by Robinson, M.
Let her cry.
Let her bleed.
It only meant more for me to have as her master.
Her chin lifted as I gripped the chain and pulled her closer to my leg. Troy was drawing more attention toward what was mine. He looked around our table, at all the eager faces grinning in excitement for what was to come.
“There’s a piano. Let her play, Donovan.”
With a confident smile I didn’t feel, I tugged on the leash, pulling Juliet’s hateful and embarrassed expression toward my face.
“Go play, pet. I’ll be right behind you.”
I could tell she wanted to yell at me. She wanted to bite, to scratch, to make me bleed the way I’d made her bleed and in front of everyone. For some reason, it turned me the fuck on, seeing the swirling blues of her eyes, knowing the only object of both her hate and attention was me.
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.”
“How?” I questioned through blurred tears. “How could you if you aren’t here?”
Suddenly her finger was gone, and the start of Ludovico’s song played, and I laid against the wall and listened only to have her stop after a few minutes, then come back and whisper, “Did you feel that, Donovan?”
“Yes,” I whimpered. “It was really pretty.”
“That wasn’t music—that, my dear son, was heaven.”
“Heaven doesn’t exist.”
“It exists in music. Music gives us strength. It has the power to end wars, to change emotions, to humanize a person. So wherever you are, no matter what, you feel this music. You listen over and over again, you escape into the heaven I created for you, and you become strong.”
“I’m afraid.”
She would leave again to play, and for one brief second, I wasn’t trapped anymore.
No. I was free.
With her playing her piano for me.
The clapping around me jolted the memory I was wreaking havoc in. I couldn’t stand and didn’t want to appear weak. I simply clapped with everyone and watched in utter horror as Troy took Juliet by the leash again and walked her to our table, making an announcement that would set off a chain of events even I couldn’t prepare for.
“I’m going to take your little pet to one of the rooms. Her hands play so beautifully, Donovan. I wonder what the rest of her body sounds like.” He winked. “That’s not a problem, correct? You can even watch. I know you like that.”
Juliet’s eyes pleaded with mine.
Everyone watched in rapt fascination at our table as if a war was looming, and I’d already lost.
I shrugged like it didn’t matter and then gulped down my entire glass of bourbon.
“Let’s go.”
I thought I knew real shame when my father made me hurt my mom.
I was wrong.
Real shame was the look of abandonment in Juliet’s eyes.
And sadly, all I could do…
Was look away.
Juliet
I’d never been more terrified in my entire life, looking around the opulent yet disgusting room. It was a horror movie gone wrong.
Donovan was actually allowing me to be in there with Troy.
He’d touch me.
He’d care
ss me, and my villain was letting him.
Worse off, he would watch it. The man old enough to be my father tugged on my chain, leering at my body.
“You’ll enjoy this, pet.”
Why did it feel so different when Donovan said it than when Troy said it?
Troy made me feel weak.
Donovan said it, and at times I felt strong, impenetrable. He took me to a different place mentally and physically, and maybe I was crazy, or he was breaking me completely, making me crazy, but for a few short moments in the last couple days, I actually believed he cared.
Oh, how stupid I was…
He clearly didn’t. Standing in the corner, arms crossed, face blank—impassive.
I wanted to scream at him.
Beat his chest.
I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
A tear slid down my cheek, and I tried wiping it away when Troy grabbed both of my wrists.
“No, no, leave the tears. It makes it so much more enjoyable to know what you’re feeling at all times.” While he held my leash, he looked around the room. “Ah, this one, I think.”
Still pulling me toward him, he hit a button, the floor opened up, and a giant metal X slowly came up. The floor closed below it with a resounding locking noise.
It truly looked like a typical X made of metal, except there were ropes attached to each end of the letter.
“Troy,” Donovan expressed his name like a curse.
He grinned. “I hate it when they squirm too much. A little is enjoyable, but you know how I like things, Donovan. Oh wait, I guess you haven’t been in a room with me in quite some time.”
“For good reason,” Donovan hissed.
“Oh, she’ll be fine. Won’t you, pet?” He tilted my chin toward him. “Now, be a good little girl and climb onto that X, facedown, arms and legs spread. I need to find something to mar that pretty skin a bit.”
Shaking, I shared a look with Donovan only to have Troy grab me by the chin and jerk my head back toward his.
“In this room, I’m your master.”
I cried harder, unable to even see the metal X, as I stepped out of my heels and got on the mechanism.
He hadn’t tied me up yet, but I knew he would.
Tears continuously slid down my cheeks and onto the ground below me.
How many women had been in here? How many against their will?
I squeezed my eyes shut in preparation and waited for the worst, knowing it wouldn’t end here. Silently praying that Donovan would save me.
My villain.
My captor.
Turned hero.
Donovan
She was shaking so hard the table was moving.
I did this to her.
I dangled her in front of the one man with enough money and power to take her. This was on me. He was testing my limits, and if I intervened, he’d know with absolute certainty that she wasn’t just my pet—she was so much more than that. Troy circled the X and then stopped in front of a cabinet. He jerked open the doors and made a sound of relief.
“I thought I’d forgotten to put it back after the last time I was in here.”
He pulled out the cat o’ nine tails and caressed it like it was his child, and suddenly I was back in that room.
Hurting my mother.
My father holding my hands, yelling, forcing, breaking me into a million pieces.
I couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t move.
He knew I couldn’t bear to look, let alone with him using it on my pet. No, not just my pet. Rage took over as he showed it to her, dangling it in front of me.
