by Loki Renard
“How long are you going to keep me here like this?” I ask the question when I have had a moment to catch my breath. I am still standing with him, his cock has slid from me and his cum is slipping down my thighs, a thick load of pure domination.
“As long as it takes,” he says, slapping my ass lightly.
“Takes for what?”
“For you to settle down and understand what’s happening here. You’re mine, Casey.”
I’m not his. I am going to prove it too. My first attempt was at escape. But maybe there isn’t any escaping him. That doesn’t mean I can’t take him down. And it doesn’t mean I won’t.
“Come and eat,” he says. “You can clean up and put some underwear on first.”
I bite back a sarcastic retort. This is actually a very generous offer from Ethan. Usually he makes me wallow in his cum. I excuse myself to the bathroom, taking short, unbalanced little steps. With every one of them, I feel slick seed slipping down my inner thighs.
It’s much easier to clean up though, when you’re wearing a skirt. Usually being left wearing his cum means being a mess. This time, a warm wet cloth takes care of most of it in seconds, and then I emerge and find myself some underwear. It’s all silk and satin, of course, none of the simple cuts and colors I usually prefer, but I pick a pair that is relatively full cut, a devil red bikini that settles into place against my well used ass and pussy with a gentle touch. These panties are going to be excellent for wearing after he’s spanked me, I think to myself. Then I realize I am now planning my attire around the fact that Ethan Keller gets to whip my ass whenever he feels I deserve it. This world he has built around me is changing me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Ethan leads me down into the house proper, and for the first time I see the dining room. One of the dining rooms, he says. It’s beautiful, set out on a balcony that juts out over the forest below, and with the lights of the city in the distance.
Again I am reminded of how much Ethan is like a king. A medieval liege would have had views like this over his lands, but unlike his older counterparts, Ethan’s influence of power stretches far wider than the eye can see. His is a global dominion. This man helping me into a mercifully padded chair is almost certainly one of the most powerful people on the planet right now.
And he wants me. That is perhaps, the thing I find hardest to believe in all of this. This man has no doubt been approached by the most beautiful women in the world. He could have anyone. But he’s holding me captive. Fucking me. It’s not a compliment, at least, not in anything other than an incredibly twisted way, but seen through that warped lens, I do have to wonder why he is taking so much interest in me.
“Why are you doing this?”
“You know why I’m doing this,” he says calmly.
“But I mean, this is a lot of effort to go to just to keep one person quiet. And you know… that I’m not going to stop.”
“I know,” he chuckles.
Forsyth slides into the room like a dark shadow. I feel his presence before I see him. An obsequious gloom follows him everywhere he goes. I shut my mouth. I don’t want him to overhear this conversation, which is essentially me expressing my unworthiness as a captive.
“Dinner, sir?”
“Yes, Forsyth. Instruct the kitchen to prepare two servings of my favorite.”
“Very good, sir.”
The man glides away so smoothly I almost suspect he has rollers in his shoes. I am left alone with Ethan again, his masterful form starting to become silhouetted against the sky as we lose the light of day.
“I was asking why you’re bothering,” I say, finding the courage to address the subject again. “Are you just bored, or…”
“Bored?”
“I mean, you have an international corporation to run, but you’ve spent most of the last twenty-four hours dealing with me. There must be more important things for you to do.”
“More important? No.”
Chapter Six
Ethan
She doesn’t understand how special she is, how unique she is. She doesn’t understand how I have bribed and seduced, and otherwise manipulated my way through the swathes of people who have stood between me and what I want.
She is an obstacle in a world where there are increasingly few. I live a life in which almost anything is possible. I could quite easily make a phone call to a friend with a rocket ship and be in low earth orbit inside a week if I wished to be. That has little relevance to this situation directly, but the fact that the sky is no longer the limit for me does weigh heavy at times.
A man is made a man by the difficulties he overcomes. I have overcome all of them—all, except her. I was impressed by her strength yesterday, and then again today. I am impressed again now. I know she is uncomfortable in her new garb. I know she is out of place, and that given the chance, she would slink away and hide, like a frightened kitten. But she does not have that option, so she sits opposite me, and she questions me, the man who has become her tormentor.
She has a purity I no longer possess. She has ideals and ideas. She is brilliant in her own right. I respect her intellect immensely, even though it is her body I make the most use of.
Now she is looking at me with an expression of adorable perplexity. She doesn’t know what to make of my comments, because she doesn’t understand me. Not yet. Maybe she will soon. Maybe she’ll unravel me and maybe I’ll take her apart and maybe we’ll come together and make something…
These are all very highbrow ways of rationalizing something very simple to myself.
I am lonely.
A man cannot have friends in this stage of life. He has allies who can become enemies at any moment. As for female companionship, that can be bought directly, or come at a cost later.
It is impossible to trust a smile. But I can trust her, because she has no artifice. She wants to destroy me. And that is the most refreshing thing I have experienced in quite some time.
* * *
Casey
We sit in a silence I find hard to fathom. Ethan is impossible to read. When he looks at me as he’s looking now, his face half hidden in growing evening shadows, he is enigmatic and aloof.
