by Lily White
As I knew he would, Adam flinched at the second option.
“All assets will be seized to serve the organization. All titles will be stripped. All privileges revoked. And if you hobble away a beggar with the idea that you might attempt retribution by opening your mouth to expose us further, you’ll hope for an easy death by the time we find you to silence you.”
Finally lifting his head, Adam met my gaze, his eyes rimmed red.
I smirked. “Only a little bitch allows himself to cry, Adam. No wonder you couldn’t handle a Courtesan who is apparently out of fucking control.”
Adam’s voice cracked over his response. “I’m not a little bitch, I’m a Mas-“
“Former Master, you should say. And dependent upon which choice you make, you’re now either a corpse or a charity case. Which will it be?”
Gregory interjected. “Must the rules be so harsh?”
“They’re harsh for a reason,” Anthony reminded the group, his tone a picture of practiced calm. “If we go soft now, what stops the next person from exposing us further? Do you all want to spend the rest of your lives in prison?”
Silence fell, each man reminded that their necks were on the line.
“Death,” Adam whispered. Lifting his head, he met all of our eyes, remembering for once that he had a spine and a set of balls. “Death is better than the streets.”
Nobody dared to break the quiet following his statement. Except for me. I dared. With a chipper voice, in fact.
“Excellent. Now that we have it settled, I’d like to move on with my day.”
Standing from my seat, I felt a hand grip over my arm, looked up to find Anthony reaching across the table to stop me. “We still have one last issue to address. Specifically, what to do with Christopher.”
Our eyes met. “Two bullets in his brain and a shallow grave. Are you serious right now?”
The corner of his lip quirked. “Sit, Aiden. We should discuss this.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Mouth pulling into a sly grin, eyes glimmering in a manner I didn’t appreciate one tiny little bit, Anthony answered, “Actually, I do.”
I retook my seat, willing Anthony dead. Unfortunately his head failed to slam against the table with a satisfying thump.
Turning to the group, his words were as smooth as ever, his tone thoughtful. “We have before us a wonderful opportunity to put the ever endearing Master Aiden to the test.”
“I don’t train men.”
He lifted a finger to silence me without bothering to glance in my direction.
My eyes narrowed on the finger, but this was Anthony, after all, so I would let him continue.
Satisfied with my silence, he explained, “As we’ve heard for the past few years, Aiden believes he has mastered another Master, that he has broken a woman who, in every sense, could learn to train Courtesans herself.”
All heads turned my direction. All eyes on me. Meanwhile, I was busy determining exactly how I would fit Anthony’s body under my favorite willow tree. The son of a bitch would pay for this.
It wasn’t surprising when Gregory, the man with jowls that would make even a bulldog jealous, spoke next. “Now that you mention it, Anthony, I do recall Aiden’s claims.”
Perhaps Anthony would appreciate a grave closer to the lake...
“Aiden,” Anthony’s voice barely disguised his enjoyment, “what do you say to allowing Rebecca to try her hand?”
My fingers toyed my phone over the surface of the table, my eyes locked to the black screen. “Are you asking me to allow my Courtesan to fuck another man?”
Deep laughter from the end of the table, Paul’s voice booming in response. “As if you haven’t punished her several times already by handing her over to other Owners so they could have their fun. As if you didn’t command she fuck another Master in front of all of us when you first trained her.”
My gaze met Anthony’s, unflinching despite the situation he’d created. “It would be her choice.”
He didn’t answer immediately, but when he finally spoke through a smile designed to entice, his words were as sharp as a knife slicing my jugular. “Since when do you give your Courtesan a say in anything? Have you gone soft?”
Returning his smile, I knew why he’d made the suggestion. Payback’s a bitch, and after the game I’d played on him during his training of Sera, he believed he could even the score. “I did you a favor.”
His smile widened. “As I am doing a favor for you now.”
Silence, and then, “You have a funny definition of favor.”
Anthony’s eyes gleamed. “You’ll have to forgive me. Seeing as English is my second language, I thought it best I copy the definition from your book.”
Bastard. It’s what made me like Anthony so much. He was a pale imitation of me.
“Fine,” I answered, settling back in my seat as if this request was nothing more detrimental than a bum begging for a dollar. “Have Christopher dropped off to my house after Adam is dealt with. I’ll prepare Rebecca for what’s to come.”
Standing, I walked from the room, taking a minute to pause behind Adam and lay my hand over his shoulder. “It’s been a pleasure knowing you.”
“Fuck off,” he spat, the response improving my mood. I may have to allow Rebecca to train a Courtesan, and I may be in a position where I have to take over when she fails, but I wasn’t losing my life, not like that dumb fuck.
Leaving the men at the table, I walked away without glancing back, my jaw ticking with frustration, my palm itching to slap the ass of a woman who made it an art form to defy me.
CHAPTER TWO
REBECCA
It takes strength to love a Master such as Aiden. Not just strength of mind. Not just strength of will. Not just strength of body. But mostly strength of heart.
