Page 55 of Prisoner of War
He must be Zalaya now, she reminded herself. “I just wanted—” she began, but could think of nothing to add. Her surprise had stolen her ability tothink.
“You do not get to satisfy your wants here!” He grabbed the trailing chain and yanked it so she was pulled, stumbling, toward him. He looped the chain around her wrists. They were caught together in the metal tangle. He tugged her toward the bed. “You need to learn who is in charge.”
He pushed her until she was pressed against the high side of the bed. His hand pressed on her back andthe other pulled down on the chain, forcing her to bend her chest to the crumpled coverlet, her hands over her head. A weight settled on her hands, holding them down. His foot kicked at her ankles, spreading her legs.
She realized that this was how Zalaya would do it. He would take her, right now, bent over in this demeaning position. She recalled the camera in the corner of the room and moanedinto the mattress. Of course, Zalaya would do it for the camera. For his own private collection and for whoever else would be watching.
She had to do the same. She had to be the Minnie she would be if this was Zalaya. Their lives depended on it. What would Zalaya’s Minnie have done?
Well, she wouldn’t just lie there and take it.
Minnie shoved back as hard as she could, but her strength wasdiminished in this position and Duardo—Zalaya—was a strong man. She could only jerk on the chains that bound her hands and her butt rammed into him. It barely moved him.
“You fucking asshole,” she muttered. “You think this makes you a man?”
“No, but this does.”
He slid into her, his movements rough.
She bit her lip. She knew she must keep up the act but there was an odd sensation of doubling—itwas Zalaya, but it was also Duardo who held her down and took his pleasure. Out of nowhere, she felt a touch of excitement. Arousal.
“I’ve seen dogs do the same,” she husked, maintaining the act. But the huskiness in her voice was real.
All her life, Minnie had been the one to hold the power over men. Even with Duardo, who was almost old-fashioned in his beliefs about a man’s role in a relationship,she had still been sure of her power over him.
Now, he held the control. Physical control. She was forced to submit.
It was novel and it was arousing her in a way she had never experienced before. To be completely at his mercy...
She moaned into the mattress and pressed her hips back into him, opening herself up to the invasion.
“Yes, you understand your role here,” he told her and the doublemeaning was clear to her. Zalaya was confirming her role as a slave. Duardo was agreeing that the role she was playing for the camera was correct.
Minnie forgot about the camera, forgot that this was supposed to be Zalaya bending her to his will. She sunk deep into the pool of new sensations Duardo provoked in her.
Zalaya finished with a groan and shifted away. Her wrists were pulled into theair as he hauled on the chain.
She straightened up stiffly but was spun around to face the bathroom door. His hand pushed on her shoulder again. “Clean yourself,” he ordered.
She moved into the bathroom, unraveling loops of chain from around her wrists as she went.
“Leave the door open,” he told her, when she tried to shut it. “I will not have you slashing your wrists while my back is turned.”
She looked over her shoulder and saw that he had pulled the straight-backed chair over from the dressing table and had lined it up with the bathroom door. He settled himself in it, his arms crossed. He intended to watch her shower.
Ah, yes, Zalaya would do that. He would demean his victims in some cold, calculating way that took away their will to live and fight back. She applauded Duardo’s role-playing.Duardo knew, as Zalaya would not, that any attempt to tell her what to do, to control or direct her, would deliver the opposite.
She must respond in character.
She turned to face him fully, her shoulders squared, heated fury boiling in her chest. “Slash my wrists over you?” she asked, pouring all her derision into the last word. “You’ve got the wrong girl for that, asshole.”
He studied herfor a long, silent minute. Then he smiled. “It seems I may not tire of you as easily as the others, after all.”
She spared a thought for the women—and possibly the men—who had been the real Zalaya’s victims and felt deep pity along with the hope that they had not succumbed to the shit Zalaya handed out.
“Wash yourself,” he commanded.
She stepped into the shower and turned on the water.
