Beneath the Burn Read online

“I’m talking to you. I expect an acknowledgement.”

  Smack. Smack.

  “Unh.” Fuck. Her armor shuddered beneath the sturdier strike, the lingering bite. The fucking paddle. She flexed the muscles in her backside, longing to rub out the sting. “Y-yes, Sir.”

  Smack. “Yes, Sir, what?”

  He wanted her to say she missed him. Not just reciprocate but put her heart in the words. She could do it. She could look into his vile eyes and impart the words. She coughed, tried to clear the panic amassing in her throat. “May I…may I look at you, Sir?”

  Einstein claimed that physical concepts were creations of the mind. The brain was power. She tried to focus on that, on her shield, and not on his shadow moving over her, around her.

  Then he was there, nude from the belt up with his wool-stretching arousal an inch from her face. She’d watched clueless fucking women stare at his beauty, flock to him with ignorant desire. They wouldn’t salivate over his strength if they were trapped beneath it.

  The musculature in his torso stretched as he crouched to eye level. Despite the brawn on display, the pasty complexion gave him a sickly appearance. His eyes, violet in daylight, were as dark as the energy emanating off him.

  Her armor rose from her skin and outlined her body. She kept herself safe beneath it where he couldn’t see her or hurt her. On the outside, she arranged her mouth into a smile, her cheeks shaking with the effort, and held his gaze. “I missed you, Sir.”

  His pupils dilated, and his hands swung up, caging her face, fingers pressing into her temples. Then his mouth was on her, tongue knifing its way in, slashing, impaling. She held stock-still, mouth agape, and let his teeth scrape and pierce, his lips suck and yank. Puncturing her shield. Stealing her breath. Taking, always taking.

  The kiss broke and his chest panted. “I own you. Say it.”

  Rehearsed and executed endlessly, she delivered. “You own me, Sir.”

  He jumped to his feet, hands tackling his belt buckle. Oh God, she wasn’t ready. The shield. Harden the shield. It wavered around her, clinging, but not thick enough.

  How had Jay survived his pain? If he were hanging in irons, what would he have done to guard his mind from splintering apart? How resilient he must’ve been to carry the weight of so many wounds. She wanted to borrow his strength, imagined it plated over her skin.

  Roy’s pants dropped. Boxers followed. His inflamed erection grazed her lips. Rigid fingers raked over the crown of her head, twisting and yanking the short strands. “I love this length.”

  She would never cut it again.

  The fist in her hair tightened. The metal collar around her neck held her immobile. He punched his hips forward and slammed the head of his penis to the back of her throat.

  Deep breath. No air. She gasped. Shit! No air. Relax the throat. Stretch the tongue. Swallow the thrusts. Not working. Her eyes burned and her gagging was loud and sharp.

  His pelvis rotated, burrowing in. Wiry hair scrubbed her face. “Oooh…Hot damn, Charlee. Mother…fuuuuck.” Then the pounding began.

  Tears clogged her nose and spasmodic bursts of air, noisy and wet, escaped her lips between pumps. She swallowed, slackened her throat, and fought for every shallow breath. Please hurry. Oh Jesus, be done already.

  “Do you know how long it’s been?” He panted and plunged.

  No, no. Stop talking and finish. She shook her head, as much as his stabbing allowed. The metal bands around her ankles, wrists, and neck dug in, suffocating. Tears flooded her vision and seared her cheeks.

  His pace intensified. “Four years.” Thrust. “Two months.” Thrust. “Seventeen days.” He drove into her and held fast. His head fell back, and he roared to the ceiling, erupting down her throat. She choked, swallowed the bitterness of his release mixed with the salt of her snot and tears.

  He pulled out, and she felt the relief in the sag of her body. He kicked off his shoes, the clothes at his ankles, and squatted to capture her eyes. “Last time I fucked you was in the backseat of the Expedition outside of Benu. Do you remember it, Charlee? Yeah, of course you do.”

  The restaurant. The night she escaped. Dread crept over her and raised bumps on her skin.

  “I trusted you. I gave you that unsupervised moment. A gift.”

  And she’d seized it. Excused herself to the restroom, slipped through the kitchen, and escaped out the backdoor. She ran to the nearest motorist. She ran for four years.

