Page 41 of Their Cruel Love

I’m squinting, despite my sunglasses, but I know this will lessen as I get used to the climate. Beads of sweat roll down the side of Razor’s face. Even Phoebe looks shiny sweaty, which somehow adds to her sexiness.

“Were you running from us?” I wait for her brattiness to bring her to the precipice of peril. Excuses to punish her shall be extracted, daily, or else I am not Marcus Thompson.

“No.” Her pout makes her mouth look fuckable.

“She was,” Razor muses before he reaches down and scruffs her with a handful of hair near her nape. Her gasp is ignored, and he pulls her a foot higher and tilts her head upward at a harsh angle. “Yes?”

Phoebe’s scowl is epic.

I grin. “It all starts now. This collar goes on you, Phoebe. You’re ours.”

I show her the collar and that pretty, gem-encrusted tag.

Gently, I turn the tag with my fingers, so she can read the words spelt out in capitals and tiny diamonds against the black background.FUCKTOY. One word, because it emphasizes the special degradation and uniqueness of what she is and will be.

Her mouth opens, and indignation blazes from her eyes and from every line on her face.

She says something in a low, girl-growly tone. Razor lowers her to her knees again then leans down and replies, quietly. Then he kisses her. Her hands unclench, and instead of small tight fists, her fingers straighten then re-curl, wavering. She doesn’t touch him. Her indecision shows in that small gesture.

My hardness, my vow to endlessly fuck with her, both mind and body, softens in that moment as I watch him kiss her.

I’m wishing my mouth was there.

I step in and clear my throat. It irritates me, how I’m prepared to kick Razor somewhere, painfully, if he doesn’t move the fuck away.

16

Phoebe

“This isn’t CNC,” I whisper harshly, furious at how they’ve appropriated me without asking meanything, and because this is secondary to finding out Milli’s fate.

“It is,” Razor says, and his fingers are still twisting my hair, hurting me. “Everything we do will be for you as well as for us. Tell me this isn’t turning you on, sweetheart.”

Then he leans in and crushes my mouth to his, with that hand controlling my hair, holding me in place. His mouth moves on mine. Kissing is so intimate, so perfectly enthralling. We share the same heated air. The sounds. The wetness. The taste of him as his tongue thrusts in and explores, as he angles his head. The assurance in his taking, the way his hand shifts and tightens against my scalp when I softly moan.Fuck.It’s allgood.

He’s said a truth I cannot avoid. This is for both of us.

He keeps kissing me, even after Marcus says something then thumps his shoulder. Then he pulls away. I’m struggling for orientation, for where this is going. For how I ended up on my knees on a beach somewhere unknown.

I did want this, long ago, I remind myself, before I let myself fall into a puddle of self-derision at Seth’s place.

As he straightens, Razor shifts his hand to circle my throat in a subtle caress, then he locks his eyes to mine before he releases me.

I slump a little, my knees spreading in the sand and with my hand steadying me to the right, sinking into the beach. Marcus is before me with that collar ready, only now he’s the one looking eminently furious. A giddiness takes me as I see what’s happening. He is jealous of Razor. A hint of that was apparent at the meeting but here, now, it may as well be written on a banner floating across the sky.

“Done?” he asks Razor.

“I thought you might like a taste before you collar her.” His hand lightly brushes over my hair then moves aside.

“In my own time.”

The seconds languish while Marcus studies me, and people are walking by behind me, but I cannot turn to look because I’m caught as much as he is. I want this desperately now. Resistance can be fun, but I will submit to them because I don’t want to miss out on one second of this…whatever it is.

I also need answers about Milli, but these two desires can co-exist.

The collar remains in his hand. The text on that tag is beautifully rendered but wearing it will mortify me, and he knows it. “What did you say to her?”

“She said this wasn’t CNC. I told her it is and thateverything we do here will be for her as well as for us.” His mouth twists. “Then I asked her if holding her while I kissed her and lectured her was turning her on.”

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