Page 34

“W-what?”

“The sound.” He said it patiently, the way you repeat yourself to a child. “It has gone off three times now. So, I will ask again, how bad does it get?” It was a demand this time.

“It’s nothing.” It came out on reflex, the way it always does but it was too late to take it back.

“I will be the judge of that,” he scoffed softly. Then his jaw moved once, and whatever it was went away again.

“Do not move.” This was another demand before he let go of my wrists. And God help me, my arms dropped to my sides and stayed there for almost a full second, which said a lot for how much power he seemed to hold over me. That was until survival caught up. He had his back to me, four long strides away, unhurried, going through my bag like a man in his own kitchen.

He hadn’t asked me what he was looking for, like he already knew, and that thought unsettled me even more. A thought that lasted about as long as it took me to realize his back was turned and now was my chance.

The problem with this was… I made it perhaps three steps.

His arm came around my middle, and the floor went away from under me. That was the only way I know how to describe it. He lifted me clean off my feet with one arm, the way you lift a chair to move it out of a doorway, and he didn’t hurry. He didn’t so much as grunt with the effort of it. He simply carried me back and set me down against that wall, in exactly the spot I had been standing in. Then he took both my wrists back into one hand and pinned them where they had been, adjusting my shoulders a fraction with the other until I was placed to his satisfaction.

I have never in my life felt so much like an object.

“Are you finished?” he demanded, and I couldn’t answer. I was shaking too hard by then, and some of that was him and some of it was my blood. Honestly, I had stopped being able to tell which was which.

Then he held up something between two fingers. A candy bar with the wrapper peeled back, softening already in the heat of his hand.

“Open.” The demand had me clamping my mouth shut. It was the last thing I had. A stupid, pointless refusal but I kept it as tight as I could and stared up at him with my eyes swimming.

He tilted his head at me.

“You’re shaking because your blood is empty and I am holding the thing that fills it, so be a good girl and swallow your pride.”

He leaned in until his forehead was almost against mine and that icy stare bore down at me.

“Now open your mouth, little nurse.” It wasn’t a request as there was nothing in his voice that expected to be argued with. It was the tone of a man who had never in his life been told no and didn’t intend to start hearing it now when he had me pinned to the wall.

My lips parted around the chocolate he held to my mouth. He fed it to me slowly, in pieces, his fingers pushing each one past my teeth and lingering there half a second longer than any of it required. And he didn’t pull back until the sugar hit my tongue and my whole body sagged with the relief of it. And I hated that too.

And on the last piece, when it had gone and there was nothing left but the chocolate melted on his fingertips, he didn’t take his hand away.

He watched my mouth and in turn, I watched the precise moment an idea struck him of what to do next.

“Hm,” he practically purred as he slid his thumb into my mouth.

“Wider.” And I did.

“Now suck.” I swallowed hard, and God help me, I did as he asked. I would have liked so badly to say that I was a badass and bit him but that’s not what happened. In fact, in every version I have replayed since, I bite down so hard that I taste blood.

But what actually happened was that I closed my mouth around his thumb with tears running off my jaw and I did as I was told. And he watched me do it with his lips slightly parted, like a man at communion.

“Good girl,” he praised, then drew it out of my mouth slowly, stopping long enough to gather the wet tears from my cheek with his thumb before putting it back in for me to suck again.

“There now,” he murmured. “Take it in… that is the taste of your submission.” I closed my eyes causing more frightened tears to fall. Eyes that only snapped open again when somewhere far off down the corridor, a heavy door closed. My gaze shot to the door, but his head only lifted a fraction. He listened the way a dog listens, without moving anything else at all.

“Time’s nearly up,” he announced calmly, yet he sounded genuinely regretful about it. Although it left me questioning what that meant for me. Was this the moment he finally killed me or did he mean to simply walk away from the shell of me he left behind?

I didn’t know, but hope bloomed when he suddenly let go of my wrists. However, his thumb remained in my mouth. Which meant that when I tried to move away from him, his free hand came to my shoulder pinning me back against the wall. At the same time his thumb went deeper in my mouth, nearly gagging me. His eyes heated at the sight, as if he imagined it was something else of his that caused the reflex.

“I didn’t say it was over… now keep sucking.” He ordered, his eyes turning a darker shade as he continued to fuck my mouth with his thumb. His gaze drinking in the sight, as if filing it away for later when he could be alone with his thoughts, perhaps when fisting his own cock at the memory. I don’t know why that thought clung to me, making my body hotter as a knot formed low in my belly. In the end, I didn’t know who was getting off on this more and I could only hope I did a half decent job at hiding it.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

Was I really getting turned on by what was essentially an assault?