Page 24 of Corporate Bondage

Chapter Eleven

(Gio)

Devastated at the turn of the night’s events, I leaned against the apartment door where Keith was and closed my eyes. Pain lanced my heart at the acknowledgment I made tonight that I had to let go of Tate. He would never be mine. I’d seen the way he looked at Bryan tonight, the love brimming in his eyes. He hadn’t even cared what his mother thought of Bryan’s pathetic job as a waiter. Following them up to Tate’s old bedroom and cracking the door open to watch Tate go down on Bryan had shattered my dreams of us together.

It would never happen. Tate was Bryan’s. That realization was a rejection I never wanted to face. Now I knew what Keith had felt earlier when I left him to go to the party. If only I had taken his invitation I might have spared myself this pain. But then I would have still been disillusioned about any possibility of a relationship with Tate.

I had called Keith on a whim. He was exactly what I needed tonight to forget about my preoccupation with Bryan and Tate. I needed a new focus, new goals, and to get on with my life, but just for tonight, I wanted to lick my wounds. Keith would make me forget in his own fucked up way. I didn’t pretend to believe that he had feelings for me. That was dangerous territory I had no desire to tread after the one I had just been on. I wasn’t looking for love tonight, just a little comfort and a distraction.

I could have called Willie, but his slender body beneath mine wasn’t what I needed right now. Oddly enough, Keith’s big muscled body was right up my alley tonight. I didn’t want to be in control neither did I want to work on making me feel better. I wanted somebody else to handle the job.

Keith’s intensity was exactly what the doctor prescribed. He constantly took me by surprise, and he did the most outrageous and demeaning things. Yet, he was the one I craved tonight. He wanted to possess and control. I wanted to be controlled. I wanted a different kind of emotions to overwhelm me and take away from the desolation I felt about losing Tate. Since we became friends, I always considered him mine.

I knocked on the door, three sharp raps, and waited. Footsteps approached the door. A bolt slid back, chains jingled and then the door was tugged open from the inside. I forgot to breathe when my eyes connected with Keith’s. His dark brown eyes smoldered in anger. A dangerous energy washed over him, and for a second, I almost stepped back. Then I remembered, this was exactly why I had sought him out, exactly why I had chosen him tonight.

His gaze dropped and he assessed the suit I had changed into after he had ruined the one I had worn to the restaurant. I wouldn’t have thought it possible for him to grow any angrier until his eyes returned to mine. His nostrils flared, and his brows knitted. I glanced away from the anger, and my breath caught in my throat when I surveyed the room. Oh hell, what had I walked into, and was it too late to pretend I never showed up?

“Get in. Close the door and take off your clothes. Everything.”

I must not have reacted quickly enough because he grabbed me by the lapels of my jacket, pulled me inside the apartment, and slammed the door shut. With a shove, my back slammed into the door, and he gripped my jaw. Everything happened so fast I blinked at him in surprise. The wild thudding of my heart made it hard to breathe, and I gulped for air.

“Fuck you, Gio Arcuri.”

I glared at him. What the hell was his problem? Did he think he was the only one who had been rejected? Besides, he should be glad that I came.

“No, fuck you, Keith,” I threw back at him. “Fuck you for being what I need right now.”

Instead of being offended, he gave me one of those twisted smiles of his. “Undress, completely, then stand right here legs spread, arms behind your back. Don’t question me and I may be easier on you.”

He moved away from me and walked into a room I assumed was the bathroom. There was no time like the present to get undressed. Seeing Keith this way had just the effect on me that I wanted. Tate and Bryan were already a distant thought. Shoes, jacket, shirt, tie, and trousers came off. I had my boxers down to my knees when he re-entered the bedroom with a towel in his hand. He didn’t even look at me which was a disappointment. The day he had ordered me to strip for him had been a humiliating experience, but it had also made me feel strangely appreciated by the way he had run his hands down my body.

You are beautiful. I never could get those words of his out of my mind.

He punched a remote that lowered leather restraints from the ceiling.

“Get your ass over here, Gio.”

The rebellious part of me refused to move. I had told him after all, I wouldn’t make a good sub, or maybe I egged him on because I wanted to feel his hands on me. I didn’t like the distance between us nor the way he ordered me around but wouldn’t even look at me.

Without a word, he walked over to me and twisted my right arm behind my back. He really got it high up my back where it hurt like hell. I scowled at him but moved along with him to stand beneath the restraint. This time I didn’t resist when he locked my hands above my head in the leather contraption. I tugged at the bindings around my wrists, but I was locked in without any means of escape.

“Aren’t we supposed to discuss this first?” I asked him nervously as he walked toward a shelf. “You know, come up with a safe word.”

He chuckled. “I don’t use safe words.”

Fuck. He was serious. “But how will you know when I’ve had enough?”

“Your body will tell me when you’ve had enough.” He returned to me with a stainless steel spreader that he locked both my ankles in. He rose from my feet, trailing his hand up my leg, my chest, and up to my neck where he curled his fingers in a tightening gesture. “Or, you can tell me what I want to hear.”

“What do you want to hear?”

He walked behind me, his hands shifting from my neck to trail down my back to cup my firm ass. “Tell me the truth.”

“The truth?”

“You’ll figure it out.”

I already had it all figured out but would never tell him what he wanted to hear, especially not right now. He had basically told me in my office earlier what he expected from me, but no matter what he did to me, I would never beg him. We were up for a long night if that was what he expected of me.

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