by Leah Wilde
I pressed my face against the pillows as the sensations, both good and bad, drained from my body, leaving me flushed, feverish, but empty. He’d only been outside of me for a minute at most, but I already wanted him back in me, again and again, until the last of the pain had been worked through and only the pleasure remained. In his absence, I felt incomplete.
My skin burned to the touch. I heard him regaining his breath above me. He’d fallen onto his knuckles, elbows locked. We stayed that way for several long minutes.
After the sharp pain had receded, leaving only a dull throb in its wake, I twisted over to look at him. I still felt too hot. He locked his eyes on mine and saw the flush pinking my cheeks and forehead. His face softened.
Without a word, he stood and walked to the other side of the room. I saw him reach and pluck something from the top of the table there. He walked back over and I realized that it was a silver champagne bucket, brimming with ice.
He set the bucket down on the bed and flipped me fully onto my back. I let him move me, too exhausted to resist even if I had wanted to. He reached into the bucket and drew out a thick chunk of ice. Starting at my knees, he pressed the ice to my burning skin. I sucked in a sharp inhale at the cooling sensation.
It felt amazing as he slid the ice inch by inch up my thigh, to the crease of my hip, and onto my hot, tortured pussy. When he came to it, he was careful to press only for quick seconds. Lingering too long wouldn’t feel good. He knew that without saying a word. Instead, he dabbed it softly against the redness in my hips and inner thighs.
He turned his attention to my upper body. With a fresh ice cube, he slid the coolness across my stomach, between my breasts, which were red and sore from his tight squeezes. I watched him work. He was so focused, as if this was the only thing in the world that mattered to him and he was a craftsman who wanted to do it perfectly. His fingers were delicate and precise the way they gripped the ice.
He dragged it up between my breasts. Noticing again the collar that was still latched there, he let out a soft tut of annoyance. He left the ice lingering on my chest as he gently undid the buckle and pulled the leather strap off. I heard it clunk when he tossed it across the room to land on the floor several yards away. When it was gone, he moved the ice over the chafed marks it had left behind. I closed my eyes and let the healing chill sink in, wiping away the painful remnants of Angela’s hatred.
He finished just as the last of the ice melted away in his fingertips. My skin shined with the jeweled wet tracks of the moisture left behind. My whole core had cooled down as he worked, leaving me calm and steady, though I still throbbed with a head-to-toe ache.
Try as I might, I couldn’t get a grasp on my emotions. The hatred for this man was still there, but it had receded, like a tide going out. I wasn’t sure if or when it would come back in. The desire was still there, too. He’d filled a part of me I didn’t know I was missing, not just with his body, but with the way he’d spoken and moved and touched me. I felt attached to him in a way I couldn’t explain. When he stood and started to pull his clothes on, I noticed a flash of concern shoot across my belly.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
He looked at me calmly. “Let’s go. I’m taking you home with me.”
Chapter 21
Dominic
We emerged into the empty club. The stage was silent and bare, the seats empty of the foul men who had filled them earlier. They’d all gone home to wives and girlfriends who would never know what kind of sick fucks they let sleep in their beds. If those women only knew, they would run screaming and never come back.
I wondered if I was as bad as them. After all, I’d joined their ranks. I’d participated in the auction myself, and the prize I’d bought was walking next to me, dreary and exhausted. As we entered the elevator to go back upstairs, her head fell against my shoulder as she rested, already on the door of a deep sleep.
She stumbled as we crossed the threshold of the elevator back into the nightclub above. I picked her up easily in my arms, like a baby. I was surprised that she let me, but she did. Her arms found my neck and clung to me. Her eyes stayed closed.
A few hours ago, this girl had wanted to kill me. Now, she was hanging onto me like I was the last man in the world who mattered. It would have been amusing if I didn’t feel something powerful in return. But I couldn’t focus on that. There were too many other things demanding my attention.
Antonio, for instance. I remembered the way his eyes had lit up when he’d told me I had to go fuck my purchase to claim her as my own. He relished the cruelty of it. He thought I was a man of similar constitution. He didn’t know I wasn’t anything like him, but I had to keep up the illusion. Let him think I was like that. It seemed to buy his trust.
I looked down at the girl in my arms. For her, though, my pretending to be a cruel master would be harsh. She’d submitted to the rough fucking and I knew that part of her awakened during it. But the part of her that blossomed when I’d rubbed the ice down her burning body would hate me for what I was going to do to her. I felt a pang of guilt. But this was war. Some casualties were inevitable.
I hailed a cab, one of the first out in the early dawn. I gave him instructions to take us to the new apartment that Jawbone had arranged for me, and we slipped down the road, engine whirring.
When we pulled up out front, Isabel was soundly asleep. Her face was serene, not nearly as dark and troubled as it had been when I first entered the whip room. I wondered what Angela had said to her, why she had been in there in the first place. What the hell did she care about this girl? It didn’t make sense, but I was too tired to probe further. My body was a wreck in and of itself, courtesy of the monster who’d railed me with punch after punch in the fight club. The desire to take Isabel had washed that pain away, but in the aftermath, it came back with a vengeance. Every step sent the ache pulsing throughout my bones and muscles.
