1 week later

She was settling in well.

And every day made it worse. The feelings I promised myself I wouldn’t have were getting stronger and stronger until it felt like I’d lose my damn mind if I didn’t make her submit fully.

I didn’t push her those first few days. I let her do her own thing, settle into my home at her own pace. I spent most of the time in my office, and was sparse with my questions when I came back home. She seemed timid and brave at the same time, quickly laying claim to my place.

Pet was messy, really fucking messy. She’d leave clothes everywhere, strewn across the floor along with her shoes. I’d had her stuff delivered the day after she moved in, and the amount of shit she owned was fucking appalling. Clothes and shoes and bags and makeup, perfume and teddy bears and notebooks, books upon books upon books. So many fucking books.

She was always reading, always carrying a book around with her. Stuff I didn’t know, stuff I recognized from bestseller charts, classics. She read everything. I’d caught her reading the back of a shampoo bottle once, intently. The girl was born to be a reader. Her books were everywhere. She didn’t dogear or leave coffee rings on them, she just let them litter every-fucking-thing. It was driving me insane.

I’d told her several times she wasn’t supposed to do it. She needed to clean her shit up because it was driving me mental having to walk through the mazes of crap.

She did it half-assedly here and there. I told her that day she needed to sort her stuff out, and she seemed especially petulant about it.

I knew why that was.

I hadn’t fucked her, hadn’t so much as fucking touched her in a whole week.

And she was desperate for it.

I was pretty sure she was asking for it, and when I opened the door to my apartment that night, my suspicions were confirmed by the ridiculous sight that greeted me.

The brat had cleared everything up, but she’d stacked her huge collection of books in piles and had built a fort around the couch with them. A fucking fort.

The little slut was sitting on the couch, feet kicked up, wearing a scrap of fabric she called panties. She had socks on, cute pink ones with white ruffles. Her hair was down and wild and covering her naked tits. And she was wearing her glasses, the ones she usually pretended didn’t exist.

She giggled when I walked in, and my blood boiled.

“Did I not tell you to clean up?” I asked as I set my briefcase and blazer down.

“I did,” she pouted. “I cleaned up really well.”

She pushed her glasses up her nose and put the book she was reading aside, carefully closing it around the bookmark and placing it on one of the stacks. She lay there with her legs splayed and her pussy dripping, pushing aside the fabric of her panties and teasing me. I didn’t know how she did it, but every time I saw her naked, she was smooth as can be. It was driving me fucking insane.

“You built a fort,” I accused her, and she rolled her eyes. Her tits jiggled when she sprang from the couch.

“I was just having some fun,” she said, walking up to me.

“Not my idea of fun,” I said.

She stopped in front of me, nearly naked and beautiful and so frustrated because she wanted me to touch her.

I reached out and pushed her glasses higher up the bridge of her nose. She grabbed my wrist and held it to her mouth, sucking on my fingers one by one. I watched her do it.

“You need to put those books away,” I told her, and she shook her head no, her mouth latched onto three fingers at once. “I’m serious, Pet, they’re annoying the fuck out of me.”

She popped my fingers out of her mouth with a loud sucking sound.

“Make me?” It was a request, not a dare.

She made me so weak.

I grasped her wrists and pulled her towards me. Her hot little body was excited, her ass bumping against my cock and making me want to choke that disobedience out of her.

But no, we weren’t playing that game tonight. I had something else in mind for my special little Pet.

My fingers traveled down her back, pressing down on her spine. I reached her ass, the thong she was wearing so miniscule it made me angry. I wrapped my forearm around her throat and she gasped when I caged her in.

“Panties off,” I told her.

Her hands shook as she pulled them down. Her ass trembled against my groin and had to remind myself she was new to this, she couldn’t take too much, she couldn’t take it too hard.

“Please,” she said in that raspy voice of hers, and I put my hand over her pussy, shielding her from myself. “Oh God, please, sir.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I groaned, and she did.

Her breath hitched and I could almost feel her holding back. Trying to stop herself from making a single sound.

“Breathe in,” I whispered in her ear.

She wheezed when she did it, her body shaking.

“Good girl, now breathe out. Nice and deep, okay?”

She nodded and breathed for me. It didn’t calm her down. She hyped herself up more until her body was a shaky fucking mess in my hands.

I whipped her around to look at her, my hand still between her legs.

“You know I’m not trying to hurt you?” I asked her roughly, and she nodded over and over again. “You know I’m just trying to teach you some manners?”

“Yeah,” she whispered, and I smacked her cheek with my free hand. She gasped in shock when I did it, holding her cheek and giving me a searing gaze.

