Saved: a dark romance Read online

  SAVED

  a dark romance

  by DD Prince

  Copyright 2017: DD Prince. http://www.ddprince.com

  All rights reserved. This book may not be shared or copied (except for brief excerpts for review purposes) under penalty of international copyright law. Contact ddprincebooks at gmail dot com to report piracy or theft of this author’s intellectual property.

  Cover image: shutterstock.com/g/Viorel+Sima

  Please note: Saved is not intended for readers under the age of eighteen. This story contains violence, coarse language, plus mature and explicit content. The heroine is safe until she is legal age of consent.

  If you are sensitive to erotic content, this might not be the book for you. If you’re already a dark romance reader and / or a fan of DD Prince’s darker romance books, such as Nectar and The Dominator, this probably will be up your alley.

  All copyrights / brands are the property of their respective owners.

  This story is fictional and the work of the author’s imagination.

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  If you condone or overlook book piracy, I’m sorry, but we can’t ever be good friends.

  Dedication:

  For the readers who like to spend time in the dark.

  With the anti-heroes.

  The damaged ones who don’t think they can be redeemed.

  This book is for you.

  And for them.

  Him:

  I saved her from a fate many would believe was worse than death. But, I’m no hero. Far from it.

  I’m saving her for myself, which might be an even worse fate.

  Her:

  He's dark. He’s dangerous. He’s the most attractive man I have ever laid eyes on. Everything about him says villain but I can't help but think that maybe there's a hero deep inside.

  He's kept me apart from the others for a long time. No one is allowed to touch me. Few are allowed to even set eyes on me.

  How much longer will I be safe? And is safety all that matters?

  This story has an alpha male, but in the author’s opinion, he’s not a hero. The girl who loves him… Holly? She’s the real hero in this story.

  My Life (such that it is…)

  I’m Holly. I have a crush on my captor.

  This is what I’d probably say if I was in group therapy. They’d label it textbook Stockholm Syndrome. But nothing about this feels like it comes from any kind of textbook.

  I know that he’s my captor, but he has saved me twice already. He’s kept me safe and he has kept his distance.

  Or, he did, until recently. The second time he saved me changed everything.

  And even though he still seems like he’s trying to keep his distance, everything is different than it was before.

  The few times his eyes have been on me, he looks at me in a way I find hard to describe. Like he’s tracking my movements and cataloguing everything about me.

  What does he see, I wonder? A blonde haired blue-eyed waif of a girl who needs protecting? What is it that makes me so special to him when there are others who are just as worthy as me?

  Why aren’t they being kept safe?

  He is beyond handsome. Of course, right? Would a girl fall for an ugly captor? Beauty and the Beast is an exception. Okay, Shrek is another exception. But that’s all irrelevant, because he’s so handsome it should be illegal.

  Actually, everything about him probably is illegal.

  His eyes are the color of gunmetal. It’s as if storm clouds are in them and they are almost always moving.

  Thunder storm? Tornado? Hurricane? Earthquake?

  Maybe it’s me who is tracking his every movement, trying to look below the surface. That’s me. Storm tracker. At least that’s what I’m doing now. Trying to get close. Hoping I don’t get hurt, but taking the risk for what I think will be the reward.

  The few times I’ve seen him up close, I could swear I’ve caught a glimpse of a ring of blue in his eyes. But until recently, I’ve never gotten to gaze at them for long enough or close enough to tell for certain. I need a closer and longer look so that I can get the shading just right.

  I draw his eyes.

  I paint his eyes.

  I dream of his eyes.

  He has thick black hair that looks as soft as silk and there’s a lot of it on top, flopping a little over his forehead and his eyes. He’s tall. He’s Latin-looking.

  I know I’m in Mexico and he’s dark-haired and olive-skinned so I’m assuming he’s Mexican. Maybe even mixed Mexican and something else. He seems bigger than I remember my dad being. Mom said dad was six-foot two.

  This man wears suits in a way that you’d expect to see him on a three-storey billboard. But with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth and a gun in his hand. He’d be perfectly styled, his gun matching his eyes, and there would be ten women on the ground at his feet, reaching up, clawing, hoping he’d just look them.

  Like I do.

  I ache to have him look at me. When he does, my heartbeat plays hopscotch and I reflexively tighten my thighs.

  When he looks at me, his jaw is always ticking, like he’s clenching it, and it’s broody and hot.

  His body? It’s off the charts.

  I’ve caught sight of him exercising on the property, more than once, in just a pair of shorts. His body looks like it has been professionally toned, tanned, and sculpted to perfection for a photo shoot for Men’s Health magazine.

  The first time I saw him, I was being ushered to the doctor’s office a few buildings away from the one I was staying in. It was just a routine exam, a few months after I’d arrived, I guess. He was running, earbuds in, looking at the watch on his wrist, sparing me a quick glance as he ran past me in only his shoes and gym shorts.

