My hunger destroyed all rational thought.
Only by the grace of an inner strength honed over years of surviving the worst prisons, of never revealing my reactions to those villainous wretches with whom I existed, only by that grace did I rein in my excitement.
I couldn’t let that part of me go. I wanted her to fight, but there was also the need to maintain control. Reasserting myself came far too easily.
“That’s five.” My blood boiled with the need to spin her over my knees and rain fire upon her perfect ass. Instead, I rubbed my palm against my thigh with anticipation for the burn to come.
“Five or five-hundred, it doesn’t matter.” Her tiny fists formed tight balls of impotent fury.
“Is that what you think?” It mattered. All of it mattered.
Her insolence surprised me nearly as much as it enflamed my lust.
“It’s what it is, Sir.”
There it was again, that intentional slur dripping all over the one word which embodied the respect I demanded. I should correct her behavior, but I held back, too curious about her state of mind. Where was this leading?
“I can only assume you missed our sessions together. Or maybe, you’ve grown to enjoy the time you spend draped across my knee. Is that what this is?”
“My father taught me never to jump to conclusions. He always said it was a long swim back.”
“And here I thought you were going to say how it made an ass out of you and me.”
“Touché. Are you familiar with The Phantom Tollbooth?”
Was I? That book formed the foundation of my childhood. Such incredible wisdom was held within its pages.
“It’s an unrecognized classic,” she admitted, “and I find myself there now.”
Her dialogue intrigued me. My intent had been to stun her with my question, force a knee-jerk response—the anticipated Yes, I want to live—and then proceed from there. Instead, she engaged me in literary dialogue about a book from my childhood.
Such an innocent time. That young boy would be disgusted with the man I became.
“During your absence, several things occurred to me.” She absently scratched at her arm.
“What’s that?” My stare stilled her nervous scratching and the muscles of her throat rippled as she swallowed. Good to see I still unnerved her. Whatever it was shifting between us, at least she still feared me.
“I jumped to conclusions about you,” she said. “I’m on the island.”
“Of Conclusions?”
“Yes, and I’ve been stewing about it for some time.” She plucked a lock of hair over her shoulder and ran her fingers through it, dividing it into three strands, then braiding it as she talked.
I gave a wave meant to encourage her. Inside, I shuddered. She had spent her week thinking about me.
She took a moment, as I eagerly anticipated the next words out of her mouth.
“You asked if I want to live. I’m supposed to say yes and wait while you present an impossible choice. A choice I can’t refuse after giving the obvious answer to an absurd question. Everybody wants to live.”
“Is that so?” She was wrong. I’d seen men beg for death and had been too close to that impossible choice myself.
Sometimes living became more torturous than death, but she hadn’t lived the life I had, seen the things I’d seen, or done the things I’d done.
“I thought about the Island of Conclusions all week because I didn’t have much else to occupy my time. You seem familiar with it?”
“I am, but I’m curious how it factors into our conversation.”
“Because I reached an epiphany while you were gone.”
“Is that so?” I studied her, the complete lack of fear in her expression made my heart swell with pride, even though I knew she trembled inside.
“Yes, it is.”
“Well, please, enlighten me.” I found her incredibly sexy with her spitfire attitude, spouting literature at me.
“As you know, from the book, every time you decide something without having a good reason, you jump to the Island of Conclusions. It’s easy to do. Far too easy. I did that with you.”
“I’m all ears. What exactly did you decide?”
“The author used it as a metaphor to talk about the importance of thinking before making assumptions and forming conclusions from them. He went on to say how easy it was to jump to a conclusion and nearly impossible to change your mind about something once that happened…”
“True, and?” I encouraged her to continue, finding her discourse fascinating. For the first time, there was no fear in her eyes. Instead, a burning excitement lit her up from the inside.
“The lesson is that when you jump to a conclusion you’ve made up your mind without all the facts. You’re not willing to change your mind, stubbornly sticking with the first conclusion, even after seeing evidence to the contrary. The only way off the island is to swim through a sea of knowledge. In the book, it’s described as a painful and arduous experience. Therefore, there’s the saying Don’t jump to conclusions because it’s a long swim back.”
“And what painful and arduous sea of knowledge did you swim through while I was gone?” I tapped my fingers on the armrest of the chair, delirious to hear what she had to say.
“You’re not a monster.” Her words fell with absolute conviction.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Is that what you think?”
“It’s what I know.” She placed her fist against her chest, giving it a light tap.
“And whatever led you to that?”
“I believed you’re a monster.”
“I am, or have you forgotten that I bought you. I own you. You’re my prisoner and I’m never letting you go.”
She steeled herself, taking in a sharp breath. “Yes, on the outside, that’s true, but after taking another look, and considering all the facts, I realized I was wrong. You’re no monster. You’re a good man.”
“You don’t know me at all.” She had no access to the outside world, and didn’t know my name. Clara had no idea what I was capable of. “Your reasoning is flawed.”
“If you wanted to hurt me, you would have already.”
The truth spilling from her lips wasn’t something I could acknowledge. I struck back with filthy lies.
