Trust Me (Rough Love #3) (12 page)

Mentally, I thought I was going to die.

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
My mind kept telling my body that it couldn’t go on any more, that my ass was spasming and my pussy was all used up, and my nipples needed freedom, and my clit couldn’t bear one more moment of stimulation, but the man tormenting me didn’t care. The fucking went on, and the vibrating went on, and the orgasms came, each more painful than the last.

I was very close to breaking the rules and begging. I was so close. The only thing that kept my open lips silent was the threat of the cock gag on top of everything else. Instead I whined plaintively in my throat, my voice rising and falling with the rise and fall of each forced climax. I sounded like an animal. I felt like an animal, reduced to the ungoverned physical operation of my body. I tried to arch my pelvis to get my clit some relief, but it was only momentary, and then the sensation was there again.

Oh, please, oh, please…

At last I felt his thrusts quicken, felt his organ pump ejaculate inside me. At last,
oh God, thank you.
He stepped back, his cock slipping out of me after stuffing me to the hilt. He walked around and undid the chopstick clamps, and twisted my nipples between his fingertips as sensation came roaring back. I waited—mouth open—for him to switch off the vibrator, but he didn’t. He stared at me, and I stared back at him as I was required to.

Shit, oh shit. I can’t. You asshole. I hate you. I love you. How can you do this to me?

He was making a point. He owned me. He used me however he liked. He reduced me to an animal when he felt like it, and let me be human again only on his schedule. I got it. He made me squirm and jerk through three more painful, unwanted orgasms before he finally switched off the satanic wand.

“You can close your mouth now,” he said as he undid my bindings. “But never forget who that mouth belongs to.”

I gave him a baleful look. It wasn’t the slavey kind of look he probably wanted. Once he untied my arms, he steered me over to the cage, and I thought, well, I probably deserve this for looking at my Master that way. I crawled inside and curled in a ball.

My clit was swollen and sensitive, and my ass was still impaled by the massive butt plug. I curled my arms over my sore breasts and lay on my side, wishing the cage had a pillow or a padded cushion or something. Price was always mean to me in this dungeon, but today he’d been really mean and I was having trouble accepting my lot. Slave, thing, toy, holes to fuck. His to abuse. He was a sadist.
He’d warned me.

Tears trickled down my cheeks as he moved about in the harsh light, putting the dungeon back to rights. I hated the way he lit everything, all my pain and humiliations showcased to a ridiculous degree. I wanted to hide in the darkness. I heard his footsteps when he returned to the cage, sensed him standing right beside it, but I didn’t turn to him the way I was supposed to.

“Look at me,” he said in a sharp voice. “Don’t act like a fucking brat, Chere, or we’ll start over with orgasm number one.”

I sighed and turned to look up at him through the bars.

“I wasn’t hard on you today because you talked to Cantor,” he said. “I was hard on you to remind you that you’re mine.”

Duh. We both knew that. I didn’t know why he still felt threatened by Cantor. Nothing had happened between us.
You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted. Why won’t you believe that?

“Martin Cantor is a player,” he said. “He wouldn’t have known what to do with you. He couldn’t have made you happy.”

And you do?
I thought, shifting on my sore ass. Frustration bubbled over inside me, so I broke my speech restriction and blurted out, “Why are you so jealous?”

He kicked the cage, an immediate, sharp reprisal that made me jump. I huddled back against the bars but there was no more kicking, just a trip to his chests of torture implements. He returned with the terrible, huge, plastic cock gag in his hands.

I shook my head, for all the good it did me. He opened the door and reached in, and dragged me to him by the O-ring on my collar. I shut my lips against the thick shaft and earned a slap on the cheek for it. I opened and swallowed as he forced the gag in. It distended my jaw and compressed my tongue, and made me feel very, very sorry that I’d poked him when he was already in a bad mood.

“No talking in the dungeon,” he said as he secured the gag’s straps behind my head. “You know the rules. Fucking follow them.”

