chapter 11
“Please, wait.” The effort to stand had depleted Josh. His head swam, and his body screamed for food and sleep. He stood no chance. This had been the aim of the box, he realized. A total mental and physical shutdown. He raised his bound arms and his eyes, reaching toward her goggled mask.
She entered the final digit on the keypad, and the door clicked open. She stared into the outer room, statuesque in her posture. “Requirement number six. Slave will use the title Master.” His extended arms shook, the lump in his throat sprouting jagged edges. “Please…” It was just a word. Too tired to fight. Just a word. “Master.”
She made him wait another agonizing moment before closing the door and returning to his side. In a practiced movement, she locked the end of the waiting chain to one of his wrist shackles with a combination lock and removed the existing chain that squeezed his hands together. One arm dropped to the floor; the other tied to the shower wall.
He probably looked like hell, but he was a strong guy. Even in his weakened state, he could overpower her. Wasn’t she afraid he might trap her and squeeze his free arm around her neck? The confident, relaxed pose of her body told him she expected it.
“Master is how you’ll refer to the man you are training to serve. With me, you’ll use Mistress.
Say it now.”
The bite in those last three words snapped his teeth together. His breath hissed past his lips.
“Mistress.” Was she smiling behind the mask? Did she get off on binding and selling men? Didn’t matter. He would never serve a man. Never. “How many times have you done this?” She moved to the perpendicular wall of the corner shower. A chain dangled from another hook.
“Other arm, boy.”
How many had she forced through the horror of this exact moment? Where were they now? Did she even see them as human? What about their kiss in his truck? Her actions seemed so genuine at the time. “How many people have you ripped from their lives, their dreams, their families?” He squinted into the lenses of her mask, his muddy reflection glaring back. “Mistress,” he spat.
Her fist slammed into his mouth, spiking fire through his jaw and knocking him off balance. His back smacked the cold tile floor. His arm, chained to the wall, twisted. Pain tore through his shoulder, ripping a shout from his throat.
“Other. Arm.”
Well, that was stupid. And incredibly satisfying. He’d found a nerve to pick at. He crawled to his knees, spitting blood on the floor at her feet, and offered his arm with a belligerent smile.
She made quick work of tightening the chains to the walls, the pull of the restraints stretching his arms out to the sides like Jesus on the cross. Naked, on his knees, his chin hanging on his chest, he didn’t feel the forgiving virtue of Christ filling his heart. It pumped, instead, with the spirit of revenge and loathing.
The cold spray of water pounded ice pellets on his back, and her hands rubbed soap into his skin and hair. He acknowledged that the movement in his muscles wasn’t the flex of courage but the trembling of fury. He’d never felt more subjugated in his life.
Worse was the swelling arousal between his legs. She only needed to touch his backside, his hip, or his inner thigh, and his penis stood at half-salute. He stared at the jerking thing, grimacing. At least she pretended not to notice it, though her eyes could’ve been directed anywhere from within that terrible mask.
The tap shut off, and he wished he’d stolen a few gulps of water. She untied him and led him by the chains to the mattress that sat on the floor. No frame or box springs in this hell hole. He dripped water onto the room’s only rug, shivering like a wet poodle, and waited to see what she’d come up with next.
Maybe she’d command him to perform a tumbling act, sing karaoke, or wear a toga and feed her grapes. Hopefully, something low impact. Dehydration, chills, and exhaustion were riddling him with all sorts of irritable problems, from blurry vision to unmanageable mood shifts. He was so recklessly angry and tired his brain was spinning out of control.
“Requirement number seven. Slave will kneel when Master is present.” Hallelujah. His legs were wobbling anyway. He lowered, and his knees gave out before he made it to the rug.
She connected the chains to a padlock and eyehook on the floor in the center of the room, spun the combination to secure it, and dragged a cardboard box to his side. “Eat.” With enough slack in the chains, he raised the lid, and the sights and smells of cheese, sausage, yogurt and hard-boiled eggs sliced through his haze. He went for the bottled water first, the metal links connected to his wrists snagging on the cardboard. He suspected the menu was intentional. High protein, high fat, likely meant to give him energy for activities he didn’t want to think about.
When he finished the water and reached for a second bottle, she grabbed the cuff on his wrist.
“Slow down or it’s all going to come back up.”
He yanked his arm away and dug into the food, using the spoon provided. His body responded instantly to the yogurt, as if it contained magical little sugar motes that seeped into his system, clearing the fog from his head and soothing the quakes in his bones.
