Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 94782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
“What am I supposed to call you?” she asks.
“I already told you.” I tuck my dick away and zip up my trousers, avoiding her gaze. “You shouldn’t call me anything. I’m nothing to you.”
“But you are,” she insists.
My nostrils flare, and the energy in the room pressurizes as I wait for a lie to pour from her lips. Will she tell me that I’m royalty, and therefore she should address me as such? Or will she be like the others, professing that I mean something to her when I’ve only ever given her a reason to hate me?
“You’re a person,” she says. “And you have a name. There will be times I need to address you, and I’d like to know what’s acceptable.”
“What would be acceptable is if you had listened to me the first time.”
Ella doesn’t blink. She just analyzes me as though she’s trying to understand me, and it makes me uneasy. My first instinct is to extricate myself from the situation. But I shouldn’t be running away from her. She should be the one who’s afraid of me.
I need to prove a point to her. She’s a fool if she thinks she can humanize me. Trying to get inside my head is against the implicit rules, and it’s a punishable offense.
“Stay there,” I command.
I can feel her watching me as I choose a leather riding crop from the wall. She’s quiet and brave until I turn around and come for her again. But one glance at my face has her scrambling for the door.
I give chase, capturing her around the waist and smothering her scream with my hand. When I force her onto the ground, her face scrapes against the carpet as I straddle her and pin her down with my weight. From this position, I have the perfect view of her come-filled ass.
“Why are you doing this?” she cries. “I did what you wanted.”
I can’t give her an answer for that, and I want her to understand there won’t always be answers. Drawing my arm back, I unleash the crop against her left ass cheek, and she sucks in a sharp breath as red blooms across her skin. But she doesn’t cry out. She doesn’t make a sound or even flinch. Even when I rain down another blow. And another.
Frustration compounds inside me as I smack her harder and faster. When her welted ass fails to produce the results I want, I venture all the way down to her calves, but she refuses to give me so much as a tear.
“Are you really this accustomed to pain?” I demand.
When she denies me an answer, I grab her foot and slap the arch. Finally, she releases a guttural sound, but it isn’t enough. She’s challenging me, forcing my hand as I slap the soles of her feet until she screams so loud there can be no doubt her nerves are on fire.
“Please,” she begs. “Too much! It’s too much!”
My chest heaves as I toss the crop aside and look down at her. Nothing has ever been as beautiful as her body with my marks all over it. Right now, I want to fuck her again. But when her face gives way to silent tears, something inside me cracks. She isn’t the first woman I’ve made cry, and she certainly won’t be the last, but this is different somehow. Ella’s tears are bleeding emotions from me I don’t care to identify. She’s fragile beneath me. So soft and pure and… mine.
My stomach churns violently as I consider how much I’d like that last sentiment to be true. But I can’t. I won’t. She’s nothing to me. Even now, with my come inside her and my marks on her skin, she’s just a toy. A pretty caged bird.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.” My voice is gentler than I expect, and when I ease my weight off her and scoop her up into my arms, she doesn’t protest. If anything, she curls into me, leaning her face against my chest, her eyes shuddering closed.
How can she take comfort in such a monster? How can she not realize how dangerous this is for her self-preservation?
When her eyes flutter open, I force myself to look away as I carry her into the bathroom. I set her down on the chaise and focus on what I have to do, one step at a time, so I can’t get caught up in the confusing thoughts poisoning my mind. Placing the stopper in the tub, I turn on the water and adjust the temperature, so it’s warm but not too hot. Ella will be sore, and for right now, I think I am done torturing her.
When I gather her into my arms again, she blinks away her own emotions, staring off into the distance as I gingerly place her in the tub. It has to hurt, but she doesn’t show any evidence of her pain as I ease her body back against the porcelain. She just lies there, numb and closed off. And I think that bothers me more than anything because I’d much rather have her tears.