When I’m returned to my cage that evening by Scar, there’s a note on the bathroom mirror I can’t miss.

---

---

I’m smart enough to know when to push and when to yield—a little. After my defiance this afternoon, I decide there’s no harm in following the instructions.

After a quick shower, I hurry to get ready in the allotted time. I’m not high maintenance, but it takes forever to dry my hair. I don’t have a clue how much time has passed because Scar didn’t bring my purse, so I rush through everything I can. I duck into the closet and find a white dress hanging up that’s similar in style to the black one I wore earlier. As I slide it on, I can’t help but feel like I’m about to become a sacrificial offering.

I’m waiting in the sitting room when Scar arrives, hood in hand again.

At least I made it within the allotted time.

Scar carries me up and down stairs, around twists and turns, and there’s no doubt in my mind I’m being delivered to Mount to face the consequences of my actions this afternoon. Magnolia’s warnings sweep through my mind again, and I tell myself it was worth it.

When Scar finally places me on my feet, I rip the hood off, instantly on guard.

This is a new room for me. Everything about it exudes power with zero subtlety, including the massive desk that Mount sits behind and the monitors in front of him that slide out of sight, disappearing into hidden compartments.

He looks over my shoulder, rather than at me, and gives Scar a nod. There’s a whooshing noise behind me and then silence.

Alone again and completely at his mercy. Or am I?

Mount opens his mouth to speak, but I cut him off before he can start. A good offense is the best defense, right?

“So, now you’re tracking my every movement? Sending your henchman to retrieve me the second I step out of line? I told you, you don’t get to fuck with every aspect of my life, and I meant it.”

The darkness that’s almost always present in his expression deepens. “I can’t decide if you’re stupid or just bold to defy me the way you do.”

“So, what are you going to do? Kill me?” Even as the question comes out of my mouth, I regret offering up the idea.

Mount’s dark eyes narrow but a chilling smile spreads across his face. “No, but I’m going to make sure you think long and fucking hard about ever disobeying me again.”

“You—”

He lifts his chin as if daring me to continue with whatever insult I’m going to hurl at him, and I snap my mouth shut, my teeth closing over my lip to keep it in.

“Come here.”

I swallow, because rounding that desk is the last thing I want to do right now, but something in his expression tells me disobedience would be a very bad idea.

My heels, ones that I assume he chose himself, click on the hardwood as I come around the desk toward him. I only make it halfway before Mount shoves out of his heavy leather chair and stops me by gripping me around the waist and lifting me onto his empty desk.

Did he plan this in advance? The trepidation I felt in the restaurant is nothing compared to what’s charging through my veins now.

“What are you going to do?”

“Don’t make me gag you too.”

Too?

His big hand lands between my breasts, and he presses me down until I’m spread flat across the desk, my knees bending over the side. My heels drop off my feet, one at a time, and hit the floor.

“Mount—” True panic comes through when I say his name.

“Do you trust me, Keira?”

He’s asked me the question before, and the answer hasn’t changed.

“No.”

A wolfish grin replaces his expression. “Probably smart.”

He crouches between my legs, and I expect to feel cool air hit my skin when he flips up my skirt, but instead he latches something soft around my ankle, locking it to the leg of the desk.

“What the hell—”

Before I can react, the other ankle is subjected to the same treatment, but on the opposite side, leaving my legs spread wide and vulnerable. I jerk against the bonds, but they’re just as unyielding as the man before me.

“Don’t.”

My movement halts at his command.

“See, you can follow orders. And for that, I won’t cuff your hands.”

His thumbs start at my ankles, just above the buckles, and slide up the inside of my legs until they reach my thighs. He fans out his fingers as they curl around each of my legs, pushing my skirt up inch by inch until my thong is bared to his view.

“Are you scared, Keira?”

Part of me is fucking petrified, but the other part, the part that’s clearly insane, is responsible for the slickness already gathering between my legs because of the bondage. Something I’d only tried once before, but I push the thought from my mind. I don’t want to remember that crazy Mardi Gras night now because of all the disappointments that came after.

Mount’s palms stop with one thumb poised just over my center, and I realize he’s waiting for an answer.

“Yes.” I force the word from between my lips, and his smile turns victorious.

