After a few moments, I stepped under the hot spray of water. I grabbed a half-empty bottle of strawberries and cream body wash, unsure of how long it’d been here.
Whatever will get this shit off me, I mused to myself.
I scrubbed my skin with a loofah until it hurt, wanting to get every trace of blood off my skin. I used the also half-empty bottle of shampoo as I frantically and repeatedly washed my hair until the water no longer ran red.
When I was sure I was clean, I just stood under the hot water. My mind went through everything I’d been though since being in Bennett’s possession. The pain, the horrors I’d seen, the fact that I’d probably never be free again. That Savannah would never be free again. The thought of being trapped for the rest of my life was depressing.
Alone in the shower, I sobbed. Sobbed for everything I’d lost, everything I’d never have again, and the people caught in the crosshairs who either lost their freedom or lost their life. As if being owned by Bennett wasn’t bad enough, we now had other people after us since he'd killed two men who were extremely important—or at least feared—in their world. My life had gone from bad to worse, and there wasn’t shit I could do to stop it.
My crying session immediately ceased when the lights in the bathroom clicked off. My heart beat a bit faster as anxiety crept over me. I’d assumed the lights were connected to motion sensors, so it didn’t make sense for them to go off if I was moving in the shower.
I waved my arms, but they didn’t come on again. I turned the shower off and cautiously opened the shower door, blindly feeling around for the towels I’d placed on the towel rack near the shower. Once I felt them, I wrapped one around myself and used another to quickly dry my hair.
Despite my movements, the lights didn’t turn back on, which did nothing but make me nervous. I felt my way around the bathroom until I made it to the door to enter the bedroom. The lights didn’t click on in there either.
Where the fuck is a light switch? I wondered as I felt along the walls.
Before I could take another step, someone grabbed me from behind, wrapping a strong arm around my neck. Their hand clasped around my mouth before I could even scream. I struggled against them, trying to get out of their hold as their arm tightened around my neck. The more I struggled, the harder it became to breathe. My vision grew fuzzy, my attempts at escape becoming weak before everything suddenly went black.
When I finally came to, I was back in the Retribution room. When in the hell did I get back here, and how long have I been out?
When I tried to move, my limbs wouldn’t budge. My neck was secured by a strap that limited how far I could move my head. Though it felt like the Retribution room, the room I found myself in was smaller than the one I was used to. So, we weren’t at the mansion.
Had I been kidnapped after all?
The door opened and closed, someone’s dress shoes sounding on the floor. My heart raced in my chest. I couldn’t turn my head to see who was in here with me. The sound of their shoes moved closer to me.
“Whoever you are, Bennett is going to kill you for what you’ve done,” I said, my voice shaking with fear. The steps stopped. “You’re not allowed to touch me, and if you do, I promise that Bennett will make you pay in blood.”
When he chuckled, a shiver rolled down my spine. “You know me so well, pet,” he said, walking around to stand in front of me. “And despite knowing what I can do, you still choose to not listen to anything I tell you.”
I couldn’t deny that. If we were in this room, it meant he was about to punish me for disobeying him.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, dropping my eyes.
“Everyone’s always sorry when they’re caught,” he mused and walked away. I kept my mouth shut, figuring that talking back would only make it worse. “Tonight, I want you to really understand the life of a pet. I’m sure you saw the pictures of Stephanie and I. She was a good pet.”
He rummaged through something behind me, which set me on edge.
“I just wanted to get the blood off me,” I said.
He ignored my words. “When you’re a good pet, you get great things in return. Freedom to move around without supervision, whatever material thing you want, and… pleasure.”
I bit my bottom lip when his fingers circled my clit. What the hell? I’d defied him, and he gave me pleasure? He always had something up his sleeve, so it was only a matter of time before he stopped his actions and left me needy and desperate.
When his fingers stopped, something else took its place. Something cupped my clit, which made me nervous. But the moment he turned the device on, pleasure streaked up my spine every time a button clicked.
I couldn’t stop the moans of pleasure that left my lips, my body trembling as the device pushed me closer to a climax. Bennett slipped two fingers inside me and pumped them quickly. My entire body tingled, the pleasure too much to contain.
“Oh my God,” I breathed, my nails digging into the leather padding beneath me.
“Do you like that?” he asked, his voice low.
“Yes,” I moaned, dropping my head.
“Would you look at that?” he said. “I’m only getting started and look at you on the verge of coming.”
“Please,” I begged.
His fingers moved quicker as the device on my clit buzzed and lightly pulled harder until I exploded, my orgasmic moans and whimpers filling the hollow room. He removed the device from my clit and pulled his fingers from me.
I sucked in deep breaths as the tingling from my orgasm started to fade. Bennett’s clicking belt buckle brought my attention back to him. I heard it hit the floor, but I wasn’t sure if he took it off and dropped it or dropped his pants. My question was soon answered when his cock pressed into me, taking my breath away.
His strokes were fast and hard, the only sounds in the room were from his hips snapping against my ass. He reached around and caressed my clit with one hand as his other hand fisted my hair.
“See how good it could be when you’re a good pet?” he panted.
“Yes,” I moaned. “I’ll be good.”
