Page 27 of Fear and Desire

Why was he doing this?Despite her shoes, she felt every large pebble press through the soles. It took forever to get to the bend of the road and out of sight of the compound. Dan pulled a device out of his pocket and scanned it, then looked behind them, and let out his breath. Without warning, he swept her off of her feet and into his arms, and sat on a downed tree on the side of the road.

His embrace confused her more than his callous indifference a few moments before.

“Master, what is going on?”

He didn’t reply right away, just looked at the ground. When he spoke, his voice was low.

“I had to get you away from any listening ears and line-of-sight eavesdropping devices. There’s nowhere that is really safe to talk in that place.” He paused. “How are your feet?” He carefully removed both shoes, making a face at the sight of the red and swollen skin. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so, sorry.” He slid the shoes back on with care.

Laura’s first response was to say they were okay, but she wasn’t ready to dismiss what had happened yet. They fucking hurt.

“God, this is killing me.” He stared out toward the woods. “Laura, it’s getting worse. DeLeo has decided you’re a distraction to me. He wants to take you for himself.”

Her throat threatened to close up. “When?”

“At the auction.”

She relaxed. “Well, isn’t the auction when it all ends? He won’t actually leave here with me, right?”

His hesitation didn’t reassure her.

“Laura, he won’t leave with you, no. But he’s given very specific instructions about how we are to prepare you for him in the meantime.”

“Like what?” she whispered.

He gave a grim chuckle. “Well, he definitely wants you to learn how to give him a massage.”

Laura shuddered at the idea of touching the bare skin of a man like DeLeo. “Okay, I guess I can do that.”

“That’s not all. He wants you to learn to take a punishment silently. Get used to stress positions and endurance, like hanging from your wrists this morning. Stay aroused for days without relief. He wants you to learn how to give a perfect blow job even if you’re being whipped at the same time. And I know him—he’ll be watching as often as he can. He’s obsessed with this place and the upcoming auction. We can’t pretend to do this, or have you fake it, because I have no way of knowing when he’s watching in most of the rooms.”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes. She couldn’t look at him, either, but not because of fear.

“You’ll be in charge of teaching me?” she asked softly.

He nodded, his eyes on the ground and oblivious to the change in her tone. “If I don’t do it, Marco will.”

A tendril of something she didn’t understand, but which wasn’t complete revulsion, was creeping up into her stomach from a place much lower down.

“Okay.”

His head shot up. “What?”

“I’m terrified right now. And I’m kind of turned on, too, and I don’t know why.”

He stared at her. “Laura, you don’t know–”

She put her fingers on his lips. “Dan, can I trust you?”

“Of course you can. But you know some of this is out of my control.”

“I know. And I reallyamafraid of that. But the rest—I know you’ll do your best to help me get through it, and to not injure me—”

“There’s more.”

She waited.

“He wants your nipples pierced.”

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