  “And you used it against me. Never again, Charlee.” His anger was palpable, pelting her face in a mist of spit. “You won’t leave the tower. Every action supervised. Every. Single. Breath.” He twirled a finger above his head, indicating the walls, the ceiling, and the cameras. “Now, you owe me four years’ atonement, but I promise”—his smile was diseased and more painful than what she’d just endured—”I’ll go easy on you tonight.”

  From one rapid heartbeat to the next, he was behind her. He spread her cheeks and attacked her with his mouth, tongue digging and scooping between her labia. He shifted to her rectum and continued the assault. He spat, and the logy landed there, crawled down her crack, and clung to her inner thigh. The only lubrication he’d grant her.

  It wouldn’t be as painful as the first time, the night he took her virginity. She wasn’t that sixteen-year-old girl anymore.

  She put on her magic shield, pushed her arms through the sleeves, and wrapped it around her legs. The self-hypnosis prepared her, but when he impaled her ass, the shock of unbearable pain broke through her armor. She yelped, bit her tongue.

  His teeth landed on her back, gnawing as he pounded into her backside. The shield absorbed some of it, but she still felt. Damn him, she felt it, and the realism was hell on her body.

  He gripped her waist and punched his hips, in and out, again and again. “Did you fuck him?”

  Her defensive haze convulsed. “What?”

  The invasion in her body disappeared as he pulled out, but the relief was short lived.

  Whack.

  Agony annihilated the back of her thigh. Acute, localized, like a bolt of fire to the bone. Only one implement could do that.

  “I do not repeat myself.”

  Whack.

  Skin swelled beneath the cut of rattan.

  Whack. Whack.

  Sweat stung her eyes, and her limbs shook through the blows. No more. No more.

  Whack. Whack.

  What was the question? Sweet mother, make it stop. “Y-yes, Sir.” She licked cracked lips. “Yes, I fucked him.” She didn’t even try to hide the self-loathing in her voice.

  The cane clattered to the floor, and he plowed into her vagina, fierce and punishing. Pound after pound, he took from her. Flesh. Blood. Tears. It was disgusting. She was disgusting. Why did he want her? Why?

  He grabbed her hair, yanked her head back, shooting pain down her back. “Your body was created for my pleasure.”

  She shuddered. Had she asked that out loud?

  “No one bends to my cane or takes my dick like you do. No one feels as good as you do. I own you.”

  Tears clogged her throat, and he shoved her head away. Minutes blurred into hours. He violated every orifice, over and over without pause, and somewhere in the haze of anguish she panicked over his possible use of Viagra. He could go for hours on that horrible pill.

  When her armor eventually crumbled, she tried to crawl away from her body, tried to project her mind and all its nerve endings to the corners of the room where the darkness stood still.

  He spanked and caned, licked and bit, and spared no surface. Then he fucked her again.

  Her breath wheezed through a parched throat. Dried stripes of tears burned her cheeks. When the blaze from his penetration dulled, she sunk into a listless fog of acceptance. The shadows crept in from the walls and guttered the lights until there was nothing. Nothing but the echo of his painful smile and the promise it imparted.

  I’ll go easy on you tonight.

  7

  Daybreak glowed through
the expansive room. Mounds of bedding cradled Charlee’s bruises and welts, and she buried her face in the foam mattress. The acidic stench of cologne scorched her nose.

  Sixty floors up. Down a long corridor. Last door on the right. Roy’s bedroom.

  She’d dreamt of Noah. He’d busted into Roy’s bedroom with guns drawn and nothing standing between him and Roy but a few dozen bullets. But she knew better. Dreams were dangerous in this place. She wiped it from her mind.

  Quiet mantled the hollow space, but the atmosphere churned. He was near.

  Beside her, the bed was empty, but a man-size indentation remained. A muscle quivered in her lower lip. She bit down on it and shoved away the connecting thoughts.

  “Charlee.”

  She flinched, a full body spasm, and tried to downplay it by stretching her arms and steadying her breath. Then she turned her head.

