Ilaria

There are choices in lies, but they are just a way to cover the truth …

 

“Your knees or my bed. Which one will it be?”

I didn’t know. Everything about this tossed me adrift, left me feeling out of my element and playing games of which I didn’t know the rules. I’d never thought any man would touch me emotionally enough to make me interested in giving myself to them. When I finally did, he wasn’t the man I should have even entertained the thoughts to be with. No matter what he said, he was asking me to prostitute myself for money. It was easier to think of that, to clear the web of my desire for him, than to acknowledge I liked it when he controlled me. Like the care wrapped around me when he never took a morsel of food before I’d had my fill.

Had anyone ever cared for me like that?

Never, and this man demanded I give him thanks or myself. The warmth of moments ago dissipated, trapped beneath rage and confused hunger for him, for this, for something I couldn’t quite fathom. I could make neither choice, yet I couldn’t walk away. I was frozen, a tableau, as he lifted a piece of prime rib to his lips and sucked it into his mouth. Elliot used the same fork I had, and somehow knowing made the move more intimate. A muscle worked in his jaw as he chewed, but his gaze remained on me.

What will it be?

Would it be easier to walk away with my chastity intact? Somehow, I didn’t believe I’d be able to get rid of him if I let him in. Maybe I could use this to get out of his request and give myself time to come to terms with what he made me feel.

I cleared my throat. “I’ve never done it.”

For a moment, there was silence before he placed his knife and fork down carefully. “Never done what? Be specific. This isn’t a time for games or shyness.”

I twisted my fingers into my dress and swallowed as fire spread across my face. Do it. Shock him. “I’ve never sucked a cock or fucked.”

Detonation. I had no other way to describe what I saw in Elliot. His nostrils flared, his eyes went wide, and he tensed as his knuckles whitened before everything crumpled. But what was left in the wreckage of my admission terrified me more than his demands. He smiled—a carnal, wicked slash of his lips—before he crooked one finger at me.

“Come here, Ilaria.”

I took one step before I forced my legs to lock. “What is it you want?” Always ask. That’s what he’d told me.

“To mark you as mine. To be the first one you taste. To be the first name you scream out. To be everything. Come here.”

No. This wasn’t how this was supposed to work. I spun and ran, my heels clicking on the hardwood floors before I stumbled on the carpet. My heart in my throat, I tumbled to the ground, the soft threads only cushioning the blow so much. I exhaled in a rush, dizzied for a moment. Get up. Run. My desire for Elliot, the wetness between my legs at what he’d said, and the fear of what it would do to me kicked me into fight or flight. Fight was hot—too hot to hold, to comprehend, to accept— so my body chose flight.

I scrambled on my hands and knees, but I was too slow. Hot hands scalded my sides through the fabric of my dress and locked me back against a hard frame. Elliot’s fingers twisted into my hair and yanked back my head.

“Tell me you don’t want what I’m going to give you. If I reach between your legs, will you be hot and wet for me? If the answer is no, if you can make me believe this isn’t what you want, I’ll release you. But if it isn’t, then I’ll make the choice you refused to.”

Curling my fingers into the carpet, I bit my lip and didn’t answer. I knew one, or both, would be a lie. Yes, I wanted him. Yes, he would find me wet and hot. No, I didn’t want this to end. Those were the truths I didn’t want to give voice to. Even as they whispered through my mind, they ricocheted like bullets, battering my skull. Momma had warned me about men like him— men with money, men who commanded loyalty and obedience—and I hadn’t listened. They ripped you to shreds.

He released my hip and traced his fingers across my ass before gripping the hem of my dress. “Last chance to choose and make this so much easier on yourself, little one. I can make it hurt so good. I can make you claw at my back until I bleed. Scream until your throat is hoarse. All you have to do is say yes. But if I have to make you, your throat is going to be sore for a much different reason.”

Fight or flight. I had a trapped bird in my chest instead of a heart, and it slammed against my rib cage, desperate to get out. “Yes,” I forced out through gritted teeth. The cliff I stood on was high, but I feared the crash and burn at the bottom much more than the wolf nipping at my heels.

And maybe that’s why I said yes. Because I was crazy.

“Good girl. Such a good girl. Let’s see how I reward good behavior, shall we?”

His fingers, long and graceful, slipped over the backs of my thighs. It was a whisper of a touch, a promise, a threat, all wrapped into one. My muscles relaxed and clenched as he moved, confused at the proper response. But then he was lifting my dress, exposing my rear to the warmth of the air. I’d been provided with a silky black thong to wear under my dress. Heat spread as he palmed one ass cheek.

“You’re so pale here, untouched by the sun. Mmm.”

Elliot’s pleasure rumbled through him, and it vibrated against me. His breath was hot in my ear, his lips soft against my lobe. Soft and hard. Lie and truth. Smoke and mirrors. Which did I believe? Which was real?

Lifting his hand, he brought it down hard enough to push me forward. I cried out as Elliot rubbed in the burn. It spread, warming my ass and sending tingles down my legs.

“That was for running,” he said. He struck again, this time where my ass met my thigh, and I jerked, pain shooting across my scalp—where my hair was pulled taut—and my ass at the same time.

“And that’s for making me ask too many times.”

“I’m sorry,” I breathed.

He slapped me again, harder. “Sorry, what?”

“Sorry, Sir.”

“You will call me Sir in this house. When we are in public you may use Elliot. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Have you ever had an orgasm?”

The switch sent me reeling. “Y-yes, Sir.”

“Pity. I’ll have to make this one better to erase all the others.”

His hand snaked into the crease of my ass and downward. The thin material of my thong did nothing to hide his touch. He was rough, pressing against my flush pussy until he grazed over my clit. My hiss made Elliot stop. In the middle of the night, in the darkness of dilapidated apartments, addicts outside, and filthy prostitutes turning tricks, I’d learned my desires. How dirty deeds made me hot. How hearing filthy language and harsh words sent me into the sky. In the darkness, my needs didn’t seem so bared, but beneath Elliot’s hands, in the brightness of his living room, it seemed wrong to be in such a state. My ass was in the air, head stretched back to just inside the point of hurting, and his vicious fingers were doing a hard circle over my clit. But while my mind was filled with embarrassment, my body quaked, my thighs widened to entice him closer, and Elliot read me. He pushed my thong to the side and slapped my clit with the same precision he’d hit my ass.

The world imploded, curling in and fragmenting until there was nothing but a black hole. My only tether on reality was Elliot’s mouth sucking at my pulse and his fingers pressing into me. Everything throbbed and shook me to the core. The pain I should have felt as he pressed two digits inside me was overshadowed by the sting from my clit and ass. All I felt was an odd sense of fullness, a slight pinch, and then he was inside me, touching me in ways I’d never allowed anyone before. My mother’s warnings rang loud in my head and left me cautious when it came to men. Intimacy was dangerous because it led to truths better left hidden.

“Tell me this belongs to me.” He punctuated his demand with a twist of his wrists. The flat pads of his other fingers were pressed against my engorged clit, sending pleasure zinging through my womb.

“It belongs to you, Sir.”

He curled his fingers and ground his knuckles against my clit. “And why does it belong to me?”

“Because I’m yours, Sir.”

I couldn’t say anything else.

Not with him directing my body back and forth on his fingers with his grip in my hair. Not as I fucked his fingers and soaked him with my hot desire. Not knowing, unequivocally, that I belonged to Elliot Wilmington, and he had barely begun.