Mind Swapping Chapter 13
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Beauty–Remastered Ch. 05 free porn video
*Dear loves, I’m very sorry I haven’t updated in forever. =( I hope this next chapter helps in earning your forgiveness. I’m having trouble writing everything lately, just missing that spark. But, I’ll work on Chapter 6 as well as I can, and try to get it to you asap. Kisses, Almostluver*
Halfway through the night, Scarlet awoke, tangled in Donovan’s arms. Her head was resting against his warm, bare chest, his heart beating steadily in her ear. One strong arm was slung around her waist, the other was drifting unconsciously over the skin of her thigh, which was hitched up around his hip.
In the darkness, and asleep, he looked young, soft…beautiful. So different from everything he was in the light of day. Beautiful, yes. Soft…not in the least. A part of her lusted after his hardness, she could admit to herself. But she also wanted to feel his softness directed at her on purpose.
She dozed off again after staring at him for several minutes. Before her eyes drifted closed, she briefly wondered about their morning after. His dream had embarrassed both of them, she hadn’t expected him to come back to her bed. Waking up with him there had been a shock, but a pleasurable one. Waking up with him a second time, wouldn’t be quite as nice.
She needn’t have worried.
The next time she opened her eyes, her bed was empty, with only his faint scent giving away that he’d ever been there.
The next three weeks passed the same way, they would see each other for meals, while the rest of her time was spent with Abner or exploring the grounds — when the despicable man she was married to gave her leave to do so — and his was spent in areas of the house he’d forbidden her to venture into. She could probably count the number of words they shared each day on two hands, if that, and that was perfectly alright with her. Their nights began in different rooms…but she always woke up to find him beside her in the middle of the night, and gone again in the morning.
One night, he didn’t come at all, and she tossed and turned the whole night.
‘Wife –‘
‘Scar- Annabelle,’ She corrected him crossly, glaring across the table. He had been calling her that — not by her name — since the night of his dream, and she didn’t like it one bit.
He frowned, but continued. ‘Tomorrow, I will be leaving, on business, for a couple days. While I am gone, the same rules still apply. No visitors. You will stay in the house — Abner has been instructed that your afternoon walks will be postponed until I return, and he knows better than to go against me. Above all, stay out of my rooms.’
She flushed guiltily. A few days ago, she had ‘accidentally’ wandered into his part of the house, and he’d discovered her trying to trip the lock in one of the doors with a hair pin. She had been relieved when all he’d done was lock her in her room for the rest of the night, she’d expected a sound spanking, at least. Then again, that had been the night he didn’t come…but how would he know she couldn’t sleep without him beside her?
‘Do I make myself clear?’ His soft growl broke into her thoughts, turned them right around to those annoyingly aroused thoughts she got whenever he spoke to her in that tone — whenever he spoke, period.
‘What is your business?’ She asked to distract herself.
He frowned and continued eating. Obviously, he wasn’t open to talk about his business. She didn’t think he actually had one — he certainly didn’t need it. From what she gathered, his father had died a multibillionaire, leaving every penny and zero debts to his son. Work, obviously, was just an amusement for him.
Then again, she couldn’t see Donovan actually performing any sort of task, and not just because of his blindness. He just wasn’t a working-type of person, and she knew those types very well. She’d been one, refusing to live solely off her parent’s shaky wealth. Donovan Alford had probably never worked a second in his life.
Stocks, she decided, studying him. He has hundreds, thousands, or even millions of stocks, and all his ‘business trip’ is, is a meeting with his handlers, or brokers, or whatever they’re called.
‘I asked you a question, Annabelle.’
‘W-what?’
‘I said: do I make myself clear? Don’t make me repeat myself again.’ His lush lips pressed together into a frown, and she looked down and away immediately. It ought to have been illegal, his ridiculous amount of sex appeal. It wasn’t fair on her poor hormones.
‘Yes, sir.’ She whispered. He didn’t reply, and when she finally chanced a peek at him, his face was quizzical as he ‘studied’ her. She knew that look very well…she’d seen it on his face almost every time they were together. She puzzled him.
Donovan sighed quietly and picked up is fork. His young wife was a puzzle. She was snappish and a brat to him most of the time, and that he could deal with and understand. But, it was when she got quiet and scared-like, like this, that he was lost. He wished he could see her face, so he’d at least have a clue what was on her mind. He had a feeling his wife’s face was very readable.
