Wretched Love

“An important ritual, huh?” Swiss asked, teasing in his tone.

I pursed my lips tighter. “Yes,” I replied, a snap to my tone. “It sets you up for the entire day.”

Swiss’s hands settled on my hips now, pulling me so our bodies were pressed together, and I could feel that this conversation was not turning him off in the slightest.

My blood turned hotter with need.

“Eating your pussy this morning would’ve set me up for the entire day,” he rasped, mouth inches from mine.

“In addition to that, seeing those sheets all tangled from you.” One of his hands moved from my hip, upward, underneath the fabric of my tank.

I let out a rough gasp at his callused hand running over my bare skin and inside the fabric of my bra.

He tweaked my nipple with the perfect amount of pressure.

“Seein’ those sheets all tangled from you,” he repeated, gaze hungrier now. “Knowin’ that I was going to be putting you right back in that bed at the end of the day… What was the point in makin’ it?”

I pursed my lips. I couldn’t really argue with that logic.

“Let me ask you a question, Countess.” He was shrugging off his vest—no it was called a cut, thanks to my googling—then placed it on the back of a chair. Placed it carefully. With reverence. I took note of that, storing it away with all of my other little tidbits about this man. Maybe because I knew that I had to leave him, and I wanted to visit these memories, savor them, long after I was gone.

He turned to face me, his expression wicked. Wicked in a way that made my stomach flip.

“Do you like to be punished?” he purred.

For a split second, my mind hurtled away from this room, all the way back to the home I’d escaped. The life I’d escaped.

“You like laughing at other men’s jokes?” Preston asked quietly.

He was advancing on me, and I knew better than to retreat despite all of my instincts screaming at me to do so.

“I was being polite,” I said on a whimper.

I knew the blow was coming before his backhand made contact.

My head whipped to the side, and my cheek burned. It was not enough force to push me to the ground. A blow of that magnitude would leave a mark on my face. Preston was very precise with his hits.

He grasped on to my chin so he could force my head back around, so I could make contact with his ice blue eyes.

“You were being a thirsty little slut,” he murmured. “And for that, you need to be punished.”

A hand on my chin pulled me back into the present. I was met with espresso-colored eyes. They were still full of sex, but there was an edge of concern there.

“Kate?” Swiss murmured.

I pushed away all of those terrible memories, pushed away the part of myself that was controlled by them, instead focusing on Swiss’s hand on my chin.

“Do I like to be punished?” I repeated, my voice a purr of its own.

His eyes flared, and my body responded instinctively.

“Why yes, I love to be punished,” I whispered.

That coldness overtook his face, the same from last night. But it was not cruel, divest of feeling, as I had the proof of. It was something else. He was someone else when he got into this room, this zone. There were no smiles, no easy jokes.

No, this was utterly serious. And somehow, that turned me on. I responded to the structure of it. Of him. Knowing that in this room, it was only him and me. Nothing else existed. No one knew I was here. It was… liberating.

“You left this morning,” he said quietly. “When I was nowhere near done with you.” His hands went to the bottom of my shirt, peeling it off.