by Nadia Aidan
“I do care,” he whispered, breaking the long silence that had settled between them. “And I’m here because I want to show you just how much. I want—”
“You want. It’s always about what you want.” She shook her head as she stepped around him and marched over to the door. “Never about what I want. And right now, I want you to leave.” She grasped the doorknob and twisted it, but it did not budge.
“It’s locked,” he said, stating the obvious. She glared at him from over her shoulder, a small gasp of surprise slipping out of her when she realized he stood just inches away from her. The heat of his body was already beginning to envelop her with its warmth, the rich, masculine scent of him straining through her lungs.
“You can call for the guards, and they will come and open this door, but I am begging you not to.”
She spun her head around, ignoring him. “Open this door right now.”
Before the last word was out the latch clicked and the door swung open.
“Sonya!”
She continued to ignore him until she felt a hand grasp her arm. Sonya lurched at his touch as she whirled to face him. “Do not touch me—ever again. Do not come here—ever again. I told you it’s over. We’re done, so stay the hell away from me.”
Twisting back around, she dismissed him and stormed off, blindly stomping down the hall as tears clouded her vision.
She could not believe him, could not fathom his nerve. He’d used her, humiliated her, and broken her heart, and now that she’d finally managed to find what was left of her pride and dignity and the strength to move on, he’d decided what? That he missed her, that he wanted her? Like hell he did. Joshua didn’t miss her. He missed the sex, the power he’d had over her, the power to command her, but the woman she once was, he didn’t even know that person, so she knew damn well he wasn’t here because he wanted her back.
With tears blurring her vision and her mind in chaos, Sonya tore down the hallway as if the devil nipped at her stiletto heels—at least that was the only explanation she had for why she failed to see the large, immovable obstacle blocking her escape.
She barreled into it so hard and so fast, she would have tumbled backward to the floor had a hand not reached out at the last moment to grab her arm. She cried out, stumbling, but after several seconds she realized she was not flat on her ass. It took her another moment to realize the large, immovable object was living and breathing flesh, and he now held her tight within his grasp.
“Erik?”
He didn’t answer immediately, instead he swept his gaze over her, taking in her current state. His eyes narrowed with concern, but Sonya had not mistaken the knowing gleam that leapt in his gaze just moments before.
“I take it your session with the sub didn’t go so well.”
She glared at him. “You set me up.”
That damn eyebrow lifted again. In that moment he reminded her of Seth, who was known for the same aggravating gesture.
“I thought you wanted revenge.”
His words were so unexpected that she reared back, taking a closer look at him. She had no idea what Joshua had told him, but she had a feeling he hadn’t told him much. Whatever Erik knew, or thought he did, he’d figured out on his own, which made him extremely perceptive, and almost eerily insightful.
“I thought you would appreciate the opportunity to humble the person who hurt you,” Erik continued, amid her silence. “But I guess I was wrong.” He brushed past her, and was already halfway down the hall before she managed to speak.
“Wait.”
Erik stopped but he did not immediately turn around. On legs that were a bit unsteady, she closed the distance between them.
“You weren’t wrong.” He turned to face her then, his expression unreadable. “But I don’t appreciate being manipulated by you or Joshua—” He tried to speak, but she silenced him with the swift shake of her head. “If he has already left, you see to it that he returns to that room and is once again restrained. I will finish this session tonight. But tomorrow things will be different. If this is my revenge, then it will be on my terms.”
Erik nodded, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. She swore she saw a flash of admiration darken his eyes, but she didn’t stick around long enough to find out for certain. Marching past him, she headed to her dressing room where she waited for fifteen minutes, until there was a knock at the door. She called for the visitor to come in.
It was one of the security guards. He poked his head inside.
“The sub is bound, Mistress, and he awaits your command.”
With a nod, she stood from the vanity and prepared to face Joshua yet again, determined that things would be different this time.
She was not the woman he’d once known. Just as she was not the same woman who had entered that room this evening, certain of her talents, only to doubt herself when she came face-to-face with her past.
Joshua wanted Sonya, but that woman was gone. Within these walls, there was only one woman who existed…
Chapter Five
“You are not to speak, slave, unless I command it.”
The door closed behind her with a firm thud. She moved across the room and stood before the infamous wall where several items were displayed. Grabbing the flogger, she returned to the bed and stood over the figure of the man imprisoned there.
“You are not to use my name, my real one, while we are within this room.”
She trailed the leather straps across his naked torso, and their gazes met. She could not easily read him, though his eyes shimmered with an emotion she refused to acknowledge, let alone name.
It was too late for them, and they were far past the point of sentimental emotions, tender feelings. She hardened her expression, knowing her eyes reflected the cool, impenetrable wall she’d erected around her heart from the moment she’d left him. She knew the second he glimpsed the detachment in her gaze. The answering determination in his eyes did not endear him to her, nor did it soften her heart. Joshua had orchestrated this, he’d put himself at her mercy, thinking he could win her back, but there was nothing he could do to repair the damage he’d done and she was equally determined to prove this to him. For five days she would play this game with him, and when she was done, he would finally realize they were well and truly over.
