Chapter 13
13
LUCY
T he hot water beats down on my chest, heavy and relentless. If I close my eyes, the sensation is maddening, taking me back to the night Tomasz fucked me. I can’t stop thinking about it and wondering why I didn’t force myself to do more. And then, when the truth whispers to my loneliness, the shame seeps in.
All these moments we’ve shared have left me confused. My body and my head are constantly at war with one another, one missing him constantly while the other reminds me of everything he is. It should disgust me. All the things I know about him and his family should make the pining of my body repugnant to me, but I can’t stop it. When I try, it becomes unbearable. The loneliness becomes a darkness so stark that I long for him to return for me. All the hate in the universe can’t eradicate the longing of my soul for him. Like a poison, he’s encompassed all my senses and rationale. The world outside these walls has ceased to exist. Life as I knew it is gone, leaving only the moments we share.
Why did they send me for him?
Why me?
Why him?
Why us?
Wiping the water from my face, I lean back into the wall. The answers to the questions never come, and in my confusion, he’s all I can think about. Midnight eyes and mauve lips. So perfectly chiselled.
Little Red…
His voice echoes in my head, the hot spray flicking my nipples. I can’t fucking move as my hands slap to the wall at my back. My thighs press together as my pussy clenches with the pattering of the water on my breasts. As my breaths struggle to keep up with the current turning through my body, I slip a hand between my thighs.
Clawing at my flesh, I tighten my grip to stop myself from going any further.
“Stop…stop… stop ! You need to stop,” I grit at myself, even though all I can hear is his voice telling me, You want to get fucked.
“No,” I whimper back as my feet inch apart slowly, and I squeeze my eyes shut tighter.
Yes, Red…do it.
I can’t.
Do it, girl.
“No.” Contrary to my moan, my hand trails higher, cupping my pussy. His voice is so fucking hypnotic. That low, guttural gravel has a way of cutting through me and all my logic. His voice is the soundtrack of bliss in my worst nightmare. A poison I willingly drink up, knowing that it’ll end me.
You want it. You want to get fucked.
Teasing a finger through my wet folds, I round to the top of my slit, avoiding my clit.
“Oh God,” I groan as the taunting touch sends frissons of electricity down my legs, making my toes curl.
It shouldn’t feel this good. Remembering the rough trail of his fingers shouldn’t make me yearn like this.
But it does, Little Red, and you want it.
I do. I’m desperate for this ache to dissipate. I can’t take it anymore. It’s eating at me. Beating me down like this water is drowning my senses. And God, it’s impossible to ignore as it knots in my stomach and simmers in my blood. It’s so consuming that it overwhelms all coherent thought.
Do it , he croons over my ragged breaths as I lightly graze my clit. Beg me to fuck you, Red.
The whispers become roars with my blood whooshing in my ears, louder and louder until it’s a constant buzz that I can’t escape. It barrels through me as I rub myself harder and faster. My body trembles with the need to let go, to shatter and break for him, just like he wants me to.
Beg me. Beg me to let you come.
Trying to resist the urge, I drag my finger to my belly, and for a moment, it feels good to be stronger. I feel powerful in denying him because he wants it too. He wants to fuck me. And he wants to break me as much as I…I…I need him to tear me apart.
You don’t beg, you don’t get, Little Red.
“Tomasz.” His name pours from my lips while my hand cups my pussy harder, my middle finger finding my entrance, tracing and circling as my heart bellows in my chest, echoing through me and coiling my muscles tighter and tighter. “Tomasz…”
Beg.
“Tomasz.”
Beg!
It’s impossible to catch my breath as the water pelts down harder and hotter, flicking my nipples and scorching my skin at the same time as my need blazes to an inferno. There’s only one thing I can do to sate my thirst for the one thing I desire.
“Please,” I implore, my finger inching in and out until my pussy pleads for more, clenching eagerly when I slip another finger inside me and pump, slow at first, relishing the press of my palm to my clit. “Please… please , fuck me.”
