“Don’t.” He shakes his head. “Don’t do that.”
I lower my gaze to the floor, and then remember I don’t need to do that anymore. I’m no longer submissive. I’m free, and I hate every second of it. Bile burns like acid in my gut. I swallow back the lump in my throat and cast my gaze around the vehicle. Max is a neat freak. There are no discarded wrappers on the floor, no takeout containers. Not even so much as a stray receipt. Is his house as orderly as I think it is? Does he leave dishes piling up in the sink? Does he own dirty magazines, or watch porn on the Internet while he jacks off at his computer? What would it feel like to be smothered beneath him?
“Don’t make a joke of this. Rape isn’t funny.”
“Neither is being free. Funny is the only thing that gets me through.”
“But you’re not getting through, are you?” He glances at me then pins his gaze back on the road. “You need to talk to someone.”
I need to be fucked, beaten, used. I need to be punished for touching myself without my Master’s permission.
“I need . . .” I let the words trail off, because I’m not brave enough to tell Maximus exactly what I crave. “. . . too many things.”
“You don’t have to do this alone.”
“I’m not alone. I have my father, a fiancé I never see, a housekeeper who drives me insane with her fucking hovering, and a bodyguard who wishes I’d get kidnapped so he doesn’t have to deal with me being a pain in his ass.”
“You have me, Camille.” He half smiles. It’s a barely noticeable tip of the corners of his mouth, but it’s there. Is he this stoic when he comes? “I know you don’t know me well, but—”
“I know you.”
He does smile this time, a brilliant flash of white teeth, and then he winces and presses his fingertip to the cut in his lip. “You don’t know the first thing about me. Not really.”
“I know you need to put ice on that before you’re walking around with a golf ball on the side of your face,” I say. “I know you just beat the shit out of a man for being mean to me. I know your face was the only constant I had every day for a week in that hospital. And I know you want to save me.”
His throat bobs and his eyes dart from the road to meet mine again.
I turn my gaze to the blacktop and lean back against the headrest. “What you don’t know is that I don’t want to be saved.”
CHAPTER SIX
Pet
Maximus pulls the carto a stop in front of an unremarkable brown building. It sits on a tree-lined street. It seems too quaint for a place so close to Times Square, though right now it’s full of cop cars, and FBI agents, its access is guarded by a man in uniform. A crowd of reporters with microphones and cameramen stand by the yellow police tape. It’s like being on the set of a movie, only this horror show is my life.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know the press would be here already.”