“You’ve made a horrible mistake.”
She drew back and pulled her knees to her chest. The chair swallowed her fragile form.
I didn’t give her time to process what was happening, but rather let the beast inside a little time off its leash.
“I bought you. I own you. And I love that you’re mine. The smell of you is fucking intoxicating, and your screams make my dick hard. We’re going to explore that, Clara. Your screams drive me fucking insane.”
I never once took my eyes off her beautiful face, knowing my words would be the worst weapons in the arsenal I used against her. I advanced on her and placed my fingers on her knees. Squeezing until her eyes bugged out, I leaned close. My large frame dwarfed her slender form, and there was no place for her to go. She was cornered and defenseless.
“Your fear is a delicious nectar, a pheromone that attracts me like bees to fucking honey. I want to devour you. To taste you. To destroy you. Don’t think for a minute that you know who I am, or what I’m capable of. That you believe you’ve discovered some fundamental truth about me is wrong, and it’s going to hurt when you realize how wrong you are.”
She placed her hand over my chest, putting pressure on my breastbone. Soft, delicate, painfully feminine, she looked into my eyes and smiled with forgiveness.
“You’re wrong. I know it. My dear monster, you are so very wrong. You want me to believe the worst about you, but you care. You want to be good.”
“I’m a murderer and a rapist, Clara. That is the man I am. Your fate is in my hands and I’m not here to save you. It doesn’t matter what I want. I’m evil.”
“And yet…” Tears fell down her cheeks. “You haven’t hurt m
e.”
She was wrong. I’d already irrevocably harmed her.
“My poor slave, we haven’t even begun.”
Chapter 24
What was happening? I stared at him, tears streaming down my cheeks. Over the past week, in his absence, I dissected every moment we spent together.
I knew him.
I understood him.
He cared for me.
Was it possible I was wrong?
Had it all been a lie?
The monster he wished me to see disappeared beneath his soft caresses and the gentle regret filling his troubled gaze. When he thought I wasn’t looking, I saw him.
The real him.
He didn’t want to hurt me.
And yet…he did that and more.
Even as he presented an unquestionable truth, I refused to believe it.
“I have been soft on you, slave, but juice no longer flows in your veins. It’s time for the kid gloves to come off. There is one and only one reason for your continued existence.”
Kid gloves? If what he had subjected me to thus far were the kid gloves, what came next? I didn’t want to ask what that might be. There was no reason to say anything, but I couldn’t keep silent.
“And what is that…Sir?” The honorific slipped from my lips coated in venom. The world beneath my feet had shifted, but I was merely readjusting my stance. This new threat was one I would face head on because he would not defeat me.
His dark eyes spoke of great pain to come. Sorrow and sadness filled his every breath. I gripped his hands, needing to feel him, needing to reach out to him, needing to believe there was some good left in him. Some small part of me believed I could reach him this way.
A fool’s dream.
I would soon regret reaching out, but I couldn’t help myself.
Into this abyss I stepped.
And into that darkness, a fresh, new level of hell welcomed me.
I believed there was good left in him, yet each day he proved me wrong.
He shoved me to the floor, growling with unrestrained fury. Demons pulled at him. They raged in the corded muscles girding his frame. They whispered and spat in the space between us. As he fought his demons, I endured unspeakable torment, because holy hellfire, this turned me on.
All the chiseled and honed power of his body descended on me. He pressed me flat against the floor, obliterating the space between our bodies. My body yielded to his, submitted to his rampage, and craved more.
“This is what you are.” He gripped my ass, lifting my hips against his hard physique. “You’re mine. Mine to do with as I please. Mine to use. Mine to destroy. Do you feel me?”
The heat of his breath pushed past my cheek, and I splayed my fingers against the floor. I knew better than to fight. This had always been in my future. Somewhere along the way, I embraced and accepted my fate. But I no longer feared it. In some twisted way, I wanted this.
I belonged to him, and if he wanted to take what was his, then I would yield to his authority with every ounce of my soul.
With him leaning on me and crowding my space, my senses came alive. I couldn’t ignore the heat of his body pulsing above mine. Or the way his abs flexed beneath his shirt. My mind’s eye traced the landscape of corrugated muscles across his chest and explored the dips and ridges of his abs. This was a path I ached to take with my fingers, feeling the strength of his masculinity flesh to flesh.
I shouldn’t be thinking this. Not now. Not with him on top of me, but a surge of hunger raced through my veins. Powerful and all consuming, I wanted this. His lips on mine. His hands on my body, and not on all the places he’d touched before. I wanted him to touch the places he avoided, like my breasts, my pebble-hard nipples, and my throbbing sex.
This shouldn’t turn me on. I should be screaming in fear. But I wasn’t. I didn’t fear him, even if a part of my brain said I should. And I shouldn’t want this. Yet, I did. My entire body ached to be touched, to be taken, to be finally and irrevocably claimed.
Sudden, raw desire fired up nerves long since forgotten. He’d been right about one thing. No man ever made me feel like this. Wanton and hungry.
