by Julia Sykes
“Good girl,” he said with approval. “Don’t try to bite me again, or I’ll find a better use for your pretty mouth.”
I sucked in a small gasp. He couldn’t mean… I’d never… I didn’t want…
His touch shifted, his hand leaving my throat so he could stroke his fingertips down the column of my neck. “Breathe,” he coaxed. “You spook very easily, cosita. But you will learn to crave me. All of me. My hand, my mouth, my cock. You will accept me.”
“I won’t,” I forced out on a whisper.
He frowned and opened his mouth to say something else that was probably equally terrifying. But a knock on the bedroom door interrupted whatever he was going to say. A masculine voice penetrated the door, speaking in rapid-fire Spanish. Andrés barked something back that I couldn’t understand.
Then his gaze fixed on me again. “I have business to attend to,” he told me. “We will work on this later.”
Work on this. Not talk about this. Whatever Andrés’ plan for me entailed, it didn’t involve my consent.
Chapter 4
He stared down at me, considering. I barely breathed. If I did, I’d inhale his purely masculine, purely intimidating scent. As well as the smell of my own confusing arousal. I didn’t understand why my body was reacting to his harsh treatment in this twisted way. Maybe it was a defense mechanism, an instinctive response designed to prevent damage to my sex if he did decide to take me against my will.
But that didn’t explain the strange tingling in my flesh, the way the blood pumped faster through my veins as I waited for his next move.
He blew out a sigh. “I need to get dressed,” he told me. “Can I trust you not to try to attack me again once my back is turned?”
I scowled at him, lifting my chin in defiance. I’d never stop trying to get away from him, even if I knew that physically besting him was next to impossible. I’d had a slim chance with my puny weapon, and now the delicate razorblade lay useless on the carpet.
But I wasn’t about to admit meekly that I’d be a good girl and stop trying to fight my way free.
His full lips twisted in a slight frown, dragging his scar down in a fearsome slash across his face. I dimly noted that he would be handsome, otherwise. Beautiful, even. His stubble-covered square jaw was strong and masculine, his cheekbones high and defined. Heavy dark brows drew together over his onyx eyes, and his black hair curled softly to frame his rugged features.
But the scar that marred his cheek… It was difficult to look at; vicious and violent.
Instinct urged my gaze to flit around the room in its familiar anxious pattern. But his eyes. I couldn’t look away. His pupils were dilated, fixed on me. A slender ring of rich chocolate brown surrounded them, nearly swallowed by the darkness of his stare.
A light shiver raced across my skin, but I remained locked in his steady gaze.
His frown eased, one corner of his lips ticking up in a perverse smile. In a shockingly tender gesture, he tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “So frightened, but so defiant. I’m going to have to restrain you, aren’t I?”
I jerked against his hold, but his grip remained iron around my wrists. “No.”
“So you won’t try to attack me as soon as I release you?” he asked, the twist of his smile letting me know the question was purely rhetorical.
I struggled again, and a frustrated noise that sounded a little like a growl slipped between my teeth. He laughed; a low, rumbling chuckle of dark amusement.
“Such an angry gatita. Maybe I should keep you in cage. Would that tame you?”
“I don’t need to be tamed,” I shot back, my anger bleeding over fear. “I told you the truth. I’m a federal agent. You said you believe me. If you do, then you know you can’t risk hurting me. My friends at the Bureau won’t stop looking for me, and if you’ve…” I couldn’t bring myself to say raped me. “If you’ve hurt me when they find me, they won’t show you any mercy. You have to let me go.”
His frown returned. “That’s up to my brother to decide. Until he does, you’re mine.” His fingers tightened around my wrists as he made the perverse declaration.
“You keep saying that,” I hissed out. “You’re fucking crazy, you know that, right? You’re—”
My next insult didn’t make it past my lips. He pressed his hand firmly against my mouth, his frown twisting with disapproval.
