Page 12 of House of Cards (The Devil’s Den #2)

Smith

I open the first aid kit I retrieved from the bathroom, glancing over at Zoey as I disinfect my wound and slap on a band-aid. Her hands worry at the edge of the towel wrapped around her body, like she’s wondering if she’s going to have to fight me off her when I’m done.

She watches, silent and hollow-eyed, as I go over to the hotel phone and key in my code. I feel the weight of her stare as I ask for a replacement breakfast order, some clothes for Zoey, and a few other essentials.

Since she knocked over the milk while she was trying to escape, we both have to drink our coffee black. She barely touches hers. I drain the dark, rich roast in a few gulps.

We’re both silent for a while, staring through the window, watching the city as it wakes.

Judging from Zoey’s thousand-yard stare, it seems the gravity of her situation is finally sinking in. Her eyes are fixed on the city below, but there’s no trace of the feverish desperation that spun out of her yesterday.

She looks empty. Drained.

A bird lands briefly on the balcony’s railing, both of us turning to watch it preen its feathers.

Zoey lets out a quiet, “Oh,” when it flies off. As if its departure was the signal she was waiting for, she sighs and slaps her hands on the armrests of her chair.

“So. How long are you going to keep me here, Smith?” she asks in a dull monotone, the only inflection on my name, like it’s the last bullet in her plastic gun.

When I amble over to her, she huddles deeper into her towel. I’m waiting to see if I’m going to bleed through this bandage before risking another shirt, so she’ll have to contend with staring at my naked chest a while longer.

She turns her head away when I grab her chair’s armrests and lean in, as I take a moment to I inhale her scent.

Fuck knows why I’m stalling.

I’ve had plenty of time to think this through after yesterday’s impulsive decision to subjugate this woman instead of tossing her remains into various dumpsters across the state.

The Den gets another Angel, Zoey repays her debt…it works out for everyone involved.

So why am I still hesitating?

I wouldn’t have given someone else a second thought. Their body, their mind, their defiance, I’d treat them like the assets they were, until they were no longer of value to me.

But Zoey is already getting under my skin in ways I don’t like.

Dangerous ways.

“Until you’ve repaid your debt.” I tuck a wayward section of damp hair behind her ear, but it just falls out again.

“With sex.” She glances away, waving her hands. “Once, twice a day?” When I say nothing, she widens her eyes at me, and hisses out an incredulous, “ More? ”

“Don’t over complicate it, kitten. It’s simple.” I tuck that hair behind her ear. It springs free, just as defiant as she is. “You open when I say open, or I’ll break you so you can’t ever close.”

She looks down, running her hands over the pale velvet armchair. “Yup. Okay. Got it.”

There’s a resignation in her voice, but it feels forced. Like she’s trying to appease me. I grab her chin, tilting her head up, forcing her to look at me.

Were those smudges under her eyes there when she woke up?

“Don’t think for a second that all I want is your pretty little cunt.”

Her breath hitches, lips parting in disbelief. For once, she doesn’t have anything to say. And I savor the moment, because it confirms what I already suspected.

Zoey is breaking, whether she knows it or not. That fire she stoked last night is already smoldering into ash.

“You’ll give me more than your body, kitten.” I take her coffee cup from the table, deliberately brushing her hand as I lift it to my lips.

“You’ll give me your absolute obedience, and you’ll hate yourself for how much you love it.”

I take a long sip from her cup, swish it around in my mouth, and then let the coffee dribble out of lips and back into the cup.

“I’ll train your mouth to salivate every time I tell you to get on your knees. For your pussy to cream itself when I bend you over.”

I bring the cup to her trembling lips, following her when she tries to twist away with a grimace.

“Drink.”

She hesitates, throwing me a frantic look, then reluctantly puts her mouth to the rim of the cup. I tip it, my eyes flickering to her throat to watch it move as she swallows.

“More.”

Her eyes widen, disgust flinching at the corner of her eyes, but she opens her lips a little wider, sips a little deeper. I keep it there until she’s emptied it, then I swipe my thumb over her lips to catch the drop she spilled.

“There’s my good girl.”

Zoey flinches like she wasn’t expecting the praise…and definitely wasn’t expecting to like it.

She’ll learn.

The cup goes back on the coffee table. I have to take Zoey down to The Den to meet Myles, then get her set up in with the rest of the Angels. We don’t have much time—one of my clients had an opening in his schedule this morning, and he’s eager to meet our newest arrival.

A touch too eager for my liking, but rather the devil you know.

