Her voice was small, but she replied. “I understand.”
“Good.”
Her hands were folded in front of her body, her head bent. Meek. Subservient. “I’ll go and clear up the room now.”
“Yes. I want it free from even a speck of dust. I want all trace of its previous inhabitant removed.”
“Of course.” She hesitated and then said, “Will you come to me, then?”
A spark of tension rose between us. “First, go and clean yourself up. It’s how Torres will want you, understand?” I gestured to the t-shirt and dungarees she wore—fine to do chores in, but not an outfit to charm and seduce. “This won’t do at all. If you need to know how to dress, go and speak with Yolanda.”
Her cheeks flamed red. “I know how to dress,” she muttered.
I’d embarrassed her, but that hadn’t been my intention. It was all these things she needed to consider when Torres took her.
“Good. You have two hours to prepare, and then I will come to you. I expect you to be ready.”
Chapter Thirteen
Present Day
MY HEART THRUMMED AS I left the room, dizzy with anticipation. It was actually going to happen. Angel was going to show me how to pleasure a man, and for the next few days, he would be the man I was to pleasure.
How would he feel? How would he taste?
I swore to myself that I’d give him everything he wanted. I’d do everything within my power to make him proud of me. When the time came for Elliot Torres to take me away, he’d be honored to hand me over, knowing I wouldn’t let him or his father down.
I looked down to my grubby dungarees. I had never really given much thought to my clothing. I wore items to be practical since most of my days were normally taken up by chores. I knew what was expected of me, though, and the master had already provided me with items to wear for Mr. Torres. He hadn’t expected me to leave this place with nothing. None of the women here dressed slutty. That wasn’t what the men wanted. They didn’t want to think that they were paying the women to be with them. Instead, they preferred to think the women chose to be with them. Of course, some of the outfits were sexy, but not to the point where they’d be embarrassing to wear.
For the moment, however, I needed to stay in my work clothes. I had to clean the room and prepare it for Angel.
No, not Angel. I needed to remember to call him sir. I wouldn’t fall at the first hurdle.
Excitement and arousal built at my core. Angel said this wasn’t for my pleasure, but he must want me to look as though I was enjoying whatever he wanted me to do for him. I didn’t think I’d find it too difficult. My heart sang at the prospect of touching him.
I got what I needed for the cleaning and went to the room and opened the door.
Dani had been here such a short length of time, I couldn’t even feel her presence in the room. The other women made their rooms their own—books on the nightstands. Items of makeup in the bathroom. The scent of the perfumes they preferred. All these things were provided by the master. He wanted us to be happy. Content. Taken care of.
I hoped Elliot Torres would feel the same way about me.
Working quickly, I stripped down the bed, and then flipped the mattress. It was brand new and had only been slept on for the few nights she had been here. I always started with the bed when I cleaned, that way any dust or anything else that was in the sheets or on the mattress would end up on the floor, which I’d then be able to clean up. I wiped down all the surfaces and went to the bathroom where I bleached every surface and made sure the glass shower screen and mirrors sparkled. This might be the room of a dead girl, but for the next few days it would be mine and Angel’s, and I wanted it to be perfect. I didn’t want him to think about her or what had happened. I wanted his sole focus to be on me.
I smoothed clean sheets over the bed, and finally swept and mopped the floor. It would be dry by the time I returned.
Admiring my work, I sucked in a sudden breath of nerves. The next time I was in here, it would be with Angel.
I took everything back to the laundry room and emptied the mop bucket and put the sheets on to wash. Now I needed to focus on myself.
The room in which I’d grown up in suddenly felt different. It was still my room, but now I was moving to another one, if only for a few hours per day, and in only four days I would say goodbye to this place forever. I had already started to distance myself from it. This was the room of a child, and I wasn’t that child any longer. I was moving on, both in my location, and in myself, physically and emotionally. I was sure I would miss this space, but it was only four walls. I knew I would miss the people here more than any room.
