Net Worth by Amelia Wilde

16

Charlotte

No. Absolutely not. Never.

Everything inside me revolts against his words.

I thought I could stand up to Mason Hill. I thought I could bear anything he dished out—for the sake of my father, for the sake of the company. For my family.

Not this.

“What will you do to me?” I sound terrified. And I am, I am. It’s one thing to obey his commands. It’s another to be tied up so that I can’t escape. With my hands bound I would be unable to fight. Unable to push away. Unable to stop what he does to me.

“Whatever I want. I thought the contract made it clear.”

The leather looks supple. It’s probably warm from his body, but it would have no give whatsoever. These are not fluffy pink handcuffs. This isn’t velvet rope. Panic rises in my throat. “I’ll do what you say. You don’t need to tie my hands.”

“I don’t need to,” he says, his voice dangerously soft. “I want to.”

Fighting seems useless.

I hold my hands out to him, palms up. They shake in the faint light.

Mason’s smile is a gorgeous slash as he steps closer. With one hand, he pins my wrists together, and with the other he wraps his belt around them. I suck in a breath. I watched him take off the belt. I heard his order. And somehow, my mind never made it this far.

It never quite got to the sensation of warm leather tight around my wrists.

I had no idea what it meant to be trapped before. This is what it means. Having my hands bound by a man who tests the binding with his finger to make sure it’s not too tight, then hooks that same finger through the loop and yanks me across the room to the sofa.

“Come along. We have so much to do together. I’ve been waiting for this. Waiting to have you at my mercy. Waiting to use your sweet little body however I want.”

He bends me over the arm of the couch. No explaining. No coaching. He just does it, and I gasp at how much it feels like falling. At how awful it is to be in this position, with my hips held up by the furniture. How exposed I am, even though I’m fully clothed.

My first instinct is to struggle. To pull against that leather as hard as I can. Again and again and again until Mason puts a hand on my head and pushes it down.

Then I can’t see him anymore. He’s out of my field of vision. My cheek presses against the cushion of the couch. His hand on the inside of my thigh makes me jump, but he just laughs and pulls my legs apart. Wide, then wider. When they’re as spread as he wants, he pats the sensitive flesh at the crease of my thigh with enough force to show me he’s not afraid to hurt me.

“You’re very pale here. Very tender. No one has put you over their knee and spanked you, have they? Daddy never had the nerve. You probably needed a good whipping.”

My mouth goes dry. “Wait.”

Mason flips up my skirt, bunching it up around my hips, and curls his fingers through the waistband of my panties like he’d curl them through the loop on a garbage bag. He pulls at them slowly until the pressure of my hips makes the thread snap.

One by one, they give out until he’s torn them away.

I can’t get a full breath. It was better when he made me strip off my dress and start over. There was no belt to fight again then. Now there is. “Wait,” I say again. “Please.”

“Wait for what?” he asks, very casual, very calm. “Wait for you to be comfortable with this? I don’t want you comfortable. I like you afraid. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”

He runs a palm over the curve of my ass, patting absently at the small of my back like I’m a wild animal who might break and run. He doesn’t have to worry. It would be too hard to get up with him standing over me like this.

Mason’s hand delves lower, and my thighs snap shut.

I haven’t had time to blink when he shoves his hand between my thighs and pulls them open again. His hard grip tears another gasp out of me. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Keep them open.” He sounds impatient, and fresh shame makes my whole body flush. “I bought the rights to this, remember? Was there anything excluded from the contract?”

“No.” Tears sting my eyes. “You get everything.”

“And what does that mean, Ms. Van Kempt?”

“That I won’t close my legs,” I whisper.

It’s hard to keep them open when he slips his fingers back to that place. He drags his fingertips through the wetness I’ve made, and I turn my face into the cushions to try to hide from him.

He lets me. He must know that this is killing me. I shouldn’t be wet for this. I should never, never be wet for this, or him. Ever. But the proof is on his fingers. Mason searches out my opening and pushes a finger inside me, knuckle by knuckle. Then he fucks it in and out. In and out. Curses under his breath. Curses some more.

“Goddamn.” A twisted-up comment in a stretched-thin voice. “You’re going to be so fucking tight for my cock. You’re going to squeeze the cum right out of me.”

Panic comes down hard and I pull at the belt. It does nothing. The position makes me helpless and I can’t move my arms. I can’t get them free. The worst part is that some sick part of me wants to do what he said. That’s the part that keeps my legs open wide and my heels planted on the floor while Mason finger-fucks me. No one has ever done this. Ever. Ever. Ever. Except him.

He adds another finger and I whimper into the cushions. It’s not painful but it is intense. Mason sets the rhythm and forces me to take it. My thighs quiver with the effort of standing this way. Of being bent for him this way. “Wait,” I pant. “No, no, no.”

