My cock begs me to give in. It aches. It leaks. It fucking hurts and begs me to relieve the pressure. Her eyes narrow as I clench my jaw and it slams into me like a ten-thousand-pound truck.
She just figured it all out. She knows I’m not going to touch her. She knows I need more than she does. She knows that it pleases me to watch her. She’s realized these moments in the shower are about my own need, my own desperation, and not that I’m trying to control her.
“Finish your shower,” I snap before spinning and leaving the room. My hand is trembling by the time I press my thumb to the biometric keypad on the bedroom door. If she’s gotten too used to the status quo, then I’m just going to have to mix things up.
Chapter 18
Raya
He didn’t exactly have a plan when I stood here and refused to do what he wanted me to do. He could command me, but the look in his eyes and the erection he had from the second I woke up, told me there was a reason he wanted me in the shower. This little game we’ve been playing, the one where he refuses to touch himself, he refuses to give me that part of him, if he has to ask me to do it, was in full force.
I wanted the command, but I also wanted him to break. I wanted him to tell me to touch myself, and then for him to touch himself too. I don’t know when I got over the guilt. I was failing at doing any of this, but refusing to give him what he wanted wasn’t supposed to end with him storming out of the room and telling me to finish my shower.
I’ll finish alright, I think as I reach down and spend less than a minute getting myself off. If there’s any such thing as a weak orgasm, it’s the one I experience right now with him out of the room. I turn off the water, dry myself quickly with a towel and head back into the bedroom. I hope he doesn’t see the flush on my cheeks and if he does, he attributes it to being upset at being woken up at whatever ungodly hour it is.
I have no real concept of time. The only thing I can base it on is whether he brings in eggs and bacon, sandwiches and chips, or something a little heartier, like pasta or sushi in the evenings. I’m not so sure he’s not bringing me breakfast for dinner or lunch for breakfast just to fuck with my head.
I pat my hair, unsure of why I’m even concerned about what it looks like. I stopped looking in the mirror days ago. I didn’t want to be a witness to the transformation I’ve made. It says if I’ve been reduced to basic human needs—eat, sleep, come, with a little television watching thrown in.
I crave the orgasm as much as I crave the coffee he doesn’t let me drink, but I won’t beg for it either. I don’t have it in me to take it that far. From the way he stormed out of here, it seems he doesn’t either. He still hasn’t touched me, and I still haven’t begged for it, despite the itchiness on my skin every time he’s near.
I’m not one accustomed to touch. Of course, there are pats on the hand and a quick hug and a kiss to either cheek. There are more occasions than I can count where a man leans forward and kisses the back of my hand like Jackson did the night I was abducted. That’s not the type of touch I crave from him. I don’t want niceties and things that are expected in society. But I also don’t know if I want soft and gentle or if I want the grip of his fingers, hard enough that it leaves bruises behind. I chalk that up to things I’m inexperienced with.
I didn’t know I was lacking physical touch until I didn’t have it, until he brought me here and deprived me of it. I could sit on the couch and wait for food. That’s been the routine—shower, sit on the couch, and he brings me something to eat. He hasn’t brought in food before the shower since that first time I refused to eat cold scrambled eggs, but eating is the last thing on my mind.
So, I climb back in the bed and pull the blankets up to my ears. Maybe with his anger, he’ll be gone long enough that I can fall back asleep. Instead of the hour it normally takes me when he turns the lights out, because even in the darkness I can feel him watching me, I’m just drifting to sleep when the bedroom door opens. But like a spoiled child, I don’t budge.
I don’t jolt up and look at him like I normally do. I don’t watch him cross the room like I know he expects. I don’t try to anticipate his next move or wonder what’s going to happen. He didn’t give me what I wanted earlier and I refuse to give what he wants now.
“Raya,” he snaps. Chills cover my arm but I still ignore him when he calls out again. I move down. There are only so many buttons I can push with this man before it becomes a danger to myself. I’m not willing, able, or ready to test those boundaries. But a little bit more attitude doesn’t hurt.
I turn over, ready to give him a piece of my mind, but then I freeze when I see what’s in his hand. The collar and the chain were bad, and I was so grateful when it was removed. But I never imagined this. There was no part in my head that could have conjured this scenario.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I say softly, trying to swallow the lump that has instantly formed in my throat. He’s gripping a black dildo in his right hand as if it’s an extension of himself. I open my mouth to argue in defiance, but mostly because of the way my body responds to even the idea of it. I should be terrified. I should be scared. I should run across the room and refuse. I don’t feel any of that staring at the thing. A hint of disappointment settles low in my stomach because I’ve seen the man standing in front of me naked more than I’ve seen him clothed. It’s easy to compare his size and the size of the toy in his hand because they're nearly side by side. It looks shorter, narrower, and I’m left wondering why he didn’t buy a closer replica to his own anatomy.
“Uncover yourself, Raya,” he commands but I can’t obey. Maybe I’m in shock. Maybe I don’t want him to see how I’m truly responding to it. He doesn’t give me another second to argue. He simply rips the cover and the sheet from the bed and leaves them in a pile on the floor. “Spread your legs,” is his next command.
I may actually die from heart failure with how hard the muscle is pounding in my chest right now. I hear the vibration of it in my ears. I feel it in that hollow spot at the base of my throat. I go to shake my head, to refuse his command, but then he steps closer to the bed. Unbidden, my legs fold but he doesn’t pounce on me. His steps stutter. As he reaches the end of the bed, his eyes lock on the apex of my thighs. I have to look away, another wash of shame covering my body. I touch myself in the shower. That’s the status quo. Sometimes, he strokes himself lying beside me in the bed, but he never tells me to touch myself then. The slickness of my desire is hidden in the shower. It washes away as quickly as it forms but there’s no denying it now.
“Please don’t make me do this,” I say, mostly because I feel like I have to. I need to fight this. Just reaching out for the toy and accepting that this is how it has to be is a whole other argument that I’m not willing and not capable of thinking about right now.
“You know the rules,” he says and maybe the reminder was needed.
Maybe I needed the threat that if I don’t do it, he’ll do it for me. Maybe it’s fear that causes a new wave of goosebumps to cover my entire body. Maybe I’m scared and that’s what makes my nipples harden to points.
His eyes graze over my body and it’s as if I’m an open book. If my legs weren’t spread for him, I still wouldn’t be able to deny it. He tosses the toy on the bed and it bounces, the tip of it brushing the back of my knee as if handing it to me would be getting too close. As if the simple brush of my fingers on his would be too much, as if it would be too hard for him to back away from.
“Do it,” he says, the two words low and menacing.
“I’ll need lube,” I tell him but then he looks from my face to between my legs. His gaze locks there for a long moment as heat creeps up into my cheeks. I hate him in this moment. I’ve hated him many times since he took me but this may be the worst.
He knows it’s a lie. He knows that my body is ready for that toy and I despise him for it. I despise the fact that I can’t keep secrets, that my body responds in ways that I don’t want it to. I don’t want to want this. I don’t want any of this.
My hand trembles as I reach down and pick the thing up, my eyes meeting his. Once he’s done looking at me there, there’s a hopefulness, at least that’s what I read in his eyes. His cock’s still pointing at me, still leaking, still flushed red and angry, still wrapped in a web of veins that both scare me and entice me. It’s almost enough to make me lose my composure. Add that to the list of things I hate him for.
“If you’re expecting me to get off,” I say in a matter-of-fact tone. “That’s probably not going to happen since I just made myself come in the shower while you were gone.”
Chapter 19