by Linnea May
I cast her a dark look.
“I’m sorry,” I retort. “I shouldn’t have done that. This is another thing that won’t happen again.”
She looks at me as if that reply confuses her even more.
“But… why?” she presses. “Why Ruby?”
Now, I’m the one who’s confused. She knows very damn well why I would call her Ruby. Ruby Red. That’s the name written on her business card, the name she was listed under at the agency. She must be aware of the fact that I know that name. Why is she so surprised?
“It was a mistake,” I repeat. “You’re my pet, and I’ll never address you any other way again.”
“Okay.”
She looks at me as if she’s trying to solve a puzzle, still in the dark about the meaning behind my mistake.
There is no meaning. Nothing to solve, nothing to understand. There can’t be.
“Are you hungry?” I ask, diverting from the subject.
She hesitates for a moment, before she nods. “Yes, I am.”
“I’ll bring you something up,” I say, gathering my clothes, before I flee from her room.
Chapter 28
Liana
I always have to smile when he brings me a sandwich. Somehow, that’s such a typical man-thing to do. Not that the cooked food he’s been bringing me has ever been bad, but I’d still say that sandwiches are where he really excels.
Today, he brings me a roasted chicken breast sandwich with avocado and crisp bacon strips, making it a rather heavy and savory variation. The smell of it almost lets me forget about the confusion he caused earlier.
I need to know why he called me Ruby. Was it a simple mistake because he just assumes that this must be my name based on the business card he took from the coat? Or is there more to it?
I took the time to take a shower and freshen up, while he was downstairs preparing my food. He’s just coming through the door when I walk through the bathroom door, instantly dropping down on my knees as I see him and taking my position.
“Good girl,” he praises.
I thought he’d tell me to get back on my feet right away, but instead he places the tray with the sandwich right in front of me on the carpet, beckoning me to eat right where I am.
Just like a pet.
It’s not the first time that he makes me eat like this, but I still don’t enjoy the humiliation that comes with it. I know he only does it to remind me of my place, but nevertheless, I’m not forbidden to speak.
“Ruby is not my name, you know,” I say, before I take the first bite of the delicious sandwich he brought me.
He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, watching me while he finishes taking up the rope. His eyes flicker with anger when he looks at me.
“You’re my pet,” he says. “Nothing else.”
I sigh. Something that doesn’t go by him unnoticed. He casts me a warning look.
“Yes, sure,” I say. “But, I mean, it’s really not my name. My name is Liana Doy-”
“It doesn’t matter!” he barks at me. “You’re my pet. There’s no need for names, real or not.”
I wince at his loud voice, frightened by his sudden outburst, and continue to eat my sandwich, hunching my shoulders inward like a scared animal.
Why does it anger him so much when I talk about these things? It’s like he’s trying to block out that I’m a human being, a person with a name and a life.
Maybe this is my way out? If I make him confront all those things, the fact that he robbed a real person out of her life.
A life I don’t particularly miss. But that’s a minor detail that shouldn’t matter to him.
“It’s not even my fake name,” I add.
He looks at me, a silent question flickering in his eyes.
“Ruby, I mean,” I clarify. “I’ve never used that name. I’m Liana. Always.”
It’s as if an icy wind just traveled across the room, erasing all life and with it all noise from our environment. He stares at me, his expression frozen in angry confusion.
“Stop it,” he says, his voice tense. “Stop breaching. We have a deal.”
I reciprocate his gaze, seemingly calm from the outside, while my heart feels as if it’s about to burst with fear.
A deal? What is he talking about? When on Earth did we ever make a deal with each other? He acts as if I’m her on my own volition, with perfect knowledge about the scope and rules of this – whatever this is.
Wait. Does this mean he thinks he’s talking to someone who does know what’s going on? Someone else but me?
“Do you think I’m Ruby?” I ask him. “Because I’m not.”
Something in his expression changes. He no longer looks merely angry and confused. There’s something else in his demeanor, something I’ve never seen on him before.
Fear.
“Shut up,” he snaps at me. “Finish your goddamn sandwich.”
“Did you find that name on the card you took?” I ask. “The card that was in the coat’s pocket?”
He glares at me, his fists clenching around the rope.
“If you don’t shut up right this second,” he hisses. “You’re going back to the attic. All night. Understand?”
We freeze in an angry stare contest. I know I can’t get into any trouble as long as I keep my mouth shut, but I’m not done asking questions. I’m getting somewhere with this. I’m getting under his skin, which means that I’m moving in the right direction. There’s something there, something he’s terrified of.
What if he made another mistake? A mistake so big that it could destroy him?
“Do you understand?” he presses, locking me down with his intense eyes.
He’s already in the process of getting up from the bed. If I don’t give him the reply he seeks, he will drag me over to that horrible room in no time, leaving the half-eaten sandwich and the luxury of my gilded cage out of reach for an entire night.
Is it worth risking? Is there anything I can draw from him at this point that would make this sacrifice worth it?