Zoey seems to abhor silence as much as I do liars and waste, because whenever’s there’s a lull, she can’t help but fill it up.

“So, does this penthouse of yours come with a ball and chain? No, wait. That’s too old school for you. Let me guess, sub-dermal tracker in my neck?”

I run my thumb along the inside of my towel, absently adjusting my glasses. The muscles on Zoey’s neck cord like she’s physically forcing her head to stay tilted up so she won’t accidentally look at my dick.

“This is a pit stop. You’ll be bunking in the basement with the other girls.”

“I’m sorry, other girls?” She rolls her eyes. “Jesus, now I’m in a sex cult.”

Her blasé tone doesn’t fool me. I’m not sure what’s teeming in her eyes, whether it’s disgust or jealousy or outright anger, but it’s certainly not apathy.

She swipes a hand through the air, and the gauge veers dangerously close to enraged.

“No, actually, that makes perfect sense,” she hisses, slowly standing up out of the chair. “Because God forbid you discover how to jerk yourself off, Mr. Sex Freak. No, you need a harem of broken fuck dolls to use whenever your balls so much as twitch.”

I’m not sure if she’s angry that I tried baiting her with the towel, or because she’s starting to realize she’s not the star of a show, but merely a side act.

“My clients pay for fantasy, not masturbation. And business has never been better.”

Her face falls. “Your clients ?”

“You’ve heard of the Devil’s Den?”

“The nightclub down the road?” Her brow creases. “Wait, you expect me to work at the bar and let me fuck you whenever you want?” She crosses her arms over her chest, leaning back in her chair.

The Dom inside me snarls at the brazen disrespect in her words.

I didn’t realize how much aggression I’d been suppressing until Myles showed me how to use a flogger on one of his Angels. It was meant to be a one-time thing, but after one session the rest, as they say, was history.

All it takes is one step forward, and she hurriedly sits down again, hand clutching the top of her towel.

“You’re not serving tables, Zoey. You’re serving them. ”

“That wasn’t the agreement. You said I—“ She cuts off to swallow, then spits out the words were burning a hole in her stomach. “You said I belong to you , not a bunch of random fucking creeps.”

I shove my hand in her hair, wrenching back her head as I lean over her.

“Do you think if you keep pushing my buttons, one of them will open an escape hatch?”

I tug down the top of her towel, baring her tits. Her large nipple crinkles against my palm as I grab one of them with my free hand, a flush touching the skin beneath her collarbones.

“Hey!”

If it wasn’t for a knock on the door, she’d have been in a world of trouble.

She shakes as she yanks her towel back over her tits, clambering out of the armchair as soon as I’ve backed up enough to give her room.

Another knock, this one a little louder than the last. I watch her as I take a few steps back, and she returns a defiant stare for all of two seconds before dropping her head.

Christ, how can one brief glimpse of submission make my balls ache like this?

I grab my cock through the towel, and she happens to glance up and see me. Her blush becomes crimson and she hurriedly turns her back.

I adjust my glasses as I open the door. The concierge’s eyes don’t even flicker at seeing me in my towel, or Zoey in hers. If he notices the bandage on my chest, or my hard on, he doesn’t react to either as he wheels the food trolley outside and closes the door behind him.

He’s seen much worse.

Said bandage seems to be holding up, so I fetch clean clothes from my closet and unpack a robe from Zoey’s things.

“What would he have done if I told him I’m being held against my will?” Zoey asks, sounding genuinely curious. Her not making a scene tells me she already knows the answer, but I humor her anyway.

“He’d have asked if you were stressed, and sent up a masseuse.”

She cuts off mid-snort when I toss a red silk robe at her. “This is for the massage?” she asks dryly.

The holes the fork left in my chest ache as I stare across the room at her.

“Your job is to obey, not ask questions.”

“Of course. I’m such a silly little sex slut,” she mutters sarcastically.

“That’s what you wear when you’re…seeing a client.” Why do I have to force the words out?

I should be glad that we have some fresh meat to add to our assets, but the thought of Zoey within ten feet of some of our more discerning clients makes me want to pick up a fork of my own and stab them a couple hundred times.

Which makes even less sense, because I love our clients. At least… I love their money.

They’re incredibly generous.

I lay out the suit as Zoey gathers up the robe and makes a beeline for the bathroom.

“Where are you going?”

She stops walking, casting an annoyed glance at me over her shoulder. “To disrobe. And then re-robe.”

“My girls are only shy if the client wants them to be.”