Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 80699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
It chimed, though, with the distinctive alert sound of the Selecta Arrangements app. I grabbed it from the end table next to me as a sarcastic voice in my head said, So that you can do, I guess? You can’t pick up your phone to take back your stupidity, but you can look at whatever arrogant message he just sent you?
The part of me to which that voice belonged hoped, as I turned my eyes to the screen, that it was Ben. At that moment I would have accepted a date with him—would have let him keep his hand on my ass as long as he wanted. I would have tried, anyway.
What I saw on my phone, though, was a message from Christian.
I’m outside your door. If you want this, tell your apartment to reinstate the sponsor agreement so that I can come in. You have one minute.
So dominating, and yet in its own way, so considerate. I felt my face twist into a pout of woe. His words repeated themselves in my mind.
“I’m going to close up your pussy and keep it that way until you learn to obey me.”
I felt the fingers of my left hand, of their own accord, trace the scalloped, lacy edge of the thong, very gently up and down.
He won’t. He… he can’t.
From outer space, I heard the words my voice had apparently decided on its own to speak.
“Apartment, reinstate sponsor agreement with Christian Guzman.”
It replied instantly, in a dispassionate, friendly tone that made the terror that gripped my body that much worse.
“Agreement reinstated. Christian Guzman now has full access.”
I heard the door open, then, a moment later, close. I kept my eyes on the window. The sun had started to sink toward the sea.
“Stand up, Rebel,” my sponsor’s voice said. He didn’t sound angry, at least. He did sound all the other things that sent shivers of need through my limbs: arrogant, demanding, commanding. Above all, dominant.
I turned my head over my shoulder to see him standing there, just a few feet inside the doorway. His jeans were black today, I noted, rather than blue. His shirt was red; twill, maybe, my dissociated mind thought, rather than the oxford cloth he had worn the previous week.
His face, though. I searched it desperately for signs of displeasure, hardly realizing that I did that to avoid thinking about how devastatingly handsome he was, how gorgeously his slightly wavy dark hair framed his bronze face. I saw his eyes narrow a little, maybe at how long it was taking me to respond to his simple instruction.
That tiny change in his expression brought me shakily to my feet. I kept my eyes on his, and I saw the little smile break out there, at their corners, rather than on his lips.
Christian started to walk slowly toward me, crossing the little space between the entryway and the living room in three deliberate steps.
As he approached, despite the lack of urgency or threat in his movements, I quailed back a little out of sheer terror. My hands rose to cover the lacy bra and the skimpy panties, despite knowing that Christian wouldn’t stand for me hiding those places from him.
He shook his head, his chin dropping. His dark eyes said very clearly what that no meant. I felt my brow furrow hard. I looked down to see my hands shaking. With a little whimper I forced them downward and away from the pretty underwear my sponsor had bought for me, before I had made the terrible mistake of pretending I didn’t need his guidance.
No, screamed the voice in my head that claimed to be my reason, that wasn’t the mistake, Leah. This is the mistake.
“On your head,” I heard Christian say. I blinked for a second, lost in my own roiling inner world, unable to comprehend the words, or at least to contextualize them. Then I raised my eyes to see that his face had become harder—still not at all angry or even especially aggressive, as far as I could tell, but definitely… firmer. Another whimper escaped me, just at the sight of that gorgeous face, and the dominant, intelligent mind that seemed to shine in his eyes, intent on disciplining me as he had decided I needed to be disciplined.
“On your head, Rebel,” he repeated. Then, as if he could see that the most basic instructions were having difficulty getting through to me at the moment, he explained patiently. “Your hands. On your head. Now.”
“Oh, God,” I breathed, as the effect of the word now seemed to rocket through my nervous system. My hands had descended only a few inches from my chest and my pussy. I tried to raise them, so that I could obey Christian’s command, but they wouldn’t seem to move.
He took another step forward, his eyes still locked on mine. He reached out his hands, still moving slowly, and took hold of my wrists. My lips parted and my breathing came in little pants as he helped me obey him, lifting my hands and bending my arms to bring my fingers to the back of my head, pushing them together without force.