Page 44 of Savage Captor (Deadly Devotion #1)

I pick up the vibrator again, flicking it on.

It’s a powerful one, brand new and shiny, part of the quickly-growing collection of toys I’ve selected for Scarlett.

I’ve done a fair bit of research while she’s recovered and constructed a web of potential rewards and consequences for her behavior.

The excitement that thrums in my veins at the possibility of finally getting started, of getting to play with her like she’s a toy made solely for my pleasure and entertainment, is intoxicating. It’s almost too much.

“Last chance,” I say, though I don’t really mean it. Scarlett hasn’t just kept information to herself, she’s also taunted me and tried to provoke a reaction, which will earn her a very measured reaction from here on out.

“Go to hell,” she hisses.

I pinch and twist one of her nipples, drawing a cry from her, at the same time I press the vibrator right to her swollen clit.

Her reaction is immediate and visceral; she jerks at her bindings, lips parting around a cry, body convulsing under the onslaught of vibrations.

I watch her reaction, watch as the blush feathers downward to stain her entire body, mesmerized.

She is so goddamn beautiful, and her suffering makes her even more ethereal.

Especially because she’s not suffering under the sharp edge of a blade or the blunt edge of a tool constructed for pain, she’s suffering from a primal onslaught of pleasure that she’s unprepared for.

It's stunning. It’s gorgeous. She’s like a goddess right now. A siren I’ve captured and bound for my own amusement.

Maximus warned me about this. That the power can go to my head, the knowledge that Scarlett is mine to do whatever I wish with could make me push things too far.

Luckily for me, pushing her past the edge is the goal of today.

I need a name. I need to know who was protecting her until I found her.

If it’s a boyfriend, he’ll be dead for even deigning to look at her; if it’s a rogue in her father’s operation, I’ll be sure to spare his life while killing everyone else.

Her arms jerk at the same time her toes curl, and she bites down on her lip so hard it’s a wonder she doesn’t spill her own blood.

That won’t do . Next time we find ourselves in this position, I’ll be sure to put a gag in her pretty mouth.

The only person with even the permission to hurt her is me, and I’ll never again exercise that privilege. I’m a man of my word.

“Fuck— please ,” she breathes, head tossing from side to side.

“Please, what?” I taunt. “Please, turn it up? Please make me come?” I chuckle.

“Your wish is my command.” I turn the vibrator up to the second setting, wishing that I could thrust my fingers inside Scarlett to feel how hard she’s going to come for me.

But I don’t; she lost her virginity last night, pretty brutally, so she deserves a bit of a break.

I’ll train her to take a pounding soon enough, but not when I’ve just drawn her first blood.

“Oh god, ” she whines, features screwing up. “Oh… oh fuck—”

“Come,” I command her. “Do it. ”

She shakes her head, baring her teeth at me in a pathetic gesture of defiance.

She might be trying to maintain a brave face, but her body is betraying her.

She’s trembling all over, jerking, pushing her hips toward the vibrator one moment and trying to pull away from it the next. She’s a beautiful, beautiful mess.

I swirl it over her clit, using the same motion that I discovered affects her best just minutes ago.

That’s all it takes to set her off, to make her obey.

Her back bows, her head falls back, and her lips part against a loud, visceral cry that bounces around the room.

She’s stuck in a state of exquisite agony, mind warring with her body.

I watch, transfixed, as she rides out her orgasm, her shaking growing more intense as a puddle of wetness gathers on the chair. There’s my girl .

It doesn’t take long for the vibrations to become too much.

I dial them down to the lowest level, giving her a chance to recover while still holding her on the brink.

Her shaking dies down slightly, but she’s still struggling against her bondage.

I prop the vibrator on the chair, leaving it brushing against her pussy, and kiss her.

Her cheeks, her jaw, her neck… I run my lips across her collar bones and lick a path across her nipples, reveling in every single one of her whimpers and moans.

She might hate me, but she’s not immune to me.

Her body is vulnerable, untried when it comes to pleasures of the flesh, which makes her extremely vulnerable to me—just how I want her.

After I’ve thoroughly indulged myself with dragging my lips across her flesh, I hover my mouth by her ear. “That’s one,” I say. “Let’s see how many more we can pull out of you.”

Her body goes still as her muscles stiffen. I pull back to watch her expression, wishing I could see her eyes. Her lips part as she gasps, and her breathing—which has only just slowed down—speeds back up again, with a mixture of fear and arousal.

“N-no,” she whispers. “I can’ t—not again.”

This girl, who’s been waterboarded by me until she drowned, who wears my stab wound on her thigh like a mark of pride, who can take more pain than anyone I know without breaking, is begging me for a break now . Begging me to stop after a single forced orgasm.

Looks like I’ve indeed found an extremely effective punishment.

“Then tell me what I want to know,” I say softly, picking up the vibrator and giving it a single swirl over her clit.

Her back arches again. She whimpers and whines, vigorously shaking her head. Her resistance invigorates me; her responses are an addicting drug I can easily get hooked on. Fucking her is one thing, but watching her suffer for me like this is something else entirely.

I give her a moment to get acclimated to the feeling, then turn the vibrator up again.

Her response is immediate; she stills as her body processes the shock of sensations, and then her fight redoubles.

She jerks, cries out, moans, lost to abandon and an exquisite sort of agony, desperately pleading with me to stop.

Her second and third orgasms follow in quick succession, and not long after, tears begin streaming down her cheeks. She’s close to breaking, I can tell. Her lips part and shut, both to release moans of abandon, and because I think she’s hovering right on the edge of telling me what I need to know.

“I’ll keep this up all day, Scarlett,” I warn her. “I’ll abuse your pussy so thoroughly, you’ll still be coming once we’re done. Do yourself a favor and tell me what I need to know. Otherwise, I’ll keep having my fun, and you’ll stay right where you are.”

