Chapter Sixteen #4
Not catching my eyes, he slowly withdrew and lowered my legs off his hips. Hovering my feet above the ground, he waited to see if I had my balance before dropping me like he didn’t care at all.
A heartless, ruthless mask fell over his face as he spun around, bare-assed and wet-cocked, and raised his arms at the men still watching.
“I can safely say that jewel is now mine.”
Some men chuckled. Another couple raised their glasses. “Was she worth two mil?”
“You better ride her again, newbie,” a redhead with a trimmed beard said. “You didn’t exactly last long. Need to get your money’s worth.”
“Oh, I intend to get my money’s worth, don’t you worry about that.
” Henri laughed and grabbed his glistening erection.
“For the rest of the weekend, you’ll see me balls deep inside her, and if I catch any of you tasting what’s mine, I’ll show you I don’t share with toys that cost me so much fucking money. ”
Another chorus of laughter.
Victor slowly clapped like a proud father. “How does it feel to finally fuck someone completely at your mercy, Henri?”
“How does it feel?” Henri let himself go and spun back to face me.
The dead look in his eyes. The cruelty on his face.
If I didn’t trust the secrets between us, I would’ve tried to crawl into the pole and disappear.
With a wicked grin, he said, “It feels fucking powerful, that’s how it feels. So fucking powerful. I want more. I want everything.”
“Good lad.” Victor stopped clapping and planted his hands on his hips. “Well, you have a twenty percent stake in her skin now, so you’re welcome to more. Have as much as you goddamn want. But...for now.” He waved toward the stone fortress. “Business if you please. Pleasure will have to wait.”
Henri shot a look at Victor. “Do I have you and your guests’ agreement that no one else will touch her? I’m not sharing. With any-fucking-one.”
“Yes, yes. Two million tends to buy a bit of sway over a slave. If your money clears, she is yours and only yours...until tomorrow night, of course.” Snapping his fingers, he barked, “Peter. Peter?! Where is that confounded—”
“I’m here, Sir V.” Peter stepped out of the shadows of one of the sparrow-trimmed hedges. He kept his head politely bowed, but his dark, tortured eyes met mine.
The intensity in them felt like a slap.
I flinched.
The fury in his depths. The helplessness. The sorrow.
Was that for me?
How much had he seen?
What had we looked like as Henri rutted into me—imprisoned in his hold, my arms tethered above my head, my entire body being devoured as if he was the devil himself.
Victor didn’t seem to care or notice that Peter didn’t take his eyes off me. That his gaze drifted between my legs where the slow roll of Henri’s pleasure marked my inner thigh.
“Take Ily to be cleaned up. Her Master will be indisposed for an hour or so. Ensure she’s ready for lunch.”
Peter nodded, utterly unreadable and obedient. “Yes, Sir V.” Moving toward the bridge, he paused mid-step as Henri barked, “Wait.”
“Yes, Master H.” Bowing, Peter did as he was told.
Turning toward me, Henri stepped threateningly into my space. He didn’t stop until his bare knee nudged my upper thigh. I strained for his whisper. For a kind goodbye but all he did was smile as black as coal. “Open your pretty legs.”
My fingers curled in my raised cuffs. My body rebelled against the command, but his knee slowly added pressure, reminding me he wasn’t asking.
Don’t fight.
Remember?
Sucking in a breath, shivering with self-consciousness, I shuffled my feet apart and dropped my eyes.
“Good girl,” he purred loud enough for Victor to hear. “Now, let’s show everyone that you’re mine in body, mind, and soul.”
I gasped as his fingers dipped to my clit, then slid up and into me in one seamless move.
Oh God.
Soaring onto my tippy-toes, I turned into a statue as he touched me deep.
Ripples of want clenched around his fingers.
He sucked in a breath.
I drowned between the very sick reality that I was sensitive and turned-on and—
“Jesus, Ily...you’re killing me.”
My eyes snapped closed as his whisper soaked into my heart.
He feathered his touch.
I choked on a groan.
Muttering a curse under his breath, he continued his performance for the crowd. “Wet with my cum.” His voice resembled sand and river rock. “Dripping with how much you milked from me.”
I shuddered as he twisted two fingers inside me, scooping out the remains of his pleasure. Removing his hand, he held up the glistening mess. Pressing the wetness to my mouth, he smeared my lips with his semen.
My eyes flared.
His blackened.
“Every word you speak is now mine.” He painted me as if I was his masterpiece. “You’ll remain mute to all others at all times.”
