Unraveled

Chapter 9

LILY

He shuffles about the room.

Footsteps over hardwood. The faint rustle of fabric. A drawer sliding open, then closed with a muted thud.

My head’s groggy and my stomach’s unsettled but my body is boneless, completely and utterly spent.

I wait for him to tell me to get up, but he leaves me be.

My back still stings from the “punishment” he doled out, and to say my pussy isn’t swollen and tender from his continuous usage would be an understatement.

My hands are sore from clenching and gripping the sheets while my mind is exhausted from trying to rationalize everything.

Every breath shifts the sheet against my skin, making me wince in spots I didn’t know I could ache.

And strangely, the abject terror has dissipated.

So far this man has done exactly what he’s promised.

He said he’d give me untold pleasure, and that’s what he’s done.

Even his punishment, what I feared, was wrapped in pleasure as well.

Who is this man?

Why did he pick me?

The contrast of feelings, the forced betrayal of my fidelity—everything—has me well beyond emotional overload.

I let the tears flow now, allow the guilt to pull me under as I try and figure out how I “recover” from this.

But what if there’s no way back? What if the “old Lily” was gone the moment I was dragged into this world?

What comes next for me?

Even though he just put my body through the sexual wringer, he also did so with a misconstrued respect. Never going too far or stepping over what seems to be a predetermined boundary.

And he kissed me gently. Softly. Lingering. Completely at odds with the roughness that came before it. That kiss has no business living in my memory the way it does.

I think he told me the truth before. I think he’ll let me go when he’s had his fill of me. Has anyone ever felt that way when they’re in captivity? Am I just being a fool, believing a man who drugs and kidnaps a woman?

My head spins.

The merry-go-round of confusion is endless.

Since when does a guy abduct a woman, fuck her senseless, and then let her go?

Maybe that’s the real game—make me want the sexual release more than I want the freedom.

If I’m crazy for liking this, then he surpassed my lack of sanity miles ago.

Or orgasms.

The laughter comes now. Hysterical bouts that don’t belong in this room where consent was never truly given. It bubbles up and over. My mind and body succumb to the desperate sound in its tone, needing a disruption from the exhaustive, unanswered questions.

And therein lies the problem. Yes, he’s holding me against my will—fucking me, pleasuring me, punishing me—but my God, I’m getting off on it. The admission coats my tongue in bitterness.

What in the hell does that say about me?

I try to turn my mind off, try to allow myself a reprieve. Twenty-four hours. Will he honor that? Will he keep his word?

I’m too afraid to ask, because asking means engaging with him. And engaging means giving him more of me.

I’m spent.

I just want to sleep, shut down the thoughts and questions I don’t want answers to right now. The answers that just might tell me I’m not the person I thought I was. The answers that might unravel the truths I don’t want to face.

If I don’t name it, it can’t be real. That’s the lie I tell myself as I will my mind to be quiet.

Time lapses, and I lose myself in trying not to think, and then I drift off.

I’m not sure for how long when I’m jolted from my slumbered state. A warm wash cloth runs over my inner thighs and then parts me gently, cautiously, cleaning me.

“Così bella. Vedi? Ti avevo detto che mi sarei preso cura di te. Ti avevo detto che mi sarei preso cura di te,” he murmurs as he slides the towel gently over me.

My mind scrambles to interpret his words in my limited knowledge of Italian. Take care of you. Look after you.

Is that what he’s saying?

I think so but it’s hard to focus when his tenderness is so disarming. In some ways, this is more intimate than the acts that left me this way.

When he finishes, I’m chilled from the room’s air hitting my wet skin.

“Thank you,” I murmur without thinking.

Why are you thanking him?

That’s ridiculous to thank him for—

The mattress dips and I hold my breath, shocked back to the immediacy of the moment. My shoulders hitch when his palm runs featherlight over my bare backside. Every nerve flinches and leans in at the same time.

Another act of intimacy. The soft caress is both unexpected and welcome.

A simple gesture of tenderness amid his never-ending dominance.

His hand trails languorously over my hip and then crosses over my back.

