Tears spilled from my eyes because I couldn’t deny what he said.
“Today, you’ll taste the cane for the first time. You can’t hide your thoughts or feelings from me. I know what happens when I spank you. It arouses and excites you as it does me.”
“You’re wrong.”
He was insane. I had to remember how monstrous this man could be.
“There’s a synergy at work between us, each of us feeding the needs of the other. Soon, you’ll understand how pain and pleasure are merely complementary sides of a very unique and precious coin.”
“I’ll never believe that. I was abducted and sold, but that doesn’t make me your slave.”
“You hold on to that belief with great tenacity, Clara, but you’re slowly realizing it’s not true. Belief will come later. First, you must accept this is your new life.”
My skin tingled. His words were weapons used to confuse me. I didn’t understand the control he exercised and cursed my body for responding to his power because he stoked a crazy need inside of me that made no sense.
I needed serious counseling because he was right. He was right about too many things.
“You’re wrong.” My defiance felt flat and insignificant. “I’ll say what I must. Do what I must. But I will never embrace…this.” Whatever this was.
Oh hell, I knew exactly what this was. I was being brainwashed into believing this shit meant something to me.
Be smart!
To hell with being smart. I was ready to dig deep and find the strength I needed to survive this hell. This man stole my freedom, then subjected me to a world which didn’t make sense. I shouldn’t become aroused when he spanked me, but I could no longer deny how my body responded. It had betrayed me, and he took notice.
My emotions tangled in knots I could no longer unravel. Somewhere between hatred and need, I struggled to simply despise this man.
That part within me, which yearned to please him and ached to be touched by him, became my worst enemy. Each time he touched me, my skin burned with a ravenous hunger. That was something I could no longer allow. But how to steel myself against his charms?
“I’m not wrong, but I’m also in no rush.” He paced in a circle around me. “All good things take time, and you, my dear Clara, are worth an eternity. Now, rise and bend over the edge of the bed. Don’t move. I’ll return with the cane, and while I’m gone think about what this means.”
Think about what this means? Was he crazy? I knew the answer to that. My Monster was certifiably insane. Pleasure and pain were not complementary sides to any damn coin I knew. He was wrong. He had to be wrong. Yet, a darkness whispered within me.
It sided with him.
My hands curled, and I resisted the urge to throat punch him as I rose on shaky legs and went to lean over the edge of my bed. I could beg for this not to happen, but that would be wasted breath.
What would it achieve?
Nothing.
The result would be the same, more pain; and for once I realized I didn’t fear it.
If he was certifiable, I was already insane.
I bit my lips as I waited, my thoughts in a tailspin. Canes were vile things. Every girl these days has seen the movie, read the book, or talked to her adventurous friends. I was in serious trouble if he felt it was time to introduce a cane.
He kept me waiting for several long minutes, making me wish I was back on that floor. Normally, when he left the room and reentered, I would have to stop whatever I was doing and assume the Welcome Pose when the lock cycled. I found it difficult not to take to my knees. I had been that well trained.
I almost fell to the floor when he jerked me against his chest. His breath whispered across my cheek as he ran his nose from the tip of my earlobe, along my cheek, then dipped down to my neck. He traced out the line of my collarbone with his lips.
In all our time together, he had yet to force himself on me. Not once had he tried to kiss me. Not that I hadn’t dreamt about it a thousand times. I wondered what he would taste like and whether our first kiss would be a gentle seduction, slow and tentative, or a brutal taking which would leave me breathless and aching. Or destroy me entirely.
His breath increased the fluttering of my heart. If it beat any faster, I would die.
I wanted to react to his touch, run my fingers through his hair, press my hands against his chest, and push my hips against his, but I barely breathed. I didn’t dare move. Insane urges rose within me, and I swallowed them down. This was my new strength, stamping out the traitor within me who craved his touch.
His hand wrapped around my waist. While his fingers splayed across my belly, his thumb slipped between my breasts, pressing against my breastbone. An inch and he would be cupping my breast, but he didn’t breech that barrier. With a nip to my shoulder, he released his hold on me. Instead of my belly, his hand pushed between my shoulder blades and forced my cheek against the firm mattress.
“You feel it, don’t you?” His voice turned raw and husky. Ravenous and barely restrained. “The connection between us grows stronger with each day.”
My knees wobbled, and I shook my head. I couldn’t answer that question and silently begged that he wouldn’t force it from me.
“Five strikes, my dear Clara. The cane will bite. Keep your hands pressed beside your head. If you try to block the cane with your hands, it can cause serious, and potentially permanent, injury.”
“You don’t have to do this.” I couldn’t help it, I begged for leniency.
“You know I must. Rules bind us. I make them, enforce them, and you obey them. In this we establish trust, assume our roles, and with a surety of fate, become a loving Master and devoted slave.”
“Please…” Tears leaked from my eyes and snot dribbled from my nose. The cane terrified me. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t—
Crack!
Blinding, white-hot agony lit my entire world. I screamed and bolted up from the bed. My hands covered the line of fire on my ass.