Over the years he’s owned me, every day is a challenge I’m willing to face, every hour a test of endurance, every gentle touch a warning before he strikes out with sensual pain that can drive a person into ecstasy, or tear their soul from their body, shredding it into tattered ribbons, before he stitches it back together again.
He is a Master in every way. His fingers those of a fine sculptor or musical savant. His mind that of a genius mathematician or a lunatic who somehow weaves calculating logic into chaos. His heart that of a monster who harbors a diamond within the very center of blackest coal, never revealing his truth except in those rare moments when a person has completely surrendered to his savage control.
He is mine, I like to think, even when I know that, in truth, no person could ever hope to contain a man as slippery as water, as cunning as a predator tracking with slow, precise steps its intended prey. But still, I think it, my heart expanding when he enters a room, even if every other person trembles to see him.
“Defying me again, Pet?” A skilled tongue tsking against the roof of his mouth, Aiden’s muscular body slipping through a doorway with the sinuous grace of a cat. The way he moved so fluidly was at odds with his hard, masculine shape, drawing my eye in the moments when I knew better than to look at him.
“I couldn’t help but look to see who was walking in.” It was a lie. He would know it was a lie. He would punish me for that lie. And I would let him.
Aiden could have renamed me Glutton and it wouldn’t have been inaccurate. When it came to him, I was reduced to the basest form of want. A body of desire without need for conscious thought.
“Is that the only time you looked?” Voice a deadly whisper, Aiden was most dangerous when his tone or touch was the softest. “Even after I warned you to keep your eyes shut.”
My eyes closed in response to his reminders, to his warning, and yet I could still clearly see him in mind. It was unfair, really, that so much beauty should be granted to one man alone. His dark, thick hair was a temptation for the fingers, his skin like silk over steel begging for the scrape of nails, the bite of teeth, the smooth surface of my palm exploring every ridge and valley of a physique honed by
a lifetime of training and iron will. It didn’t matter what toys he kept in the closet, what tools he’d hung on a wall, what tables and beds he’d placed about a room meant for the most seductive of tortures, it was his body that was the cruelest instrument of all. His expression rarely revealed what he was thinking, and it was the not knowing that made a person fear him.
Somehow, I’d been the lucky one, escaping my fear in his presence only because just knowing he was watching made me yearn for the pleasure of every pain he would deliver.
Glutton.
Yes, that was me.
“I only peeked once.” A truthful whisper. My eyes had wanted to open so many times, but I’d kept them closed, fought to obey. But then my heart had kicked up in rhythm, my blood warming until it was pure heat beneath my skin. His scent had filled me, his voice luring me, his touch seducing, all in my mind, of course. I’d lost the battle then, had glanced up knowing that a man with a punishing authority and a bitterly cold temper watched from whatever room he’d occupied.
His brand of play was poisonous, infectious, so utterly malicious that it stole my breath each day. Made me beg. Made me crawl. Made me rebel just so I could feel the sting of his attention over and over again.
“Just once?” A satin smooth croon that slipped through the room dark as midnight and light as a feather. My legs trembled in response.
“I knew you were watching.”
“How?”
Dragging in a breath, I leaned back against the cross where I was bound, my bare skin tight against the chilled air of the room. “My body knew.”
I didn’t know if he remained at the door or if he’d moved further into the room. The heavily padded carpet made it impossible to tell and it was just as impossible to keep my eyes closed. Arms shaking beneath the restraints that bound me, I breathed deeply, hoping that scent alone could indicate where he stood.
His voice was so close when next he spoke that I jumped in place, my restraints rattling against the wood. “Are you cheating, Rebecca?”
My lips pulled into a grin. “You never forbade me to breathe.”
The hair was moved away from my nape, a single fingertip touching the base of my skull to run a slow line down to where my neck met my shoulders. I wanted more, would have made a noise of complaint if I didn’t know it would only cause him to walk away entirely.
Aiden believed he was the only person in control between us, but I had a secret I’ve never mentioned.
In all the years we’d been together, I’d learned him well enough to control him as well.
Wanting his touch, I stayed quiet, even if it was just a fingertip pressed to the back of my neck.
“I could take that from you as well. Your sight. Your ability to talk. Your ability to move. Your ability to breathe.”
“How much fun would I be then?”
Soft laughter impacted my ear, his breath a living heat on my shoulder. Aiden’s mouth was so close, so temptingly near that I went as still as possible, fearful that to flinch would send him away. Tender lips against my pulse, words spoken against my skin. “I have no choice but to punish your transgression.”
The finger at the back of my neck became a palm, tension squeezing the tender muscles sore from having held my position for several hours. A brutal hold, my lips parting to cry out as his fingers wrapped within the fine hairs at the nape of my neck and tugged my head back. Aiden’s mouth ran along the center of my neck, the tip of his tongue hot against the hollow.
He was being far too gentle.
“What’s wrong?”
He stilled, the lapels of his jacket brushing the tips of my breasts, a gentle glide of material that was too much friction for the lethal quiet.
“Why would you think something is wrong?” His fist tightened in my hair, my head dragged farther back as his teeth scraped my skin. Aiden’s right hand closed over my bare hip, the grip bruising. He was a wall of heat over my skin, anger an electric spark on the air.
