Page 89 of Cruel Dominion

“Stop fucking squirming,” he spat, wrenching my leg toward the edge of the bed. Something whispered over my ankle and then pulled tight.

Oh god.

“Carter? Carter, what the hell are you doing?”

He shifted over me and jerked my free leg easily to the other edge, cuffing that ankle, too.

As soon as he was off me, I was up, reaching for my ankles, but my fingers barely managed to grasp the restraints before I was thrust back, my right arm yanked high above my head, and my wrist bound.

I pulled on the restraint. It was a thick band of soft fabric with a metal lock.

What the fuck was this?

I gasped as he snatched my last free appendage and bound it in place, standing back to survey his handiwork with a growing hunger in his eyes.

“You can’t just?—”

“I already did, little siren. Nobody gets to hurt you, not even yourself.”

As if on cue, the cut in my foot throbbed painfully, and I was all too aware of the feeling of the glass trespassing beneath my skin.

I hissed in a breath and looked down, pulling on the restraints, trying to see the damage.

Carter walked from the room, and I shouted after him.

“What, are you just going to leave me like this? Carter! Carter!”

He came back before I broke sound records screaming his name, a first aid kit in his hands as he knelt at the foot of the bed.

“Just relax, would you. I need to clean this before it gets infected.”

I didn’t even want to look at him. Didn’t want him to see the hot tears pooling in my eyes. I stared at the ceiling instead, knowing that until he was good and ready nothing I said was going to convince him to untie these restraints and let me go home.

He set to cleaning the area around the cut and gently prodding my heel to ease the glass out.

I let my head fall to the right, noticing the room for the first time as he plucked the glass out, making me hiss, and started to apply pressure to stop the bleeding.

It had to be Carter’s bedroom. I could see his outfit for tomorrow laid out by some household staff no doubt. His collection of watches on the nightstand. But other than his belongings, this room didn’t say Carter Cole.

There were sheer curtains framing the now-metal-gated windows, though the sound of waves crashing on the beach still managed to drift through. I focused on that sound, on the room, as the throbbing in my heel subsided.

If you’d asked me to imagine Carter’s room, I would have pictured something dark and moody. With walls that were emerald green or navy blue instead of this lime washed sand. This whole space looked like something I might’ve designed for myself, not for someone like him.

“It wasn’t very deep,” he said as he finished winding the gauze around my foot.

I could feel his eyes on me, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of looking at him. A long moment passed between us before finally, he sighed.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have hacked your phone’s audio.”

“You think?”

Another heavy sigh.

“If that’s an apology, then I’m a fucking circus clown.”

“Look at me.”

I didn’t.

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