I try to touch myself but he bats my hands away. Tears squeeze from the corners of my eyes. This is torture. Actual torture. Worse than when I used to have to kneel on the gravel driveway for hours at a time. Worse even than the punishing strokes of my grandfather’s belt. Worse, because I know the sweetness of the relief that’s always a mere whisper away. And he withholds it from me. Brute!
“Fuck, angel,” he grunts, spilling his seed in me once more. His hips still and I choke out a sob.
He nuzzles my neck softly, while gently unwrapping my legs from around his waist. Then he brushes his fingertips overmy cheek, and it’s so tender, so at odds with the way he keeps denying me what I need most that I want to bite off his hand.
“How are you doing there?” He’s smirking. Asshole!
“I hate you,” I pout, no longer caring about offending him. I don’t want to be his perfect little anything anymore. I would kick him in the balls if my legs weren’t currently made of rubber.
“That’s okay. Will you ever disobey me again?”
“Just because you’re old enough to be my father, doesn’t mean you get to treat me like a child!” I snap, fraught with frustration and pent-up desire.
He lets out a dark laugh. “Oh, I like it when you’re feisty, angel.” He presses his lips to my ear. “And you are definitely all woman, Imogen, but you still haven’t answered my question.”
His gaze burns into mine while he waits for my answer. I can’t lie. Hate it. I should though. For nothing if not self-preservation. “Maybe,” I admit, bracing myself for his fury. Because if this was a test, then surely I just failed it.
But instead of a rebuke, he presses a soft kiss on my forehead. “That’s my good girl.”
I’m clearly too dazed and confused to understand what that was about. How does disobeying him make me a good girl? Maybe my brain is suffering from a dopamine shortage. Surely it can’t do you good to have all that unleashed adrenaline and ecstasy charging around your system. Like a soda bottle that’s shaken and the fizz has nowhere to go. What happens? Will it all just explode out of me? I wonder if anyone has ever actually died from orgasm denial.
Lincoln pushes himself up and heads to the restroom, emerging a little while later with a wet washcloth. I already suspect its warm and soothing, but I hate him all the same. “I don’t need you to clean me up. I can do it myself,” I huff.
“If that’s what you want.” He tosses it to me and it lands with a splat on my belly. And now I regret that, because I do want him to do it. I want his hands on me again, taking care of me,comforting me. But my stupid brain won’t let me admit it. “I’ll be right back.”
He disappears from the room as I use the washcloth to clean the cum from between my legs. I’m done by the time he returns, carrying... what? Only a pair of fricking handcuffs!
“Wh-what are those for?” Surely he’s not cuffing me as punishment for being a little bit stroppy after he’s tortured me for the past god knows how long.
He sits on the bed beside me, a devious twinkle in his dark brown eyes. “On your front,” he orders.
Anxiety knots in my stomach. I’m exhausted and sore and sad, and I just want to sleep. I don’t tell him that. Instead I obediently roll onto my front. He takes my hands, brushing the pads of his fingertips over my wrists in a gentle caress before he fastens the cuffs on me. Then he pulls the duvet up over me and tucks me in.
“Why did you handcuff me?” I whisper. “Is it because I made the old-enough-to-be-my-father comment, or because I was a brat about you cleaning me up?”
He smirks. “Neither of those things. I enjoy the bratty side of you.”
I suppose that’s something at least, because I really like it too. “So why?”
“I wouldn’t want you finishing the job I started. No telling what those hands of yours may get up to when I’m not here, is there?”
So don’t go!Those words almost leave my mouth in a cry, but I rein them in just in time. He can go to hell. I hate him. Hate him and his stupid games.
“You want me to leave the lamp on?” he asks.
Tears clog my throat. He knows I like to sleep with the light on? “Yes, please.”
He leans over me, dropping a tender kiss on the side of my cheek. “Good night, angel.”
I don’t reply, too worried my voice will betray me if I do, and I’ll beg for his affection.
Begging is needy and emotional and beneath you, Imogen.
Larissa’s words echo in my head. I wish that I could speak to her. I long to ask for her advice on what to do when the rules she set out for me don’t seem to apply anymore. And whenever I follow them I seem to end up in trouble. And she would never want that. She would want me to thrive. She was the only person in the world to ever show me any kindness.
But now Pierre is kind to me. And Lincoln is too. When he’s not being a brute. I wish I could understand what makes him tick a little more. Wish that I knew what he wanted from me, but every time I feel like I’m starting to understand him, he’s cold again. And I shut down. And then he pushes me until I snap.
I need to break the cycle if I’m going to earn his trust and ever make it out of here. It’s the only way I’ll ever truly be free.
