Under His Skin (For His Pleasure, Book 20) (2 page)

Handcuffs.

And he’d managed to lace the handcuffs
through the back of the chair, so she was essentially locked into place.

She glanced up at him fearfully, and he
glared back at her menacingly.
 
“Don’t give me that look,” he said.
 
“I didn’t do this to you—
you
did this to you.”

She kept looking at him, hoping for some
sign of mercy, some glimmer of hope in his eyes that he didn’t truly hate
her.
 

“Keep looking at me and I’ll blindfold
you too.
 
Then you’ll really have
nothing to do, and no possible way of getting yourself in more trouble.”

She turned her head and made sure to
stare only at the wall once more.

“Now you’re finally getting it,” he
scoffed.
 
He started to walk away
from her, then turned and stopped.
 
“You know, for a supposedly smart girl educated at one of the world’s
finest institutions, you don’t learn very quickly, do you?”

And then he turned around again and left
the room, and Kennedy sat and stared, and waited.

***

Minutes turned into nearly an hour.
 
Her jaw was beginning to ache and the
taste of rubber in her mouth was becoming vaguely nauseating.
 
The handcuffs chafed her wrists and she
desperately wanted to stand up and stretch.

Also, staring at the plain white wall was
dull and Easton hadn’t come out of the bedroom even once to check on her.

Kennedy told herself that the punishment
did indeed fit the crime.
 
Yes, it
was incredibly uncomfortable and she was bored silly, but that was the least
she deserved based on her actions.

You
told your personal business—and Easton’s—to someone who was
practically a stranger, and then he went and blabbed it to the tabloids.
 
Then you spied on Easton’s family and
got caught by a high-ranking mobster before finally telling Easton everything
you’d done.

That
was a pretty sizable betrayal, and he already had good reason not to trust you
based on your history of hiding the truth.

Kennedy wilted in her chair as she
thought of just how badly she’d screwed everything up.
 

Nicole
must hate me for sure, now.
 
There
won’t be any way to repair the damage.

She sniffled but couldn’t afford to start
crying with the ball gag in her mouth.
 
What if her nose got stuffed up?

Kennedy focused on staying composed,
despite the fact that the man she’d fallen for was in the other room trying to
ignore her while keeping her chained to a chair with a gag stuffed in her mouth
so he didn’t have to listen to her.

She hadn’t heard much noise from the
bedroom and was starting to wonder what Easton was even doing in there.
 
But then she heard the clattering of
keys and realized he was probably on his computer working.

More time passed, and Kennedy started to
notice that besides her butt starting to go numb, she was also feeling a distinct
pressure on her bladder that told her she needed to go to the bathroom soon.

Oh
great.
 
Just my luck.
 

She tried to distract herself by
listening to Easton’s typing, wondering what he was doing, picturing him on his
laptop, the glow from the screen illuminating his rugged, handsome face.

But that only worked so long before she
once again fixated on her need to pee.

She’d always been the type that had to go
suddenly.
 
It would just go from
being a non-issue to feeling like an urgent situation in no time at all, and
when that happened, Kennedy usually obeyed the urge.

She didn’t want to risk wetting herself
on top of the other humiliations she’d already suffered this day.
 

How was she supposed to get his
attention?
 
He was going to be
angry, maybe even furious at her for speaking out when he’d told her to keep
silent.

Besides, the ball gag wouldn’t even let
her talk, she could only grunt and make noises.

Just
wait, she told herself.
 
Be
patient.
 
He must know that you need
to go to the bathroom sometime.
 
He’s not going to treat you worse than a dog.

But Kennedy wasn’t so sure about that,
and as each minute passed by, she began to realize that whether it was
psychological or not—she had to go.
 
She felt like she was going to burst and Easton had yet to make an
appearance.

Opening her mouth as wide as she could,
Kennedy tried to give a yell for Easton.
 
It came out all muffled, but it was loud enough to hopefully get his
attention.

When he didn’t respond, she yelled
louder.
 
It sounded like someone
shouting into a pillow.

Easton emerged from the bedroom, his
expression one of cold and hard detachment.
 
“Is something wrong?
 
Nod or shake your head.”

She nodded.

This had to qualify as something being
wrong, didn’t it?
 
She sure hoped
so.

He gave her an extra long glare as if he
didn’t even believe her nod, as if he thought this might just be a ploy of some
sort to get his attention.
 
But he
walked over and then undid the straps, pulling the gag out of her mouth.

There was blessed relief as she was
finally able to close her weary mouth—even swallow her saliva
normally.
 
She opened and closed her
jaw a couple of times and noticed it was incredibly sore, achy, and her lips
felt like canvas that had been stretched too tight.

“Tell me the problem,” Easton said brusquely.

“I have to go the bathroom.”

He sighed.
 
“You can hold it.”

“No I cannot, and unless you feel like
cleaning up after me, I think you should let me go.”

“I don’t care for your tone.”

She turned her head and stared up at him,
color rising to her cheeks.
 
“And I
don’t care to be treated worse than an animal.
 
Even a dog is let out to go to the
bathroom.”

“Dogs are loyal and trustworthy animals.”

She almost—almost—said fuck
you.
 
