by Lily White
“I’ve always made it so easy for you. So simple. Crawling and begging, crying and shouting your name when your cock drives into my body.” She blinked, her glossed lips closing and opening again, drawing my gaze. “Have you ever stopped to think that the reason you haven’t seen me in so long is because I’ve grown bored with what you have to give?”
She released my tie, but the knot still choked me as much as the words she was shoving down my throat.
Glaring up at me, her body completely relaxed beneath my body, Rebecca spoke without feeling, her tone so matter of fact that it was like listening to a stranger.
“Didn’t you find it odd how quickly I fucked Christopher? Doesn’t it bother you that I could jump from your bed into his without blinking an eye? What exactly have you Mastered, Aiden? A body? A shell? Haven’t you ever stopped to wonder why it is you could never reach that last sacred part inside of me to teach me fully to heel?”
Rolling her eyes, she settled her body beneath me, spreading her legs farther apart as she spread her arms out to the side. “Fuck me all you want. It won’t be any different than the other men you allowed to use me. Just another cock, another ride, another slap of skin that means nothing to me when it’s over.”
Brows tugging together, I searched her face for any sign she was lying. There was nothing but a blank mask, the glimmer lost from her once heated stare.
Not even a faint smile. “Go ahead, fuck me. I’ll wait until it’s over.” Turning her head, her gaze locked on a far wall.
Pushing myself off of her, I kneeled between her legs, watching her lie still beneath me while I tugged the knot of my tie. What the fuck just happened?
“I’ve suddenly lost interest,” I murmured with the desire to strike out at her precisely as she’d struck out at me.
Rebecca shrugged a shoulder, pulled her legs from either side of me and pushed herself to her feet. “No worries. I have a Courtesan tucked away in another wing that can satisfy me. Thanks for that gift, by the way.” Making a point to glance down at my erection, she grinned. “Maybe you should bring another woman home. Get your kicks with her.”
An unhurried click of her heels as she strolled to where her clothing lay crumpled on the floor. She dressed slowly, making sure to tuck her shirt into her skirt before reaching back to pull the zipper and button the waistband in place. The movement caused her breasts to push forward against a shirt that was open in the center, the buttons not yet secured.
Shaking my head, I realized I was still kneeling on the floor and pushed to my feet to remedy that. I brushed dust from my slacks and yanked at my tie to straighten the knot back into its proper place.
Rebecca felt no qualm to break the tense silence between us. “It’s funny. You were the only man in my life that I believed would never drop to his knees. And yet, all I had to do was pretend to need help, pretend to look up to the all knowing Master and there you were doing exactly what you said you would never do.”
She looked up from her buttons to make her point, intensity in the emerald color of her eyes.
My jaw ticked as I straightened to my full height. “I said I would never be forced to my knees. You didn’t overpower me, Pet.”
“Rebecca,” she corrected me as she set the last button in place.
Darkness crawled through me, the need for violence a poison soaking my veins. “Careful, Pet. I still have the ability to make you crawl.”
Turning, she faced me fully. “Yes, you do have that ability. You’ve enjoyed it for a long time. But you made a mistake, Aiden. A fatal error, really, by admitting this is all in my head.”
Allowing a beat of silence, she laughed as if a veil had been pulled away and reality had finally become crystal clear.
“All this time I did everything I could to make you love me. I let you into my head and believed there was even the small chance that one day I would be enough to make you leave this screwed up lifestyle behind. I was an idiot, wasn’t I? A damned fool because you enjoy the head games a little too much. You actually enjoy the fight. You know what your ugliness is? The thing you need from the world? It’s your ego, Aiden. Your need for admiration. Your precious fucking reputation. That is your Achilles heel. And look where it got you.”
“I’m not following,” I ground out between clenched teeth. What had gotten into her, and why the fuck did I like it so much?
She stared at me like I was an idiot. I wanted to slap the expression from her beautiful, smug face.
“For years you’ve bragged to your friends that I was both Master and Courtesan, a unique submissive that only a man of your skill could possibly own. All because of that inflated ego of yours. And they called you on it finally. Now, here we are. You with an erection that does nothing for me because leaving me without an orgasm no longer holds any weight. You can fuck me with it, or deny it to me. And I can lie there like a log, or get up and easily get what I need elsewhere. There’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
“I can kill him,” I reminded her, no warmth to my tone.
“You could, but then what would that do to your reputation? You’d either have to admit jealousy, or admit I wasn’t the Master you claimed I am all along. So where does that leave you? Hmmm?”
Refusing to answer her, I simply stared across the room at a woman who was pushing me far too close to a line she didn’t want to cross.
“That’s what I thought. Thanks for the lesson, Coach. And feel free to keep an eye out for your apprentice. I plan to impress you with taking the helpful knowledge you’ve given me and using it to mold my new toy.”
Spinning on her heel, she marched to the door, her fingers gripping over the knob but not pulling it open. “Actually,” she turned, her eyes meeting mine. “I do have one more question.”
A brow cocked above my eye, my hands fisting at my sides. I would get even with her for this, but first I needed to process exactly how to accomplish the task. “And what is that, Rebecca?”