“You will learn to mind your language when you’re speaking to me,” he said coolly. “I need to get dressed, and you need to be quiet and behave while I’m gone. How comfortable you are while I’m out attending to my business is up to you. I can gag you and cage you, or I can leave you free to move around the suite. Make your choice.”
My eyes flew wide, finally leaving his face to search the room. Cage me? Surely he couldn’t be serious.
I sucked in a sharp breath through my nose. I’d been too distressed to notice before. Beneath the enormous four-poster bed were bars. Cushions and a blanket made it look like a second bunk beneath the big bed, but that was just my mind struggling to comprehend what I was truly looking at.
What kind of man had a cage under his bed? One that was clearly waiting to trap a frightened, unwilling woman?
“Choose,” he said, his voice gravelly. “Are you going to be a good girl for me, or am I going to have to cage you beneath my bed like a naughty gatita?” His cock jerked against my belly, and I shuddered.
I shook my head as best I could, but my movement was restricted by his firm hand on my mouth.
He studied me for a moment longer, then gave a small nod. The weight of his body finally left mine when he took a step back, and my shaky legs nearly collapsed without his support. He maintained his hold on my wrists above my head, keeping me upright until I managed to find my footing. Once I regained my balance, he lowered my arms, but he didn’t release them. He kept them trapped in one of his big hands as he moved back toward the bed, pulling me along in his wake.
“Please,” I gasped out, my eyes fixing on the cage as panic churned in my gut. “I don’t want to go in there.”
“I’m not going to put you in the cage,” he told me calmly. “You’ve already been punished for your transgressions. I told you: I might seem harsh, but I’m fair.”
“So you’re not going to lock me up?” I asked tentatively, my steps faltering as we reached the bed.
He smirked at me. “I didn’t say that.” He directed me to sit on the mattress and pressed my hands into my lap. “Put your hands on your knees, and keep them there. If you try to fight me again, I think you understand what the consequence will be.”
He finally released my wrists, and I slowly directed my trembling hands to my knees, pressing my palms against them and locking my fingers around my kneecaps. He curled two fingers beneath my chin, applying light pressure. I had no choice but to lift my head and straighten my spine.
“Shoulders back,” he ordered.
I complied, too intimidated to do otherwise. I’d been hunched over in a last-ditch attempt to protect my most vulnerable areas, but he demanded that I sit upright. In this position, my small breasts were exposed, and his eyes flared as he studied my naked body.
“Qué bonita,” he murmured. His fingers left my chin, and I started to slump again. He simply clicked his tongue at me and lightly gripped my jaw, returning me to the position he desired.
“Stay,” he commanded firmly, using the puppy-training voice again.
The ire that had burned through my veins earlier in response to that tone was utterly absent. Instead, a light shiver raced across my skin. He released my jaw, but I didn’t move. He didn’t have to touch me in order to restrain me. He’d thoroughly brought me to heel. He might have spanked me, but it was his unnerving calm and gentle but firm touches that were fucking with my mind. If he’d responded to my violence in kind, I might have maintained the determination to fight. As it was, his iron will kept me trapped as effectively as his strong hands.
He stepped back from me, but he didn’t take his eyes
off me as he crossed the short distance to a chest of drawers set against the wall a few feet away from the bed. He was right to watch me. If he’d taken his steady gaze off me, I would have bolted for the door. As it was, it took nothing more than his dark, stern stare to keep me locked in place where he’d left me.
He opened the top drawer and retrieved a thin strip of black leather, three small silver padlocks, and a length of delicate chain. My breath stuttered as he slowly withdrew the items, allowing me to clearly see what was in store for me.
“I don’t want that,” I managed breathlessly, my gaze locking on the collar. I’d longed for Dex to give me a collar, to love me and mark me as his own. I knew what it meant in the context of consensual BDSM: commitment, devotion.
With Andrés, it would be a symbol of subjugation. Everything I’d craved would be perverted the moment the leather touched my throat.
