Chapter Twenty
Ravi
When I wake up, I’m in the passenger seat of Liam’s truck. Wearing a tuxedo. My shoes and socks are missing.
If it weren’t for the last part, I might think I’d dreamed everything else.
“What happened?” I sit up straight, but my head’s still fuzzy.
“You passed out. Right on the stage. Of all the ways I thought that auction might blow up, that wasn’t one of them. I’m taking you home.”
My pulse spikes. “We have to go back. Whoever won me is going to be pissed.”
“I promise you, Ravi, whoever won you is damn pissed,” Liam says through clenched teeth. It’s very late, and there’s not much light on this road, but I know all of Liam’s sounds, especially his angry sounds.
“Liam, I’m serious. Take me back. I made a promise. If I don’t follow through on it now, I’ll be in worse trouble than anything you could possibly do to me.”
“I doubt that, but we’ll find out.” His low laugh makes the back of my neck bunch up.
“Liam, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you need to take me back. I can’t deal with your shitty, messed-up power plays right now.”
Liam’s house is on the edge of Belle Argo, so close to the border that if you go past the fire hydrant at the edge of his property, you’re in the unincorporated area that sits between Belle Argo and Beacon Hill.
His closest neighbors are undeveloped land, a nature preserve, and a five-acre fruit tree farm.
Which is why the longer the silence between us lingers, the more I worry.
Usually Liam doesn’t scare me too much. He pisses me off.
But the last night I spent in his house, the one when he spanked me until I got off, that was a side of him I hadn’t seen before.
At least, I hadn’t seen it directed at me.
And now? Now, the car is silent except for the road noise and the grinding of his teeth. Whatever he decides to do next, there won’t be anyone around to hear me scream.
We pull through his fenced-in property and down the long driveway. The car is off and cooling before he speaks again.
“You’re not going back.”
“Liam, I have to.”
Moonlight cuts through the window, and I can see his fingers tighten on the steering wheel. For a painful amount of time, he doesn’t answer.
“You’re not going back, Ravi.”
I open my mouth to argue again.
“You’re not going back, because I’m the one who bought you.”
Wait. My pulse is all skittery again. “That’s not right.”
His laugh is as dry as the month of March in Florida. “I guarantee you it’s exactly right. If you don’t believe me, ask my bank account. You can probably hear it crying all the way from the bank headquarters in Texas.”
“But…” No. This is not happening. “I could have sworn I heard someone bid…” It hurts to swallow. “Ten million dollars.”
“Yeah, kid, it’s a lot of fucking money.”
If I thought I’d seen Liam angry in the past, I hadn’t truly. Not like this.
“So what are you going to—” When I realize I don’t really want the answer, I bite down on the question.
A hissing noise escapes through Liam’s teeth. “You wanted to do this, so we’re going to fucking do this. Get inside and get upstairs. Now.”
The command in his tone makes me scramble, shoves me up the steps to the front door, makes me punch in the door code with shaky fingers twice before I get it right, and then up to the second floor. At which point I realize I’m not sure what else he wants me to do.
At the base of the stairs, he glares up at me with hateful eyes. “My room. Get your clothes off.”
Is he serious? Is he fucking serious? “Are you fucking serious?”
I’m not sure if I want to scream or cry or fall to my knees in gratitude.
“Do I look like I’m fucking around here, Ravi?”
No. Liam has never looked less like he was fucking around in his life, and I’ve seen him torture a man to death.
For a second I can’t move. All of my nerves are vibrating.
“Ravi.” My name is a warning.
I dart into the room I haven’t set foot in since my eighteenth birthday. Someone had illegally set off some fireworks in a nearby field, and it had reminded me too much of my parents getting shot. I’d been two doors down when they died, thinking I’d heard fireworks that were really gunshots.
It was the last time I turned to Liam for comfort.
I’m so frantic I can hardly breathe as I enter Liam’s private space, pulling my tie and my jacket off haphazardly.
This must be some sort of horny fever dream, right?
Liam Masters, the man who’s been awful to me for over a year because I had the audacity to let him know I wanted him, is now ordering me to…
“Take everything off, Ravi.”
“I’m working on it, Liam.”
“In this room I’m ‘Sir’ to you.”
Oh boy. Why does that sound ridiculous and also hot as hell?
It doesn’t help me that I’ve been hard since the second he told me to take my clothes off.
