Highest Bidder Collection - Lauren Landish Page 0,244

narrow my eyes at her, hating that she’s lying to me. I open my mouth to admonish her, but she cuts me off.

“I didn’t sign up for this!” Lilly’s voice wavers as she raises it. Her eyes are glazed with tears as her body trembles. Leaning forward, I can feel the anger radiating off of her in waves. As though I betrayed her.

“Who did you think I was Lilly?” I ask her, my head tilting and my voice low, filled with my own anger. She’s a smart woman, she knew what she was signing up for. She had to know.

She stares at me with a look of contempt, but tears cloud her eyes. She shakes her head unable to speak. She keeps looking at the door and then back at me. I can practically hear what she’s thinking. She doesn’t want me anymore. She doesn’t want this anymore. I’m not the man in the books she reads. I’m not the poor boy whose memories of abuse are coming to front.

She thinks I’m one of them. One of the villains.

She swallows thickly and takes a step forward.

“Kneel,” I give her the command but she doesn’t obey. She stares back at me, her eyes wide and disbelieving. My heart freezes. Don’t deny me Lilly. Don’t do this. What we have is so good. It’s so right.

“No,” she shakes her head. “I want to leave!” She screams at me. My chest clenches with pain at the conviction in her voice. “The contract says that I can leave at any time.” Her voice shakes as she speaks, mirroring the trembling of her body.

I can’t let her go. I won’t.

They’ve seen her. I saw the look in Ricky’s eyes when he left.

They’d use her as a tool to get me. I take two steps closer to her and she takes two back until her back hits the wall. She staring back at me with her fists clenched and her breathing is coming in sporadically. Her eyes flash with the challenge, but they also contain fear. She’s scared of me. It fucking kills me to see that look in her eyes.

I brace my palm on the wall beside her head, leaning forward and whispering into her ear. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

The only sound I can hear is her breathing. As though it contains her hate for me in this moment. She swallows thickly before answering, “you lied to me.” The hurt in her voice is surprising. As if that’s my biggest offense. Telling her she can go and then taking it away.

I kiss her neck gently, she’s stiff and I wouldn’t attempt to kiss on her lips at this moment. I pull away from her and rest my hand against her neck, my fingers wrapping around her throat in a possessive hold. “I’ve never lied to you Lilly,” I speak softly staring at her plump lips rather than the daggers in her eyes. “The game has changed, you shouldn’t have let him see you.” I chance to look at her face, her expression is one of sadness, her eyes staring at the hardwood floors.

Again she swallows, quiet and no longer fighting me. But that’s only because she doesn’t know how to fight back yet. She will, I know she will. She has too much fight in her to give up so easily.

“You directly disobeyed me,” I say quietly; that draws her attention to me, and the sadness is once again replaced by anger. I prefer that. Because with anger there’s passion. I crave her passion.

“You need to go to your cage now.” I deliver the blow.

Her lips part and I can practically hear the words on her tongue, “yes sir.” But she snaps her lips shut, looking me straight in the eyes and refusing to obey yet again. It makes me want to smile. Her defiance, her new game move. I’ll take it; I’ll take anything she’s willing to give me.

We’re both quiet as I lead her to her room, I silently opened the cage and she gets them without a fight. That’s not to say she doesn’t have one, I can feel her disobedience rolling off of her in waves. I shut the door as I did before, not locking it. I never have and I never will.

She stares at me through the bars of the cage. A look of pure hate shining back.

But she doesn’t use her safeword and I cling to that knowledge..

Chapter 23

Lilly

I lie in my bed, naked, the cool air from