Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 130048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
“You’re stunning,” he breathed. “A perfect C if I’m not mistaken. Landing strip showing the way to that tight little cunt. Even your exotic skin is gorgeous.” His eyes dulled. “Pity. That will only make them want to mark it.”
I squirmed in his hold. “Let go of me.”
Slowly, he lowered my arms and released me. “What’s your nationality? Where are you from? Why do you speak Hindi?”
“Do you honestly think I want to share that with you?”
“Meh.” He shrugged. “You will eventually. And I’ll be here for you when you want me. For now, at least you shaved and plucked for a night out. I won’t have to get the razor on you.” Waving at the spa, he ordered, “Get in. Bathe. Wash away your old life because your new one is about to start.”
I bared my teeth. “I won’t do anything with you watching.”
He muttered something under his breath as his hand fondled his cock beneath his trousers. Flashing a look at a blinking camera, he let himself go and whispered, “You’d be cruel enough to deny me the chance of drinking you in? You’d stop me from having pictures of you to sink into when I’m being buggered by a sadist?”
Stepping into me, his nostrils flared as he stared at the swell of my breasts. “We all need fantasies, Ily. We all need light. I can’t help it if your innocence gets me hard or that the desire to protect you makes me incredibly aroused. I have nothing in this place. No power. No ability to look after those I care about. I’m a straight guy, yet I’m fucked by twisted men. I can’t do anything about it. I have nothing to call my own. I can’t touch you. I can’t save you. But I can hoard every image of you. I can sink into all your curves and imagine what you’d taste like, so the next time I have a dick in my ass, I can fabricate a fairytale where it’s you I’m touching, you I’m making scream in pleasure instead of pain, and when I’ve loved you, when I’ve wrung you dry and you’re absolutely sated, I’d pick you up and carry you out of here…just like I wish someone would carry me.”
I stood stiff and unbreathing.
Our eyes locked, and crashing waves of emotion waked in his. All it took was for one breath and I understood him. I understood how fragile he was, how broken, how he used sex as a crutch to keep limping through this never-ending nightmare.
Ever so slowly, I dropped my arms.
He sucked in a hungry breath.
I stood before a stranger who’d somehow become so much more and bared myself to him in ways I’d never bared myself to Samuel. Sure, Sam had seen me naked. He’d touched me, kissed me, and been inside me, but this…this singular moment where I let a trembling man run his burning gaze over every piece of me was a thousand times more intimate. A thousand times more destroying.
The moment stretched for far longer than it should before he finally cleared his throat and stepped back. “Thank you, Ily. Thank you for giving me something to help get me through.”
I nodded, shivering as my hair kissed my naked shoulders. “Someone will free us…one day,” I whispered. “You’ll see. I’ll share in that fantasy with you.”
He half-smiled. “Be careful your fantasies don’t end up destroying you.” Cocking his chin at the spa, he ordered, “Now take off your boots, climb in, and get washing. We’re late.”
Chapter Eleven
………………………….
Henri
I STOOD LOOKING AT MYSELF in the mirror.
A mirror that took up the whole wall of the vast bathroom. Exposed stone on the walls, black marble on the floor, a walk-in shower beneath a large skylight, and a vanity carved from a single tree stump.
My hands curled around the basin, twinging the cut on my palm from the glass I’d shattered in the club.
The scalding shower that I’d turned on ten minutes ago filled the space with steam. The mirror streaked with fat droplets, blurring my reflection, making it seem like I bled with colourless tears.
I needed to undress and climb into the shower. I needed to rinse away the memory of the blood test to see if I could fuck slaves unprotected, to wash out my filthy thoughts, and head down to breakfast to fill my churning stomach with food.
I needed to do whatever it took to settle the corruption in my mind.
Ever since the butler guided me into this suite with its giant four-poster bed, bronze chaise, massive stained-glass window, and a small round balcony that overlooked lush gardens that didn’t seem real, I’d tripped a little deeper into hell.
This place was fucking with my head.
Every rock and lintel seemed to regress me to an era where violence was just a part of life. Humans pretended to be more civil in this day and age, preferring to destroy one another with slander and pointless online battles, but back then…we didn’t hide.