Really, I can count on one hand the number of times Liam has sent me upstairs to my room since I’ve been living here.
He was never much of a disciplinarian. Until he found out I was working for Brennan. Until I gave him a reason.
Thank fuck, because I think I would have been hard all the time.
“W-why am I doing this?”
“Sir. Why am I doing this, Sir.” His expression is expectant.
“Why am I doing this, Liam, sir?”
“Always such a fucking brat,” he murmurs. “You’re doing this because you insisted on this goddamn auction. This is what you wanted.”
“What?” Is this what I wanted? Now that I’m here, I realize I never actually considered this scenario.
“It was the only way to make sure you didn’t go home with some psychopath who wanted to murder you,” Liam growls.
“I really don’t think—”
“Right now I don’t give a shit what you think, kid. Since you’ve been intent on acting like an unruly asshole for weeks now, it’s time I punished you like one. Get your clothes off and get on the bed.”
I’m stripped down to my socks and about to climb onto the king mattress when he stops me. “Don’t you dare leave that pile there. Pick everything up and fold it neatly. Put it on the chair.” He gestures to the little reading nook by his window.
There’s this searing sensation under my skin—embarrassment at having to bend over in front of him and pick up each piece of clothing before standing there and neatly folding it all while his sharp gaze never leaves me.
It’s more than that, though. It’s the chill of the air conditioning, pulling up bumps on my flesh and tightening my nipples. It’s the heat of his gaze. It’s the way I want him to consume me.
“Now you may get on the bed,” he says when the last item is folded, and I’ve sort of awkwardly balled up the socks on top.
Oh, may I? Funny, considering it sounded like an order. I bite my lips to keep from asking out loud.
I’m honestly confused by how part of me feels like I won the lottery and part of me thinks I hit my head and I’m still dreaming. Part of me still wants to tear him a new asshole for once again being a controlling, overprotective dick.
While I’m lying on my back on the bed deciding how I feel about all of that, something pulls tight around my ankles. And then my wrists. I lift my head to see he’s tying me up. “Since when have you had restraints connected to your bed?”
There’s an unhelpful thought in my head that maybe these have been here a while. Maybe he used them with someone else. I don’t like that at all.
“Did I say you could talk?”
I bite my lips harder. Let’s be honest here, if he expects me to be silent, this isn’t going to last long.
A stinging slap lands on the top of my thigh. “Ow! What the hell is that?”
“A silicone paddle. I have one made of buckskin that’s gentler, but I know how you feel about animal products.”
I can’t decide if he’s being judgmental or considerate.
“Here’s the thing, kid. In the last month you’ve done nothing but try my patience.” Slap. “Scare the shit out of me. Repeatedly.” Slap-slap. “And defy my orders.”
Three slaps.
“Now you’ve got me spending money I never intended to touch to bail you out of that goddamn auction because you have no fucking clue how much trouble you could have put yourself in.”
Slap-slap-slap-slap. The hits don’t land in the same spot every time. He’s moving up and down my thighs. I don’t know enough to know if that’s a good thing or not. Only that it spreads the pain all up and down my legs.
“Nobody asked you to,” I say through gritted teeth.
“No? Nobody did?” He leans over me, nose to nose. His eyes are so dark. If I thought before that they looked like the ocean, today they look the way the sea probably does when it’s getting churned by a hurricane. “You’re right, baby boy. You didn’t ask me to. You fucking begged me.”
Then he turns and leaves the room.
What the hell is happening right now?
My body’s strangely warm and, like, kind of shaking.
I’m vulnerable and spread out with my cock jutting obscenely toward the ceiling.
The worst part is the way my mind is spinning, trying to figure out what’s actually going on.
I mean, I sort of know what’s happening, but…
but seriously, what’s actually going on here?
Liam said he wanted to punish me. Is this the punishment? Hitting me with a paddle and then leaving me here to think?
Liam returns, though, positioning himself at the foot of the bed. There’s only so much I can see from where I am, but it looks like he has some sort of rod in his hand? Actually, it’s sort of vaguely dick shaped. So maybe a vibrator? Or, like, a wand?
I’ve done a lot of research on sex toys and concluded that there are more styles than people on the planet. I even found a company that makes custom fantasy dildos to look like dragon cocks or tentacles or whatever. It’s honestly mind-boggling.
I’ve been thinking about saving up for one. Guess I can afford the dragon cock now. If I ever get out of here.
“Your safe word is red, kid.”
