Hansel Part Three Read online

  HANSEL 3

  An Erotic Fairy Tale

  ELLA JAMES

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lucas

  The look on her face makes me feel sick.

  I shouldn’t have said it.

  I’m glad I said it.

  Maybe now she’ll go.

  We’re standing in my living room, between the couch and the granite countertop that divides the kitchen from the den. I’ve got my jeans on, but my chest is bare. I slide my shirt over my head to get away from her wide eyes.

  When I look at her again, she is absolutely still. Her eyes, stretched wide a few moments ago, are honed on me. Her mouth is neither twisted nor open. Her expression is defined by…lack of. It’s like someone pressed pause on Leah. She doesn’t even seem to be breathing.

  Her mouth opens on slow motion, and words rise up and out her throat. “Is mother…alive?” That last word sounds like glass about to crack.

  I stand there for a second, weighted with tension, while I calculate the pros and cons of lying to her. Mother is dead. I cracked her neck. Leah knows she’s dead—the whole damn country knows—but Leah fears her. And when fear is involved, the lines of reality get blurry.

  If I tell Leah mother is alive, she might get the hell away from her. From me.

  I work to catch my breath. My chest feels so right, I’m worried I’ll pass out. In the midst of my struggle, clarity comes to me. I can’t lie to Leah. Not about Mother. I need her to go, but I can’t stand the thought of Leah scared. And she would definitely be scared if she thought Mother was alive, and I was going to see her.

  I suck another breath back. “No.”

  She shakes her head, like she’s confused. Her arms are folded under her breasts. Her brows are drawn together. “But you’re going to her— to that house?”

  I look away from her accusing eyes and wonder how I should spin this. How I can make her think—how I can let her know—how fucked up I am. How I can make her want to get the fuck away from me without scaring her too badly in the process. I walk over to a coat closet behind the couch. I can feel her eyes burn through me as I pull my boots out. Then I sit down on the couch to put them on. I’m not looking at her, but I can feel her shadowing me. There are so many things I could tell her—things that might make her go—but I can’t commit to any of them, so I give her a pared-down version of the truth.

  “It’s my house now. I own it.”

  “You bought that place?” She sounds astonished. Worried.

  Good.

  “It was an auction,” I say flatly. Silence yawns around us. I finish tying the laces of the first boot.

  “Why would you want it?”

  I slide the second boot on my boot and reach my gaze up to meet hers. “I like to go there sometimes.”

  Her eyes are wide; her face is tightened by concern. “What do you do there?”

  Again, I contemplate lying. I could tell her I fuck women there, in Mother’s bed. I could tell her I go there to fast and pray. I could tell her I go there to sleep inside her bedroom. She’s seen my place here—how it looks like Mother’s house. Leah must already think I’m a few coins short of a dollar. This could be the tipping point for her.

  Tying the laces of the second boot, I scowl up at her. “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “Do I?” Her mouth is slightly agape, her head bent as she stares down at me.

  I finish tying and rise up to my full height. I’m surprised to find that I’m about a foot taller than she is. I didn’t know that. I can count the hours I’ve spent in Leah’s presence, face-to-face, on my fingers.

  Staring at her face makes my pulse pound. Her lips…I want to trail a finger over them. “That house belongs to me.” After all, I was there longer than any of the others. Two full years longer than the next captive, a girl Mother named Snow White. “You don’t know who I am, do you Leah? I mean who I really am. Did the media ever find out? Did you ever put the pieces together?”

  She didn’t. I know she didn’t. If she had, we would be having a much different conversation. She wouldn’t be signing up to fuck me, that’s for sure.

  But I want to taunt her with this. I want to emphasize how little Leah really knows me. Make her feel foolish. Maybe even make her feel a little scared.

  She shakes her head. I watch as interest hones her face. “You said in there your name is Lucas.”

  That was a mistake. She doesn’t need to know who I am. There’s no point. But there is a bomb that I can drop. One to nudge her just a little bit off kilter. “I was there for five years. Just me and Mother for the first two years. So in my mind, the place is mine.”

