Damaged Beauties (Romanced by the Damaged Millionaire (Erotic Romance)) (9 page)

“Lothar?” I call to him. My pulse is still racing at an unhealthy pace.

He ignores me. Still naked, he walks out of the room.

Outside the open window, the first drops of rain start to spatter onto the ground below.

13

I’m worried for Ethan. I’m worried about what might happen to him.

I pull at my bonds. They are tight, but not impossible. Sex with Lothar was incredible, especially with the twin elements of danger and unpredictability. But now I’m afraid of what he might do.

Wait
, my inner journalistic voice tells me,
you’re not supposed to be involved
.

It’s a little too late for that, surely
.

I do care about Ethan. He’s a lovely, lovely man, from what I know of him. I don’t want him to get hurt.

The bedroom door is closed, but beyond it, I can hear some banging sounds. Slashing. Ripping. I’m frightened all over again. What the hell is happening out there?

I don’t want to be tied up if Lothar comes in here again and decides that I’m a hooker who needs to disappear. Of course, I don’t know for sure what happened in the past. But like I said, I don’t want to be tied up. Why did I let him tie me up anyway?

Oh yeah, like I had a choice.

I am quite limber and flexible. I concentrate on my right wrist first. I scoot myself up so that my buttocks are sitting upon the pillow. I twist my waist so that my left hand is pulled severely by its tassel, but I can now reach my tethered right wrist with my teeth.

It’s a struggle.

The sounds outside the corridor have stopped. For the moment.

I strain my ears to listen, but the downpour outside drowns everything else out. Damn.

I resume the unraveling of my bonds in earnest. A few minutes later, and I manage to loosen the tassel. It all comes out with one expert pull with my teeth. I release myself from the other bond swiftly and jump off the bed.

I spend a few seconds putting my nightgown over my head. I don’t want to be naked, just in case I bump into Jeffrey. In fact, I’m going to rouse Jeffrey. I don’t think I can handle this alone.

I step out in the corridor. My feet are bare.

And freeze when I see the destruction.

The beautiful paintings – made by Ethan – hanging on the walls of the corridor have almost all been ripped or slashed one way or another. By some sort of sharp instrument.

The horror rises with the bubbles in my throat.

My instinct tells me to flee this house. Lothar is not fully sane. What sort of rational entity would do this, unless he really hated the person who did those paintings? Lothar is dangerous. Yes, he’s the most incredible fuck of my life, but he’s also dangerous. He might decide to come back for me with that sharp instrument, whatever it is.

I run down the stairs, almost tripping in the dim light of the sole wall lamp mounted upon the landing. Should I go find Jeffrey? I daren’t call for him, just in case I alert Lothar. Jeffrey obviously knows about Ethan’s condition, or else they wouldn’t be talking about triggers and such.

The front door is wide open. Outside, silvery raindrops form an almost continuous sheet. Why is it so damned rainy here?

I’m drawn to the doorway despite myself.

Get Jeffrey first.

I shrug off my common sense and venture barefoot to the door – out into the rain. The drops immediately pelt me. Somewhere up in the sky, a jagged lightning bolts streaks across the ominous clouds, followed by a peal of thunder.

What am I doing?

I don’t quite know, except that I am reminded of the other night – the night of my accident. My hair is immediately plastered upon my head and my nightgown soaked through. The temperature has dipped a good ten degrees. I shiver. What am I doing here? I should be going back to the house, to get Jeffrey and warmer clothes.

And then I see him. He’s a blur in the rainy cascade, but he’s standing there in the middle of the driveway. His back is to me and his shoulders are slumped. A long, shiny piece of metal that has fallen to the ground catches the next lightning flash.

I recognize the sword from the study.

I blink the rainwater away from my eyes. Blood is running with rivulets of water down his right arm, and I’m frightened for him all over again. What has he done to himself?

He turns, and I glimpse his face – all distraught and in agony.

I hold myself back, not sure how this is going to play out. I should have gotten Jeffrey. Anytime now, Lothar can pick the sword up and decide to come after me.

He says in a voice full of pain, “Virginia?”

I bunch my fists, not daring to trust the fates.

“Ethan?” I say hopefully.

He looks down at his bleeding arm, aghast.

“It happened again, didn’t it?” he says.

I can only pad towards him. The ground is hard and wet against the soles of my feet. He holds out his arms to me helplessly and I can only go to him. Something in my chest twists with painful precision as we close in onto each other. I grip his waist tightly as he clings onto me, his naked body wet and his skin cold.

We stand there, hugging each other for a long while. My mind is churning with the present, the indeterminate future and the fact that I am irrevocably involved against my better professional and emotional judgment.

“What are we going to do now?” Ethan murmurs against my wet hair.

I can only answer,
To hell if I know.

