Page 10 of Wanted
Shoulders jerking, she began to cry. Hating herself, she put a dripping spoonful of sundae soup in her mouth. It was sweet and chocolaty, and it tasted every bit as awful as the punishment it was meant to be.
When he was done dusting, he returned to the kitchen to make dinner: potato and ham casserole. Every chop of the knife’s blade skimming the cutting board made her heart hurt and her feelings of ineptitude grow.
“You still have three bites left,” he noted when Chicken Little hit the end of its credits and he ventured out of the savory-smelling kitchen to check on her. Her nose was running, her face was wet with tears, and her head hurt so much she could barely see. She hadn’t touched the tissues he’d given her. He shook his head once, as if he really felt sorry about it before declaring, “I was going to allow you to help me set the table, but your behavior right now doesn’t warrant a reward.”
The sight of his broad back as he walked away from her, heading back into the kitchen snapped her out of her helpless misery. She lobbed her bowl after him, hitting him squarely in the back. The bowl bounced off and shattered when it hit the floor, sending the spoon and porcelain shards scattering, but she barely noticed. Her attention was locked entirely on her own unhappiness and the sudden about-face that Marcus executed, before he came striding back to her.
She thought he was going to grab her by the neck. He didn’t. He caught just under her jaw, with the heat of his palm burning into the skin of her throat. It wasn’t a tight grip. All she had to do was step back and she’d have easily escaped him, but that look on his face was anything but escapable. If only he would squeeze, instead of oil on the fire of her unhappiness, the tightening of his authoritative hand would have made her feel better. It would have comforted and calmed her. But no, he had her in his hand, and his grip kept loose enough for her to easily escape.
She didn’t know how close she was to just bursting into tears until it happened.
Get mad, she wanted to scream right into his face. Shake her, yell! He was frowning at her, but why wasn’t he throwing her to the ground and whipping off his belt so she could crawl and writhe and scream desperate apologies between the cracks of his angry lashes. Why wasn’t he hurting her? Master would have.
Very calmly, Marcus growled, “Don’t. Hit. Me, Anna. I will never strike you out of anger and never without your consent; I expect that same courtesy out of you. Don’t ever do that again, and I mean ever. Got it?”
Sick to her stomach, unable to stop the tears now pouring from her so hard that she could barely breathe through the shoulder wracking sobs, she did what Master would never have allowed. She stepped back.
Just as she’d thought it would, Marcus’s hand did not tighten its grip. He let her go. Every so slightly, his stone-gray eyes narrowed, but he let go.
She backed from him on shaking legs. He took a step, but then stopped. His jaw clenched once, but he did not pursue her any further.
Turning, feeling only the mounting sin of disobedience heaping down upon her, she made herself walk away. There was nowhere to go except back down the hallway to the room with the scale. Which one was it again? She stopped, confused.
“First door on the right after the bathroom,” Marcus grimly called, stalking her only as far as the mouth of the hallway.
She went into her room. Dare she close the door? Her hand shook, but she did it. And then backed away until the backs of her knees bumped up against the edge of the double bed and she collapsed on it, unable to stop crying, just waiting. Master would have beaten her unconscious for daring half of what she had done in the last ten minutes alone.
After a moment, she heard Marcus’s footsteps retreating back into the kitchen. It was maybe a minute before the soft chop of the knife and clatter of dishes signaled his calm return to cooking.
Because he wasn’t her Dom. He didn’t care what she did. He didn’t care, period.
She’d lost the only person in the world who had cared. Cared enough to house her, to command her, to fuck her, and to hurt her when the desire for it settled into him.
Master Ethan was gone and nothing could have been more clear to her than the now driving realization that she would never have that back. She would never belong to anyone the way she had to him.
She was lost.
She was alone.
And it would never, ever get any better than this.
Chapter 3
Pony/Anna
She couldn’t take it.
Her stomach cramped so hard it hurt, and then she threw up. It happened every bit as unexpected as the sobbing tears that just wouldn’t stop, giving her no time even to run to the bathroom.
She stared, appalled at the mess on the carpet between her feet. She’d just ruined it because she couldn’t take her punishment.
This was why Master had shot her.
This was why no one wanted her.
Menagerie girls were allowed neither to dress or undress themselves without permission, but she took off her ill-fitting sweatpants and tried to clean up what she’d done. The fabric wasn’t as absorbing as she needed it to be and the regurgitated chocolate was staining.
Yet again, she was failing. Incompetent.
