Innocence (Tales of Olympus #1)(48)

And then he’d stop and go back to whatever he’d been doing as if nothing at all was the matter. Always with the threat of tying her to the bed again if she dared touch herself to finish off what he’d started.

She was so damn stir-crazy and horny and on edge, sometimes she wondered if it might be worth it. Just once. Gods, if only she could come just once.

She didn’t know how he’d done it. Sex wasn’t anything that had even been on her radar until Marcus.

But ever since she’d felt his hands on her body and experienced the kind of pleasure he could wring out of her…it was like those drugs they said you only had to try once or twice to become addicted.

Well, she felt addicted to sex now…and she was still a virgin! Gods, what would it be like if they finally…?

She swallowed and glanced up at Marcus. Even worse, she had a horrible suspicion that her addiction was Marcus-specific.

Above her head his fingers flew on the keyboard. He wanted her next to him, kneeling on the cushion while he worked. Curled up at his feet like she really was a pet.

The second day he chained her to his desk, she got vocal. “How long are you going to keep this up for? You can’t just chain me like a dog wherever you go. I’m a person, godsdamn you.”

No response.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.” She’d shoved his legs underneath the table.

He responded then all right. He gagged her and cuffed her hands behind her back and that was how she spent all of day two until bedtime. Other than the three times he’d driven her to the brink of orgasm and pulled back at the last possible second, leaving her so wanting she was glad for the gag because in that moment she would have begged and pleaded and promised him anything if only he’d please, please finished what he’d started.

Thankfully she’d gotten herself under control by the time he released the gag before bed, and all she wanted to do was scream in his face. Scream and kick and punch and scream some more. But she bit her damn lip because after a day going out of her mind with boredom and the devastating bouts of pleasure stopped just short of orgasm, she was beginning to get the picture.

This was about power.

And him letting her know that she didn’t have any.

Day three was little better. She spoke up a few times. “Can I at least have a book to read? Paper to draw on?” She wasn’t an artist by any means but even doodling would feel like extreme intellectual stimulation at this point.

She’d already examined every inch of his penthouse office by this point, counted every one of the 113 books on his bookshelf—most of them dry looking business and accounting books with a small section of Stephen King novels—and spent hours looking for faces and shapes in the artfully spackled drywall.

Unsurprisingly, there had been, shocker, no response.

The daytime chain he allowed her was slightly longer than the nighttime one. She could sit up at his feet while he worked at his desk. Another thing she was grateful for and furious at her own gratitude.

One thing was clear, Marcus Ubeli was a master manipulator. He had been from the beginning.

Today she sat at his feet, her mind stewing.

She was angry, bored, frustrated, and so, so horny.

She sighed and ducked her head, examining the fraying edges of her manicure. She thought she was so fancy, going to the spa, getting ready for her wedding. If she could send herself a note, she would’ve told herself to ditch everything and run.

Not that the old Cora would believe her. She’d believed in fairy tales, in handsome businessman meeting a beautiful, young woman and falling in love. Sweeping the girl off her feet. A wedding of her dreams and life of wedded bliss.

She should write the authors of those fairy tales and tell them they were full of shit.

She wiggled to get into a different folded position. Her legs kept falling asleep. Marcus didn’t speak, but rested a hand on her collar in silent warning to be still.

“This sucks,” she blurted.

The keyboard went silent. Oops. Marcus was scarier when he was still, a shark sensing blood in the water. She’d poked the bear. Oh well, too late now.

“I’m bored.”

“You expect to be entertained?” Grown men would go mad with fear if Marcus spoke to them like that. She stared at the carpet and said nothing. Because he’d spoken to her. Finally, after days of silence, he’d finally spoken again. She thought she’d overexaggerated the low sinful timbre of his voice in her head but gods, no, every syllable was a rasp that went straight to her sex.

A click and Marcus pushed the closed laptop away. Then she was up, tugged and lifted onto the desk, facing those scary grey eyes. Marcus ran his hands over her arms, studying her bare breasts.

He didn’t look angry or annoyed. More, thoughtful. He stroked her hair back from the collar, sifting a corn silk lock between his fingers. Heat bloomed in her, rising to her cheeks, making her dizzy. A few simple touches and her body primed itself for him.

From the smirk etched around his mouth, Marcus knew it.

“Time for your punishment,” he told her, and pushed her legs apart.

“Marcus—”

He propped a finger at her lips. “Quiet, angel.”

Her eyes widened. He hadn’t called her angel in a while. Well he hadn’t called her anything considering he hadn’t been speaking to her, but angel hit her in her solar plexus. Which was so, so, stupid.