by Skye Warren
Ivan just stares at the windows, chin cupped loosely in his hand. “He never looked at the cameras. Never paused or stumbled, even though it was pitch-black in that alley.”
A knot forms in my throat as I stare at the shadow. “Leader Allen would have called that divine intervention.”
The suggestion of a smile ghosts over Ivan’s lips. “I was thinking inside job.”
“Oh.” Embarrassment washes over me. Of course. That’s how ingrained those teachings are, how unshakable their hold. Dismay tightens its band around my chest as I think about what he said. I don’t want to imagine anyone at the Grand could have betrayed it. “Who are you thinking of?”
“West is new.”
“No. He wouldn’t.”
One eyebrow rises. “Do you know that for sure?”
I look down. The floor is made of thin wooden planks that form diamond shapes. “Blue trusts him.”
“Blue could be involved too.”
Worry claws at my throat. “He’s with Lola.”
A soft laugh. “That doesn’t make him innocent.”
I can’t bear to think Blue is involved, because it would mean Lola isn’t safe. As the owner of the security company, he has complete access to the club. None of the girls would be safe. “Don’t you trust anyone?”
“No,” he says gently. “No one.”
And I know he isn’t talking about West or Blue. He’s telling me that he can’t trust me. That he can’t be with me, not how I want him to, and my heart gives a hard pang.
“There’s something else,” he adds. “Bianca never came back to work after her sudden day off.”
Dread is a deep well inside me, swallowing me whole. “No. I mean it. No. One of the girls would never do this, would never help someone like this.”
“Money is a powerful motivator,” Ivan says, emotionless. “Especially to a woman in trouble. Or she might not have known she was helping him until it was too late.”
I think back to everything I knew about Bianca—and all the girls. I can’t believe they would turn against us this way. Not for anything. Leaving is one thing, but putting the rest of us in danger? “She wouldn’t have.”
“Actually…” Ivan turns his chair to face me. “I don’t suspect her. Not that way. I am considering that she might have been the target of this person all along.”
Fear makes my heart beat faster. “That would mean she’s in trouble.”
“It’s been over forty-eight hours since she was last seen, Candy. Trouble isn’t the word.”
The photograph slips from my fingers and floats to the floor. “Stop it. She’s not dead.”
“Do you want me to lie to you?”
“Yes. No! I want you to stop being this cold, emotionless…” I trail off, not sure what I was going to say.
“Monster?” he asks softly, and I flinch. It’s the first reference either of us has made to what happened last night. “What I am can’t be changed. Not even for you. But it has its uses. I can consider all the possible suspects without emotion. Whereas you…”
“What about me?”
“You’re just a little girl,” he says softly.
I lift my chin. “I’m not innocent and I’m not stupid. I know exactly how the world works. I’m a stripper, for crying out loud. A slut. A whore. A demon, just like my mother—”
“Quiet,” he says, so soft I almost don’t hear him. I fall silent immediately, but the tears that stream down my face, they tell the whole story.
The fact that my mother sent me away…I can’t help but feel grateful. I know I couldn’t have escaped any other way. I can’t help but feel angry either, for not coming with me.
For choosing him over me.
“Kneel,” Ivan says, and I know then I wasn’t wrong. I am like my mother, because Leader Allen told her to kneel and she did. I’m the same, obedient until the end.
At least for one man.
I can feel the wooden slats against my shins. I lower my head, ashamed and somehow aroused. God, was this why my mother did it? Some kind of sick lust? Maybe we do have demons inside us.
The toe of his Italian leather shoe nudges my knee. “Wider,” he says.
I spread my knees wider and he leans down to cup my pussy through the jeans. “You’re my little girl,” he says, more seriously than I’ve seen him say anything. His eyes are piercing, sending some message I can’t decipher. It eases something inside me, sloughing off some of the shame, leaving me more naked than before.
“Why?” I whisper.