My skin felt like it had caught fire, the heat of his body pressed against mine, and all that sensation angled down to pulse between my legs. Shamefully aroused, I wanted every bit of this.
He pressed himself against me, and I fought the impulse to kick and buck. This wasn’t like before. My Monster ground his hips against me, pressing the full, hard length of his erection against me. Suddenly, he paused and started to move away.
I flung my hands around his neck, halting his retreat.
“Clara.” His hoarse voice thrummed in the air between us. “What are you doing?”
His dark masculine scent curled all around me, flooding my senses and driving me wild.
“Let me go,” he said.
He was the one using his bulk to cage me in and trap me against the floor, powerless to resist, and yet he asked me to let him go.
“Wait, please. Let me have this, if only for a second.”
“What do you think this is?” His brows furrowed and the gorgeous jade of his eyes darkened.
“I don’t know, and I’m terrified, but I just want to feel us for a second.”
It was a mistake to admit any feelings for him, but I couldn’t help myself. It may make me needy. Maybe, I’d gone insane, but I couldn’t help what I felt. I wanted him; however I could get him. If that came with tenderness or pain, I would deal with the aftermath later.
He braced himself on his arms, removing his weight from me and shifted forward as every cell in my body thrummed with an acute awareness of him. With a long, ponderous breath, he slowly eased his weight back on my body.
Chest to chest. Hip to hip. We fit perfectly together. We sank into each other and he leaned down, touching his forehead to mine.
The light brush of his knuckles along my jaw had me lifting my chin and parting my lips. Tiny shocks of electricity tunneled along my nerves and heated my skin.
Oh God, he was going to kiss me. And I wasn’t going to stop him. His eyes darkened as they dipped toward my mouth. I may want this, but it scared me. It terrified me.
“Do you need to fight me?” His lust-blown pupils glittered with intense arousal. “You don’t have to be responsible for what comes next. I can make this happen without your consent.”
I bit my lower lip, not sure how to respond. He was giving me an out, or at least an excuse. I could pretend I didn’t want this. But, I didn’t have to fight this. I didn’t have to fight him. I could simply embrace it.
His teeth sank into my bottom lip. A nip of pain to remind me who was in control. I didn’t care. I’d already surrendered. His breathing accelerated, matching my own as he angled in and crushed his lips against my mouth.
A sudden rush of warmth filled my chest. It felt like it was going to burst and I was one step from complete detonation. As the glide of his lips ripped apart the last of my defenses, my pulse galloped at breakneck speeds.
His fingers curled in my hair, tightening their grip. He used that grip to control my head, angling my mouth as he desired. He didn’t deepen the kiss, however. He didn’t use his tongue to sweep in and take what he wanted. Instead, he breathed the promise that he could.
When he decided to take me, it would be my undoing. Explosive and unstoppable, I wouldn’t be the same person after it was done.
One breath and then another, the world ceased to exist except for the space we occupied. Softly, comfortably, in synchronous rhythm, we did nothing but breathe and kiss. The gentle glide of his lips over mine hinted this would be the only gentleness I would ever get from him. But that was okay. I understood the kind of man My Monster was when it came to sex.
“You’re killing me.” The long, hardened length of him pressed against my belly, and he gave a low groan.
I didn’t want to kill him, or hurt him. I wanted to ease his ache, and perhaps explore a little of this thing blossoming
within me. I didn’t understand it.
He called me a natural submissive, but I had no frame of reference for what that meant. His need couldn’t be denied, it took center stage between us. But what about mine?
Hard. Insistent. Demanding. His power would change everything.
“We’re not doing this.” He lifted his forehead from mine and kissed the side of my temple.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not ready.”
“But I want this.” My heartbeat went right off the deep end.
There. I’d done it. I committed an unforgivable sin. I begged for it. I just gave him what he wanted.
“You don’t know what you want.” He shifted to the side.
“But…”
“Don’t be so willing to offer yourself to a monster. If you knew the truth about me, you wouldn’t be so eager to wrap your arms around my neck and beg for that kiss.”
I wanted much more than a kiss.
With a sigh, he pulled free of my grip and rolled away.
“I’m a monster, Clara. Never forget that. And never think to manipulate me with sex again.” His tone hardened, and I looked into the eyes of a stranger.
Not knowing what happened, or why, I understood one fundamental truth.
Something had shifted between us. He slammed a door down on his emotions, shut off his vulnerability, and hardened his exterior. The monster returned, and I suffered for the crime of wanting him.
Those next few weeks?
There was no mercy. There was no forgiveness. I barely caught my breath before he set upon me. Nothing I did was good enough, and he made me repeat the simplest acts, demanding perfection, poise, and undisputed submission.
Agony filled my every waking breath as he set upon me with every implement the darkness of my mind envisioned. I never believed him possible of the fury he rained down on me, and yet I endured every lash, survived each strike, and suffered through each painful bite of his whip.
Each day filled itself with protocols I must adhere too. Stringent tests of submission, which I failed over and over again.
I obeyed as best I could and struggled to please a vicious beast if only to escape pain. But every day, I failed.
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