Enthralled (The Enslaved Duet 1)

Wait for me by the door, naked, kneeling with your legs spread and hands behind your back.

When the waiting got too much, I thought of those orders in Alexander’s clipped, unflappable tones, and they cooled me like an ice cube in hot tea, not noticeably enough and only briefly.

My shoulders ached from holding my hands behind my back, from tipping my breasts into the air, my nipples hard and pointed like arrows notched in a bow.

I wasn’t comfortable in any sense of the word.

But my discomfort aroused me.

At that point, after nearly an hour of kneeling in the great hall, everything aroused me.

The cold, unforgiving kiss of marble on my shins, the weight of my entire body compressing my ankles, and the way the constant draft of the old manor whirred around my swollen sex like the whisper of a kiss.

If pressed, I honestly wasn’t sure if I would state my name, date of birth, or prior place of residence.

I was just flesh, made pretty on a plate and waiting at the pass to be served hot to a high-paying guest or a severe critic.

He’d been gone for five days.

It shouldn’t have been such an interminably long time.

In fact, it should have been a beloved reprieve from his constant sexual attentions.

At first, I’d rejoiced in the freedom. I took nearly every meal in the kitchen with Douglas who prepared Italian dishes that almost rivaled Mama’s. I trained in the gym every morning, swimming in the lap pool, staring at the massive statue of Poseidon as I did the breast stroke. I spent every other spare moment in the library, reading first editions of the Bronte sisters and Byron, beautifully illustrated hard copies of fantasy novels like The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and The Hobbit.

I thought endlessly about Salvatore. I no longer doubted he was my father. It made sense given his eccentric presence in our lives and how much we truly did look like him. Every time I let myself linger over it, I grew so angry I felt as if I would burst out of my skin. It was his face I imagined when I punched and kicked the hanging bag in the gym, his eyes I pretended to gouge when I fenced with Riddick, the only man sanctioned to do so while Alexander was gone.

Sometimes, late at night when the darkness and loneliness ate at my skin like so many crawling bugs, I let myself despair over the what-ifs. What if he’d stayed with Mama? What if he hadn’t killed Chiara Davenport? And why? What kind of man did any of that unless he was just pure, straight-up evil?

To distract myself further, I gorged myself on food, exercise, and reading, but it did nothing to fill the bottomless well of longing that opened in the pit of my belly the minute Alexander had left for his travels.

My mind was erratic, flitting from interest to interest, unable to settle without the firm direction of Alexander’s commands. I adapted slowly as if waking from a dream. By the fifth day, my mind was my own again but tuned to a station filled with static.

It was my body that suffered the most. I felt aching and restless, so listless at moments I wondered if I could get out of bed.

It was as if I was a depleted battery, and the only thing that could reanimate my ions was sex.

Apart from Douglas, Riddick was the only man I saw even though it was normal for me to cross paths with other male servants. It didn’t take me long to realize they were being deliberately kept from me. Noel was gone with Alexander, so I didn’t even have his chess games to fill the void.

Alexander had turned me into a sexual monster, but the only person he wanted me weaponised against was himself.

My sensitive ears picked up the telltale rumble of gravel churning under wheels even through the thick stone walls.

A car was pulling up.

We never had visitors, so it had to be him.

My Master.

My mouth flooded with salvia. I itched to catapult out of my pose so that the moment the door opened, my body would be on his, his hands catching my ass as I linked my long legs around him, and all would be right with my world at Pearl Hall.

It physically hurt to quell the impulse, but the ache when I clenched those mental muscles felt good. It felt good because I knew I’d be rewarded for my uncharacteristic patience.

When he saw it, he would know it was just another new trick in an arsenal of traits he was teaching me.

Heels clicked against the stone pavers on the steps. A low muffle of voices.

Then the heavy velvet against velvet sound of the door pushing open.

My breath left my body as I was filled to the brim with nervous, delicious anticipation.