by Sienna Blake
“It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Alright then. Good to see you… smiling again, sir.”
Color me mortified.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Caden
I kick open the door to my bedroom. It’s dim in here, the fading sunlight filtering through the slit in the curtains, but I don’t turn on the light. She’s still hanging over my shoulder, my little ball of indignant kitten, yelling at me to put her down and hitting me. Little girl. If only she knew how much she was turning me on with her little hands curling into fists swatting at my ass and her voice threatening all sorts of things.
I pause to slam the door and I stride into the room. I can feel her wriggling to get a good look around. I stand at the foot of my bed and dump her on the mattress. She turns and hits me on my chest. “Brute.”
I grab her right arm. “It got you where I wanted you. It seems lately just asking isn’t cutting it.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’ve been a hell of a lot more argumentative with me lately.”
“Have not. Let go of me.” She lets out a little grunt of annoyance and hits me with her left hand as she struggles to free her other hand.
“You got claws now, have you?”
“Maybe I’m just sick of being nice to you. Deal with it.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it.” I pull her against me so that she can feel my erection through my pants. “Maybe I like it just a little too much.”
In the dark I can see her eyes widen. Perhaps she can hear the honey in my voice or perhaps she can see the wolfish way I size her up, because she seems to finally realize that all of this is turning me on and I want more of it. Yes, she understands. I nod slowly. “Do you remember the safe word?”
She gives me a small smirk. “Do you?” Suddenly I feel a sharp sting on my left cheek. She slapped me. Not too hard but it still stings. Why you little…
She uses my surprise to scoot away from me across the bed. She huddles by the pillows staring at me wide-eyed.
I chuckle as I brush my cheek with my fingers. “You are going to be so… so… sorry you did that.” I start to fold up the sleeves of my long-sleeved dress-shirt to the elbows. Her pretty little lips have parted and her breathing has become audible.
I launch myself across the mattress at her. She tries to scramble off the bed, but I catch her by the arm and fling her onto the mattress on her back. She lashes out with a closed fist, catching me on my lip. I let go of her as I taste blood. I lick it off my lip and grin as she rolls aside. My body rushes with adrenaline and raw hot lust.
She makes a run for the door. But I’m too fast for her. My hand slams the door shut and I press up behind her, crushing her to the door. I slide my hands around her, one hand finding her throat and the other slipping down her pants between her legs. Her slit is already wet as sin. Oh little girl. I lean down to her ear. “I am going to do such terrible things to your beautiful little body.”
She shudders and moans and begs me to stop. But even as she does she pushes her greedy hips towards me, begging for more of my fingers. I reach into her shirt to find those soft, tempting breasts. I snarl when the stupid bra gets in the way. Too much clothing. Way too much clothing.
I plunge two fingers into her wetness to anchor her to me. I curl my fingers around and thrum the tips against her sensitive ridge. She starts moaning and her legs are shaking, telling me that I found the right spot. With her distracted, I yank off her shirt and unclip her bra, tossing these restrictive unnecessities aside.
I pull my fingers from her and spin her around so she bangs up against the door. I hold her there with my forearm firmly against her throat. She yelps but it turns to a moan when I cover her nipple with my mouth. I slip my hand beside us and run it along the door until I find the lock. I turn the key and pull it out, slipping it into my pocket. My tongue flicks furiously across her nipple as I unzip her pants. They drop to the floor with a satisfying whoosh. I can’t help but bite her nipple. “Oh God,” she cries out and her hips buck towards me.
My cock twitches. I bite her again getting the same unrestrained reaction from her. Something wild and feral growls inside me. I just want to tear her apart. I’ve always been so soft with her, so gentle and loving, keeping this animal inside at bay so as not to hurt her. But here I am hurting her a little and she wants more.
God help us both.
I take my arm off her throat and grab at her underwear. She catches me off guard with a kick to the chest and I tumble back.
She turns and grabs the door handle. It turns with a click – click but the door doesn’t open. I start laughing. Yes, little girl. It’s locked. “I don’t think you’ve realized yet that there’s nowhere for you to run.”
She turns and presses her body flat up against the door. Her near-naked body shakes like she’s afraid, but her eyes are shiny with exhilaration.
I push myself to my feet. Then I say low and soft, like I’m seducing her, “I’m going to make you so sorry.”
I watch her shiver as my words caress her and her nipples harden further. I have her just where I want her. Almost. I unbuckle my belt and slide it from my pants. I hear a soft moan slip through that sweet mouth of hers as her eyes, two hungry little orbs, rest on my belt. I raise an eyebrow at her. But she doesn’t see it. She’s still watching the piece of leather in my hands. I look down at the belt and snap it taut. I look up in time to see her whole body shiver. Interesting…
I push the end of the belt through the buckle and make a loop. Then I stare at her until her gaze is caught in mine. I launch at her. She darts aside, slipping under my arm. My little girl. There’s nowhere for you to run. My body rushes with the power of being the predator.