“What do you think, Donovan? Nine or twelve hits across this beautiful skin.”
His fingertips danced down her spine, gripping her ass in a squeeze that would leave marks later.
He liked marking.
He liked the tears.
The screams, the blood, and the sadistic bastard didn’t just do it to get off. He did it because he liked the power. He wasn’t a true dominant who cared about their submissive, about their pets, and by the looks of it, he’d only gotten worse.
Juliet continued to shake as Troy reached for the first rope.
“I won’t tie you up, but you have to promise not to move. However, you may scream as loud you’d like. Nobody will hear you anyway. Nobody will come. Nobody will care. You’re no longer a human. You’re property, a pet.” He jerked on her leash. “I’m sure you’ve lied to yourself, imagining someone rescuing you, there is no rescue, and there is no need for it. We set you free, and one day, your heart will simply stop beating because of it.” He grinned, lowering his voice. “Now, say thank you, Master, for being so benevolent.”
“T-thank.” She burst into tears, her body rocking against the table. “F-for…” He lifted the whip and snapped it across her right thigh.
It was a light hit.
But it still pulled back skin, causing her to bleed.
Ordering, “Say it, pet!”
He raised the whip again and struck her much harder, this time on her inner thigh.
She screamed out in pain, loud enough to make me wince. Reminding me of my mother when my father made her take her last breath. There was no time for me to hesitate, no time to realize that my actions would have consequences. I moved on pure instinct.
She wasn’t his to hurt.
Mine.
“Juliet, don’t you fucking dare!” I seethed, running at Troy and shoving him up against the wall. My fists went flying until his face was nothing but a bloody mess. “You want blood? Now there’s your fucking blood!” He stumbled to the floor. I didn’t look back. I grabbed Juliet in my arms. “We’re going home.”
She crumpled into my chest, and I hauled ass out of the room, leaving the piece of shit on the ground in a pool of his own blood.
I walked down that hall with so much anger in my body and no place to release it unless I released it onto her, and with her bleeding and sobbing in my arms, all I could do was walk.
I couldn’t speak.
I could barely breathe.
We rounded a corner and nearly ran into Elaina, Troy’s wife.
I shook my head. “Clean him up. Room thirteen. I’m sure it’s not the first time.”
Her eyes filled with worry, nodding. “And not the last.”
This was the first I heard of it. “How often?”
Her eyes darted from Juliet’s body in my arms to the hallway.
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Elaina.” I clenched my jaw. “Make sure he knows I’m going to fucking destroy him.”
Her eyebrow shot up. “Because of a little blood?”
“Because he touched what is mine!”
I shouldn’t have even tried talking. I left her there, shaken and confused by my outburst.
Valet had parked my car out front. They usually did when I was in the estate or entertaining.
“Keys,” I hissed.
The valet fumbled through the keys and finally found my key fob.
“Thank you as always, Mr—”
“Shut the fuck up.”
I opened the passenger door and gently sat Juliet in. She wouldn’t meet my eyes as I buckled her seat belt. I ran to my side, hit the gas, and we were off.
But we weren’t going to her old room.
No.
She wasn’t safe there.
Never again.
Her sniffles filled the car. I drove through the streets of Seattle until I hit the dead end that led to my driveway up on the hill.
While waiting for the gates to open, she must have seen a chance to escape and started pulling at the door.
“Stop,” I ordered. “Now.”
I tugged her against me. The blood from her thigh was soaking through her dress, and she was shaking, clearly going into shock. I held her there, trying to give her the only comfort I could. The wrought iron gates opened, leading to my mile-long driveway.
A forest surrounded my opulent man
sion.
She’d easily get lost and probably pass out from the shock she was in.
Sleeping with the villain was safer.
Wasn’t it?
The lights from the main house finally showed as I pulled off the driveway and in front of the garage that housed my car collection.
I parked and went to Juliet’s door to help her out.
Her eyes bulged, looking at her surroundings.
Waterfalls surrounded the garage on all sides, flowers, trees; it was my own personal Eden.
It was built for my mom.
She gave me heaven in her music, so I gave her heaven in my home and gardens.
At Juliet’s soft gasp, I continued carrying her in my arms. There was no letting her go. This was where she needed to be. I was the only man who could offer what she needed in that instant. She might have been mad at me, and I deserved it. I would make it better. I would heal her if it was the last thing I ever did. I would make it right. I needed to, for her and for me.
I shouldn’t have let Troy manipulate me as if I was nothing more than a child, a little boy, the one he had taken under his wing. He’d made me the man I was supposed to be. I couldn’t believe how foolish I’d been to fall into his fucking trap.
I knew better.
I was smarter.
Wiser.
Always a step ahead of him.
I let him take her, and the motherfucker even tried to get her to call him Master. He had pushed me to the brink, and I’d allowed it. Despite beating his face in, I still felt weak and at his mercy. He knew now without reasonable doubt what I’d do for Juliet, and that was a power he’d eventually hold over my head.
Fuck.
“The house is mine,” I shared, trying to control my reckless emotions and scare her further into oblivion where I couldn’t save her. “Over twenty thousand square feet on more than ten acres. Be careful when trying to escape because I know you will. But for tonight…” I nearly stuttered, carrying her through the front door toward the open-aired entry. “For tonight. Stay. For me. With me.”
“This is,” she finally spoke. “This…”
I carried her toward my bedroom where no other woman, least of all a pet, had ever been.
This was my sanctuary.
My safe place away from the demands of the world I’d created for myself.