Insurmountable (Serpentine #1) (5 page)

Hold me.

All I wanted to do was be held. And suddenly there I was, wrapped in a blanket, exhausted from the most intense orgasm I’d ever experienced and curled up in his lap with his warm arms around me.

Even his punishments pulled me deeper under his spell muddling my sense of reality. The extreme culmination of emotions and endorphins burned my eyes with tears. Tears I refused to let fall.

Never let them see you cry
. But Miles already had. He’d already seen me at my lowest and for some strange reason, he seemed to want to pull me back up.

Probably just to send me back to work.

But even with the doubts nagging at me, I couldn’t resist him. He made me too weak. Weaker than I’d ever been. More vulnerable than I’d ever been. How long would the facade last? Days? Weeks? A month?

I couldn’t fathom any time frame longer than that.

How could it be possible?

Miles carried me to bed, placed me under the sheets, and laid down next to me. So foreign. So strange.

I couldn’t fight it. In fact, even though I knew better, I did just the opposite. I pressed my body closer to his, wanting his heat and comfort even though I expected rejection.

Instead, consistent with the conundrum he was, he rolled to his side and put his arm around me.

* * *

I somehow managed to sleep so long that Miles cooked breakfast before I woke up—or maybe he just didn’t want me burning the eggs like I’d burned my first attempt at rolls. Whatever the reason, he didn’t mention it, he just sat a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast in front of me and dared me to apologize or ask permission to eat.

“Master,” I scooped up a fork-full of eggs. “Can you get me a cookbook?”

“Of course,” he said, chuckling.

“And some Miracle Whip.” Why did my mouth always tempt me to test him?

Likely because he always let me get away with it. And so far, I had
enjoyed
his punishments.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Okay. For what, may I ask, are you specifically requesting Miracle Whip?”

“My scrambled eggs.”

He dropped his fork and folded his hands in front of him. “Are they that bad?”

“No,” I whispered, hoping I hadn’t actually gone too far this time. “Me and Mom used to eat them that way. I miss it.”

“Weird,” he shook his head and went back to his own food. “But whatever you like, as long as you stick to the cookbook for
my
food.”

I smiled and shoved another bite of eggs in my mouth.

* * *

After we finished eating, Miles went to the bedroom to get ready for another meeting. It seemed like he was always running off for one thing or another.

“You’ll have access to the laundry room between one and five today,” Miles said, straightening his tie. “I have things to take care of in town all day, and a security problem to straighten out.”

A security problem
? I frowned.

“You don’t have to worry about it. Take the elevator down to the Commons.”

The Commons
. The first time I’d see all the other girls again.

“When you’re ready to come back up, see Drake—he’s the redhead who should be at the desk. Unless he’s jacking around and making an ass of himself too.”

“Yes, Master,” I agreed even though the whole thing sounded quite intimidating. Instead of giving myself time to question it, I cleared the breakfast dishes from the table and filled the sink with hot water.

Miles came up behind me and kissed the top of my head. “I’ll be home around six, but we’ll be expected in the Overlook for dinner.”

Back to work
. I knew it couldn’t last forever. Then, I looked down at my clothes—another of Miles’s shirts, a short sleeved grey t-shirt this time. “Master?”

“Little Dove?” he matched my light tone.

My heart thumped harder. Why’d he have to do that? “I need something to wear.”

“That’s taken care of as well. A delivery will arrive around noon.” He held up a key on a silver necklace. “The door locks from both sides so you’ll need this to get in and out—and to accept the delivery.”

Miles dropped the necklace over my head and pulled out my hair from under it.

“Are you okay?” he asked, brushing his fingers against my jaw.

I tried to find words, but failed and offered him a small nod instead. Freedom. Responsibility. Did he have any idea what that key meant?

* * *

The delivery arrived just after noon, just as Miles had promised. It was like an out of body experience walking to the door, pulling the key from under my T-shirt and unlocking the deadbolt. But the lump grew in my throat as I opened the door to three strange faces. They looked me over for a second and I stepped behind the open door to block some of their view. The first man brought in an arm full of bags and placed them on the couch.

I thought there must be something wrong. Surely it didn’t take three men to deliver a few bags. Then, the other two men carried in a dressing table, while the first left and returned with a padded chair that matched the table. After they carried both pieces of furniture to the bedroom, went back to the hallway, and returned with three more boxes and a dresser to match the table set.

What the hell
?

“The rest is up to you,
slave
.” With a lecherous wink, he handed me a slip of paper and they all left. I locked the door behind them and looked down at the paper.

Have it organized by the time I get home
.

Organized? I looked at the clock. I had forty minutes until one when I’d planned on heading down to the laundry room to start the two loads of laundry I’d sorted out.

Nerves shook my hands as I reached for the first bag. Lingerie filled it to the very top—pinks, purples, blues—every variety and color. Nothing exciting to me, but I picked up all the bags and carried them to the bed so I could dump them out and sort them. Thongs, lacy boy shorts, skimpy skirts, teddies, corsets. Most of the girls downstairs would kill for such a haul, but for possibly the first time since I woke up in Miles apartment, I didn’t feel a thing.

After I finished with the first bag, I dumped out the second—expecting more of the same thing. Lingerie was all we were ever really given. We either walked around in pieced together underwear or naked. The contents of the second bag scattered across the bed.
Pants
. I picked up a pair of long, soft, pajama pants. A light lavender pair, black, pink, red. I rubbed the soft material against my cheeks.