She watched from her perch on the mattress, legs crossed at the knees, breasts threatening to tumble from her corset with each inhale. She looked absolutely uncomfortable. He decided to make it worse. “Are you supposed to be seducing me with that outfit, Mistress? Because I got to say—” he pointed at his soft penis, cold and shriveled as it was “—epic fail.” And a total lie. If he hadn’t reached his mental and physical limitations, he would’ve been battling arousal and his outrage over it.
A sound huffed behind the mask. Could’ve been a gasp. Impossible to guess since he’d heard very few reactions pass her lips.
He swallowed down three hard-boiled eggs, chewing on his original game plan. Making friends with her, unholy creature that she was, gave him the best chance to glimpse beneath the mask and, with time, influence her. To do that, he needed to shed some of the superiority his buddies teased him about and consort on her level. He bit into a slice of cheddar. “Does th— I mean, Mistress, does this job ever f*ck with your head?”
“Wow. That’s a pretty vulgar word for you, Jesus boy. First time trying it out?” The cheese stuck in his throat. The muffling of her voice through the mask only made her words more aggravating. She might have known some things about him, but she didn’t know enough to judge him. And calling him a Jesus boy wasn’t an effective way to get under his skin. “I couldn’t habituate myself to using bad language. Imagine if it slipped out in the company of a parishioner.”
“The horror.” Her tone was deadpanned, bored.
His shoulders stiffened. His social circles were comprised of people like his folks, who so willingly devoted their lives to holiness, they took their rules to another level. Study the bible daily, never miss worship, and live in perpetual fear of everything: other religions, gays, cursing, bikinis, pop music, alcohol, smoking, premarital sex, and hell. It was as if they believed humans were demons in the flesh.
The laid-back Christians on the opposite end of the spectrum were content to simply have a relationship with God. Without the obsessive focus on rules, they seemed to better appreciate all the good in the world. It would crush his parents if they knew this was the sort of Christian he wanted to be.
He also wanted a career in football, but his decisions had never been up to him. Especially not now, and given Liv’s job, he knew discussing his future in ministry would not help her relate to him.
“You didn’t answer the question, Mistress.”
A motionless tension fell over her. She shot to her feet and kicked the box of food across the room. “I do not answer questions.” Her boot swung again, aimed at his head. He caught it, tucked it to his chest, twisting her leg and rolling her. Using her loss of balance and the taut rope of chain to trip her other foot, he dumped her face-down on the floor and threw his weight over her. Strangely, she lay like the dead, arms trapped beneath her body.
Without thought, his hands went to the mask, released the buckles on the back, and chucked it to the side. He’d already seen her face, so the disguise must’ve been meant to conceal her expressions.
Well, screw that. He wanted to force her responses to the surface and bare every twitch and twist of her features.
She didn’t try to free her arms or raise her face from the rug. Her breath whispered evenly through the mane of brown silk tousled around her head. He lifted his chest, pinning her legs with his, and flipped her over. “Do you and Van anally rape your prisoners?” Arms limp at her sides, her expression was a blank canvas. But her detachment seemed to make her eyes look even more dangerous as they drew into slits and locked on his.
The length of chain gave him enough range of motion to strangle her with his hands, but then what? He didn’t have the code to the door, and she didn’t seem concerned about her safety, which meant she was prepared. Did she have a weapon hidden in her bodice? “You’re a pimp and a rapist.
How many slaves, Liv?”
“It’s Mistress.” She slammed her brow into the bridge of his nose.
A blaze of fire burned through his nostrils. He wrinkled his nose, fighting the hurt from her hard head, worrying about the costs his parents would pay for his temerity. He needed to make certain the risks he took didn’t touch them.
She slid a palm up the back of his thigh and parted his cheeks. No amount of clenching dissuaded her from touching that forbidden place between. If he swatted at her, he wouldn’t be able to hold down her shoulders. He could roll off her and lose the upper hand or he could endure her probing finger.
He did his best to control his breathing, and failed. “What would you call this?” he panted.
“Seduction or rape?”
Holding his eyes, she tried to pull her knees to the outside of his legs, but his weight held them in place. So she used the only freedom she had and pressed a stiff finger against his rectum, her eyes hard and fixed on his. She prodded deeper, a dry invasion that crushed his molars together. “ Try again. With. The. Title.”
His blood boiled, and his mouth dried. “Are you going to rape me, Mistress?”
“You are restraining me.”
Her finger, toying shallowly where no finger should go, garbled his brain. He wouldn’t give up his position, and as much as the violation made him squirm, it wasn’t dampening the heat stirring in his groin where it rubbed against the apex of her open thighs.