“Why what?” he asks, his tone patient as he opens the button of my jeans with one hand. His other hand is on my shoulder, brushing his thumb against the pulse in my neck.
“Why do you like me to call you Daddy?”
“Because it makes my cock hard.”
That’s not the real answer. It might be true, but there’s more. “And?”
His hand is warm against my sex, but his gaze—it burns. “Is it so wrong to want to take care of you?”
“No,” I say, dropping my gaze. His hand looks large between my legs, claiming ownership, protective and possessive. “But that doesn’t mean I have to call you Daddy.”
“What should you call me instead? Your boyfriend?”
The word sounds silly when I’m still sore from the way he treated me, my sex throbbing against his palm. It would be far too tame a word to describe him no matter where he touched me. I shake my head.
“Because I want you to trust me,” he says softly. “Trust me to take care of you.”
“The way I never trusted… him.” Leader Allen. I was once a devoted follower. I would have done anything he asked. But I was always afraid of him.
I’m not afraid of Ivan—not as much as I should be. He’s dangerous. Lethal.
“Daddy,” I whisper.
“Yes,” he says softly. “I like to hear you say it. That’s enough reason for me to make you.” He pauses before slipping his hand inside my panties.
I flinch, already expecting the worst. My skin is tender where his fingers are, on the outside, but I know it will be worse inside.
“Shh,” he soothes. “I was hard on you yesterday. This won’t hurt.”
It does hurt when he finds my clit, but it feels good too. I spread my legs wider so he can reach me better, and he nods in approval. His fingers toy with my clit, sliding along either side, dipping into my slit to gather wetness.
“Do you know the story of the minotaur?” he asks, his voice conversational.
It’s a struggle to focus with his hands playing with my sex. The schoolroom at Harmony Hills had taught us almost nothing. We learned about the Bible, as interpreted by Leader Allen, and how to be good, obedient disciples. Only the boys were taught to read and do math. Girls quit school early, and me even earlier. Everyone knew that my mother was Leader Allen’s whore, even if no one said the words out loud. I think everyone knew that I would take her place, too.
I struggle to remember from tutors and textbooks.
“He was…” A gasp interrupts my words as his forefinger slips inside me. “He was half-man. Half-bull. He lived—” Another gasp. “In a maze.”
“That’s right. And every year the cities would send their young men and women—virgins, naturally—as a feast for the minotaur.”
“Until one of the men killed him.”
A strange smile twists his lips. “Well, every story needs a hero.”
“You’re not a monster.”
He ignores me, fingering me deeper. “The thing about the minotaur is that he knows what he is. He can’t pretend to be a human. He can’t pretend to be a bull. He’s trapped in that maze, not by the walls outside it, but by what he is.”
I grab his forearm, feeling the muscles flex. “You’re not a monster, Ivan.”
He adds a second finger, and I squirm. His arm on my shoulder holds me down. “There’s no use pretending he’s something different. He doesn’t even want to. But can you imagine how it would feel to find a sac
rifice you wanted to be there? Who begged to stay?”
His fingers speed up, and I rock my hips against them, unable to slow down, unable to stop. “You’re not—You’re not a—”
He pinches my clit, and I soar over the edge, the climax like fierce wind against my face. I close my eyes against the blur and feel tears streak down my cheeks. I fuck his finger, seeking the last breathless rush before I crash at the bottom.
He does up my jeans with deft hands, efficient now.
Wet fingers press into my mouth, and I can only let him in. Only suck to clean him.
“No more questions,” he says softly. “I want you to call me Daddy because I want you to know that when we’re together, I’m the only one who can tell you what to do. And I will always do what’s best for you, even if you don’t like it. I will always give you what you need.”
I shudder, my insides clenching around nothing as my orgasm gives one final pulse. My eyes are wide, lips stretched around his fingers. I nod yes.
“And you’re my little one, because you want to be so good for me, don’t you? You want to be taken care of, cherished and punished. Isn’t that right?”