***
The day after Donovan left, Scarlet woke early — though, ‘woke’ is hardly the right word used to describe rolling out of bed before dawn after a very long, sleepless night. She dressed quietly and went downstairs. Abner was puttering away in the kitchen already. She wandered around the bottom floor, aimlessly entering and exiting rooms and losing herself in the long, twisted hallways. She’d become almost familiar with the halls in the almost month that she’d been here, only getting mixed up every so often.
‘Milady,’ Abner popped out of nowhere, startling her as she exited a room towards the back of the house. ‘Breakfast is ready.’
‘Thanks, Abner,’ She headed off to the dining room quickly, momentarily forgetting S that Donovan wasn’t waiting for her there. Her pace slowed as soon as she remembered, and she entered the cold, empty room somberly.
Abner served her silently, and she thanked him quietly, as usual. Breakfast had never seemed so long. They usually ate silently, anyway, but it was different with his obvious absence. She looked up at his chair constantly, but he wasn’t there. She missed the way he cleared his throat quietly, every so often, as if preparing to say something to her. She missed the way his fingers sounded as they slid across the heavy books he usually brought to the table. She even (almost) missed the way he gave her the day’s orders.
Plain and simple, Scarlet missed Donovan.
The rest of day one was spent wandering the giant house, losing and finding herself in the hallways. She longed to go outside for some fresh air and exercise, but Abner had locked all of the doors, knowing full well that she’d try to disobey the Master’s orders. That didn’t stop her from testing every outer door she came to, and every window low enough that she wouldn’t hurt herself getting out of it. The butler had thought of that as well — even the windows on the very top floor were fastened securely.
Scarlet missed Joey, and her horse. By four p.m. she’d been through every unlocked room, top to bottom, and she was beginning to get cabin fever. She’d even tried to jimmy one of Donovan’s special doors open with her hair pins. The damn lock was having none of that.
Flopping on her bed, she sighed and stared moodily at the ceiling. Her husband’s little rules made life dull. She was rarely on the computer, or phone or needed anything electronic at home, but the absence of those things, and her inability to simply use them when she wanted was too obvious.
The rules that pissed her off the most were ‘no going outside’ and ‘no visitors.’ If she were at home, she’d have had Joey and Danny over in a minute, and they would’ve spent hours upon hours fooling around outdoors. Her sweet gelding, Cupid, probably missed her, she’d sent her baby to Joey’s, so he could take care of him until D
onovan allowed her to bring him to their home. Joey knew exactly how she wanted her horse treated, and he wouldn’t shirk, just because she wasn’t there, and he wouldn’t spoil Cupid, ’cause he knew there’d be hell to pay when Scarlet found out.
For the first time in days, Scarlet remembered her cell phone. There were a shockingly few amount of outlets in the house, and she had to be careful not to leave it charging somewhere Abner or Donovan would find it, so she rarely used it, and kept it powered off.
The last time she’d called Joey, Donovan had walked into the room just as she was preparing to say goodbye. He had ‘looked’ at her curiously, but he hadn’t said anything, so she quietly ended the call without saying another word, and had left the room before switching the phone off. She kept it hidden in the lining of her suitcase, which was shoved in the back of a closet in an empty room.
Now, she hurried to that room, several doors down from hers. She’d stuck a tiny piece of yellow cloth in the edge of the door, just so she would know which room it was. She had dozens of other little clues around the house, and Abner left them alone, knowing how confusing the large house could be to an outsider.
The door closed behind her with a quiet click and she shivered in the cool room. There was always a nasty chill in this house, no matter where she went. Even the rooms they actually lived and went in were cold, though not nearly as cold as the rooms that remained closed for most of the time. Scarlet quickly went to the closet and pulled her suitcase from the back. Digging around in a hole she’d torn in the lining, her fingers swiftly found her cell. She climbed into the bed and crawled under the covers, pulling the blanket over her head in an attempt to keep out the cold.
Her phone warbled happily as she turned it on. She’d never been so glad to see a bright, almost cheesy electric light in her life. She had twelve missed calls, all from Joey. She sighed and played through every single one of his messages. They were all the same, mostly, slowly getting more and more frantic. The last one, sent yesterday, demanded that she call him within the next twenty-four hours, or he would be mounting a full-scale rescue mission, her beastly husband be damned. Scarlet laughed at his dramatics, and dialed his number.
