by Julia Sykes
"Beautiful," he remarked, his voice a low rumble. He touched his fingers to my labia, stroking over my bare skin. My sensitive flesh danced and quivered. It was strange to feel so smooth down there, his touch gliding over my sex in a gentle caress. His fingertips grazed over my clit as he stroked me, and I couldn't quite manage to smother a small gasp as pleasure crackled through the little bundle of nerves.
He chuckled. "I think my kitten likes when I pet her pretty pink pussy."
"Stop," I begged, not daring to say I didn't like it. That would be a lie. I couldn't deny that it felt good when he touched me like this. But that didn't mean I had to admit it aloud. I didn't want to like his touch, but my body betrayed me.
"But I like petting your pussy, gatita," he said, not stopping his tender exploration of my bare flesh. It still stung slightly from the waxing, but my core fluttered as he continued to stroke me. "You were very well behaved for Lauren, weren't you? I think you've earned another reward."
"Is this what you did to her?" I hurled at him, my fury rising at the mention of the broken woman. "Beat her and manipulated her until her mind warped? Did she used to hate you before she started worshipping the ground you walk on? Did you—?"
My tirade ended when he abruptly flipped me over and settled his hand around the front of my throat. He didn't apply any pressure this time, but the warning was clear.
"I've never harmed Lauren," he said, his voice rough with his own anger.
A maddened laugh bubbled from my throat. "You've never harmed her? Just like you didn't harm me when you strapped me down and whipped me after mindfucking me into thinking I had a chance to escape? How crazy are you?"
Something cold and scary settled over him, his features shifting to a blank mask. "I never claimed to be sane. Do you think a normal man wants to take an innocent woman and turn her into his plaything? Do you think a good man wants to bend her will and shape her into his obedient little fucktoy?"
"So you..." I swallowed down the lump of horror in my throat. "You did do this to Lauren."
"No," he said, still frigid. "The Bliss broke Lauren, not me."
Tears burned at the corners of my eyes. "So you do want to break me," I whispered.
A frown tugged at the corners of his lips, and some of the ice melted from his gaze. "I told you, I'm going to tame you. I'm going to make you mine and teach you to obey. I don't want to see you broken."
"You told your brother you'd break me for him," I countered, fear pooling in my gut.
His frown deepened to a scowl. "My brother likes to break things. He likes to take things that aren't his and shatter them. If I left you with him, he'd torture you until he discovered what you love most in the world. Then he'd make you watch while he destroyed it. Is that what you'd prefer? That I hand you back over to him?"
Dex. Dex was the only person left that I cared about. My parents had died in a car crash when I was twenty-three. They'd been the only family I had, until I’d met my best friend.
"No," I said faintly, a vision of Cristian's knife slicing into Dex's throat flashing across my mind. I couldn't let that happen, no matter what it cost me.
Andrés wiped away the horrified tears that had spilled down my cheeks.
"I'm not going to let him break you," he promised. "He'll never touch you again. You're mine now. I will be harsh with you. I will hurt you sometimes. And I will enjoy your pain. But I will never cause you harm, not to your body and not to your heart. Do you understand?"
I closed my eyes and turned my face away from his touch. He was basically telling me that I had to sacrifice myself to save Dex. It was a sacrifice I'd make without a second thought, but that didn't mean despair didn't swallow me up as I chose to do so.
“I can see that you don’t understand,” he said with a sigh. “But you will. It won’t be so bad, cosita. I’m not so bad.” He murmured the last so softly, I barely heard it.
The mattress shifted, and I listened to him moving away from me. I waited until the door closed behind him before I started crying in earnest. I’d do anything to spare Dex pain, but this? Whoring myself out to a man who admitted he enjoyed hurting me? I wasn’t sure my mind wouldn’t break in the process, no matter what Andrés said.
I can do this, I told myself. I can be the hero. Heroine. I can keep Dex safe.
