“Do you really think you can run from me? That I would let you get away?”
I heard it in his voice as it echoed through the halls. The threat…the promise.
“The longer you make me search for you, the harder your punishment will be, little mouse.”
Stumbling around yet another corner, I knew I would never find my way out of this maze of expensive architecture and Italian furnishings. So I opened the first door on my left, ran inside, and closed the door behind me.
It was dark, but I didn’t dare switch on the light. Darkness became my friend the moment I realized it no longer held the power to hurt me but rather the ability to liberate me. There was nothing to fear in the dark. Castello showed me that for people like us, darkness turned into our playground. A place where we could acknowledge our deepest, most sordid desires and embrace the shadows that cling to our souls.
I’d learned to love the dark.
Footsteps came down the hall. It was him.My predator.
With a racing heart and heaving chest, I searched the room for a place to hide. There were two couches with a huge desk on the other side of the room. Long, thick curtains draped the big window behind it, and there was a large cabinet to the left, a few feet away from the wall.
I rushed across the room and hid behind the cabinet. I was still trying to catch my breath when I heard the soft, slow creek of the door.
“Are you in here, little mouse?”
His voice was low, dark, and I could feel how its sound reached for my soul like a demonic whisper, pulling me, willing me to give in. To give up.
“If you’re in here, it would be in your best interest to come out willingly.”
The door clicked closed, and my heart skipped a beat. He didn’t leave. I knew that. I could still feel him, his presence, the way the atmosphere pulsed whenever we were in the same room together. It felt like there was no air, only us, and the suffocating pressure of the knowledge that he owned me completely, undeniably.
“I know you’re in here, little mouse. I can feel you.”
The same way I feel you.
The sound of his slow footsteps filled the darkness. Knowing he was so close made my pulse race, my insides coil tight with the most thrilling kind of anticipation.
“There is no escaping me. I own you, and the sooner you accept that, the better off you’ll be.”
I tried my best to not even breathe. Sweat trickled down my spine, and my heart hammered against my ribs. I was almost certain he would be able to hear it.
More footsteps. “Your body is calling out to me, Tatum. I can hear the hum of your desire, the way it flows through your veins. It wants me, my touch.”
Desire flared, and I closed my eyes as I sucked in a breath.
“Your body needs me. It craves the ecstasy only I can give it. The release.”
Dear God. Every word he spoke made my body ache in ways only his touch could soothe. Just his voice, and the promise of bittersweet pleasures hidden behind it, had the power to lure me out, to throw myself freely at the mercy of my predator. My body was already willing me to give up, to give in, to let him do what he did best—possess me.
“Are you thinking about it?” More soft yet confident footsteps. “Are you thinking about what I’ll do to you once I find you? How I’ll punish you?”
I swallowed hard.
“The pain. The pleasure. The absolute fucked-up-ness of it all. It turns you on. It makes you feel alive…doesn’t it?”
I heard the soft sound of fabric and imagined it being his jacket he just took off. With my eyes closed and my heart racing, I pictured him unbuttoning his white shirt, exposing his smooth, firm, muscular chest one button at a time. Deep inside, something was urging me to walk out, to let him find me, to let Castello do to me as he wished. It was, after all, what I really wanted. To have him bend and break me, to use me for his own pleasure…and mine.
The sharp sound of his belt being ripped from around his waist, leather snapping against leather, made me jolt, a soft gasp escaping my lips.
“Ah, that’s my girl.” By the sound of his voice, I knew he was smiling. “Tell me if I’m wrong, Tatum. Now that you know what it can be like, you know you won’t be satisfied with anything less ever again. You’re addicted to it. To the power of walking on that thin line between pain and pleasure. It thrills you, doesn’t it, playing in the dark?”
Stop!
I couldn’t take it anymore. Every word that came out of his mouth was laden with threats of punishment and promises of pleasure. The need kept on growing stronger. My very essence yearned for him, my soul pleading for him to give relief against the sordid desires that plagued my body.