Page 28 of Under Fyre

“Up on your knees, Toy.”

Charlotte’s stomach flutters, her face turning blindly to me at the sound of that name. Her lips compress into an unhappy line, but she obeys—if reluctantly.

“Hold onto your ankles.”

She stretches for me, her back bending slightly, and I’m struck with just how carefully Monroe had planned this.

Then again…Charlotte was his third captive. Perhaps, by then, he’d perfected his method.

I brush my fingertips over her sharp hip bones. She needs to eat more—I don’t like seeing her skeleton through her skin like this. I make a note to cook larger, richer meals for her.

Ripping open a pack of safety razors, I choose a color that matches her dusky nipples and drop it in the water bucket.

She jerks at the sound of the splash, and then her body starts trembling.

Maybe I should take off the blindfold. I want to see her eyes, see if this recreation is bringing up any memories.

While I muse over it, I spread some shaving cream on her exposed sex, working it into a rich lather. She makes tiny, frantic sounds—as if she’s trying to keep her breathing steady.

I can’t take the suspense. I have to know if any of this is coming back to her. Peter had his reasons for the blindfold—I’m guessing,hoping,she insulted his dick a few times. He never mentioned it, butsomethingmust have pissed him off enough for him to invent Five Finger Fun and some of the other games he played with her.

Charlotte’s lips tremble when I tug the mask down to her throat, and she blinks those sea-green eyes at me like she’s coming out of a trance. When we lock eyes, she licks her lips.

“Stay still,” I tell her, lifting the razor out of the bucket. “Or I’ll cut you.”

Her eyes fly to the razor, and her cheeks go pink with shame. Her thighs quiver as if she wants to close them, but I’m suspecting she knows what happens if she disobeys me at any point during this exercise.

I start shaving her, moving slowly so I’m not in danger of cutting her smooth, pink flesh. But my mind is in two places.

I know exposure therapy would be successful, but I thought I’d made a mistake by concentrating these simulations into a single week.

Most therapists would take months, possibly even years to work up to a point where their patient began experiencing stress at the recollection of a traumatic memory.

We don’t have that kind of time.

And as much as I like to claim I am, I’m in factnota patient man. Especially when it comes to Charlotte.

She’s an aphrodisiac, and an enigma. She calls to my mind, to my body, like a siren. Self-control is barely a concept when I’m around her…and while I’m doing this?

How different things would have been if her trauma had arisen from a car accident, or a school shooting.

When I part the silky folds of her labia, Charlotte lets out a mortified whine and squeezes her eyes closed.

“Eyes open, Toy. You’ll watch me shaving this dirty little cunt of yours.”

Her cheeks turn even darker, but those green eyes pop open again. There’s something warring in those depths—hatred, confusion, humiliation.

It’s an intoxicating cocktail, and I’m already heady on it.

There’s a hard bulge in the front of my jeans, my cock ready to plunge into her pussy—shaved or not, wet or not.

“Eyes on your cunt.”

Her gaze slides reluctantly down between her legs.

“Open up.” I tap the back of my hand against her inner thigh with one hand, rinsing the razor in the warm water with the other.

She shuffles her knees further apart. I use both hands now—splaying her pussy with my fingers so I can shave every inch.

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