CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Pet
Ares dries me off andleads me back to my room where he folds down the sheets, removes his boots, and climbs into bed beside me. For a beat, I’m so stunned I wonder what he’s doing. And then I see the weariness in his eyes, in the dark circles there, and for the first time I realize that perhaps the monster is just as vulnerable as the man. Though Ares is a formidable Dom, a force to be reckoned with, deep down I believe he’s as bone-weary and exhausted as I am.
I decide to press my advantage as I curl up beside him and burrow my head into the crook of his arm. I welcome him into my bed, offering a false sense of security, the way he does with me after our little games are played, and I’m beaten and bruised and shaking with the aftershocks of pleasure. “Do you ever regret the things you do to me?”
“Should I?”
Yes. No. I don’t know. I don’t want to fall for those dark eyes, that brooding glare, the way he whispers “Pet” while he’s coming deep inside my ass or throat. I never thought I would be one of those statistics. A stupid girl too busy falling for her captor that she forgets to run, to plot, scheme, and most important of all . . . to escape.
I see this for what it is. I’m smart enough to know that I’m suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Any idiot could see that. I hate him. I hate how he touches me, beats me, marks me, but a part of me craves it too. A part of me loves it, loves pleasing him. “Why won’t you let me go?”
“Pet,” his tone is sharp, warning, and all Dom.
My skin erupts in goosebumps. “At the very least, you could take me outside. Gag me, bind my wrists, blindfold me.”
He chuckles. “Are we still talking about going outside or what you want me to do to you right here in this very room?”
Of course my freedom is a joke to him. All I’ve wanted since I arrived was to see the sky. There was a window in this room once, though it’s covered with pretty wallpaper. I can see the plaster work where it was boarded up. Sometimes I fantasize about smashing a lamp through the plaster to break through to the other side, but the repercussions of such actions terrified me. The idea of returning to the cold cell below the ground sickens me. So I stayed put in my gilded cage. Like a lonely bird, I chirrup for my Master. I sing when he touches me, but like any caged animal, I long to be free.
Ares exhales slowly. “We’ve been over this, Pet.”
“If I promise not to run, if I let you lead me by the collar and cuffs . . .” My pleas are desperate, my voice thick with unshed tears as I clamber over him, straddling his hips. “Will you take me outside, just once?”
He presses a hand against the nape of my neck and lowers me until my breasts are flush with his abdomen, my cheek pressed against his chest. It’s a surprisingly gentle gesture for a man who was torturing me just moments ago. “Go to sleep, Pet.”
I don’t want to sleep. I want to beg him. I want to murder him. I want to stay tucked safely in his arms. I want all that, and I want my freedom.
Right now, I’m not sure which I want more.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Pet
With a ball gag inmy mouth, a blindfold pressed tight to my eyes, cuffs around my wrists, headphones on my ears, and a restrictive collar around my neck, Ares leads me out of my room and through a series of doors. When he pushes me through the last, I’m assaulted by the scent of rain on the asphalt, and a cold breeze on my skin. I can’t hear a thing—the headphones must be noise cancelling—but I can smell and taste the air. I suck in huge deep breaths of it. It tastes like snow, and if the tremors racking my naked body are anything to go off, it’s December already.