Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hannah
Shadow races to greet us when we get home, climbing Armando’s pant leg.
“What the fuck?” He rears away to stare down his leg at my tiny sharp-clawed nuisance.
“I’m sorry.” I rush over to extricate the kitten’s claws from his thigh. “He’s a menace.”
“Let me see him.” Armando holds out his hand. I hesitate a moment before I hand him over. I’m not sure where Armando falls with treatment of animals although he did buy toys for Shadow.
He takes Shadow from me and holds him up face-level. “Listen, little man. My leg? Not your scratching post. Got it?”
I giggle and reach to take him back.
“Give him one of those treats,” Armando says, and my heart does this weird squeezing thing. Like we’re pet parents together or something stupid like that. It’s ridiculous and weird and God —this whole situation exhausts me.
I retrieve the treats and feed Shadow one while Armando puts away the groceries and sets the table.
I’m mad at him , I remind my ovaries, which drop eggs every thirty seconds. Mad at him . He tied me up in my own bed last night. He’s taken my phone, which I need . He’s still standing guard over me like I’m a prisoner.
Technically, I am a prisoner. Or am I? It’s hard to feel like a prisoner when I keep fucking my jailer. I’m struggling to keep my hands off him right now.
We sit down and eat one of those pre-cooked rotisserie chickens and a Caesar salad that Armando made. Armando eats fast, head down, not saying a word. I picture him eating like that in prison, and my chest gets tight. I want to ask about it, but he’s so closed off, I don’t dare.
He finally looks up, pauses mid-chew, and swallows hard. As if it’s just dawned on him that we’ve sat here in silence as he shoveled food into his mouth like a guard is waiting to take his tray away.
“So tell me something about you,” he says.
“Um… like what?”
He pauses, his eyes dart around the room and then center back on me. “What is your favorite flower? I know you are around them all day and know the preferences of your clients. But what is yours?”
“Do I have to have one?”
“Yes. Everyone has a favorite.”
“I guess… I like roses,” I say. “Red ones.” I’m not sure if I would have said that answer if I wasn’t put on the spot.
“I would have guessed that,” he says. “You have the personality of a rose.”
My breath catches in my throat. “And what’s that?”
“Strong, beautiful and demands attention.”
“I don’t demand attention,” I say, surprised by his words.
“You should.” He pins me with a gaze that makes my tummy flutter. “Never settle for anything else.”
“What about you?” I ask. “Do you have a favorite flower?”
“Whatever one makes you happy. That would be mine.”
He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t say the words in a way meant to charm me or woo me. They are simple, direct, and silencing. I don’t know how to respond to this man.
So instead, I continue eating, as does he. Though we say very little, I’m comforted by his presence and the sound of his knife and fork against the plate. I shouldn’t be reading into his words or his actions, and yet, I can’t help myself.
When we finish, he helps me clean up just as efficiently as he does everything. It’s like we’re playing house, standing side by side washing dishes and putting them away. The only sound in the room is the running water and the meows of Shadow begging for chicken scraps.
I’m surprised when Armando kneels down and gives the cat a bite from his fingers. “That’s it for now. It’s rich,” he says to the kitten as Shadow licks every last bit of juice from Armondo’s beefy fingers.
He then takes his toothbrush and other toiletries off the counter and heads to the bathroom.
I’m left feeling… odd. I don’t know how to process everything going on and the rush of emotions both good and bad flowing through me.
But I need to find my phone. I might have messages that need answering.
I can’t stand that he won’t give it to me.
I search the high cupboards because that’s where he stowed my purse last night. No dice.
Then I see it. It’s on top of the refrigerator, pushed way to the back behind the floral baskets I have stacked there. It amuses me that he hides it up high. Like I’m some little girl who can’t reach.
Okay, actually, I can’t reach because I’m short, but I put one knee up on the counter and reach. I fish out my phone and check the texts.
There’s two. One from my mom, asking if I’m coming to dinner tomorrow, and one from Josie, telling me she’ll be late Monday.
Not asking. Telling.
Sigh. Another problem I’m sticking my head in the sand about.
I start to reply when I hear Armando curse.
He storms at me, but I don’t flinch. Yes, he’s capable of hurting me. He’s violent. Dangerous. But there’s thought and control behind the violence. And I’m fairly certain he has rules about hurting women. As in, he won’t. And frankly, if he was going to hurt me, he would have done it by now.
“What the fuck, Hannah?” he snatches the phone out of my hand, his brows in a deep V as he scrolls over my screens. “Who did you message?”
“ Nobody. ” I let my irritation show. I lift my chin at the phone. “Check it yourself.”
His thumb flies over the screen as he checks my phone log, too. “You could’ve sent one and erased it.”
“I need my fucking phone, Armando.” I let myself sound bitchy because it’s a better alternative to allowing him to bully me or showing fear.
He shakes his head and shoves the phone in his back pocket. “That’s not how this works, and you know it, Flowers.” He catches my wrists and pins me with a dark gaze. “I trust you and leave for one minute… And now you’re in big trouble with me.”
Big trouble .
Why does that make my belly flip flop with excitement?
Because I already know I like his punishments. He spins me around and slaps my hands on the refrigerator, then pulls my hips back to bend me at the waist. My wrists are manacled under one of his meaty palms.
I’m prepared for the slap when it comes, but it’s harder than I expect, and I gasp. He smacks my other butt cheek just as hard, then yanks my minidress up to my armpits. He spanks my ass some more over my panties.
“Ow, okay,” I snap because it really does hurt.
He brings his mouth close to my ear—close enough that his warm breath feathers across my jaw when he speaks. “You keep your hands glued to that fridge, Hannah,” he warns. “If you move, I will make you sorry.”
He doesn’t wait for my agreement but releases my wrists to yank my panties down my thighs.