“Why?” she wanted to know.

“Is that how you answer me?” I asked her, and she shook her head. No. No, it wasn’t. Damn right it wasn’t. “So tell me fucking properly.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Yes, Master what?”

“Yes, I understand you’re not trying to hurt me.” She swallowed thickly. “Master.”

“Are you going to like this?” I asked her, my hand taking her throat. “Promise me you will, Pet.”

“I will,” she whispered. Her eyes were so trusting it was killing me. “I promise I will love it, Master.”

I bent her over the kitchen table and she gasped when her tits hit the cold surface. She parted her legs on instinct but the rest of her body was frozen. I made her stay down, one hand on her head, one on the small of her back. Like a good little girl, she crossed her arms at the wrists on her back. It made my cock twitch in my pants.

I unzipped and the sound made her go feral, her body bucking and her pretty little mouth begging for me. She moaned when I pressed the tip of my cock against her pussy. She was dripping down her thighs and it didn’t even make her flinch anymore.

“You want this, don’t you?” I asked, and she nodded, looking at me over her shoulder. “Tell me how bad.”

She stared at me with her eyes wide open, but she didn’t say a word.

I dragged the tip of my cock over her pussy lips and she moaned softly.

“Please, I need it,” she whispered.

“You need to give me more than that,” I told her, wetting my dick with her juices and sliding it across her pert ass.

“Please, Master, I’ll do anything, I need it so much.” She licked her juicy little lips as she begged. “You’ve left me waiting for too long, please…”

“So you’ve been playing games with me, Pet?” I asked, and she looked away. “Come on, answer me.”

“You wouldn’t touch me,” she tried to defend herself. “You would barely look at me.”

I let my fingers slide over her lips, my cock pressing against the skin between her pussy and her tight ass.

“I’m looking at you now,” I reminded her. “I’m touching you now…”

“But I need more,” she mewled, and I grinned at her.

I made an impulse decision. I could fuck her pussy for hours, make her come so many times she wouldn’t be able to hold herself up anymore. But I wanted something else.

With a groan, I spat down, and time stood still before she realized what I’d done. When she felt it running down the crack of her ass, she flinched. She knew what was coming.

“Are you going to…” she whispered, and I smoothed my hands over her ass before smacking it, hard. She yelped. “Please, I…”

“Shut up, Pet,” I warned her, and she retreated into a place inside her, her body shaking. She didn’t object and she didn’t move away. I pressed my cock at her entrance and she kept so fucking still I thought she’d passed out.

“Ask for it,” I told her gently, my hands smoothing circles into her ass.

She wouldn’t.

“Fuck, Pet,” I growled. “Don’t make me go hard on your ass.”

I pressed my thumb to her tight hole, rubbed my spit in.

But she didn’t move. She didn’t say a word.

My cock was throbbing, and I stroked it in long, jerking motions as her body waited beneath mine. I could’ve done anything to her in that moment and yet there was something missing. Something was wrong.

She was frozen to the spot. Paralyzed by something I didn’t understand.

“Hold yourself open for me,” I told her, and she let out a single sob, so desperate it made me want to force her to tell me what this was doing to her.

I zipped my cock back in my pants, even though it was throbbing. She didn’t move an inch from that table. She was so fucking still.

I had no idea what had changed for her; what this was doing to her. But I needed to understand.

“Come off the table, Pet,” I told her. “Let’s go sit down.”

Nothing. Not a word. Not the slightest of movements. She wasn’t even there anymore.

I pulled her up by her hair and she didn’t even react to the pain. When I stood her up, she crumpled, and I had to catch her in my arms so she wouldn’t crash to the floor. My heart was pounding. I could only imagine how she felt. Something was so very fucking wrong.

She wouldn’t move, so I made her.

She wouldn’t walk, so I took her in my arms.

She wouldn’t make a sound, so I filled the silence for her, talking about nonsensical things that had never mattered less.

I carried her into the bedroom and arranged the covers around her on the bed. I lay down next to her and she was on me in a second, holding me so close it was like she needed my body to live.

“Tell me,” I said, and she shook her head no. “You have to.”

“I won’t,” she whispered, and I pulled her hair and made her look at me.

“You will,” I told her. “Fucking shit, Pet, tell me right the fuck now.”

Her bottom lip was trembling and she tried to get the words out one by fucking one.

“I…”

I wanted to shake her. I wanted to make her explain so I could get rid of the problem. So I could punish her like she deserved and give her the aftercare she so badly needed. It was eye-opening. She was a girl. A fucking little girl in my bed, with my bruises on her, with my marks all over her skin. I hated myself.

