Page 72 of Sinful

I looked up at him again. “What’s the third reason?”

He crouched to meet me at my level, one hand grasping my chin. “I don’t want to let you go, Rose,” he said in a low, husky voice. “It’s as simple as that. I don’t fucking want to.”

“So… you’re just going to keep me here forever?”

“Yes. I told you. You’re mine.”

My eyes narrowed. “Then why should I tell you anything? Either way, I’ll be stuck here for the rest of my life, however short or long that ends up being.”

“As I said, your cooperation will make things easier for you here. Or do youlikepain, Rose?”

I glowered at him. “No. I just have nothing to tell you.”

“Are you sure about that?” he asked, gripping my chin again. “Because I know for a fact that you know where the cave is. You told me so yourself.”

“I cannot reveal the location to you. If you enter it and pierce the veil, the Darkness will be released into the world. As for your other demand… I cannot tell you what happened to your mother, because the Covenant is innocent. We had nothing to do with her murder. My father will tell you the same when you eventually contact him.”

Sebastian sighed and rose to his feet. “Your hypocrisy never fails to surprise me,” he said. “You claim to be so pious andinnocent, but you lie right to my face, over and over. Hardly saintly behavior, is it?”

I gritted my teeth. “I am not lying.”

“Yeah, you fucking are, and I’m going to get the truth out of you one way or another.”

The sharpness in his voice cut through the air like a knife, and his hand shot down to my arm, gripping it tightly enough to bruise the skin. He dragged me up to my feet and pulled me over to the door.

The oxygen left my lungs as fear slithered down my spine. “Where… where are we going?” I managed to gasp out.

“It’s about time you saw the toy room,” he growled, hot mouth only inches from my ear. “After you spend some quality time in there, you might finally learn how to tell the truth.”

“I am telling the truth!” I screamed, trying to dig my heels into the floor. It was pointless. He was far too strong for me.

“You’re a filthy little liar, Rose,” he replied, eyes lit with savagery. “You need to be punished. Properly this time.”

He opened the glass door and pulled me into the space beyond. I saw a set of concrete stairs leading upward, and to the right of that lay a narrow passage. Sebastian roughly dragged me through that passage, ignoring my pleas and cries of protest, and stopped when we reached a black door.

“Please,” I choked out, terrified of what might lie beyond the door. “Believe me.”

He ignored me and pushed the door open, revealing a small, dim room with slate gray walls. A wooden frame in the form of a Latin cross stood in the center, thick black ropes dangling from either side of the horizontal beam that intersected the vertical one. A rack hung on one of the walls, laden with more ropes, chains, a series of whips and belts, and various other objects I didn’t recognize.

“Don’t hurt me,” I begged, instantly dropping to my knees when Sebastian let go of my arm. I clasped my hands like I was praying to him, eyes wide and beseeching. “Please!”

His nostrils flared, and he turned to close the door behind us with a loud thud. Then he returned to my side and yanked me to my feet by my hair. “Off,” he commanded, gesturing to the silky button-up shirt and pants he’d left for me to wear the day before.

“Sebastian, please…”

“It’s Master to you. You know this,” he hissed, fingers twisting in my hair. My scalp stung, forcing more tears to my eyes. “Take it all off.Now.”

I didn’t have a choice. Not unless I really wanted to suffer.

A wrenching sob escaped my mouth as I slipped the shirt and pants off to reveal my naked body to him. A cruel smirk quirked his lips, and he reached down to pinch one of my nipples, which had suddenly hardened. Then he dragged me kicking and screaming to the wooden cross and tied my arms to the horizontal beam, leaving my back exposed and vulnerable.

It wasn’t cold in the room, but I shivered anyway, goosebumps cropping up all over my skin. I’d felt fear with Sebastian many times before, but never like this. Not even when he showed me that black vibrating toy and informed me it was going up my ass.

He stepped around to the front of the cross, eyes coasting over my bare torso. One of my breasts was pressed against the cold wooden vertical beam of the cross, but the other was visible to him, nipple still stiff and pointed.

I would never admit it out loud, but I knew my nipples were hard because of my attraction to him. Even after all his cruelty toward me, he was still the most handsome man I’d ever seen, and no amount of fear or hatred could make those base, primal cravings disappear.

He smiled as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. Then he stepped over to the rack and ran a hand over some of the whips. “Pick one,” he said, looking at me.

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