Highest Bidder Collection - Lauren Landish Page 0,234

to my lips again. I didn’t anticipate that her boundary that would send her to the cage would be refusing to tell me the truth.

I thought better of her than that. Of everything I’ve asked her to do, that seems to be the least difficult. But maybe she doesn’t want to believe it herself.

My eyes gaze over the next scene she’s written, the hero of her book taking the virginity of the heroine. It’s not difficult to see that it was inspired by how I took her. This hero kisses her sweetly, talks to her gently. He makes love to her.

This man is nothing like me. The stark contrast reminds me of where I came from.

I remember the first time I saw my father kiss my mother. She was always quiet. Always in the background and never allowed to be around us. I didn’t quite understand it. She wasn’t allowed to interfere, that’s what my father told us.

She approached him, her eyes wide with worry as she talked in quiet whispers, pleading with him for something. Her eyes kept darting towards us as we sat on the floor of the living room; cleaning the guns.

My father was rough with her. Grabbing the back of her hair so tightly he rips trends out. He kissed her hard on the lips, smearing her lipstick across her face before throwing her down on the ground. I remember how I jumped up, how my heart raced in my chest. I knew how hard my father hit, all too well. She landed hard, wincing with pain as she braced herself. But the look on her face changed when she saw me watching, slowly walking towards them. She shook her head, her eyes warning me to stay away.

That was what we had as an example. It sickened me. I loved my mother, and I couldn’t watch as my father hit her. Day in day out, she became an outlet for his anger. As my mother whimpered on the floor, I looked back to my brother. Wanting to make sure he was all right. We were only children. But the look in his eyes sickened me. It still does. The smile on his face showed what kind of the man he would be. If you can call that a man.

That’s the day I realized that my father was a sick fuck and the cold dark look was echoed in my brother’s eyes.

I down the whiskey and close the laptop at the unpleasant memory, setting it on the ottoman and rising from my seat. I ignore the fact that I feel like an asshole. I’m fully aware that she’s under a different impression of what this is. She shouldn’t be. It’s my fault and I need to fix this.

I look at the clock and see it’s been an hour. The time has clicked by slowly; tick tock, tick tock. I wanted to go to her every minute that she’s been in there, but she needs to learn she can’t top from the bottom. I’m the one with control and she won’t force my hand to get what she wants.

All the punishment she’s received up to this moment have been for conditioning. The punishment was to help her learn how to please me. Although there’s pain, it’s always accompanied by far more pleasure. She takes a simple punishment and then she’s rewarded for accepting it.

Not this time.

Hopefully this will be the last time. But I doubt it will. There is a ferocity in her. A strength that she doesn’t recognize. She may not know how courageous she is, but when most people see me, they cower. She was drawn to my power. That in and of itself shows courage.

My blood rushes in my ears and my body heats as I move to her room. I open the door slowly, peeking in to see her curled in a ball on the floor of the cage. The cage itself is large enough for her to stand. I imagined her in the corner with her knees tucked under her chin, her arms wrapped around her legs.

And that’s just how she is.

She peeks up over her knees as I close the door.

Her eyes are red-rimmed. She’s been crying. Seeing her like this hurts me.

“Are you ready to behave?” I ask her, slowly walking towards the corner of the room. The cage door is slightly ajar, I didn’t lock it, but I know she didn’t leave it. It’s not in her nature.

She can leave