“Please, n-not this,” she cries out, hunching forward. Her movements are unabashed, the struggles of a siren who’s been caught in the hunter’s trap. “I-I can’t .”

“You can,” I say. “You need to make peace with the fact that there is nothing you’ll be able to hide from me. I’ll peel all of your layers back until I get to your core, and then, I’ll embed myself so deep inside your center you’ll never get me out. Tell me who it is, Scarlett.”

Her teeth clench and she shakes her head. I turn the vibrator’s setting up to the highest level. “Tell me, Scarlett, or this won’t end.”

I feel it the moment she comes again, her most violent orgasm yet.

The screech she releases is the loudest noise I ever heard from her, so ear-piercing it actually hurts my eardrums. It’s followed up by a tortured groan, another violent shake of her head, and then finally, her confession slips free.

“My brother.”

The words are a whisper, barely audible, but I hear them with a stark clarity that rewrites everything I thought I knew about this girl.

Her brother . She has a brother?

I turn the vibrator off and stand, walking away from her. My cock softens in my pants as all the blood rushes back to my brain, and I stalk the length of the living room, back and forward, trying to rearrange all the assumptions I made regarding Scarlett, and regarding her father.

Scarlett has a brother. Luther has a son. A few months ago, I didn’t know he had kids at all; now, I’m coming to terms with the fact that he has more than just a child, he has child ren . Two of them at least, maybe more.

Will the secrets and surprises with that twisted bastard never end?

Nothing I’ve dug up on Luther indicates that he has any kids, which means he kept their existence carefully shielded.

I don’t know if Scarlett’s brother is older or younger, but my gut tells me younger.

Another thing I don’t know is if her brother still works with or for her father, but the few tidbits of information Scarlett has let slip about her childhood paints her father in a very abusive, cruel light.

If he was cruel to his daughter, I can’t imagine the levels of cruelty he showed to his male heir.

But that could’ve created a trauma-bond between father and son; the son could still be with Luther, getting groomed for second in command.

Or he could’ve run away like Scarlett and gone rogue. Gathered enough resources to support his sister…

A soft sob draws my attention back to Scarlett, who’s still bound in her chair.

Her shoulders are slumped and her posture reeks of defeat.

It’s no wonder that she held out under creative onslaughts of torture—I’d have died before giving Sam up in her position.

And, if I was somehow forced to, I’d never, ever forgive myself.

It’s no wonder that, despite her evident hatred of me, she’s always empathized with me when I told her about Sam. She’s reiterated more than once that she’s sorry for my loss, that she can despise me and still feel regret for something precious that was taken from me.

I’m glad it wasn’t a boyfriend who was helping her out, otherwise I’d have to get more blood on my hands and deepen Scarlett’s hatred of me. But her brother… that’s a whole new complication that I’m unprepared to face.

I can shelve the new knowledge for dissection later. Right now, I need to get Scarlett out of the chair and hydrated.

I don’t feel any guilt for what I did; I learned valuable intel, but I am very well aware that this isn’t a step forward with Scarlett. It could be quite the step back. She still doesn’t trust me, and giving up her family to someone she doesn’t trust…

I kneel in front of her. “I’m going to take your blindfold off. Keep your eyes closed for a bit so the light doesn’t shock you.”

She doesn’t respond, aside from a slight hitch in her breathing.

I reach around her head and slide it off; instead of keeping her eyes closed like I advised, she forces them open, blinking against the light.

They’re swollen and red, with tears still streaming down her cheeks, but her pain doesn’t seem to deter her anger.

She pins me with a glare so vicious, so filled with betrayal, it raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

I unwrap the cuffs around her right leg, and then her left. I stand walking behind her chair, and undo the restraints on her wrists, massaging them to help her circulation. She’s been stuck in place, struggling against her bindings for the better part of two hours, so she needs—

She whips her hands in front of her, and hisses, “ Don’t fucking touch me! ”

I plant a hand on her shoulder, holding her down as I round her. I squat down in front of her again. “Scarlett—”

She thrusts her knee out in a lightning-quick gesture, aiming for my nose.

I manage to dodge her blow in the nick of time, but that doesn’t deter her.

She shoots out of the chair like a bullet launched from a gun and falls on me like a rabid animal.

Her momentum sends both of us falling back to the couch, me beneath her.

Her nails dig into my arms, aiming for the only exposed skin she can get, and gouge deep, actually drawing blood with her scratches.

Jesus fuck, I was not expecting this primal, feral anger.

“Scarlett—” when she aims a fist to my face, I catch her wrist, then catch the other when she tries to repeat the gesture. I flip her over, pressing her against the cushions of the couch and pinning her arms by her side, straddling her. “Scarlett, calm the fuck down—”

“ Get the fuck off me! ” she screeches.

I wince at the sheer volume of her words, but don’t let that deter me.

“Okay, that’s enough. You need to calm the hell down, right now.

I’m not moving until you stop acting like an animal,” I snap, giving her a shake.

I shift the straddle to her hips, ignoring her pathetic attempts to buck me off, keeping her in place with my weight.

My arms burn from where her tricky nails dug into them, and I’d be impressed with her vigor if I wasn’t so pissed.

She really is feral right now. Her face is red, not from a blush but from sheer rage, and a vein along her forehead is engorged and pulsing.

The tendons on her neck stand out, and she’s actually shaking from her anger.

“An animal,” she grits out. A raspy, cruel laugh rattles her slim frame. “An animal? No. Animals are true to their nature.” A sob shakes her chest, and a tear drips down her cheek. Something tugs at my chest, an undefined emotion. “And I just betrayed mine.”