Pieces of Autumn (6 page)

Fucked a sex slave?

Daniela.

Who was she? Had Tate loved her? Could I possibly tap into some human part of him, if I evoked her in some way? If I reminded him?

But no, I didn't dare. How would he react if he knew I'd read the letter? Already he looked like he could kill me, over some imagined slight.

What plan is he talking about? Why does he think I'm here?

"I don't know about any plan," I heard myself reiterate, to break the silence.

Tate stopped dead in his tracks, glaring at me. "Shut up," he snarled. "Or I'll
make
you shut up."

The tears started to trickle down my cheeks, one by one. He advanced on me, his mouth once again twisting into a smile that sent waves of conflicting desires through my body. Fear and arousal. Hot and cold.

His hand rested on the side of my face, lightly gripping my jaw, his thumb brushing a tear aside. "Silly girl," he murmured. "Now, are you starting to regret your decision? Are you starting to realize Stoker could never be your salvation?"

I nodded, because it seemed like the right answer.

"You're a fast learner," he said. "But not fast enough."

Abruptly, he withdrew from me, going back to pacing the floor. When he finally stopped and turned to me again, I braced myself.

"What's wrong with you, pet? Why don't you scream? Why don't you run away?"

He was mocking me again. But somewhere, in the darkness behind his eyes, there was a genuine desire to hear me answer.

I swallowed, though I swore my throat was filled with broken glass.
 

"I have nowhere to go."

Shivering, I waited for his next order. But he was completely silent, and completely still, for a long time.

"Down," he said, finally. "On all fours."

My body was hunching forward, folding over onto the ground, before my mind even had a chance to process it. Dark images were swirling in my mind, memories of dreams and dreams of memories, and I was starting to recognize what I'd been feeling all along when I had those nightmares about the mysterious man who owned me.

This was what my body
wanted
.
 

I was sick. I was twisted. I'd known all along that my parents' death had damaged me, but like
this
? Was I so profoundly broken that my pussy wept and ached at the thought of ownership? The loss of my free will? Being taken by force?

Oh God, I couldn't let him see. He couldn't know what a profound effect he was having on me. What if it pushed him further? What if it angered him, because he didn't
want
me to want it? What if he needed me to fight back?

I looked up at him, eyes streaming. There was a heavy twitch in his groin, spurred on, I thought, by my tears.

What a fucked-up pair we were. It was almost funny.
 

Except it really, really wasn't.

He palmed his hardening cock through the fabric, pressing down, almost like he was trying to will it away. But that was wishful thinking on my part. He was relishing every moment of this, loving the fact that I was so broken and malleable for him.

"You want this?" he demanded.

Yes, yes, say yes. It'll be easier for you.

Unless he wants you to say no.

Just tell the truth.

I don't know what's true anymore.

I just stared at him, numbly.

"Let's try that again," he said, softer this time. "
Do you want this
?"

My fingers clutched at the centuries-old wood, staring at him. Finally, my pride won out.

I shook my head.

An angry noise escaped from the back of his throat.
I chose wrong.
He stalked forward, grabbing me by the roots of my hair so hard I thought he'd rip it out. The pain sliced through my consciousness, and I cried out, tears leaking from my eyes.

"Stop lying to your master." His erection was now at eye level, but still inaccessible beneath his pants. I wondered what he would do if I nuzzled against it. Almost as if he was reading my mind, he jerked his hips forward, so the head almost brushed against my cheek. But not quite.
 

I made a low noise, almost a whimper. Completely involuntary. He chuckled.

"I can smell you from across the room," he whispered. "Your little cunt's hot for me, isn't it? Why would you lie about a thing like that?"

"I was afraid." Again, my tongue was running faster than my head, acting on instinct. Something was rising inside me to answer something else in him, and I couldn't even being to comprehend it. "It's so big."

He laughed, loud and harsh, and I felt like I'd been slapped across the face. Letting go of my hair, he stepped back and stared down at me, his erection never flagging.
 

