Enslaved (10 page)

She was surprised at just how good it all tasted. Unlike most women she knew, Rae had never especially cared about food. She never lusted after ice cream, or gorged herself on potato chips and chocolate when she was feeling blue. Food was just fuel, necessary to keep going. In fact, breakfast was usually just coffee, or at most a roll eaten on the run.

But today, for some reason, each bite was a bit of heaven, sheer perfection exploding against her taste buds, satisfying a deep longing she hadn’t been aware of. She closed her eyes, savoring the chewy texture of the toast slathered with melted butter. She chewed slowly and licked her lips to catch an errant crumb.

When she opened her eyes, she saw Sam was watching her, that amused, insolent smile again playing over his mouth. “Enjoying it, huh?” he said, the smile sliding into a grin. Something in the way he said it, and the gleam in his eye, embarrassed her, as if she been caught doing something better kept private.

But it was a direct fucking question and so she forced herself to reply. “Yes, thank you, Sir,” she said stiffly.

Sam dipped his head toward her. “You’re learning, finally, how a proper slave girl speaks.”

She said nothing to this, but returned her focus to the plate, silently willing him to feed her more of the delicious food. They continued to eat the rest of the meal in silence, with Sam alternating bites between them. It was a lot of food, especially for someone who never ate breakfast, but when the plate was empty, Rae wanted more.

Sam shifted his weight on the mattress and turned. He pointed toward the wall across from her bed. “See that device up there?” She followed his gaze, focusing on what looked like a small smoke detector, a tiny red light blinking at its center. She nodded.

“That, my dear,” Sam said, “is a camera. It’s attached to a closed-circuit TV. It’s set up with a night vision lens so I can see what you’re doing down here, even in the dark.”

Rae swallowed hard and bit her lip. Had he…? Before she even finished formulating the thought, Sam provided the answer. “You, Rae Johansen, are a willful, disobedient girl. Admittedly, you’ve only been here a short while, but you seem incapable of following very basic rules. Did I not tell you that you weren’t to touch yourself unless I gave you express permission?”

Rae felt at once hot and cold, embarrassed to realize he’d been spying on her, and frightened at what the consequences were going to be. There was no way out of this one. He was staring her down, waiting for her reply.

“Yes,” she managed to croak.

“Yes, what?”

She cleared her throat. “Yes, Sir. I—I guess I forgot.”

“I guess you did.” His mouth was turned down in a frown, but she could almost swear she saw his eyes sparking with amusement. He was
enjoying
this—of course he was, the sadistic bastard. He liked nothing better than to catch her breaking the fucking
rules
!

“What happens to slave girls who disobey?”

Rae’s mouth felt dry. The food she’d eaten lay like lead in her stomach. He was watching her, clearly expecting a reply.

“They get…punished,” she whispered.

“That’s correct. They do.” Sam stood, crossing his strong arms over his bare chest. “Let’s see now. The punishment should fit the crime. You can’t seem to keep your hands off your cunt, or rather,
my
cunt. And you like to come without permission, taking your pleasure at your own discretion, despite the fact you were expressly forbidden from doing so.” He stroked his chin and pursed his lips, staring at the ceiling in a caricature of someone thinking hard.

“I know just what we’ll do,” he announced, looking down at her. “We’ll combine punishment with training.” He glanced at his watch. “Damn, I have a few phone calls I have to handle this morning first—you’ll have to wait. Since I can’t trust you to behave on your own, you’ll spend the time while I’m working in your cage.”

“Sam, not the—”

“That’s it, I’ve had enough.” The sparkle had left his eyes now, leaving only the frown. Leaning down, Sam gripped Rae’s arm, hauling her from the bed as she stumbled to keep her footing. “That’s the last time you speak out of turn.” He gripped her firmly by the shoulders. “Wait right here. Don’t move. Not an inch, you understand?”

Terrified, Rae nodded. Tears were pressing at her eyelids. To think, she’d nearly relaxed during breakfast, but now every muscle in her body was tensed with fear and trepidation. What was going to happen?

Sam went to the cabinet and returned a moment later, a roll of duct tape in his hand. He pulled a long strip and ripped it with his teeth. “Close your lips,” he said brusquely. “You can’t seem to keep your mouth shut, so we’ll just shut it for you.”

Before she could react, he pressed the sticky tape over her mouth, patting it down around the edges. Grabbing the O ring at the front of her collar, he dragged her toward the cage. Pushing at her shoulders, he forced her to her knees. “Get in.”

Rae crawled awkwardly into the confining space, her heart was skittering like a caged mouse. “I’ll be watching you, slave, so behave yourself.” He clanged the small gate shut and popped the padlock into place.

As he walked away, Rae mewled behind the tape but he ignored her. As the door at the top of the stairs slammed closed, Rae slumped down onto her side, curling in on herself. She shifted so her back was to the camera, though it occurred to her there were probably other cameras placed about the room—she would have to look more carefully when he let her out.

Tentatively, she touched the sticky tape that covered her lips and extended several inches on either side of her mouth. She ached to pull it off but didn’t dare. He was angry enough as it was. She lay still, for a while just letting the scattered, panicked thoughts ricochet through her mind. This was only day two. How in the hell was she going to get through this entire month! Everything was so hard and so scary. He punished her at every turn.

She thought about this for a long while. The punishments came because she didn’t obey the rules. Yes, they were arbitrary and offensive and intrusive, but they were clear. If she could remember to obey his fucking rules, it would be that much easier on her. She drew air in through her nostrils, willing herself to calm down.