“What did you do to me when you learned I liked the pain? What was the new way you Mastered me?”
A memory snuck up on me, a regret I had in the decisions I’d made. She didn’t deserve what Duke had done to her, but she was a means to an end so many years ago, a jewel I hadn’t yet learned to care for and polish.
Swallowing, I admitted, “I let you fall in love with me, and then I sold you. You enjoyed the physical pain, but couldn’t handle the strike to your heart.”
Nodding, a bark of laughter shook her shoulders. “You’re right. But the strange thing is that the heart can only take so much before it goes cold, before those strikes are nothing more than a beating against an organ that has turned to stone.”
She glanced at my cock again, no doubt noticing it was still a hard ridge across my leg. “Enjoy your erection, Aiden. I hope your palm is man enough to take care of what I just denied you.”
Slipping from the room, she shut the door quietly, refusing to look back at me as she did so.
I sat back against the edge of my desk after finding myself alone, laughter crawling up my throat as I wondered what the hell had just happened.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
REBECCA
My legs were shaking when I left his office, every part of me, in fact. With a clipped pace, I put distance between Aiden and me because I was certain he would chase me through the door, drag me back in and force me to admit I was playing a game.
What I’d said to him shredded the heart inside me that I’d sworn had turned to stone, my conflicting emotions so intricately weaved together that I couldn’t decide if I was proud of what I’d done, or more broken because of it.
Lies on top of lies on top of more lies, but they were the only tool I had. Aiden, like Greyson, could easily overpower me, but if what Aiden said was true, if the only skill required was the ability to get inside another person’s head, then I pulled out my Master’s scalpel to slice into the heart of the man I loved and pulled out what made him tick.
He didn’t ch
ase me like I thought he would, and I hoped that meant the arrow I’d fired - my shot in the dark - had found its true target.
I wasn’t stupid enough to believe this would be the end of it with Aiden, but if I had the ability to make a man like him stumble, how hard would it be to make Greyson crawl?
Hope filtered in to mix with the hurt and the fear, forced self-confidence the beat to my steps. If I wanted to survive this with my heart and soul intact, I needed to remember the lesson he’d taught.
See him, they both had said.
It took being physically powerless for me to finally open my eyes.
He let me fall in love with him. Those words, that statement, had stung. I don’t think Aiden had even intended the admission to be a cruel barb.
He let me...as if I’d actually had a choice.
And there was that damn word again.
Like a lingering virus.
A cough that erupts every so often to remind the body it hasn’t yet healed.
Choice.
It seemed I still had one to make.
. . .
Waking in the bed in the playroom the next morning, I was surprised to find I hadn’t been disturbed. After giving Greyson the opportunity to use the restroom, to bathe, to eat, I couldn’t bring myself to do much more than say goodnight to him before wandering off to be alone.
Sleeping in Aiden’s bed wasn’t where I needed to be, so I’d found myself in the playroom before too long staring up a photo of Greyson that was a story I wasn’t quite seeing.
There was something there beyond the obvious abuse, words spoken that I couldn’t quite hear. My first instinct had been to tear the damn thing from the wall, yet every time I lifted my hands to do so, something stopped me.
After covering it with the black cloth, I’d curled up on the playroom bed, my eyes drifting closed eventually. If it had happened on any other night, Aiden would have found me and carried me to his room, would have tucked me beneath his blankets even if he never planned to sleep beside me.
He hadn’t so much as checked on me from what I knew, my skirt twisted around my hips, my heels still buckled to my feet.
The old me would have stayed in bed upset that he hadn’t snuck in to steal me away.
The old me would have done that, but the new me had a Courtesan to train.
It took me several minutes to convince myself I could run into Aiden in the halls and maintain my professional demeanor. Okay, not convince, really, more like lie to myself, a pep talk repeating in my thoughts that this was all in my head, all in their head, like acting on a stage or in front of a camera. If I believed I was tough as nails, Aiden would too.
And wasn’t that interesting, I thought, as my heels clicked over marble floors through halls that were a maze; it wasn’t Greyson I was worried about in my quest to prove myself a Master. Already I’d written off the Courtesan chained in a dark room and had set my sights on the biggest prize, on conquering a man who couldn’t be conquered.
Climbing Mt. Everest in a bikini and no oxygen would have been easier.
Careful to avoid walking past the kitchen where I was sure to find either Aiden or Anthony, I made my way into Aiden’s bedroom - our bedroom, in truth - and paused to find the bed perfectly made. Not one pillow was out of place, which meant Aiden hadn’t slept in our bedroom last night. Where was he?
For a brief moment I felt a pang of jealousy creep in, the toxic thought that he’d taken me up on the offer to bring another girl in to fulfill his needs. It wasn’t like Aiden had been faithful in the years we’d been together. He was a Master, his business was to train, but he’d never simply fucked another woman unless there was money to be earned in the end.
Never, never, had he allowed another woman to sleep in our bed, because that was a place reserved only for me. A place where he was vulnerable when finally he was exhausted enough to sleep.
See him, Anthony had said.
See me, Aiden had demanded.