I’d find a way out of here somehow. If I got to safety, Cristian couldn’t hurt me. He couldn’t threaten Dex. I’d save myself and my best friend. I just had to survive whatever Andrés had in store for me until I was able to devise a way to escape. I had to avoid being turned over to Cristian at all costs. Dex’s life depended on it.
Chapter 11
“You’re sad,” Andrés observed, tucking my hair behind my ear in a perversion of affection.
“I’m not sad,” I countered. “I’m pissed.”
“You’re not angry.” He cupped my cheek so he could study my expression more carefully. “My angry gatita is cute and fierce. You’re sad.”
I huffed out a breath. “I’m bored,” I admitted. I’d spent the entire day alone, with nothing to do but mull over my desperate situation. It hadn’t exactly been good for my headspace. Lauren had returned briefly to bring my lunch, but other than that short visit, I’d been on my own. It had been dark outside for ages before Andrés had finally returned.
“You keep me chained up. I can’t even use the freaking bathroom. Do you know how fu—” I caught myself before the curse word left my lips “—messed up that is?” I finished.
One corner of his lips tilted in a crooked smile. “There’s my angry gatita,” he said with satisfaction, ignoring my accusations. “I was worried about you.”
“If you were worried about me, you wouldn’t leave me alone for hours with nothing to do. I’m going crazy here. Solitary confinement drives people crazy, you know that, right? Especially people like me.”
He frowned slightly. “What do you mean, people like you? The purpose of leaving you like this is so you’ll wait for me. You’ll depend on me for everything. It helps you feel my control, even when I can’t be here with you.”
I shoved at his chest, but of course I couldn’t push him away. It was more a token show of anger than anything else. I’d already given up on physically besting him.
“Do you know how many thoughts I have? Like, all at one time? If I don’t have something to focus on, they overwhelm me. I can’t live like this.”
“It’s only been two days,” he pointed out. “You’ll adjust.”
“I won’t,” I asserted. “You don’t know me at all. I’ll go nuts if you keep leaving me like this.”
His frown deepened. “If you’re trying to manipulate me into letting you walk freely around the suite, it’s not going to work. That’s a privilege you have to earn.”
“I’m not trying to manipulate you,” I asserted, although now that he said it, I realized it would have been a good try. “That’s what you do, right? Manipulate people. Mindfuck them. Well, I’m not like you. I’m telling you the truth. I can’t handle this.” I tugged at the collar for emphasis. I was no longer chained to the bed, but he’d left the collar locked around my throat while he held me in his lap for this maddening conversation.
He studied me for a long moment, then his frown finally eased. “No. You’re not like me. I’ll take this into consideration.” He brushed a feather-light kiss across my forehead. “I think I have a way to calm that busy brain of yours. You were so good accepting your punishment last night and behaving for Lauren today. I never did give you your reward.”
“I don’t want it. Having you touch me is not a reward.”
“You’re still upset,” he noted. “This will help you calm down. And before you keep arguing with me, I’ll promise that I won’t make you come, unless you ask me to. Does that make you feel better?”
I eyed him warily, not trusting him for a second. “What are you going to do to me? I don’t want to go back into that torture room.”
“It’s not a tortu
re room,” he said calmly. “But no, we won’t go in there. I want you to relax, not get more worked up. No more questions,” he announced before I could come up with another rebuttal. “Come with me.”
It wasn’t like I really had a choice, because he simply picked me up and carried me. He kept doing that, like I weighed nothing more than a doll. I was a toy he could pick up when he wanted to play with me.
I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled up at him.
The bastard laughed. “You really are cute when you’re angry.”
“You think I’m cute when I’m angry. You think I’m pretty when I cry. You’re messed up, you know that, right?”
“Yes, so you’ve told me,” he said, still amused rather than disturbed by my barbed comments. “I’d like to see you smile, too, but I don’t think that will happen for a while yet.”
I gaped at him. “You think I’m going to smile for you?”
