Page 103 of Redeemed

I’m not his wife. I’ll never be the mother of his children. I’m not the one who cooks his meals, cleans his house, and picks up after him as if he’s an irresponsible teenager.

It’s not the same,I tell myself again.And you only have to endure it until Isaiah fucks off.

A chill settles over me after what I think is probably fifteen minutes. Colton said he turned the thermostat up, but the bastard must’ve lied because my skin is covered in goosebumps.

“It’s freezing in here,” I say through clenched teeth.

Colton flicks his eyes in my direction. “I brought it up to seventy.”

“There’s absolutelyno waythat’s true. I’m covered in goosebumps!”

“I really couldn’t care less, angel,” he says with an annoyed sigh.

“Is this how you treat the other women in your life? Your girlfriends?”

He scoffs. “You arenotmy girlfriend.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Colton stands so abruptly that I jump. He drops his laptop onto the couch and stalks over to me, his jaw set.

Oh, shit.

“I didn’t—”

He grips my throat and stares down at me with a fire in his eyes that should scare me. But all I can focus on is how tiny I feel compared to him. Even with me in heels, he still towers over me, and it has that tingly feeling shooting through me again. Except this time, instead of moving throughout my entire body, it goes straight to my clit. The sensation is so intense that for a moment, I think he touched me there, but his free hand is balled into a fist at his side.

There’s a part of me that’s always craved feeling small like this—that’s always wanted to let a man have complete control over me once I got past my fears around sex. It’d require more trust than I’ve ever given anyone in my life, but the desire has haunted all my fantasies.

Iwantto feel helpless.

Iwantto feel vulnerable.

Iwantto obey, and in exchange, be taken care of.

Just not at Colton’s hands. I may have hurt him, but what he’s done in return is far past any normal semblance of justice. Now, he’s hurting me for the fun of it.

I can never trust him.Never.

“You don’t ask the questions,” he growls. “I do, and you answer them, plain and simple. If you don’t, there will be consequences. And—”

“Let me guess,” I say dryly. “I should only speak when I’ve been spoken to?”

He laughs, the sound brutal and sharp. “You couldn’t manage that for a single day even if you wanted to. Too mouthy for your own good.”

“I—” My voice is cut off when he tightens his hold on my throat. He’s barely putting any pressure on my windpipe, but panic takes over anyway, and all I can do is let out a pathetic, helpless sound of distress.

“Don’t interrupt me again,” he grits out. “The next time you do, you’ll find yourself bound and gagged in a matter of minutes. Do you understand?”

My stomach drops. “Y-yes.”

“Good. Now please, for the love of god, shut the fuck up. Even you can manage that for a while.” He removes his hand from my throat and moves back to the couch.

Even though he was barely touching me, I miss the heat that radiated from his body to mine. I’m so cold I’m practically shivering.

The coolness intensifies between my legs, which strikes me as odd. There aren’t any vents in this corner, and even if there were, they’d be putting out warm air, not cold. I don’t know what it could be at first, but then it dawns on me with horrifying clarity.

Oh no. Oh my god, no.

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