Page 15 of Vicious

I tremble beneath the weight of the chains. These aren’t delicate or fragile, something I can try to pry apart. No, these are more hardcore, and they’re absolutely terrifying. “Please don’t,” I whisper for what feels to be the hundredth time today.

Chase pulls on the chain and begins walking toward the bed. I’m forced to follow or choke, and I quicken my pace so it doesn’t pull at my neck.

He secures the chain to the wall, and before I can even hope that I might be able to unfasten that, he produces another padlock. With a wicked smile, he looks at me as he clicks it closed, and I’m unable to do anything but stare.

I look around, feeling desperate, despondent, and I realize I’ll be able to reach the bed and the small bathroom. The torture implements are all out of reach, of course, because he doesn’t trust me.

To be fair, he probably shouldn’t, because some of those items look like they could cause a lot of damage, and I’ll have a lot of time in this room to think about just what I could do with them.

He’s not going to break me. I’ll find a way to fight back.

Somehow.

Chase places his hands on my shoulder and looks down at me. “Cheer up, Ah-May. This is the start of something beautiful. And at least you’ll never have to worry about money ever again.”

I huff out a laugh, a bitter, terrible little sound.

He traces my lips with his finger, and even though I want to bite down, I refrain. He can make this a lot less comfortable for me, and I have no doubt that he will if I push him hard enough.

To my utter shock, he leans down and kisses me, fisting my hair in his hand as he does. He groans, keeping me flush against his body.

When he breaks the kiss, his eyes are dilated. “Sweet dreams, Ah-May. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

I try to pretend I’m unaffected, that I’m not breathless, that there isn’t a part of me that wants him to kiss me again.

The chains clink as I turn for the bathroom, ready to cleanse myself of his touch.

CHAPTER 4

Chase

The water washes over me as I focus on keeping my breathing steady and reaching the other side of the pool.

Arm in, arm out. Inhale, exhale.

I’ve lost count of how many laps I’ve done when the timer goes off. I finish my current lap and cling to the side of the pool, breathing heavily. After a few moments of rest, I haul myself out of the water and grab the towel I’d set on the lounger next to the pool.

Having the indoor pool built had been one of my best investments. It’s not Olympic size, but it’s large enough that I can get a decent number of laps in without having to haul my ass to the gym. I barely have time for anything these days, and before I had a pool at my house, I’d kept finding excuses not to go swimming. It’s too late, it’s not worth the trip, the gym pool is closed…

Now I have a private pool all to myself, which I keep heated to the perfect temperature. I can swim whenever I want, even if it’s just for ten minutes when I get home after a late meeting.

There’s a new flower on the wall planter, I notice. The housekeeper had been the one to suggest putting plants and flowers in this sunroom and had seemed happy when I told him to go ahead with whatever he wanted to do. I have to admit that he did a good job.

I wonder how May feels about swimming and flowers. I haven’t had a single real conversation with her, despite so many attempts to draw her into one, so I know woefully little about her.

It’s been almost a year since I first laid eyes on her. A year of lusting, and waiting, of fantasies and pathetic wank sessions where all I could think about was that image of her fascinated with the sight of her own blood. How her tongue had flicked out tentatively before she’d licked the wound clean.

Nobody else has ever come close to consuming my thoughts like she had. I’d tried, at first, to replace her with somebody else. I’d gone to all the usual BDSM clubs and found all the painsluts so I could whip them raw, but their cries weren’t half as sweet as May’s suppressed gasps.

She’s mine now, though. Beautiful, repressed May. I’m going to make her bloom and hear her voice echo throughout my house as she begs for more pleasure, more pain—more of me.

I finish toweling off and go to the nearby bathroom for a quick shower and to change. It’s a Saturday morning, and that means I actually have some free time before I’m meeting with a potential client for the firm. That’s my lunch taken care of, then I have to go to a cocktail party for one of the senior partners only a few hours after that.

I check my phone to see my schedule for tomorrow, and it’s almost worse. No lunch, but I do have breakfast with somebody, which means I’ll be getting up early to drag myself to the restaurant halfway across the city.

Why in the world do people want to do these sorts of meetings on the weekends?

But I do know why. They want the free meal, or they are desperate to avoid spending any time with their families.

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