The strength of his hand pressed me back into position.
Then something horrible happened. That initial pain redoubled, then doubled again. Magnified ten times, blinding pain coursed through my body.
“The curse of the cane,” he said, “is a double-edged beast. Sharp, the initial strike grabs attention, but the secondary burn as blood rushes back is an exquisite torture. You have four more.”
“No. Please no.” I prayed for leniency, wishing he would grant me a reprieve.
He did not.
Screams had passed my lips many times before when he spanked me beyond my endurance, but this was the first time he made me howl. After the fifth, and final strike, blubbering cries filled my world, and I sobbed against his chest as my ass throbbed.
Normally, he soothed the ache with his hand, a slow rub which made the burn ease. This time, he rocked me in his lap as I cried until the tears no longer flowed.
I gripped the fabric of his shirt and wiped my face on his chest. My sobs quieted, and I clung to him, seeking reassurance in the arms of my tormentor. The thing was, I felt oddly comforted by his presence.
After so long, I still had no idea what his name might be. Why did he withhold it from me?
My Monster was a man I didn’t understand. With time, my breathing evened out and the tension in my limbs eased. I needed another massage.
“It’s been a difficult day, sweet Clara.” He walked me to my bed and pulled back the covers. “I think you need to rest and time to think about what happened.”
“You hurt me.” I stretched out my legs and curled my toes. My ass throbbed, but the ache was tolerable now.
“I know.” He sounded oddly out of sorts.
Then I realized something. The entire time he’d held me something was missing.
“You aren’t aroused.”
“I didn’t enjoy that. It’s my hope I’ll never have to do that again.”
“You didn’t have to do it in the first place.”
He suck
ed in a deep breath and then blew out slowly. “Perhaps, you may be right. I pushed too hard today, seeking something I needed. I ask your forgiveness.”
“My forgiveness?”
“You’re not where I thought you were, and I shouldn’t have pushed. We’ll get there, Clara. I won’t force things between us. I’m sorry for using the cane. You weren’t ready for it.”
If it was possible for a person’s mind to truly explode, mine just did.
“I have business I must attend to which will take me from you for some time. Mr. Chambers will provide for you in my absence.” He headed for the door. “When I return, we’ll discuss what happened and why it was necessary.”
The door lock cycled opened. With my mouth agape, he disappeared into the hall.
What the hell just happened?
Chapter 22
With my heart pounding, I couldn’t escape fast enough and raced out of Clara’s room.
I fucked up and blew all the progress I made with her. If she didn’t hate me, she sure as shit did now after that colossal fuckup. I released my restraint, thinking I could control the beast.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!
As the effects of the heroin slowly left her body, I used the power of my voice, and the healing touch of my hands, to coax her into accepting me. We talked. Shared our days together. Nonthreatening hours where I respected her boundaries, building trust between us, and getting her used to my presence.
Her first spanking had been hard and meant to grab her attention. The illusion had to be real or we would both be fucked. All the others? I used those to gauge her potential.
What I discovered rocked me to the core because Clara responded. She warmed up to my touch, and ever so slowly let down her guard.
We might be Master and slave, roles I forced upon us, but in the cracks of that rigid hierarchy, we were becoming two people searching for a connection.
The game I played wasn’t dangerous. It was certifiably insane.
In addition to working on my relationship with Clara, the last week found me slowly inserting myself back into a dark and dangerous world.
With the help of the connections Chambers brought to the table, as well as those I formed during my incarceration in Thailand, I successfully reinstated myself into a world full of murderers, thieves, and worse.
Into this, I would bring sweet, innocent Clara, showing her off to despicable men. It gutted me knowing this would be what I subjected her too, especially after gaining her trust.
It was also for those reasons that I didn’t let up on her training. For her safety, her reactions had to be real. Whether she loved or hated me didn’t matter. Clara was a pawn, or rather a tool I would hone to a razor-sharp edge.
To that end, I caught her attention with that first spanking, something far harder than I would have normally given a submissive. But all the punishments which followed had been orchestrated with one goal in mind. Clara must cleave herself to me, and I almost had her on the cusp of handing me her submission. She didn’t realize she was falling for me.
Then I fucked it up.
I tossed all our progress out the window because I needed to hear her admit the growing truth between us. I pushed and she pushed right back. That forced my hand. It demanded a punishment neither of us was ready for.
My steps echoed down the hall as I stormed into the den.
“Sir?” Chambers bounced to his feet when I entered. “Is everything okay?”
I ran a hand through my hair. My skin buzzed from the fury of the cane and my nerves rioted with the need for more. The beast raged against me.
“I lost control.”
“Sir?” Confusion spread across Chambers’ features and his brows knitted together, perhaps trying to puzzle out what I meant. He would soon find out.
Clara would have marks for days. Her ass, and the backs of her thighs, bore the brunt of my fury. The beast’s feral hunger snapped, and I realized how easy it would be to lose complete control.
I’d done that once before. One act changed the entire course of my life. What I feared wasn’t that I would hurt Clara, but rather how far I would go if the beast within me ran free.