Forsyth breaks the silence between us by appearing with two plates covered by silver serving hats. That’s probably not what they’re called. He puts one down in front of Ethan, the other in front of me, and sweeps the covers away together to reveal…
“Is this fried chicken?”
“It is,” Ethan smiles. “My favorite.”
It smells incredible. It looks amazing. Though I have no idea how we’re supposed to eat it in our finery or with the cutlery, which is laid out like a full assault range with my plate in the center.
“Which one of these forks is the fried chicken fork?”
“This one,” he says, holding up his fingers and waggling them a little.
I watch, stunned, as Ethan picks up a piece of chicken and begins to eat it just like a normal person. It says something about the last couple of days that this is the oddest thing I’ve seen, a billionaire eating chicken.
“Don’t let it get cold,” he encourages me.
I am starving. This is the first meal I’ve had all day, unless you count the snacks I rustled out of the bus station vending machines, which I don’t.
The chicken is delicious, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside. For the next few minutes, all we do is eat, and I start to feel comfortable. When Ethan isn’t performing perverted sex acts on me, he’s good and easy company. I’m not a big talker, but he doesn’t make me feel awkward. Doesn’t throw out lines about me being quiet or ‘smile, sweetheart.’ He is perfectly comfortable with my taciturn self.
These are the small kindnesses he shows me, the acceptance I’ve craved throughout my life but never really received.
“Would you like dessert, sir?” Forsyth glides up with the promise of treats.
“No, thank you, Forsyth.”
“And for the lady?”
Now I’m a lady according to the man. Not because of me, but because of this bit of cloth wrapped around me. I have a wild, petulant impulse to take it off, ball it up, and throw it at his face.
“I dunno. Whatever.” I put my elbows on the table, knowing that will probably piss him off.
Ethan raises a brow at me as Forsyth glides away again. “Are you trying to show you can’t be domesticated?”
“Fuck that guy,” I growl under my breath.
Ethan chuckles. “You’re acting like a spoiled little girl,” he says. “If you keep it up, I’ll punish you like one.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’ll take you over my knee and spank you right in front of him.”
I feel my face heat instantly. I know he would do it. He fucked me in front of cops on the very first day we met. But that was different. I didn’t know those cops. I didn’t have a burgeoning personal vendetta against them.
“Mr. Jack Ford.” Forsyth interrupts us with an announcement.
A man strides onto the balcony without waiting. It’s like he owns the place, like there wasn’t possibly anything going on that he wasn’t entitled to be a part of.
I take an instant, gut dislike to him. He’s handsome and I recognize him from the same sorts of pictures I’ve seen Ethan in. Jack Ford is the co-founder of Vipyr. Referred to commonly in the media as ‘Killer Jack.’ He has a five o’clock shadow turning into a ten o’clock pelt. It looks effortless, but I would put money on it being painstakingly styled.
He is wearing a white shirt and silvery gray, super tight suit pants. His style is modern, where Ethan’s is timeless. And it’s much more forced. I can tell every accessory has been agonized over, from the cufflinks, which appear to be little silver guillotines, all the way to the aviator-style sunglasses pushed up and into his hair.
A broad, shark-like smile establishes itself on his face as he sees me. He swoops down, takes my hand, complete with chicken grease fingers and presses an even more greasy kiss to the back of it.
“Hello, m’lady. And who might you be?”
“This is Casey,” Ethan says. “Hi, Jack.”
“Casey. What a beautiful companion.”
When Ethan called me beautiful, I felt beautiful. When Jack says the same words, my skin crawls with the disingenuousness of it. I get the strong impression that Jack Ford wouldn’t know beauty anywhere. He has those flat eyes that don’t quite emote, and when they fall on me, I feel cold.
“I thought you were in Argentina,” Ethan says, wiping his fingers on a cloth napkin.
“Oh, you know, business called,” Jack says, inserting himself into a chair that wasn’t between Ethan and me until he dragged it across the balcony, the grating sound making me even more on edge than I was.
He nestles in between us, folds his hands over his stomach, and looks from Ethan to me and back again. “I heard we had a problem,” he purrs.
“You heard wrong,” Ethan replies calmly. “Want some chicken?”
“No, I’m only eating vegetarian now,” Jack says. “Clearing my chakras.”
“You don’t have chakras.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. I don’t mean to be argumentative, but words like chakra are basically a trigger word for me. They smack of bullshit, the same kind of bullshit Jack is steeped in.
“Why? Because you don’t think they’re real, or because you think I’m soulless?”
His question is as direct and socially jarring as my comment was, perhaps even more so.
I give a little shrug. I don’t want to get into a discussion on mysticism with this man. I have a feeling that most of it would be lost on him even more than it would be on me.
“If it’s business you want to talk about,” Ethan interjects, “why not come and see me tomorrow. I’m entertaining my guest right now.”
“Oh, I think this is where I need to be,” Jack says. There is an undertone of intentionality to his voice. “I think I’m late, to be honest. Of course, I wouldn’t be, if I were notified when things came up, so I could deal with them in a timely fashion.”
