2 weeks later

She was at her most beautiful when she let go. Of course, she never did that willingly. This pet held onto her pride like it was a fucking saving grace. We both knew the moment was coming when she’d break completely, but neither of us cared to acknowledge it. I let her be a little brat, indulged in her tantrums and her needy personality. But I was being too lenient with her; I knew it was only building up to the punishment of a lifetime. And when it happened, she’d be mine to break and own completely.

“I’m leaving,” I told her that morning.

“Okay, I’ll see you this evening.” She was flipping through a magazine, barely looking up at me as she spoke.

“Pet, look at me,” I told her, and she did so with a dramatic sigh. “I’m leaving for four days. I’ll be back on Sunday.”

“What?”

She was up on her feet in seconds, crowding my personal space like a yappy little puppy. She was obviously upset, and her bottom lip trembled as she glared at me.

“Why are you leaving me?” she asked, and I smoothed her hair down.

“I’m not,” I promised her. “I’m just going on a business trip I’ve been putting off for way too long.”

She looked so upset I wanted to pack her shit up and take her with me, but I knew from experience this distance was going to be good for us.

“Don’t go,” she begged, her hands finding their way around my neck. She looked sinful in one of my dress-shirts and a pair of panties, her hair messy and her lipstick smeared from sucking on my cock. “Please, don’t go, King.”

“Staying is not an option,” I told her, and she sulked in my arms. “It’s only four days, Pet.”

“Yeah, but…” She let the words hang in the air, and we both knew what she was thinking about. “You’re going to fuck someone else, aren’t you?”

I unwrapped her arms from my neck and pinned them above her, pushing her against the wall. She let out a soft sound and I ran my free hand under the shirt she was wearing, making her shiver.

“I’m not,” I told her firmly. “Listen to me, Pet. I’m never going to fuck anyone else while I’m with you.”

“But Angel…” she protested, and I put my hand over her mouth to shut her up. Her eyes were needy.

“When I fucked Angel,” I said. “You weren’t my pet yet. You didn’t live here. And I did it for a fucking reason.”

I knew she hated me for not giving her specifics, but I didn’t have time to deal with that.

“I won’t fuck or sleep with or touch anyone else,” I told her firmly.

“Do you promise and swear and promise again?” she asked sulkily, and I nodded.

“I want you to keep your phone on,” I told her. I’d gotten her a new one a week or so ago. “At all fucking times. Don’t go out if you don’t have to, and answer my calls.”

She clung to me for another second, muttering something I didn’t understand against my chest. My hand circled her back.

“Come on, I need to go.”

She let go of me and retreated to the couch like a good girl.

“I’ll see you on Sunday, little Pet,” I told her, and she just glared at me as I got my stuff and left. The image of her on that couch, with her knees held against her chest, would be burned in my mind until I came back in four days’ time, hornier for her than ever.

What Pet didn’t know was that I’d lied to her.

Not about the sleeping with someone else part. I wouldn’t have been able to do that even if I wanted to. But I wasn’t really going on a business trip either.

My driver took me to a hotel in the city, one where I had a suite reserved at all times. I left my shit in the room and fought the urge to call her an hour after I’d left. Too fucking needy.

Instead, I opened up my computer and found her. Sapphire Rose Faye, the girl she used to be. The girl I’d erased from her mind when I made her into Pet.

I found her social media shit, it wasn’t hard at all. A different girl stared at me from those pictures.

She’d had her Facebook profile up for years, and I scrolled through hundreds of pictures looking for clues.

She looked so much different when she was younger. So… broken. Her eyes were empty, her posture defensive. She looked scared in even the most candid of pictures. Even the ones she took herself. Like she was constantly awaiting punishment. My hands tightened into fists when I remembered her confession.

I made a list of the people she interacted with most on social media, and dug up their information.

Then, I started calling them.

Friends, classmates, family. I called them all.

I pretended to be her long-lost family friend. I dug for information and wrote down everything I found out.