He removes his fingers from my mouth and leans back, studying me.
“Why didn’t you—”
“What is it?”
I bite my lip. “Why didn’t you want me to call you Daddy last night?”
He had put his hand over my mouth and fucked me into the bed.
He’s watching me from beneath heavy lids. “I didn’t deserve the name last night. I was angry, and I didn’t take care of you.”
We’ve been circling each other for years, teasing each other with bad behavior and punishments. The first time he did it, I had already been living in my own apartment and working at the Grand. I’d shown up for work late, and he’d swatted me over my panties. We’d dared a little further each time, but never going all the way—never actual sex until last night. It had left me unfulfilled and a little afraid, for exactly the reason he said.
I dare to put my hand on his leg, right below his knee. “Please, Daddy. Show me what it would be like with you. When you take care of me.”
Icy lust flashes through his eyes. “I am taking care of you, little one. That little pussy needs time to heal. I’m sure you’re sore today, aren’t you?”
A flush heats my cheeks. Very sore. “I don’t care about that.”
Two hands lift my chin, and I meet his eyes. “I care,” he says softly. “I’m not going to fuck you again until you’re ready to take me. But if you want to please me…”
My body tightens. “Please.”
He cups my cheek. “So pretty. So eager. And such a fuckable little mouth.”
The thing I can never tell anyone—not even Ivan—is that I would have done this no matter what. If I had stayed at Harmony Hills, Leader Allen would have used me this way. He’d groomed me for this purpose my entire life, not just at the end, and that grooming made me who I am. A disciple. A victim. I’d have been on my knees for him. I’d have been a good girl.
The difference is that I chose this. I chose Ivan. He may be a monster, but he’s my monster.
“Take me out,” my monster says.
I fumble with his pants. The button and the zipper are like foreign technology, my fingers suddenly clumsy. He is already hard, but I feel him grow thicker as I work him free. It makes me blush, feeling the effects of my awkward obedience.
The suit pants give way to a soft, stretchy boxer material. I glance up to find him staring right at my face. He isn’t looking at what I’m doing with my hands. He’s studying my reactions, and it makes my heart beat double time. What will he see? Nerves? Excitement?
I don’t know what he wants to see.
The skin of his stomach is hot as I slip my fingers under the waistband of his boxers. His abs are hard, and they ripple at my touch. I pull gently, but the fabric is caught against his erection. I’m afraid to pull very hard, afraid of how much pressure is okay. I have some experience with cocks, touching them, rubbing my ass against them in the club, but that knowledge is limited—and it slides away under the role I’m in. The innocent little girl.
He makes no move to help me or to free himself. He just watches me with an intent curiosity to see what I’ll do next. What I do is use my other hand to grasp his shaft and carefully pull the fabric over his cock. He feels impossibly hard against my palm, silk smoothed over a steel rod. His cock flexes in my hand, and I jerk back, letting him go with a sound of surprise.
“I’m sorry,” I whimper. “It scared me.”
“You’re doing great, little one,” he says soothingly. “You did exactly what I asked you to. Daddy will never get mad at you for that.”
Men like to teach you things. That’s what gets them off.
“What should I do next?”
The amused light in his eyes says he knows exactly what I’m doing. And that he likes it. “Lift up your shirt. I want to see your pretty nipples.”
Instead of obeying him, I cross my hands over my breasts. “What if you don’t like them?”
“Why would you think that?” He seems genuinely curious.
He’s seen them a hundred times already. And the insecurity is completely real because of it. He’s seen them a hundred times and never been overtaken with lust to the point that he had to have me. He’s seen me and rejected me. We’re playing a game where all of this is new—and it is, in a certain way. But in another way it’s the inevitable conclusion to years of foreplay. Both a beginning and an end.
“Because you’ve seen a lot of girls.” It’s a form of torture to be this open, this honest, like needles pressing under my nails. These words are everything I’ve ever feared. “How can I be special?”
