Gagged (30 page)

“I’m sorry,” she finally manages to say.
 

“Don’t be sorry. You feel how you feel.”
 

“I’m not sorry for this. I’m sorry for what happened to you.”
 

I want to be angry. I really, really do. But I can’t be, not now, not with Lucy. So the anger stays at bay, and there’s a strange new emotion in its place.

“What happened, happened.”

“I know about Aurora.”
 

I blink. Lucy is against my chest so she can’t see my expression.
 

“What about her?”
 

“I know how you feel about her.”

“She’s just a girl.”

Lucy hugs into me. The hug says things the words can’t. For some reason I feel my center fall out of true. I don’t like this. I hate her pity. It feels weak. A threat to all I’ve built.
 

“I talked to her yesterday,” Lucy says.
 

“I know.”

“I like her.”
 

“Of course you do.”
 

“She’s good for you. And I get the feeling that as fucked up as you are, you’d actually be good for her, too.”
 

Again I say nothing.

“She’s special to you, isn’t she? I didn’t understand at first. All the research. All the requests. From someone else — someone without your …
oddities
— those things might have meant something else. But from you, it means she’s special, doesn’t it?”

“She’s special,” I repeat. That much I can agree with, but I still don’t like how the words feel in my mouth. Like there’s an ice cube on my tongue, and my lips must work to speak around it.
 

“She said you were going to spend the day together yesterday.”
 

“We did.”

“Was it nice?”
 

“It was fine.”
 

Lucy looks up at me. She’s a total fucking mess. I hate having people in my personal space, but I won’t let her go back downstairs like this. Not now, and not once I make it clear that as bad as I feel for her, I won’t help with our parents. I’d help her if I could. But I can’t do
that
. So I’ll let her use my bathroom to clean up. I’ll do all I can, at least for now.
 

“Caspian?”
 

“Yes.”

“Do you think you might love her?”
 

I shake my head. “It’s not how I am, Lucy. I wouldn’t even know how.”
 

I’m disconnecting already. A wall is rising. I see Aurora in my mind, but already I’m thinking of what she’ll look like when I get her clothes off. The things I’ll do to her. The ways we’ll offer each other the limits of hard-won pleasure.
 

Lucy is still looking up at me with her big, soft, brown eyes.
 

“Caspian?”
 

“Yes, Lucy?”
 

“Do you love
me?”
 

I don’t even hesitate. “Of course. Of course I do.”
 

And she says, “Then start there.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

A
URORA

M
Y
DOORBELL
RINGS
.
 

I
PEER
through the peephole and see it’s Caspian. He’s as he always is: dressed like he’s stepped out of a page in
GQ
, sober suit and starched white shirt, hard, handsome face with those blue eyes that always looked like ice chips in magazines but that I now see are soft and warm in their own right.
 

I remember yesterday’s touch. The hesitant, almost frightened way he kissed. Like he was so worried about me that he ended up worried about himself. Like I was the one with experience, and he was the virgin.

A smile blooms on my face. I open the door and almost leap into his arms, but I stop, and my smile crumbles when I see that this time, he’s not holding a bouquet of white flowers.
 

This time, he’s holding what looks like a leash.
 

“It’s … good to see you,” I say. But my eyes are on the leather, attached to a collar that seems too fancy for the dog that isn’t here.

I look up. The man from yesterday is gone. Caspian isn’t soft at all. He’s not hesitant or tentative or concerned. I see no empathy. I barely see humanity.

He hands me the collar, keeping the end of the leash in my hand.
 

And he says, “Let’s go for a walk.”
 

Caspian isn’t driving himself today. He has a driver, but the driver either didn’t care when the boss man led a girl to the back seat on a leash or didn’t see. I gave it little thought. I was more concerned about my neighbors, or about Jasmine coming home from class early. She hasn’t met the new and improved Caspian: the man who made such gentle, considerate love to me in open air and sunshine. She’s eager to, though, and by the time the car pulls away I’m so nervous she’ll see this reversion, I can barely focus on things that should have my full attention.
 

Things like: Why did I put the collar around my neck when Caspian ordered me to?
 

And the much larger, more global questions that underlie it, like: Why is he making me do this? What changed between yesterday and today? He’s barely glanced at me, and when he has, his look has been more like ownership than companionship. I assumed that this time, for Caspian’s turn, he’d test me a little. Last time he strung me up; I’ve mentally prepared for some bondage, some light spanking, perhaps, and a whole lot of borderline sexual adventure. I understand that attitude matters a lot for this kind of thing, so even his stern demeanor doesn’t bother me all that much. In fact, the power and control he’s radiating are making my nipples a little hard, making my pussy a little wet. It’s like I’ve broken a seal, now that I’m no longer a virgin. I suddenly want it again, and again, and again. I wasn’t shy with the vibrator last night or even this morning, when I took a bath instead of a shower. So this thing he’s doing, in a way it turns me right the fuck on.
 

But I’m surprised there hasn’t been even one normal glance.
 

No kiss before the games resumed.
 

No gentle touch of his hand. In fact, he hasn’t touched me at all. From door to car, he led, and I walked a step behind — but not too far behind, because the leash is only so long.
 

No looks to promise that this is all only play.

Nothing to remind me of yesterday’s man.

What happened? What’s changed?
 

After ten minutes in silence, I finally say, meek like a mouse, “Do we need a safe word?”
 

And Caspian says, “No.”
 

He doesn’t even look over. He’s staring straight forward, toward the closed divider. I wonder if the driver knows what’s happening. I wonder, if things went too far, if he’d intervene.
 

Without looking over, Caspian says, “Take off your clothes.”
 

“Here? In the car?”
 

“Don’t speak. Just do as I say.”
 

