Page 17 of The Enslaved Duet

I squeezed them shut and whispered, “I will hate you every day for the rest of my life.”

“Love me or hate me if you will. Either way, I will always be on your mind,” he reminded me. “Now, slave, kneel for me.”

I didn’t want to kneel. It felt too enormous a gesture when previously, I’d never given it much thought. But to be on my knees before such a man felt like readying for a beheading, the axe gleaming in his hands, my neck tender with exposure.

I hated that I had no choice, that I had been condemned to such a fate not by my own actions but by those of my feeble father.

He was not pleased by my hesitation.

Fingers bit into my shoulder, and he slowly forced me to the ground.

“Kneel and get comfortable; you will be spending a lot of time on your knees,” he ordered, shifting his hand to the top of my head as soon as my knees crashed painfully to the marble floor.

I panted slightly, a combination of fear, resentment, and dying pride like two fists compressing my lungs.

“This will be our first training session together. I don’t expect much from you, but I do anticipate complete obedience, is that understood?”

I shut my eyes and licked my dry lips, trying to transport myself to another place, one without a cold Brit trying to tell me what to do.

“You will keep your eyes on me at all times,” he demanded. “Customarily, a slave never looks in their Master’s eyes, so you should thank me for the privilege.”

“Thank you for making me feel so special,” I said, saccharine sweet.

“There is a reason for every single move I make in this life. This is yet another example of that. I want my slave to look me in the eye so she can watch as the animal inside me breaks free to ravage her. Without constraint. Without mercy. Because there is no leash powerful enough to contain it.”

I swallowed thickly, unable to keep back the shiver that played my spine like piano keys. “Understood.”

“Understood,Master,” he corrected sharply.

“Yes,Master,” I ground out between my teeth.

“Mmm, you think your bad attitude dissuades me,bella?” He paused after the question, then used his hand on the back of my head to press my temple against the granite length of his cock beneath his slacks. “It achieves quite the contrary, so misbehave all you desire.”

I could feel the heat of him through the fabric, the pulse of him beat against my cheek like a drum roll heralding an invading force.

“Now, this is how you will present yourself to me,” he coached coldly as he used one leather shoe to kick my knees farther apart.

The cold air bit teeth into the lips of my exposed sex and made me realize with shameful clarity that I was wet.

It was too much to hope that Alexander wouldn’t notice.

He ran the toe of his loafer gently over my bare, pouting lips, then harder over my newly pierced clit hood.

“You look good in gold,” he praised mildly, reaching down to twist one of the gold bars in my nipples. “Golden eyes and golden sex for my golden slave.”

“Happily, you had no hand in giving me my eye colour,” I muttered darkly, hating that the smooth toe of his shoe felt deliciously cool against my heating sex, that the pressure made something in my belly unfurl like a bloom.

“Not the colour perhaps, but the demons that lurk there I now possess just as surely as I do this,” he said, stepping into his foot so that it pressed firmly but not painfully over my pubic bone.

I gasped as he fisted both hands in my hair and wrenched my gaze up to his. He pulled so tightly my eyes watered while his burned, smoking like banked coals with carefully supressed desire.

“I own you, little mouse,” he told me. “But you do not seem to understand how possession works, so let us make it your first lesson. I am feeling uncharacteristically benevolent, so I will give you a choice. You may accept me in your mouth, take all of me into your throat despite your struggles, and drink down every drop of your Master’s cum, or I can hold you down and beat your ass black and blue, then leave you here without a drop to eat or drink for two days. If the former, I will have the chef prepare you one of your favourite meals.Pasta alla Genovese, I believe?”

I hesitated as my mouth flooded with moisture at the thought of the rich, meaty pasta after days of bread and tepid water.

He capitalized on my weakness before I could fortify my mind against him. “And, my beauty, if you truly please me, I will even allow you a shower. I know how much you must long for one.”

My spine tumbled over like children’s building blocks as I slumped under the weight of his bribery.