“If I request a response from you at all, you will address me as Mistress or Mistress Anya, nothing else.”
She did not ask if he understood, because Joshua was well versed in these roles. If anyone understood the rules, it was him. He held still, his head not so much as dipping an inch into a nod. His breathing was even, his entire body relaxed as his gaze held hers, never once straying from her face. It was unnerving, his focused intensity on her, but she didn’t show it. She knew what he sought to do. If only he could connect with her, if he could only reach the depths of her soul through her eyes, he thought he could touch her heart once again.
He was wrong.
The first strike across his chest was hard, punishing. He hissed in pain, a red welt immediately appearing.
Joshua did not look away from her. He recognized the rage that festered in her golden eyes, the pain that flickered in the silver rings that circled her pupils. He’d put himself at her mercy, and it could prove a dangerous folly on his part, but he refused to back down now.
She still had feelings for him, or else she would not be here, seeking her revenge, which had been forged out of bitterness and anger. Joshua was determined to endure, to face whatever test she set before him. He knew that was the only way to shatter the wall of ice she’d dutifully constructed to protect her heart from him.
The second strike hurt worse than the first, slicing across his chest as sharp as a knife. After the third, he lost count, the pain becoming a dull ache within his chest. Welts now crisscrossed his entire torso, and still he did not look away from her.
Her eyes glittered with intensity, her lips parted slightly from the exertion of her strikes. Locks of raven ha
ir slipped over her bare shoulder to frame the sexy leather corset that hugged her full breasts. The way she held the flogger, wielding it with almost expert precision, caused the mounds of her breasts to jiggle with each strike.
He’d never imagined his body would take pleasure in pain and he suspected it had less to do with what was being done to him, and more to do with the person causing the pain.
A knot of desire, hot and needy, uncoiled in his belly, fanning out across his entire body. His cock, which had been semi-erect from the moment she’d entered the room and he’d caught a whiff of her scent—all jasmine with the hint of leather—now stood at attention, hard and ready.
He bit back a sharp groan of pleasure mixed with pain when her flogger struck his shaft, causing it to drip with pre-cum.
“You will not come. Not until I command it—that is if I even allow it.”
Their gazes locked and he read the truth in her eyes. She would deny him the sweet bliss of pleasure. He gritted his teeth in frustration, the agony of holding back his desires causing his balls to ache.
He needed this release, he needed her. It was on the tip of his tongue to beg, but in the last instant he bit his lip.
He needed her to realize he would suffer any pain, any humiliation to win her back. Once she understood this, she would finally realize there was nothing she could ever do that would make him walk away from her—not ever.
His hands curled into hard fists, the blunt edges of his nails digging into his flesh. His arms strained against the leather bindings, the material chafing the skin along his wrists.
She would not break him, no matter how many times she struck his flesh, no matter how long she made him hold back his climax.
In that moment she must have realized this because in the next, she did the unthinkable.
Damn him.
His fierce expression was telling—no matter what she did he would not cry out for her to stop, and he refused to beg. He would submit to anything she did to him, without protest or reservation.
She made a sound of disgust as she tossed the flogger to the ground and began to free him from his restraints.
How did a newly trained Mistress master, well, a Master?
Sonya wasn’t sure if she could. She could try, but she wasn’t certain if she would succeed, and right now she wasn’t entirely certain that she cared.
More than watching Joshua scream out in pain or beg for his pleasure, she wanted him to please her.
“Get up,” she commanded when he was finally free.
He stood, watching her curiously as she sat down on the edge of the bed and parted her thighs, the heels of her boots resting atop the bed.
“On your knees, slave.” He didn’t hesitate in dropping to his knees before her. To see him, his hair curling along his shoulders, his heated gaze darting between her face and her pussy spread before him, aroused a deep sexual hunger inside her. But when he inhaled deeply, drawing in the musky scent of her arousal, that was her undoing.
“You will pleasure me, slave, and you will not stop until I tell you to.”
Joshua hesitated for maybe a second, his gaze holding hers for a moment longer before his hands touched the bare skin of her thighs.
His rough, calloused palms against her flesh set off fireworks in her belly, causing a firestorm of pleasure to rocket through her entire being, making her pussy gush with more of her juices. Before she could stop herself she gripped the back of his head, her fingers twisting in his hair, and with a gentle nudge she urged him closer until his lips closed around the tiny swollen nub of her clit.
She cried out, his mouth against her pussy igniting a bone-tingling fire that spread through her entire body. Her hands coiled tighter around his dark locks, until her nails dug into his scalp. If she caused him pain, he did not let on, his tongue continued to probe her wet core until she was drenched in her own juices.