  He stood before the dresser mirror, chin raised, knotting a blood-red tie. “I have meetings all morning, some things I couldn’t cancel. I cleared my schedule for the remainder of the week.”

  The nerves beneath her skin rioted as he approached. He perched beside her hip, grabbed her throat, and used it to roll her body to face him.

  Violet eyes sparked in the sunlight. “My beautiful girl. My bed. Perfection.” He petted her hair, his gaze clinging to her face, fixated with obsessive longing. “I don’t want to leave.”

  “Let me go,” she said, quietly, swallowing against his fist.

  He smiled, and it illuminated his eyes. “Never.”

  “Why do you hurt me?” His fingers dug in, pinching her esophagus. Where had her voice come from? Even when he wasn’t choking her, she’d never had the guts to question him. But that was then. She’d grown a lot in four years. “Did someone hurt you?”

  He chuckled. “Hurt me? No. My father was exceedingly wealthy and powerful. No one would dream of touching his son.” He sighed wistfully, and the hand around her throat loosened. “He beat my mother regularly. Even she loathed to defy him.” His eyes glazed over, faraway and heavy-lidded. “My father only needed to walk into a room and he owned it, its walls, and its occupants. He was a magnificent mentor.”

  His father had erected the cartel that was Oxford Industries. She shivered, grateful there was only one Oxford left to stain the world. As for Roy, the placidness of his current mood didn’t delude her. Spoiled little rich boys could exhibit moments of good behavior. As soon as things didn’t go their way, the tantrums ensued.

  “I slept inside you all night.” His whisper was a thousand crawly things skittering up her spine. “Your hot, tight cunt clung to me like a vacuum.”

  Delusional pervert. Thank God her weakened body had put her in a dead-like sleep. “Yes, Sir.”

  He reached around to her nape and pulled her face to his. The pain from the previous night was too fresh. If she fought him, it would only invite more. So she thawed her joints, molded against him, and tangled her tongue with the slug in his mouth. Cold and rigid inside, she gave him the silent, yielding response he expected. Whatever was needed to expedite his departure.

  The door creaked. “Sir. Your car waits.”

  Their lips separated, and his eyes imprisoned hers. “Thank you, Salvador.” His mouth, so close and pinched in a line, was a sanguine gash against the pale background of his face. Black hair and eyebrows intensified his complexion. He personified a macabre portrait of beauty and would look much the same frozen in death. The thought gave her strength, as did the lurch of the mattress and his parting words. “I’ll be a while.”

  The door closed behind him, and she released a shuddering exhale. The tears in her rectum caught fire as she threw off the quilts. She flinched, froze. No clothes, but that wasn’t what sent ice through her veins. It was the felt-lined shackle around her ankle. She twisted it, found the locking mechanism, and knew the key had just walked out the door.

  She followed the attached chain, which was light-weight and wrapped in a tube of silk, down to the coiled pile on the floor. From there, it led to a steel ring bolted to the hardwoods beneath the bed. No sense in yanking it. He would’ve made certain it bolted securely to the floor joist.

  Bruises speckled her hip bones and wrists. The welts on her legs tightened with each step toward the closet, and the chain unraveled to crawl behind her.

  Nothing had changed in her absence. The spartan dresser at one end. Her easel, desk, and drawing boards at the other. A flat screen facing the foot of the bed was the only fixture on the wall.

  The eyes in the ceiling followed her. The movement of tiny cameras wired in the recessed lighting might’ve gone unnoticed, but she’d had two years in her previous captivity to assimilate the room’s every detail.

  At the threshold of the closet, the chain jerked her leg mid-stride. All her old clothes hung in tidy rows beside his and out of reach. Twisted prick.

  She limped toward his dresser. Half-way there, the chain strained again. Trapped and naked. Dammit. Her drawing supplies were twice as far. A classic Roy Oxford tactic. Nothing was carte blanche. Her favored pastime, her clothes, all of it kept in the room and out of reach as a visual reminder that everything had to be earned.

  Four doors divided up the monotony of blank walls. The corridor, the closet, the bathroom, and the sliding panels that would open to his office. The exterior wall glared with floor to ceiling windows and a vista of the Golden Gate Bridge. The street below had a daunting view of Roy’s fortress of mirrored glass. A view she had never experienced.

