Page 129 of Captive Ruin

My chest is tight and I can’t breathe. A cold sweat breaks out down my spine.

Her silence continues, and I wait like a man in the dock facing judgment.

By now, I know what she’s going to say. If it were anything else, she’d already have said it.

I thought she was pushing. Yes, I forced her, but I thought she understood. This was the only way.

She still doesn’t speak. Instead, she closes her legs, turning away from me.

Answer enough.

“Very well,” I growl, resigned to her silence. “Fight me at every turn, if that’s what you want. It won’t change the end result. You’re mine. You have been since the gala, and you always will be. Everything I’ve said to you is true.” Why didn’t she believe me? I really thought she had. “If you won’t come to me willingly, then I’ll make you come unwillingly.”

I didn’t just get more cuffs; I replaced the rope she cut too. And now I fetch it, striding angrily across the bedroom, my own hurt driving me. I’ll show her what she means to me. Not just by fucking her—though that’s where I’m going to start right now—but with everything.

As soon as I’ve eradicated the threat that is the Volkovs, we’ll be free to do whatever we want. I’ll take a break from work and give my Little Stray all she needs. Bastien will understand. Haynes can run things. He’s not so bad.

But that’s for later.

For now, I loop a double coil of rope around the headboard bars, then catch her leg. It’s easy enough when she can’t see me. I pull off her shoe, throwing it away, running the rope behind her knee, and I draw on it until she’s once again spread open, now tied that way. She gives a soft little high-pitched whimper, music to my ears. That’ll be her considering how vulnerable she is. Maybe a little discomfort. But I don’t care; this is a punishment.

It won’t be the first time a wife was punished on her wedding night. Afternoon. Whatever. It’ll be night by the time I’m done.

The other leg is harder. She kicks out, knowing what’s coming, but I catch it. She still struggles, and she’s strong. The heel of her shoe catches my side hard enough to make me wince and scrape my skin. I could overpower her if I used my body, but it might hurt her. In a battle of her leg against my arms, she’s winning. All that swimming, no doubt.

“Stop.”

She ignores me, her breathing high and fast as she tries to squirm out of my grip. She’s so naked, so beautiful, that part of me wants to keep fighting for the fun of it all. But her other leg is secure, her wrists pinned, and she could easily strain something or chafe her skin.

I slap three fingers against her wet pussy, sharp enough to sting. “Stop.”

She gasps and stops at once.

“Better.” I pull her heel off and it hits the floor with a thud, then I tie her second leg, shortening the rope through the bars until that one is lifted and raised too. She’s open to me now, and there won’t be any more kicking. Or resistance. I’ve shown her what will happen if there is.

This is how I want her. She’s never been so open to me, her legs spread and lifted, her smooth sex on offer.

“So beautiful,” I tell her. “So mine.”

She whimpers in response, tensing against the bindings, and blood rushes to my already rock-hard cock.

Her struggles dislodged her blindfold a little, and I straighten it for her. She’s still breathing too fast, her chest rising and falling with short movements. Is she afraid of me? She has nothing to fear, not really. But part of me… so help me, but I like it.

“I’m going to make you come until it soaks through the sheets into the mattress, but I won’t harm you.”

She tenses, letting out a whimper at my promise. “I know,” she murmurs. “I know you won’t. I… trust you.”

My eyebrows rise, and a weight lifts off my shoulders. That wasn’t what I expected at all.

Maybe I overreacted earlier. Maybe we’re closer than I thought to where I want us to be.

I trail my fingers down along her body, taking my time. Drawing it out. Teasing myself as much as her. Brushing across one nipple, tracing the curve of her breast, caressing her sternum. Over her stomach, her abdominals tight and more pronounced than they were.

“We’ll go swimming together one day soon.”

She catches her breath. “That would be… nice.”

“We can have a race. Loser goes down on the winner, and then I’ll fuck you in the pool house.”