Chapter
31

Caesar pressed his fingertips into the sore flesh he’d struck earlier, sending tingles down my spine. “We don’t have much time, baby. Let’s do this hard and fast.”

His belt buckle was loud, and I knew any minute she’d look up. She’d see him behind me, with my dress around my waist. There would be no way we could hide what we were doing, and I didn’t want to. I needed this, this excursion, this fucking. I needed to feel alive again after feeling like a zombie for days and sleeping like the dead for weeks. If I were going to be forced to live, I wanted to feel it down to my toes. At least for this moment.

Caesar’s hot cock traced a wet path across the globes of my ass before he slid the tip between my cheeks. I tensed, memories of my ass being ripped and fucked with no lube buffeting the heat for a moment. But his dick kept angling down, and I breathed a sigh of relief. He massaged my pussy lips with short, rubbing strokes before he poked at my clit. The fat, soft head of his cock felt good, so fucking good. He pressed his hand down in the center of my back, and I arched for him, helping him find the right angle.

“Don’t scream,” he warned.

I bit my lip. That was his only warning before he slammed into me, taking my breath away. I’d been wet, but his thickness and the freshly healed skin combined for a razor-edged ride of pleasure and pain. Each withdrawal sucked the life out of me, and each advance brought it back. We were hot, too hot, like a bursting sun. He jerked his hips and slapped my ass with his groin with each thrust. There was no sweetness or finesse to his stroke. This was about pleasure, release, and claiming. He handled my hips with a punishing grip and pounded me harder and harder. A wet, sucking sound punctuated our harsh breathing, and I kept my eyes on the attendant.

Look at me. See me. He is mine.

And, as if she’d heard my silent cry, she turned and glanced our way. Time slowed, the pleasure peaking higher. Her mouth slid open as red dots spread over her cheeks. I smiled, a vicious, triumphant smile, as she dropped all the clothes she’d collected to the floor and forgot about them.

Do I fuck up your world? Show you something you couldn’t have guessed?

This moment, in the store with someone watching us, was the easiest sex I’d ever had. It didn’t blow me to pieces and force me to stitch myself back up. I didn’t have to cry and beg, or hold still so it wouldn’t hurt as bad. No, I flung my hair out of my face and threw my ass back to take it harder. I curled my nails into the fucking chair and held on for dear life. And Pretty Fucking Sweetness out there saw what we did as dirty. As fucking sick degenerates who didn’t belong in her world. I could see the horror and disgust in her eyes.

But I saw the envy, too.

The need to be just as dirty as I was, and yet the knowledge she never could. That she would never have the ill-fortune to be taken the way I was and fucked to the ends of the earth. She’d have to deal with some bullshit lawyer man, who liked it missionary, and maybe doggy-style on special occasions. This was my missionary fuck. And I fell into it. I released the back of the chair with one hand and reached for my clit, fingering the hard little nub to push myself to orgasm.

“You think she can take me like this?” Caesar whispered hotly. “You think I want some untried prima donna? I want a concrete flower. Something so strong it pushes through the pain.”

He bent his knees and thrust upward, the new angle shocking a strangled sound out of my throat as I went up on my toes. It was almost too much to take. His heat surrounded me, and though we were connected only one place skin to skin, that small connection became the center point my entire being fixated on. His thick cock pummeled my insides, hitting walls and a deep spot that throbbed with electric pulses, and I clenched around him every time he stroked it. He slapped my ass, hard, and I gasped.

“You fucking hear me?” Caesar growled. He leaned forward, letting go of one hip, and pushed two fingers into my mouth like a hook. Then he did the same with the other hand. He bridled and anchored me, riding me like a choice stallion. I bucked under him in acknowledgement, my mouth stretched wide, my lips burning.

Now the attendant had her hand at her throat, her chest rising and falling with her ragged breaths. She wanted what I had, but she couldn’t have it. She couldn’t take it. But I could. The knowledge burst through me like the sun, and it emboldened me. I flicked my clit harder as I swerved my hips. Pleasure whipped through me and shattered over me. I couldn’t see the woman anymore. My eyes glazed over as I squeezed my pussy around Caesar’s cock.

I milked him until he jerked and grunted. “Fuck, I’m coming.”

His warm cum jettisoned inside me—filling me, marking me—and I let him. I smiled around his fingers as his essence drizzled down the inside of my leg when he pulled out.

He leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Go give her a taste of what she’ll never have.”

I straightened on shaky feet and reached between my legs. Caesar and I were blended on my fingertips, and I held the precious fluid until I reached her. She shook but didn’t step away, her eyes fixated on me now. I smiled at her, pitying her. What a boring life she led.

I lightly traced her lips with the essence on my fingers and her bright-pink tongue darted out to taste it. She groaned, her eyes sliding closed as she gripped my wrist with delicate fingers. I felt the shift behind me, signaling Caesar’s arrival, but she started when she opened her eyes and fell back, looking at us in shock as she touched her lips.

“Bag up her purchases. We’re done here.”

