TWO

RALIA

     In the end, it took Cheyenne an extra thirty minutes to get me ready, maybe that was because I had already stained my face with tears, and my eyes were a bit puffy. She took off the pins that held my hair, and ran a brush through it, so that my dark tresses fell around my shoulders, and if I could just stay still, my hair covered at least a considerable amount of my cleavage that was exposed by the dress.

    My heart thudded against my chest as I finally stepped downstairs. James was waiting at the foot of the stairs smiling pleasantly, and if I did not know better, I would have said he was happy to see me.

     “Welcome Bella. Please make yourself feel comfortable.”

      Confused, I nodded as he turned around and disappeared among the many guests.

     This party was unlike anyone I had ever known. There were several other women as scantily dressed as I was, they all had elaborate make up, and they were smiling at gentlemeàn in a coy manner that made me blush.

     The air felt thick, like there was something invite, something that made my head sway and my senses swim. I pushed forward into the room, heading for the window – all I needed was a little fresh air.

     I felt a hand curl against my upper arm, twirling me around gently, and yet powerfully, so that I was standing face to face with the most handsome man I had ever seen.

     For the second time, my heart caught in my chest, so that I was afraid I was going to have a heart attack there and then, but miraculously, I kept on breathing.

     He was even more handsome than all my imaginations and Cheyenne’s combined. Tall, so that I had to tilt my head to be able to meet his piercing gray eyes, his well chiseled face had a sprinkle of a shadow that could not be classified as beard, and yet he wasn’t clean shaven. His hair was jet black, and it topple over his face in something that appeared but neat and in disarray. His hair looked untamed, and as my eyes travelled through his lean but perfectly muscled body, I realized, so did he. His ruthless lips curved into a sly smile, transforming them immediately from dangerously ruthless, to dangerously handsome, and his gaze dropped to the tips of my hair, just were it brushed against my cleavage.

     “I don’t normally take my payment from the flesh of women, but only a fool would pass up an offer like this.” He said, and his voice was low when he spoke, a deep murmur, confusing me the more, hypnotizing me. I could not understand what he was talking about.

     I suddenly felt faint, and I think I would have dropped down right where I stood if I did not reach out my hand and hold on to him.

     My hand acted as if on its own volition, and I watched somewhat in amazement as it curled around the lapels of his coat. My lips parted to draw in more air.

     He smiled again, and each time he did, something twisted inside of me. “It seems you are as eager as I am mon Amie. Let’s takes this to a private to a private room, shall we?”

He led me into a bedroom I had not known existed in my own house, but then that was not surprising, considering that I was hardly ever allowed out of my tower chamber. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask this mysterious handsome stranger who he was, and what he wanted with me, but I felt powerless, as if I was under a spell.

He shut the door behind us, and lowered his head to mine, his lips brushing against mine, teasing them in the most exquisite way, then he made the kiss even more intimate.

I gasped and pushed my self away from him roughly. Even though my senses were not acting as they should, I still knew I was not supposed to be kissing this man, not as intimately as he was kissing me. There was something ultimately forbidden about the act, and I could feel my cheeks heat up in guilt at the pleasure I drew from his lips.

I must have looked like an idiot, staring up at him the way I was, with my hair in disarray and my eyes staring up at him in accusation, because he became impatient, and I think, angry.

“Now I don’t know whatever you have been told, but I like my whores acting like what they are, whores!. There’s no need to pretend to be innocent and have us waste all that time, I hate such games.”

He was confusing me again, what did he mean by ‘his whores.’ I had heard that term only once when I was fourteen and crept downstairs to listen to the servants gossip. I got a scolding from my sisters, and no one, not even Cheyenne agreed to tell me what that word meant, but from the way the tall handsome stranger said it, a whore was something bad, something lower than even a slave, and at the moment, it seemed to please him that I was his whore.

I had seen a flash of his anger before, but I did not know what he was going to do to me if I refused to be his whore. For the first time, I missed the familiar cruelty of my sisters, and the safety of my tower room.

I noticed he was waiting for some kind of response from me, so I nodded, and this time when he drew myself to him, I did not push away, I knew he would not want me to do that, that might get him angry.