She runs to the other side of my small breakfast table so that it’s between us. I move to one side, but she skips around too, keeping the table between us. I dart to the other side, but she, too, changes direction. As she runs, her bare breasts bounce and I get glimpses of her rounded ass in those black lacy panties. My cock twitches again at me, demanding the satisfaction of plunging into her tight wet pussy. I need it now.
I growl in frustration. Without thinking, I grab the table with one hand and throw it aside and out of the way. It crashes across the floor. She lets out a gasp and for a second we both stand still, our chests heaving. There’s nothing left between us.
This time, when I lunge for her, I catch her. I throw her back onto the mattress and hold her down by covering her body with mine. She struggles to get away, but I know I’m too strong for her. She knows it, too. But she still tries to fight me off.
I grab both her hands in one of mine, raising them above her head and pushing them down to the mattress. With my other hand I push the belt loop down over her hands. In one swift move, I pull on the end, tightening the loop down onto her wrists, and close off the belt. She looks up towards her hands, testing them. I push myself up onto my knees and for a split second I allow myself to admire the way her firm little body looks from above, clothed just in lace panties.
But not for long. She’s already scooting away.
I grab her thighs and flip her over to her stomach. She lets out a cry of surprise. I grab the sides of her underwear and watch, amused, as she pulls herself out of them in an attempt to get away.
Naked, wriggling kitten. The best kind.
She catches me off guard and one of her legs kicks me in the stomach. I growl and grab her ankle. Still holding her I step to the floor on the side of the bed and yank her towards me, her legs parting around me. She is less nimble with her hands belted together. I drop to my knees and with my hands on her hips, I pull her onto my tongue.
“Oh God, Caden.” She groans out my name and the last of my sanity snaps. I pull her thighs further apart with my hands as I lick her first at her entrance, then down to her clit. I cannot get enough of her. I cannot bury my tongue deep enough into her sweet center.
“Please stop. Please. Don’t do that,
” she moans even as she pushes herself back onto me. As I tongue her, one of my hands are busy undoing my pants. I don’t think she even notices. Her moaning gets louder and her hips start jerking, letting me know that she’s close. I smile to myself as I pull my mouth away. I’m such an asshole. I’m rewarded with such a needy groan that it causes me to smirk.
“Why did you stop?”
I stand up, my pants drop and my cock springs free. I slap her on one of her rounded ass cheeks, snapping her out of her little pleasure-haze.
“Ow, what was that for?”
“You speak only when you’re spoken to.” I slap her again, making sure to hit the same spot. I know that the fiery sting will be twice as bad.
“Bastard,” she growls out and tries to scramble away before I can slap her again.
With my hands on her hips I yank her back against my cock making her belted arms stretch out in front of her. In this position her ass makes a lovey rounded peach against me. She lets out a moan before she remembers the game and starts trying to scramble away on her knees again.
“You don’t fucking learn, do you?” I scoop one forearm under her hips, keeping her from going anywhere. With my other hand I position myself at her entrance. She is so soft and so wet against my sensitive head that I almost lose the plot right then and there. I grab her by the back of her head, twisting my fingers into her beautiful thick hair. I pull back a little firmly, just enough to make her back arc and her ass stick up into the air. “Tell me,” I say, “who ultimately has control.”
“You.”
“Really?”
I hold her there, listening to her hard breaths and her tiny whimpers. I hold her there to remind her who really has control. I want so badly to plunge right into her. All I have to do is thrust forward. But I don’t. I wait.
Finally, she lets out an exasperated grunt and pushes back onto me, just a little. Giving me the ‘yes’ I need. Telling me she wants this. Telling me she’s mine. I rock into her in one deep thrust. She lets out a cry that joins my low groan.
God. Damn.
I start to fuck her and fuck her hard. She struggles against me, kicking out at me and yelling at me to get off her. I pull back harder on her hair, but that only serves to make her groan. Between every curse, she moans and every single one causes the hairs on my neck to rise. As she tightens around me her movements become wilder. “Stop it. Please. Don’t. Oh. God.” Her words come out in short pants as I slam into her.
She comes on a curse word, her body tensing then going limp with pleasure, her muscles trembling around me… Thank God. I couldn’t have held on for much longer. I let go. My world goes bright for a long moment as my body seizes with my own pleasure. Then I collapse.
I shift myself to her side so that she doesn’t have to take my weight. She’s shaking. At first I think she’s still riding down the wave of her climax. Then I hear a sob and realize she’s crying. Oh shit.
“Kitten, what’s wrong?” My hands grab at the belt at her wrists to let her go. With her hands free she curls herself into a ball on her side. I don’t know what to do. I touch her hair. Shit, what have I done? “Jesus, did I hurt you? I’m sorry. I thought you were enjoying it. You didn’t say the safe word. I didn’t know to stop.”
She shakes her head and still the sobbing continues. “Y-you didn’t hurt me.”
“Then what’s wrong? Tell me.” I pull her, still in a ball, into my lap. I hold her as gently as possible, afraid that if I touch her too hard it will break her further.
She takes a deep breath and I give her a minute so she can compose herself.
“That’s what I should have done,” she whispers. “I should have fought back with Jacob. But I just… I just let him…” She dissolves into tears again.