If she was going to get through the next twenty-nine days, she needed to change the way she was handling, or rather, not handling things. Sam Ryker was calling the shots. She’d given him this power over her. She needed to accept that and somehow find a way to work with it, to work through it, without losing her mind in the process.

She would approach this as a challenge. Think of it as a trial to be overcome, a series of tests she could either pass or fail. She closed her eyes, mentally ticking off the rules as best she could.

One: Only speak when answering a direct question.

Two: Address him as Sir.

Three: If you need to speak, ask permission first.

Four: Don’t touch yourself without express permission.

Five: When you’re going to come, ask for permission first.

Six: Do everything he says, without hesitation.

That last one encompassed a lot, but it was straightforward. Just do what he said and stay out of trouble. It was really pretty simple. She was in this for the duration. She needed to get her mind around that and stop resisting it. If she could manage to obey these dictates, it would make her time easier.

You did the crime, now do the time.

It was strange to admit, but until this moment, she hadn’t really thought of what she’d done as a crime. She was just
borrowing
the funds, she’d told herself, and had some vague plan of paying it back one day, if not in actual dollars, at least in service and dedication to
Ryker Solutions
.

But that was crazy thinking, she now had to admit to herself. She’d been so caught up in her drama, frightened of the lawsuits that had been threatened and the financial ruin she was facing if she didn’t come up with the monies owed that she hadn’t really stopped to think about what she was doing. She was a thief. A liar and a thief. She was no better than the unscrupulous assholes who had duped her into the deal in the first place.

It never occurred to you to maybe come to me and ask for help?
He’d asked her that when confronting her. The answer, honestly, was no. She hadn’t thought of turning to Sam, or indeed to anyone, for help. It would have been an admission of just how badly she’d fucked up.

But she’d only made it worse, by taking the easy way out of her troubles. Now she found herself living out some kind of nightmare, locked in this dungeon, waiting in a cage wearing a dog collar with her mouth taped shut. She was a prisoner, a voluntary slave, at the mercy of a man who held all the cards.

Still, this was better than jail, she reminded herself. It was finite, and thirty days was a lot less than what she’d get if convicted by a court of law. She could do this the easy way, or the hard way. Why make it worse than it had to be?

When he came back, she’d submit to her punishment. What choice did she have? She cradled her hands beneath her cheek and closed her eyes, slipping into an uneasy doze while she waited for Sam’s return.

Sam showered and dressed quickly, not bothering to shave, as he’d decided to work from home while Rae was sequestered in his dungeon. He took care of the few customer calls he couldn’t put off, handholding a new client through some programming issues and working out some kinks with the IT guy at
Ichi Products’
American branch. All the time he was on his phone and computer, he kept glancing at the closed-circuit TV screen. He had four cameras placed at various intervals along the ceiling in the dungeon and he’d selected the camera view of the cage so he could keep his eye on Rae.

He knew what he was doing was wrong by conventional standards. The bywords of
safe, sane and consensual
, which were such a mantra in the BDSM community, wouldn’t include leaving a sub alone in a cage with her mouth taped shut. But then, he thought with a snort, none of what he was doing would fly if he applied those bywords.

This was beyond the pale, he told himself. It wasn’t about BDSM—he was exacting a price for Rae’s thievery. He was punishing her for bilking him out of a lot of money. It had nothing to do with D/s.

He knew, even as the thought entered his mind, that he was lying. It had everything to do with it.

Since that one night he’d claimed her, he’d never really gotten over the intensity of her reactions and the spark of pure need and desire he’d seen deep in her eyes. Afterwards, when she’d rejected what he offered with such certainty, he’d known she was lying, not necessarily to him, but to herself. She was afraid to admit she was submissive and a masochist. She thought it made her less of a woman, somehow. She had confused an honest, erotic exchange of power with somehow being made “less than”, subjugated and demeaned rather than exalting in her surrender.

And he hadn’t been able to reach her. She hadn’t given him, or indeed herself, a chance to explore that intensity. It was his fault as much as hers, he knew. He’d rushed her. In his greed and passion for her, he’d move too far, too fast.

But now the game had changed. The rules were all new, and he was the one writing them. He felt electrified with power—it snaked through his blood like a livewire, heightening sensation, making him feel like he could bend steel in his hands or conquer worlds. He knew he was stepping over the line, way over, but who was to stop him?

She’d agreed to the terms. The proof was down in his dungeon. He focused on the screen. She was curled into a fetal ball, her back to the camera. He could see the delicate outline of her spine beneath her smooth skin, the flare of her hips, the luscious curve of her ass.

He hadn’t bothered with underwear so it was easy to access his cock by slipping his hand into his jeans. He curled his fingers around the shaft, feeling it swell as he stared at the naked, caged girl waiting for him. He was frustrated with how she’d continued to fight him at every turn, but reminded himself it had only been twenty-four hours since she’d entered his dungeon. He had time, lots of time, to bend and mold her to his will. By the time he was done with her, would she even want to step out of the confines of what would become her world?

Sam shook away this thought, aware he was treading on very thin and dangerous moral ice with what he was doing. He wouldn’t think about it now. He’d just take this one day at a time, feeling his way as he punished the thief waiting downstairs for her just desserts.

He opened and booted up her laptop. He typed in her work email user name and password and quickly scanned the inbox for anything that needed immediate attention. He handled what he could and made a few notes to check with her later on. Though he’d made her give him her personal email password too, he decided they would go through it together later. He’d created an away message for her—“I’m traveling on business for the next month, so forgive me if my responses take a while. I’ll be in touch!” If there were love letters in there from boyfriends, he didn’t want to know about it.