“Is she okay?” from one of her schoolmates. “I haven’t seen her in months. I’ve been worried.”

“She’s fine,” I promised. “I just spoke to her today, she’s just been busy.”

“I’m glad she found something,” the girl said. “She always seemed a little lost to me.”

I found out she cut off contact with everyone six months ago when she decided to take a gap year. All her friends from school were kept in the dark as she disappeared on them. They were more than willing to talk about her, tell me about her, and I drank up the information hungrily.

I even called her old roommate. Not the bitchy one, the one that whored around.

She wasn’t as nice. It quickly became apparent her roommates didn’t give a shit about her.

Very carefully, she had cut off anyone and everyone she meant something to. She’d removed herself from the equation until the only people left around her were those who didn’t give a shit. And I had no fucking idea why. No idea what had happened after she graduated high school and left everyone that cared about her. But I was going to find out.

I wanted to get to the bottom of it badly. But I also realized three hours had gone by, and I couldn’t fucking stand not hearing her voice a moment longer.

I called her on video and she picked up on the second ring.

Her hair was up in a towel, she wasn’t wearing makeup anymore. She was wearing a nightie now, a cute silk and lace slip.

“Lonely?” I asked her, and she rolled her eyes. She moved on the bed and her movement gave me a glimpse of skin. It almost made me shiver.

“Bored,” she replied. “What are you up to?”

Missing you.

Wanting you in my arms, where you fucking belong.

“Boring work shit,” I told her.

She held the phone close so the only thing I could see were her full, plump lips.

“I want you in my pussy,” she told me, and I groaned. “I want you fucking me right now. I guess I’ll have to do it myself since you’re not here.”

The phone went between her legs and I glared at her as she slid a finger inside her wetness, moaning softly.

“Pet,” I growled. “Hands off your fucking self, right now.”

“You can’t stop me,” she giggled, but the sound was interrupted by a long, sensual moan. “I’m gonna do whatever the hell I want.”

I gritted my teeth, contemplating ending the call. But I didn’t.

“You’ll regret that,” I told her.

“I don’t care.”

“You will soon enough.” I angled the phone towards my pants where my dick was straining against the fabric and she mewled. “Miss me?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “So much.”

“You want to act like a little porn star?” I asked her, and she laughed. “Fine, Pet. I’ll give you what you want.”

Her phone only showed a glimpse of her face, and it was twisted in a moan. I wanted to choke her for disobeying.

“What… what will you give me?” she gasped.

“I’m leaving now,” I told her simply. “You’re allowed to come only if you film it for me. I’ll be waiting for the video in my inbox.”

“You can’t fucking-”

I disconnected the call.

And then I sat on that hotel bed like a fucking moron for what felt like ages, with my dick throbbing in my fist and my thoughts full of her. She was messing with my head and I was letting her.

My phone pinged with a message what felt like hours later.

The grab I made for it was so desperate I would’ve felt embarrassed about it if she were there with me.

I opened her message. Something was waiting for me.

It was her pretty face, contorted in pure ecstasy, the moment she came. Her hair hung around her shoulders, wet from the shower. Her eyes were rolled back, her cheeks red, and her mouth slightly parted. I memorized every detail of that fucking picture for later.

It wasn’t a fucking video, though.

But it still made me spill my load all over my fucking fingers. I hadn’t even noticed I’d started stroking myself until my cock was already pulsating with the need to explode.

She was going to pay for that, the little slut.

I ignored the picture, not bothering to tell her what she’d done to me. Better to leave her wondering.

Instead, I pulled up some more information on my laptop and filed through every single fact about Sapphire Rose Faye I could get my hands on.

Birthday, place of birth, astrological sign, parents’ names.

A search for her parents revealed pictures of a boring looking couple. She definitely didn’t inherit her beauty from either of them.

Her father worked in an office, a boring marketing job. Her mother worked in a library. I wondered if she was the one Pet had inherited her love of books from, and it made me smile.