“I think you’ll settle down and find a way to be happy with me. Once you adjust and accept your place here.”
“Accept my place?” I demanded, slapping his chest in a burst of anger.
He clicked his tongue at me. “That wasn’t very nice. But you’re not trying very hard, either. You’re upset, and I’m going to make you feel better.”
“Short of releasing me, that’s not going to happen,” I informed him. “Do you really think I’m going to feel better about being trapped with a sadistic psycho?”
“Mind your tongue,” he said sharply. “I’ve indulged you too much. You will speak to me with respect.”
“Right,” I said, unable to bite back the sarcasm. “You’ve been so indulgent with me. Beating me, violating me, chaining me up. You’re so nice,” I finished spitefully, using Lauren’s description of him.
He set me on my feet and stared down at me, his dark eyes curious rather than reproving. “You really can’t stop yourself, can you? You’re not capable of holding in your thoughts, even knowing they could get you into trouble. I think a little discipline will be good for you. You can learn some self-control over these tics of yours.”
I instantly clapped my hands over my bottom. “I don’t want you to punish me again.”
He smoothed his hand over my hair, reassuring. “Discipline doesn’t necessarily mean punishment. Now, try your best to be quiet and stay right here.”
He stepped away from me, and I finally was able to assess where he’d placed me. We were in the sitting room, and he’d positioned me in the farthest corner from the door to the torture room. Relief washed through me, strong enough to make my fingers tremble. I hadn’t realized just how much fear was building in my chest until it finally released. He really wasn’t going to take me in there.
But what was he going to do to me? He still hadn’t said, and I knew he wouldn’t. I’d just have to watch and wait and hope it wouldn’t be too painful.
He was a few feet away from me, drumming his fingers on the highly polished mahogany desk. On the desk was…
I lunged for the laptop without thinking. I caught sight of his sharp grin just before he caught me around the waist and manhandled me down onto the carpet. He placed one hand between my shoulders, easily pinning me down on my front while he opened one of the desk drawers. I thrashed and cursed, but he quickly secured my arms behind me by locking handcuffs around my wrists.
“Do you just have kinky shit stashed everywhere?” I demanded on a growl. I’d thought I was safe from his perversions in this room, but I’d been wrong.
“Of course,” he replied coolly. “Settle down. This won’t hurt.”
“You think I’m going to settle down when you basically just taunted me with a laptop? Do you know how starved I am for the internet? For technology? You don’t even have a real clock, for god’s sake, and you’ve been hiding a laptop from me?”
His hand curled around my nape, pressing my cheek down against the carpet and stilling my shaking head.
“I need my laptop for work,” he said calmly. “I’m going to take care of some business, and you’re going to be quiet and look pretty for me while I do.”
“Work,” I said scornfully. “You mean drug trafficking and selling women.”
His fingers tightened around my neck. “Be very careful what you say next, Samantha,” he warned. “I know you struggle to control your tongue, but I’m warning you to try very hard. I don’t want to punish you now, but I will.”
“But it’s what you do,” I said, truly unable to stop myself. “You and your brother. That’s your business.”
“I take care of a lot of things for my brother,” he said, his voice still rough with anger, but his grip on my neck didn’t tighten. “I do all the things he’d rather not bother with; I deal with the boring details. I keep things running. And yes, what you’ve accused me of is part of it.”
“But you don’t like the Bliss.” The words popped out of me as I remembered what Lauren had told me. Now that I thought about it, Andrés had seemed almost regretful when he’d told me Bliss had broken Lauren. And he’d expressed distaste for drugging me to make me more cooperative.
He was silent for a moment, his hands unmoving on my body.
“What I like or don’t like about my business isn’t your concern,” he finally said. “I need to work, and you need to be quiet. Your runaway mouth is very distracting.”
“But—” My rebuttal was smothered when the now-familiar rubbery taste of the ball gag hit my tongue. I tried to twist my face away, but that only pressed it deeper into my mouth as he buckled it in place.