I glared at his chin.
Yes, I know the rules. I also know you’re fucking jealous and possessive and you don’t trust me any farther than you can throw me, and it’s starting to make me fucking sick.
I submitted to everything he required of me, even this choking, humiliating cock gag. He might give me a little trust in return.

He shut the door of the cage and I seethed in there, ass plugged, mouth plugged, his slave in disgrace. My hands were free. I could have reached behind my head and undone the gag. Nothing was stopping me but his possession and his will. He stood and watched me, hands on his hips, my unchallenged owner. My evil tormentor. He would always win, no matter the fight, no matter the consequence.

He held my gaze, wanting me to surrender, but sometimes I just couldn’t do it. Sometimes I felt so angry and frustrated within our dynamic that I wanted to explode. A shiver rocked me, and then I did explode, beating the bars with my fists. I wanted to bust them open, or at least bend them a little to show that he couldn’t control me completely. But I couldn’t do anything, because his cage was too strong, just as he was too strong.

When I finished my pointless tantrum, he knelt beside the cage and glared in at me. “Do it again,” he said in a terrifyingly calm voice, “and I’ll beat your ass until you can’t walk.” He reached between the bars and grabbed my hair, giving it a firm yank. “Behave, you fucking brat, or we’ll train in here all night.”

I ground my teeth against the rubber cock in my mouth and considered that threat. No, no more tonight. I knew my limits. I lay still in the damn cage and tried to relax my body until he was satisfied that I was under control. Then he opened the door and dragged me out, and positioned me on all fours beside the bars I’d chosen.

Because I’d chosen this prison.

I thought about that as he fucked me again, triple penetrated me with the gag in my mouth, the plug in my ass, and the cock driving inside me, gentler now, but still steady and firm and as endless as he could make it. I braced my arms on the floor and cried tears he couldn’t see as he pinched and twisted my sore nipples. When I arched my back up against him, begging without words for him to stop hurting me, he pinched my nipples harder. Drool and muffled sobs leached from behind my gag until he came inside my cringing body. I had chosen this. Even now, I had no desire to leave. Even now, all I wanted was to satisfy him.

Later, when I was clean and human again, he led me to the guest room, to the place I slept when I was in disgrace. I was allowed to talk now, but I chose not to. I had nothing to say that wouldn’t anger him or muddy the waters between us. Instead, I reminded myself silently, over and over,
you chose this. You chose this. You chose this.

When I was settled under the covers, he sat on the edge of the bed, gazing down at me with a probing expression. Even without words, without tears, he knew I was struggling. He knew that when I didn’t talk, I was the most upset of all.

“If you don’t like the things I do to you,” he said, “you can leave.”

I shook my head. “I’m never leaving you. Never.”

Some tautness in his body slackened. He took my chin between his fingers and kissed me, one of those fervent kisses that was more like gnawing on my mouth, and I surrendered to it with my own quiet violence. He kissed me like he was protecting me, like Cantor might still spring up at any moment and doom our relationship. For an intelligent man, Price could be pretty stupid, but then, I’d never been much of a genius in the relationship department myself.

His kiss gradually gentled, but I remained a roiling mess of confused emotions. After he left, I took an hour or more to fall asleep. He exasperated me and thrilled me and wrung me out until I was clinging to the last shreds of my sanity. Jesus, I loved him, but I wasn’t completely sure that I should.

A Place of Peace

C
here was quiet
on the drive to work the next morning. She sat beside me in the back seat of our chauffeured sedan, dressed in a dark shirt and a long, patterned skirt. She wore skirts all the time now. Easy access, and she didn’t seem to mind it. I could take her right now if I wanted, either with my fingers or my cock, or my mouth. When she was surly and sub-hungover, I wanted to eat her alive. Out of respect for the driver, I restricted myself to holding her hand.

“What’s on the schedule today?” I asked in the stultifying silence.

She turned her head a little and brushed her curls back from her face. “Just work. I have some new designs that Vinod approved. He’s coming in a couple weeks to see the samples, and I want to have everything ready to show him.”

“Busy, busy,” I said. “What about other clients?”

She gave me a look. Vinod Sushil Enterprises was taking up the majority of her time, and I was taking the rest of it.

