Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 61652 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61652 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
With a smile I knew she’d translate as cruel, I tugged on the leash harder, sending her collapsing at my feet. “But first, a kiss?”
She glowered up at me.
“Kiss my leather shoes,” I ordered, playing with her. “And be sure to wipe it off once you’re done. You are wearing red lipstick, little one.”
I tugged the leash harder when she didn’t move, wrapping the chain around my wrist until her head was twisted up toward me.
“Well? What do you say?”
She gritted her teeth and whispered in a hoarse voice, “Yes, Master.”
I loosened my hold on the chain, allowing her to lower her trembling lips to my shoe. Chuckles erupted around the table.
“Damn, you trained her fast,” a male called out from the guests. “Wish I could break mine in that way.”
“She’s special,” I found myself saying, her lips hovering over my shiny black shoe. Her eyes squeezed shut, pressing against the top.
I felt the hatred dripping from her mouth like a curse. I would never admit how much I loved her mouth on my shoe, but that wasn’t the point of my order. I wanted the men in the room to see who she belonged to. It was simply a reminder to Troy and everyone else that she was mine, and I’d fucking kill them without thinking twice about it if they doubted it for one second.
After the kiss, she wiped the shoe with a fingertip, then looked back up at me with swollen lips. Hurt echoed in her eyes, in her posture.
“Thank you, Master.”
I nearly dropped the chain. She was thanking me without me telling her. I swallowed a knot of emotion in my throat, jerking back a bit. Realizing I’d just given her power.
“I’ll escort her.” Troy was suddenly at my side, holding his hand out.
He wanted her leash.
Checkmate.
The only thing I could do to prove that she was just my pet, and I didn’t care for her.
Was hand it over to him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Donovan
He wanted to play master, dragging her toward the baby grand piano in the middle of the glamorous ballroom, with its hanging chandeliers and dim lighting.
I clutched my hands into fists, took a breath, and reluctantly handed the leash over. “Take care of what’s mine, Troy.”
“Oh, I always do.” He shot her a sinister smile. “Shall we?”
She eyed me for permission; either that or she was petrified. I offered a small nod before he pulled her to her feet, leading her by the small gold chain toward the piano.
Attendants walked up to pull the bench out for her.
Troy looked back at me as he leaned in, whispering something in her ear, and when she nodded at him, he ran a hand from her shoulder down nearly to her ass.
I saw murder.
I wanted to draw his blood and laugh while doing so. I sat and crossed my legs over my knee like this was normal, like I was normal, not internally losing my shit and wondering how soon I could murder my dead father’s best friend and business partner.
Troy walked by me and slapped my shoulder the same way he’d caressed hers. Leaning over, he declared, “Think of her playing as a gift that I do hope you enjoy. I know I will.”
I didn’t tense. “Since when have I ever enjoyed any gift you’ve given me?”
His eyes turned to steel. “You’ll see.”
The music started at that moment, and every single shield I thought I had erected came crashing down around me while Juliet started the first part of “I Giorni” by Ludovico Einaudi.
It may as well have been the blanket I held at night when nobody would hold me. It was my safe space. Every single echo of the music took me back to that closet, to a place of so much fear and shame that I wanted to die in front of my guests.
From the second she began playing, I was thrown back to another time, another place, where all I saw was the comfort of my mother—the woman my father had murdered with my hand in broad daylight.
“One day,” Mama whispered through the hole in the closet as she sat next to me and put her pinky finger through so she could touch me. I wasn’t allowed to hug her.
In terms, that one touch was my oxygen.
It was my strength.
I looked forward to our nightly chats when Father was gone. It meant for one brief second, in a dark room far away from the real world, I was with an angel.
I was with my mom.
She was with me.
And all was right in our messed-up world.
Maybe God didn’t exist.
But in that moment, angels did.
“One day,” she rasped.
I could hear her tears and wanted nothing more than to take away the pain.
“You will go far away from this place, Donovan. One day, even if I’m not here, I’m going to save you.”