“Say it,” I said, and she shook her head.

I felt rage boiling inside me, not for Pet, but for whatever the fuck she was hiding from me. Because it must be really, really bad.

I pulled her on my lap and she clutched me tightly.

“Pet,” I said, and I hated the gentleness of my own voice. “You need to tell me what that did to you. I need to understand where you went. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

“You don’t need to help me,” she said softly against my chest.

“Fuck that,” I growled, holding her dainty little wrists in my hands, and jerking her up so she was forced to look at me. “Tell me, Pet.”

“It’s all over now,” she said, and my blood boiled some more.

“What’s over? Stop talking in fucking riddles, you’re driving me fucking insane,” I said. “Tell me why you spaced out, or I’ll beat the shit of everyone you know until I find out what happened to you.”

She straddled my lap. She looked so small.

“There was a man,” she said. “I won’t tell you who.”

“Okay,” I got out through gritted teeth.

“When I was younger,” she went on, toying with a stray strand of her hair, twirling and twirling it in loops around her finger. “He found me when I was really young, I didn’t really know what I was doing.”

“Do you know what you’re doing now?” I asked.

“I was rubbing on the carpet,” she said. “I didn’t know… I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to do that. I was too young.”

“Okay,” I said. “And did he tell you that you weren’t supposed to?”

“He…” She swallowed. Her eyes were darting here and there without really looking at anything. “He did.”

“And did you stop?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she nodded. Her eyes were filled with tears that she wouldn’t let out. “I… He made me.”

“How?” My hands were in fists and my stomach was in knots.

“He said he was going to teach me a lesson,” she whispered. “That he was going to punish me. That he was going to teach me some manners.”

My own words echoed back at me and I hated myself like never before.

“He made me pull my butt open,” she went on, her voice calm now, like she wasn’t even talking about herself. “He didn’t spit on me. He went in dry, and he held my mouth so I wouldn’t make a sound.”

I stared at her. Name. I needed a fucking name.

“He said he’d have to keep doing it,” she said. “Or I’d go bad again. That he had to remind me.”

“How many times?” I interrupted her.

She pulled on a lock of pretty blonde hair.

“Seventeen,” she said, reaching for my fingers. She brought my hand back, placing it on her neck. She moved her hair out of the way and pressed my fingertips to her skin. “Right there.”

I felt the ridges in her skin. Tiny, deep little cuts. I didn’t need to count them to know how many there were.

“Did you hurt yourself?” I asked her. It was hard to keep my shit together.

She nodded.

“Only on your neck?”

A shake of her head.

“But only those matter,” she said. “The rest were for my parents and my teachers and my friends. These were just for me. So I wouldn’t forget.”

I took up her body and slammed it down on the mattress. Her chest was heaving and she wouldn’t look at me. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t even there with me, not really.

“How old were you?”

Her eyes zeroed in on mine and my heart beat a single time.

“I was five,” she said. “And six. And seven. He stopped after that. He said I was…”

She choked back a sob and I stared at her, a fucking broken mess of a girl that I wanted to avenge.

“He said after that, I was too bad,” she went on. “And he couldn’t help me anymore. I was too dirty.”

I lay on top of her and she sighed with relief when she felt my weight sink against her. She kissed my collarbone and I screamed against her skin because I was so fucking angry. She licked at my flesh with her little tongue and I cursed into her mouth.

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” I told her.

“I know,” she said. “That’s why I’m not telling you who it was.”

“But I… I fingered your ass.” I remembered the sweet sounds she made, the way she resisted but loved it at the same time. I didn’t know. I didn’t fucking know.

“I know,” she whispered. “I liked it…”

“What happened today?” I asked her. “Please, tell me.”

“You…” Our eyes connected and she whispered her answer against my lips. “You were trying to punish me…”

Like him. She didn’t need to say it.

I got up from the bed and slammed my fist into the wall. My knuckles opened up and blood spilled down my hand. She was next to me in a second. She was still naked, and my blood left gruesome marks all over her lithe body as she guided me to the bathroom.

She patched me up and I sat there like a fucking moron, plotting how I was going to kill this guy, whoever the fuck he was.

I could tell she needed it, needed to feel like she was helping someone after what she’d told me. But when she was done bandaging me up, I grasped her hand and pulled her between my legs.

“I’m so sorry,” I told her. “I’ll never do that again, Sapphire.”

Her face paled and she evaded my eyes.

“Please, look at me.”

“Don’t call me that,” she said, and her hands slid around my neck.

“Why not?”

“It’s not who I am anymore,” she whispered against my throat, licking a line up to my Adam’s apple. “I’m Pet…”