"There's something else I can smell on you," he said. "Lies. You'd better pray they don't run any deeper than flattery about the size of my cock, because I don't take kindly to betrayal."

"Really?" I stared at him, feeling suddenly defiant. "Because it
seems
like you enjoy lies."

Tate snarled, grabbing my hair and hauling me to my feet again. He dragged me towards the bed, bending me forward until my face was buried in the mattress. My heart pounded, knees weakening, as one thought took over:
this is it. This is how it's going to happen.

His hardness throbbed against my hip, but he made no other move.
 

"What do you think?" he murmured, quietly - but his tone was just as dark and dangerous as before. "Should I try to fuck the deceit out of you?"

Yes.

Sickness roiled in my stomach at my body's readiness to betray me. I wanted him so badly I couldn't see straight, didn't dare speak, lest I give him the permission he obviously didn't need.

"I can't promise it will work, but something tells me you'd enjoy it." He swiped his finger along my inner thigh, where my wetness had leaked, close enough to make me shiver, but not close enough to give me any relief from the ache between my legs. I heard the soft, wet sound of his fingers in his mouth, tasting me.

I moaned softly, imagining his fingers plunging into my sopping cunt. His tongue licking me open. His cock spearing me, breaking me, taking the last shred of innocence I had left.

"Hmm." He rubbed against me, and I could feel him twitch and grow ever harder. "Maybe not. You need a proper punishment, don't you? Need your master to put you in your place."

The words flowed from him so smoothly, so naturally, like he'd been born to do this. To tease and arouse, to command and frighten, to make me feel like less of a human being. But at the same time, making me feel more alive than I'd ever felt.

Suddenly, his palm connected with my ass. He spanked me sharply and brutally, but each hit sent reverberations through my pussy, making me even hotter through the pain.
 

What the fuck was wrong with me?

When he stopped, breathing harshly, his cock searing hot against my hipbone, I wanted to scream. Of all the tortures I could have imagined when I first saw heard his voice, this wasn't one of them. Turning my own body, my own
soul
, against me.

But this wasn't the man I met in the barn. It wasn't even the man who had made me untie his boots, although the glimmers were starting to show through. While Tate had initially seemed hesitant, conflicted, uncomfortable in his own skin, but now he was fully realized. This was a man who knew exactly what he wanted, and how to get it. And something deep inside me was responding, as much as I hated it.

He grabbed my hair and yanked my head upright, forcing my gaze to the mirror across the room. Now, I could see myself in it, ruined and wrecked, with Tate looming over me like a sinister shadow. I hardly recognized the expression on my face.

"What do you think?" he almost purred, his voice hypnotic, the only sound that could cut through the ringing in my ears. "Is that enough of a punishment for you?"

No, God no.

I made an involuntary sound, something between a moan and a sob, afraid to give him the wrong answer. The fear for my life, for my safety, had been eclipsed by the fear that he would stop touching me. That he'd do nothing to release me from this sweet agony, this tension that was on the verge of snapping.
 

"
Answer me
."

Some rational part of my brain had survived his onslaught. It took over momentarily, anger rearing up inside me, and I found myself gritting out:

"Fuck you."

The room went cold.

He grabbed my arm and yanked me off the bed, shoving me forward so that I stumbled and landed on my knees, on the floor. His eyes were dark and empty. When he spoke, it was with none of the dark, terrifying passion of before.

"Get out."

I crawled back, a few inches, staring up at him. He was gripping himself through the fabric, so hard his knuckles were starting to turn pale.

He didn't have to ask twice.

I only took the time to grab the sheet, that horrible crumpled-up "dress" I'd been wearing since Stoker, and run out of the room naked.

He didn't tell me where to go. So after I covered myself again, I stayed there outside the door, with my ear pressed against the sleek wood, because I needed to know. But I didn't dare try to watch through the crack, which he still hadn't closed.

I heard the sound of a zipper, the soft slap of skin on skin, and his tortured groan when he came.