Oh God.
It’s so hot but also borderline humiliating. Especially because they tangle around my thighs and stay there. I wiggle and shake my legs until they fall down.
“Good girl,” Armando says, and everything shifts.
Maybe I had been a little afraid up to that moment. He was a little rougher than he’s been in the past. Spanked a little harder. Now I’m sure of him again.
“I’m not having sex with you,” I say, trying to maintain the one level of control he’s given me.
Sex is the only leverage I have—not that he couldn’t just force me. But I know he won’t.
“Understood, but that’s not gonna stop your punishment.” His voice is deep and gruff.
Well, good. I didn’t particularly want to stop my punishment. Except he picks up spanking me again, and it’s still too hard.
“Ouch!” I jerk and wince as he peppers my ass with five more hard spanks.
“And there is so much I can do to you besides just fucking you.”
He continues to spank me more. My ass getting warmer with each swat of his hand. What hurts also feels so fucking good.
“Are you going to be a good girl and follow my rules? Or do I need to keep spanking you?” His voice is deep, authoritative, and my pussy pulsates with each syllable of his question.
“I’ll be a good girl.” Even though I’m saying the words, they seem to vanish, drowning between my gasps and mewls.
“Do you want Daddy to punish you like a naughty girl or punish you like the bad girl you are?”
Holy. Fucking. Christ. His one question is like a bolt of electricity zipped through me. So fucking intense.
“I want both, Daddy .” I inhale deeply. “Both.”
Then he drops to his knees behind me and pinches my asscheeks with his thumbs. He pulls them apart and licks up my crack.
I let out a warble of pleasure. God, yes. Wherever this man learned to fuck, he learned it right.
He rims my anus with his tongue, then pushes my thighs wider to open me to him. Face buried in my ass, he licks up to my clit and back again. The sting of his spanks morphs into a warm tingle, bringing added heat to the region, as if my core weren’t already molten.
He slaps my ass intermittently as he works my folds with his tongue, then screws one finger into me. His thumb rubs over my anus.
“Good thing we’re not having sex, Flowers. Or I’d bend you over, put my cock in your ass and fuck you hard.”
Oh. My. Gawd.
Armando shifts to dip his thumb in my pussy, then returns to my anus with it coated with my juices and pushes like he’s trying to get in. He puts three—fuck, maybe four—fingers in my pussy at the same time.
I do scream—a loud, “Oh my God!” I lose my balance, my knees buckling. Armando grips my pelvis to hold me up and removes his fingers. “No,” I whimper. Dammit. I was so close to coming.
He grabs me around the waist and pulls back. I shriek as I free-fall into his lap, but he doesn’t miss a beat. He hooks his hand behind my left knee and pulls it up and open, spreading me wide. With his right palm, he starts spanking my pussy.
Quick firm slaps. He slaps everything—my clit, my entrance, my labia. I wriggle in his lap, trying to push him away at the same time I pull him closer. It’s crazy intense. Like lose-my-mind intense in a really good-bad way. Hurty but really freaking satisfying.
I shriek and grab the hand spanking me, cup it around my mons, so I can come. He curls his fingers and dips them in—two, maybe three—and I come, a spasm of release rippling through me.
“Oh fuck,” I pant. “Oh my God.”
I come some more.
He undulates his hand, so the heel of it pulses against my clit. I come again.
“Jesus.” I fling myself back into his arms, my head lolling over his shoulder.
He pulls his fingers out of me, and I moan, but he gives my pussy three more quick slaps, and I come again.
“Holy freaking shit,” I pant. “What in the hell did you just do to me?” My whole body is abuzz, ass tingling, pussy raw and sore from the spanking, anus still pulsing from being breeched.
I turn my face into his neck because my eyes suddenly burn with the release. I know if I don’t make anything of it, the emotions will pass through me, but I don’t want him to see. It’s so weird how easily I cry.
He shifts my ass to hold me better, and I feel his rock-hard erection prod my butt. I don’t feel guilty. Not really.
But the truth is, I’m still revved up. I don’t know, maybe my body’s not quite satisfied until I go the whole way. Until I actually ride his cock.
“The only way I’d have sex with you would be if I tied you up this time,” I tell him.
“Not gonna happen,” he answers without hesitation, but I feel his cock lurch against my backside. He brings his fingers to my clit and rubs a slow circle.
Shit!
This man’s touch is my kryptonite. I swear he could make me do anything if he just made me come this hard every day.
I put my face back in the crook of his neck and whimper. I may have just come, but the need is still there. And he’s amping it up with every rub of my clit.
“I’d let you ride me no-hands,” he offers.
I bite his neck because I’m frustrated. “What is that?”
“You know. Like at a strip club. You can climb all over me, but I can’t touch you.”
He had to bring up strip clubs and remind me of last night. “No, I don’t know. I’ve never been,” I say tartly.
“You wanna ride my cock?” He massages a handful of my ass.
Unfortunately, it seems my body wants nothing more. It holds no grudges.
When I hesitate, he moves, lifting me off his lap and pulling me to my feet as he stands. Then he swings me up into a baby carry. I gasp, worried I’m too heavy, but he doesn’t appear to be straining.
And being carried is a delicious feeling.
One I don’t want to indulge in because there are already way too many things about the way Armando touches me I like.
I don’t want to get used to any of it because it’s not a relationship.
It’s not permanent. It’s this weird high-stress shared experience that forged intimacy.
Like people who band together during the zombie apocalypse and are forced to develop bonds that would never exist otherwise.
And yeah, it says something that I’m comparing our situation to the one faced by the characters in The Walking Dead.
He sets me on my feet near the bed and pulls my dress, which is still tangled up around my armpits, over my head.
I give his chest a light push, which of course, doesn’t move him at all. “No touching,” I remind him.