Wanderlust (21 page)
It seemed unbearably luxurious,
compared to the greasy scraps she was accustomed to. This room too,
with its plain wood furniture and open window. Her new cage, gilded
with cleanliness. She ached to keep it.
The cool water soothed her, revived
her. He replaced the empty glass with a chunk of warm, crusty
bread. She gobbled it up like the ravening animal she was. He tore
off another piece from the plate and handed it to her, continuing
to feed her from his hand until the plate was empty.
Warmth settled in her core and spread
to her limbs, sated by both the sustenance and his kindness. No dog
bowl held fetid water. No mealy scraps picked off the floor.
Charity like this was unheard of, but she thought she understood
the message. If she pleased him, this could be hers.
Whatever he wanted, she would do. She
would have done it anyway, because he was her Master. She paid her
keep with obedience. She might earn reprieve from the pain with
obeisance. But this generosity came freely, and gratitude suffused
her. Maybe he liked her.
“
What’s your name?” he
asked.
Her heart sank. They must not have
told him about her. So much for pleasing him.
Bracing herself, she slowly shook her
head.
He grasped her chin and raised her
head. Prompted by his touch, she raised her gaze to meet his. His
eyes flickered, as if a dam barely leashed something
within.
She flinched.
His fingers tightened, not enough to
bruise. “Tell me.”
Her mouth worked, but nothing came
out. Nothing ever came out.
She couldn’t remember her name, but
that wasn’t the problem. She could have told him that it was
“slave,” or if she could manage without sounding precocious, asked
him what he wanted it to be. She could have explained that she
couldn’t remember anything before her captivity.
The real problem was she couldn’t
talk.
He sighed. “Do you have someone I can
call?”
Oh God, he really was sending her
back. The ultimate failure as a slave—rejection—and she’d managed
to achieve it within an hour.
No.
She would never survive the punishment. And besides, she
liked this Master with his gentle touch and cozy bed. It was
presumptuous to think she had a choice, blasphemous even, but there
it was.
For as long as she could
remember, which albeit wasn’t long, she had wanted to be owned. Not
in the compound amid the huddle of slaves and litany of trainers
but by one Master. Now she stood on a precipice between a generic
slave and one with hope. She wanted
this
Master.
She flipped through the ways she knew
to please and placate, all of them sexual. Her body was torn to
bits, not pretty or sexy right now, if it ever was. She had no
feminine wiles – none. Her body was too skinny, all the trainers
berated her for it. Scrawny, weak.
In a reckless burst of
courage, she reached out and put her hand directly on his cock. At
first it felt like nothing, just the flat stiffness of his jeans.
But then,
there
,
it jumped beneath her palm, lengthened.
This was solid ground. She could
arouse him, then she would get him off. Any way he wanted it, she
had probably done it before, or she could learn. He would see her
value then. It wasn’t exactly obedient to grope your Master without
express orders to do so. The opposite, really, but she was
desperate.
He put his hand on the top
of her head, not pushing her closer or away. It was sweet, his
hesitation, and she thought for a moment that he would let her get
away with it. God, she would do anything.
Please.
He gently pushed her hand
away.
She wanted to live.
How pathetic.
Tears fell in hot tracks down her
cheeks.
“
Someone really did a
number on you, didn’t they?”
Want to read more?
Hear
Me
is available now.
Mia longs for the daily torture to end, but
one last task keeps her holding on. In a betrayal of the crime lord
who pulled her from the gutter, she’ll free the shipment of human
cargo, and if she’s lucky, die in the process. The alternative is
unfathomable, even to a woman well-versed in erotic torture. But
luck abandons her yet again when she meets the security expert in
charge of the shipment and finds herself face to face with her
childhood crush. The man she once begged for help. The man who
failed her.
Tyler Martinez is an undercover FBI agent with
one chance to right the wrongs of his past. Thrust deep into the
seedy world of human trafficking, he must put aside his guilt over
abandoning Mia all those years ago in order to save her
now.
Someone’s pulling the strings in this sadistic
play on trust, but Tyler and Mia may not live long enough to see
the curtain fall. Trust in Me is a story of erotic pain and
incipient romance, spiraling ever faster toward betrayal or
redemption.
Excerpt from Trust in
Me:
“
Come, bitch.”
His words dragged my body across the
floor, invisible chains. I hated him for calling me that way. I
hated myself more for going to him. And I went the way I knew he
wanted me to—crawling. A layer of grime covered the concrete floor
of the warehouse, but it was only fitting to crawl through muck.
This whole game was dirty, and so was I.
Carlos looked down at me from his seat
with a half-smile. The guy next to him was speaking in low, urgent
tones, but I had his attention.
Other whores might try coy
smiles or a flash of cleavage, but if you really knew
El Jefe
—and,
unfortunately, I did—then you knew all you had to do was drop to
his feet. I knew what he wanted and how he liked it, knowledge born
of years of training. As long as I behaved, he wouldn’t kill me. I
craved the release of death, but I was too well trained to earn
it.
I reached his leather shoes and
waited. The same Italian leather shoes that had kicked me only
recently, but they weren’t a danger to me now. Carlos didn’t like
to get too messy when he had guests. Even though I didn’t like
performing, I could be glad this new guy was around today. Then
again, I’d probably have to service him next.
Carlos unzipped his pants.
The guy sucked in a quiet breath, as
if we’d shocked him.
That wouldn’t stop Carlos.
He wasn’t an exhibitionist. He was a sadist, and the only thing
better than causing someone physical pain was causing emotional
discomfort. Every pinch was designed to humiliate, every blow to
subjugate.
