Page 85 of Cook

Her eyes were glassed over with desire, but I had to step away to regroup.

Giving her my back, I ordered, “You will ask for what you need from me, am I clear?”

She didn’t answer, so I peeked at her over my shoulder. The hesitation drew up her face and pinched her lips together into a small angry pucker.

“What is it?”

Maddie shook her head briskly.

“Stop.” My eyes returned to the leather thing at her side, and I held out my hand. “Give me the paddle.”

She leaned over and placed it in my hand.

“Now, sit back down and ask for what you want.” I turned away from her again, both to give her the space to fidget if she needed and to settle my aching cock.

“I, uh.” She huffed. “Fine. I don’t want to ask, okay? No one ever asked me before, and that’s what I need erased.” A pause, then in a quieter voice, she added, “Replaced.”

Someone must’ve sucked all the air out of the room because my lungs wouldn’t work. They wouldn’t expand to draw in my next breath, but my heart kicked in my chest. A wash of murderous red covered my vision.

No fucking way she could wantthat!

Maddie

My fingertips dug into mythighs so hard I might have bruises and half-moon fingernail cuts. I waited for Daddy to turn around, to say something. Anything.

How fucking insane was I to want him to take these things from me? To force himself on me or make me feel him?

Only him.

I had a goddamn good excuse, though, who went by the name of Signora Amaranta Gambino. She made me what I was, and all I was asking was for those experiences to be washed away with similar ones. Ones I could control. Ones that were violent happy instead of violent disgusting.

It was a perfectly logical need. Right?

I lowered my chin to my chest and inhaled. I could smell myself, how my needy cunt was leaking, soaking my panties. He had to have smelled that too, but he maintained a distance between our bodies, not allowing me to feel his arousal.

My daddy turned around with the devil’s anger blazing in his eyes, so at odds with his saucy eat out–dine in T-shirt. His nostrils flared, and I wrapped my arms around my middle. Was he coming for me now?

Like the others? The knife fiends. The ones who used fists. The ones who liked fire and burning?

Hooking that paddle under my chin, he raised my gaze. “Tell me your safe word.”

Before, when I had screamed no and cried, no one had stopped. It only made them ram into me harder. Only made me bleed more. Only made me scream more.

“Maddie, your safe word,” Cook insisted through clenched teeth.

“Nizhóní,” I spat.

“Promise me you will use it when things go too far.”

He didn’t say, “if,” and his voice was deadly. His beard, groomed at the sides and tapering from his chin to a point, moved with the tick of his jaw. His narrowed eyes dared me to defy him.

Temptation flooded my veins to do just that—defy him. I wouldn’t use a safe word with him because there wasn’t anything he would do to me that hadn’t already been done. And I wanted everything from him. I wanted him in my throat. Not just his tongue, but his cock. I reached for his pants, but he grabbed my wrists, wrenching them away from his waist. A dejected protest rumbled the back of my throat, but he cut me a look. I swallowed it down.

Daddy gripped my chin, not allowing me to lower it. “You’re mine, Maddie,” he growled. “To do with whatever I like. Do you understand?”

I nodded, needing exactly what he offered.

“But not before you agree.”

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