  She walked the circle of the tether, her stiff muscles and sore bottom stinging with each step. Only the windows, the bed, and the bathroom were in reach. She emptied her bladder, used the toothbrush—the single item in the drawer-less, cabinet-less room—and skipped the shower. No toothpaste. No soap. No towels.

  A tray of assorted pastries, berries, a pitcher of milk, and bottled water sat on the round table beside the bed. But it was the bowl of oatmeal squares at the center that made her heart skip a beat.

  Dance with me at our wedding.

  Roy wouldn’t have known about the note Noah left the prior morning, but he did know what her favorite cereal was. Too bad he’d offered it so freely. She didn’t want it, couldn’t imagine ever enjoying it again.

  She curled beneath the bedding and broke the seal on the water bottle. No sedatives in the water to erase the stockroom, the ride to the airport, the kick to the head. The gun shot. She rubbed her breastbone and breathed through the stinging in her nose. Not knowing was worse than the truth. Would the murder of a St. Louis detective make national news?

  Every action supervised. Every. Single. Breath.

  She glared at the ceiling. “Turn on the television.”

  Seconds later, the TV powered on. The screen showed a skinny woman huddled in a large bed, her spiky hair the color of L’Oreal Platinum #105. She’d worn the color for over a year, but she didn’t recognize the woman beneath the disguise. Bit by bit, she was losing herself.

  She tugged the duvet tighter around her nudity and raised a palm to the side of the room. On screen, her face disappeared behind the hand. “A news station. Please?”

  She dropped her hand, steadied her breath, and waited.

  Nothing.

  “Turn it off.”

  The screen went black. The damned remote was another privilege to earn. Until then, she would let a fragment of her brain hold onto a still breathing, smiling, waiting Noah.

  Over a selection of blackberries and miniature rolls, she rewrote the prior night. She replaced it with a dance, bodies entwined, a sway in their steps. The fantasy tormented her, burning her eyes and twisting things inside her.

  Dread slithered over her and she shook it off, steeled her backbone. She would not let Roy break her. She needed to keep a measure of herself locked away from his keen eyes so when she did escape, she would have something left to help her mend.

  But what did she have that he hadn’t already taken?

  She had a memory of a man wi
th back full of scars. Beneath the superficial damage was a devotion to survival, an instinct to dominate his future. Most probably didn’t see that when they looked at him, but she hadn’t just recognized it, she’d felt it and wanted it.

  She would lock his strength deep inside her, would mimic his steel undercarriage and make it her own. She recalled the unrefined charm in his retorts, the raw beauty of his expressions, and the way he looked at her when she turned to leave. As she replayed their hour together over and over, the pain dimmed, the bedroom bled away, and her eyelids sagged.

  8

  Charlee woke to the Craig’s voice.

  “Get up.” He ripped off the covers. “Mr. Oxford is back, and you are requested in his office.”

  She wrapped her arms around her nudity. “Now?”

  “Shower first.” He wrenched the chain attached to her leg, and she tumbled to the floor.

  “Dick.”

  The air hissed and a strike hit her back, ricocheting from her tailbone to her knees. She gasped. Fuck, her body would never hold up at this rate. She twisted her head and found him flexing over her and swinging a section of the chain folded in half.

  He could go to hell. She pulled in her legs as if to stand, then reared back and shot a foot into his groin.

  A grunt pushed past his lips, but rather than dropping the chain, he raised it for another strike.

  “Hurt me again and I will beg Mr. Oxford to remove the rest of your ear.” She matched his death glare with one of her own.

  He worked his jaw and flared his nostrils as if sniffing for a bluff. Begging Roy would come with a high price, one she wasn’t sure she’d be willing to pay.

  The chain lowered. Sure, he was afraid of Roy, but he was more fearful of losing his grand salary, his swanky penthouse living, and the power that came with being the right-hand to one of the world’s wealthiest men.

  She hobbled to the bathroom, the twinge in her back adding to her frustration. In the brightly lit room, she found everything she needed to prepare for his summoning. Towels, shampoo, soap, lotion, toothpaste…a tactical folding knife to conceal in her ass? Well, almost everything.