“You should be. But you’re also a little liar.” He swipes his thumb down the material of my thong that’s becoming more soaked with each moment that passes. “You’re already wet for me. You like this. Being at my mercy. Not sure what I’m going to do to you. I could finger you, eat your sweet cunt, or fuck you. Or I could do all three.”

My thighs attempt to clench together, but the bonds keep my ankles locked down. Mount doesn’t miss the movement of my flexing muscles, though.

“You’re a dirty fucking girl, Keira. But I’ve always known that about you.”

“How?” The demand comes out on a wavering breath.

Instead of an answer, he uses his other hand to snap the lace of the thong, tearing it free.

“I swore to myself I wouldn’t taste this pussy, wouldn’t give you the pleasure until I buried my cock in your mouth, but you’ve got me breaking more than one of my rules tonight.”

A shudder rolls over my body as his nose drags along my inner thigh. He breathes in my scent, then closes his mouth over my center and begins to devour me. He teases my entrance with a finger, my wetness growing with each movement before he pushes it inside, sucking hard on my clit at the same time. He changes his plan of attack to some kind of unholy make Keira come instantly play that produces a shock wave of pleasure. My back lifts off the desk as I reach for his hair, and I’m not certain whether I want to yank him away or hold him between my legs so I can experience the intense sensation over and over.

As soon as my fingers bury in his hair, he yanks his face away, shaking his head.

“You just can’t follow orders.”

He rises to his feet and comes around the desk, then reaches for my hands.

“What—”

“You’ll see.”

He wraps my wrists in cushion-lined leather cuffs connected by an intricate chain. Mount pushes my spine back down to the surface of his desk and guides my bound hands over my head, clipping them to a hook somewhere below.

He surveys my body like it’s a feast spread out on his desk, waiting to be devoured.

The white dress now makes sense. I definitely feel like a sacrificial offering.

“Now I can eat that cunt in peace, and you can’t stop me.”

“If this is the part where you torture me with orgasms, I’m okay with that.”

As soon as the admission is out, part of me wants to snatch it back, but something about it also fills me with power. Like on some level, I’m allowing Mount this privilege. Maybe my mind is well and truly fucked, because the smile that crosses his face, smug yet secretive, only makes me want him to return to his interrupted task faster.

He shakes his head slowly from side to side like he doesn’t know what to make of me, and that reinforces the shreds of power I’m grappling to hold on to.

When he crouches between my legs again, circling my clit with one thick fingertip, I writhe, bucking my hips up to increase the pressure, determined to control the situation as much as I can from my position. I may be bound, but I don’t feel helpless anymore.

Mount sucks my clit between his teeth and bites down just hard enough to send a jolt of desire laced with a hint of pain through my body.

When he releases his teeth, a slight sting remains, but it’s not pain. It’s . . . more complicated than that. If he keeps doing it, I’m going to come in the next sixty seconds.

He tongues my entrance before licking up to my clit and nipping it again, and I moan, my head thrashing from side to side. Protests fall from my lips as his mouth recedes and he circles my clit with a fingertip again.

“You love that. The bite of pain with your pleasure. The pressure on your clit constantly taking you to the edge. What if I could keep you on that edge all the time? Ready to come at a moment’s notice?”

I swallow, wondering where his diabolical mind is going. “What are you talking about?”

“An experiment.” He reaches around the side of the desk and pulls out a package. I lift my head as much as I can with my arms in their bound position to see what he’s doing. I see a flash of silver.

“What is that?”

“You’ll see. Or feel, rather.”

Cold metal drags across my heated center, and I know exactly what he has—some kind of clamp.

“Let’s see how you like this.” He closes it lightly over my swollen clit, sending my spine arching off the desk again.

As quickly as the pressure came, it dissipates.

I want it back. Magnolia told me there’s no shame if we’re both willing, and as messed up as this is, I want more of what he’s giving me.

“I could make you wear a clamp twenty-four hours a day to remind you not to disobey, but that’s not safe or healthy.”

Those are the last words I expect to hear come out of his mouth, and I have no response. But when he stands and the pressure returns again, I’m edging toward an orgasm. He lets off once more.

“But there is another option, one I think you’d fucking love. And I know I will.”

I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I’m so close to the edge, I’m mindless with need. “Please—”

“You want to come?”

“Yes!”

“Then tell me you’ll pierce that sweet little hood so the jewelry rubs your clit with your every movement, keeping you wet and ready for me.”

His words penetrate the lust-filled haze in my head, dragging me back to reality.