That’s it, Red, feel that tight cunt squeeze for me.
“Oh, God…” I pick up the pace, lifting my foot to the edge of the bath so that my fingers can thrust deeper. “Oh, fuck… Tomasz… fuck …”
Come for me.
The words unravel me as my orgasm rushes through my entire being. Deep eyes bore into my soul while my body shakes with a pleasure so forceful that I almost collapse on myself. For a moment, the blue of his eyes is all there is. A languid peace that has me bonelessly slipping to the tub floor.
Slowly, shame darkens the light. The relief turns to despair as the water continues raining down on me. I’m losing myself, and the worst part is that as I soap myself again with the new wash that Elif brought the other day, all I can smell is him and my lust mixed together. It’s comforting in a way that makes the shame ebb away as slowly as it came. Until I’m back in my cage and it’s home sweet home.
* * *
I’m almost done washing myself when the bedroom door bursts open. It’s not like Elif to be so brutish and loud. She’s normally quiet as a mouse. Too quiet. Especially after my meltdown the other day. I think I might have scared the poor soul when she was only doing her job.
Shutting off the water, I’m about to step out of the bath and grab a towel when one goon that stands outside the bedroom door stomps inside and pulls me out. A panic I’ve never felt rips through me, and before he releases my arm, I twist in his hold. The move takes him by surprise. While his grip on me buckles, I kick his knee with the pad of my foot so that he folds to the ground.
“Suka!” he curses at me as I wrangle him into a headlock and press my knee to his back, compressing his spine so that if he tries to move, he’ll slip a disc and do me a favour.
“Where I’m standing, arsehole, you’re the bitch.” Pulling his gun from the holster on his hips, I point it at his head.
This is my space, and only Elif and Tomasz have come in here. Not even the praying girl has visited again since she left the day I woke up.
“Get up,” I bark at him, limping back with my toe throbbing from where it hit the side of the tub. “Slowly,” I add, pulling back the slider to load the chamber when he obviously tries to shake my assault off to come at me again.
“Fucking whore.” He spits at my face, and I know exactly who he is.
Spitting isn’t common practice. It’s something that dirty cowards do when they’re scared but still want to look tough. Stupid bastard signed his death certificate the first time he did it, and tonight is his lucky night.
Aiming the muzzle straight at his face, I take a step forward. My finger is on the trigger and ready to pop when Elif comes rushing in. The tray in her hand clutters to the floor with a crashing noise that does nothing to drown out the shot ringing through the air with the startled jolt of my hand.
The scream that follows barely sounds through the shrill whistle in my ears when the guard grasps me by the throat. Pressing me to the wall, he knees my stomach, forcing me to drop the gun in order to protect myself.
“Stop!” Elif bellows. “Get off her!”
Grappling at his shoulders, she almost gets knocked back. My vision blurs while the pounding of my heart becomes frantic. The blood in my veins chills as the air thins out.
“You carry on and your head will roll!” Another guard pulls him back, but the bastard takes me with him. “Let go, Gregor!”
Pushing between us, Elif slaps at his arms until the fucker releases my throat.
“Get out,” she spits at both men.
The other guard nods at her order before walking out of the bathroom without another glance at me. He seems young. Maybe in his early twenties, like me.
“You’ll die with her,” Gregor laughs in Elif’s face.
“Not before you.”
Turning to check on me, she grabs a towel and covers me up. My nakedness was all but forgotten during the tussle. It explains why the younger guard didn’t look back at me. I’ve become so used to it that I’m apathetic to it.
“Get the cunt ready.” Gregor looks me up and down with a sneer before he leaves.
Elif takes my hand and tugs me into the bedroom with her.
“What’s happening?” I ask when she takes a better look at my throat with an angry growl.
“The master sent for you.”
“Tomasz?” My heart stutters before it runs away with itself. Suddenly, I can’t get enough air into my lungs, and my stomach twists with a thrill I can’t stop from coursing through me at the thought of seeing him.
