His Pet, page 7
Frustration builds until I feel like I may explode. Scream at all of them. Tell them how sick they all are. How cowardly they are for putting up with a man like this.
I look right at Lorenzo, grab a piece of asparagus off his plate, pop it in my mouth and start toward the exit.
My nerves are too wired to enjoy the piece of food. I’m not exactly confident in my decision. In fact, I’m pretty fucking terrified that this is going to end horribly for me. But I remind myself that it was always going to end that way. This is his game and I have no doubts that he’ll win. At least I can say I didn’t lay down and let him. I need that.
I don’t feel Lorenzo at my back as I walk out. I don’t feel anyone at my back, but I can feel the eyes of everyone. I can’t believe it when I’m walking down a hall and out of their sights, my heels clicking on the marble floors the only sound I hear.
My heart ramps up, and I look back, still seeing no one. No one is coming for me.
I start running.
I took the elevator when I was brought here, but it had another one of those stupid passcodes, so I pass by it. I race down marble steps and hit an abandoned lobby. I know the lobby is on a high floor in this building, and I’m not foolish enough to think anyone here will help me.
I won’t make that mistake again.
I search for an exit. Any exit that doesn’t involve an elevator. The marble steps end here, but I know there must be more. It would be a huge fire hazard not to have them.
I pass by closed doors with opaque glass beside them and assume they’re offices. Finally, an exit sign above a metal door glows and I hurry toward it. I kick off my heels and throw the door open. It slams into the wall and echoes in the concrete stairwell.
I race down the steps, my heart pounding in my ears. When I’m three floors down, I hear the unmistakable sound of the door above me creaking open and then the bang when it closes.
I pick up my pace, not bothering to be quiet. I start leaping down steps, taking them three at a time and praying I don’t stumble.
Adrenaline pours through my system, and I lose track of how many floors I’ve run down. I glimpse over the railing and see I still have far to go.
I slow and try to listen past the blood whooshing in my ears. I don’t hear anyone. I pause and gasp, sucking air into my burning lungs. I place a hand on my aching side and hunch forward. Sweat drips from my nose, and hair sticks to my face. I brush it away and stand straight.
With a few more deep breaths, I take off again, my strides not quite what they were before. I make it another ten floors before I halt again.
Below me, not far at all, maybe one floor down, I hear a door opening. The clang this one makes reverberates in the stairwell, and I’m frozen with trepidation.
I snap out of it and slowly walk up the steps backward, planting my feet on each one as gently as I can.
Please go down.
Please go down.
The person starts up the steps, and I fling my body around and start climbing as fast as I possibly can. Even with the adrenaline, I’m winded. I can hear them gaining on me, and I throw a glance I can’t afford over my shoulder to see Lorenzo.
He’s bounding up the steps two at a time. I face forward, plunging upward with all my might, and I manage to make it two more floors before he catches me.
He threads his fingers through my hair and jerks me back into him. I can feel strands of hair being pulled from my scalp, and it stings, but I don’t have time to dwell on it. He spins me around and slams my back into the wall, bracing his hands on either side of me to box me in. For a minute, my panting is all that I hear. His shirt grazes my breasts each time my chest rises and falls.
“You’re fast,” he says, a little breathy himself. “I didn’t expect you to have made it down this far.”
“Get off of me!” I yell, prying my hands between us to push against his chest. His smell fills my senses until it suffocates me. My head spins, but I don’t stop trying to get him away from me.
“Help!” I scream from deep within my throat. “Somebody help me!”
I take a breath, but my next words are cut off when Lorenzo slaps a hand over my mouth. He takes both my wrists and brings them up over my head, securing them in one tight grip.
“You’re supposed to scream fire,” he says with a smirk. “No one cares if you need help. Didn’t they teach you that in prep school?”
