Page 40 of House of Cards

I’m in the backseat of a Rolls Royce, sitting on a leather seat that’s so soft, it feels like I’m cradled in cream-colored cashmere, even through my red-spanked ass. But no matter how soft the seat, steel bars disguised as tinted windows still cage me in.

I’ve slipped into a nightmare world filled with thugs and gangsters, and part of me is sickened by the predator beside me, the other part is crushing on him so hard it wants to write ZOEY + SMITH repeatedly in the margins of its fucking economics text book.

I tried bolting when he brought me down to the car. He caught me so easily it was almost worse than the sting of his palm when he gave me a hard slap for the attempt. Then he snapped his fingers at the back seat like I was a child.

It worked. I climbed in. Fuming and humiliated.

Like a good girl…and this time he didn’t even praise me for obeying.

Since then, it’s like I stopped existing. Should’ve made me feel better, but I just feel alienated and so terribly, terribly lost. I have no idea what’s about to happen, and my imagination is having a field day filling in the blanks.

“We going to The Den now?”

“Yes.” Smith’s calm response only amps up my indignation.

“Where you’re going to let some rando creep fuck me?”

“Quiet, kitten. Daddy’s working,” he murmurs, not taking his eyes off his phone. The light from his cellphone reflects off his glasses, but not well enough that I can read any of the texts.

I stare at him with resting bitch face, but it’s pointless if he won’t look at me, so I turn back to the window. But instead of providing a distraction, the tinted glass reflects the interior, forcing me to stare at my own miserable reflection.

I close my eyes and pretend that I’m on a romantic date with my Significant Other, that I’m wearing a designer gown and not this skimp red robe, that I’m goingau naturel—no makeup, no straight ironed hair—because my sugar daddy loves me just the way I am.

“What’s the money for?”

My eyes fly open, and a blush warms my cheeks when I see Smith staring at me. I tug at the hem of the robe, wishing it could at least cover my knobby knees, and consider his question.

“It’s for none of your fucking business.”

“It’s exactly my fucking business,” he says, tilting his head to the side.

Guess it doesn’t even matter anymore, but in this fucked-up relationship between captor and captive, information is the only good card in my shitty hand. I might as well use his curiosity to my advantage.

I lean my head back and roll it to face him. “I’m hiring a hitman. You’ve been added to the list.”

You’d swear my ass wasn’t still aching from that brutal spanking in his hotel room. His palm cracked like a gunshot, each strike bruising. By the fourth, my skin screamed for mercy, but I refused to let him know it hurt.

Pain has nothing to do with it. It was downright fucking humiliating being bent over and punished like that. Even now, thinking back to it, a fresh wave of anger sears through me.

How fuckingdarehe?

He can be glad all I did was stick him with a fork.

Smith scoffs. “He’ll have to get in line.”

I flinch when I hear my earlier thoughts echoed back to me. I keep silent, hoping he’ll drop this particular line of questioning. Even if there’s some remote chance I could trust Smith, if Buzzcut didn’t want me going to the police, he sure as shit won’t approve of me airing my dirty laundry in front of Mr. Chuckles.

But Smith is relentless.

“I’m waiting, kitten.”

I stare straight ahead. “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

He sighs. Not impatiently, but like he feels sorry for me for not understanding the gravity of my situation.

“People who need money as badly as you do either have a habit, or a problem. You don’t look like a junkie to me.” He leans in over the cream-colored seats, voice dropping lower. “Who’s got their boot on your neck?”

There’s something in his eyes, and it’s not just idle curiosity. I’d mistake it for concern, but I’m not that stupid. Psychopaths can’t feel empathy, they can only imitate it.

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