No. I decide that it is not.
“Yes, Master,” I reply, obediently lowering my eyes as I finish eating my sandwich.
I think I may know enough to understand what’s going on here.
Chapter 29
Liana
Things have changed since that day he finally decided to fuck me. Our whole dynamic has shifted now that I believe I understand what is really happening here.
He made a mistake when he grabbed me off the street. He doesn’t just think that my name is Ruby because it’s written on the business card he found in my coat.
He thinks I’m Ruby because that’s the woman he was looking for. The woman whose coat I was wearing at the time when he took me. The Barbie doll from the bar. She looked like an escort to me, and by now I’m pretty sure that she actually was.
And he bought her. The deal he keeps talking about, all the times he acted as if I should know things that I didn’t know. He thought he was talking to the escort he hired to do all this. An escort to live out his perverted fantasy. The fantasy of kidnapping a woman and making her his sexual slave.
None of this is real. We are playing a very elaborate form of role play. That is why he’s given me so little explanation and that is why he kept complaining about me making so many transgressions in the beginning. I had no idea what was going on, but he expected me to.
Now I’m in the know. I finally understand how I ended up here. In a way, I brought this upon myself by stealing that woman’s coat. If I hadn’t done that, he never would have grabbed me. It was her identifying mark, the one feature that helped him find her, and the only item of clothing I was allowed to keep.
A significant amount of power has been handed over to me now that I know.
Yet, I’m still here. Naked, curled up in the soft sheets he lets me sleep in, with a collar around my neck that hasn’t been taken off in eleven days.
Why am I still here?
Why can I not bring myself to tell him?
He would probably let me go. He might even pay me to keep my mouth shut because he can get in serious legal trouble for what he did.
I could even blackmail him.
At least then I wouldn’t have to worry about money. He must be loaded if he can afford all of this, this house, the lavish interior, his tailored suits, all the expensive lingerie he makes me wear, or just the plain fact that he can buy women to serve as sex slaves for days and weeks. I have no idea how long he intends to keep me here.
I could ask him to let me go, and only promise to keep my mouth shut if he paid me an enormous sum of money. Something that would last me for a few months, maybe even a year, until I get my feet back under me.
Because what kind of life will I be returning to? I’ve lost everything, my arguably idiotic boyfriend, my job, my safe haven. There’s nothing waiting for me except an empty apartment, an uncertain future, and a funeral I don’t really want to go to. It pains me not to be able to bid goodbye to Professor Miller, but I know that the funeral would be a terribly crowded affair. I may have been his right-hand for more than a year, but no one really knows me there, especially when it comes to his family. Maybe I would even be in the way.
It doesn’t matter anyway because I’m not going. I can’t go. I cannot even leave this room without his permission.
But what troubles me most is that I don’t want to leave.
Figuring this all out is not the only thing that has changed since that fateful day we fucked for the first time. Everything has changed. The way I see him has changed. He’s no longer a handsome but terrifying kidnapper who scares the hell out of me, but so much more. I feel weirdly close to him, attached even. I know that they have a word for this phenomenon, but I can’t help experiencing it nonetheless. Now that I know who he thinks I am, I cannot help but feel differently toward him and what he has been doing to me. He’s not a criminal, just a wealthy man with a dark and twisted need.
And he’s so good at expressing his need. There have been many days where I felt like I was the one drawing more pleasure from this than he was. I practically had to beg him and show him with every fiber of my being how much I needed him to fuck me, until he finally did. He gives more than he takes, but insists that my orgasms all belong to him.
In a way, I can’t believe how lucky I am to be on the receiving end of his dark desires.
It’s still early morning, and I’m waiting for him to come unleash me from the bed, the first ritual of the day. I don’t know if he has a set time when he shows up in my room because I still don’t have access to a clock. But I’ve grown so used to all of this that I usually find myself awake a few minutes before I can hear his steps approaching. It’s always enough time to fix my hair and take my position to greet him. The leash is long enough for me to leave the bed, but I usually stay on the sheets. He doesn’t seem to care whether I kneel for him on the floor or on the bed.
Even our morning ritual has changed. He no longer greets me by stroking along my cheek after he first sets foot in the room. He’s doing something else now.
Every day and every moment with him starts with a kiss.
Kisses were never part of the routine during our first week together, but they are so integral now that it would feel like a punishment if he took them away from me.
I love his kisses. Unlike his rough hand, they are soft and gentle, stirring something inside me every time our lips meet, a tingling that reaches all the way to my throbbing core. I always want more, and my body gets ready in anticipation, knowing that there will be more. Every day.
The days with him have become less frightening, but not less exciting. They are predictable as much as they are rich in variety. He’s asking more things of me, expecting my obedience with all kinds of tasks and commands. I’ve become better at obeying him, and I’ve grown to like complying with this obedience. Hearing him praise me as a good girl and seeing him smile in that proud and complacent way, pleases me more than I ever thought possible.