I thrash until my skin reddens from the friction against his shirt. His hard-on presses into me through his slacks, and I know my struggle only arouses him. A grin morphs his emotionless expression into one of glee. Excitement dances in his eyes, and I wonder if he’s felt this way the whole time.
“I can’t believe you’re still fighting.” He shakes his head. “You should be exhausted right now.”
I open my mouth and try to bite his arm, but it’s just out of reach. He lets my wrists go and spins me around, my cheek flat with the wall.
“Let me go, you sick fuck!”
He tsks but doesn’t otherwise respond. One hand is dug between my shoulder blades, pinning me against the wall, and his other touches my skin just above the bodice.
The material begins to loosen with the sound of a zipper at my back. I freeze, my eyes going wide. My breathing quickens, and I’m suddenly all too aware of the way my backside rubs against him.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my voice crackly.
Lorenzo finishes unzipping the bodice and it falls off my breasts. Cool air kisses my nipples, and they harden.
“Lorenzo,” I say, sounding desperate. I buck just to keep my fight alive. “Don’t.”
He pulls the bodice until I’m fully exposed and the revealing “outfit” hangs at my knees. I didn’t know what a blessing the thin material was until it’s gone.
Lorenzo smoothes a hand over my back and runs his knuckles down my spine. I shudder at the gesture and whimper when he palms my backside.
“What’s wrong, Kitty? What’s happening with you right now?”
I clench my eyes shut and try to ignore the sensations of his hand. It dips between my thighs, so close to my sex, but not quite there.
“Why do you keep asking me that?” I ask to distract myself. And him. A part of me is genuinely befuddled sometimes by the way Lorenzo talks.
“Because I want to know.”
He actually sounds sincere. He’s not playing with me. He’s not mocking me. He’s serious.
“I’m scared, Lorenzo. Do you really need to hear me say it?” I snap at him. He rubs my inner thigh with his thumb, then his hand slowly climbs.
“I know you’re scared. I’m not an idiot, Amelia.”
Amelia.
I’m not in a playful mood right now.
I upset him. That’s his tell. Even if the subtle hint of defensiveness didn’t taint his otherwise indifferent tone.
“Then I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”
He pulls his hand from between my thighs, and I scrunch my face in anticipation for whatever comes next.
“You go from terrified of me to a smart-mouthed brat, back to terrified within a short amount of time. Most people never get past terrified. What am I doing that makes you respond this way?”
His fingertips glide up and down my spine. It’s gentle. Light. Is he trying to comfort me?
“I don’t know,” I whisper with a shaky breath.
He doesn’t say anything, and a question of my own forms.
“Have you done this before?”
“Done what?”
“Kidnapped someone… forced someone to…”
“Sure. Sometimes people aren’t so willing to be where I want them to be. Have I ever taken someone for my own pleasure? No.”
I let out a breath and try to push off the wall, but Lorenzo doesn’t ease his hold on me.
“What about the second part of my question?”
He sighs and stills his hand on my rear, his palm cupping the globe.
“No, I haven’t. But I’m not going to rape you. I’m going to punish you.”
My brow furrows in confusion, and I open my eyes just in time for the first bolt of electricity to strike my ass.
I gasp, too struck to even cry out, and Lorenzo brings his hand over my ass in rapid succession.
“Stop!” I shout when I finally get a breath. “Please stop.”
He doesn’t. He doesn’t even respond. A torrent of blows stings my backside, so many I lose count. I bite down so hard on my lip it bleeds.
I didn’t know spankings could hurt so much. Punches to the face, sure. Kicks to the stomach, choking, definitely. A myriad of things cause pain, but this is without a doubt the most humiliating.
“Please,” I whine. A sob crawls up my throat and tears burst from my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
For this, he pauses. Heady breaths hit my back, but my guess is it isn’t from physical exertion.
“What are you sorry for?”
He slaps me again and I wince, my body jerking.
“For embarrassing you.”