  I watch her jaw drop open. “You were...you were there for how long?”

  “Five years.”

  Havoc steals over her face. “Five years?” Her voice squeaks.

  I nod slowly.

  “But you told me—”

  “No I didn’t.” She’s going to say I told her two or three years prior to her arrival, but that isn’t true. I was always vague, and Leah didn’t dare imagine I had been there so long. I was fourteen when mother brought me from the hospital, and a few months shy of eighteen when I met Leah.

  “But…”

  “You think you know me?” I ask softly. My hand rises to her cheek and cups her smooth, warm skin. “Leah,” I step closer to her, “Hansel was a made up boy. You think I’m Hansel now? You think I’m…your friend?”

  She locks her jaw, and warmth spreads through me.

  “No.” I nod toward the bathroom, out ahead of me, the door of it situated between a potted plant and the entertainment center. This is the place where my subs usually change clothes. Where they’re encouraged to leave their own attire while they act out a role for me. While they are Leah.

  I pull in a deep breath and fix my eyes on hers. “Go get dressed, Leah. It’s time for you to go.”

  She opens her mouth. I can tell from the softness of her features that she’s going to protest. She’s confused. She’s not ready to go yet. She doesn’t have closure. I don’t know what she’ll say next, and I don’t want to find out.

  “It’s just like Monday, Leah. Lauren.” I say it with a sneer. “You don’t follow directions, and I like submissives. You think I enjoyed your ridiculous attempts to dominate me? You think I want more of that?”

  Her face is on lockdown, but I see the ripple of my words in the tightening of her brow, in the deepening of the lines around her mouth. She can’t hold the poker face for long. Her lips twist downward and her eyes gleam.

  Relief sweeps through me. Now she’ll go. I’ll be spared the…shame of this.

  The echo of that moment in the bedroom burns through me.

  I turn away from her, then step over to the kitchen counter for my keys and wallet. I’m listening for her footsteps, ready to hear her headed toward the bathroom. She’ll get dressed and go, and I will drive to Mother’s house.

  I want it tonight. Maybe I even need it.

  I slide my wallet into my back pocket, and I hear Leah coming up behind me. She walks around me and stops directly in front of me. I keep my eyes trained on the counter for a second longer than I need to: bracing myself.

  When my gaze skitters over her, I’m surprised to find her eyes blazing.

  “You’re lying. What’s your name?” she snaps.

  “I go by Edgar now,” I tell her sharply.

  “Edgar. Okay, Edgar. You’re a liar.” Her face—it’s…gorgeous. Every feature in motion, she glows with energy and emotion. I fucking love her animated like this. For all those months, I never saw her whole face.

  “Leah…” Reverence.

  I rush to turn my tone around. Tug in air while I fight to come up with a plan for getting her out of here. For making
her not give a shit if I enjoyed the things we did together.

  “Leah,” I say, hard now, “who’s your boyfriend?”

  “What?”

  “Your boyfriend? Tell me, what’s his name?”

  She shakes her head a little. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “You don’t have a boyfriend now. I can believe that. You’ve been fucking me. But there must have been someone before. Who was the last?” I cross my arms, mirroring her stance. “Who was the last?”

  She drops her arms down by her sides, and I can see her cracking. “Why does it matter?” She takes a small step back, and heat sings through my chest. I’m right about her. It’s sick that I should care, but care I do.

  “Have you ever had anyone? Anyone you loved? Have you ever been engaged, Leah? Ever been married?”

  Her eyes betray her. The way she hugs herself and looks defeated. Shamed, like me. Pain flares up inside me—pain for her—but I douse it with intention. “I can see it on your face, the answer: no. Why did you come here, Leah—after the show? You thought Edgar was me, but you came in a mask. How come?”

  She rubs her lips together. Shifts her gaze away. “I was curious,” she says quietly.

  “Why the mask?”