My skin is still tender to the touch so I try not to flinch when he connects with the tiny welts.

He murmurs something softly under his breath. “Siete pronti per la parte più importante di tutte?”

The words slide past me in another language, one I almost want to commit to memory, but I bite back the urge to ask what they mean.

I force my muscles to loosen and accept his bewildering tenderness for being just that. It’s hard to though with the unknown lurking. Who knows? The bite of the flogger could come at any time.

“Oh.” I jolt when his lips press against the indent between my shoulder blades. My heart betrays me with a steady, heavy thud that has nothing to do with fear.

I work a swallow over the lump of confusion in my throat as the slow, sweet ache simmers again.

This is ridiculous.

Not the kisses he’s lacing up my spine.

Not the heat of his hand on my ass.

Not my pussy aching from both.

My mind chants no. My body hums yes.

My body wins. In this moment, in this situation, I have no other choice but to let it. And the goosebumps that chase in the wake of his tongue as it slowly slides down the length of my spine only serve to reinforce that. I exhale audibly when he reaches the dimples of my lower back and keeps going.

His hands are suddenly on the curve of my ass, pushing me up to my knees so my shoulders press into the mattress and my hips are in the air.

A groan escapes me when he grabs the rounded globes and spreads me wide before blowing a warm breath against me. The sound shames me as soon as it’s out, because it doesn’t belong to a captured . . . kidnapped woman.

And then his mouth is on me, on the tight rim of muscles that clenches in reaction to his tongue stroking with a slow, deliberate intent. Molten heat spirals low in my belly. This is new. Different. Another experience I’ve never had before. Another avenue I’ve never explored.

It feels dirty. Sexy. Taboo. And God, does it make me wet.

I grip the sheets tighter and dig my teeth into my bottom lip to stifle the libidinous moan I want to emit.

I refuse to give him the satisfaction of knowing what this does to me. What he’s doing to me.

He licks and laps, alternating between soft, lazy swirls and quick firm strokes that sometimes dip into my pussy and other times stay right where they are. My gasps come without giving a shit about not wanting him to know what this does to me.

My trembling knees and arousal dripping down my inner thighs is already doing that.

I suck in a breath, my pussy clenching tighter with every inch he covers. We both groan as his tongue licks around the rim. My breath hitches as my nerve endings are set ablaze from the potent combination of his touch and the forbidden notion of it.

He groaned. The thought breaks me from the haze and strikes me right in the slow, sweet burn.

Of course he’s enjoying this. He wouldn’t be doing it if he didn’t, and yet . . . that groan was ragged with need.

Much like mine was.

I’m so goddamn wet, the ache intensifying as his tongue skims downward, his fingers firmly kneading my ass.

I want to deny that heat is licking its way up my spine but can’t.

Every part of me is leaning in. My body begs to rock back on him, a silent plea for more of what I’ve been told for a lifetime is dirty and wrong, a notion that I don’t care about in this moment because the hub of nerve endings he’s rimming begs for more—to be experimented and manipulated.

“Such a good, fuckin bella,” he murmurs, the praise coating me just as thick and heavy as his touch.

His mouth leaves me, and I’m caught between relief and disappointment. Between needing to have this orgasm and protests for more.

Scrape.

I freeze.

Why is a chair scraping the floor on the other side of the room?

The sound is a violent intrusion, ripping me away from the slow, dangerous climb toward surrender.

I’m jolted from the euphoric edge my body’s climbing toward. My heart races and stops. The darkness of the blindfold presses in on me, thick and suffocating, turning every sound into something bigger, sharper, scarier.

Are we not alone?

It’s the second time I’ve thought this . . . and two times is too many.

My captor’s hands remain on me, possessive, but his face withdraws from the curve of my body.

Footsteps, slow and deliberate, slide through the quiet of leather against wood. My stomach knots.

Someone else is in the room.

No. No. No.

This changes everything. And nothing. But—

The chair scrapes again, marking his movement to the right of the bed.

“Ahhh, so you want to get a better view, Marco, no?”

No. No. No.

