* * *
I don’t wait more than a minute before the door opens again and Mika comes in, a tray in her hands, a few bottles balancing there.
What else is there to do but fall to the pillow, pressing the side of my face into the cool surface while
It’s creeping toward dawn when I crawl beneath the flimsy blanket and rest my head on the pillow. Cassian’s bed wasn’t like this. Obviously it wasn’t. Obviously he’s not living in a prison. At least part of this building—complex—I don’t know what it is—is his home. He didn’t let me lay in it, but I don’t have to lay in his bed to know he doesn’t choose sheets that would tear like paper or pillows pressed flat by so many contracts’ heads.
My body welcomes the sleep like an old friend, but I feel like I’m being rocked side to side. It’s a little like vertigo. I’m off balance, even as my eyes burn from fatigue. The thing that keeps my dreams at bay are the questions. Will they come for me in the morning, after what happened? Will Cassian still follow through with whatever the contract says? I have no idea how long it’s supposed to last. It could be days. It could be weeks. The way he touched me last night makes me think everything could be different when the day finally breaks. Would he really bind me over that bench and make me hurt? After all that? I press my thighs together under the sheet and try not to hope. On the one hand, my ass is still throbbing. Every inch of me aches. But on the other hand, if he stopped...
I don’t know if I want him to stop. That’s how fucked up this is. I fought for my life when they dragged me in here, and now I’m not sure which part of my life I need in order to survive.
At some point in my musings I drift off.
I wake up a little while later, sleep still clouding my brain, to the sound of the door opening.
* * *
It wasn’t him.
The disappointment rattles in my brain as I lay on the bench on my back, wrists in cuffs, my hands pulled over my head and chained to the wall.
This time...it’s different.
The bench had been reconfigured when the woman Mika brought me in and I didn’t realize how utterly humiliating it could get until she’d pulled my knees up to my chest and strapped them there, open wide. And it’s not like being held in Cassian’s grip. I’m here alone, waiting, the cool air leaving its breath between my legs, wondering what fresh hell this day is going to bring.
Punishment, obviously.
Nothing has changed since last night, obviously.
Tears prick at the corners of my eyes and I blink them away. This waiting—this is torture. He must know that. He must not care.
I’m so lost in the particular pain of this that I don’t notice the door opening until he’s standing next to the bench, grinning down at me, sadistic in his joy.
It’s not Cassian.
This must be his brother, judging by the looks of him. He’s stockier, with the same fine bones in his face, but there’s a cruelty in his eyes that freezes me at my core. The tears dry instantly. He looks me over and I feel that gaze like a knifepoint on my breasts and between my legs. It’s useless to tug at the straps holding my knees in this position, but I do it anyway.
“Oh, don’t bother.” His voice is a twisted version of Cassian’s—so similar, yet so wrong. “I’m not enjoying the view.” The grin tells me otherwise. “I only wanted to see what he gets up to. In person, I mean. There’s always a show available from the cameras. I wanted to see if those screens do it...Justice.”
He’s proud of himself for that one, eyes narrowed, daring me to say something.
I press my lips shut tighter.
He saunters to the bottom of the bench, probably wanting a change of scenery, and stares back between my legs for too long before considering my face. “Did you hear about that king?”
It’s bait I don’t take.
“You wouldn’t, unless my brother told you. And what would he have to say to a contract?” The last word might as well be a curse. “He’s so fucking obsessed with propriety. He’d spend days debating if he could tell you at all.” He shrugs his shoulders. “I’m not quite so...invested. It was a king in one of those little European countries nobody cares about until something like this happens. Aren’t you dying to know?”
I’m dying to be somewhere far away from him. I wish Mika would come back, tell me this is all a mistake, and take me back to the cell. I’d rather be in the cell than with him, like this.
“Got his throat slit.” He draws a finger casually across his own throat. “By one of his own advisors. Can you fucking believe it? A coup d’etat. And now the world is wondering where his son is. The prince.” He shakes his head like he’s at a dinner party, discussing something mildly unfortunate. My heart pounds. “Do you think he saw his father die? It’s a lot of blood, when throats get slit.” He’s looking too closely, eyes wandering, then pinning my eyes. One quick step and he’s standing over me. “Do you ever fucking say anything? I thought you were supposed to speak when spoken to.”
Can he hear it—my heart? It’s beating so loud it almost covers his words. I give him one sharp nod.
“What was that?” He cups a hand around his ear.
“Yes.” I can barely force the word from my lips.
“It does speak. Let’s see what else I can make it do.” He heads for the wall and I tilt my head back, trying to see what he’s doing. A strip of leather bends into my vision. The belt.
“He’s got you all trussed up, just for this, I think.” That voice—it turns my stomach. Has he been lurking here all along? “It’s too bad my brother isn’t here to enjoy this.”
In one icy moment I understand what his plan is and I strain desperately against my bonds. No. He can’t. No. I don’t want this, I don’t want it—I don’t want him to touch me, even if it is using leather. Oh, God, it’s something different with Cassian, isn’t it? It’s so entirely different, and I didn’t know it fully until this horrible, sickening moment.
