Page 50 of Sin & Sapphire

Valentin cocked his head at me in that way of his, as if he were analyzing not only my words but delving into my soul to discern my meaning.

“Water what, slut?” he asked as tears ran down my face and I choked.

“Water,maître, fucking please!”

He chuckled and grabbed a bottle, opening it, then tilting it against my lips. “Drink.”

Gratefully, I guzzled the water, sweeter than any dessert, ignoring the drips that ran down my throat and chest, ignoring the way Valentin’s gaze followed the path of the water, and how my nipples hardened as he watched me.

“Good girl,” he murmured, and I hated how much I liked that tiny bit of praise, how it relaxed the tension at the base of my spine, as if I’d been worried about displeasing him.

When I finished the bottle, he pulled it away, frowning briefly before setting it on the bedside table. “Now eat.”

I opened wide and took another big bite of the sandwich in his hands. It was delicious, and I was so goddamned hungry. I should have been embarrassed at my lack of manners, that I didn’t care that crumbs were tumbling down my chest. Instead, I devoured the sandwich like a ravenous animal, then licked my lips with satisfaction.

Reality washed over me in a wave. I awkwardly brushed at the crumbs that had fallen over my chest, flushing with embarrassment now that I wasn’t starving.

Valentin watched me, his eyes amused, as if he were enjoying my humiliation. When I didn’t speak, he cleared his throat.

Oh.

“Thank you,” I whispered, flushing at my confusion, not sure whether I wanted to be grateful or rude.

He waited.

“Thank you,maître.”

How easily I was tamed. How easily I gave in to the urge to please these assholes who took what little freedom I had away from me. Because that’s what I was good at. Serving men, giving them pleasure, being a pretty ornament trotted out when they needed one, then stashed away to rot.

Luca had been full of sweet words that filled up the cracks in my soul. But I’d walked away from that and had nobody to blame but myself if he never looked at me again.

“Now, on your hands and knees,” Valentin said as he unbound me. He frowned at the pink marks on my wrists but didn’t say anything. “En même temps!” Right now.

Fear slid through me, settling in my gut alongside a sparkling anticipation I didn’t understand.

“Why?” Oops. “Why,maître?”

“Did I ask you to speak?” he asked, his voice silky and dark as he stood back from the bed. I couldn’t rip my eyes from the play of muscles over his chest.

“No,maître,” I whispered back. Why was he doing this? Why would he feed and water me and then?—?

I rolled onto my belly then moved to my hands and knees, the position somehow more humiliating than simply sitting on my bed, even though I’d been naked the entire time. A cool breeze blew over my ass, and I shuddered, sensitive and fearful.

Each moment of silence ratcheted up the tension as I waited to see what he’d do next.

The crack against the skin of my ass shouldn’t have surprised me. It wasn’t a hand—the razor thin agony that whipped across me was too controlled, too precise.

“Eyes forward,” Valentin snapped when I looked over my shoulder. Impacts peppered my ass half a dozen more times. “Knees further apart.”

No, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t?—

My pussy screamed as he smacked my core, agony spreading like fire through my center before melting into desperate need.

“Please, no,” I begged. “Maître, please!”

Valentin ignored me. He hit my pussy again, and then a third time, before stopping to run his callused palms over my skin. A finger slid through my humiliating wetness, evidence that my body didn’t hate what he did to me nearly as much as my mind did.

Then he tapped my hip twice. “Time to shower and get dressed.”

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