Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 56208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
He must’ve carried me to the bedroom again. But he didn’t leave after that.
He patched up my feet. Cleaned the wounds, applied antiseptic cream and wrapped them up for me. We didn’t say a word, either one of us. There were some things better left unsaid.
Once he was done, I settled on the bed and he brought out a bottle of amber liquid.
“For you,” he said. “I thought it would remind you of…”
My eyes watered. It was Becherovka, the Czech drink I’d shared with my friends after The Nutcracker performance.
“You know everything,” I told him in a whisper.
He didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. I knew it was true.
We drank it together, straight from the bottle.
Later on, he held me in his arms, my hair fanned out across his chest and the taste of cinnamon still tingling my mouth. He was stroking me, his fingers running over my bleeding feet, the damage I’d inflicted myself. I knew he was angry, and I braced myself for the punishment that was undoubtedly coming. I’d hurt myself – something that surely went against the rules he’d set for me. The rules I was meant to live by.
“Why did you do it?” he asked roughly, his voice harsh. “Why did you dance on those roses?”
“I had to,” I whispered. “I had to feel a different kind of pain.”
His chest strained under my head and I crawled on top of him, my knees on his crotch as I settled down in a fetal position against his torso.
“I don’t want to be me anymore,” I whispered, and I could feel his guilt, how fucking broken he was because of what he’d done to me.
There was no excuse, and there was no way back. All there was left to do was for me to forgive him. It would take a long time.
“Who do you want to be?” he asked, his tone softer, his hands stroking every spot that hurt and ached for him.
“Yours,” I whispered. “I want to be your Rose.”
“You have a lot to learn,” he reminded me. “You don’t know me yet… You might not like what you find out.”
I didn’t reply, just looked up at him with my eyes brimming with tears. We were both so fucked up. He’d done terrible things to me, and I wanted more, god-fucking-damnit, I wanted more.
“I don’t care,” I finally admitted. “Let me be yours. Train me. Let me be what you want.”
He stroked. Touched. My body trembled with anticipation, desperate for him to kiss me. Desperate to know more about the man who held my fate in his hands.
“My Rose…” he whispered, and in that moment, I knew my life as I knew it had ended.
I would run from him again. This I knew for certain. But that moment hadn’t come.
Goodbye, Harlow Granger.
Hello, Thorn’s Rose.
To be continued…