He slaps the belt against his palm while he walks around to his place at the bottom of the bench. The slapping gets louder, and now he’s grinning down between my legs, not bothering to look at me. My fear won’t be enough for him. Only my pain. And this man—he will not want even the hint of pleasure. This will not be measured. This will not be—
“I’ve waited long enough.” He mutters this almost to himself, and then he raises the belt.
No. No. I squeeze my eyes shut, every inch of me trembling, biting back the urge to scream before it even happens—
The door bursts open and I look, I can’t help it.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Lysander?”
Cassian.
I could cry from the relief.
He can punish me for hours, all he wants.
Lysander scowls. “You kept her waiting. I was only carrying out the contract.”
Cassian strides across the room and whips the belt from his brother’s hands. “Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
Lysander lifts his chin, like he might fight back, but Cassian’s eyes are black with rage and his jaw is set. I press myself back into the bench as if that could possibly hide me.
Cassian pulls the belt tight between his hands and I picture it around Lysander’s neck.
Lysander must picture that, too, because he sticks his hands back in his pockets and slinks for the door.
“This isn’t finished,” Cassian says.
“No, I’m sure it’s not,” Lysander tosses over his shoulder.
Then he’s gone.
Cassian takes a deep breath, closing his eyes.
When he opens them, the rage is hooded beneath the expression I know well.
Sir.
He pulls the belt between his hands, cracking the leather. “That fool doesn’t know what to do with a belt.” It’s a casual comment, almost to himself, and this tiny similarity with his brother sends a shiver down my spine. Then he looks into my eyes. There’s no smile there, no comfort, and yet... “But I do.”
23
Cassian
For the first time, I recognize terror in her eyes, pure and unadulterated. And no wonder. This position she is configured in is far more explicit than I had ever imagined. It’s not the first time I’ve demanded that one of the contracts be splayed out in this way, of course. But with Justice...
I looked forward to seeing her like this.
I looked forward to the heat radiating in her eyes, even if I can’t ever admit out loud that it’s because I know she...trusts me.
Trust isn’t supposed to enter into this, but it has, like the ivy that crawls over brick buildings until it can’t be taken down without damaging the foundations. No, that’s not quite true. It’s intimate trust like this that’s supposed to be reserved for people with relationships. The families of New York trusted my father, and now they trust me, with toeing the line. They know no one will emerge dead upon fulfillment of one of my contracts.
Justice wasn’t sure that she’d survive my brother. The fear is still plain on her face.
I could kill him.
Part of me wants to follow him back to wherever he’s taken off to and wrap this belt around his throat, but I can’t let him affect me, as much as my rage is streaking white-hot in my veins. I don’t let any of it show on my face. That’s not part of the contract, and it’s not part of what I’m doing to Justice today.
She bites her lip as I step closer.
I shouldn’t be looking. Not like this. And God knows how long Lysander stood over her. So I drag my eyes back to her face.
There’s a flicker of heat there.
“Punishment.” I raise the belt.
Justice sucks in a breath.
I bring it down on the inside of her thigh.
She cries out, writhing in the restraints, or at least trying. There’s not enough slack for her to truly move. Mika did her job well.
I keep my hand steady on the belt, painting her creamy thighs with stripe after stripe. The tension I’m carrying in my arms wants to break free, but I’ll be damned if I let my boiling anger at Lysander affect her.
Now that he’s out of sight and Justice fills my vision, it’s easier to stay in control with every moment that passes.
No false moves.
Last night—that was a false move. I can’t slip up again.
I drop the belt to the floor and press her knee a fraction of an inch wider. For a moment I allow myself one transgression: I hold my hand a few inches from her pussy, absorbing the heat, even from a distance.
She’s soaking.
I didn’t have to touch her to know that she was dry when I came into the room. I saw her fear written over every inch of her body.
I bring my palm down on the pink flesh of her thigh. I won’t punish her pussy—not now. I saw Lysander’s intention in the way he was standing, that fucking disgrace. That kind of punishment rarely enters into the room with contracts. It’s far too intimate, and most signers would rather have me humiliate them in other ways.
Justice bears the slaps on her thighs bravely, making little noises of pain as the flesh grows redder and redder under my hands.
I know they’re watching.
I felt it most keenly after I put her back in her cell last night. The empty space in my bed was a stark reminder that this is not only about honoring my father’s legacy. Frankly, I could give a damn about my father’s legacy. I could forget it all in an instant if it weren’t for other ties that bind me to it.
She reminded me of my mother. In some fucked-up way, in a way I can’t explain, she reminded me of my mother.
And my mother is not dead.
I don’t let myself think of this often, this lie that I tell myself and everyone else in order to survive. But it is a lie. She’s not dead. She’s in hiding. And I do this because of the Family. My father’s Family. An ocean might separate us, but they have eyes everywhere.