Marco? Who the hell is Marco? Is this some sick fucking game he’s playing? Observing? Is Marco the person I need to fear and not my captor?

My pulse races, pounding a frantic tattoo as it roars through my ears so I can’t hear. Shut the hell up. I need to be able to hear. I need to know who’s watching me.

Be forced.

Become pleasured.

“No!” The word is defiant. A protest.

Much like my body is doing—nipples hard, pussy throbbing—my head says no, but hell if my body isn’t already electrified over the thought of being watched. Of having someone observing me be taken against my will. Why am I aroused beyond belief at the thought?

It’s wrong. It’s filthy. And God help me, it’s making me wetter.

The betrayal comes from my own body. How can it tell the difference between fear and want?

My captor chuckles low and mocking. His hand fists in my hair and pulls my head back so my neck is exposed. The heat of his body ghosts against my back and seeps into every part of me chilled from the thought of a voyeur.

“No questions. No denials. Remember the rules?” His tongue traces around the shell of my ear—my erogenous zone—and I fight the urge to shift my hips and relieve the pleasurable pain he’s relit.

“Behave, mia bella.” The brush of his lips is such a stark contrast to the warning he delivers.

“I’m going to fuck you. By the time I’m done, you’ll beg me to keep going.

Then you’ll beg me to stop. Regardless, you’ll take what I give you—all of it—and you’ll enjoy every fucking moment of it.

And Marco is going to watch. For now. Understood? ”

The name Marco drops like a blade, cutting through my fragile grasp on control.

For now?

What happens after for now?

But despite all of that, my captor’s dominance excites me.

The notion that someone’s watching evokes a potent mixture of uncertainty and provocation.

I’m so lost in the idea of being taken, being fucked, that I haven’t answered him.

His hand closes over my exposed neckline and presses there, forcing my head back and snapping me from my thoughts.

“Bella?” he prompts.

“Yes. Si.” I shake my head side to side and then still when Marco moves about the room.

My ears strain and my body is highly aware of the raw physicality of two men—one I can physically feel, the other I cannot—both dominating, nonetheless. My nipples tighten and my skin chills under the scrutiny of eyes I can’t see but know are studying my body.

The not knowing is worse than his touch could ever be. My mind invents its own details to where he’s looking. Where he’s standing. To what he’s doing.

“Brava, ragazza,” he says to me, hand tightening ever so subtly. “This man handles your fate. He decides what happens next. I told you I won’t hurt you, that I’ll let you go when I’ve had my way with you . . . but if you disappoint him?” He makes a soft tsking sound.

He can’t change the rules. Not when I’ve followed them.

A sliver of fear snakes through me. It coils low, right where the heat still builds, and the clash of the two leaves me dizzy.

The hand on my throat slowly slides down over my collarbone as my thoughts race faster than my heart. His hand finds my breasts and palms one of them pressing its weight up against my chest and squeezes.

“If you don’t make it worth his while”—his hand retraces its path back up so that he can insert two fingers into my mouth, forcing me to taste my arousal from earlier—“well then, all bets are off, no?”

I cry out as his free hand slaps my ass hard. The sting reverberates through my body. My hands grip the sheets as his fingers press down against my tongue and hold it still.

“He paid for this. He gets off watching a woman forced to endure the pleasure I give. And I enjoy being paid to give it to her.” His lips skim my shoulder. “Let’s not disappoint the man so we can both go home unscathed.”

Unscathed? There is no part of me that will ever feel that way again.

But I swallow over this newfound fear, and nod. I can do this. Nothing changes. Twenty-four hours.

My captor moves, pulling me from my thoughts. The bed shifts, and the heat of his body leaves mine, skin sliding over skin as he goes. Then the mattress dips again as he brings his face close enough so that his nose bumps against mine.

If I thought I felt vulnerable before, it’s tenfold now. At least I know the man in front of me doesn’t really want to hurt me, but the man standing somewhere at my back? He scares me.

The air in the room, the unknown clinging to it, feels like a trap closing in—both the heat and the threat pressing closer.