‘Scary! You’re alive!’ was the first thing her panicky best friend screamed into her ear. She almost cried, finally hearing his voice after nearly two weeks without it. ‘Are you okay? He hasn’t hurt you, has he? Any developments from the last time we talked? Do you want me and Danny to come get you? We can be there within the hour.’ Scarlet rolled her eyes at that. Her new home was nearly four hours away from Joey’s. But, given Danny’s driving, they probably *could* be there in under an hour. ‘Scary! Answer me!’
‘Joey, I’m fine.’
‘Thank god!’ He was still yelling and she half-wondered if it was a good idea to call him, after all. ‘When I didn’t hear from you for so long, I got worried. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s alright.’
‘So,’ he sounded calmer. ‘I take it your hubby’s not around?’
‘No, he’s gone, on business. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t be able to call you. Gosh, I’ve missed you guys.’
‘We’ve missed you too, Scary. I hate not being able to talk to you whenever, or see you…Cupid misses you too, by the way.’
He went on about her horse, but she was only half listening. A sudden anger had filled her, at the thought that her husband had taken her away from her home, her family — depleted though it was — and friends, and had given her rules and regulations on how she was to live her life, and she had to sneak to hear from anybody other than him and their butler. All the desire and curiosity and god knows what else that she’d felt toward him died immediately.
‘Scarlet, you’re not listening.’ Joey said quietly. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Who the hell does he think he is?’ She demanded with a shaking voice that barely hid her rage. ‘I’m a grown woman. I should be able to see whoever I want, when I want. Especially my best friend! And he has me locked inside while he’s away on ‘business’. I’m not even allowed to go outside with Abner! I miss my home, and my mom, and you and Danny and my horse, and he won’t let me have anything!’
‘Scarlet…’ Joey sighed, and he sounded so sad, Scarlet immediately stopped her rant. ‘Since he’s away, would you like me to come get you? Danny’s at work, so it’ll take a little longer for me to get there, but just say the word, and I’ll come up and sneak you away. There’s got to be a way to get you out of that house without the butler noticing.’
‘Oh, Joey, no. I can’t. You know why…’ She rubbed her face for a moment tiredly. ‘Have you seen my mom?’
‘Yeah, Danny and I went to visit her in the hospital the other day…’
‘And?’ She prompted when he trailed off and didn’t continue.
‘She doesn’t look good, Scarlet. I’ve never seen your mom look so…sick. I’m sorry.’
Scarlet closed her eyes and breathed deep a few times. She could feel the tears prickling behind her eyelids, but she refused to let them fall. She still hadn’t completely forgiven her mother for forcing her into this, though she was beginning to understand why she’d done it.
‘Do you think I’ll ever see her again, Joey?’
‘I don’t know…the doctors haven’t given her a lot of time. A month, maybe more.’
‘Shit.’ She bit her tongue, half expecting her husband’s large hand to come stinging down on her backside. ‘He’s trained me well,’ she thought distantly, every time she swore, when they weren’t close enough to anything he could use as a real punishment, he’d pull her over his knee and give her a dozen good, hard swats. She’d stopped swearing completely after the third day. ‘Okay, keep me updated. If she gets worse, I want to know, Joey. I need to see her before…’ her throat locked up. ‘You know?’
‘Yeah, I know. I’ll let you know every time I visit her. And if she does get worse, I’ll come up there and bring you back myself.’
‘Yeah…’ Scarlet rolled onto her stomach. ‘It’s so different, Joey. It’s different than I thought.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s…different. I don’t know. We don’t talk. I only see him twice a day. And I don’t mind, but…I…’
Joseph gasped and she groaned, knowing exactly what he was going to say. ‘You like him!’
She almost considered denying it, but that would be pointless. Besides, it was only ‘like’. Very mild, almost nonexistent ‘like.’ Like…she hardly felt it, half the time, past the clear hatred…it was kind of like looking through the window of a hot room at snow outside, it was foggy and blurred. ‘Probably. But, I also hate him, and that’s not going to change. He’s handsome and he knows how to work me up and get on my nerves and how to make me want him –‘ She stopped. That last bit wasn’t supposed to come out. She’d just continued talking, without thinking. Joey gasped again. ‘It’s just lust. I’m in very mild lust with him.’
‘That’s how I started with Danny.’