Sudden tears clogged my throat, a ball of pain blocking my airways. Out of the women, I’d miss Yolanda the most. She had practically raised me, and the thought of never seeing her again broke my heart. Perhaps Mr. Torres would allow me to come back and visit on occasion, but I doubted it. We were slaves. We weren’t allowed to make social calls. But even more than Yolanda, I knew I’d miss Angel. That was why we needed to make the most of this gift we’d been given. These next few days.
I pushed emotions back down where they belonged. Angel said that was the rules—no emotions, no tears. He’d been talking about when we were together in the room, but I figured I might as well start practicing now. It was easier this way.
I took a shower, washing my long dark hair and conditioning it until it was slippery as seaweed—not that I knew what seaweed felt like, myself, but I could imagine—and then I ran a razor over my skin, ridding myself from my body hair. Though I was dark, I was mercifully un-hairy, so the job didn’t take me long at all. I used a fruit-scented body wash, the room filling with sweet steam. When I was done, I climbed out of the shower, dried off, and applied lotion to my skin. Angel said he wouldn’t be touching me, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to feel and smell good.
What dress should I wear? I tapped my finger against my lips as I perused my options. I didn’t have a huge choice of outfits, but what I had I imagined hadn’t come cheap. Hmm... maybe this one. I selected a red dress with a bodice and a figure hugging skirt that fell down around my hips to my ankles. The bodice pushed up my breasts into perfect creamy globes and left my shoulders bare.
Would Angel like it?
He’d seen me in all manners of outfits and probably didn’t care in the slightest what I was wearing. This was practice for Mr. Torres; I had to remember that. This wasn’t being done for Angel. Angel had seen me with skinned knees, and tangled hair, filthy in my jeans and t-shirts. But I still needed him to see me as a woman now, and not that grubby, skin-kneed child, so I decided the dress was important.
Nerves tumbled in my stomach, but with them came a growing sense of anticipation and a touch of fear. What would Angel make me do to him? I’d caught glimpses of the other women on their knees, pleasuring the men who came here. Would Angel tell me to do that to him? I was sure he would, and I hoped I’d be able to do a good job.
But he was teaching me. That was the whole point. I could mess things up with him, where I couldn’t afford to with Mr. Torres.
Trouble was, I didn’t want to mess things up with Angel.
Knowing it was nearly time, I left my room and the house, and hurried across the courtyard to Dani’s old room. A couple of the women caught sight of me in my dress, their eyes narrowing with suspicion. They’d all be gossiping about me soon, but it didn’t matter. In a few days, I wouldn’t be here to hear it.
I let myself into the room. Angel hadn’t arrived yet, so I was able to take a moment to myself. I went to the mirror on the dressing table and checked my reflection. My cheeks were flushed with anticipation, my eyes bright.
A knock came at the door, and I caught my breath. He was here.
I went to the door and opened it. As I’d always been taught, I lowered my gaze, but not before how handsome he looked hit me like a punch in the chest. His deep, brown eyes. The permanent five o’clock shadow across his
jaw. Those cutting cheekbones.
I stepped back, opening the way for him. “Please, come in, sir.”
He stepped fully into the room, and I closed the door behind him. I kept my head down.
“Catalina,” he breathed. “You look... stunning.”
The air between us crackled with electricity. “The dress pleases you, sir?”
“Yes.” His voice came out slightly strangled, and he cleared his throat. “Yes, Catalina. The dress pleases me very much.”
Warmth blossomed in the center of my chest and spread out through my limbs. “That’s good. I’m here to please you.”
He took a step closer, and every hair on my body stood to attention, the air whispering across my naked limbs. He wasn’t going to touch me, I knew that, but my body seemed to have other ideas. My nipples tightened to buds, my core contracting and sending a tingling rush of pleasure through me.
“It’s okay, Catalina,” he said softly. “You can look at me.”