I try again to catch his eye. I don’t need much from him — just one tiny, minuscule glance of the real Caspian before we snap back into character. If he’ll give me that, I’ll obey his every command. I’ll be submissive, and he can be dominant. Just a tiny moment to remind me that this is all a game, that we’re both inhabiting roles.
 

But instead I get nothing.
 

A long moment passes as I continue watching his profile. As the car continues to drive, downtown approaching through the tinted windows.

“Caspian?”
 

“Do it. I won’t tell you again.”

I slide my hands into my sleeves. I reach for the leash as I prepare to raise it over my head.
 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he says, glaring at the leash.
 

“I can’t take this shirt off without pulling it over my head.”
 

He looks at my chest the way he’d look at meat.
 

“Rip it off.”
 

Again I watch him to see if he’s serious. He seems to be, so I hesitantly hook my fingernails into my simple T-shirt — a plain thing, but one of my favorites. I pause one last time, then decide that we have an agreement and that I’ve invited my limits to be tested. So I pull and dig with my nails, then the shirt purrs apart, and I’m there on his back seat in my bra.
 

Another quiet moment.
 

I reach behind my back, unhook the bra and slide it down my arms. The air inside the car is cool, but it’s not just a chill that’s hardened my nipples. Truth is, I may never have been this uncomfortable before in my life. The anticipation already has me wanting to touch myself, licking my mental lips over how bare I’m about to be, and how much at Caspian’s mercy.
 

Then I slide my shorts off. My panties go with them. I even flick my sandals onto the carpeted floor, and then I’m sitting beside him fully nude while he remains clothed. The feeling between my legs is electric despite it all. My knees sigh apart, and the road’s vibration makes my middle flutter as I press into the seat.

Every moment that passes is an aphrodisiac. I’m so wholly exposed. So completely vulnerable. It bothers me, how much this treatment excites me, but Caspian must know something I don’t because it’s working. I could come. And I want to.
 

My legs open farther. He won’t have to do any work to arouse me.
 

I put my hand between my legs, feeling the tingle as my fingers trail down through my trim blonde hair.

“Did I tell you to do that?” Caspian snaps.
 

“I just — ” My hand jerks back, my mind spooling effortlessly back to that day on the floor of my mother’s bathroom when I learned all about shame.
 

“Don’t,” he says.
 

We finish the ride in silence. Now I’m afraid to speak. I’m not sure what might happen. I thought I had a gauge on this before, but I absolutely do not. In so many ways, it’s unfair. Yesterday I was a virgin. I’m new to Caspian’s world of pleasure and pain, dominance and submission, control and contrition. I’m curious to play, and I’ll do what he says. But I’d like some sign from him. Something tiny to get me past this lump in my throat.

But I only get nothing.

In the parking garage, the car stops, and Caspian opens his door. I get a tug on my leash and gather that I’m supposed to follow, but I’m naked and know I’m not allowed to take my clothes with me. I go anyway, fighting doubt, and a few seconds later my feet are on cool concrete and the Bentley is driving away. Anybody who works and parks here could come out to see the straight-A student and gifted photographer Aurora Henley — her parents’ reluctant pride — naked and being led around like a dog.

He snaps the leash and leads me toward the elevator.
 

I hate this.
 

I’m better than this.
 

I’m degraded and insulted by this.
 

But my body has betrayed me. I’m so wet right now, I feel zero friction as I walk, my lubricated inner thighs rubbing together. Each step is like the turning of a spring, as if I’m masturbating by simply strolling forward. It’s taking everything to keep from rubbing my clit when he’s not looking, to not slide one or two or three or all of my fingers inside myself on the long elevator ride to his penthouse.
 

The elevator stops. I look up at the display and notice with horror that we’re not at the penthouse. He’s pushed the button for the GameStorming lobby as well, and it’s barely 11 a.m. Everyone will be at work. The floor will be bustling.
 

The doors open. I see so many people, but most don’t look our way, too immersed in their own business to notice ours. But some do. And suddenly I see us as they must see us: the finely dressed man and his whore, naked as the day she was born.
 

I want to run and hide and cry.
 

I want to lean against the elevator wall and make myself come while everyone watches.

I chance a look at Caspian’s pants. He seems to be rock hard, his crotch tented with a massive erection.
 

As the doors close and the elevator resumes humming, it’s like the vibration telegraphs up my legs and into my core. It’s like a full-body vibrator. I could come with a thought, and the arousal is turning me into what I’m usually not. A person who does things she shouldn’t. A person who says things she’d never say.
 

So I whisper into his ear, “I want to suck your cock.”
 

He turns to face me. But I don’t see lust. I see only annoyance.
 

And he replies, “I don’t care what you want.”
 

Into the penthouse. Toward the back. He drags me to a piece of equipment that looks like a gymnastic pommel horse. He tells me to bend over it. I give him a look, asking if this is really okay — if he’s doing a thing or if some of his circuits have fried overnight — and decide against my better judgment to let him strap me in.
 

Ankles.
 

Wrists.
 

He moves around behind me, where my bare ass is exposed and my wet pussy waits, blushed and ready. And now that I can’t see his face, I finally feel him touch me. The touch isn’t sweet. It’s possessive. He grabs my ass. He slaps it. And then I feel his rough fingers on my pussy, sliding deep.

With his fingers still inside me, he says, “Are you scared?”
 

I’ve heard the question before. The answer is still yes, very much, even more so.
 

But I say, “I trust you.”
 

And he says, “Let’s see what trust will get you today.”
 

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

A
URORA

C
ASPIAN
ENTERS
MY
FRAME
OF
view. I’m tied with my upper half horizontal, so I have to roll my eyes up to see his face. He’s watching me like something he’s pithed and deciding how to handle.