He shoved her thighs open wider, with an almost feral ferocity, and Sonya did not mistake the growl that rumbled out of him. He licked and stroked her with his lips and tongue, and Sonya shuddered under the primal intensity of his mouth devouring her.
Her thighs trembled within his grasp as a wave of erotic heat roiled within her until she was powerless to stop the oncoming tide. She screamed out, her voice a ragged sound of need and fulfillment. With her head thrown back and her eyes clenched shut, her orgasm swept through her, sending a rush of wet warmth flooding her pussy and filling Joshua’s mouth with her juices.
She pushed at him when the sensations became too much, but Joshua held fast, sending tiny aftershocks shuddering through her frame until Sonya thought she would die from the pleasure.
“Stop,” she finally managed to force out, her voice as unsteady as her trembling body.
Joshua lifted his head slowly. An arrogant grin stole across his face as he lazily licked his glistening lips, wiping his mouth clean of her juices.
Her eyes narrowed and she frowned. She pushed him away from her immediately.
Sonya rolled off the bed and stood at the same time Joshua casually ambled to his feet.
Nothing had changed between them, not that she thought after one night together it would.
“You are dismissed.” She walked over to the door and prepared to signal the guards through the shuttered window that her session with Joshua was over. How she wished this was her last session with him and that she could finally put her time with him firmly in the past. Just the few moments they’d spent together had stirred up old hurts, past longings. If she wasn’t careful she would once again allow Joshua to slip past her defenses and worm his way right back into her heart, and charm his way once again into her bed. The smug grin on his face after he’d brought her to orgasm revealed that was his intent, but she was equally determined that would never happen.
“That’s it? We’re done?”
At the sound of Joshua’s voice, she whirled around, stunned to find him within inches of her, his body heat drifting off him, engulfing her in his scent.
He stalked closer, urging her back into the wall until his chest was pressed to hers, her breasts pillowing against the hard muscle of his torso.
“We are done here.” She pushed against his chest, her eyes turning ice cold when he refused to budge. “Move, now, before I call the guards.”
“Call them,” he taunted, shocking her when he settled his face within the crook of her neck and inhaled deeply. She gasped at the feel of his lips kissing softly against her throat. Sonya tried to resist him, her hands balling at her sides. Then she tried to fight him as she once again shoved at his chest. He didn’t so much as move a muscle—that was if she wasn’t counting the hard nudge of his cock against her belly.
“I hate you,” she rasped, every word tinged with frustration that she could not break free, that even if she could physically, emotionally he still had the power to hold her prisoner. She hated she was still so weak when it came to him, and that he knew it.
Joshua lifted his head at the same time he cupped her face within his hands.
“Call them, Sonya. Call the guards,” he whispered, his breath stroking her face. A moment passed in silence and his lips quirked into a small smile, but she did not detect arrogance or even humor. Instead she noted the sadness, the regret that darkened his gaze. “You don’t hate me, though I can tell you wish you did.”
She struggled against him, as futile as the effort was.
Call for the guards.
Her mind screamed at her, she could even hear Joshua’s voice taunting her to do just that. With a disgusted cry, she turned her head, refusing to look at him.
“Release me now, and just leave me alone.”
“I wish I could.” The words came out of Joshua on an almost tortured sigh. “I wish I could, but I’ve tried and I can’t. I want you too much, I need you even more.”
His statement drew her attention back to him, the truth of it revealed there in his soulful eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, he dip
ped his head and claimed her lips, his tongue slipping into her mouth. He probed so sweetly, with hot, wet glides of his tongue, drawing out her desire, reminding her why, yet again, Joshua was the only man who could so easily read her needs and master her body. When she was in his arms, every desire, he fulfilled. She shuddered against him at the hot, sizzling fire that ignited with his kiss, scorched down her spine and inflamed her entire being until her pussy was once again dripping wet.
Abruptly, he wrenched his mouth from hers, bringing a swift end to their heated kiss. He panted against her, his heaving chest brushing against the mounds of her breasts, sending delicious tingles skating across her nipples with the slightest motion.
“Just say the word, Sonya, and we can end this, we can get out of here and we can try again. We can go back to the way things were before.”
Before?
He might as well have slapped her in the face and doused her with freezing water, that simple word snapped her out of the trance his kiss had put her in.
The way things were before?
Sonya held back a bitter snort. She’d been in love with a man who didn’t love her, who’d refused to give her what she’d wanted, what she’d needed. She didn’t want things to go back to the way they were before. She wanted things to be different, and Joshua still didn’t get that, but he would.
With all her strength, she shoved at him, catching him off-guard so that he stumbled backward, falling to the floor.
She called for the guards and stomped over to the door. It opened seconds later.
“We are done here,” she said as much to the guards as she did to Joshua, who was still sprawled out on his ass.
“You touched me without my permission and failed to heed my command.” Sonya directed her statement to Joshua. “And tomorrow, you will be punished for your insolence.”
She left the room then with a final glance at Joshua, who sat there dumbfounded, his mouth agape.