Page 84 of Lies like Rubies, Part One

The belt swung through the air and slammed into my bottom, striping directly across the middle, hard enough that I screamed. I collapsed forward onto the couch. “Ten, sir,” I sobbed, my chest heaving as I cried, letting go of all the anger and frustration from the last few days, heedless of my audience.

“Such a good girl,” Nick said, stroking my hair as I cried. “You took that so well, and your ass is so perfectly striped with marks from the two of us now.” He slid a finger down my back, across my stinging bottom, and through my folds.

I hiccupped and rubbed my nose on my arm. He ignored me as he explored my wetness. He liked it. He liked seeing me like this, crying and messy and aching and needy. I was so fucked up to want this, to get turned on when they worked together to humiliate me.

Between the need that haunted me and my painful, burning ass, I could barely put a coherent thought together, much less mourn that our first time together would be with Dante as an audience, or worse, a participant.

I wanted to hate Nick, for joining Dante in my humiliation, but the tiny part of me that liked when Dante treated me like this and trusted him enough to feel relieved when he took away my choices also trusted Nick. I trusted that while Nick might hurt my body, he wouldn’t hurt my soul.

Fucked up, Sofia.

When my sobs subsided, Dante tapped my leg. “Dinner will be here in a moment, kitten. Wait for us in your cage.”

I crawled down from the couch and over to the cage. I entered head first, then wiggled and turned until I curled up on my hands and knees with my face to the door, my bottom in the air, and my arms folded under my face, like a napping kitten. Every movement that scraped the metal bars of the cage against my sore bottom sent agony ricocheting through me, but I wasn’t ready to lie there with my ass and my center open and facing the men.

Nick crouched down beside the cage and handed me a pillow from the couch. I reached out to take it, not entirely trusting his generosity.

When I slid it under my face, he looked at my position critically, then brought me another.

He was right. It was more comfortable.

Nick shut the door to the cage with a quiet click, and then stood in front of it, blocking the view of anyone entering the hotel room. I didn’t tell him that the hotel staff had already seen everything there was to see. I closed my eyes against the pain of Nick witnessing my shame, the way I let Dante treat me, the way Dante talked to me, the way Nick joined in with enthusiasm.

“Easy, babe,” Nick said, his voice low and soothing. “You took that strapping so fucking well. You’re such a perfect pet for Dante and me.” He continued to murmur quiet praise to me as I settled and relaxed, letting his words run over me like gentle rain, soothing the ache in my soul.

I ignored everything around me, focusing on the gentle cadence of Nick’s voice, the comfort of knowing that nothing was required of me in this moment except to wait in my cage for my next instruction. My breathing calmed, and my heart rate slowed as I sank into quiescence. “That’s my girl,” Nick murmured as I relaxed into the mattress. “That’s what we’re looking for.”

Dante grunted. He crouched down to the cage and slipped his fingers in, scratching behind my ear like a kitten. It was comforting and utterly dehumanizing at the same time.

“Good kitty.”

I flushed. He laughed, amused, and rubbed a strand of my blonde hair between his fingers, watching me contemplatively. “I’d like to feed you tonight. Can you come out of your cage and show Nick what a well-trained kitten you are?”

I closed my eyes against my intense embarrassment when he referred to me as an animal, but I couldn’t stop myself from nodding.

Dante couldn’t hide the desire in his eyes as I crawled out of the cage, my reddened and burning bottom swaying with every movement of my body.

“Such a slut for pain,” he said, grinning as he ran a finger over my bottom, eliciting a whine as he set my nerve endings on fire.

He and Nick sat at the small table, a pillow on the floor between them. I stared at the two men for a moment, taken away by the contrast between them—light and dark, kind and cruel. And then their similarities struck me, their sheer size, their breathtaking beauty, the way their eyes clouded with desire when they looked at me, the comfort I found with each of them, reluctant or not.

I took my place on the pillow, my thoughts tumbling in confused circles as I tried to find my way out of the maze of emotions these two men had dropped me into.

Nick furrowed his brow. “Sofia, are you okay?”

I shrugged my shoulders helplessly, jangling the bell around my neck.How do I even answer that question?

32

NICK

“She’s fine,”Dante said, his lips curving up in amusement. “She’s hungry, and she’s exhausted, and you’ve confused the shit out of her.”

He ripped off a piece of bread and offered it to her. “Eat, kitten.” She accepted it from his fingers, delicately taking it between her full lips before chewing and swallowing. Conflict roiled in my gut. I wanted her still, but the idea of sharing her at all, much less sharing her with someone she’d sold her body to, didn’t sit well, no matter what I might’ve told Sofia a few minutes before.

I watched Dante feed her. The care he took to cut pieces small enough to chew easily, the attention he paid to her when she lapped at his fingers, and the way he made sure she always had something to eat made me wonder if there wasn’t something more going on here than a bargain with the devil to protect Lizzie.

“Feed our pet, Nico,” Dante rasped as Sofia licked his fingers clean.

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