“You’re my only Master.”
I grab him by the throat and spin us, shoving him against the wall. He claws at my hands, but it’s all for show. He always did love it when I choked him. “You touch me only when I permit it. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he gasps around my hand. “Master.”
“And the only Master you answer to now is Texas. Anything else puts me out of a job and you out to pasture. Are we clear?”
“Yes, Sir.”
I inhale deeply, breathing in that strong masculine scent, flexing my hand around his throat as I watch his eyes spark and flare with desire, and then I do the unthinkable . . . I lean in and kiss him.
My tongue thrusts deep inside his mouth as if I could eat him, punish him from the inside out. My hands grasp his hair, tugging at the strands, causing him pain any way I can. It only fuels the fire. He wants me to hurt him. He never knew when to cry uncle. Not once in all the months I had him did he beg for mercy. He took everything I gave and then he cried for more.
A gasp penetrates our heady power exchange. I glance over at my now open suite door, at the stricken, broken-hearted girl. “Fuck! Pet, go back inside.”
“I knew it,” she shrieks. “You’re in love with him.”
“This is your last warning.” I pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration, staving off a fucking migraine. When did kink become so fucking demanding?
“Fuck you! You lied to me.” Tears spill over her lashes and down her rosy cheeks.
“And you ran from me.”
“What are you talking about?” she says, glancing between Israel and me.
I take a step forward and shove my foot in the door before she can slam it and lock me out of my room. Pet retreats. I turn and glare at my little Achilles. This will break his heart, but it’s for the best. “Go back to your Master, slave. I have no more use for you.”
I throw back the door to the suite and let it slam behind me as I stalk toward Pet. Panic flares in her eyes. Her gaze darts around the room, as if she’s planning to run again. “Why were you kissing him?”
I ignore her question in favor of one of my own, because she already knows the answer. It’s the reason her eyes are red and puffy. It’s why she hates me so much right now. “Why didn’t you keep going?”
She sniffs. “What?”
“Last night when you ran.”
Pet wipes the tears away with the back of her hand. “Why didn’t you stop me?”
“I’ll ask the questions here, little one.”
“I couldn’t leave. I didn’t go because I love you.”
“Fuck, did my earlier beating teach you nothing? You obey your Master, Pet, not fall in love with him. Love has nothing to do with it. Not for us.”
“Is that what happened with Israel? Is that why you sold him? Because he fell in love with you? That’s what you do, isn’t it, Ares? Make us crave your touch, your approval, and then sell us off to the highest bidder when we start to fall?”
I grab her by the throat. She backs up against the bed, but there is nowhere to retreat. I inhale a deep breath, allowing the air to fill my lungs and calm the raging in my blood. “I told you never to call me that.”
Her tears flow freely now. I lean in and collect the saltwater from her skin, tasting her sadness.
“Why did you have to break me? Why couldn’t you just take my body and leave me my heart?”
“I don’t want your heart. I never did,” I whisper softly, as if my words were caresses against her skin.
“You don’t want it, but you have it anyway. You took it the night you led me outside.”
I release her throat and lean in. Closing my eyes, I rest my chin on the top of her head as she wraps herself around me and sobs into my shirt. In the past two months, her tears have done nothing but make my dick hard. I’ve loved it, gotten off on it, but this time, it’s as if she’s opened up my chest with her tiny little hands and is squeezing the life right out of my black, bitter heart. We’re balanced on a razor’s edge, and it reminds me that I’m losing mine. First Achilles, and now Pet. I hate this . . . this feeling.Fuck! I hate that she’s crying in my arms, and for once, I don’t want to be the cause of it.What is happening to me?
I push her down on the bed and climb between her legs, kissing her mouth openly, languishing in the feel of her tongue lashing mine, her submission, and her fight for dominance when she has none. Perhaps that’s no longer true. Perhaps her domination of me is not a physical act that can be seen, but her possession over my heart, because it’s clear—just as it was with my Achilles—that she owns that part of me.