The chant is useless. It’s nothing. It doesn’t stop him from fucking me with thick fingers. It doesn’t stop him from doing it so well, so precisely, that it makes my hips rock against the arm of the chair. I’m fucking a piece of furniture, and he’s fucking me, and I thought I knew what rock bottom was. I had no idea. None at all.

He laughs. “You whimper no, but you love it. You could walk away from me if you didn’t want this. You could walk away and never come back. You’ve already run once. But you won’t do that, will you? And it won’t only be because of the contract. It will be because you love the way this feels.”

Mason takes his fingers out and finds my clit. Circles it in the rhythm I want—oh, Jesus, I’ve wanted this for so long. But not from cruel Mason Hill. The conflict becomes a battle in my mind. I want it. I can’t. I shouldn’t. I want it. I can’t. I shouldn’t.

He said it would be painful, and the painful part is how much I need this.

I pull harder at the belt around my wrists. Struggle with it. Fight with it. “I don’t like this,” I say, my teeth clenched. He won’t care, but something inside me wants to make it known. Hot tears fall from my lashes. “This doesn’t feel good.”

“I didn’t take you for a liar.”

“I’m not lying.”

A single long step, and Mason Hill is behind me. I know, because I can feel him there. The heat of his body. The space he takes up in the room.

There’s a sound, fabric shifting, and then two hands nudge my thighs apart another inch.

“Then tell me to stop, sweet little thing. Tell me to stop licking your swollen pussy.”

His tongue comes next.

It’s sexy and skilled and hot. I can’t take it. Tears come on so quickly I have to turn my face to the side to keep from drowning in the couch cushion. Mason ignores the crying completely. It doesn’t make him pause, doesn’t make him stop.

Neither does fighting.

And I do fight, as he licks every inch of every fold, as he finds his way around me with his tongue. Mason holds my hips in a tight grip and keeps me open for him to eat.

Stop.The word is on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t make a sound.

No more words. No more real thoughts. Only the battle. My thighs shake and so does the rest of me. The belt doesn’t budge. Neither does Mason. He only moves his hands to hold me open for him more thoroughly. The belt pulls back. I yank on it again in a frenzy of panic. But the thing is—the thing is—I don’t know what I’m more afraid of. Being bound, or that he’s going to make me come like this.

“That’s right,” he murmurs, his breath hot against the inside of my thigh. “You’re so slippery. So hot. You want this, even when it hurts. Even when you’re scared, your body knows it belongs to me. Me.” Mason spreads me a fraction of an inch wider and does something with his tongue that brings on the apocalypse.

No. That’s not what this is. This is an orgasm.

It rolls through my body like a summer lightning storm. I can’t stand up because of the way he has me. Can’t close my thighs to him. It’s the best orgasm of my life. It goes on and on and on and so does my fight against his damn belt. The second orgasm comes before I can try to stop it.

I sob into the cushions, keeping my thighs wide for him in case he wants to fuck me with his fingers or his cock. I’m braced for it. I’m ready. I agreed. And what does it mean if I keep having orgasms with him? What does it mean if no one else has ever made me feel this way? I didn’t know about this wrecked, drugged-out feeling. I’m shocked. Rattled. With Mason Hill. I can’t believe it. Couldn’t have fathomed it a year ago.

Mason reaches in front of me and helps me stand by the leather of his belt. His eyes shine with satisfaction when he undoes the buckle and slips it off my wrists. He inspects the rubbed flesh there, the pads of his fingers a warning on my skin. “This is the least of what I’ll do to you.”

The least. Why does that excite me as much as it scares me? My wrists feel raw. I tried my hardest to get away.

“Time for you to leave.” Mason delivers this casually, then turns and paces across the space to the dining room area on the other side. He sticks his hands in his pockets and bows his head.

He looks forlorn, standing there at his window.

So lonely.

How could a man like Mason Hill be lonely? Having money can be lonely, but Mason has more power than I’ve ever had. Maybe that makes it worse. I can see a loneliness to that.

The real luxury penthouse doesn’t seem to matter. He looks alone.

Alone enough that I go to him.

He glances over at me with a flash of something unnameable in his eyes. “I told you to leave.”

I clear my throat. “I didn’t go.”

“Don’t, Charlotte. I’m not in a good mood right now. You do not fucking want this.”

A shiver goes down my spine. It’s the most open he’s been with me, ever.

“You just look like you might need—”

“I need you to leave.” The loneliness snaps away, and he’s back at his full height again. Dangerous. Prowling. “Do you remember what I said?”

No more chances to run from him.

So I don’t run.

I get down on my knees instead.