It wasn’t if, but when.
I was so fucked.
She wouldn’t become one of my victims. That would never happen.
“I need the plane prepped and fueled.”
“Sir?” Chambers gaped at me. “The meeting isn’t until tomorrow.”
“I leave now.” I stomped to the large mantle and stared into the roaring fire. I needed to burn like the fire.
The flames twisted as they danced along the log, consumed the burning wood. Greedy, evil things, they ate at the log without care for the complete destruction their hunger would cause.
Would I do that to Clara? Consume her until nothing was left?
“Sir, will Clara be joining you?”
“No.”
“That is not the plan.” He braced his arms on his hips and gave me a hard look.
“I’ve made my decision.”
Throughout this entire week, I had been sending feelers out to old contacts, men who kept me alive for no other reason than what they could collect in the future. With my escape from Thailand, and subsequent faked death, their plans to use the wealthy foreign boy died.
The only issue was that I hadn’t died. That action created a cascade of events which eventually landed me in an American prison. It also brought proof of life to those overseas who wished me truly dead.
Perhaps I was fated for the devil’s path?
Whatever the end result, my father’s revenge against Jake and Kevin revealed my existence to contacts across an ocean. If I didn’t reach out to them first, they would seek retribution. A time would come when I could no longer ignore the debts I owed.
This liability was one I intended to turn into an asset. I would strike first.
Perhaps I should thank Kate and her cockeyed plan. Rather than waiting for debts to be called in, I reached out to men who wanted me dead, but saw more value in keeping me alive.
The second of several meetings had been arranged for tomorrow and the plan had been to have Clara by my side. Everything would have been perfect, except for my royal fuck up.
Clara’s trust lay shattered and broken like the welts marring her fair skin. There was no way I could make her do the things which turned even my stomach.
I needed an alternate plan.
Sixteen hours later, I sat in a Singapore hotel, sipping whiskey with the father of the girl I had killed a lifetime ago. He owned my life, and if I was to move forward with any of my plans, it began with him.
“Your message caught me by surprise.” Wu tapped his fingers on the table. “Contacting me is a death wish.” Wu lifted his glass and swirled the amber liquid inside. He tilted his head, sniffing his whiskey, then turned his black, angular gaze on me. “But I have to say, I’m curious. You have balls.”
“For what I took from you, my life is yours. I won’t run from my fate, although, I would choose another path.”
There had been rumblings about Wu, something I hoped to turn to my advantage. I took his daughter and killed her, but if what I heard was true, someone had taken something just as valuable from him. My life was on the line, but so was the fate of his children, twins I hoped to use to my advantage.
“And what do you expect?” He cocked his head, studying me. “Forgiveness for your sins? A swift death?”
“I’ve earned none of those.”
“But you want them.” His stubby fingers rapped the table sending a low drumming through the wood to my palms.
There was no purpose in lying; not to this man. Our conversation may look civil, the two of us occupied a booth in the far back of the bar at my hotel, but his men surrounded us. Unscrupulous men sworn to enact Wu’s justice, they stroked the barrels of their guns, eager to take me out and garner favor with their boss. None would act without his consent, which was the only reason I still breathed.
My chances of walking out alive were much less than getting carried out to the trash in a body bag, but I had hope. Honor meant more to men like Wu than settling old scores. I appealed to that now.
“I seek penance for my sin against you. If granted such a thing, I’ll find what I seek.”
“And what is that?” He tapped the black, lacquered tabletop.
“Salvation.”
“I did not take you for a man of faith.”
“I’m not, but I believe in a higher power, as well as Heaven and Hell. I have both feet firmly planted in the bedrock of Hell, but that is not the man I want to be. I wish to walk another path, perhaps to even restore my honor.”
“You’re looking for atonement? You have lofty goals for a murderer.” He leaned forward. “I have kept up with you. When news of your death reached my ears, I did not find peace. All I felt was rage because you deserved to suffer much more. When I learned you still lived, all I could think about was revenge. You’ve given me an incredible gift delivering yourself and saving me the trouble of hunting you down.”
“I did not come here to die.”
“That’s unfortunate because I intend great suffering before you leave this world. I’m sure Hell eagerly awaits your arrival.” He leaned back and flagged the waitress over to refill our drinks. “But, not just yet. I intend to savor this.”
Men trembled around the power Wu commanded. They feared him. I met his stare with confidence. He could end my life with a simple flick of his finger. Honestly, I had nothing to lose. Death would be a welcome release from the hell I found myself in, but I was not yet done.
“I have something you need.”
Chambers’ boss had uncovered an unfortunate series of events recently affecting Wu’s personal life. My Thai contacts confirmed the rumors. That led to a conversation with Chambers’ boss. Xavier didn’t like my plan, but I didn’t care. We were doing this my way.
“You have nothing I want.” Wu pressed his lips together, and the drumming of his fingers stopped.
“I didn’t say it was something you wanted. I have something you need.”
Embracing Fate: A Captive Hearts Novel Page 18
