9. The Rules #2
"Mine." Something cold enters his voice. "My limits. Not yours. I decide what you can handle. I decide when to push and when to stop. You don't get a magic word that makes it all go away."
The blood drains from my face. "That's?—"
"That's absolute control." He finishes my sentence. "That's what you signed up for. That's what you agreed to when you traded yourself for your brother's debt."
"I didn't know?—"
"You didn't ask." Sharp, now. Almost angry. "You walked into my office with no leverage and no information and you signed whatever I put in front of you. That's not my failure. It's yours."
He's right. God help me, he's right. I didn't read the contract carefully. I didn't ask questions. I was so desperate to save Bennett that I signed my life away without understanding what I was giving up.
"What happens at the end?" My voice comes out small. "After the year?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
"On you." He stands, moves away from me, crossing to the windows. His back is to me now. I can't read his expression. "On how the year goes. On what I decide you've earned."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I haven't decided." He turns to face me. "In a year, you might walk away with your brother's debt cleared and your freedom restored. Or you might stay."
"Stay?"
"The contract includes provisions for extension. If both parties agree."
Both parties. Like I'd ever agree to more of this.
"Why would I agree to stay?"
Something that might be a smile crosses his face. It doesn't reach his eyes. "Ask me again in six months."
I stay on my cushion while he pours himself a drink from a cabinet near the windows. Whiskey, by the color. He doesn't offer me any.
The rules sit in my chest like stones. No limits. No safe words. No privacy. Complete, absolute control. His over me, forever and always, for an entire year.
I can’t survive this.
I must survive it.
"I have another question."
He turns, glass in hand. "Go ahead."
"Why me?"
I've asked before. In his office, during the negotiation. He gave me an answer then. Something about watching me, seeing something in me. But it wasn't enough. It didn't explain anything.
"I told you. I watched you for weeks. I saw?—"
"No." I cut him off. "Not why did you pick me. Why do you want this at all?" I gesture at the room, the penthouse, the whole elaborate arrangement. "Why do you need to own someone? Why the Protocol? Why the absolute control?"
His expression doesn't change, but something shifts behind his eyes. A wall going up.
"That's not relevant to your situation."
"It is to me." I push myself to my feet.
My legs are stiff, my back aches, but I need to be standing for this.
Need to face him at something closer to equal height.
"I'm supposed to surrender to you. Give you everything.
But I don't know anything about you. Why you're like this, what made you this way, why control matters so much that you'd buy a person to get it. "
"I didn't buy you. You sold yourself."
"Don't deflect." The words come out sharper than I intend. "Why are you like this? What happened to you?"
The silence that follows is absolute.
He takes a slow sip of whiskey. Sets the glass down on a side table. His movements are precise, controlled, revealing nothing.
"You don't get to ask that."
"Why not?"
"Because it's not part of our arrangement." His voice is ice. "Your job is to obey, not to understand. I don't owe you my history. I don't owe you explanations. I own you. Not the other way around."
"So I'm just supposed to accept?—"
"Yes." The word cuts like a blade. "You're supposed to accept.
You're supposed to submit. You're supposed to stop looking for reasons and just follow orders.
" He moves toward me, each step deliberate, and I force myself not to retreat.
"That's what you agreed to. That's what the contract says.
If you wanted my life story, you should have asked for it in negotiations. "
He's close now. Close enough that I can smell the whiskey on his breath, see the tension in his jaw.
"The last woman I showed mercy to?—"
He stops.
The words hang between us, unfinished. Something flickers across his face. Pain? Rage? Something old and bitter that I've only glimpsed in fragments.
"What happened?" I ask, very quietly.
His expression closes like a door slamming shut.
"Nothing you need to know." He steps back. Picks up his whiskey glass again. Drains it. "That's enough questions. It's time to see what you've learned."
"What I've learned?"
"From this morning." He sets the empty glass down with a click. "You've learned how your body responds to me. You've learned how the Protocol works. Now I want to see if you've learned to accept it. Or if you're still fighting."
"I'll always be fighting."
"We'll see."
He moves toward the hallway. Pauses. Looks back at me.
"Bedroom. Now."
His bedroom is different in daylight.