I carried Isabel’s limp body up the stairs. The apartment was sparsely furnished, but I barely looked at anything. I made my way straight to the bedroom. A bare mattress lay in the center of the room. It would do for now. I set Isabel down gently on one side, stripped off my shirt, and was asleep before my head hit the pillows.
# # #
“Ain’t that cute,” said a sour voice. I sat up with a jolt. Emilio was standing over the bed, looking back and forth at me and Isabel lying asleep at my side. I was confused for a moment, then it all came rushing back.
The fight. The auction. The dungeon.
The full significance of yesterday’s events came slamming into me like a tidal wave. I instantly felt the ache of every bruise and cut, the highs and lows of the roller coaster of emotions I had experienced. I wanted to vomit, to fight, to run, to fuck. Everything at once.
Emilio eyed me as I tried to settle the turbulence surging through my skull. I swallowed hard and tamped everything down. I’d have to deal with all that internal shit later. Right now, I needed to keep convincing him that I was trustworthy.
“What’re you doing here?” I asked.
He ignored the question. “That’s one hell of a bitch,” he remarked, pointing at Isabel.
I realized with a start that she was still naked. I’d draped my jacket over her when we were leaving the club, but she’d thrown it off in her sleep. Her breasts rose to snowy peaks above the comforter. Her chest sighed up and down with the slow, steady rhythm of her sleeping breath.
I looked at Emilio warily and make a noncommittal grunt.
“If she were mine, I’d fuck her up good,” he said. He rubbed his hands together and licked his lips greedily. “Turn her into a proper little cum slut. Hell, I might do that anyway. I know that bastard, Felipe, you outbid wouldn’t hesitate to take his shot at the bitch.”
Felipe. My pulse pounded at the thought. He’d come careening back into my life so suddenly that I didn’t even have time to direct the proper bloodlust at him. If I’d been in the right state of mind, he wouldn’t have walked out of tha
t club last night on his own two legs—he would have crawled, and only then if I was feeling generous enough to let him keep his miserable excuse of a life. I’d missed one chance, but I was sure I’d get another. When I did, I was going to take my time and work the motherfucker to a bloody pulp, bit by bit.
It wasn’t just for what he’d done to Slim, either. There was a new element added to the equation. I looked over at Isabel. She’d rolled over, twisting her body into a frail little question mark figure, knees drawn in towards her chest. Her hair was splayed out across the pillow. It shined darkly in the light streaming in through the thin curtains draped over the window to my left.
If Felipe touched her, I’d make his death take twice as long.
I was stunned to realize how fierce of a reaction I felt at the thought of Felipe assaulting Isabel. I barely knew the girl. What did I care what happened to her? She was mixed up with some violent people. Shit happened. Lie with the dogs, get the fleas, all that kind of garbage. Suffice it to say that it wouldn’t be the first time a relatively innocent girl had come in harm’s way just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But the feeling resisted logic. It was a powerful, instinctive reaction, nearly as strong as the desire I’d felt the night before when I threw her on the bed and pounded her until I burst everywhere.
I shook my head to make it go away. Not now, not now. It felt like everything was conspiring to distract me from the task at hand. I slapped at my temple. Focus, Dominic. Focus.
My eyes returned to Emilio. This was the moment for a display of force. Let him know who I was and what I was about. It didn’t hurt that the words I said came from a real feeling. “If any man tries to touch my property, I’ll gut him then and there,” I growled. “Any man. You, Felipe, Antonio—I don’t give a damn. Stay away from her, or it will end badly for you.”
Emilio chuckled. “I admire your balls, buddy. But stupidity will get a man killed around here. So will affection. Don’t forget that.”
Isabel stirred next to me. She sat up groggily. Sleep still clouded her eyes. “Wha’s going on?” she mumbled through numb lips. She noticed Emilio standing at the foot of the bed and spasmed, yanking the blankets to cover her exposed chest.
“Morning, princess.” Emilio grinned. “Nice of you to join us. We were just talking about you.”
She cowered immediately at the sight of him, curling into a tight little ball and glancing around fearfully. “What’s happening?” she asked quietly.
Emilio turned his attention back to me. He threw me a set of keys. They landed at my lap with a jangle. “Speaking of Antonio,” he said, “the boss seems to have taken a liking to you. He requested that you serve as his new driver and personal security guard for today. Here are keys to his car. It’s parked out front.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Here,” Emilio said, throwing me a cell phone that I plucked from the air. “You’ll get a text with the details of the next assignment as soon as he decides he needs you. But I’m warning you,” he added, wagging a finger like a scolding parent, “if you are even one minute late to that job, it will not be pretty.”
“I won’t be late,” I told him. “I’m never late.”
