No matter where I am now, or what I’m doing. Or, who I became in the end.
I’m still Megan Carson, and my voice still belongs to me.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Dante assures me, cutting into my thoughts.
My breath hitches in my chest and I look back to him.
How strange that he would say that. And what should I say?
Thanks?
Is that what he wants from me? A thank you for the assurance that I won’t be hurt tonight?
I know to never talk back, so I won’t start now, practicing on a man like this.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeats and I think he must be doing that to elicit some response from me because he could hurt me if he wanted to.
“Okay,” I breathe and bring my hands together.
“I just want to spend the night with you.” As the words fall from his lips that attraction comes back to me and I try to push it away. It’s crazy. It is. I can’t feel anything like that.
Everything that happens to me here is hell.
Everything.
He leans closer and that smile he gave me earlier arches his lips.
“Take your clothes off for me,” he instructs and that lump gets bigger in my throat.
This is it.
No more waiting or trying to guess what will happen next. It’s happening now.
The way he stares back at me though, makes my mouth water.
He makes my mouth water and I find myself wondering what it will feel like when he does touch me. What will that moment feel like when he takes me and claims me.
Every man does it. I noticed that. It wasn’t something I thought about before this hell. I’d only been with one guy back in college and it didn’t work out. Since I’ve been here I’ve seen it all, had it all. Whether you’re with one guy or two or more, there’s a point where they claim you. The difference when you consent is that you feel pleasure that you allow yourself to relish. It’s different from a normal reaction your body would have to a stimulus.
He’s watching and waiting, watching me the way a predator would with its prey. Captivating and riveting. Fascinated.
I slip one strap of the negligee down my shoulder and then the other.
The feeble cloth floats down my body leaving me in the barely-there lace panties and the little pumps that match the negligee.
I take off those first then my panties.
Naked I stand before him and he looks me over with raw satisfaction.
It feels different from the way the other men have looked at me.
He’s looking at me with appreciation as if I’m not a thing.
Dante walks around me again. This time though he stops behind me and I feel his fingers flutter over my back. I wince when he brushes the tip of his fingers over the mark the whip left at the center of my back. I haven’t seen it. I don’t want to. I can feel it all and I can imagine what it must look like.
My hair covers the bulk of it. He only saw that mark because I’m naked. Oh, but I think he’ll get a shocker when he lifts my hair.
He does.