Chapter Twenty-One
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Henri
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I EXISTED IN HELL WITH a motherfucking temptress.
The wet patch on my trousers stuck to my thigh with every step.
My insides were in knots.
I could barely breathe.
Glancing at Ily as she crawled like a haughty cat beside me, I wanted to crack open her skull and ransack through her thoughts.
What had she been thinking?
Writhing on my hand like that?
Moaning in my ear like that?
Begging me to finger her deeper, harder...asking me to make her come.
Christ.
I swallowed hard.
She shouldn’t affect me this badly.
Shouldn’t scramble my logic and turn me suicidal with lust.
It’d taken every strength not to stab my fork into Victor’s smug face and toss her over the table. He wanted me to stick my dick inside her? Well, he wasn’t the only one. He wanted me to snap? Fuck, I would give anything to give in.
I could already feel her around me.
Feel her coming all over my cock as I drove deep, deep inside her.
I’d been so close.
So, so fucking close to opening my fly and shifting her on my lap. Of commanding her to sink over my length and take it.
If it hadn’t been for her tears—
Goddammit.
Had she cried because she’d been faking her desire?
Maybe every allegiance she’d given me was false, and she played me as cleverly as she played everyone else?
Every feeling I had for her. Every hope I entertained. Every emotion she dragged out of me could be the worst kind of fantasy.
Why the hell did I think a girl I’d trapped and trafficked could ever be on my side? Why did I even think she’d trust me...like me?
Like me?
Fuck, Ri.
What an idiotic thing to believe.
She didn’t like me.
She was using me.
To keep her safe.
To keep her away from everyone else.
Her little stunt had nothing to do with what existed between us and everything to do with our performance.
I rubbed my fingers together, cursing the powder of her dried arousal.
If she pretended so expertly, why was she drenched?
My heart wrenched in my chest.
Because of him. Peter.
The jewel she seemed to share a bond with. The way she’d sucked in that delicate little gasp when he appeared on stage. The way she squirmed on the floor as he fucked a fellow slave.
She can’t stand you.
She hates you.
And for good fucking reason.
I yanked on the leash binding her to me. “Faster.”
The sooner we got this over with, the sooner I could send Q the coordinates so I could get the hell away from her.
Her hands and knees shuffled over the deck, her white negligee hanging low and revealing swinging breasts.
Jesus Christ, it wasn’t fair.
For the thousandth time, I wanted to scream at the sky ‘Why her?’
Why was she different?
Why did she have the power to make my cock weep with a single look or drive me into insanity with a single gasp?
Every moment I spent in her company, my soul tore down the middle. The hero inside me wanted to do absolutely everything he could to deserve and protect her. But the villain? Fuck, he wanted to break her, ruin her, and keep her chained in the very same hell she’d forced me to rule.
The closer we got to the stage, the more my heart forgot how to beat.
Everyone watched us.
Everyone saw.
I thought I’d been sly with Victor. Thought I could play a part I’d always felt but never accepted. Turned out, he knew me better than myself.
All I had was her.
All I wanted was her.
And the novelty of finally finding someone who could make me feel something other than loneliness made it impossible to motherfucking breathe.
Ily didn’t say a word as I led her crawling up the short steps to the stage.
The spotlight seemed too bright.
Booze lodged like a boulder in my gut.
I was sober as a priest, despite my lack of food.
My breath came fast as I looked over the sea of tables and Masters.
The back of my neck prickled with far too many eyes.
Was this what stage fright felt like?
Would I even be able to perform?
Adjusting my hard-on, I tested my sensitivity.
I almost folded in half at the barest squeeze.
At least I’d be quick.
Ily wouldn’t have to tolerate me for long, seeing as I could barely fucking see straight with need.
Tugging on the leash to stop her, she sucked in the faintest inhale.
I thought I was the cause until I looked down and noticed what she focused on.
A translucent spot on the black fabric floor.
Cum.
It’s cum.
Peter’s cum from fucking the slave he’d been commanded to role-play with.
Was it funny that both acts tonight would be complete fabrications or just tragic?
Even in a fortress that claimed freedom beat at its very heart, all I could hear were chains.
“Flog her, mate!” someone yelled.
“Stretch her with a dildo!”
“Shred her tattoo with that whip over there. The cat-o-nine-tails cuts ’em real good!”
To Ily’s credit, she didn’t move. Not a single twitch.
I couldn’t say the same for my stomach as it leaped and somersaulted, but outwardly, I looked as cold as the dragon ice sculpture slowly melting in the corner of the gazebo.
The level of wealth Victor had. The weight of his influence.