Ethan’s smile has become exceptionally forced. There’s tension between the two of them, and I suspect I know why. This isn’t about business. This is about me.
“Forsyth, would you escort Casey to her room?”
“With pleasure, sir.”
For once, I am actually pleased to see the old stick of a man, who has been lingering since Jack came in. Jack Ford gives me the creeps. He is the sort of man who makes every single hair on my body stand erect, like a cat spotting a predator and puffing up to appear larger.
Ethan is a sadistic, perverted asshole of a man. But I get the feeling Jack is worse.
I stand up, hating the fact that I am in these stupid heels. I do not want to wobble away from the table like broken prey. I doubt Jack could resists the instincts he so proudly wears on his sleeve. So I kick the shoes off, leave them beneath the table, and pad away in my bare feet.
Though I expect a look of disapproval from Ethan and Forsyth, I don’t get one. Forsyth’s expression has become so professionally impassive it’s impossible to read, and when I look over my shoulder, Ethan isn’t even looking at me. Jack’s gaze is locked on me, but Ethan’s is on his, a hard stare that doesn’t bode well for the rest of the conversation.
Chapter Seven
Ethan
“Get rid of her.” Jack swings his chair toward me the minute Forsyth leads her out of the room.
“What do you mean?” I know exactly what he means, but I want to make him say it. When we started Vipyr in his mother’s basement, we had big dreams. Very big dreams. We’ve achieved most of them, but we’ve paid a price along the way. There’s no such thing as an innocent billionaire. We know what we’ve done. But there are limits, and what he’s talking about is a hard limit of mine.
“I mean find someone who makes people go away, and have them have her go away,” he hisses. “Jesus, Ethan, you could be fucking supermodels. Why the hell are you wasting your time on that ugly…”
“I’m going to stop you right there.” My voice is cold. My hand is clenched. Casey may not be a supermodel, but there is more to a woman than superficial beauty, in my view at least. Not Jack’s. To Jack, the world is nothing but a bunch of barely sentient animated flesh puppets only good for being drained of their dollars. That’s not what I think of him. That’s a direct quote from the man himself.
Casey thinks I’m a sociopath. It’s possible that I am, but even so I have absolutely nothing on Jack. He is the real deal.
He rolls his eyes at me. “Jesus, Ethan. I take one vacation and you’re letting everything go to shit. She’s made you soft.”
“What’s gone to shit, precisely? Our stock is up three points.”
“And what’s it going to do when your fuck doll opens her mouth? I saw the email she sent. I know what she’s threatening us with. She needs to be removed from play.”
I hold back the impulse to get physically aggressive with him for calling her a fuck doll. “She’s not going to do that. I’m dealing with her. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“You’re not dealing with her. You’re fucking her. And when you fuck women, you fall for them. Remember that stripper, freshman year?”
I grit my teeth. “The one you knocked up and forced to get an abortion?”
“Oh, right, that was me,” he smirks. “Well, whatever. My point stands.”
We were both assholes back then. We are both still assholes. But Jack is right in one regard. Casey has had an effect on me. I’ve only known her two days, but seeing myself through her eyes has made me want to be a better man. There’s part of me that wants to be the good guy. Her good guy. I don’t know if I can ever be that man, but I know I want to move toward it.
Jack and I are as rich as any man needs to be, and then some. We don’t need to keep acting like it’s still 1996 and we need to cut throats to get where we want to be. Back th
en, it was metaphorical violence, but there’s nothing metaphorical about what he wants to do to Casey.
Jack should know better than to talk to me this way, but his ego was always more inflated than mine. In the very early days, he was the driving force behind Vipyr’s rise through the ranks. Now we need a steady hand. Someone who understands power, but isn’t drunk on it. In his more rational moments, Jack knows that. It’s why he spends three quarters of the year on vacation while I run the company. I’m sufficiently ruthless to keep us afloat. At this point, Jack’s methods only hinder us.
“She’s mine,” I say calmly, but firmly. “And I’m handling her. Go to Venice or Monte Carlo or somewhere and stop worrying about it.”
Jack taps his fingers against the dinner table, where the remnants of Casey’s chicken cool on her plate. “I think I’m going to stick around for a bit on this one. Make sure nothing goes wrong.”
I can’t stop him from staying in the city. I don’t actually own San Francisco, as much as some people might say I do. Power is more limited than people imagine it to be. Unless you’re Jack, and you just don’t care.
This company isn’t really big enough for the two of us anymore. Used to be, when it took the both of us working full time just to get our heads above water. Now we’re in maintenance mode. But Jack’s getting bored and it’s starting to show. You can’t go on vacation forever. I’m going to have to find something for him to do, to keep him out of my hair and distract him from his murderous designs on Casey.
“I will tell you something, Jack,” I say, keeping my voice conversational. “If so much as a hair on Casey’s head is hurt, things are going to go very, very wrong, very, very quickly. If you’re worried about what her talking would do to our stock price, it would be nothing to what would happen if something happened to her.”
His brows dip at the threat, but I know he respects displays of strength. He and I have gone toe to toe enough times in the past to know that neither one of us will back down when we mean something.