The words came to her lips and
she only barely restrained herself from saying it.

Easton seemed to read her anger, and a
tight smile crept across his handsome face.
 
“Anyway,” he sighed, “I suppose you’ll
get your bathroom break.”
 
He
produced a key from his pocket and unlocked her handcuffs.

“Thanks,” she said dully, as she rubbed
her wrists.
 
There were deep lines
in her skin from where they’d dug into her flesh.

“Hurry up,” Easton said.
 
“I’m giving you five minutes to go to
the bathroom and then you come out here and it’s back to the chair.”

“For how much longer?” she asked.
 
As it was, her legs felt like jelly, her
butt was numb and only starting to regain any feeling.

“For as long as I decide.
 
Maybe all night if you keep asking me
questions and giving me attitude.”

Kennedy turned away from him and stormed
into the bathroom, shutting the door and locking it behind her.

Maybe
I’ll just stay in here.
 
I’ll stay
in here with the door locked and I won’t come out.
 
He can break down the stupid door if
that’s what he wants to do.

But she knew she didn’t have it in her to
defy Easton like that, especially not after the mess she’d made of
everything.
 
Easton had every right
to be angry with her, every right to want to punish her for what she’d done.

The worst punishment of all would have
been if he’d sent her away, never to speak to her again.
 
She would do anything to avoid that
fate.

Kennedy went to the bathroom, and it was
so relaxing to finally be able to let go and not have to be afraid of wetting
herself in that ridiculous chair she’d been handcuffed to.
 
Once she was done, she went and splashed
some cold water on her face, looking at herself in the bathroom mirror.

Her eyes looked bloodshot and tired, and
her face was rather drawn.

Kennedy’s hair was flat and limp, and she
did her best to try and give it some life by running her hands through and
fluffing it a little bit.

She was being vain, but Kennedy still
wanted to look good for Easton.
 
After all, mere hours ago they’d shared his bed, he’d taken her
virginity--he’d made love to her.

It had been so real, so perfect.

Now it was nothing but a faint memory.

Wasn’t there some way to bring back the
Easton who’d felt those things for her, who’d wanted to be with her, look
deeply into her eyes, show her the deepest part of himself?

But Maybe, Kennedy thought, as she got
ready to walk out of the bathroom and face him once more—maybe what had
happened between them earlier was the problem.

Showing
yourself to someone for a brief slice of time isn’t all that difficult,
especially not in the heat of passion and arousal.
 
Being there for someone when the chips
are down, when nothing’s going right—showing your self even when who you
are is flawed and ugly and scarred—that’s the hard part.

Kennedy knew that she was willing to go
there, but she didn’t think Easton could meet her where she was willing to go.

Opening the door, she came face to face
with Easton, as he locked eyes with her.
 
“No stalling,” he said, roughly grabbing her arm.

“Let go of me,” she said, trying to rip
her arm out of his grasp.

He held firm, smirking at her pathetic
struggle.
 
“I told you already, I
can’t let go of you because I have no idea what kind of mischief you’ll get
into.
 
I jumped in the shower
earlier and I come out to find you snooping on my laptop.”

“I wasn’t snooping, I was using it,” she
said, as he marched her back to the desk and the dreaded wooden chair.
 
Even thinking about being stuck there,
hands behind her back, gagged and bound—made her want to run screaming
out of the room.

She looked down at the malevolent chair
and a lump formed in her throat.
 
“Please don’t chain me up and put the ball in my mouth again.”

“Sit down.”

“Please, Easton,” she said, trying to
plead with him verbally and with her eyes.
 
“I’ll do anything you want.
 
Just—just don’t make me sit there all night.”

He stared at her for a long while.
 
“You’ll do anything to get out of that
punishment?” he asked, his voice taking on a strange tone.
 
At first she didn’t know what it was she
heard in his voice and saw in his eyes, and then she realized exactly what it
was.

Easton was excited.

Kennedy swallowed, wondering what she
might be getting herself into.
 
But
then she looked at the awful chair and thought that nothing could be worse than
sitting chained to it for the next however many hours.
 
“I’ll do anything,” she said, as
confidently as she could.

“Very well, then.
 
Get out of your clothes.”
 
He turned and walked into the bedroom
again, leaving her by herself.

Kennedy glanced toward the door that led
out of the room.
 
She could leave if
she wanted to, leave right then and there.
 
Run away from this room, from Easton and all his strange, seductive and
torturous manipulations, leave New York City and the mess she’d made along with
it.

Boston would welcome her back with open
arms.

MIT would have none of this cloak and
dagger stuff, none of the fear and pain and judgment that her new life had
become comprised of.

Then again, it wouldn’t have any of the
excitement either.
 

Kennedy knew that she couldn’t leave all
of this behind—couldn’t leave him, most of all.
 
Easton had a hold on her that she simply
couldn’t shake.
 

Having decided to stick with this course
of action no matter the cost, Kennedy quickly stripped down to nothing, leaving
her garments in an unruly pile at her feet.

When Easton came into the room again, his
arms were behind his back like a schoolmaster watching over a group of
disobedient students.
 
“Good, you at
least did that right,” he said, as he eyed her naked body.