The reality of what I’d done, what I’d allowed Caesar to do to me, pulsed through me. The insides of my thighs were sticky, and I was famished for the amazing-smelling food in the bag we carried with us into Caesar’s penthouse. It was here, in this place, that I was reminded the whore I’d played just hours before was the exact reason for my predicament. Caesar was relaxed and calm, dropping his vest on the chaise before he came back to me and pulled the food out of my hands. I forced a smile so he wouldn’t see the way I wanted to scream. The floor was clean now. No trace of my blood all over the hardwood panels, or grayed spots where my tears had soaked into the coating.

It was like it had never happened.

But it had. I felt the slices burrowing through my skin, the marks that made their own pattern over my back and thighs. I placed my hands over my stomach. Whore. That’s what Lorcan had carved into my skin on day three of my captivity. It was my place, and I needed to understand exactly what I was worth.

“Have ye been a good whore, then?” he asked.

Instead of answering, I spat in his face. I knew Caesar would come, it was a matter of time. I didn’t understand what took him so long. I screamed and begged for him, but every time that door opened it was nothing but pain. Nothing but hell.

“Fecking cunt!” Lorcan roared. “I’ll show you how a bitch is supposed to act.”

Balling his fist into my hair, my scalp tingled and split with pain. He jerked my head viciously sideways until I bent awkwardly on the floor. “Yelp, bitch.”

He stomped on my exposed side, and I screamed.

“Not what I fecking asked you to do. Jaysus, he likes stupid ones.”

He stomped me again, then another time for good measure, and I mewled. A pitiful, horrible sound, not unlike a wounded animal.

“Good girl. Again.”

This time, it was easier to make the sharp sound. I couldn’t form any words or catch my breath to do more.

“Caesar likes his pet, so you better act like one.”

That night, he fucked me with a dog collar on my neck, and he pulled the leash hard enough to cut off oxygen. I passed out several times, and he revived me each time. By the end of it all, I didn’t want to make a single sound. I was nothing more than an animal, orifices for cocks and tools to enter. Skin and bones to be beaten and ravaged at another’s pleasure. Thinking I was anything more than that would be foolish and would only bring more pain.

Because the most dangerous of monsters know how to torture their victims. If you wish for death, they give you a life to continue wishing for death, and if you beg to live, they kill you anyway. And even more times, they ignore whatever you need and take what they believe they deserve. So I slept at the foot of his bed, curled up like a dog, and ate scraps of dog food when my stomach hurt too much to ignore some sort of food. I was a good pet, a very good one, and my master marked me to make sure everyone else know.

I am a whore, whore, whore, whore, wh—

“Ashlyn!”

I blinked, still trapped in the dark and memories. Caesar hovered in front of me, and my cheek stung. I dropped to my knees, too stuck in the past, afraid I’d become just what Lorcan said I was. I wanted to be hurt, I wanted to be fucked, and what he’d done to me was just a man’s right. Tears pooled in my eyes, and I keened, the pet I was meant to be. I yelped and yelped, pressing my face to the floor. Caesar gripped my arms hard, his fingers digging into the soft flesh around my biceps, and my stomach bottomed out. The acrid smell of urine was pungent as warmth slid down my legs.

“Jesus Christ,” Caesar said.

He unzipped my dress and lifted it over my head, yanking it off me when I went limp on the floor. I lay in my own piss and hoped he would make it short, but I knew I didn’t have a right to hope. Hope led to defiance, and defiance let to misbehaving.

“Come on, Ash.”

I swallowed as he gingerly lifted me into his arms.

“They told me this place would be hard,” he whispered, but I didn’t know what he was talking about. He carried me, dripping piss and all, up the stairs and into his bedroom. Once there, he bypassed the bed I remembered so well and went into his bathroom. He stood me at the back of the shower and turned on the faucets to a comfortable temperature before he placed me under the spray.

“Stay there,” he ordered.

Of course I would. Even if the water were scalding hot or freezing cold, I wouldn’t go against his demands, no matter how much it hurt. He left the shower and paced to the bathtub, stripping his shirt off and dropping it on the floor. His muscles worked and flexed as he leaned over the tub and turned the water on. Steam rose as the tub filled. I wondered what he was doing, but maybe he wanted to wash off my filth. Maybe he needed to be clean so he wouldn’t have to smell me on him. And then, when he was done, he’d fuck me, beat me, and force me to clean up the urine and blood off his floor with my tongue.

I had done it before.

“Come on, baby, it’s ready.”

I was silent as he turned off the shower and slowly took my clothes off and then the rest of his. His calloused hands guided me to the hot bath and helped me get in. Then, he was behind me, sliding into the hot water with me, and I lost it. I screamed and jerked, pulled and scratched. I didn’t want to share kindness with him because it would remind me of what I’d lost. I didn’t want to be forced to feel anything because that only made me afraid. I wanted to just be a pet, just a faceless, worthless pet.

Because then it wouldn’t hurt so bad that I couldn’t be what he wanted.