Chapter 1 #3
Somehow, I know what he wants. "Yes, Sir."
"Good girl." The praise shouldn't affect me the way it does. "Follow me."
He turns and walks away, not checking to see if I follow.
I do.
Of course I do.
I've been walking toward this moment for eight years.
I just didn't know it until now.
He leads me through Hell, past scenes that become increasingly intense.
People step aside as we pass, some bowing their heads slightly.
Respect. Fear. Both.
We reach a door marked PRIVATE.
He enters a code—different from the elevator—and it opens into a hallway lined with more doors.
He chooses one seemingly at random, though I suspect nothing this man does is random.
The room is luxurious.
Blood-red walls, black leather furniture, a bed that looks like it's seen things.
But it's the other elements that make my stomach drop and pulse race.
Restraints attached to various surfaces.
A cabinet with glass doors displaying things I don't have names for, but understand the purpose of.
Tools of pain.
Tools of pleasure.
Tools of destruction.
"Last chance," he says, closing the door behind us.
The sound of the lock clicking is the loudest thing I've ever heard. "Once we begin, you're mine until I decide otherwise."
I answer by reaching for the zipper of my dress.
"Stop." The command freezes me in place. "You don't do anything without permission. First lesson."
"I'm sorry, I?—"
"Don't apologize. Just obey."
He circles me slowly, like a predator deciding where to strike first. I stay perfectly still, barely breathing.
"You're not new to pain," he observes. "But you're new to this kind of pain. The kind you choose."
How does he know?
How can he possibly?—
"I can see it in the way you hold yourself. Trauma survivor, but not recent. Childhood? No. Adolescent. Something that changed you fundamentally. Made you crave what others fear."
My breath hitches. It's like he's reading my soul.
"Am I right, little lamb?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Good. Then you'll understand what I'm about to do to you."
He moves to the cabinet, selecting items with deliberate care.
When he turns back, he's holding rope.
Black silk that looks soft, but I suspect will mark me regardless.
"Strip."
This time, I have permission.
I reach for the zipper, pulling it down slowly.
The dress pools at my feet.
I'm left in black lace that barely covers anything, my heels, and nothing else.
His expression doesn't change, but something in his eyes darkens. "Everything except the heels."
My hands shake as I unhook my bra and slide off my panties.
I've never been this exposed, this vulnerable.
David and I had sex with the lights off, partially clothed, under covers.
This is something else entirely.
"Beautiful," he says, but it sounds more like a threat than a compliment. "Turn around. Hands behind your back."
I obey.
The rope is soft against my wrists, but he ties it tight enough that I know I won't be able to escape.
Not that I want to.
"On your knees."
I drop carefully, the position making me hyperaware of my nakedness, my vulnerability.
He moves in front of me, still fully dressed.
The power dynamic is clear—he has all of it.
"Do you know what's going to happen now?"
"No, Sir."
"I'm going to hurt you. I'm going to humiliate you. I'm going to use you. And you're going to thank me for it. Do you understand?"
My core clenches at his words. "Yes, Sir."
"Tell me your safe word."
I think for a moment. "Chicago."
My parents' favorite city.
Where they met. Where they died.
"If you use it, this ends immediately. You leave and never come back. Understood?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Good. Open your mouth."
He traces my lips with his thumb, pressing just enough to part them. "You have no idea who I am, what I'm capable of, and yet here you are, on your knees for a stranger." His thumb pushes deeper, making me taste my own lipstick. "That's either very brave or very stupid."
I hold his gaze as I deliberately close my lips around his thumb, sucking gently.
His eyes darken to nearly black.
"Brave then," he murmurs, pulling his thumb free with a wet sound that makes me clench my thighs together. "Let's see how long that lasts."
He undoes his belt with one hand, the leather sliding free with a whisper of promise.
Or threat.
The sound makes me wet instantly, and somehow, he knows.
"Already soaking yourself, and I haven't even touched you properly." He fists my hair, pulling my head back to look up at him. "What would your safe, boring ex-boyfriend think if he could see you now? Tied up and desperate for a stranger's cock?"
The crude words should offend me, and the fact that he knows I have an ex-boyfriend should terrify me.
Instead, they make me moan.
"That's what I thought." He tightens his grip in my hair. "You've been pretending to be something you're not. But I see you, little lamb. I see exactly what you are."
"What am I?" The question escapes before I can stop it.
His smile is dark, predatory. "Mine."
The word reverberates through me as he stands, running his hand over his pants.
My mouth goes dry watching his hands—elegant but scarred, speaking of violence and control.
"Eyes on me," he commands when my gaze drops. "Always on me."
He frees himself from his expensive suit pants, and I can't help but gasp.
He's huge, thick, already hard from watching my submission.
The size of him makes me nervous—David was nothing compared to this.
"Scared?" He threads his fingers through my hair, grip firm but not painful. Yet.