The sound tears my fucking heart out and red bleeds into my vision. My hands crack into fists. I force myself to relax them. I cannot touch her with angry hands. I won’t.
“I stayed for too long,” she mumbles. “I let him turn me into this… this… weak…”
I shush at her. “That’s not important. What’s important is you left. In the end, you were strong enough to do what was right.”
I coax her chin from out of her knees with my fingers. Her sad wet eyes find mine in the dimness and I have to fight the wave of rage that threatens to overpower me. “Listen to me. You’ve been to hell and back at the hands of a monster. A manipulative bastard who is an expert at slowly pushing women down so he can control them. Most women would have crumbled under him but you… you chose to stand up against him in the end. You did what was right. Even knowing he’d come after you. And that is what matters. You’re not a victim. You’re a survivor.”
As I finish, the hope that begins to glimmer in her eyes makes my chest swell.
“Like you…” she says.
“Like me?”
“You’re not a victim either. You’re a survivor, too.”
“I’m… a survivor.” I say these words slowly, like I’m trying to taste them. “A survivor. I like how you see me.”
She gives me a smile even though she stays in her ball on my lap. It’s a small smile and full of pain. She is broken just like I am, but we are fixing each other.
I press my forehead down to hers. “Kitten, I’m going to find him and I’m going to make him pay for hurting you. For every ounce of pain you’ve felt, I’m going to give him ten. Every tear you’ve shed, I’m going to match with his blood. And when I’m done with him, I will drag his broken body to lie at your feet. So you can finish him and watch the life drain from his eyes. This I promise you.”
* * *
Kitten
“This I promise you.”
The dark intensity in Caden’s eyes as he promises to butcher Jacob for me should scare me. It would scare a normal person. But I am not normal. Neither is Caden.
Instead it touches a part of me deep down, a part that I would never want to admit to anyone else… that I dream of being the one to push the knife into Jacob’s heart, to cut it in half like he did mine. And to watch the life in his eyes dim as his vital organs fail, his arteries desperately trying to keep the flow of lifeblood going through his poisoned veins.
“You… you would do that for me?” I whisper.
He grabs the back of my neck as he sometimes does, his large palm engulfing it and his fingers wrapping around to rest at the edge of my throat. “I would do anything for you. Anything.” The ferocity in which he says this makes me believe it down to my soul.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Mick?”
Mick curses through the phone. “Thank God you’re okay. What the hell happened?”
“You’re right, he’s not a cop. I confronted him, but he explained everything to me.”
“And you believe him?”
“He saved my life, Mick. He’s not by-the-book, but that’s okay. I trust him.”
“I don’t like this, kid. Tell me where you are.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry. Just know I’m safe.”
There’s a long pause. I can feel he’s debating on whether he’s going to keep arguing with me or not. Finally he sighs. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Thank you for being such a good friend, Mick.”
He grunts. “Sure. It’s nothing. You gonna give me your number?”
I smile. “Why, you wanna setup a weekly phone date?”
He grunts. “No. But just in case.”
I probably shouldn’t, but I give him the number of my burn phone.
“You call me soon to let me know you’re okay. Don’t give an old man another reason to worry, right?”
“Okay.”
“You’re not coming back, are you?”
“I can’t. There’s someone from my past… he’s after me. Caden’s keeping me safe.”
There’s a pause, then, “Okay. If that’s what you have to do. At least I don’t have to have you embarrassing me with those girlie punches of yours anymore.”
I
laugh.
“The guys here’ll miss you, though.”
I smile even though my chest hurts a little. “I’ll miss you too, Mick.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
When I wake the next morning, I reach out for Caden, but my hands find cold sheets instead. I jolt to sitting, wondering for a moment whether last night was a dream. But I’m here in Caden’s room, sitting upright in the middle of his dark cherry wood poster bed. Caden isn’t here, but the sheets still smell like him. I notice a small slip of paper on his pillow. I pick it up and I laugh out loud when I see what he has written in his cursive handwriting:
I have to work to do, so I’ll be in my office all day… have dinner with me tonight? 7pm?
It’s a note. Like the ones he used to leave for me. But… different. This note doesn’t tell me where and when to meet him, it asks me if I will. Things are finally changing between us.
I find a notepad and pen in one of the drawers. I write him a note back.
Still in just a dressing gown I tiptoe down the hall to where I know his office is. I fold the piece of paper and slip it under his door. Grinning, I run lightly to my room.
I take a long hot shower, letting the water soothe my body. I have slight bruises around my neck and my wrists from Caden. The insides of my thighs are tender. One of my ass cheeks is red and sore. I touch these parts of myself tenderly and a small smile rises to my face. Lust throbs between my legs as I remember last night.
I frown when I remember how I reacted. I thought I had moved past all of this darkness. Obviously not. I didn’t realize how much anger and self-blame I still carried around until last night.
I thought I had dealt with my past; turns out I had been suppressing it instead. A part of me thought I could have suppressed all these emotions forever. How naïve of me. Eventually I had to pay the price. Eventually I had to face the darkness.