A Debt Owed (The Debt Duet 1)

The chilling silence between us speaks volumes. It tells me he knows this same thing.

His nostrils flare, and he averts his eyes, rubbing his lips together. He closes his eyes completely as he turns away from me and rubs his forehead with the palm of his hand.

“Get out,” he says, but his much softer voice confuses me.

Where’s the anger? Debris litters the whole kitchen, and he’s standing there with slumped shoulders as if nothing ever happened. As though he’s … ashamed.

“Leave me,” he says, still pointing toward the door as he clicks some kind of button hanging on the wall near the stove. “Someone will escort you to your room.”

Within a minute, someone has arrived. A curly-haired male employee, from the looks of it, complete with outfit. As if they don’t ever sleep.

He gestures me to follow him, so I do. I don’t want to give Easton the satisfaction of winning this fight, but I need to remove myself from this situation before it gets out of hand.

I can tell he had to stop himself from going any further … As if he was dying to grab me and do something to me. But the way he stared at me while I ate that piece of cake, with such a beastly glare, made me feel … powerless. Like he was going to fuck me right there and then on the kitchen countertop.

My heart palpitates, and I clench my legs together as I follow the man up the stairs. I can’t stop thinking about how Easton literally tried to feed me. At first, I thought he was only trying to get to me, to make me feel like a child, but he was so transfixed on my lips that I felt naked. And I don’t like that feeling at all.

Shivers run up and down my spine as we arrive at my door, and the employee kindly opens the door as if it’s some kind of service to me and not at all as an accomplice to his employer’s schemes.

“Do you work for him?” I ask as I walk inside and turn around to face him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says as he attempts to close the door.

I put my foot out to stop the door. “What’s your name?” I ask before I lose the chance.

“You can call me Nick, ma’am,” he replies.

“And you agree with all this?” I ask. “You know I’m a prisoner here, right?”

“Ma’am …” He sighs. “We’re not allowed to speak with you about this.”

“So you know yet you choose to do nothing?” I say, cocking my head as he continues to try to close the door on me.

“Good night.” He manages to push my foot back inside and immediately shuts the door, locking me inside.

Fuck.

I punch the door several times. “You can’t keep me in here!”

But no one replies to my calls. No matter how many times I bang, and say, “Let me out!”

It all falls on deaf ears.

But I know Easton can hear me.

I know because he’s been watching me all this time. He knows where I am whenever I leave this room. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was watching me right now. He just chooses not to respond to my cries. Like a true cruel man keeping a girl hostage.

After a while, I turn around and fall onto the bed facedown. Not wanting to face reality, I curl up into the fetal position and close my eyes, wishing the tears away.

Chapter 9

Easton

One hiccup. Two hiccups. A sniff.

With my ear pressed against her door, I can hear every sound, every breath.

I can’t stop biting my lip as I listen, wondering what she’s doing right now. Something muffles her cries, a pillow perhaps. I imagine her hugging it tight as she curls up on my guest bed … her bed. In her room. The room I gave her as a prison to stay in.

I shouldn’t be here.

But I can’t stay away either. Wherever she is, I’ve always wanted to follow. It’s what drove me to her in the first place, what made me take her away from her father.

She’s right. I’m a cruel monster who only cares about his own desires. But a part of me, somewhere deep inside, wishes for something else too. Something … better. Something real.

But we can’t have that. We never could and never will.

Not when she’s my hostage, someone I keep in a soft and velvety cage for my selfish needs.

My hand lingers on the wood, nails digging in as my heart sinks into my shoes. I’m fighting the urge to unlock the door and go inside.

I have no place in her room. Not after taunting her to the brink of despair. Did I go too far? The knife and fork were only a game—a way to toy with her emotions—but the sight of her obeying me filled me with such power that it consumed me and made me lash out. I wanted her to eat that cake until she was full and then sink to her knees and take my cock as a second dessert.