If pleasure like this was what I had to look forward to, I could be obedient. But Bennett wanted me to be his complacent little doll with no opinions of my own, a yes woman who was at his beck and call whenever he wanted. I wasn’t too sure if I could do that.
Was that the kind of woman Stephanie was?
It was so confusing. You couldn’t fake the kind of happiness she portrayed in their photos. They looked like a normal couple and nothing like a captor and pet arrangement would probably look like. After seeing how happy Bennett was with her, Angelica’s words made sense.
She’d said that Stephanie almost freed them, and I couldn’t understand how a pet could have that kind of power. After seeing how in love Bennett was with her, however, it made sense how that could’ve been possible. I just didn’t think I could be that complacent to allow him to actually fall in love with me.
He jerked me out of my thoughts when he pounded harder into me, reminding me of my current situation. Bennett gripped my hair so tightly that pain prickled along my scalp, but the pleasure he put upon my body canceled out the pain. My body trembled as that familiar pressure built up within me, my second orgasm near.
Bennett let go of my hair and unsnapped the strap around my waist and neck that bound me to the leather contraption and pulled me upright. His hand circled around my throat, squeezing.
“Does it scare you when I choke you?” he asked as he pushed deeper inside me.
It didn’t scare me as much as I thought it would. There was something oddly erotic about how he squeezed my throat, asserting his dominance over me and my body.
“No,” I squeaked out.
A deep chuckle sounded from him, raising goosebumps on my skin. “Oh…you like being choked. Does my sexy little slut love it when I choke her?”
“Yes,” I moaned.
His strokes were longer, hitting a spot inside of me that I didn’t
even know existed. The pleasure heightened as he moved quicker, harder, practically making me choke on my moans as pleasure suffocated me.
“See what you could have if you were a good pet? You could have the world at your fingertips, anything you wanted,” he murmured in my ear as he continued his delicious assault within me.
Despite the pleasure he gave me, dread slithered up my spine. Despite him saying he’d give me whatever I wanted, he knew it didn’t include the one thing I actually wanted. He’d never give me my freedom; pure, unadulterated freedom with no tracking chip, living the life I wanted with the people I wanted to be around. I’d never get my old life back. So, it didn’t matter whether I was good or bad, he could never give me what I actually craved.
“Oh...Bennett,” I groaned when his hand moved from my neck to my clit again.
With his deep strokes and his fingers swirling around my clit, I came apart in his arms, my moan bouncing off the wall. Bennett came with a deep growl, squeezing my hips so tight that I was sure there would be bruises on them in the morning.
I collapsed on the bench, whimpering when Bennett pulled out of me. I was in such an orgasmic daze that I didn’t even feel him reattach the strap around my waist. He leaned forward and kissed my bare shoulder.
“You were such a good pet for me,” he murmured in my ear as he gently reattached the cool strap around my neck. My body warmed all over at his words as he nuzzled my skin. I was a good girl, and I had to admit that it felt good to please him. “Can my good girl do a favor for me?”
“Yes,” I murmured as he placed feather-like kisses over my skin.
“Pick a number between one and twenty,” he said before kissing my sensitive skin again. Fatigue settled over me from everything that happened, and I couldn’t get my brain to wake up and work.
“Twenty,” I said, unable to come up with anything else.
“Good girl,” he said and stepped away from me.
I dropped my head and let out a breath, my head finally clearing. I tried to sit upright, but I realized I couldn’t move again. I listened but was unable to hear anything in the room aside from my breathing.
“Bennett?” I called out.
“Did you like what happens to good pets?” he asked, his voice low.
“Yes,” I said, the hair on the back of my neck standing up. The fact that I was bound again made me nervous. After defying him, I didn’t deserve a reward of any kind. So, what the hell was he—
I gasped as a red-hot fire spread across my ass, the pain catching me off guard so much that it robbed me of my voice.
“Now that you know what good pets get, let me reintroduce you to what disobedient pets get,” he said and struck me again. “Two.”
I screamed when I finally found my voice, my ass and the back of my legs burning. It didn’t stop Bennett from counting. Was that why he’d asked me to pick a number?
“Please! I’m sorry!” I cried, but it didn’t stop him. I jerked against the restraints holding me in position, but they didn’t budge. Instead, they only rubbed against my skin, which only brought forth more pain and discomfort.
“Eleven,” Bennett said and struck me again. As I braced myself for the next one, he stopped and walked around to stand in front of me. “You chose the number twenty, not me.”
“You didn’t tell me what it was for,” I protested, angry that he’d brought tears of agony from me.
“If you don’t know what waits for you behind your answer—especially when it comes to me—then you may want to choose the lowest number possible,” he taunted. “Now are you going to take your punishment like a big girl, or are you going to keep screaming like the weak, pathetic slut you are?” Another tear rolled down my cheek as I glared at him. “Well?”
“I can take it,” I ground out, my voice shaky.
He firmly patted my cheek, almost to the point that it stung. “Good girl,” he said with a cheeky grin before moving away to resume his earlier position.
