Taboo: A Dark Romance Boxset (Stud Ranch 1)

The first time he slapped me, it immediately turned into sex, and our sex had always been on the rough side. In the end, was a slap really all that different from a spanking? It was just another facet of the world of kink Bryce was teaching me about, I told myself. It wasn’t like he was hitting me, hitting me.

But the sex just kept getting rougher and rougher.

Until I knew he was hurting me on purpose. But always, at least in the beginning, he’d make me cum after he hurt me. So often and so regularly that the two became inextricably linked.

Just like he wanted.

It was all so confusing. Only a year before, if I saw a woman like the one he was turning me into on the street, I would have shouted at her to leave him! It would have seemed so obvious if I was looking at it from the outside. But Bryce had a way of narrowing down your world until he was all you could see.

All my friends fell by the wayside. Along with my family back in Ohio. Bryce made sure he was my only lifeline.

It was only after I’d burned all my other bridges, after he’d taken over the company I worked for and I was completely isolated and dependent on him that he really showed his true colors.

But it was too late by then.

At that point, he controlled every aspect of my life.

I woke up one morning, bruised and aching, my throat sore from Bryce choking me the night before, wondering how the hell I’d gotten to this point.

I wasn’t this person. This woman. I wasn’t the abused woman who stayed.

But I’d let my apartment lease lapse months ago since I was living with Bryce. He was effectively my boss. I barely had any money in savings and there was nowhere else for me to go. I was homeless, worthless, nothing apart from Bryce.

Plus, and this was the most disgusting thing of all…

I loved him.

Most days I justified all of it. It wasn’t really abuse. There were no black eyes. And yes, I hated it when he started ‘lending’ me out to his friends, but he was always in the room and he said it turned him on to watch me with other men. And that was something couples did, right? Had open relationships?

And if I hated it so much, then why did I cum all the time? Some part of me obviously liked it.

Even if it grew harder and harder to bear. Even if Bryce stopped keeping up with any appearance of caring about me. He ordered me to fuck his friends and then laughed with them about what a whore I was.

But by then I believed every word he uttered so deep down to my center. I was a whore. I was worthless. I proved it every time I let him lend me out to be used like a hooker and didn’t leave the next day. Hookers didn’t cum when they fucked for money.

But I did.

Because I was a disgusting worthless slut who deserved everything Bryce did to me.

But then there was that night. It was the first time there’d ever been so many men at once.

I switch the shower to a tub and then sink down as the water fills. I cover my eyes like I can scrub out the memories.

It’s useless, though. That night is seared so deep in my memory it might as well be branded on my soul.

“Christ, you’re fat today,” Bryce frowned like he was disgusted after he’d ripped my work blouse open and looked me critically up and down.

I’d just asked him what he wanted for dinner and I froze, my eyes immediately dropping to look down at myself. I thought I’d been losing weight, I’d been so stressed out lately. Nothing I ever did seemed to please him.

I was fucking pathetic, but all I wanted to do was to please him. I wanted it to be like it had been at the beginning when he doted on me. When he’d been chasing me like I was an exotic creature he couldn’t wait to catch and cherish. Where was that man? Had he ever been real at all? Surely he was still there underneath, right?

Bryce had just been stressed out at work. There was so much going on as he strived endlessly to build up Gentry Tech. He was brilliant and would be a billionaire by the time he was thirty. And I got to be a part of it. Behind every great man stood a great woman. That’s what they said, right? I was privileged to be that woman for Bryce. So I could stand a few mood swings now and then.

“I’ll just have a salad, then,” I said. “But I can cook the pork chops I got yesterday for you and—”