A single dark brow rose, and he lifted the collar for me to examine. “Does this scare you? It won’t hurt.”
“I know it won’t,” I began to babble. “But I don’t want it. Not from you.”
He closed the short distance between us. I didn’t budge from the position he’d dictated, even though I wanted to shrink away.
He studied me with renewed curiosity, his gaze sharpening on my features. “Not from me? Someone else has collared you before? Maybe you’re not so innocent.”
“No. He hasn’t. I just wanted… I don’t want this from you,” I finally managed to curtail the words that threatened to spill out of me. Andrés didn’t need to know about my heartbreak and secret longings for my best friend. No doubt, he’d find some way to use it against me.
His black eyes narrowed. “You lost the right to make demands when you tried to kill me,” he told me. “I can’t trust you not to attack as soon as my back is turned. So, I’m going to chain you to my bed, where you’ll wait for me like a good girl while I attend to my business.”
“I don’t want this,” I begged, still not daring to make a move against him.
“And I don’t want to have to punish you more severely than I already have. Not so soon. This is for your own good, Samantha.”
With that ominous declaration, he brought the collar up to my throat. I shuddered as the cool leather encircled my neck, but I remained in position, trapped by the looming threat of further punishment.
The collar tightened slightly as he slid the small padlock through the hasp at my nape, and the soft click as he secured it in place made my stomach clench. A single tear rolled down my cheek. This was all wrong. I’d fantasized about accepting a collar for years, and now one was being forced on me. I wasn’t willingly ceding my trust and promising my obedience; I was being conquered, rebuked.
He tenderly brushed the wetness from my face with his calloused thumb. “It’s not so bad, cosita,” he cooed, tracing the line of the collar with his free hand. “It’s very pretty on you.”
I closed my eyes, no longer able to look at him. This violation went somehow deeper than the sting of his hand on my sex. He was taking my most closely-guarded fantasies and twisting them into something dark and abhorrent.
I heard him sigh, and his touch left my face. The chain clanked, and a light weight tugged at my neck. Behind my closed lids, I could envision him locking the chain to the metal ring at the front of the collar. I didn’t have to see what he was doing to know what was happening to me.
His heat finally receded, but I could still feel his presence bearing down on me.
“Look at me,” he commanded softly.
My wet lashes fluttered open.
“This is what’s best for you,” he told me with that same calm assurance that so unsettled me. “While you’re with me, you’re my responsibility. I will take care of you, even if that means protecting you from yourself.”
“You’re not protecting me,” I hissed. “You’ve violated me. You’ve stripped me. You’ve spanked me.”
His lips thinned, and his scar deepened. “And if you knew what my brother had planned for you instead, you’d be worshipping at my feet right now and begging to be mine. But we’ll get to that later. For now, know that I’m the merciful alternative.”
“Rape isn’t merciful,” I flung at him.
He stared at me, his black eyes glinting with fury. Despite the ire in his gaze, he didn’t move to strike me or even raise his voice. Instead, it came out low and rough with a strange mix of emotions I couldn’t quite identify. “I haven’t raped you. I won’t rape you. You won’t be rewarded with my cock until you beg me to fuck you.”
“That will never happen,” I asserted, my eyes clashing with his. I’d already told him he was insane, but I didn’t bother saying it again. He was clearly too far out of his mind to care if I thought he was crazy.
His head canted to the side, considering. “Your pretty little pussy has already wept for me. Your body craves to be touched. To be marked and owned. I think you are innocent, Samantha. You don’t know what I’m capable of. What I can make you feel. Has any man ever made you come?”
My cheeks flamed, and my eyes dropped to the carpet. His words were shameful, and they shook me to my core. Because my body had reacted to him. The sensations might have been foreign to me, but I had to acknowledge that they’d been… intense. And not all unpleasant.
What is wrong with me?
“I see,” he said, reading the truth in my shamed silence. “Your first real orgasm will belong to me.”
I shivered, the air suddenly far too cool against my heated skin.