This—this is the price I have to pay to keep her safe.
The Family will never have a reason to look for her if I keep this business sacred.
I will, I vow again, bringing my hand down on Justice’s upper thigh to mark the deal. Any other contract would be straining to close her thighs, to stop me from doing what I’m doing, but I surface from my thoughts to see an astonishing blush of pleasure blending with the pain on her face.
Her arousal drips down the inside of her thigh.
You’re fucking gorgeous, I want to say, but I press my lips closed. Not in this room, not in this room, and not ever again, I can never—
I grit my teeth.
My own flesh is hard, aching, and I have to convince myself otherwise. I have to convince myself that what happened last night can never happen again.
Her knees are nearly touching her chest. She’s so exposed to me, with her already punished ass on as much display as her pussy. Taunting me.
I spank it hard.
It surprises Justice enough to draw a scream from her lips, and the sound is utterly delicious.
We are both paying the price.
That cost battles in my mind with the new details I’ve learned. Was it worth it, leaving her here to meet with her family? It was well outside of protocol, that much I know for sure. I have never paid a personal call to anyone involved with a contract. Not during the duration of the contract and not afterward.
But I did that today.
While she was being washed up.
While she was bound.
While she waited, with my fucking brother ready to undo all my careful work.
Another sharp slap to her ass. Another scream.
It clears my head.
I look down at her, and she’s already coming out of it, already pushing a labored breath through pursed lips, cheeks pink. She bears it so fucking beautifully, and it’s all for me.
Her eyelashes flutter and her blue eyes meet mine.
Somehow, even after last night, even after the days I’ve spent punishing her, it’s still a shock to me when a contract looks me in the eye. It’s a rare occasion. I can count on one hand the number of times it’s happened since I took over this work. Since I sent my brother overseas to see firsthand what the Family is capable of.
That fucking bastard. One more misstep and I’ll send him back. If he touched her—
But he didn’t.
This is not the face of a woman destroyed. She may be broken, cracked open for me, but all it’s done is strip away the spitting bravado that she had when she first arrived.
I know more about her now.
After the meeting today, I know why she looks at me like this, her eyes begging me for more.
It’s against protocol to beg for more. It’s against all human reason to beg for more. I should punish her for it—remind her that I’m the one in control, and she can beg all she wants, but she will only ever get what I give her.
It won’t make a difference. She already knows.
The corners of her lips turn down, and she shifts her hips in a tiny gesture that opens her even more to my gaze. It’s fucking breathtaking in its simplicity, but it breaks me.
All my resolve crumbles.
I want my hand around her throat. I want her fingers between her own legs, or better yet, my mouth.
She hasn’t spoken a word, other than to whimper, to scream, to cry while I taught her thighs the meaning of punishment. But now, with my eyes on her face, her lips form a single, silent question.
Please?
In this room, in front of these cameras, I will never give in to her.
I deliver another series of slaps to the insides of her thighs, one after the other, relentless, and then I step back as if she’s nothing and no one.
Outside the room, I snap my fingers for Mika, who rushes forward. “Take her back to the cell.”
I stalk down the hall, face carefully maintained in a neutral expression. It’s only a disguise.
I already know what I’ll do tonight.
24
Justice
It’s a
different man who shakes me awake in the middle of the night from a desperate sleep. I was desperate to sleep, and desperate for him to come, and I have tossed and turned in my dreams that featured him coming to this cell, and now he’s here.
“Up. Get up.”
I stumble over the side of the bed and Cassian takes my elbow, steadying me. What time is it? I look for a clock on the way out of the cell, blinking in the dark like an idiot. There has never been a clock. This place exists outside of time.
The light in the hall is dimmed for the night, but Cassian doesn’t need the light to know the way around his own home. I feel where we are, but in the abstract—the only thing that’s real is his body next to mine. It seems colder, though, and I shiver as we make our way down that secret passage to his rooms.
The fire crackles in the grate in his den, and I move for the sofa.
“No.”
With a gentle tug on my elbow, he leads me in the opposite direction.
My heart leaps into my throat. What is this? An escape...or something better?
He leads us through an open door.
It’s his bedroom.
A massive king-sized bed is positioned in the center of the room. A bookshelf lines one wall. A low lamp sits on a bedside table. The scent of him, it’s everywhere. Off to one side, I notice a dark-colored doorway that must lead to a walk-in closet. My mouth goes dry at the thought of a naked Cassian walking through here to choose his outfits for the day. This is where he dresses to come punish my naked body.
I have to squeeze my thighs together to keep them from shaking.
He turns to face me and studies me. I must look rumpled. I must look—
“You’re gorgeous.”
It’s not a command, and at first my brain can’t process it. He hasn’t cuffed my hands so I can raise one to brush it against my hair. “I’m—”
“Captive. Still gorgeous.” He reaches forward and takes my hand away from my hair. I’m going to pass out. He looks down into my palm, as if reading the lines can tell him some secret he doesn’t know.
Cards of Love: Justice Page 11