Page 43 of The Puppetmaster

I tilt my hips forward, demanding more, and she responds. Parting her lips, she takes me in, inch for inch, moving slowly while she continues to use her tongue to clean me even while her lips are wrapped around my length. She doesn’t take me in all the way but stops about halfway, where she begins to suck, applying more pressure by wrapping her fingers around my base.

Fuck. If she keeps this up, there’s no stopping me from coming down her throat.

And I don’t want that. Not now, not like this.

“Good,” I say, grabbing a fistful of hair at the back of her head to pull her away from me.

A seductive drop of saliva runs down at the corner of her mouth when she looks up at me with that same worried expression as before.

Alena is constantly afraid of doing something wrong, which is delightful in a way, but it clashes with her otherwise sassy and provocative attitude. I don’t know what to make of this insecurity.

“Get up.”

I distance myself from her then and make sure to shove my cock back inside my suit pants before I’m lured into doing anything else.

Alena gets up on her feet, the strings dangling at the side of her body as she lifts her hands to fix her hair.

“Did I do anything wrong?” she wants to know.

I shake my head. “No. But we’re done here for now.”

I hate the tone of her voice, that fucking guilt. It’s exactly that kind of vulnerability that drew me to her in the first place. When I saw the tears in her eyes, a telltale sign of the horrible memory she held in her hands. All I wanted to do is to make that pain disappear.

She thinks she doesn’t deserve anything because of what happened, and she has worked hard to forget about it. There’s so much this girl can be proud of, yet she keeps focusing on that one mistake she made years ago. A mistake that wasn’t even entirely her fault. It was an unlucky accident, something that may have been triggered by her actions, but it wasn’t the tragedy she believes it to be.

I wish I could tell her. I wish I could tell her the truth behind all of it.

But I can’t. Not yet, that is.

I hold out my right hand. “The strings.”

Her murky blue-green eyes rest on my palm for a moment before she takes a step forward and gives the strings to me in a ceremonial motion. The look on her face is dangerously sad and beaten still, suggesting that she’s still troubled by the idea of having disappointed me.

“Look at me, puppet.”

Her gaze trails up to mine, a glimmer of hope sparking in her eyes.

“You did nothing wrong, but you knew what you were getting yourself into,” I tell her. “If you were expecting cuddle sessions, you came to the wrong man.”

She furrows her brows and a smirk tugs at the corner of her mouth.

“Who said anything about cuddling?” she goads.

I issue her a warning look before I turn around, yanking at her strings so she’ll follow me.

She stumbles behind me, her naked feet padding across the white marble as she tries to keep up with me. I lead her back to the entrance area of the house, passing the open kitchen and the door to my office. As we’re about to cut around the corner into the entrance hall, she hesitates behind me, causing me to stop as I feel the strings pulling me back.

I turn around and find her looking at me with concern.

“Your driver,” she utters. “Isn’t he...”

“We’re alone in this house,” I assure her. “He left right after bringing your luggage upstairs and he won’t be back unless I summon him. Come.”

Tugging at the strings, I beckon her to follow me toward the stairs that lead to the upper floors. But just as we’re about to walk up the first step, she pauses again, this time adding a high-pitched squeal as she holds me back by the strings.

“Seriously, Alena, you’re getting yourself in—”

“Who’s this little guy?!” she beams behind me.

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