But whatever it is, I decide that I’m going to stay to help him find his way out.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright 2013 by Aphrodite Hunt

Cover art by Aphrodite Hunt

EROTICA and EROTIC ROMANCES BY APHRODITE HUNT

Please check at the back of the book for synopses

The ‘Eight Tasks for the Blushing Virgin’ series

Deflowered

Debauched

Deceived

Desired

The ‘Romanced by the Damaged Millionaire’ series

Damaged Beauties

Seduced by his Two Personalities

The ‘Bound
and Shackled
to the Billionaire’ series

His Indecent Proposition

His Indecent Demands

His Indecent Desires

His Indecent Secrets

His Indecent Revelations

‘
The Billionaire Marriage’ series

His Indecent Proposal

The ‘Initiation’ series

Open Your Legs for Me

Blindfolded and Spread-eagled

Thighs Wide Apart

Teacher, Please Spread my Pussy

The Final Initiation

The Initiation: A Bundle of 5 Stories

The ‘Initiation 2’ series

Open Your Legs for my Family

Bend Over for my Family

Publicly Display Yourself for Me

Sex Slave at Sea

Paraded before the Billionaires

Sex Slave at the Auction

The ‘Initiation 3’ series

Sex Slave to the Dictator

Shackled by the Dictator

Punished by the Dictator’s Daughter

The Sex Slave’s Final Punishment

The ‘Alice BDSM’ series

Alice: Opening my Legs at Your Wedding

‘
The Royal Captive’ series

Prince Miro’s Capture

Prince Miro’s Submission

Prince Miro’s Enslavement

Prince Miro’s Punishment

Prince Miro’s Escape

Prince Miro’s Final Confrontation

The Royal Captive: Vol 1 to 3

The Royal Captive: Vol 4 to 6

The ‘Naughty Nymphomaniac’ series

I was a Naughty Nymphomaniac

Officer, Please Spread and Cuff Me

Gang Banged by the Chain Gang

Tempting the Hot Navy SEAL

The ‘Delicate Piercings’ series

Her First Clit Ring

Her First Clit Ring 2: Menage

Her First Clit Ring 3: Desensitization

Her First Clit Ring 4: The Final Party

The ‘Undercover’ series

Undercover: Exposing the Bad Doctor

Undercover: Stealing from the Sexy CEO

The ‘Alien’ series

Trapped with Sex-Starved Aliens

Trapped with Sex-Starved Aliens 2

Hot, Wet and Steamy
(individual stories)

When He’s Inside You

My Stepson is a Naughty Stripper

The Gorgeous Naked Man in my Storm Shelter (Erotic Suspense)

A Xmas Gift: The Sperm Donor

WORKS BY ARTEMIS HUNT

EROTIC ROMANCES

The ‘Inhumanly Handsome, Humanly Flawed Alpha Male’ series

A Virgin Enslaved

A Virgin Enslaved 2

The Pretend Boyfriend

The Pretend Boyfriend 2

The Pretend Boyfriend 3

The Pretend Boyfriend 4

The ‘Maid for the Billionaire Prince’ series

Mysterious Desire

Forbidden Desire

Infamous Desire

Royal Desire

Maid for the Billionaire Prince

Dear reader, as this list is not always comprehensive due to more stories being churned out after this point in publishing, please visit
http://artemishunt.blogspot.com/
and
http://aphroditehunt.blogspot.com/
for more stories and updates. I write as Artemis Hunt for erotic romances with a more romance feel and Aphrodite Hunt for pure erotica and erotic romances which are slightly kinkier. So please be aware of what you’re getting into, dear reader, when you read one of my stories. Thank you so much for your support.

READ THE FIRST THREE CHAPTERS OF ‘
SEDUCED BY HIS TWO PERSONALITIES’

Ethan.

And Lothar.

What do I do about the two of them?

I have slept with both of them.

One of them is handsome and charming and a perfect gentleman, although he doesn’t particularly excite me in bed.

The other is a dangerous psychopath, whose purported crimes remain unsolved. He’s equally as handsome, though his edge of manic unpredictability gives him a feral aura, like spokes of a fiery sun radiating from his skin. He’s a dominant alpha male through and through, and the sex for me has never been more exhilarating.

I am also an investigative reporter who has been commissioned by my editor, Sharon Contralto, to write about Ethan Greene. About why he has disappeared from the public eye for so many years.

Now I know why.

But do I want to write about it? Do I want to do an expose on his pain and his strange affliction? I have come all the way here to Kelowna, Missouri, population three thousand, for this very purpose. And now I am wrought to go through this very assignment – the very job which has been my pride and joy and lynchpin for the last five years.

See what a royal mess I’m in?

*

It’s the next day after the Big Reveal. It’s a big reveal only to me – meaning Lothar’s appearance – but I’m sure Ethan and Jeffrey, his butler, go through this on a regular basis. We are at the breakfast table on the patio. There are platters of crispy bacon, scrambled eggs and bread in front of us, but neither Ethan nor I are particularly hungry.

I remember him standing in the blustering rain last night, forlorn and tattered and clutching the remainders of his shredded personality. The way he cried out to me. Jeffrey and I had led him back to bed after that. We tucked him in and turned off the lights, and I slipped under the bedcovers with him and held him.