  “I heard you were hard to get in touch with,” she says, looking up at me with cautious eyes. “I thought if you didn’t want to see me…”

  “But you didn’t even try. You didn’t try to come to me as Leah.” My voice lifts. “I asked Raymond, and you never called or left a message.” I step closer to her, watching her shrink into herself. She’s threatened now. Embarrassed. “You came in a mask, because you wanted to fuck me. Not just for sex’s sake,” I tell her softly. I step a little closer, still. “You don’t fuck for fucking’s sake, like I do, do you? No. You said it’s been a long time. Why?”

  Her mouth opens. I close the space between us and slide my hand under her hair, cupping her head. “You don’t have to tell me,” I murmur, looking down into her eyes. “Leah, I can read you like a book. You’re hung up at Mother’s house. That time I fucked you on the day I killed her. Stuck. You’re stuck there with me. No boyfriend,” I whisper, stroking her hair. “You’ve never had a lover, have you? No one serious…”

  I can’t breathe as I watch her face for confirmation.

  Her features twist as she wobbles back, wrenching away from me. “What’s the point of this?”

  I inhale deeply. Let it out. “I’m telling you to get lost, Leah. I didn’t ask for you like this. I wanted Lauren,” I taunt. I nod at the bathroom, glad to break my gaze away from hers. “I’m not like you, Leah. I might want to fuck you, but I don’t…want you. I’m not waiting for you. Can’t you tell?”

  Her lip is caught between her teeth. Her eyes are bright enough to be electric. They sear mine for a long second before she whirls and flies into the bathroom.

  The second that she slams the door, my chest starts aching. I step toward the door, my arm outstretched; that’s how badly I want to open it and snatch her out.

  Instead, I turn around and leave my own apartment.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Leah

  He’s full of shit.

  He thinks he can fool me? He thinks I don’t know him? He’s lying to himself.

  I’m not sure if I’m more upset or more sad—sad for him.

  Everything he said about me being hung up on what happened at Mother’s house, alone and unable to find love as an adult, is almost laughably hypocritical. Does he think he’s any different? I don’t see him married with two point five kids and a minivan. Maybe it has been a long time since I’ve had sex; maybe I can’t bear to be intimate with anyone because my first experience was him, and as soon as it was over, he just…left. Maybe that makes me pathetic, but taunting me about it is horrible. So horrible, it makes his motives completely obvious.

  After what happened in his bedroom—after how upset he got—he doesn’t want me here. He can’t even stand to look at me. He knows I won’t leave, so he’s making it out like he doesn’t want me around. Like he isn’t attracted to me.

  I stab my legs into my red jeans. I’m trembling with excess energy.

  Does he not remember all the things he said to me last night? How, today, when he walked into the room, he said he was going to call me Leah like he does with all his subs?

  As I jerk my lacy pink bra on, my heart starts hammering. There’s no way I interpreted things wrong, is there? Am I thinking irrationally?

  No. The way he acted is completely obvious.

  The man’s got issues, Leah. He’s pushing you away.

  “Right.”

  At that moment, a memory pops into my mind, vivid as a picture: Hansel on the stage, holding a whip, and two blonde women on the mattress in the room that looked like mine.

  But maybe he only wants me for sex.

  Right, because I’m so skilled at sex.

  I pull my shirt over my head and try to talk some confidence into myself. He calls the subs ‘Leah’ because he cares about me. Clearly. And why wouldn’t he? For more than a year, he was my only confidant. We got to know each other in a way that’s usually impossible, because most times, people put up walls. But our wall was a literal thing, so with each other, we erased all lines. I told him things I’ve never told anyone before. I’d like to think the inverse is true, too.

  My insecurity rears its head again, and I question why he would still hang onto that so many years later. But the answer is obvious: for all the reasons I do.

