he wanted me to chain myself to his bed and sleep in subservience.

  Though my mind whirled, I knew I had two choices. I could run like a frightened lamb, or challenge him like an underestimated opponent.

  He wanted me to cry for mercy. He wanted to break me down. Maybe part of him even wanted me to leave, so he could strangle his dominant impulses again in peace.

  Forget peace.

  Forget breaking me down.

  Forget taking care of that enormous erection throbbing seductively against his hard stomach.

  What was it they said about succeeding? That the only way to fail is to give up?

  Remember, he needs you.

  I dropped my purse to the floor. Marc’s eyes burned through mine. Stepping out of his reach, I pulled my dress off over my head and tossed it onto the bed.

  “We’ve had a long day and it’s late,” I said, putting out my hand. “I’ll take those cuffs now.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  The end of freedom. The beginning of captivity.

  That’s what I thought of as I knelt on the floor and snapped the metal cuff around my wrist. One lock down, one to go.

  I can do this.

  The room filled with the sudden glare of moonlight. Marc stood beside me, his shadow long and still. I wouldn’t look at him, not until it was over. It was enough to feel his gaze and the weight of his expectations. It was enough that I was naked, and he was hard.

  Teeth set, I slid the other cuff around the steel leg of the bed and clicked it shut. No hesitation, no second guesses. All in.

  He’d been right, after all: he hadn’t bound me. I’d imprisoned myself. But in the end, it wasn’t from curiosity, fear, or even desire. It was pride.

  He may have chosen me, but he didn’t know me. He had no idea how strong I was.

  I’d show him. I wasn’t a scared girl anymore. The past didn’t control me.

  I’d agreed to a week of submission, and I’d keep my word if it killed me. Or worse, humiliated me until I hated him and stopped recognizing myself.

  I tested the handcuffs by yanking my wrist hard. The metal bit into my skin, and held. “There,” I said, raising my chin. “It’s done.”

  “Good girl,” Marc said, and bent down to kiss my lips tenderly. Looking into my upturned gaze, he caressed my cheek. “You’ve pleased me so much.”

  As I lay down on the floor and closed my eyes, I told myself that pleasing him wasn’t the point. Proving myself was.

  But somewhere in the dizzying confusion that spun me to sleep, I knew it was all a lie.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I woke the next morning to find my wrist uncuffed and Marc gone.

  Like a six-foot two-inch specter, he’d managed to free me, dress, and leave for work without making a sound. No kiss, no goodbye. No how was your first night as a slave?

  I was almost glad.

  I’d hate to have to admit how well I’d slept on the floor. I’d hate to confess that I’d awakened at dawn, felt a surge of pride in my resolve, and drifted back into a deep sleep.

  And I’d never, ever tell him how it felt to be chosen. He’d never know how special it made me feel.

  The blanket fell from my naked shoulders as I stood up, blinking. There was no sign of the handcuffs, or the tension that had nearly ripped us apart last night. The room looked exactly as it had when I’d first seen it yesterday. Marc had even put away my dress and heels.

  Nothing had changed in the last twelve hours, except me.

  I’d walked in one person, and would walk out someone else. Someone who could convince herself of anything, as long as it meant staying with Marc Brayden.

  As I pulled a robe from my suitcase in the closet, I finally saw a sign of him on the dresser: a slim package of black tissue paper printed with a pink dragon logo. I couldn’t wait to find out what was inside.

  With impatient fingers, I tore the paper open. There was no bra, only a pair of red silk panties with a slit opening between the legs.

  He’d said I’d have new lingerie every day. The panties had been delivered stealthily this morning, or he’d hidden them
last night. Either way, he was a man of his word.

  Wear these all day before showering for dinner, and then put them on again, said the hand-written note tucked inside the package. I want them to smell like you when I remove them tonight. M.

  I read the note once more. There was no doubt it was an order. An order I’d signed up for.

  I stepped through the smooth leg holes and pulled the panties over my hips. The quality of the silk was exquisite and the fit was perfect, though cheeky was an understatement. Once I’d have been scandalized by panties so skimpy, but after a night chained on the floor by the man who’d lured me across the world, I didn’t think twice about them.

  And Marc probably knew it. Nothing he did was an accident.

  I need you, he’d said, and timed it for maximum devastation. He knew how my mind worked, and that made him dangerous. It also made him very effective.

  In the kitchen I found a basket of still-warm croissants, a bowl of sliced fruit in the refrigerator, and a sticky note on the warming drawer that led me to a plate of perfectly-seared bacon.

  Something I learned to like in a certain country you know well. It was signed with a simple heart. A heart that grabbed me by my soul and made me smile.

  I had to admire him. He was so damn clever.

  This was the kiss that followed the torment. The caress that followed the slap. Lure me into the unspeakable, then lavish me with praise. Hook me, tempt me, give me the delicious rush I was feeling now.

  It was all part of his plan, and I was reacting right on cue.

  As it turned out, silk panties and bacon were just the foreplay.

  A huge vase of white calla lilies arrived as I was finishing breakfast, and then Marc’s stout, unsmiling housekeeper came to clean, showing no surprise at my presence.

  After she left I discovered she’d unpacked my suitcase and arranged my toiletries on the marble counter in the bathroom. My lingerie was folded in one of Marc’s unused dresser drawers, my shoes lined up in the closet under my dresses, which dangled from evenly-spaced hangers.

  We were still in the first hours of our agreement, but I was learning quickly. Being with Marc involved much more than sex. It was a whipsawing of emotions, from lust, to degradation, to the kind of pampering every girl dreamed of.