DELIVER(25)

She didn’t try to free her arms or raise her face from the rug. Her breath whispered evenly through the mane of brown silk tousled around her head. He lifted his chest, pinning her legs with his, and flipped her over. “Do you and Van anally rape your prisoners?”

Arms limp at her sides, her expression was a blank canvas. But her detachment seemed to make her eyes look even more dangerous as they drew into slits and locked on his.

The length of chain gave him enough range of motion to strangle her with his hands, but then what? He didn’t have the code to the door, and she didn’t seem concerned about her safety, which meant she was prepared. Did she have a weapon hidden in her bodice? “You’re a pimp and a rapist. How many slaves, Liv?”

“It’s Mistress.” She slammed her brow into the bridge of his nose.

A blaze of fire burned through his nostrils. He wrinkled his nose, fighting the hurt from her hard head, worrying about the costs his parents would pay for his temerity. He needed to make certain the risks he took didn’t touch them.

She slid a palm up the back of his thigh and parted his cheeks. No amount of clenching dissuaded her from touching that forbidden place between. If he swatted at her, he wouldn’t be able to hold down her shoulders. He could roll off her and lose the upper hand or he could endure her probing finger.

He did his best to control his breathing, and failed. “What would you call this?” he panted. “Seduction or rape?”

Holding his eyes, she tried to pull her knees to the outside of his legs, but his weight held them in place. So she used the only freedom she had and pressed a stiff finger against his rectum, her eyes hard and fixed on his. She prodded deeper, a dry invasion that crushed his molars together. “Try again. With. The. Title.”

His blood boiled, and his mouth dried. “Are you going to rape me, Mistress?”

“You are restraining me.”

Her finger, toying shallowly where no finger should go, garbled his brain. He wouldn’t give up his position, and as much as the violation made him squirm, it wasn’t dampening the heat stirring in his groin where it rubbed against the apex of her open thighs.

“You like this.” Her lips curled up, perversely smug. “They all do. By the end of the first day, all of my boys beg me to f*ck them.” Finger in his backside, she ground herself against his traitorous hard-on. “You’ll beg, too.”

He wanted to roar Never, but the way his fatigued body responded to her touch, he knew it would be a lie.

Her finger vanished, and his muscles relaxed but not for long. She slid her hand between their hips, and he jerked his groin out of her way. But she wasn’t reaching for him. She cupped herself beneath the lace, massaging and throwing her head back with a moan.

Heat swarmed his face. He’d kissed girls. He’d groped a breast once above the shirt, but he’d never seen a girl naked before him, and this…this open display of masturbation he’d never dared to imagine. Yet he couldn’t stop his gaze from clinging the dips and arches of her body and the hand circling between her legs. Was this why the others begged her for sex? “You rape them.” He thickened his voice with accusation, wanted her to hear his objection.

Her hand froze and her glare slammed into his. The darkest reaches of her eyes seemed to rotate while her pupils remained steadily locked on his. “You’re my first virgin cock, boy, which means you will endure your training without any hope for a charity f*ck.” A cruel expression bent her face, catching light along her scar. “And you’ll address me correctly, you stubborn prick.” She yanked her hand from between them and slapped her fingers over his mouth, trailing a smear of tart moisture on his lips and tongue.

The shock of it arched his back, his restrained hands tightening the chains and halting his backward flinch. She used the distraction to slip from under him and shove a finger into her cleavage. As he scrambled forward to recover his position above her, she whipped out a metal wire, snapped it taut between her hands, and caught him in the throat.

In the next breath, he was on his back, his neck ensnared by the garrote she’d unleashed from her corset. His arms were yanked to the side by the chains clapping against the floor. Just an impulse away from hindering his airflow, he held himself as still as possible.

Her knee dug against his chest. “Requirement number two. Slave will service Master sexually with exceptional skill, and his body will be prepared to make it easy for Master.” She tilted her head, a tangle of curls snaking around her chest. “Your cock doesn’t belong to me, but if you beg nicely, I’ll take your virgin ass before Van gets a hold of it.”

It wasn’t her words that chilled him so much as the conviction that punctuated them.

She released him and his hands went to his throat, rubbing the unbroken skin.

On her way to the door, she glanced over her shoulder. “You’ll find your restraints don’t quite reach the mattress. Sleep on the rug. And if you bend just right—” she pointed at the toilet “—you can balance your tight little * on the rim.”

The rim that was splattered in his urine. His fingers gouged into his palms.

“If you don’t shit before I return, I’ll use a rectal bulb syringe to clean you out.” With a flick of her finger over the keypad, she left.

Hatred, his new friend, swept through his veins, promising delicious acts of retaliation against every foul fiber in that woman’s body. He shook with a violent contraction of muscles, his blood raging. He wanted to shove her against the wall and pummel her—