“Are you on Viagra?” I blurt.
He makes a choking sound that could be a laugh. “Twenty-eight isn’t old.”
“Hmmmm.” There’s almost a decade between us, but I’m too exhausted to mention the age difference.
Still cradling me to his chest, he lays me on the bed and silk sheets before curling up around my back.
As I drift to sleep, I finally let go of my reservations. It was me he went home with, not Dr. Raring. Professor Segul doesn’t think less of me because I’m younger.
I’m not sure how much time passes, or if I’m imagining this, but the mattress beside me dips. My eyes open a crack to find Professor Segul’s naked form disappearing through the leather curtain.
“You haven’t been answering your phone,” says a male voice that completely breaks me out of my slumber.
What is a strange man doing here while we’re in bed?
“Now you know why.” I’ve never heard the professor sound so cold.
The other man chuckles. “Who is it, then? Another of your kinky whores?”
Holding my breath, I sit up on the bed, clutch the silk sheet to my chest, and wait.
For what, I’m not sure.
Perhaps for Professor Segul to defend me or at least tell the man to fuck off and get out of his house, but their footsteps disappear down the hallway.
“I’d prefer not to use such distasteful terminology,” the professor replies.
Professor Segul’s echoed words slam into my gut with a pain that only heightens with the other man’s snicker. His only objection to calling me a whore was that he didn’t like the wording?
Not that I was his girlfriend or friend or fuck buddy or even a person who deserved respect. Not to say that I had a name, which was none of his business. He let the other man’s comment slide.
Because that’s what I am to him—a whore.
My hands curl around the silk sheets, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
What the fuck did I expect? A proposal?
I get on my knees each morning and suck his cock. On the weekends, I volunteer to be tortured and fucked with all manner of objects. What other way is there to describe a woman who has sex and allows herself to be degraded for money?
Dad’s words rattle through my skull. I’m a sinner, a worthless whore, only good for one thing, just like my cunt mother. It’s the reason he made me return home each weekend because he couldn’t trust me not to succumb to my supposed nature.
My breaths quicken, and the pain in my gut festers into a spiral of panic.
Dad’s only been gone three weeks, and I’m exactly what he said I would become without his guidance.
Shit.
I need to get out of here while there’s still something left of my dignity to salvage.
ChapterThirty-Three
MARIUS
“What is it with you and these whores?” the man asks as he follows me up the stairs. “Handsome guy like you would never need to pay for pussy, even with all your perversions.”
I clench my jaw and continue ascending because holding back is the only thing that will keep this bastard from discovering that Phoenix is more to me than a hired submissive.
“What does he want this time?” I reach the top of the stairs and open the door to the ground floor hallway.