  He has a side torso tattoo of a black jungle cat. It’s so sexy it makes my mouth water. It’s the only tattoo I’ve seen on him and it’s almost like that makes him even more beautiful. It must hold meaning for him. It winds around his side just a little, the cat looking like it’s stalking prey and ready to pounce. It’s incredibly sexy.

  He’s seen me looking at him a time or two (or likely more) since I’ve been in his house this past few months. I’ve watched and seen him glance up at the window a few times while he’s by the pool, stretching out his muscles after a workout.

  His weight bench is put there sometimes and when I see one of the staff bringing it out I keep my eyes on the window because I know he’s got plans to work out by the pool that day.

  My new room overlooks the pool and some lovely gardens. It’s a much nicer view than what I had before, which was a view of a brick wall.

  I shouldn’t complain. I don’t complain. There are probably still people here, girls like me, who have no view at all, because they’re underground with no windows, maybe no hope.

  I started here in the windowless underground place. But I was there less than 24 hours before I was moved to a servants’ dormitory-like building. I don’t know how long I spent there. I’m guessing close to two years.

  Now, the past few months, I’ve been in his house. The night I was moved here, I slept in his bed. He wasn’t in it with me, but it felt like he was.

  The next day, I was put into a guest room on the main floor of the house. But, as of a couple days ago, I’m in the room next to his room.

  The few times our gazes have locked and the way he looks at me? It makes me want to live under that gaze. Always.

  U
ntil recently, I didn’t even know his name and had never had a conversation with him. But now I have a feeling I am living under his gaze even more than I know about. I’m pretty sure he can see me while I’m in my room.

  And I’ve gone from 100% patient and thankful I was safe, to jittery and impatient. With much of the same for a long time and then a whole bunch of changes in quick succession, I’m now kind of addicted to change.

  And I am so ready to find out what’s next, I feel like I’m gonna burst. I’m on edge, waiting, wanting something more to happen.

  It has been quiet for days, though. And since nothing seems to be happening, I’m gearing up to see if I can change that.

  ***

  I wish I’d started marking time from the beginning, but that hasn’t been easy. I’ve seen no holidays, no change of seasons, really, at least not the sort of season changes I’m accustomed to.

  I haven’t seen snow or felt that Alaska chill I lived my whole life with in a long time. I’m guessing it’s been two years by how many dental appointments I’ve had, if I’m getting them every six months.

  How did I get here? Who am I?

  I’m Holly Noelle Mooney. I’m pretty sure I’m eighteen, or close to it. I’m somewhere in Mexico, in the home of a man who keeps me captive but who also captivates me.

  He’s young. Maybe in his late twenties at the very most. He has other captives. I don’t know how he treats them. I don’t think anyone else in captivity here is treated like I am.

  I was brought here with three other girls and there were at least a dozen girls already here when we arrived. I’m guessing many have likely come and gone since I got here. And there were more bunks than captives when I was down there. Dozens of bunks.

  I’m the only one, that I know of, who has a room in his house. Even the servants don’t live in the house with him. Where I had the view of the brick wall? That’s gone now. It burnt down. I don’t know what happened to all those people.

  Some of them are farm workers. There are fields of trees here. Avocadoes. Some of the workers are security guards. Some of them cooks or cleaners, gardeners who look after the grounds around his house and around the other mansion down by the main gate. I know there’s a dentist and someone who cuts hair. There’s also Dr. Jimena.

  There are other buildings too, some of which I don’t know the use for.

  His house, the one I recently moved into, has a very Spanish feel to it. And it’s new or newish, and it has floors but looks like a little castle. The property is beyond beautiful. Filled with gardens that burst with meticulously groomed flowers, low labyrinth hedges, paths, several buildings. And him.

  My room, both here and when it was in the other building, is always kept locked from the outside. I have a wall intercom with a key pad. I’ve been told how to dial to reach Dr. Jimena, the English-speaking doctor with the thick Spanish accent. And there’s also Esmerelda, the English-speaking housekeeper (without much of an accent) who takes care of me daily, bringing my meals, cleaning my room, etcetera.

  Until the night that changed everything, I’d only used the keypad once, when I was very sick with some sort of tummy bug. Other than that, people come to me. But the night I found out his name and had my first physical encounter with him? The night I was moved to his house? That night changed everything. It changed me.

  He touched me, caught me, when I had to jump from a burning building. That fire would’ve burnt me alive if he hadn’t saved me.

  He’s saved me twice. Saved me from what should’ve been my fate when I arrived here and then saved me once again, from burning to death. And as much as I was fascinated by him before the fire…I haven’t been able to stop thinking of him since then. He consumes my thoughts.

  The night of the fire, I was sound asleep in my bed in my little room. It was a great little bedroom, really.

  Nicer than what the other girls in the underground barracks had for sure and better, in fact, than the room in my mother’s crappy rundown house on the outskirts of Juneau.

  In that room in the servants’ building, I had a comfortable bed, a television, clean clothes and food brought to me daily. I also had my own attached bathroom, and a little window that looked at a brick wall. I got books, puzzles, art supplies. I had a pad of paper that I could write my requests on. I didn’t get everything I asked for, but I got some of it.