But I’ve also become better at playing his game. I always knew that I have a suppressed desire to receive all these things, the punishments and pain, as well as the simple bliss of intense release. Agony can be more than a flavor enhancer. It’s closer to a drug.
I resist and defy some of his commands by choice, just to see what he will do if I don’t go along right away. I never let it go as far as getting locked up in the attic, because that’s not the kind of punishment I seek.
I want to feel leather and rope on my skin. I want the breathtaking sensation of a whip cutting into my flesh. I yearn for the vertigo of throbbing after pain.
And now I’m here, in a place where I can try all of these things, with a gorgeous and troubled man. A man who no longer scares and confuses me.
I will keep my mouth shut. Only for a while longer. The last few days have been closer to a dream than a nightmare. It would feel wrong to run away now.
I jump up when I hear his steps approaching the room. He’s here. It’s time to get ready for another day with my Master.
Chapter 30
Joseph
She’s kneeling on the bed, her hands placed on her thighs, her chin lifted, but her eyes lowered. A faint smile flickers across her face when I come closer.
No flinching, no shying away from my touch. Instead, she leans in for the kiss she knows is coming, yearning for me just as I yearn for her. Our lips meet and I close my eyes for the first few seconds we will spend together today. It will be a short day, at least in regard to the time that will be spent with her. I have to drive up to the city, even though I hate doing so when I have a girl here. But there’s no way around it. I’m needed. Even my grandfather called to make sure that I would be present at this board meeting. It would only raise suspicion if I didn’t show up, so I have to steal these hours away from her.
But I will make the time we have together count.
She has shown that she’s different from all the others since the very beginning. She broke rules left and right, she pissed me off with her confusion and her dumb questions, her all too real terror, and her way too serious defiance. Lately, all of that has changed. She’s going through the same process I see all of them go through, but her transformation is stronger, the contrast so stark that it almost scares me. She’s adapting to the rules, no longer breaking them, but testing them, to tease out a reaction from me. It’s exactly what she’s supposed to be doing.
Now I’m the one who’s breaking the rules.
No kissing. It’s stated in the contract, and I’ve repeatedly told myself that this is off limits. Kissing is for lovers, not for a Master and his paid pet.
Of course, this one is easy to overstep. I’ve done it before, in the heat of the moment. But I’ve never enjoyed it as much as I am with her, and I’ve never made it part of a ritual.
I can’t lose myself. I can’t lose control. This is a slippery slope, and I know I’m only getting started. Today, I’m willing to go even further than I did before. I’m jumping in with my eyes open, risking more than just our contract.
Yet, I will do it. The thought of following through excites me too much to neglect this wish. I have to see what it’s like. I want to see how far I can push things without losing myself too much.
Her eyes find mine when I stop our kiss, their gray-blue depths piercing through me with understanding. Despite her helpless behavior in the beginning, I cannot help but see the intelligence that radiates behind her eyes. She’s smart. She gets me.
That’s why she’s so dangerous.
“Good morning, my pet,” I whisper.
She’s never allowed to be the first one to speak, and her first words are always the same.
“Good morning, Master,” she says, her voice so soft that it kills me.
“Did you sleep well?” I ask her.
“Well enough,” is her reply. She always says something along those lines, and I never follow up with a question.
“Let’s have a shower,” I tell her, unhooking the leash f
rom her collar. She can remove it on her own because she’s still wearing a training collar, but she never has. I told her she wasn’t supposed to do it on her own. It was the first command she obeyed without having to be reminded several times.
“Together?” she asks as I lead her to the bathroom, pulling her by the ring at the front of her collar.
“Yes,” I say as we walk through the door. “Together.”
She watches as I take off my clothes, her eyes wandering along the lines of my tattoos. I know she has questions about them that she doesn’t dare ask. Too often I have ordered her to be quiet when she started poking at things I wasn’t comfortable talking about. The tattoos are part of that, and she seems to sense it. They are reminders of a past that I would like to forget, a past that I’ve put behind me. They remind me of the pain I caused and the lives I destroyed when I lost control over myself. The black ink adorns my skin like a curse.
She’s shy every time we do something new, and today is no different.
“Turn on the water,” I command her, mainly to stop her from gawking at me. It’s flattering, but unsettling at the same time.
She turns around, deliberately hollowing her back and stretching her legs to give me the best view of her round ass. It works like a charm. When I lose the last item of clothing to follow her under the hot shower, I’m hard and ready, my cock yearning for the body that’s mine for twenty-eight more days.
She squeals and smiles at me when my length pokes her in the small of her back as I join her under the welcoming water. My hands are on her wet body in an instant, following the outline of her narrow shoulders, traveling down her arms, grabbing her wrists to keep her eager hands in place. She has turned into a cock-hungry slut, hardly able to keep her hands to herself every time she sees my hardness. For the past four days, she has been getting fucked every single day, at least once, but her hunger for me only grows, just like mine for her.
“No hands,” I tell her, leaning in closer so she can hear me over the running water. “Just your lips, my pet.”