“What?”

“A hood piercing. It’ll heighten your every sensation. Some women even claim it causes spontaneous orgasms.”

My mouth falls open, but not because of shock like he probably assumes.

How does he infiltrate my thoughts?

I’ve thought about getting my hood pierced for years, and almost did before I met Brett. I brought it up once to him, but he dismissed it as a stupid idea.

That didn’t stop me from wanting it, though, and wondering what it would be like. My hips shift from side to side as Mount studies me like he’s reading my every reaction and expression.

“You’ve already had it done before?” This is actually a question, one of the few he’s truly asked me.

I shake my head. “No.”

“But you wanted to do it.”

I bite down on my lip, not wanting to actually admit it.

Mount doesn’t need to hear my confession. He reads it on my face.

“You’re getting it pierced tonight.”

This time, my mouth drops open in shock. “What?”

“I swore I’d keep this pussy to myself, but I want you pierced with the jewelry I choose. An emerald. Every time I spread your legs, I want to see it flash at me the same way your eyes do.”

His tongue circles my clit, teasing and testing before nipping and tugging. My hips press up against his mouth, increasing the pressure, but he backs off again.

“Tell me you want it.”

“I want to come,” I say instead.

“Not until you admit you want that piercing. That you want to feel it between your legs, and that every time you move, you’ll think of me, even without your ass or pussy filled.”

His finger lazily circles my entrance, pushing in and out to the first knuckle, teasing me until I want to scream. I manage to keep my silence for another ninety seconds. I count them in my head, and I can’t hold back any longer.

“Just let me come.”

His finger plunges inside me, fucking me now.

“Not until you tell me you want it. I can see it in your face, but I need to hear it from those fuckable lips.”

At this point, I’m ready to agree to nearly anything this manipulative son of a bitch demands, but the fact that it’s something I’ve secretly wanted for years? What do I have to lose?

“Fine! Yes! I want it. Now, let me come.”

True to his word, Mount devours me again, his lips, teeth, tongue, and fingers getting me off in record time. As soon as the orgasm shimmers through my body like some kind of voodoo magic, he stands and flips my skirt down.

“Don’t ever say I never gave you anything you asked for.”

He pulls his phone from his pocket and taps on the screen. He starts to speak as he walks away from where I’m still bound to the desk.

“I need a piercer. Tonight. Female.” Mount pauses. “Yeah, she’ll do. Make sure she knows what happens if she talks. Get her here in fifteen minutes with her equipment and gold-and-emerald jewelry.” Another pause. “Make it happen.” He ends the call.

The reality of what I’ve agreed to crashes into me. “We’re really doing this? Now? Tonight?”

Mount turns around to face me. “You think I’m going to give you a chance for second thoughts? You want it. I’m willing to bet you’ve wanted it for years.” He tilts his head to the side, as though trying to read my mind. “Are you capable of telling the truth, or are you going to lie to me again?”

His challenge forces my honesty. “I’ve thought about it.”

“Why didn’t you do it? You go after everything else you want.”

I don’t answer, but he makes an assumption that’s probably accurate.

“Ah. Well now, you don’t have that problem anymore. I think it’s hot as fuck, and I can’t wait to see you pierced.”

I tug at my bindings. “Are you . . . are you going to leave me like this when she comes?” I heard him request a female, and was actually thankful for that.

“Will you behave if I let you free?”

“I hate that word,” I tell him. “You make me sound like a child.”

He lowers to a crouch and reaches for the buckle on one of my ankles before rephrasing his question. “Are you going to make me regret not gagging you and keeping you bound? Because the consequences of your actions over the next hour will affect not only you, but someone else’s life.”

I let several hammering heartbeats pass before I nod. “You have nothing to worry about.”

At that reply, he huffs out a laugh and unbuckles that ankle and then the other before moving to free my wrists.

“Why is that funny?”

“Someday, I might tell you.”

When my legs are free, I slide them shut, well aware I’m going to have to spread them again, but this time for a stranger with a needle. I’m finally going to get the naughty piercing I’ve wanted since college but was never brave enough to actually get.

Is that what Mount’s doing? Pushing me outside my comfort zone?

Undoubtedly.

And I like it.

Within fifteen minutes, there’s a knock at the door and Mount calls out, “Enter.”

The bookcase slides open, and Scar escorts in a woman who isn’t a stranger.