I bit my lip and forced myself to not make as sound as he dished out my last nine lashes, but I couldn’t stop the tears that followed. I was angry, almost wishing he hadn’t survived the shootout from the meeting. As if the evening hadn't been traumatic enough, he'd decided to end it by punishing me.
It didn’t matter that I had someone’s dried blood caked on my skin and in my hair, that I’d been violated and humiliated in front of a room full of men, or that I’d been terrified after the events that took place tonight. Bennett still ruled my world with an iron fist and would probably continue to do so until one of us died.
My skin was on fire when he finished. Any orgasmic bliss I may have had was long gone and forgotten about, almost as if it hadn’t happened. I didn’t say a word as he unfastened the Velcro straps and freed me from the bench.
“Get up,” he ordered.
I stood on shaky legs, the only physical sign that we’d had sex. The rest of my body hummed with pain, and all I wanted at that moment was to go to sleep. It was a shame when my dreams were the only escape I had from the hell I lived in.
He tightly secured my arm and led me out of the room. I didn’t recognize the hall we were in, but when it opened to the living room I’d explored earlier, it hit me that we were still in the safe house. This room was on the other side of the house, a part I didn’t have a chance to discover.
All of his men sat in the living room, looking at Bennett and I as he paraded my naked ass through the house to the master bedroom. I dropped my eyes as my cheeks warmed in humiliation. He never seemed to miss an opportunity to embarrass me in any way he could to further prove his point that he owned me, and there was nothing I could do about it.
When we reached the bedroom, he put me in the middle of the room and then exited without another word. The door clicked when he closed it, and suddenly everything was silent. I scurried over to the door and turned the knob, but nothing happened.
I let out an audible sigh that was only an octave away from a scream. That fucker locked me in here. No matter where I was, whether it was the mansion or a safe house, I was still a prisoner within any walls he owned. The cozy vibe of the home didn’t change anything. Bennett was just as much of a terror as he was back at the compound, which wasn’t a comforting thought.
I got into bed and pulled the blankets up to my chin, tears burning my eyes. I just wanted my life back. I just wanted to feel normal again. I wanted to go a day without pain or torture or being at someone’s beck and call. I just wanted all of it to be over.
I rolled onto my side, a picture of Stephanie on the nightstand coming into my line of vision. I picked the picture up and looked at it. I wondered if Bennett ever hurt her the way he’d hurt me at the beginning of their relationship. If they had a torture room like the one I'd just been in, what kind of nefarious tools and devices had he used to break her? How did he hurt her, and how in the hell did she fall in love with such a man?
But the sincerity in her eyes, the genuine happiness, and love that she had in her expression showed no past pain. I knew people could pretend about a lot of things, but there were some things you just couldn’t fake. After seeing the pictures of Bennett, it was almost as if the man I knew and the man Stephanie knew were two different people. Whoever that Bennett was had died long ago, only leaving a behind a shell of a man who had one goal: to destroy the souls of anyone who crossed paths with him.
I put the picture back on the nightstand and rolled onto my back. My plan was out the window. There was no way I could get him to be as vulnerable as he was with her, and there was definitely no way he’d fall in love with me, just like I couldn’t see myself falling for him.
How could I?
He’d taken away everyone I loved, everything I worked hard for, and he made it his mission to break me in any way he could. Something like that wasn’t forgivable. I couldn’t even pretend long enough to be a “good pet” because I couldn’t stop thinking about how wrong this was. There had to be a way to beat the devil at his own game. I
just had to figure something out.
Despite being fatigued, I still couldn’t sleep. The soft sheets irritated my sensitive skin, which made it hard to lie in bed. After a few useless hours of tossing and turning, I got up and walked over to the window. The full moon was the only visible thing in the sky, the light shining down on all the cars in the yard since Bennett and his goons had arrived.
I leaned against the wall, looking up at the sky. I thought back to how I used to go out onto my penthouse patio and sit in a chair and look up at the moon when I couldn’t sleep, wondering if my parents looked up at the same moon.
A small smile pulled at my lips at the thought of Heath finally coming out to join me when he realized I wasn’t bed. We used to always talk about our future together, about the beautiful children we’d have and how life would be so good.
There was a time when I became too busy for those quiet moments with him, when he’d try to pull me outside with him when there was a full moon, but I always put my work ahead of him.
A single tear slid down my cheek.
How foolish I’d been back then. I’d taken all those precious moments for granted and now they were gone forever. I forced myself to look up at the moon alone, in captivity, and with no dreams to dream and no aspirations to work toward. I was just a common whore for a psychotic fuck who wouldn’t be satisfied until I bowed to him and he controlled my soul.
A man suddenly appeared on the porch, closing the front door behind him. He bounced down the stairs and headed to one of the SUVs. I backed away from the window when the headlights popped on, shining directly into my window. I watched the lights on the bedroom walls, waiting as they washed up the wall and disappeared as the truck backed away from the house.
When the lights disappeared, I peeked back out of the window to see the truck going down the gravel road. I let out a small sigh. Jealousy crept its way into me. I’d give everything to be able to come and go as I pleased. I’d even take being able to go outside and sit in one of the rocking chairs. Ever since Bennett took me, I’d been trapped inside his mansion.
Rules of Bennett: The Complete Collection Page 14