‘Liar. You were smitten the second we walked into that diner.’
‘Okay, so maybe I don’t know what being in lust is. But, I think you might be close to lov–‘ Scarlet sat straight up and scowled at her phone in disgust. ‘Shut up.’
‘Sorry. It’s just –‘
Scarlet missed the rest of what Joey was going on about, because Abner opened the door and stuck his head in. She dropped the phone and pulled the blanket over it. ‘Hi, Abner.’
‘I just came to let you know that dinner is ready.’ He smiled kindly at her, and she knew he knew.
‘Thanks.’ She said a quick goodbye to Joey, and climbed off the big bed. Taking Abner’s arm, she let him lead her from the room and down the hallway. ‘You’re not going to tell him, are you, Abner?’
‘I should. You do know the rules, milady.’
‘And you know they’re ridiculous. I can’t be here, day after day, by myself! I at least n
eed to talk to my best friend.’
‘I understand. But, rules are rules.’
‘Please.’
‘I won’t tell. But, I think you should. If you come clean on your own, maybe he’ll come around.’
Scarlet laughed at the thought of Lord Alford ‘coming around’ to anything.
***
Scarlet called Joey and Danny every day that Donovan was gone. She didn’t have to hide in the cold room when it was just her and Abner in the house, and she started sitting in the parlour with a fire lit. Abner even started serving her meals in there, seeing how happy hearing from her friends made her. Everything seemed easier when Donovan was gone.
On the fifth day, Joey couldn’t talk for very long. There had been an accident at the Diner, and he and Danny needed to get there as soon as possible. He’d offered to stay on the phone during the drive, but he’d been distracted after five minutes, so she told him to call her when everything was settled.
For a while, she just sat in the parlour, feeling the heat from the fireplace and relaxing. That got old fast, though. She decided to get some exercise and tour the house yet again, maybe see if there was something interesting she’d missed. Dinner was hours away, and until then, she’d have absolutely nothing to occupy her time.
Abner passed her in the halls as he went out to tend his roses. For the hundredth time, it seemed, he ignored her request that she go with him. ‘Rules were rules.’ She stood reluctantly by the door until she heard the lock click, and she knew she was very alone in that big house.
And so Scarlet set out to re-explore her home. She entered every door she came to in the bottom floor, wandered through the extra-large kitchen and empty sitting rooms and libraries. There were three of the latter, in this house, each filled with more books than she could’ve ever imagined. And, from what she could tell, no repeats, unless they were in foreign languages. She’d read three already, and had another waiting for her in her bedroom.
Done with the first floor, she mounted the stairs to the second floor. There were half a dozen bedrooms on this floor, her own included. The many other rooms were separate bathrooms, more sitting rooms, and closets. All of them, minus the ones she regularly entered, empty and freezing cold. She stopped in her room to get a sweater, to ward off the chill of the house. After considering it, she hunted down a candelabra and lit the candles to guide her way.
The third floor was basically the same as the second, but had more bedrooms and was even colder. Many of the rooms weren’t even furnished. There were only thick, heavy curtains in the windows, the dusty floors wide open. Her feet left marks in the thick film of the floor, revealing which rooms she had entered.
The fourth floor was even emptier, every room was stripped bare of even carpets and wallpaper. Half of the rooms were locked, being Donovan’s private rooms. Scarlet hugged herself as she entered the very last unlocked room, a huge, cavernous hall, covered in mirrors. She’d never been in this one before. In the corner, a curtain stretched from the ceiling to the worn wooden floor. She tiptoed across the wide floor, and paused at the curtain. A quick glance around showed she was still very alone.
She pulled the curtain aside, and jumped back when it collapsed at her feet in a cloud of dust. A large bed sat in the corner, half-surrounded by mirrors. The bed was easily twice the size of the one in her room, which she’d once thought was incredibly massive. It looked as if it hadn’t been used in a very long time. The thick wooden headboard rise high above the mattress, the intricate details of the carvings in it shining dully in the candlelight.
Behind the bed was a door. She climbed onto the bed carefully, trying to keep the dust storm at a minimum. The bed was only a few inches away from the door, and she clambered over the headboard to reach the knob. It turned slightly, and caught. A few good yanks tugged it free, and the heavy door creaked open slowly. Darkness met her eyes. A blast of freezing cold air wafted toward her, blowing out all but one of the candles.
Ofelia
- 09.09.2020
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