“You’re too gentle-“
Fire shot across my scalp, my words cut off by a sensual cry of pleasure and pain.
“You call this gentle.”
Tears welled in my eyes, releasing to slowly slide down my cheeks. “For you,” I breathed out, my voice strained, “Yes.”
Aiden released my hip to reach above me. Two quick jerks and my hands were freed from the restraints, my body falling forward on muscles too liquid to hold my weight. He caught me easily, carried me to the bed where he laid me against the mattress and positioned my feet at the edge, my knees bent, my legs spread apart so he could look his fill.
“Your skin is like milk. Creamy, so pure that it’s a canvas upon which my form of art is so beautifully displayed.”
The silky croon of his dark voice was a warning, and I knew then that it had been a mistake to ask him if something was wrong. Aiden was cold, so bitterly frigid, but that didn’t mean he was distracted. If anything, he was hyper-focused and resolute.
“Do not move, Pet. Not until I tell you.”
A shiver coursed down my spine, my eyes unblinking. I dared to meet his eyes. Another infraction, yes. But when Aiden was in this mood, it was difficult not to hold his gaze, not to watch with terror of what was to come.
He moved around the bed with purpose, and I fought to remain still, fought to keep from moving my head to track a man whose clothes rustled with each slow step. When he reached the opposite end, he snatched my arms and pulled them above my head, a restraint secured over my wrists that left me stretched over the mattress, my knees shaking where they were bent, my feet barely balanced on the edge where he’d placed them.
“Do you remember the first night I had you, Rebecca? The first night we trained?”
Another icy chill crept down my spine with spindly fingers. Even his current tone was reminiscent of that night. How could a person forget the soul wrenching pain of being made to crawl? Of being made to beg while a cold-hearted bastard showed you in no uncertain terms that your life as you’d always known it was over?
I said as much and he chuckled softly, the sound a whisper within the room as he remained out of sight. His hands gripped my wrists below the restraints, his body leaning over me until his tie brushed my forehead and his mouth was pressed against my ear. So soft that the question was a threat of pain, he asked, “Do you remember what I said to you?”
My heart was a noxious pulse in my throat, my mouth dry. “Yes.”
A squeeze of his fingers. “Tell me.” Aiden released my arms before I could conjure the words, the memory so strong, yet shrouded in that dark room where I’d woken to find myself a slave to his every cruel whim.
He moved away from the bed with a gentle reminder. “Eyes closed.” A pause for me to comply. “Take me back to that night.”
It took several attempts to find my voice, my eyes begging to open if for no other reason than to discover where he stood. “I woke up in a dark room.” My voice quivered, an unsteady weakness that was full of both fear and want. I’d been conditioned to connect the two, trained to sip pleasure from the pain of Aiden’s games.
“What did I say to you?”
He was in front of me, his hands coming to rest on my bent knees. Slowly, he pushed them open until my legs were wide apart, the soles of my feet coming together, a butterfly position that stretched tendons until they burned. “Stay like that as you tell me.”
Every intimate part of me was displayed to him, my body readying itself for his next touch as my mind scrambled to return to a night that had changed my life.
The slow slip of leather against cloth, such a subdued noise that I couldn’t be sure I heard it.
Arms shaking, my fingers curled, the tips sliding against the cool leather of my restraints. “You told me I was owned.”
Pure fire, that first strike, a folded belt slapping across the inside of my thigh. A yelp volleyed from my throat, my legs pulling together on instinct.
“I wouldn’t...” A whispered warning.
I f
orced them apart, the skin he struck stinging with electric pain that radiated into my core. Once I was splayed again, Aiden rubbed his palm over the skin he’d struck, the fire now spreading through me with anticipation.
“Every mark,” he observed with astonished pride. “So easily visible in your skin as if painted with a brush.”
The room fell into silence save for the shaky inhalation of my breath.
“What did I say to you?”
It took effort to find my voice. “Y-you told me my life no longer mattered.”
Another strike on the opposite thigh, fire rushing across skin until need pulsed within me for sensuous relief. I cried out at the pain, my lips parting while heat swelled within my core.
“Please...”
“Please what?”
Stop.
Keep going.
Forget the man you were when first we met and return to the one I believed you were becoming.
I knew instantly what Aiden was doing. Why he was taking me back to a memory of the monster that lingered within him. He would never let me forget that dark, cold room despite how many years had passed since I’d seen it.
How foolish I had been. “I’m sorry.”
The heat of his palm met the skin he’d struck, but instead of a gentle touch that soothed the pain, his fingers gripped down into the muscle. Tears stung my eyes.
“I want you to think of that night, Rebecca. Remember every detail. Every word. Every pain and shame you suffered. I want you to remember how it feels to be broken, to be stripped down until your soul is bare, and I want you to remember how it feels to be rebuilt into what your Master knows you can become.”
My tears were flowing freely, his torment sinking beneath my skin with a sharp edge that filled the fire of his strikes. With a voice that could reach inside me and grip punishing fingers over my frantic heart, Aiden continued to taunt me, to take me back to a place I’d thought was a distant memory.