  It doesn’t sound like much, but it was safe, not like the basement.

  The window meant fresh air and sometimes I could hear talking out there. Almost exclusively Spanish, which I could not understand, but it was something, and it was nice when I heard people laughing.

  One man smoked his cigarettes below my window sometimes, which I didn’t particularly like, but he often sang pretty Spanish songs, and I liked that. Another thing to break up the monotony and loneliness. I’m used to monotony. I’m used to being lonely.

  I daydream a lot. I daydream things and then I draw them.

  I’d had a wall of movies, including the entire Disney collection in my old room, which I’d never asked for but they’d been moved there a few days after I’d been moved there. They weren’t new, they belonged to someone, I was sure, and I’d enjoyed watching them.

  I’m under no illusions about my pretty room or my things to keep me busy; I’m in a cage. In a cage on a property where some very bad things happen. I don’t complain. I never complain. I know that there are other much worse places I can be kept. Places that are on this very property, that underground place where I’d started out and where there are most likely other frightened girls that are awaiting their fate.

  I don’t really understand, beyond my age, why I’ve been kept safe when the others are not. Some of the other girls I met when I first arrived didn’t seem much older than me and I’m older now than when I got here, obviously, yet I’m still safe.

  They’re not just underground, they’re unsafe down there. I’ve seen what happens down there. But me? I’ve been kept safe, given things to keep me busy, put in a pretty above-ground room with a comfortable bed and doctor and dental appointments. And no one touches me unless I’m having a check-up or dental appointment.

  Now that I’m here in his house, my room is luxurious. I’ve never been in a hotel but I’d bet it’d be rated five-stars on the hotel scale. And beyond having a big arched top window now that overlooks the pool and the gardens, I’m now also allowed time outdoors each day for a short period of time. And I thrive on that.

  The little bit of freedom to go out of my room has made me happy. It has given me something to smile about. I find myself more talkative with Esmerelda, laughing, even. And it has made me daydream even more. I daydream about my captor. A lot. Too much. I know I’m still imprisoned but each upgrade in this prison has gotten a little bit better for me.

  Now that I’m in his house, I swim in his pool. Sometimes, I walk through the grounds with Esmerelda as an escort.

  I walk the halls, I walk by his bedroom, I eat the same meals as he does, and sometimes, I see him. I know he sees me and I think he sees me whenever he wants, even if I’m not aware of it.

  A few times she’s had me out when I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t be and a week ago, I was outside of the pretty grounds of his home and closer to where the servants’ building used to be and a security guy approached her in panic and we went toward the building I used to go to for my doctor’s appointments. I saw that this place still has quite a few men patrolling, carrying guns.

  And as we stepped into the building where Esmerelda spoke quickly to another tall man in Spanish, I saw a bus of women arrive, saw frightened girls taken in shackles into that same building with the elevator down underground.

  They all looked just like I probably looked the day I arrived. It made me cry myself to sleep that night. What is it about me that deserves safety, luxury?

  I don’t think I saw him more than once or twice the first several months. And until the night of the fire, I’d never actually spoken to him. And now I see him of
ten.

  The first time I swam in his pool, several weeks ago, I saw him in the window of a second-floor room. Watching me.

  A day later, Esmerelda and I were walking in the door from a walk of the grounds after dinner, and I was mid-giggle because she’d told me a funny story about her cat, when he’d come out of a room and leaned against the doorway of that room, a drink in his hand. His eyes traveled the length of me and then landed on my eyes.

  He was close that time, only about a foot away from me, and my giggle turned to a gulp. He began speaking to Esmerelda in Spanish, but his eyes were on me. As she answered him, he kept drinking, eyes roving my face as she took my hand and pulled us along.

  But the day of the fire? That was when he touched me. And that fire lit me up even though I didn’t get burnt. But whether or not I’ll eventually burn is something that I guess I’ll have to wait to see about.

  The Fire

  Holly

  The smell of smoke woke me. Choked me. I’ll never forget that night as long as I live.

  I jumped out of bed in the pitch black of night and in a total panic. I twirled around, unsure of what to do. I was locked in. I was on the second floor, and since my door was locked, the only escape was out the bedroom window.

  I got to the wall intercom panel and dialed *1 for Esmerelda. No answer after six rings.

  I called *2 for Dr. Jimena. No answer after four rings.

  And then I felt it in the air. Heat. And this ominous feeling. I was in trouble. I heard noise. Crackling campfire-like noises.

  I started hitting *3, *4, *5 and nothing. I tried *6 and heard a word that sounded something like “Cayenne?”

  “Help! There’s a fire!”

  “Who is this?” a deep male voice demanded to know.

  “My name’s Holly. I… there’s a fire and I can’t get out!”

  The line went dead. I’d said hello a couple times and then put the phone down.

  I didn’t know if whoever answered was going to send help, but the air was thicker with cloying smoke so I didn’t have time to hit *7 or anything else.