“Later,” he said, and I got the sense he was speaking to himself more than to me. His fingers trailed through my hair, but I cringed away, completely overwhelmed and at a loss for words. He withdrew his touch, and I heard his footsteps whispering across the carpet as he moved away. When I heard the bathroom door shut behind him, I gasped in a sharp breath and finally looked up from the floor.
Just as I’d suspected, he’d locked the length of chain to the front of my collar and affixed the other end to a ringbolt set into the bedpost. I again wondered what kind of man had such tools of depravity in his bedroom, waiting to restrain and punish an unwilling woman.
A dangerous man, I reasoned. A sadistic man.
Andrés didn’t strike me as sadistic, though. He’d spanked me and humiliated me, but he hadn’t truly hurt me. Remembering Cristian’s knife slicing into my skin, I glanced down at my injured collarbone. The cut had been cleaned and sealed with a clear, shiny substance. I realized Andrés must have glued the shallow wound closed after he’d drugged me. To spare me further pain.
I didn’t understand him at all. The way he touched me was sick, perverted. But he wasn’t slashing me to ribbons as his brother had intended. Should I be relieved that I’d been saved from torture and a gruesome death at Cristian’s cruel hands?
I shook my head sharply. Of course not. Despite Andrés’ claim that he wasn’t going to rape me, he’d still locked a collar around my throat and chained my naked body to his bed. There was nothing merciful about his promise of punishments if I didn’t behave.
Dex will find me, I reasoned desperately. Or Jason. They’ll work together. They’ll come for me. Of course they would. My friends wouldn’t rest until I was rescued.
But what would I have to endure before they arrived?
The bathroom door opened again, tearing me from my whirring thoughts.
Andrés stepped back into the bedroom, wearing nothing but a white towel slung low on his hips. His body was even more clearly on display than it had been in his sweatpants. I could see the dark trail of hair leading from his navel down to…
I sucked in a breath and tore my eyes away from the glimpse of his erection, straining against the towel.
“You can look at me,” he invited. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
A shrill, maddened giggle bubbled from my throat. “Right. Nothing to be afraid of. Only the huge, scarred, scary man who’s chained me to his bed.”
“Do my scars
bother you so much?” he asked, his voice dropping and becoming rougher. “Am I so terrifying to look at?”
I pressed my lips together, locking in a stream of frightened babbling. Every time I allowed myself to speak in fear, I revealed too much. Better to not say anything at all.
He let out a low, rumbling sound of displeasure. I cringed and kept my eyes trained on the floor, not daring to look at his terrifying arousal.
He didn’t speak again. I listened to the soft padding of his feet against the plush carpet as he moved through the room. The whisper of fabric against fabric told me he was getting dressed, but I still didn’t glance up in his direction.
After a few minutes, silence stretched between us, and I could feel his eyes on me. It finally ended when he grunted once and started walking again. I glanced through my lowered lashes and watched his shiny black leather shoes retreating across the room. When he opened the door that I’d assumed was the exit, I finally looked up in time to see his suit-clad form filling the threshold. Behind him, I got the brief impression of a lavish sitting room, and I realized there was more to his living quarters than this bedroom. He’d mentioned a suite. How many rooms would I have to get through before I reached freedom? What obstacles would stand in my way, once Andrés was gone?
Well, for one, there was the collar around my throat and the chain that locked me to the bed.
My short period of speculation for escape routes abruptly ended when he turned to look at me one last time. One corner of his lips ticked up in a satisfied smirk, and his dark eyes raked over me.
“Good girl,” he praised, his tone warm with pleasure and lilting with gentle mockery.
I realized I was still sitting exactly as he’d left me: hands on my knees, back straight, breasts thrust out. My jaw dropped, and he chuckled before closing the door behind him.
Too late, I crossed my arms over my chest and huffed out an angry breath. My show of defiance was wasted; Andrés was no longer there to witness it. And would I have dared to defy him if he were still in the room with me?