My entire body heats, remembering the way I touched myself to his voice and the memory of his touch. Every pore zaps with the electricity humming through me. I shouldn’t be this avid to see him, but I can’t help it. All the shadows that have been encroaching on me since he left suddenly dissipate.
“Yes, the master.” Nodding, she turns to the bed, where a white dress is laid, along with a gold chain belt and matching gold heels. When she turns back to me, hands smoothing over her simple black cotton dress, a small worry-tinged smile tugs at her lips.
“What does he want?”
“They only told me to get you ready for him.”
“What does that mean?” I amble to the bed and take a better look at the belt. Pulling at all the different chain ropes, I try to make sense of it. “Ready for him?”
“Yes, ready for him,” she exhales, pushing my hands to the side and placing the chains the correct way.
It’s a harness. They’re trussing me up like an animal. Instantly, my spine stiffens as I take a step back.
“I’m not wearing that.” Pulling the towel tighter around me, I go to the wardrobe and take out a nightdress. “I’m not an animal or…or…”
“You are alive, Lucy.”
I stop, ravelling the white cotton around my hands. She hasn’t used my name before, and the action gives me pause. It feels good to hear someone use it, even if it sounds odd after so long without hearing it aloud.
“I’m…I’m not Tomasz’s pet. I won’t let him chain me up like livestock going to market.”
Softly, she smiles down at her feet before tugging the nightgown from my hold. “Keep him happy and he’ll keep you alive. You can’t get out of here if you’re dead.”
Without another word, she throws the nightgown on the floor followed by the towel she unravels from me. Grabbing the underwear from the bed, she goes about dressing me in the strapless dress and the heels before she sits me at the vanity and moves on to fixing my hair and make-up.
“You’re beautiful,” she tells me, clasping the top of the harness at the back of my neck. While she brushes the curls she styled into loose waves, she hums, “Very beautiful.”
“Elif—”
“And you’re strong, yes?”
“Elif, I can’t?—”
“Yes?” Pulling me to my feet, Elif stands in front of me. With the heels on, I’m taller than her. Not by much, but enough that she looks up at me with her brown eyes wide on mine while she waits for a reply. “Yes?”
“I hope so.”
“No, the right answer is you are. You’ve made it this far, so you can keep going. You’re strong, beautiful, and smart. Everything a powerful man admires.”
For the first time since I laid eyes on my outfit, my heart beats with something other than disappointment or irritation.
“I don’t think it’s admiration that Tomasz has for me.”
“Hmmm…lust and admiration aren’t far off each other, you know…”
“Does he—” I swallow down my question, but it balls in my throat until I ask again, “Does he have other… girls ?”
Rounding me, Elif stops at my back and goes about clasping the harness at the top of my butt. She doesn’t answer my question at first, and I don’t ask again because of course he does. I’m not special to him. Fuck, for all I know he’s married and has kids, and I’m just his whore. A plaything he’ll discard.
The quiet makes me feel sick to my stomach with all the thoughts in my head running riot.
I’m strong and I’m smart.
Strong. Smart.
Strong and smart.
It’s all I keep repeating to myself as she checks my hands and then chains my wrists to the front of my hips. We’re walking to the bedroom door when she stops us in our tracks.
Standing in front of me, Elif gives me another once-over before looking up at me and smiling. “No.”
That’s it. One word. One syllable. No.
Teeth sinking into my lip, I return her smile as she opens the door and stands to the side so that the guards take me to their master. The young one walks ahead while Gregor squeezes my arm, widening his strides so that it’s harder for me to keep up in my heels without stumbling.
I’m strong and I’m smart.
When we reach the waiting car, he practically throws me into the back with a curse as he gets in beside me. “Whore.”
“Look at me, Gregor,” I level him with a stoic stare before I tell him, “I’m going to kill you.”
Laughing, he steps on my toe, and as bad as it hurts, I grin at him.
I’m smart and I’m strong, motherfucker.