Page 79 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

An arm slips around my chest. Cassius drags me against him and a hard length presses into the small of my back.

I don’t want to look, but I have to. Else how will I spot my chance at escape?

Zachary’s still smiling. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him look anything other than dead serious. “Take off the gag. We don’t want to waterboard her.”

Expert fingers manipulate the buckle at the back of my neck. The belt slips loose before he plucks it away. I spit out my underwear and haul in a sweet breath.

Relief only lasts a second.

Cassius pushes me forward. Water cascades over my head.

Blinded by the water, with Cassius’s arm still securely around my waist, I don’t stand a chance.

I can dimly make out Zachary with his dark smudge of a tattoo. He grabs a bar of soap and lathers it in his hands as he moves closer.

Cassius shoves me forward. My bound hands stick out on instinct, slamming into Zachary’s chest. I puncture him with my nails, but he doesn’t even flinch.

While I’m still spitting water out of my mouth, he shoves his hands under my vest and starts washing me.

I gasp, twisting to get away from his hands. But they’re everywhere—my stomach, my breasts, my armpits, my back.

That’s when Reuben steps up to us. He’s easily an inch taller than Zachary, but he doesn’t push him aside. Instead, he grabs the back of my neck and my arm, holding me still for Zachary.

“Please,” I whisper, forcing myself to look at Zachary.

When we lock eyes, an electrical current surges through me. There’s no sympathy in his eyes. Not even a trace of pity. He’s enjoying this.

Is it my fear or my humiliation that gets him hard?

“You had your chance,” he says. “You could have been out of here this morning already.”

I open my mouth to tell him I’ll leave, but then Cassius turns off the shower. There’s a moment’s crystallized silence, broken only by theplinkof a water drop hitting the wet tiles.

Zachary tilts his head a little, daring me to speak. When I say nothing, he slides a hand over my breast and squeezes.

Hard.

I suppress a gasp, and will my eyes to stay on his.

Begging did nothing. Neither did threatening to rat on them. But maybe showing them I still have a backbone will make them think twice about taking this too far.

Zachary’s eyes narrow.

He doesn’t like that I’m defying him.

Another hand grazes up the back of my vest, tracing my spine. I break out in goosebumps, my nipples going hard again.

Terror dulls into something else.

He was right—the less I struggle, the faster this will go.

My breath hitches when the hand sliding down my back slips behind my underwear. Soaked from the shower, everything clings to me. I grimace when Cassius tugs down my wet underwear to my knees.

Hot breath tickles my ear. “Who’d have thought you’d be such a dirty girl?” Cassius asks. “You should be thanking us, you know? Working so hard to get you clean.”

Reuben releases me. Maybe it’s because I’m standing still now. Maybe it’s because he knows—like I do—that there’s no chance of me escaping again. “We can protect you,” he says, making absolutely zero fucking sense.

“Shut the fuck up,” Cassius snaps. He moves back a little, and his voice changes direction. “Why don’t you go stand there by Apollo?”

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