“You better not be, that’s all I’m saying. Welcome to the job, kiddo.” He turned and waddled towards the door. His bulk heaved in every direction. Despite the cool air conditioning filtering through the vents, I saw sweat crowning his forehead. He took a towel from his back pocket and wiped it off.
He exited, then stuck his head back in the doorway. Reaching one hand through, he wiggled his fingers in Isabel’s direction. “I’ll see you soon, darling,” he drawled.
I grimaced as he left.
Chapter 22
Isabel
I looked at Dominic after Emilio had gone. His presence left a cold, sickly feeling crawling over my skin like spiders. I didn’t like the way he’d looked at me or the way he’d kept licking his lips. And I didn’t know what he meant when said he would see me soon.
“What was that?” I asked him. To be honest, he still scared me, too. The ice had been such a tender, unexpected move, but as the memories of the previous night flooded back, I remembered more and more of how I’d felt when he first entered—like a rat, cornered as a jungle cat approached me.
“Nothing,” he muttered. He swung his legs over the far edge of the bed and sat with his back to me. I saw the tattoos arcing across his muscles. Animals and abstract designs ranged from shoulder to shoulder and neck to waist. Scars swung in vicious sweeps between them. He struck a frightening profile.
“Please tell me,” I said.
He looked over his shoulder in surprise. He must have heard the desperation in my voice. After so many weeks, months, years—no, a whole lifetime—of being batted around by forces bigger and stronger than me, all I wanted was to know what was going on. I must have sounded so pitiful, but I couldn’t help it. I was sick of being at the whim of others.
“You want reassurance?” he asked after a long pause. His jaw was cut at such a rugged angle. The light beard covering his cheeks only made him look more intense, more icily handsome.
I nodded.
“Here it is: you belong to me. Completely and utterly. You will do what I say and go where I tell you to go. You will fuck when I want to fuck, eat when I want to eat, talk when I want to talk. There’s nothing you can do without my permission. You. Are. Mine.” His eyes flared.
I held my breath and waited for him to continue. He seemed like he had more to say. “But I protect what’s mine,” he finished quietly. “As long as you’re with me, nothing bad will happen to you.” He turned back around away from me and let his words hang in the air.
I was confused. This man didn’t make any sense. He’d bought me from the stage. I didn’t know what he was doing at that place, if it was somewhere he went often or if he had bought others before me. So often, his words and actions matched those of a man who didn’t give a damn about me. You. Are. Mine. Like I was meat. Like I was nothing.
But there was always a twist. Each time I was certain of who he was, he surprised me with something else. He’d fucked me like a whore, then tended to my body like it was an act of worship. He told me I was his slave, then promised to keep me safe. When he was done, I was left just as lost as I was when he had started talking. Who was he? Why was he here? Why was I?
He stood up abruptly and started to walk towards the door. “Wait!” I called out. I needed more answers. Anything else to explain what would happen next. I couldn’t sit around in empty rooms and wait for people to tell me what to do anymore.
When he didn’t stop, I jumped and ran after him, holding the sheets gathered around my naked body. I reached out to tug on his bicep to stop him from leaving.
He stopped in his tracks and looked down at my hand on his arm. Then he turned to face me.
His chest was a rippling plateau of muscle. I could see individual fibers twitching and settling into place with his rising and falling breath. I had to resist the itch to lay my hand on his pecs. His expression was unreadable. A tingle of fear curled between my legs. Or was it something else? I couldn’t tell. Everything was too mashed up, each emotion indistinguishable from the next. Maybe it wasn’t fear; maybe it was desire.
He looked down at me. I was tiny in comparison to him. Were we even the same species? He was big, dark, broad in every direction, whereas I was fragile and petite. My pale skin looked unformed, untested when compared to the scars and calluses of his hard-earned tan.
“What’s going to happen to me?” I asked. My voice was tiny and afraid.
Instead of answering with words, he brought his mouth to mine. Our lips crushed together. I hadn’t kissed a male outside of my dreams in twelve years.
His tongue was thick and strong. The taste and smell of him crashed over me in waves as he wrapped an arm around my waist and drew me closer to him. I stood on the tips of my toes to reach up to his mouth as my lips parted an
d my tongue slipped through to clash with his.
My breasts were pressed flat against his chest. The kiss deepened. I put a hand on each of his shoulders. He plucked me up easily and wrapped my legs around his waist. This was what I needed. I could trust physical contact. Dominic was solid and real underneath my hands. I smelled him and felt his heartbeat. For this moment, that was all I could trust. But at least it was something.
He turned to the wall and smashed me between him and it to support my weight. With one hand, he pulled the sheet from where I held it against me. It puddled to the floor, leaving me bare while his fingertips roved from my knee along my outer thigh to cup my ass in his strong hands.
He kissed me hungrily. I gave back as good as I got, my energy feeding off his and his off mine, winding upwards and upwards like a tornado of fire. It was sore to spread my legs so wide after the savage sex in the cell below the club, but I ignored the ache and started to grind myself against his rock-hard abs. Shimmers of a warm tingle spread from my clit outwards like ripples in a pond.