Page 47 of Cruel Master

I drifted as I was carried. The soft sway of the man’s steps—Gaven’s steps—lulled me slowly back into the darkness. By the time he laid me on a comfortable bed with the sheets pulled away to make room for me, I was struggling not to fall back into my own clouded mind. I shivered as I felt thick fingers trail down my side. A whimper worked up my throat as those same fingers moved between my legs, pushing into my sore pussy.

With a groan, I tried to roll away. Exhausted … I was so fucking exhausted. I couldn’t do it again. “Shhhhh.” Gaven’s low, rumbling voice echoed over my senses. His finger twisted inside of me, causing me to flinch before he finally pulled free and I relaxed into the bed. Sheets were drawn up over me and I snuggled into them, latching onto the silken feel as I let myself be tugged back into sleep.

I slept so hard and so long—or so it felt like—that when I opened my eyes again, it felt like hours had passed. It was one of those slumbers that completely took a person over and filled their minds until the whole world seemed new and different when they woke.

Sitting up in bed, I glanced around, finding myself alone. “Gaven?” I called out, coughing once when my voice croaked and halted. Reaching up, I rubbed my throat and blinked the grittiness from my eyes.

I coughed again and then glanced to the side as I swung my legs over the side of the bed. A glass of water, a bottle of pills, and a note sat on the nightstand. I picked up the pill bottle first, sighing in relief at the Tylenol. Popping two of the oval pills out of the container and into my mouth, I grabbed up the water and drank down half of it.

My muscles were sore. My shoulders screamed in achy pain, but more than that—the place between my legs felt raw. Putting one hand behind my neck, I cracked it to the side, stretching it out in the hopes that doing so would relieve some of the tension as I continued to survey the room.

I was still in the private club room that Gaven had brought me to, but with the lack of windows there was no telling how much time had passed since I’d fallen asleep. The one blaring thing my mind locked on right away was the most important—I was alone.

Standing abruptly, I wavered on my feet and grabbed hold of the bedpost as I stumbled away from the nightstand. I gasped for breath and looked down at my legs as metal rattling caught my attention.

“That fucking asshole,” I muttered as I realized the reason I was alone.

Gaven wasn’t an idiot. No doubt he’d known as soon as I woke alone and unwatched, I’d try and make my escape. He wasn’t wrong. That was exactly my intention. Unfortunately, the locked cuff chained around my ankle threw a wrench in those plans.

“Shit.” The curse hissed out of me as I pushed away from the bedpost and took several steps away, following the line of the chain to where the end was located. Reaching down, I picked it up and then tugged.

The bed squeaked. I glanced towards the noise before diving for the bottom of the giant piece of furniture. My knees hit the floor and a moment later, my cheek as I scanned the bottom part of the posts. There—on the other side of the bed was the embedded loop that connected the chain.

Wrapping both hands around the chain, I pulled again and again. The bed squeaked, but it never moved. Standing again, I glared at the bed. It was a monstrous thing made of dark red, heavy wood. There was no way I was going to rip the chain off the post. I wasn’t strong enough. There had to be another way.

Turning in a circle, I scanned the room anew. This time, I had a goal. I needed to find something, anything, that would help me unlock the cuff circling my ankle. I didn’t know how long Gaven had been gone or when he’d be back, but I needed to be gone by the time he arrived.

The chain trailed behind me as I moved around the space, but it didn’t allow me to move far. I stopped halfway into the room and growled low in my throat as the bed squeaked again, and I looked down to find the chain attached to me, taut and unrelenting. Anger rose within my chest. I sucked in breath after breath and shivered as I crossed my arms over my chest and rubbed my arms up and down. No wonder I’d snuggled so deep into the covers—without Gaven there to heat up my body, the room felt like a frozen wasteland.

More air blew over my body and I realized I stood there utterly devoid of clothes from my bottom half down, and the only thing I still had on was the barely there little bra that Gaven had forced me to wear. If I was going to get out of here, I would need new clothes or to get back to the locker room to retrieve the dress.

As soon as I had that thought, though, I shook it off. No. The dress would need to be left behind. It was too ostentatious.

I spun back to the bed and glared at the offending furniture as I contemplated my next actions. This was a sex club—so a woman walking around mostly naked likely wouldn’t draw much attention. Would being alone and unaccompanied be odd, though?

As I considered that, something shined in my peripheral vision. I paused and glanced over. My eyes widened as I spotted a pair of nipple clamps hanging on the wall of bondage gear. They were metal—just what I needed. I hurried forward and nearly tripped on my face as my chain drew short once again.

Shit. Shit. Shit!It was out of reach. I dragged both of my hands down my face and inhaled sharply. No, I could figure this out. I just needed something long enough to reach to grab ahold of it or knock it closer. I glanced around again, and when I found nothing straight away, I decided to dig a little deeper.

Turning back to the bed, I hurried towards the trunk that I’d noticed the night before. I got to my knees to unclip the closure and flipped it open, pausing with wide eyes as the inside was revealed to me. If I thought the bondage wall was a little unnerving, then this trunk was full of things that made my insides tremble.

I pressed my thighs together as I reached inside and lifted the first thing that my gaze locked on. It was a spreader bar. Long and thick and black with restraints attached to either end. The bar itself was made of hard steel covered in leather. Even better, though, it was adjustable.

Standing quickly, I pressed down on the center notches and the smaller part of the bar in the inner hollow slipped out. I pressed the opposite side and another piece came out and locked into place. Just at a glance, it seemed to be almost three feet. I imagined that this was something Gaven had likely used before—not on me though and, for some reason, that made my stomach turn sour.

Shaking away the scowl that was beginning to form, I went back to the furthest point of the room that I could reach and then a little further, stretching and arching my body as I waved the bar towards the wall. Leather clanked against the metal and I cursed as I flipped the rod and tried using the restraints to hook beneath the chain connecting the clamps.

I knew the sight must have been ridiculous and, mentally, I swore that if Gaven walked in right now, I’d absolutely combust into a fiery pit of death and be grateful for it. Closing my eyes, I sucked in a breath, and then with a sharp jerk upward, I snapped the clamps off the hook.

My eyes opened and I looked up as the damn thing swung up over me, flying through the air. I spun and dove for it as it landed on the floor at the side of the bed. The spreader bar dropped from my grip as I grabbed a hold of the metal clamps and pulled one off from its slender chain.

The metal holding these together was much thinner and weaker than the same chain tying me to the bed. The loops that linked them together weren’t fused either, allowing me to wedge a nail into one and bend it outward until I was left with a small metal circle the size of my pinkie nail.

With a sigh of relief, I bent the little metal outward more, put it on the floor, and smashed it with my palm to flatten it more. I had a pretty awesome thief I’d met in Italy a few years before to thank for this trick. If it weren’t for her I wouldn’t have had any clue how to pick the lock on my ankle.

Once I had the small piece of metal smoothed out until it was at least an inch in length, I turned to the side, lifted my foot, and planted it flat. I wedged one end of the little sliver of metal into the keyhole and wiggled around, bending down to listen for the mechanism. Unfortunately, if it made any sound, it was too quiet for me to hear, so I had to move by feel.

I wiggled and jerked the metal piece up and down until I felt something inside the lock click. When it finally did, I pumped my fist in victory and quickly removed the lock before unbuckling the leather cuff.

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