  I wonder, as I look into my own eyes in the mirror, if he wake up this morning and remembered last night. If he remembered seeing me. Or was he so smashed, he had no idea until the bed a few minutes ago, when he asked me why I was calling him ‘Hansel’. Earlier this morning, when his driver came to get me, was he really calling ‘Lauren’ back, because he liked what we did Monday?

  I suck a deep breath into my lungs and step out of the bathroom, ready to confront him. I look around the living room.

  “Han— Edgar?” The word hangs there in the air, and my eyes fly around the room. The ceiling fan is motionless; the room is empty; something in the refrigerator across the room makes a clicking sound, and I jump a little, but it’s only ice. I walk a little farther out into the living area.

  “Edgar?”

  Into the kitchen, and the counter looks barer than it was a few minutes ago, when I came in here to confront him.

  Another second swells around me. I can feel his absence.

  “Are you here?” I call behind me.

  When he doesn’t answer, I dash over to the door and swing it open, then step out into the hall. I look all the way down the dark space, criss-crossed with dancing shadows from a few torches. Their smoke drifts up toward the high ceilings.

  “Edgar?” I cry.

  His apartment is at the end of the private hall. There are only one or two other doors along it. I freeze for a moment, listening for the swishing of his jeans and the low clomp of his boots.

  Then—“shit!”

  I fly off like a rocket, pumping my arms as I stretch my legs in front of me.

  What the hell is wrong with him?

  Where’d he go? Was he going to come back?

  It wouldn’t make sense for him to leave me there indefinitely, but maybe he figured I would go once he did.

  My stomach tightens as I dash past one of the flickering torches.

  I run all the way down the hall, and when I don’t see him, I pull open the cut-through door that leads to one of the public halls.

  Torches flicker in front of me as far as I can see.

  “Damn.”

  I think I’m moving toward the back of the building, but I’m not sure. I remember, when I drove up to the building last night, seeing signs that the employee lot was in the back. I don’t know he’s leaving—in fact, he’s probably not—but I want to cover all my bases. If by chance he is, I have to catch him.

  I look around, searching for some clue that I don
’t find, then I take off down the hall, unabashedly running, bare-footed, in a direction I’m not even completely sure of.

  I picture him striding across the parking lot, toward his black Land Rover, and imagine myself running up behind him, knocking him over like a girl bullet.

  When I reach the double-doors at the end of the hall, I’m relieved to find they’re made of steel, with vertical rectangles of thick glass punched into them. Over them is a neon red EXIT sign, and on the wall beside the door on the right is a small, black plaque with cursive letters: Employee Parking.

  As I push through the doors, my stomach lurches. When I sweep my eyes over the parking lot, I see no one—only quiet rows of cars, not even any headlights. Then I hear the wholesome knocking of his boots against the asphalt.

  Thwak, thwak, thwak.

  So he is leaving!

  I rush down the cement stairs and start to look for him. Left and right, and back to the left. And that’s when I see a moving shadow. That’s Hansel, tall and dark and weaving quickly in between parked cars. I fly after him, sprinting with my arms outstretched. I reach him as his fingertips skate gently over the dark hood of the Land Rover.

  He turns his hips and shoulders flush with the car’s side and presses a button on his key fob, and the car’s lights flash. He’s so deep in thought he doesn’t even see me right behind him.

  “You’re leaving?”

  He jumps a little, then turns his head slowly to look at me. “Leah.” His eyes roll down my body, moving languidly over all my parts and resting on my bare feet. “Where are your shoes?” he asks softly.

  “Where are you going?” I ask him.

  His face tightens, then goes tired and slack, as if he was maybe going to explain himself to me, but suddenly he decided he just didn’t care enough. He rubs a hand over his head and starts to pull the car door open.

  “Are you running away from me?”

  He slides behind the half-open door, and now his face is taut again. He looks angry with me when his eyes meet mine. Perturbed. “I already told you where I’m going, Leah. You are not coming with me.”

  I shove my hands into my pockets and step over a little, so if he decides to hop in the car and blast on off, he’d nick me with the hood. “You’re running from me. It’s…ridiculous.”