You’re not
worthy
, they said, and I lapped up every
blow to my shrunken ego like the masochist I’d learned to
be.
Eagerly, I leaned forward
and sucked the head of his cock with my mouth. Eager because delays
were only an excuse to punish me later, and Carlos was nothing if
not creative, and extreme, in his punishments. The whips, the
knives, the
cage.
I shuddered.
His cock was musky today, but not
urine-tinged—I could be thankful for that, too. Finding things to
be thankful for kept me sane. It could always be worse. It had
been.
I worked my tongue in a swirl and
laved under the tip of his cock. Carlos grunted.
It was almost funny, the
way the guy next to him stuttered a few starts, as if unsure if he
should continue talking to the infamous
El
Jefe
while he was getting his dick sucked.
I hadn’t gotten a good look at the guy, just a brief glimpse of
jeans and a black t-shirt. Mostly I noticed a big, strong male
body. That was enough. Maybe some girls got turned on. I just got
scared. It wasn’t about weakness or strength. This was pure
survival instinct.
“
Go on, Martinez,” Carlos
said gruffly. “Continue.”
Martinez started talking again,
something about deliveries and security. Carlos put his hands over
my ears. Not so I couldn’t hear the conversation. He never worried
about trusting me because he didn’t think I was smart enough to do
anything about it. That was my one victory, however
small.
No, his hands over my ears were a
warning. If I didn’t do it on my own, he’d shove my face down so I
couldn’t breathe. I could deep throat before I came here, but two
years with Carlos had beaten the skill right out of me. He didn’t
train me to do better, he beat me to do worse, until my nerves
manifested in performance that could be punished. He loved to hold
my face down so I couldn’t breathe, until even a shallow blowjob
filled me with panic.
I pushed my head down,
forcing his cock to slide along my tongue and sink deep in my
throat.
Breathe
,
I told myself firmly,
and whatever you do,
don’t gag.
Gagging didn’t make him angry,
it made him horny. The sadistic kind of horny that led to worse
things.
I pulled back. His fingers tightened
in my hair, not letting me go too far. Then I plunged down again.
And again. Over and over I took him deep in my throat, still
breathing, not gagging. So far, so good.
Martinez, though—damn. I glanced up,
trying to see the man, but Carlos’s arm blocked my view. All I
could see was a strong jaw obscured by a few days’ scruff and a
low-pulled cap. It couldn’t be him. Martinez was a common enough
name. He was long gone, but the memories rattled in their
cage.
Hey, little girl. Whatcha
doing out here?
Nothin’.
You should do nothin’
inside then. It’s not safe out here.
The man in my memories hadn’t known it
wasn’t safe inside either. Or maybe he had known, but pretended he
didn’t. He wouldn’t have been the only one to turn away. The
long-buried memories escaped their tight confines, flooding my
mind. They had no place in my life now. Every whore had a sob
story, but no one wanted to think about it—least of all the
whore.
Maybe Carlos could tell I
was distracted because he clamped his hand behind my head and
shoved it all the way down. His cock popped into my throat with a
sickening gurgle. I worked at a swallow, but I couldn’t help it—I
gagged. Panic swept over me, tossing me, drowning me.
Can’t breathe, let me go.
I forced my arms to remain by my
sides, where he wanted them. I’d rather pass out than suffer a
punishment. At least, my mind knew that. My body squirmed and
jerked in tiny pleas for mercy. Finally, thankfully, he pulled back
my head just enough to pop his cock out of my throat. I sucked in
deep breaths through my nose—grateful, so grateful—until he shoved
it back in again. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but somehow it
was, every time. The ache, the burn, the horror that I’d let this
happen to me yet again.
His cock filled my awareness, until
all I smelled or felt or could think of was the thick flesh in my
mouth. When it was in, I was in pain, I couldn’t breathe, I must
not move. When it was out, the sweet rush of air breathed
consciousness back into me.
His movements became jerky. His hand
tightened painfully in my hair. I imagined his face pale and tight
as it was right before he came, but my nose was buried in his
crotch and my eyes were full of tears.
He yanked my head far enough back that
only the tip of his cock was in before he spewed his load into my
mouth. I knew he wanted me to get the full impact of the spray, the
full salty flavor of his come that wouldn’t have happened if he’d
been deep. Even swallowing was degrading, a voluntary
act.
Unlike other men I’d seen, and the few
I’d serviced, Carlos barely ever made a sound when he came. Mostly
he was silent, tense and contained even in his crisis. When he
released me, I staggered back onto the floor. He wouldn’t hurt me,
not so soon after he’d come, so I lay there, sprawled and heaving,
waiting for my eyes to dry and my breath to catch.
When the shadowed office came into
focus, I looked away from the sight of Carlos tucking himself into
his pants and peeked at the other guy. Martinez. Light brown hair,
almost a sandy blond that belied his surname, and a strong jaw. He
looked up at me. Blue eyes seared mine like a blinding summer
sun.
Oh God.
I knew him. It wasn’t a coincidence. He
was
my
Martinez,
though the ownership was only in my delusions. Tyler Martinez, my
childhood neighbor, the golden boy of the
barrio
. I’d had a massive crush on
him. He’d barely noticed me, though in his defense, he was older
than me, which was a big deal when I was twelve and he was
eighteen. Then he’d left for the military, I heard, and I never saw
him again. Until now.
Those blue eyes widened as
he looked at me, mirroring my own shock. His lips formed my
name,
Mia
, but
thank God, no sound emerged. I couldn’t believe he recognized me.
It had been—what?—ten years. I couldn’t believe he even remembered
me.