With a sinful smirk, he dropped his hand down my chin, smearing my nakedness. He didn’t stop coating my throat, breasts, belly, and core. “Every move you make is mine. You’ll ignore any command not given by me and every inch of your delectable body belongs to me and only me.”
Inserting his fingers inside me again, I ignored the crackle of electricity between us as he made a show of gathering up more fluid.
With clenched teeth, he doused my forehead in our blended wetness, baptising me into this wretched place.
“Your soul is now mine in pleasure and pain. From this moment until your last moment.”
A cold gust shot down my back as if he truly did have magic to bind me to him.
I shifted uncomfortably.
He didn’t believe this ritual, did he? Surely, it was just a tactic to scare off monsters waiting to molest me?
I searched his eyes for any sign that he meant those words.
Meant to claim me.
Meant to bind me.
His ad-lib deviated from our secretive script just enough to make my heart trip.
Was this how most actors felt on stage? In tandem with their fellow creators but also adrift when the ones you relied on didn’t stick to the pre-approved scene?
Not looking at me, he dropped his touch to my eyelids, nipples, belly button, and clit. “All your firsts are mine. Your first scream. Your first whimper. Your first flogging. Mine.” Drawing a damp circle around each of my breasts, his slimy touch felt as if he drew runes on me. “Mine.”
Pressing his bare form against my now semen-sticky one, his grey gaze met mine. The bargain we’d struck glowed in his depths. The truth between us buried beneath lies.
Pressing his mouth to my ear, he whispered, “I’ve done all I can to keep you safe. Just...don’t go wandering alone. I’ll come find you when—”
“Henri. As much as I understand your strange fetishes.” Victor interrupted. “It’s the height of rudeness to whisper in front of others. Especially those who don’t understand that whispering is foreplay to you. Tell us, what did you say to her?”
Henri stiffened.
“Come on.” Victor chuckled. “Don’t be shy.”
With a cold grin plastered on his face, Henri turned to face the dispersing crowd.
“My apologies.” He shrugged as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“I merely reminded her what those firsts included. Her first bleeding at my hands. Her first strangling as I fuck her. Her first flogging...I didn’t manage to say anything else as you cut me off. ”
“Isn’t that nice.” Victor smiled like a rattlesnake. “I look forward to watching you take all her firsts. But you must indulge me. Now you’ve painted your jewel in cum—quite creative I must say—let’s get this nasty business of two million euros paid, shall we?”
I gulped.
Henri didn’t look at me.
Oh God.
How was he going to get out of this?
Would Victor kill him when he found out he didn’t have the money?
Would he gift me to another to punish him?
My stomach clenched, but it was nothing compared to the thundering of my heart.
If Henri was no longer there to protect me—
“Of course.” Henri nodded as if two million meant as little to him as two pounds.
“Lead the way. I look forward to making this official.” Leaping off the platform and into the moat, he waded back to the grass.
Snatching his white shirt from the ground, he shrugged into it before stepping into his shorts, his legs still dripping wet.
Once suitably dressed, he threw me a possessive grin. “I forbid you from bathing, Ily. You’re to remain covered in my cum so others know not to touch you.” Blowing me a kiss, he strode off with Victor without a backward glance.
With no show left to watch, the remaining men found other things to do, leaving me tied to the pole. The only one who stayed was Peter, and the minute the monsters were gone, he balled his hands and stormed over the bridge toward me.
With swift fingers, he unhooked me from the pole and massaged my shoulders.
I gasped in pain.
Cursing my awful cuffs, I lowered my arms as pins and needles shot into my fingers.
“It’ll pass in a bit.” He kneaded my neck and down my back. His voice held no softness, no commiseration. Just...annoyance.
“What’s wrong?” I groaned as he worked on a tight knot.
“Nothing.”
“But—”
“Quiet.”
He refused to meet my eyes.
I didn’t know why he seemed so mad at me.
Hadn’t I done what he suggested? I’d stopped fighting and endured it. I’d accepted it against all rationality.
A wave of discomfort made me hiss as he dug his thumb into my shoulder blade. Slowly, the pins and needles faded.
He stopped massaging me and marched back over the bridge, expecting me to follow.
What the hell is his problem?
I’d expected a kind word. Maybe a consolatory hug.
If I was honest, I needed a kind word. I couldn’t think about what Henri had done or what all those other beasts craved.
I’d go mad. The only way to stay standing after I’d been technically raped was to completely ignore it.
To compartmentalise it. To focus only on the issue right in front of me, and the current issue was Peter’s coldness.
“Peter...”
“Not here,” he snapped.
Marching like a drill sergeant, he stayed icy and silent as I fell into step with him.