Page 238 of The Enslaved Duet

The antique blue and white Spode tea set rattled on the silver tray as I stood and clutched it in my shaking hands. I was so filled with a violent cocktail of reactions that I couldn’t decipher my own emotional landscape.

The only thing I knew was this.

If I had to live one more day bound in the chains of Noel’s servitude, I would kill myself.

But not before I killedhim.

I smiled prettily into his face as I laid the tea set before him, my breasts exposed to his lecherous gaze in the flimsy white lace and chiffon corset I wore. With the black shackles at my wrists, throat, and ankles, I looked like a virginal whore.

Noel loved it.

His eyes went black with pleasure, pupils blown open to reveal the cold, depthless center of his depravity.

He liked to see me shake and tremble.

He loved to watch me move, every one of my actions puppeteered by his words.

I rolled my hips toward him, presenting the curve of my ass and the dip of my spine for his hand to sluice down. His eyes narrowed as he took advantage of my position, suspicious of my increasingly servile nature.

I fluttered my eyelids at him as if I was nervous but pleased by his attentions.

A smile pin-tucked his lips into his left cheek.

“You know, Ruthie,” he began pleasantly as his hand smoothed up and down my back, dipping between my legs to pat my sex before repeating the movement again and again. It was a proprietary touch, one meant to degrade me from woman to object. It didn’t work because I was pouring the tea into the pretty little cup and watching as he lifted it to his lips and swallowed. When I next smiled, it was genuine. “Women have been marginalized throughout history for a reason. You see, youarethe weaker sex. Men are stronger mentally and physically. The argument that women ‘feel more’ and that makes them strong is rubbish, complete and utter drivel. Emotionality is the failure of the weak, and you, my dear Ruthie, are a prime example of that weakness.”

“Yes, sir,” I allowed with a meek bow of my head.

I watched through my eyelashes as he took another long sip, then another.

My heart rammed against the cage of my chest, threatening to break a rib. Cold sweat broke over my forehead, and I silently willed him to drink more.

“Come sit here,” Noel beckoned, patting his thigh.

I hesitated as he squeezed his hand over his erection, drawing my notice to it.

He wouldn’t force me to sit on his lap, not physically. He wanted to watch me struggle to make the decision myself, to surrender to him when I realized that he had me cornered.

I sat.

But the fire of my rage and my passion was lit deep beneath my placid expression and outward show of subjugation.

I was fire wrapped in ice, and it was only a matter of time before the latter melted away, and I was all heat. All fury.

My fingers itched in my lap as I watched Noel drink more of his poppy seed tea.

He finished the shallow bowl of tea and watched me as I poured more.

“You know he’s dead, don’t you, Ruthie?” he asked casually as he picked up the unused knife at his place setting and began to play the sharp edge up and down my neck. “You know your precious Alexander and Edward died…that they burned to a crisp in the time it would take me to run the tip of this right across your long, golden throat.”

I swallowed hard against the pinch of the blade on my voice box and gave a slight nod to mollify him.

He hummed. “It was such a shame to kill them. Theyearsthat went into their upbringing and education, well, it devastates me to think of all that wasted time. Rodger is only thirteen and already more a man than the two of them together ever were.”

“Your definition of man ismonster,” I bit out. “You killed your own sons. I don’t know how you sleep at night,brutto figlio di puttana bastardo.”

Ugly son of a bitch bastard.

Only Italian will slack the viciousness of the fury pouring over my tongue like molten lead. I wanted to curse at him, scald him with the hot Latin words until he was impaled by my wrath like a pincushion.