Chapter 8: Charles' hands tremble as he pulls up dungeon reservations on his phone with one hand while fingering Emily roughly with the other, her moans turning mocking when she sees his search history: 'How to break a woman like Eleanor broke me.'
The riding crop was a line of fire against his throat, not yet pressing hard enough to cut off air, but with the promise of it in the way Emily leaned her weight forward. The smell of her, sweat and expensive perfume and the faint, metallic trace of Marcus from the night before, filled his nostrils. His cock, sore and bruised, twitched against the rough friction of her jeans as she ground down on him.
“Well?” Her voice was a low, sharp thing. No playfulness, no seduction. Just cold, hard leverage. “I’m not going to ask again, Charles. Plan something. Or the world finds out the billionaire philanthropist likes to get his asshole stretched raw by strangers.”
He could feel the ghost of Marcus inside him, a deep, phantom ache. The memory of being filled, used as a mere receptacle, was a fresh wound. But beneath the shame, a cold clarity was forming. Eleanor’s games had rules. This was anarchy.
He let his head fall back against the chair, exposing his throat further, a gesture of surrender. His voice, when it came, was raspy but steady. “The tabloids would have a field day. ‘Charles Vance: Society Darling or Society’s Fuckhole?’” He met her gaze, seeing the flicker of surprise that he’d name the humiliation so bluntly. “But you wouldn’t just be breaking my trust, Emily. You’d be breaking Eleanor’s. You think she’d let you walk away with that secret?”
He saw the doubt seep into her eyes. She was reckless, not stupid.
“So here’s my plan,” he continued, his hands resting on the arms of the chair, making no move to touch her. “You want to scream louder than Eleanor? Then we don’t play her games. We play mine. One night. My rules. You get your scream. I get your silence. Permanently.”
Her eyes narrowed, the crop pressing a fraction harder. “Your rules? You don’t make the rules. You’re the toy.”
“Last night,” he said, the words deliberate, “Marcus used me like a piece of meat. It was… enlightening. It reminded me that there are different kinds of power.” He slowly, carefully, raised a hand and wrapped his fingers around the wrist holding the crop. He didn’t push it away. He just held it, his grip firm. “You want to see the pathetic fucktoy? Or do you want to see what the fucktoy learned?”
The change in his demeanor, from broken to calculating, threw her. She was off-balance. “What are you talking about?”
“Untie me,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Take me to the bedroom. And I’ll show you a game you’ve never played.”
For a long moment, she just stared at him, the crop still at his throat. Then, with a scoff that lacked conviction, she pulled the crop away and stood up. “This better be fucking worth it.”
She undid the leather cuffs. The blood rushed back into his wrists with a prickling heat. He stood, his body protesting, every muscle sore, his ass a tender, bruised reminder. He walked ahead of her into the master suite, his gait slow but purposeful. The city glittered beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, a panorama of indifferent lights.
He stopped in the center of the room, near the foot of the vast bed. He turned to face her. “Strip.”
A defiant smirk touched her lips. “Or what?”
“Or the game ends,” he said flatly. “And you can try your luck with the tabloids. See how long you last against my wife’s lawyers and Marcus’s particular skill set.”
The mention of Marcus did it. The smirk vanished. With jerky, angry movements, she pulled her shirt over her head, unsnapped her jeans, and stepped out of them, standing naked before him. Her body was still marked from the night before, faint bruises on her hips and thighs.
“Now,” he said, his eyes roaming over her with a cold, appraising look that was entirely new. “On your knees.”
She hesitated, a flash of the old Emily in her eyes, the one who held the remote. But the threat hung in the air between them, solid and real. Slowly, she sank to her knees on the thick carpet.
Charles unbuttoned his trousers, letting them fall. His cock, half-hard and battered, was a testament to the abuse it had endured. He fisted his hand in her hair, not with the brutal ownership Marcus had used, but with a firm, undeniable control. He guided her mouth to him.
“Suck it,” he commanded, his voice devoid of the pleading tone she was used to. “And make it good. You’re not being rewarded. You’re being prepared.”
She took him into her mouth, her technique skilled but mechanical. He let her work for a minute, feeling the heat of her mouth, the flick of her tongue. It was good, but it was service. It wasn’t submission.
He pulled out of her mouth, a string of saliva connecting her lips to his tip. “Not like that. You’re not trying to get me off. You’re worshipping it. This is the cock you’re blackmailing. This is the cock that was in your best friend’s wife. This is the cock that a man named Marcus fucked you with last night. Taste all of it. Every fucking memory.”
He shoved himself back into her mouth, deeper this time, and her eyes widened. He began to fuck her face, setting a slow, deep, relentless rhythm. He held her head still, controlling the pace, the depth. She gagged, tears springing to her eyes, her hands coming up to clutch at his thighs.
“Hands behind your back,” he growled.
She complied, her body trembling. He watched himself disappear into her mouth, over and over, watched the tears track down her cheeks. This was different from Marcus. This was cold, calculated reclamation. He was using her mouth to scour the memory of Marcus from his skin, to overwrite the shame with a new, dominant narrative.
When he felt his orgasm building, a tight coil in his gut, he pulled out. He was fully hard now, the pain transformed into a sharp, focused arousal. He released her hair, and she slumped forward, coughing and gasping.
“On the bed. On your hands and knees.”
She crawled onto the massive bed, her body gleaming in the soft light. He followed, kneeling behind her. He didn’t touch her with his hands. He just positioned the head of his cock at her entrance. She was wet, her arousal betrayed by the slickness he found there, a physiological response to the raw dominance.
He didn’t ask if she was ready. He drove into her in one single, brutal thrust, burying himself to the hilt.
She screamed, a short, sharp cry that was punched out of her. Her back arched, her fingers clawing at the duvet.
“Is that the scream you wanted?” he snarled, his voice low and vicious in her ear. He began to move, a hard, pounding rhythm that had none of the theatricality of Eleanor’s whippings or the animalistic force of Marcus’s taking. This was pure, unadulterated punishment. Each thrust was a word in a sentence of ownership. Mine. Not. Yours. To. Use.
“You thought you could own me?” he grunted, his hips slamming against her ass. “You’re a hole. A talking, blackmailing hole. And this is all you’re good for.”
He reached around and gripped her throat, not enough to choke, but enough for her to feel the pressure, the threat. He fucked her harder, faster, the bed rocking with the force of it. Her screams turned into broken, sobbing pleas, but they were not for him to stop. They were the sounds of her composure being utterly, violently dismantled.
He felt her climax first, a violent, clenching spasm around his cock that tore a long, wailing shriek from her lungs. It was the sound she’d demanded, raw and uninhibited, echoing in the spacious room.
It triggered his own release. With a final, deep grind, he emptied himself inside her, a hot, pulsing flood that filled her. He held himself there for a long moment, his body pressed against her sweaty back, his hand still on her throat.
Then he pulled out and rolled off her.
They lay in silence, the only sound their ragged breathing. The city lights twinkled, indifferent. After a minute, Charles sat up on the edge of the bed. He looked at Emily, a crumpled, crying form amidst the rumpled sheets.
He stood, walked to his discarded trousers, and pulled out his phone. He opened the voice memo app and pressed stop. He played back the last thirty seconds. Her voice, raw and screaming, filled the room, followed by his own guttural groan of release.
Her head snapped up, her eyes wide with horror.
He deleted the recording. “We don’t need it,” he said, his voice quiet now, all the viciousness gone. “We have an understanding now, don’t we?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower, leaving her alone in the wreckage of her failed blackmail, the phantom of his control clinging to her skin more tightly than any secret ever could.