If the dated keystone Ily had noticed when we’d first stepped inside was right, then this hellhole had been in operation for over twenty years.
Twenty fucking years these games had been going on. Slaves beaten. Jewels molested. Lives snuffed out and treated as if they were nothing more than flies.
Less than flies.
Dirt.
Sighing heavily, I resisted the urge to drag Ily through the gardens and back to my room. Instead, I dropped the leash and prowled around her.
The faster this was done, the sooner I could let her go.
Keeping her eyes down, she tensed as I circled her.
Raising my voice for the audience, I said, “If I whipped her tonight, I’d have nothing to look forward to tomorrow.”
“Always tomorrow too!” Someone snickered.
I chuckled. “True. But I have something special planned for tomorrow.”
“Tell us!”
I tapped my nose. “Secret.”
Fuck, now I’d have to come up with something. I’d have to hurt her.
Christ, Ri.
My hands shook as they strayed to my belt. I needed to get off this stage before I made our lives even worse than they already were.
As long as I could keep it together, I could rest once I’d sneaked into Victor’s office and gotten the GPS location to Q. He’d either exonerate me or kill me, and right now, I didn’t really care which.
Just a few more hours of pretend—just another moment where I had to fuck her like a beast—and then I could tuck her safely in my room where no one else could touch her.
Including me.
Balling my hands, I stalked around her one last time, resisting the urge to piss a ring of ownership around her, sinking far too deep into the animalistic tendencies within me.
Every male in this castle was a threat.
Every man was my enemy.
I’d slaughter every single one of them before they touched her. Script or no script.
Ily kept her head down, blue-black hair curtaining her face, exposing the back of her slender neck. The gleam of her golden collar did things to me I didn’t want to acknowledge.
Pressing against my hard-on, I shivered.
You can do this.
You will do this.
You will do this as gently and as quickly as you can because no matter your stupid little obsession, she doesn’t feel the same way.
She’s acting.
She’s terrified.
She deserves better.
Shoving all thoughts out of my head, I tried to remember what the audience had said.
Yanking my belt out from the loops, I raised it at the crowd. “I’ll save the whip for another night. For now, bondage will do.”
I glanced down at Ily.
She didn’t so much as twitch.
The urge to praise her commitment to our roles was overshadowed by the frustration that she didn’t react. The beast inside me grumbled with annoyance that she stayed so meek, so docile, exactly like I’d begged her to.
“Bind her so we can all have a taste,” someone shouted. “Good idea!”
Fury whipped through me.
Ily’s impressive self-control chose that moment to fracture.
Just a little.
It didn’t go unnoticed—not while I was hyper-fucking-aware of everything.
Her body trembled; fingers fisted on her thighs. Her quaking made her hair shiver and the inked wand on her back glowed as if she weaved a silent spell through her white negligee.
Ducking to my haunches behind her, I used the excuse of grabbing her thick hair to press my mouth to her ear. For all my shortcomings and sins, I pretended to be the cop she wished I was.
“Do you trust me?” I breathed.
Say no.
Never, ever trust me.
She gasped and shivered then nodded.
“Do what I say and do it quickly.” Pulling back, I commanded for the crowd, “Put your hands behind your back, little nightmare. Let’s string you up so I can feast.”
Men chuckled.
She immediately obeyed.
Two sides. Two emotions.
The man within me was so fucking thankful. Thankful she played along. Didn’t fight. Didn’t trigger my beast. While it slumbered, I could be kind. While it slept, I could stay human.
But the other part of me...that very beast that slowly came alive no matter how much I tried to keep it dead, huffed with rapidly growing irritation.
Was it too much to ask for a little struggle? For a single word of rebellion?
The joy of bringing her back in line would be indescribably—
Bad.
Terrible.
Focus!
Slowly, I wound my belt around her cuffed wrists, buckling her tight but not too tight. Using the curtain of her hair to hide my lips, I whispered into her ear, “I’ll take you from behind, like the show we just watched. I-I’ll be quick. Just...don’t fight me, and it’ll be over soon.”
She lowered her chin.
I didn’t want to tell her the reason it’d be over soon. I might be more honest with her than anyone, but I drew the line at confessing I’d almost come against her ass the moment my fingers sank inside her heat. That I’d been one rub away from blowing as her wet need clamped around me.
Despite these dangerous games and mind wars, our bodies couldn’t distinguish truth from fiction.
She’d been dripping for me—
Lies, remember?
Her wetness hadn’t been for me.
It’d been for him.
And Christ, that gutted me far deeper than it should.
My hands trembled as I unsnapped the leash from her collar.