I almost didn’t want to, worried he would read the hunger and desperation in my eyes.
“Your skin is perfect.” His gaze dropped to the swell of my breasts. “It’s strange seeing you like this—” He pressed his lips together, stopping his words. “I almost broke my own rule. No talking about the past.”
A smile tweaked at my lips, and some of the tension ebbed from the room.
“Have you ever been kissed?” he asked.
I shook my head, my heart thundering. “Not properly.”
He cocked his eyebrows, his head tilted slightly to one side. “Not properly?”
“I’m not allowed to talk about it.” Heat rose to my cheeks.
Angel’s brow dropped in a frown. “Why not? Did someone tell you not to?”
He’d clearly forgotten. I couldn’t blame him. It had been years ago, and he’d only done it because I begged him.
“You told me not to when you made up the rules. No talking about the past. Our past.” I emphasized the ‘our’ to try to jog his memory. It had been years ago. I guessed I’d been about seven. He’d seen me as an annoying little kid, I was sure, teasing him.
Give me a kiss, Angel, give me a kiss! I want to know what it’s like to kiss a boy. I’d seen all the women kissing men, and I wanted to know how it felt.
Ugh, he’d replied. Don’t be so gross. But he was the only boy I knew, and I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Eventually, probably irritated half to death, he leaned down and planted a quick, chaste kiss to my lips. There, he’d said. Happy now?
But I’d pulled a face and replied, Gross, and he’d laughed, and things had been normal between us again.
“Of course, I remember,” Angel said with a slow grin. “You were a nagging brat.”
I laughed, the sound surprising me. I hadn’t expected to laugh during any point of today. “Yes, I was, but I’m not anymore.”
“No, you’re not.”
He stepped in closer again, and my breath hitched. He reached up, and his fingers caught my chin, lightly lifting my face to his. “Close your eyes,” he told me, and I complied.
He leaned in, and my world froze, barely able to believe this was happening. The warmth of his breath misted across my skin, and then his lips brushed mine. I folded against him, my breasts crushing against his chest. His tongue met with the seam of my mouth, and I parted my lips and allowed him in.
His lips were soft and firm, and like falling face first into heaven.
And, immediately, I knew it was a mistake.
Now I was kissing him, I understood how hard it was going to be to leave him and go to another man. Because I didn’t belong to Angel. I never had. But with this one kiss, the threads of my heart had wound around his, and when we were torn apart, it would take both of our hearts with it.
Even with this knowledge, I couldn’t stop kissing him.
How could I? When someone offers you a taste of heaven, right before delivering you to hell, you don’t turn that down. You take those moments and hope they’ll be enough to make you want to survive the nightmare.
A nightmare he was delivering me straight into the hands of.
Angel. My Angel.
I allowed him to take the lead, only responding with tentative touches of my tongue when his swept across mine. He tasted faintly of mint and coffee, and the scent of his cologne filled my nostrils. His hands didn’t stray, but instead remained cupping my jaw, while the other tangled in my hair. It was exactly how I’d fantasized kissing him would be, and I felt as though I would be happy kissing him forever. For a moment, I allowed myself to forget that he was only doing this because his father had told him to, and imagined he was kissing me like this because it was what he wanted. It was a dangerous route to go down—he’d made me promise there would be no emotions involved in what we were doing—but that wasn’t so easy when the boy who’d been my entire world for as long as I could remember was kissing me like this.
Angel must have sensed my reaction, as he broke the kiss and stepped away, a slight frown marking his otherwise smooth brow. He shook his head, as though clearing it, and didn’t meet my eyes.
Panic fluttered inside me. Had I done something wrong? Had I not been supposed to be kissing him like that? Had I slobbered over him, or my breath been bad? Anxious worries darted into my head. I thought I’d done okay, but I had nothing to compare it to. I imagined Angel had kissed hundreds of women, and right there and then, I hated every single one of them.