“Embarrassing me?” Lorenzo scoffs. “You could not possibly embarrass me. As much as I’ve enjoyed chasing you down this evening, you have disappointed me. I’m not going to stop until you tell me how.”
He hits me again and then pulls my hips back when I try to get away from him.
“For running,” I say.
He hits me again, and I let out a cry.
“I like you running, Kitty. It’s entertaining.”
“For not staying beside you on the floor!”
Another blow.
“For eating off your plate.”
Lorenzo chuckles. “That was pretty ballsy of you, and I would probably murder any other person on the planet for such a disrespectful act. But no, Kitty. That isn’t what I’m referring to.”
He hits me again, and this time I think through my next guess. I tense, expecting a blow from not answering quickly enough, but it doesn’t come. Yet.
What the fuck could possibly be worse than standing up to him in a room full of people and then running away? I didn’t even curse.
Oh, Jesus.
“I was late,” I say, somehow knowing this is what it is.
He rubs a hand over my backside, and I flinch, expecting more violence. When it doesn’t come, I break out in violent shakes as the adrenaline slowly ebbs away. A sob bubbles up my throat, and even though I try to suppress it, it leaves my lips in a gasp.
Lorenzo eases his hand from between my shoulder blades and guides me to stand straight. I cover my chest and let my hair shield my face. It’s still partially up, but Lorenzo freed some of it when he yanked my hair earlier.
He runs his palms up my arms and massages my shoulders while I cry. I shrug him away. “Stop it!” I yell through my tears. “That isn’t comforting.”
“What is?” he asks.
I glance over my shoulder at him to see his head tilted, his brows pinched.
“What does it even matter? Your goal is to humiliate me.” I sniff and hate myself for it. “Congratulations, it’s working.”
His expression relaxes and he nods. “I guess you’re right.”
My crying calms and I wipe my eyes.
He crouches and I struggle when he goes to pull my bodice off the rest of the way. He gives me a threatening look, and I still. When it’s completely off, he tugs the thin strap passed off as a thong down my legs, and I’m left without a scrap of clothing. He turns me around and looks me up and down. I tighten my arms around myself and narrow my eyes.
“Are all girls your age so cleanly shaven?”
I respond with a look of disgust, and he smirks.
He pulls out a phone and checks the time. “We need to get back. You’ve kept our guests waiting long enough.”
I shake my head. “I’m not going back there.”
“Of course you are.” He lifts a brow. “Do I need to carry you?”
I don’t answer and he tosses me over his shoulder in one swift motion. I yelp and he carries me down the staircase. My eyes lock on the bodice still laying on the concrete.
“Wait, my clothes!”
“You lost that privilege, Kitty. You owe the people you kept waiting. The least you could do is let them see your body.”
“No,” I cry. I take several panicked breaths. “I’m not going to do whatever you have planned!”
“Sure you will. I’m persuasive.”
“Lorenzo please!”
“Have you not figured out by now that begging doesn’t work with me? Try to keep up, sweetheart. You’re a slow learner.”
“I’ll…” I can’t believe what I’m about to say. I bite my lip for a moment, the bodice no longer in my sight. I release my lip and blurt it out. “I’ll touch you!”
Lorenzo pauses and sets me on the ground.
“What?” he snaps.
I can’t tell if he’s angry or annoyed, but he doesn’t seem thrilled at the prospect.
“You want me. I can tell.” I flick my gaze to his pants, then stare him in his eyes. They’re slightly narrowed. Suspicious. That’s what it is, he’s suspicious.
“So?”
“So, if you don’t make me go back there, I’ll give you what you want.”
He shakes his head. “I promised my guests a performance, and I do not go back on my word. You’re going. That’s final. Offering me something I could just take anyway isn’t going to get you anywhere.”
It got you to stop.
“Then let me wear the bodice.”
He raises an eyebrow, his lips in a tight line.
I take a breath and go on. “You don’t want to force me to touch you. If you did, you already would have… And you would’ve done it to someone else by now.”