“You like this.” Her lips curled up, perversely smug. “They all do. By the end of the first day, all of my boys beg me to f*ck them.” Finger in his backside, she ground herself against his traitorous hard-on. “You’ll beg, too.”
He wanted to roar Never, but the way his fatigued body responded to her touch, he knew it would be a lie.
Her finger vanished, and his muscles relaxed but not for long. She slid her hand between their hips, and he jerked his groin out of her way. But she wasn’t reaching for him. She cupped herself beneath the lace, massaging and throwing her head back with a moan.
Heat swarmed his face. He’d kissed girls. He’d groped a breast once above the shirt, but he’d never seen a girl naked before him, and this…this open display of masturbation he’d never dared to imagine. Yet he couldn’t stop his gaze from clinging the dips and arches of her body and the hand circling between her legs. Was this why the others begged her for sex? “You rape them.” He thickened his voice with accusation, wanted her to hear his objection.
Her hand froze and her glare slammed into his. The darkest reaches of her eyes seemed to rotate while her pupils remained steadily locked on his. “You’re my first virgin cock, boy, which means you will endure your training without any hope for a charity f*ck.” A cruel expression bent her face, catching light along her scar. “And you’ll address me correctly , you stubborn prick.” She yanked her hand from between them and slapped her fingers over his mouth, trailing a smear of tart moisture on his lips and tongue.
The shock of it arched his back, his restrained hands tightening the chains and halting his backward flinch. She used the distraction to slip from under him and shove a finger into her cleavage.
As he scrambled forward to recover his position above her, she whipped out a metal wire, snapped it taut between her hands, and caught him in the throat.
In the next breath, he was on his back, his neck ensnared by the garrote she’d unleashed from her corset. His arms were yanked to the side by the chains clapping against the floor. Just an impulse away from hindering his airflow, he held himself as still as possible.
Her knee dug against his chest. “Requirement number two. Slave will service Master sexually with exceptional skill, and his body will be prepared to make it easy for Master.” She tilted her head, a tangle of curls snaking around her chest. “Your cock doesn’t belong to me, but if you beg nicely, I’ll take your virgin ass before Van gets a hold of it.” It wasn’t her words that chilled him so much as the conviction that punctuated them.
She released him and his hands went to his throat, rubbing the unbroken skin.
On her way to the door, she glanced over her shoulder. “You’ll find your restraints don’t quite reach the mattress. Sleep on the rug. And if you bend just right—” she pointed at the toilet “—you can balance your tight little a*shole on the rim.”
The rim that was splattered in his urine. His fingers gouged into his palms.
“If you don’t shit before I return, I’ll use a rectal bulb syringe to clean you out.” With a flick of her finger over the keypad, she left.
Hatred, his new friend, swept through his veins, promising delicious acts of retaliation against every foul fiber in that woman’s body. He shook with a violent contraction of muscles, his blood raging. He wanted to shove her against the wall and pummel her—
Sweet Jesus, what was wrong with him? Violence didn’t justify violence. He needed to talk with her, dig through the vicious mess of her mind, and show her there was a healthier way to overcome whatever was dragging her into damnation.
He rose on shaky legs and tested the chain’s four-foot length. Didn’t reach the bed or the door, but if he backed up and doubled-over like she’d said, he could use the toilet. As he stared into the bowl, he knew why she’d want his bowels clean. He also knew he’d follow her orders if it meant forestalling an enema.
As for the heat she’d stirred in him when he’d held her down, that couldn’t have been real. She’d concocted those feelings with the curves of her body, the shadowy depth of her gaze, and the musical way she spoke. God help him, her voice was so captivating it could reach over a hundred tortured screams and call a man to kneel beneath her garrote, mesmerized and brainwashed… Yeah, brainwashed. His attraction to her was certainly not genuine.
Who was he kidding? Her taste lingered on his lips, his backside still tingled from her invasion, and his erection throbbed merely by conjuring thoughts about her. And at what point did he go from exhaustion to full-on erection? Was it a testament to the power she held over him? Maybe it was the yogurt giving him the fuel he needed, because no way in hell was he that easily controlled by her.
Blowing out a breath, he tried to calm himself. She’d awoken things inside him, things he’d kept repressed for the sake of his parents and career. Assuming it was nighttime, the morning would bring a whole lot more ugly. He could be a p-ssy about it, or he could shut his eyes and wake energized and ready to break through her vile mask. Without using his fist.