I shrugged. “You should always be looking for new clients. If you get too busy, you hire people to work under you. I have fourteen associates at Eriksen.”

Her bottom lip pushed out in a pout. “I want to do it myself. I don’t want other people to do it for me.”

“I do things myself. The other people assist me.”

She turned to look out the window. I clasped her hand more tightly, not allowing her to pull away.

“You tell me that…” She paused and drew in a breath. “You tell me that I belong to you. You won’t let me see other people or talk to other people without losing your shit, and yet you push me toward world domination.”

She was being sassy and she knew it, which was why she wouldn’t look at me. I’d allow this little rebellion, to a point. More cage rattling. It pleased me at least as much as it unhinged me.

“First of all, I don’t ‘lose my shit,’” I said. “I protect what’s mine, which is what you signed up for. And I’m not ‘pushing you toward world domination,’ I’m explaining that business grows or contracts. There’s no coasting, Chere. Onwards and upwards.”

“Can I get my feet under me first? Vinod’s a huge client with a lot of lines, a lot of opportunities. I’m sure more business will come.”

I snorted. “Not from him. He’s going to put your work out under his own name and keep you a secret as long as he can.”

“But in the contract—”

“In the contract, his name is bigger than yours. It’s all right.” I let go of her hand and stroked the concerned lines on her face. “That’s how you start. But Vinod Sushil isn’t the height of your career arc. He’s the starting point. Don’t forget that, no matter how busy he keeps you, no matter how much smoke he blows up your ass.”

Her half pout turned into a whole pout and a sigh as she curled her hands together in her lap. She still wore the ring I’d given her on her left hand, where an engagement ring would go.

“Chere,” I said, touching her knee.

“What?”

Ugh. It was hard being her lover
and
her owner
and
her career mentor. It was hard being everything to her, but I couldn’t let any of it go. Without control, fears crept in. Fears for me, fears for her. Fears for us.

“Don’t bitch out,” I said. “I’m only trying to help.”

After a moment of tension, she turned toward me and rested her head against my shoulder. Her hand crept back into mine and I held it, stroking my thumb across her palm. “I love you,” I said. I didn’t say it very often, because I didn’t know what it meant, and I didn’t want to diffuse the word’s power by saying it all the time, but at moments like this, when she returned to me, when she
surrendered
, it was all I could think to say.

“I love you too,” she said.

With my other hand, I dug in my briefcase and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. I hadn’t been sure I’d be able to give it to her. I’d written it in a haze of guilt over my jealousy of Cantor, jealousy she’d called me on in no uncertain terms. The fact that she’d been in a cage at the time didn’t soften the blow.

Why are you so jealous?

I don’t know, starshine. Maybe because I love you so fucking much.

“This is for you,” I said, forcing myself to hand it over. Her face lit up the way it always did when I gave her poetry, but seriously, it had been easier to give her other people’s poetry. Writing my own feelings felt like opening up a vein on the page.

“You don’t have to read it now,” I said.

“May I read it now?”

“If you want.”

She let go of my hand and opened the paper, and looked down at the words I’d written early this morning, while she was asleep.

He strokes her, presses her palms, her arms,

Her lips, her body, her cool skin.

She wants to be hurt and held. He wants her to huddle

Inside his walls and sleep.

“He” was me, of course, and “she” was Chere, and the poem was part of what I felt last night, but not enough. They never expressed enough. My poems were clumsy sketches, not paintings, and I never managed to rhyme like the old school poets. There was no rhyme to us, no reasonable organization.

“I didn’t get to huddle with you last night,” she said when she finished. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” I said, although that wasn’t what I meant by that line. I meant that I wanted her inside me forever, where no one else could get to her, or influence her, or lure her away. When I wrote
sleep
, I meant
surrender
, but she’d already done so much surrendering last night that I couldn’t bear to put that on the page.

“Thank you for writing this,” she said. “It’s beautiful. I love when you write things for me.” She scooted closer and rested her head on my shoulder as she had before. As she scanned the poem again, she asked, “What are you working on now?”