I wouldn’t let my heart wax poetic over the realization. Aiden still approached sex as a means to an end. Everything he said or did was merely a means to an end.
Even his relationship with me.
I needed to pick Anthony’s brain about Society rules and my place within them. I wanted to know what my rights were as both Courtesan and Master apprentice, both. Rather than stumbling through this blindly, I wanted to know what the end results could be...I wanted to know what choices I really had and if I’d be allowed to make them.
First, a shower. Preparing for my day was all part of the illusion, all part of the mind game I found myself playing. Aiden was always impeccably dressed regardless of the cruelties he had in mind for the day, and I understood it was just one more power play, another mind trick that left the naked woman exposed while he appeared unaffected and oh so put together.
Calm within chaos.
An island within a turbulent sea.
It makes a person trapped in the center of that storm want to reach out and grasp onto the calm island so as not to be swept away.
Mind games.
Every one of them.
In everything a Master says and does.
Bastards.
I only hoped I could be calm enough to play the game right along beside them.
An hour later and my hair was dried and pulled up into a high ponytail. My makeup was spot on. My clothes were professional, yet seductive, a grey pencil skirt that revealed every curve, a white button up shirt open to reveal the globes of my breasts, a black bra that pushed those globes together so that the eye of every man would be drawn to gaze at them.
It was the task of the Master to make a person want to crawl, just for the chance to please them.
Stepping into four inch heels that shaped my legs enough to make the mouth water, I walked from the bedroom back into the halls, a determined click-click-click as I fisted my hand with the desire to wield a whip.
Dominate.
Punish.
Seduce.
Reward.
It was a template for bending the will of another person, a roadmap for warping the mind.
The door to the dark room creaked slowly open, my heels hard against the rough wooden floors, my eyes focused on the man chained to a small iron bed, my thoughts on all the ways I would make him want to crawl.
“Good morning.”
Caribbean eyes opened, widening once the haze of sleep had slipped away to allow Greyson the first glimpse of his new Master.
“Mornin’,” he grumbled, his large body shifting to stretch over the thin mattress of the bed.
“Are you feeling better?” I asked, not really caring much about his answer. Today he would work for my praise. Today he would be a tool in a Master’s mind game.
Gaze sweeping down my body and up again, he shook his head in disbelief. “I liked the jeans and t-shirt version of you better. Did the boyfriend pick out your clothes this morning?”
His head twisted left when I struck him across the face, surprise widening his eyes.
“It was only a love tap,” I teased, “You like pain, remember?”
The skin where I’d struck him turned pink, his lips tugging up into a grin that was flavored with surprise and male appraisal. “Never expected it from you, Princess.”
“I’m not a victim anymore, Pet. I’m not a princess. Aiden’s not my boyfriend. And if you have any hope of touching me again, you’ll accept those facts quickly and abide by them.”
He grinned, the chains at his wrists and ankles clinging against the bed posts. “Okay, I’ll play along-“
“I’m not playing. Not anymore. Both of you have treated me like some silly little girl who was in over her head. You both can go straight to hell and never come back if you think I’ll continue to put up with it.”
Greyson’s head rolled over the pillow, blue eyes finding mine, assessing me with fascination. “It’s about time. Should I expect a visit from your boyfr-“ His eyes closed, his throat working to swallow the wor
d before he could finish speaking it. “From Aiden now that you’ve discovered your spine?”
Shaking my head, I tossed a pair of old jeans on his bare stomach, hoping they would fit. I’d snagged them from an unused drawer in Aiden’s wardrobe and assumed he wouldn’t miss them. “He won’t bother you again. You’re my Courtesan to train.”
I unlocked his chains, watching as he pushed himself into a sitting position on the side of the bed. “Get dressed. I’m tired of seeing your naked ass for now.” Little did he know there was a picture of it that I’d stared at in the playroom for over an hour.
“I happen to think my ass is pretty.”
“Yes,” I commented, “it was quite lovely with the streamers.”
His soft laughter floated behind me as I made my way to the closet. “That was a low blow.”
“I can go lower, Greyson. Don’t test me.”
“You have no idea how much that turns me on.”
My eyes clenched shut at the gravel in his voice. Where Aiden was sophisticated and regal, this man wore scars and dirt with pride. Strip Aiden of his finery and he was a monster waiting to devour. Strip Greyson and he was the same monster, simply existing on the opposite side of the coin. I should have seen that from the beginning. They both had their games.
All I had to do was be smarter.
I grabbed a black leather crop from the closet, a collar and a chain. “Talk to me like that again and I’ll have you sucking the cock of another man who thought he could use me for sex.”
Spinning to face him, I tossed the collar his direction. “Put it on.”
Greyson grabbed the collar from the floor without breaking eye contact. “What happened to you last night? What did that asshole do?”
No reaction. No emotion. No more playing the victim to gain his trust. With as little affect as I could muster, I demanded, “Put it on. I won’t tell you a third time.”
Men like sex, especially cutthroat, filthy as hell, prideful, arrogant, carnal men like Aiden and Grey. It was the end game. The ultimate goal. The power they wielded with blatant display despite the methods they used to achieve it.