He could ruin me with his answer.
He leans forward. “Candace, I’m sure your nipples are as pretty as the rest of you. But they aren’t what make you special.”
I look down, still cupping my breasts, shielding them. “Why then?”
He reaches out and taps my arms, and I let them fall. He cups my breast gently, his thumb fanning over my nipple. It stands up beneath the tank top. He keeps rubbing back and forth until the twinge between my legs grows sharp.
“Because of how sweet you are,” he says softly. “How hard you try to be good for me. Do you know how rare that is? How special? There is no other girl like you, Candace.”
“I’m not,” I say, and it comes out almost on a sob. “I’m not good. I’m always talking back and not listening and—”
“It’s normal for little girls to test their boundaries, to push them. That doesn’t make you bad. But you always come back to me, don’t you? And you always take your punishment so well. That’s what makes you good. That’s what makes you special.”
But can you imagine how it would feel to find a sacrifice you wanted to be there? Who begged to stay?
I reach inside me to find the strength—and grasp the hem of my tank top. It’s a completely different experience than stripping onstage, because I’m a different person. Onstage I’m Candy, the sexy, fearless, powerful woman who knows how to use her sexuality to get everything she wants. In this house, under Ivan’s pale gaze, I’m his little one, helpless and hopeful, afraid but eager to try.
He moves back just enough to let me pull off the tank top. My skin pebbles under the cool air. His eyes roam over me as if he’s seeing me for the first time. “Perfect,” he says, and relief washes through me. My Daddy wouldn’t lie to me.
He touches me again, cupping my breast as if I’m precious. It makes me push my shoulders back and thrust my breasts into his touch.
He makes a sound low in his throat. “That’s right. And I’m going to look at these while you lick my cock.”
I eye the erection jutting up from his pants. “Lick your c-c—”
“My cock,” he says patiently. “You see that drop right there on the tip? That means it’s ready for you to taste.”
“It does?”
> “You’re going to drink a lot of it,” he says, a hint of wryness in his tone. “Good girls always swallow.”
“Oh.” I lean forward and breathe in the salty musk of him. Both of my hands grasp his cock, as if I’m preparing for something huge—and well, I am. He’s a lot bigger than I expected when he’s close to my face. The prospect of fitting him in my mouth is daunting. And this is a big step, maybe bigger than when he fucked me into the bed last night. Because this isn’t something he’s doing to me. It’s something we’re doing together.
The first taste is sharp and shocking, and I gasp as I swallow down the salty come. He’s doing that thing again, where he watches me fumble. I think he likes watching me be awkward and clumsy while I try to please him, fumbling around with more submission than skill.
“Is this right, Daddy?”
“You’re doing great. Lick it again.”
So I do, licking him again and again until his thighs are rock hard with tension and his cock is streaming precum. I almost can’t keep up drinking it. If this is how much he can produce before he comes, I have no idea how I’m going to swallow it all down when he finishes.
“Ahh, that’s good. Now suck me, little one. Take me in as far as you can.”
It feels natural to slide him between my lips—more natural than licking him, even. I coast along the curved edge marking the head of his cock. My tongue flicks at the slit that produces all that precum for me to drink. I can’t go very far, but he doesn’t seem to mind—for now.
I wrap my hands around his legs to support myself and give me leverage. His muscles are completely taut underneath my hands, trembling with the strain of…what? Holding back? Or giving in?
His gaze roams over me like a caress, from the crown of my head to my stretched lips to my exposed breasts. My nipples are hard under his gaze and the open air.
“I’m going to finish.” His voice sounds rough, almost pained. “You’re going to hold my come in your mouth. Don’t swallow. And don’t let any slip out. Understand?”
I nod without releasing him. It’s almost a shock when his hands close behind my head. I jerk away and then catch myself. He doesn’t reprimand me, just holds me inexorably while his hips pump faster than I had done for him.