He rears back like he’s insulted. “I’ve never needed to.”
“I don’t mean that you couldn’t… I’m not saying you’re not a ladies' man or whatever.” Although I have my doubts. Not because of the scars. Plenty of women would find the whole bad boy thing he has going on hot as hell. But he’s too… I don’t know, weird, to be a charmer. He just looks like the type of man with a dead body in his trunk. Bad boys are hot. Dangerous men are not.
“I’m saying you don’t seem like the type of person who would be into that.”
He considers this for a minute, and when his eyes dip to take me in, I know I have him.
He pulls his gaze to my face, his eyes still narrowed. “You would rather perform a sexual act for me than be naked in front of them.”
It doesn’t sound like a question. More like a puzzled statement. But I nod anyway.
His expression relaxes, morphing his suspicion to curiosity. I can’t help but think of the saying ‘curiosity killed the cat’. Only, in this case, I’m the cat.
His phone rings, and he pulls it from his pocket. He glances at the caller ID before tapping the screen and bringing it to his ear.
“Yes?”
Muffled words reach my ears.
“No,” he says, his stare trained on me. “I haven’t got her yet, but she’s in the stairwell running toward me. Give me twenty minutes.”
9
LORENZO
I hang up before Settimo has a chance to respond. Amelia stands in front of me, her trembling not quite as intense.
She’s less afraid of me than she is the others. It’s the first time in my life this has happened. People have a hard time making eye contact because of my scar, and I suppose my overall disposition, but this girl pins me with her stare like she’s challenging me to be the first to look away. I don’t know if it’s conscious, but I don’t think it is.
There’s something about it that’s sexy to me and it’s making me harder than steel. I want her to run again so I can chase her, push her more and relive the high all over again.
I put my phone back in my pocket and undo my belt. “Okay, Kitty. You win this time.”
I mean it, too. I’m man enough to accept when I lose. It just doesn’t happen often.
“Wait,” she says, stepping close and putting her hand on mine. Her touch ignites my hand in flames, but I don’t pull away. “Let me do it.”
My face hardens, and alarm bells sound. This isn’t right. It doesn’t make any sense. She should be begging someone, anyone, to save her from me. Not the other way around. And she shouldn’t be so willing to do this.
Despite my intuition warning me, I let her bring my hands to my sides. I want this too badly. My balls hurt with the need to release, and my cock won’t stop throbbing. It’s bad enough that it clouds my judgement. I feel like I’d give her anything right now if she’d let me push her against the wall and fuck her. Including take her home.
But that isn’t an option.
I take a breath to clear my head of the lust and look up at the ceiling. Amelia undoes the button on my slacks and pulls my zipper down.
She reaches into my pants and grasps my cock. I grip her arm on impulse and her eyes widen. She goes to pull away from me, and I hold her wrist steady.
She cocks a brow, but when I let go, she tightens her grip. I rest my hands on her hips and tilt my head back while she pumps me.
I’ve been inside more pussies than I can count and have felt the inside of a woman’s mouth even more. I’d never bother asking for a handjob. Not since I was probably sixteen.
But this? This has me rising up on my toes. My jaw clenches, and I dig my fingers into her hips.
I tilt my head down to look at Amelia and meet her gaze. She stares at me with a curiosity that mirrors my own. She’s as surprised as I am by my reaction.
I shuck my pants down around my ankles.
“Speed up,” I growl, pressing my mouth to her ear.
She picks up the pace, and it pours gasoline onto the fire. Every sensation in my body erupts from one spot. I lose my sense of hearing and smell, and all I can do is feel her delicate hand sliding over my cock.
I close my eyes and trail my hands up her sides. I cup her tits and rub my palms on her hardened nipples, and her sweet gasp breaks through the fog.
I wait for her to pull my hands away or to stop the delicious sensations she’s causing. She doesn’t.
