“Yes.”
“Liar. What did we say about lying, Vivian? Do you wish to be punished on your last day with us?”
She shook her head. “No, Sir.”
There were a thousand things she wanted to say, a thousand things she wanted to accuse him of. If the banshee were still with her, screaming and crying in indignation, she would have had a laundry list of grievances to assault him with.
She could have complained about how none of it was really her fault. There had been blackmail and coercion and later kidnapping. He’d led her into this spider’s web. She’d had no choice, no hope.
But she could no longer give credence to those lies. The first day with Anton in Dome, when she’d spread her legs for him, she’d done it without much fuss or fighting because she needed to know if anyone could make her feel.
Anything.
She’d needed to remember what it felt like to surrender under the hands of another and feel pleasure. And he’d done that for her, over and over, while giving her the comforting lie that he’d tell her husband, that he was somehow forcing her to these clandestine meetings.
Maybe he would have told Michael. But her choice had always been to come back, to allow herself to slip further under Anton’s control. She’d played with the fire and still wasn’t sure if she’d gotten burned, or if the fire had reshaped her into something new like a phoenix rising from the flame.
Michael was safety, but what Anton promised her was peace. She just didn’t want to leave.
When her tears had run their course and the room was silent again, he spoke. “Tomorrow, when you are sold, you will be placed in your collar. You will address him as Master when you meet him. Annette will walk you through the protocol. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir.”
He left, Gabe came in, and the day went along like any other. Even on her last day she wasn’t spared the gym where Brian let out all his sadism on her in the only way he was allowed. During their session he seemed pissed off.
He must have known she’d be leaving without him ever getting to dip his wick in her. She couldn’t say she was very upset about that. She tried not to look smug as he pushed her on the treadmill.
Later Annette talked her through the events for the following day and how she was to behave and what she was to say.
That night all three of them used her. They took her into the large bathroom on the first floor with the Jacuzzi tub large enough to hold them all. They bathed her and fucked her, repeatedly. By the end of the night she was so well-used, she was a languid heap of pleasured nerve endings.
Each of them pressed a kiss to her cheek before leaving her to sleep. But she didn’t sleep. She couldn’t. She’d tried so hard that night to float away, to not experience any of it too strongly. Even though she’d come so many times she lost count, she’d tried to remain detached because the thought of never seeing any of them again, of going off to become the property of another, was too difficult.
Vivian laid awake, staring at the ceiling, tossing and turning until she finally couldn’t stand it any longer and kicked the blankets off. They’d stopped chaining her to the wall at night because she never gave them reason to think they couldn’t trust her.
She’d never explored the mansion after dark. She’d never felt the compulsion, and she’d been afraid of the consequences. Now, punishment didn’t matter as much. Please them or displease them, they’d decided to sell her.
Some rich, entitled man had watched videos of her fucking and being trained, had chosen her to belong to him and agreed to pay their price. They’d done the proper background checks, no doubt.
Anton would have gone to extra trouble to check out the buyer, ensuring he was safe, kind, and fair. As much as those things were possible in this situation. He would have made sure the buyer could give her what she needed.
The floor was cold on her feet as she slipped through the house. She crossed through the cafeteria and out to the breezeway. When Vivian got outside, she looked up at the stars and breathed in the fresh air. The pretty illusion of freedom.
The edge of the property line seemed to call to her. Lindsay had walked her out there one day, showing her where the bracelet would be set off, the point where she’d be considered a runaway. After that day she’d never come near the line.
But tonight she stood here, less than a foot from the spot that would wake the whole house. She sat in the grass, staring at the boundary. She knew she couldn’t escape. That wasn’t the point.
If she did it, they’d punish her. They’d believe she wasn’t fit to be sold. How much time would that buy her?
The grass stirred and she jumped. Lindsay sat and pulled her against his chest. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“No, Sir.” She knew he heard the tears in her voice.
“Crossing that line wouldn’t allow you to stay. It would only make us disappointed in you. I know you don’t want to go. I don’t want you to go, but the sale has gone through. Money has exchanged hands. It can’t be undone, and even if it could, Anton wouldn’t undo it.”
They sat that way for a long time, until finally he stood and helped her to her feet. “Come. You can sleep in my room tonight.”
Without a word she followed him up the sloping hills back to the side entrance, then through the enormous house and up to the second floor to his room at the end of the long, silent hallway. When they were behind the door, he pushed the button on the wall to turn the water on for the plants.
She collapsed into the bed, exhausted, and closed her eyes. His arm came around her, and she drifted to sleep while the rain came down.
Vivian woke to the sounds of arguing. Gabe and Lindsay. She looked back and forth between the two as if she were watching a ping pong tournament. Gabe was angry she hadn’t been in her room. Cursing and heated words were exchanged, and then he grabbed an unresisting Vivian out of bed.
Lindsay slammed the bathroom door without a word or glance back. That was her goodbye to him. Then Gabe got her into the shower back in her room. His hands slid over her body, all cold business. She wanted to lash out at him, yell something about the fact that he’d wanted to have her in the shower, and now he wasn’t taking advantage of their last moments together.
But she didn’t. They’d trained her too well, and even now, she couldn’t bring herself to rebel enough to make one of them disappointed in her during her last hours in the house. Gabe didn’t try to have sex with her or even get a blow job out of the deal. He didn’t allow her to wash him. He just cleaned and dried her off.
He went to the dresser drawer and tossed a corset, panties, and garter belt at her, along with some fuck-me pumps. “You’re leaving with your master in this, today,” he growled.
Then he, too, was gone.
Vivian stood, stunned. She was scared enough about what was about to happen and neither Gabe nor Lindsay could be bothered to get out of their heads and their own issues. An hour later Annette brought her breakfast and asked if she was okay.
It seemed to be a rhetorical question because when Vivian tried to get into a conversation with the other woman, she looked like a doe caught in headlights and made an excuse to leave.
Soon after, when her nerves were completely frazzled, her mouth was dry, and she thought she might faint or cry or scream or all three, Anton walked into the room. He looked like he didn’t want to let her go either.