I was trembling, confusion and arousal coursing through my body, making my heart pound and my throat dry.

He loves to make you follow orders, but he hates that he loves it. It turns him on, and it disgusts him.
 

These were all good things to know. I filed them away, while my pulse pounded in my throat, while I tried to pretend like my cunt wasn't hot and swollen from picturing him with his hand sliding up and down his dick.

I wanted to see it. I wanted to see him come apart at the seams, losing that taut control he wrapped himself up in.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of footsteps approaching the door. I crawled backwards, huddling against a bookshelf a few feet away. When it popped all the way open, he looked just as calm and composed as he had when I first walked into the room. Except, not quite. I could see the stiffness that remained under the fabric of his well-tailored trousers. But he had a dress shirt on now, smooth and buttoned up to the throat, with a perfectly-knotted deep red tie around his neck.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, his eyes suddenly burning.

I forced myself to hold his gaze. "Waiting for your orders," I said. "You never told me where to go."

He was silent for a moment, looking away from me, letting his eyes wander over the carpet, like he was lost in thought. "Were you listening at the door?"

"Yes," I said. There was no sense in lying. It would only make him angrier.

"Do you know what I was doing?"

"Yes."
 

"Tell me." His voice was suddenly harsh and demanding. His eyes were fixed on me once more - a challenge, and one I didn't quite understand. "Tell me what you heard."

I kept my head high, even while I hugged my knees to my chest. "I heard you jerking off," I said, calmly. "Jerking off to me."

He was staring at me with an intensity that was unmatched by anything else - even when he'd been staring me down, inches from shoving his cock in my face.

"What do you think of that?" he asked, finally. His expression was dark and unreadable, and I was tempted to write it off as a sadistic question, one that he knew was unanswerable. He wanted me to articulate how violated I felt. He wanted to rub in my humiliation, like salt into a wound.

Only, that wasn't quite right.

Was it?

"I think it doesn't make any sense," I heard myself say. "If you really don't care about me, why didn't you just fuck me?"

Anger flashed across his face briefly, but it was soon replaced by an impassive mask.

"You ask too many questions," he said, taking a step towards me. "When I want to fuck you, I'll fuck you. Not a moment sooner, and not a moment later."

Goosebumps rose all over my body, and my pussy throbbed traitorously. There was a conflict in his eyes whenever he looked at me, some dark hunger tempered by revulsion, but I thought it was only a matter of time before the hunger won out. I could only pray that his desires wouldn't destroy me. For all I knew, he was the kind of guy who could only get off on rivers of blood.
 

But then again, I knew that wasn't true. He'd gotten off on watching me grovel at his feet. If all he wanted me to do was scrape and beg and act like a simpering slave, I could do that. I could do that every day of my life, and I wouldn't let it break me. That was what I'd been counting on, when I decided to sign my life away to Stoker.

So that was it, then. I'd become the perfect slave. That was what he wanted. If I could play the part well enough, he'd never want to consider letting me leave. I'd be safe here, in this impenetrable fortress. A cage keeping me in - but more importantly, a cage keeping
them
out.

"I'm sorry, Sir," I said, lifting my chin. "I should know better than to question you."

His face finally showed something. Surprise, hesitation -
wariness
. I silently cursed myself for not having played the part better, from the very beginning. He'd seen too much of my true personality. I'd even told him that I was new to Stoker - he knew that I hadn't been through whatever training they usually inflicted on their girls. If I'd just kept my mouth shut, maybe he'd actually believe my play-acting.

I just had to hope that ultimately, he wouldn't care. Once his dick was hard enough, he'd stop doubting. In that respect, at least, I suspected he was just like every other man.

CHAPTER FIVE

Tate's Rules

"Come," Tate said, making a small gesture that indicated I should follow him. He was back in control again, more or less - but I wasn't sure I liked him this way. When we were in his bedroom, at least I knew what he wanted. This version of Tate was a mystery to me, and because of that, he felt even more dangerous than the version who wanted to possess and devour me.