My phone pinged with a message, and I glanced at it. It was her. Another picture. Even though my cock twitched at the thought, I refused to look at it. Served her right for disobeying.

I filed through websites and Facebook posts and tweets and even a blog post on some website Pet had since abandoned but I’d managed to find via an old email of hers.

It was nothing like the girl I knew.

My Pet was beautiful, confident and cheeky.

Sapphire Rose Faye was shy, sweet and broken. Really fucking broken. Her eyes screamed it from every picture and her words trembled with her need to be understood.

What had changed? What happened six months ago when she up and left her life?

My phone pinged again, and this time, I picked it up.

The first picture she’d sent was followed by a picture of her licking her fingers. Those big baby blues fixed on the camera, her manicured talons all the way inside her mouth. Dirty girl.

And the last one was confusing. I could barely make out what was in it.

I peered closer, making out the shape of her legs. She was kneeling on my bed, our bed. One of her hands was on her thigh and the other one held the phone up. She’d spilled something on the bed.

Look what I did for the first time! her caption read.

I stared at the fucking picture and my blood boiled.

She.

Fucking.

Squirted.

Without me.

I resisted the urge to call her and tell her off. I set my phone aside after turning it off so the temptation wouldn’t be so fucking great. I went back to my laptop, back to Pet’s life before she met me, and I buried myself in the sorry facts of her past while my mind fought off images of her fucking her own pussy so hard she’d gushed all over our bed.

Little fucking bitch.

She was going to pay for that.

She was going to regret taking that moment from me.

Once I got home, I’d really fucking break her. And it was about fucking time.

* * *

I kept my phone off for the next three days, resorting to using my business cell, which didn’t have Pet’s number, and which she didn’t know about. I didn’t check the email she had; I didn’t acknowledge her in any fucking way. Apart from the constant turmoil in my head, and apart from the digging I was doing.

At the end of my trip, I wasn’t much closer to unlocking Pet’s secrets. I didn’t understand why she’d upped and left her bright future. I wasn’t a single step closer to finding out who abused her when she was a little girl. But I understood her better. I knew she was troubled. I knew she pushed people away, hoping they’d prove how much they needed her, and I knew they’d always let her down. But I wasn’t going to.

I also used the time away from her to take care of some other shit that needed sorting, and I was pleased with the results.

I packed up my stuff on Sunday and grunted a hello at my driver who picked me up from the hotel. He didn’t comment on the fact I hadn’t left my hotel room in days. Just as well.

On the ride home, which took about an hour, I finally pulled out my phone and turned it on.

I kind of expected silence. I thought maybe she would’ve sulked after not getting a reply from me, gone quiet and ignored me to try and punish me for not calling her back.

But no.

My phone pinged once.

Twice.

Three times.

And then I stopped counting and started looking.

There were pictures, videos, texts. There were voicemails. There were threats, there were random thoughts, there were tears. She gave me everything on a silver platter.

I scrolled through the pictures first.

Sexy.

Sweet.

Some were fucking unbelievably hot. Close-ups of her dripping wet pussy.

Then the voicemails.

A lot of crying, a lot of begging.

Messages filled with empty threats.

And the videos, the fucking videos.

So many of her pussy. So many of her disobeying. So many of her fucking herself. One of her actually squirting onto the sheets, her buckling legs and agonized mewl enough to make me fucking hard.

I was getting worried for her, because after all of that, I was really going to fucking hurt her.

I went through it all when my phone pinged again – another video. I opened it and wished I hadn’t.

She was in a club.

She was drunk.

She stuck her tongue out at the camera and a guy behind her laughed as she winked at me.

“Not gonna be home tonight,” she told the camera with a grin. “Don’t wait up.”

I smashed the phone against the window of the car until it was nothing but garbage.

I ordered my driver to hit up the club I thought I recognized from that fucking video.

I told myself to stay calm and not overreact, and with every excruciatingly slow minute that passed, I knew it would be impossible.

It was time for Pet’s first real punishment.