"No, Sir."
"Liar." He guides himself to my lips, painting them with precum. "Open."
I part my lips, and he pushes inside, not gentle, not easing me into it.
He fills my mouth completely, hitting the back of my throat and making me gag.
My hands strain against the rope binding them, instinctively wanting to push him away, but I can't move.
"Breathe through your nose," he instructs, holding himself deep until my eyes water. "That's it. You're going to take all of me."
He starts to move, fucking my mouth with controlled thrusts that make me dizzy.
Saliva drips down my chin, my mascara runs in black streams, and the sounds I'm making are obscene, desperate.
Then his phone rings.
I expect him to ignore it.
Instead, he answers, never slowing his rhythm.
"Vincent." His voice is perfectly steady while he uses me. "The shipment?"
He conducts an entire conversation about drug routes and territory disputes while his cock fills my throat.
The casual dominance of it—discussing murder and money while I gag on him—makes me clench my thighs together desperately.
I'm so wet it's running down my legs.
"Handle it," he says into the phone, then looks down at me. "And make sure the judge's files are destroyed."
Judge's files?
Something about that makes my mind try to focus, but then he thrusts particularly deep, and I can't think about anything except breathing, surviving, needing.
When he finally ends the call, both hands grip my hair. "Now you're going to swallow every drop like the perfect little whore you are."
The degradation shouldn't make me moan around him, but it does.
He speeds up, fucking my face like he was born to do it, using me exactly as promised—like I'm nothing but a hole for his pleasure.
When he comes, he holds my head in place, making me take everything, watching my throat work to swallow.
He pulls out slowly, strings of saliva connecting us before breaking.
I'm gasping, crying, ruined.
And somehow, shamefully, desperately aroused.
"Look at you," he says, tilting my chin up. "Already wrecked and I haven't even fucked you properly yet."
He uses me thoroughly, alternating between treating me like I'm precious and like I'm nothing.
The duality breaks something in my mind—I can't predict what's coming next, can't prepare, can only surrender to whatever he decides to give or take.
When he finally pulls back, I'm gasping, tears streaming down my face, lipstick smeared.
He studies me like I'm a painting he's creating, tilting my chin up to admire his work.
"Beautiful," he says again, and this time it sounds like ownership. "Stand up."
My legs shake as I rise.
He steadies me with a hand on my arm, then leads me to a padded bench I hadn't noticed before.
"Bend over it."
I comply immediately, the position making me achingly vulnerable with my hands still bound behind my back.
The leather is cool against my heated skin.
I can feel how exposed I am, how open, and the humiliation of it wars with desperate need.
He trails a finger down my spine, barely touching, making me shiver. "You're dripping," he observes clinically. "From just that. Imagine what you'll be like when I'm finished with you."
His hand comes down on my backside without warning—not playful, but sharp enough to make me cry out.
The pain blooms into heat immediately.
"Count," he commands.
"One," I gasp.
By five, I'm sobbing.
By ten, I'm begging—though I'm not sure if it's for him to stop or continue.
He pauses, running his hand over the heated skin.
"Already so responsive. You were made for this, weren't you? Made to be owned, used, broken apart."
"Yes," I sob. "Yes, Sir, please?—"
"Please what?" Another sharp strike. "Use your words."
But I don't have words for what I need.
I've never had words for this darkness inside me, this craving for destruction.
All I can do is push back against his hand, shameless in my desperation.
"Look at you," he says, and there's something like wonder in his voice. "So eager to be ruined."
He moves behind me, and my whole body tenses in anticipation, but he doesn't touch me.
Not yet.
"Beg for it."
The words pour out of me without thought, without shame.
Every filthy thing I've ever imagined saying, every dark fantasy I've never admitted to anyone.
I degrade myself with my own words, and each one makes me wetter.
Only when I'm incoherent with need does he finally touch me where I'm desperate for him.
The first press of his fingers makes me scream into the leather.
"So tight," he murmurs. "How long has it been since someone touched you properly?"
I can't answer.
Can't think.
Can only feel as he works me with an expertise that speaks of experience I can't fathom.
He brings me to the edge over and over, only to pull back at the last second, until I'm sobbing, pleading, promising anything if he'll just let me?—
"Come."
The command breaks me apart.
The orgasm rips through me with a violence that matches everything else about this night.
I convulse against the bench, screaming, and he doesn't stop touching me, forcing me through it and into another one immediately after.
When I finally collapse, boneless and destroyed, he carefully unties my wrists, rubbing feeling back into them with surprisingly gentle hands.
"That was just the beginning," he says, pulling me up to face him.
My legs won't support me, so he holds me against his chest. "Three nights, little lamb. By the end, you won't remember your own name. You'll only remember mine."
"I don't even know your name," I whisper against his expensive shirt.
"Cassius," he says, and it sounds like a dark promise. "Cassius Wolfe."