“Delilah?”

Her eyes widen beneath her bright blue bangs. “Holy shit. I didn’t see that coming.”

“And you’ll keep your mouth shut about it,” Mount says to her, his tone threatening.

Delilah looks from me to him, her posture stiffening. “I’m only doing this if she’s willing. If this is something you’re trying to force on her, you’ll have to find someone else.”

Mount’s expression hardens to granite like it did this morning, and I wonder if I’m the only person who sees the other side of him. What Magnolia told me this afternoon makes me think that’s the case, and I’m not sure what to do with that knowledge yet.

“Do you want to live until morning?” Mount asks Delilah, and she bites down on her lip.

There’s no way I’m going to let him hurt her. For the first time, I modulate my tone before I speak to him, in consideration of my recent discovery that he isn’t the same man when there’s someone else in the room.

“She’s a friend. It’s okay.” I reach out a hand and catch the arm of his suit jacket to give it the slightest tug.

Mount drops his gaze to where I’m touching him before dragging it up to my face with a new intensity.

“She won’t say anything,” I say quietly.

The weight of his silence nearly crushes us all. Finally, he speaks. “Then we have no issue.”

When I release my hold on his arm, he flexes his fingers before balling them into a fist. He uncurls them a second later and shoves his hands into the pockets of his suit pants.

I look across the room to where Delilah stands. Her posture is tense, as if she’s poised to run for the exit, and I can’t say I blame her. The Mount she’s subjected to is the ruthless bastard everyone else knows.

“I want to do this,” I tell her.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Have you been drinking?” she asks.

“No more questions.” Mount snaps out his response.

Delilah glances up at him, only willing to meet his gaze for the barest moment before looking back to me. “It’s important to know for bleeding issues.”

I answer her. “I’m completely sober.”

She gives me a look that says, You might be sober but something is totally fucked up about this situation.

Delilah’s not wrong about that.

“Okay, then let’s do this,” she says with a nod, and Scar hands her the toolbox I didn’t notice he was holding until just now. As soon as he hands it off, he leaves the room.

Within a few moments, I’m again lying back on Mount’s desk, this time of my own volition. Either that or I’m losing my fucking mind. It could be either at this point, honestly.

Delilah has me sanitized, prepped, and ready a few minutes later, and Mount stands beside the desk, next to me.

When I catch sight of the long, thick needle that’s going to push through a very sensitive part of my anatomy, the jewelry threaded on one end, gold with an emerald crystal as requested, I start to second-guess my decision.

“Just take a few deep breaths in and out for me,” Delilah tells me, like we’re sitting in Voodoo Ink and this isn’t some crazy house call. “It’s not nearly as bad as what you’re imagining. I promise.”

I breathe as she instructed, but I’m still freaking out inside.

“Okay,” Delilah says. “I’m going to tell you to take a deep breath in through your nose and then blow it out through your mouth, and we’ll be done before you know it. Deep breath in,” she orders, and my hand snakes out beside me, clamping around Mount’s fingers as I comply. “Now, blow it out.”

I grip his hand as I do it, and he squeezes back.

The sting is there and gone in an instant.

“And you’re almost done.” Delilah’s tone is congratulatory. “Just let me unscrew this and get the end of the jewelry tightened down, and you’ll be good to go.”

I loosen my hold on Mount’s hand, but he doesn’t let go. I tell myself it’s because my lungs are still heaving at a rate likely to cause hyperventilation.

After a few more efficient movements, Delilah stands and snaps off her latex gloves. Mount drops my hand instantly.

“You’re all set. I can leave after-care instructions for you. But one thing . . .” Her gaze darts to Mount for a second before returning to me. “You’re going to want to be gentle with it for a few days. It’ll be healed within a week, but . . . take it easy for a couple days. You’ll know if you overdo it. And you also know where to find me if you have any issues or questions.”

I flip my skirt down and close my legs. “Thank you. You’re pretty good at that.”

Delilah shrugs. “Somehow, I always get stuck doing the piercings, but this is a pretty easy one. So much less painful than the nipples.”

My gaze shifts to Mount’s, and I hope he’s not getting any ideas. I’m a big fan of my nipples exactly the way they are.

“No, thank you,” I say with emphasis. “I’m not piercing those.”

“Good.” She looks at the panel that conceals the hidden door where she entered. “Now, how the hell do I get out of this place?”