Pants
. God, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slipped on a pair of pants, so I immediately pulled on the lavender pair, and folded the rest, stuffing them in the second drawer of the dresser. Next, I unfolded a stack of tank tops, T-shirts, and a thick robe that matched the black pajama pants. I pulled it on, too, over top of Miles’ T-shirt, and proceeded to put the rest away. The final bag was topped off with socks, stockings, and underwear. I turned to stuff them in the next drawer of the dresser, but it rattled and jammed as I tried to open it. I shook it back and forth a few times until it finally slid open to reveal half a dozen pairs of stilettos. Not my favorite footwear, but I’d gladly wear them if I got comfy pajamas in return.

I scooped out all the shoes and lined them up along the top of the dresser, so I could put away the underwear. In the very bottom of the last bag, I found three pairs of pajama shorts and two pairs of jeans.

Jeans. Where in the hell am I supposed to wear jeans? Miles really has lost his fucking mind.

I put them away, feeling ironically like a real person for the first time in years. After all the clothes were tucked away in my new dresser, I brought in the boxes and sat on the floor to rip the first one open. I sat up ten different bottles of nail polish, tucking them in one of the drawers on the dressing table. Beneath a manicure kit, I also found a large palette of eyeshadow, another with blush and contouring powder, concealer, a dozen sticks of eyeliner, twice as many tubes of lipstick, and a large pack of makeup brushes.

I organized everything away in the dressing table, and ripped open the second box, wondering what on earth could be next—almost like Christmas. A strange and perverted kind of Christmas. The light smell of perfume immediately wafted out and on the top, sat two bottles of perfume, wrapped in plastic, and beneath those, bath salts, oils, bubble bath, lotion, lavender scented shampoo and conditioner. I gathered up everything for the bathroom and ran through the apartment to place them next to the shower and bathtub, then skipped back to open the third box.

The third box was packed with a drawing pad, pencils, a set of paints and brushes and a thick pack of canvases. Miles had kept his word. He’d made me his own and for the first time in eight years, I had someone to treat me like a human.

You’re still a slave
, I reminded myself. And I still had two bags of laundry waiting in the other room, but instead of doing anything, I just curled up on the couch in my robe and soft pajama bottoms, closed my eyes, and pretended that I was somewhere else where I didn’t have a single care or worry.

* * *

At one o’clock I reluctantly pulled off the pajamas and robe knowing that I’d never get past the other girls wearing something like that. Instead, I put on a tank top and a pair of pajama shorts—it was close enough to a normal outfit for one of us. Then I grabbed the two bags of laundry and headed down to the Commons floor.

The Retreat felt so much larger when I had to navigate it on my own. It was as if I could feel the eyes of everyone watching me through the cameras and peepholes. I kept my head down as I passed the redhead sitting at the security desk just off the elevator on the Commons floor. It was his job to make sure none of us girls wondered into parts of the Retreat when we weren’t requested. And supposedly to make sure that no one wondered into our quarters to get a freebie.

The laundry room sat at the back of the Commons room—where all the bunk beds and personal belongings of the girls were kept. Not that most of us had much in that category. When we were shipped to a new location, we were only allowed to keep the clothes on our backs. And then, we were only given what we might earn by sucking off a guard or giving a regular patron a fantastically good night.

“Look who’s finally returned,” Kat said, blocking my path. She’d been transferred in at the same time as me, and that was probably the only reason she remembered me. I’d only spent a few nights with the other girls, and they were so involved with their own cliques and business to notice the newbies.

“I was sent down to do laundry,” I said.

A blonde girl came up on my right. “By your new
master
?”

“How’d you pull that off?” Kat asked.

“I don’t know.” I tried to keep walking, but four more girls helped them circle me.

“Share the secret, Alley. We all want pampered by a master for a while.”

“Does he have room for another?”

“Who do we have to blow?”

The questions and smug comments came all at once like a freak traffic accident.

“Break it up,” a male voice yelled.

I jumped at the sudden sound and looked over my shoulder to see Drake, watching us through the doorway until the crowd around me dissipated. I went straight to the laundry room and poured each bag of laundry into a washing machine. They were all fed the detergent and softener through tubes in the back of the machines, so I closed the lids and switched on the first cycle.

That left me all alone in the laundry room, terrified to go back out into the other room. I’d imagined it would be bad, but I thought I’d be able to find at least someone to chat with.

This was shit.

I sat down on the folding table in the middle of the room and stared at the washers as they filled with water and chugged through each cycle. My mind lost to doubts and worries until the door to the room swung and I jerked around to look back. Three of the girls who’d cornered me when I walked in surrounded me again.

“I’m just doing laundry and minding my own business,” I said.

“Too good for us now, huh?” Kat put her hands on her hips and stared down her nose at me. She was one to talk.

“Of course not.” So, now I had to take it from both sides. Perfect. Not quite the paradise I’d hoped for. And I knew it would only get worse during dinner at the Overlook.

The first washer buzzed so I jumped down from the table, intent to get everything moved over to the dryers and get back to the apartment as quickly as possible, but I only took two steps before something tightened around my neck. I grasped at the tight fabric, choking, as someone dragged me back to the table. One of the other girls grabbed my arm, helping the first pull me up and across the table on my back. Then, three more girls came into the room, restraining my arms and legs while I gasped for air. Kat put her hand over my mouth and held an index finger over her lips, telling me to be quiet.

I just wanted air. Oxygen. A breath.