Is he silently laughing at me, like the men at the auction? As if all my curiosity, my accomplishments are a big joke for the men around me?
And I can’t even argue the point, because I’m the one on the platform. I’m the one for sale.
The professor launches into a story about her coworker’s unfortunate encounter with a wild goat during their last trip, and I’m distracted from my own disgrace.Chapter Twenty-FiveAs we’re heading up the stairs, I realize he’s taking a different path to the box. Except we’re not heading toward the box anymore.
“Gabriel?”
He pushes open a door to a dark room and turns to face me. “After you?”
My eyes are wide as I take in the strange shapes of shadows inside. Props. This is some kind of storage room for theater equipment. We aren’t supposed to be in here. And there’s only one reason Gabriel Miller would want to take me somewhere private.
There’s a tremble reserved only for him, only for sex. I know it’s going to happen between us. A thousand different positions, a million different ways. And all of that before he even takes my virginity, strictly speaking. Knowing it’s inevitable doesn’t take away the fear. How much will it hurt? How much will he make it hurt, on purpose, to humiliate me?
“Inside, little virgin.”
He has infinite patience even though intermission only lasts for fifteen minutes. How many did we spend at the painting? Five minutes? Ten? He doesn’t look rushed, though. He looks like a man assured of his power, a king standing at the back of the board while his subjugates fight the war.
I step inside, breathing in the scent of cedar and linen. And something else, something metallic. Maybe rust. There’s a collection of strange things in this room. I can make out the shape of an oak tree in the corner, its limbs spreading wide. On the other side there’s a row of bleachers, like a high school football game would have. A Native American tepee and a lemonade stand.
Gabriel closes the door, draining even that faint bit of light.
He stands behind me, a solid presence. Unyielding.
“No stairs this time,” I whisper.
He moves me as if he can see in the dark. I’m blind, blinking into the blackness, dust stinging my eyes. God, what if we run into something? What if we trip and fall? But his hands guiding my arms are firm and sure, his movements focused on a single goal.
When I finally feel something plush and unmoving hit the front of my thighs, he stops. A large hand covers my back. Then he pushes me forward. I’m bent over something rounded. My hands feel smooth leather and tufted buttons. A sofa. The sloping kind that a psychiatrist would use.
My ass is in the air, completely vulnerable to him, something that becomes painfully clear when he flips up my dress. Large hands smooth over my panties before tugging them down.
This is happening so quickly, too quickly. My breathing comes faster and faster. The dust fills my lungs. I’m going to suffocate like this. Oh God.
“Breathe,” he says, his hands stroking my sides.
I’m a horse and this is my flank. It’s embarrassing how well it works, how easily I calm under his touch. Some people have that effect, I’ve heard. Some instinct that tells us we can trust them. My very own virgin whisperer.
Except that instinct is a lie. This man bought me at auction for one purpose only: to break me.
My breathing has calmed, and I lay my cheek against the cool leather.
“That’s right,” he murmurs. “This isn’t going to hurt. So afraid of pain, aren’t you? Why do you always expect the worst, little virgin?”
Because you’re a monster!
Is he, though? The time on the spiral staircase didn’t hurt. Maybe every time will be like that—intimate and filthy. And pleasurable, yes. He made me climax so hard I felt it for hours. All night long.
He’s saving my virginity for last, though. And like he said, I play chess. I know how to move the pieces around the board, plotting and planning for the final strike. How to lull your opponent into a false sense of security. Or like he so eloquently put it: how to use a pawn. It will hurt in the end. That’s the only way he wins. And a man like Gabriel Miller never loses.
He runs his hand over my bare ass, gentle and sure. “The chili juice. That one really did a number on you, associating sex with pain.” He gives a rough laugh. “And I thought I was kinky.”
I flinch in the dark, because what Daddy did wasn’t kinky. It couldn’t have been kinky, because it involved his daughter. He did it to me. “He was trying to protect me.”
Two fingers slip between my legs, seeking the wetness between my folds. “And how did that work out?”