“Okay,” he said, pressing his lips together. “So we know you can kiss. That’s one thing out of the way.”
I exhaled a long sigh. “I... I thought for a moment that I had done it wrong.”
His dark gaze flicked to mine briefly. “No, Catalina. No, you didn’t do anything wrong at all.”
He pressed the back of his forearm to the front of his pants, and I realized he was hiding something. A telltale ridge behind the material of his pants. He had wanted me. Just kissing me had made him want me. A swell of pride expanded inside my chest. This was a good thing, wasn’t it? I thought the whole point of kissing was to make a man hard and to prepare a couple for sex.
Why would he feel bad about having the reaction he was supposed to have?
I nodded to the area he was hiding. “You got an erection when you were kissing me. Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen?”
His cheeks grew pink, an endearing sight on him. “Yes, it is. It’s just because it’s you, Catalina. It feels weird.”
“We weren’t supposed to talk about the past,” I reminded him again. “You need to see me as I am now, not as I was when I was growing up. I’m a woman now, Angel.”
I hesitated, unsure if I was about to do the right thing, but then I reached behind my back and unhooked the clasps holding the top of my dress together. He stared at me, wide-eyed, as I worked my way down from the top to the bottom, but he made no move to stop me. The top of the dress fell open, releasing my breasts from its firm hold, and when I reached the bottom of the clasps, it released my waist as well. All it took was a little wiggle and the entire dress slipped from my hips and puddled around my feet.
“Catalina,” Angel said, a warning tone to his voice.
“You need to see me like this, Angel.” I lifted my hands and cupped my breasts, squeezing and pinching the nipples to turn them to bullet points. His breathing grew ragged and he pressed down harder on the front of his pants, only this time I knew he wasn’t hiding anything. Instead, he was doing it for the stimulation. I rolled my nipples between my fingers, sending waves of arousal down through my core to condense in my pussy. I knew he said this wasn’t about my arousal, yet I was supposed to be learning how to please a man, and right now Angel looked as though what I was doing was pleasing him.
“Do you see?” I asked, keeping my voice soft. I let my hands trace down the sides of my body, outlining the dip of my waist and skirting the curve of my hips. It had the correct effect, his shoulders lifting as he sucked in a breath, his lower
lip going slack with desire. He couldn’t take his eyes off me.
But there was more between us than just the physical. I felt the tug of our souls, the history that was between us. However much Angel needed to leave that outside the door, it was still here, and somehow that made things easier for me. The thing Angel struggled with the most was the same thing that made me confident in his presence.
“You know what you heard the other night wasn’t what you thought.” I stepped my feet apart, kicking away the dress so I was now only in my panties and heels.
A muscle in his jaw clenched. “I know that, Catalina.”
I slid the tips of my fingers into the waistband of my panties. “You know I was thinking about you while I was touching myself.”
“Stop it, Catalina. This is getting too close to emotions.”
I exhaled a small sigh and slipped my hand lower. “I thought about you because that’s what women do when they care about a man.”
I went lower still, slipping over the top of my clit, and dipping into my wetness.
“Enough,” he said sharply.
Before I could register what was happening, he’d crossed the small amount of space between us. He grabbed my wrist and yanked it out of my panties. His fingers dug into my skin, pain shooting up my arm as he twisted it. I yelped.
“You’re being a brat, Catalina. I told you what the rules were, and you’re breaking them.”
“I was pleasing you. Watching me was pleasing you.”
“If you’re going to be a brat, you’ll get treated like one.”
He dragged me onto the bed, tugging me onto his lap. I wriggled against him, unsure what he was doing. The hard line of his erection pressed into my stomach. He might be angry with me, but that hadn’t affected his reaction to me, physically.
“I could make you behave by stopping this whole thing, but then how far would that get us? You’re doing this to learn what life will be like with your new master, and this will probably be just one of the ways he’ll punish you for your misbehavior.”
For Him: The Complete Series: A Dark Romance Page 8