His hand settled against the side of my head, pressing my cheek back against the carpet as his fingers massaged by scalp.
“This isn’t to punish you,” he said gently, as though it made a difference. I was still rendered silent and helpless, no matter what his intentions. “You can’t control your tongue, so I’ll control it for you. You’ll be much calmer now.”
I tried to tell him there was nothing calming about being gagged, but my words were nothing but a garbled growl.
“There’s no need to keep arguing with me,” he said in a reassuring tone, running his fingers over my hair. “There’s no point trying to fight. Surrender. You’ll feel much better. We’ll calm that busy brain of yours.”
I wiggled beneath him, but with my arms bound, there was little I could do to escape.
His touch left me, and he retrieved something else from the desk: a huge coil of rope. “I think you’ll like this, my kinky virgin.”
He grasped my right thigh and lifted it off the floor, wrapping the rope around it. I tried to kick out at him, but he grabbed my flailing ankle and forced me to bend my knee. He wound more rope around my calf and connected it to the bindings around my thigh, pulling tight so my heel touched my bottom.
When one leg was fully restrained, he grasped my shoulders and pulled me into a kneeling position. I would have tried to push to my feet, but with my leg bound securely beneath me, that was impossible. He continued to bind me, drawing the rope around my waist and looping it between my thighs, framing my sex. I shuddered as he teased around my bare flesh, trying to ignore the growing wetness on my labia.
He tied off his work and moved up my body. More rope wound around me, passing beneath my breasts, wrapping behind my back, and coming back over my chest. He looped it over my neck and back through the lengths that framed my breasts. He pulled it taut, and the rope tightened around my sensitive flesh, squeezing my breasts lightly and making them stand out from my body on lewd display.
They rose and fell rapidly as I began to draw in panting breaths. My skin tingled everywhere the slightly rough fibers trailed across my flesh, and my nipples tightened to hard buds as the pressure of the rope made my breasts feel heavy and full.
He lightly brushed his fingertips across the soft swells, and electricity danced across my skin. I groaned, and my head dropped back as I mindlessly arched into him, pressing toward his touch.
I found myself caught his black stare. He loomed ov
er me, a darkly amused smirk tilting his lips.
“You like being bound, don’t you, kinky virgin? Has anyone ever tied you up before? Of course not,” he continued before I could even shake my head in response. He traced the line of my lower lip with his thumb, and I shivered as my sensitive nerve endings jumped to attention. “So innocent,” he rumbled. “And so beautiful in my ropes.”
I blinked hard, struggling to maintain my wits when my entire body was singing with awareness. I should be struggling, at the very least. Not leaning into his hands. I should…
Oh!
He fully cupped my breasts and caught my tight nipples between his fingers, gently pinching them. My eyes practically rolled back in my head, and I moaned as pleasure washed through me.
“That’s better,” he praised. “You don’t have to fight me. You don’t have to worry or think.”
I shook my head, trying to clear it. Of course I had to worry. My captor had me bound and at his mercy again. If he chose to hurt me, there would be nothing I could do to stop him.
But he wasn’t hurting me.
God, his hands on my breasts felt so good…
I was barely aware that he’d unlocked the handcuffs with one hand while continuing to play with my nipples with the other. The cuffs fell away, and he directed me to bend my arms behind me, so I grasped my elbows. He tied my hands in place, somehow threading the rope around my arms through the chest harness so it drew even tighter around my breasts.
My breathing stuttered, and my clit began to throb in time with my heartbeat.
His hands closed around my shoulders, and I realized I’d been swaying. I felt dizzy and warm, disoriented. It should have been disconcerting, but I was having trouble focusing on anything but the feel of the braided ropes caressing my skin, manipulating my blood flow to the most sensitive parts of my body.
He placed one hand on the top of my head, lightly gripping my hair to steady me. With the other, he pressed a button that was set beneath the desk. A soft whirring sound caught my attention, and I looked up, past Andrés.