I know I’m right about the toy when the buzzing starts.
Liam drags this vibrating toy, or whatever it is, over my inner thigh and underneath my balls, dipping a little lower toward my crease before going higher again.
Gently, he slides it up and down my hard shaft until my hips are bucking, trying to fuck up against the vibrating thing.
It doesn’t take long before I can feel my orgasm coming, so much faster and more intense than when I jerk myself off.
All of a sudden, the vibration stops. A pained whine leaves my throat.
“W-what the hell? I was so close. Sir.”
“This is my time, Ravi. Remember? Whoever wins you at auction gets you for twenty-four hours. Yours to do whatever they want with. What I’ve decided is I’m going to make you sorry for all the hell you’ve put me through.”
Before I can answer, he’s turned the vibrator on again. Once again, right before I’m about to come, he pulls it away. My body tries to follow him, fruitlessly fucking the missing toy.
He leans over me, grinning as he turns it off.
Me, I’m thrashing on the bed in frustration. Gasping, nostrils flared, heart racing, and so, so confused.
The mattress dips with his weight. “I figure I may as well sit down,” he says. “We’re going to be here a while.”
Oh. That doesn’t sound good.
“How long, sir?”
He doesn’t answer, but it’s a long time. For what feels like hours he brings me to the edge and then cuts me off. Sometimes he puts the vibration on my dick, sometimes on my balls, and sometimes on my nipples.
A few times he brushes the head of it over my hole, and it’s enough that I almost think maybe I’m going to manage to get fucked or at least get off before he can stop me.
But no. Every single time he seems to know exactly when I’m near the edge, and every time he stops. His expression is infuriatingly smug as he sits back and waits for me to calm down again.
“If you can’t take it anymore, you can say red,” he reminds me a couple of times. “Just know that at the end of this, we’re done here. You take your money, you get out of my house, and you don’t come back.”
It’s a punch right through my chest. He can’t mean that. I don’t want him to. Or maybe I do. No, I don’t, but I should.
Tears sting my eyes. Considering that was my plan all along, his command shouldn’t hurt so much. “Why?”
“You wanted to get used for money. You wanted to leave. So I’m going to give you what you’ve been asking for. Let’s see if you can actually handle it.”
Oh, to hell with him. He doesn’t think I can take it. He wants me to cave. He’d get so much satisfaction if I used my safe word, I bet. Well, screw that. Screw him. I’m not going anywhere. Not until he kicks me out.
“I can handle it.” Then an awful, terrible, wonderful thought pops into my head. “Daddy,” I add.
I must have really gotten to him, because he doesn’t even give me a hard time for not calling him sir. My satisfaction is short-lived, because for the next God knows how long, he really tries hard to get me to tap out.
My muscles burn as he teases me mercilessly. My toes curl so hard I cry out in pain when my foot cramps. After a while, all the frustration has tears streaming down my face.
I’m begging. Pleading. So much nonsense is coming out of my mouth I might have promised him my firstborn or a pile of magic beans. I don’t even know.
My neck and face are wet, the tears collecting behind my ears and running behind my head. It’s awful and beautiful. I desperately want it to end.
Also, I never want it to end.
Once he’s finally said “Okay, kid, you can come,” the barest light of dawn is coming through the window.
I nearly pass out. Nearly. Even though I’m lying down, the room is spinning.
Everything hurts. Everything. After however many hours of tensing my muscles and thrashing and crying, I’m so sore I can hardly move. There’s also this surreal, floaty feeling. A buzzing sound in my ears.
Oh. No. That’s the buzz of Liam’s phone.
His words return to me as he picks it up to send a reply. I’m going to give you what you’ve been asking for.
Did I get what I wanted? At first, I thought so.
When he started, I didn’t understand how he was punishing me when it felt so good. I get it now. He’s wrung every drop of defiance out of me. At least for the time being.
As I’m lying there sweaty and sticky and wrung out, he removes the restraints from my hands and feet. His footsteps echo as he walks out of the room.
“That was Zed. I need to go into work. Stay here until I get back.” Then he walks away with not even one backward glance.
“You’re just going to leave? After all that?” I can’t cover up the hurt in my voice, but I hate it.
The moment of softness on his face must be my imagination. In the next second he’s gone, boots thundering down the stairs.
Now that I think of it, the entire night he hardly looked at me. Never even touched me.
Not with his own hands.
Asshole.