This morning, in the steam and the chaos, I didn't notice the details.
The massive bed, yes. The spare aesthetic, yes.
But not the rest. The way the light falls through floor-to-ceiling windows, the single painting on the far wall (something abstract, all dark colors and violent brushstrokes), the door that must lead to a closet because it's too far from the bathroom to be anything else.
"Strip."
I strip. The silk blouse, the tailored slacks, the underwear that was already wet again because the Protocol won't let me hide. I stand naked in the afternoon light while he watches from across the room.
He's still dressed. Still holding all the power.
"On the bed. Center. Hands above your head."
I climb onto the bed. The sheets are cool against my skin. Expensive, and soft. I position myself in the center. Raise my arms above my head.
He approaches slowly. Not like a predator this time. More like a scientist examining a specimen.
"You negotiated well this morning." His voice is conversational. "You pushed back. You found room within the rules. That takes intelligence, and courage."
"Is this a compliment?"
"It's an observation." He sits on the edge of the bed. His hand lands on my ankle, just resting there, warm and heavy. "But negotiation has limits. And I think you've started to believe you have more power here than you actually do."
His hand slides up my calf. My knee. The inside of my thigh.
"You don't have power." His fingers stop inches from where I want them, where the Protocol has trained me to want them in less than twelve hours.
"You have the illusion of power because I choose to give it to you.
I choose to let you negotiate. I choose to compromise.
But I can take those choices away any time I want. "
"Then why give them at all?"
"Because broken things aren't interesting.
" His fingers trace patterns on my inner thigh.
"I told you. I want your surrender, not your destruction.
But surrender doesn't mean negotiating your way into equality.
It means accepting that you're not equal.
That you're mine. That everything you have, including your pleasure, comes from me. "
His hand moves higher. Brushes the edge of my center. I gasp.
"This morning, you came twice." His voice is detached.
Clinical. Even as his fingers slide through my folds, feeling how wet I am, the Protocol amplifying every sensation into something unbearable.
"Once on my hand. Once on my cock. Both times, you let go.
You stopped fighting and let yourself feel. "
"I couldn't help it?—"
"You could." His thumb finds my clit. Presses. I arch off the bed. "You could have held back. Fought harder. The Protocol doesn't force orgasm—it just makes it harder to resist. You chose to come. Both times."
"That's not—" I'm panting now. His thumb is circling, slow and relentless, the pressure perfect. "—that's not fair?—"
"Nothing about this is fair." He increases the pressure. I moan. "But you need to understand something. Your pleasure belongs to me. Not to you. I give it, and I take it away."
His thumb stops moving.
I whimper. Actually whimper, like a dog denied a treat.
"Please—"
"Please what?"
"Don't stop?—"
"Why not?" He resumes circling. Slow. Torturously slow. "Give me a reason."
"I need—I want?—"
"You want to come."
"Yes." The word tears out of me. Desperate. Shameful. "Yes, I want to come. Please. Please let me?—"
He brings me higher. Higher. I'm right on the edge, my whole body trembling, so close I can taste it?—
He stops.
"No."
The denial crashes through me. I cry out. Frustration, desperation, actual physical pain from the denied release.
"You don't come until I decide you've earned it." He withdraws his hand completely. Stands. Steps back from the bed. "This morning was a gift. A demonstration. Now you know what I can give you. And what I can take away."
I'm shaking. My whole body is shaking. The arousal is so intense it hurts, the Protocol making everything worse, and he's just standing there watching me with those cold blue eyes.
"When?" I manage to gasp. "When will I have earned it?"
"When I decide." He moves toward the door. "Stay there. Don't touch yourself. I'll know if you do, and the consequences will be severe."
"How long?"
He pauses at the door. Looks back at me. Naked, desperate, spread across his bed like an offering.
"However long it takes for you to stop asking."
He leaves.
I lie there, aching and unsatisfied, his words echoing in my ears.
The last woman I showed mercy to?—
He didn't finish the sentence. But I file it away, another piece of the map. Something happened. Someone hurt him. Mercy was involved, and it didn't end well.
That's why he's like this. That's why control matters more than anything.
Someone showed him what happens when you let your guard down.
And he's never going to let it happen again.