Chapter 11

The spot removerscame half an hour later.

Oisín didn't move from the bed to let them in, but he did order me to fetch his phone from the hallway. I can't say why, but I went and got it for him. All he needed to do was click a button on his phone and order the men to enter through an app connected to a security system. Less than a minute later, they came through.

Caden led them in like a general on a mission, and as soon as they entered the bedroom, they got to work. They cleaned as though we weren't there, Oisín under the blankets and me above them, naked as the day I was born.

I smirked when I noticed Caden glance curiously at me from the corner of his eye, but his gaze didn't linger. While I wasn't gay, I knew I was hot, and it stroked my ego to know other guys thought so, too.

I'd heard the rumors about the boss having professional cleaners who scoured a murder site, but this was the first time I'd actually seen them. They worked diligently and with finesse that left me wondering how one got employed in such a job. They had all kinds of chemicals that burned my nose.

"Evening again, Caden," Oisín murmured with a hint of amusement in his voice. He stretched, arms above his head and slender torso arched. The graceful lines of his body pulled tight, and it caught my attention long enough that he winked at me.

I snorted, glancing away again.

Caden offered him a wide, toothy grin. "Heya, Oisín. Have fun while you waited for us?"

"We had a training session," Oisín purred, grinning wide. "It was certainly eye-opening."

Caden snorted out a laugh and nodded toward the bed. "You know we're going to have to scrub that, too? From what you texted me earlier, we need to make sure there's no DNA anywhere in this room, especially since the guy was on there at one point."

"Oh no. Reed already got all the nooks and crannies I have." He winked, but when Caden only rolled his eyes, Oisín's bottom lip jutted a smidgen. "You want us to move?" He sighed and kicked off the blankets.

I watched as he stood, his muscular ass flexing in a way that had me caught between gritting my teeth in irritation and my mouth watering with need.

He turned and reached across the bed to slap my thigh hard enough to leave a handprint. "Move, Beastie. You heard Caden."

I glared at him and raised my chin, flashing my teeth at him. I crossed my arms and leaned back against the headboard, harboring a desire to push Oisín over a metaphorical cliff, and maybe one day soon, a physical one. "I don't think I will."

All at once, the cleaning crew stopped, those who were crouching stood, and everyone turned to look at us. Caden's eyes widened and he visibly swallowed, his gaze flitting between Oisín and me like he was watching a tennis match and waiting for the next volley. The tension bled into the room, thick and toxic, so poisonous that none of the men dared to breathe.

Oisín stopped on my side of the bed, his hands curling into fists. His shoulders went rigid and the muscles in his arms flexed. But nothing compared to the pure deadliness in his stare, eyes turning to ice so sharp that I felt it cut me even with the distance between us. Everything around us froze, the chilliness of his rage enough to make life itself stop.

For the first time since I'd gotten here, frantic fear snaked through me, the bite of terror so heady that it took all my effort to hold my bladder.

I inhaled, taking a calming breath. "Nothing to say?"

Fuck, I'd lost my mind.

The corner of Oisín's mouth curled, and bile rose in my throat. "Oh, I have plenty to say, Beastie, but it would be rude in front of guests." His eyes glimmered with the insanity I'd seen in Cillian's before he'd tortured me. Oisín stalked around to his side of the bed and grabbed his phone, taking his sweet time to unlock it.

I watched, heart bruising my ribs as it catapulted against them. A deep sense of anxiety made the hair on my arms stand up, and instead of being the beast he claimed I was, I felt more like the prey in this moment, ready to be sacrificed to the true predator. Him. My cock took it as a sign to grow hard, blood rushing south. How the fuck did I get hard over this when I couldn't get a boner over a pussy?

"On the other hand...," he murmured, low and dangerous. He stared at me for a long moment before his thumb made a movement over the phone screen, and then he tapped, and all at once I knew what he'd done. Sharp electricity shot through my body, originating from the collar attached to my neck. "I don't like being questioned by my pet in front of said guests."

I arched off the bed, agony zapping through me. Electrical currents buzzed across my skin, down my arms and stomach and legs, and a mixture of pleasure and pain assaulted me and shook me so hard that there was no way I could hold my piss in. Urine splattered across the bed and my thighs.

"Fuck," I yelled, shuddering through the deep-seated tendrils of torment. I convulsed with every jolt of electrocution and the pleasure morphed into pain. They became one big ugly monster that I needed to end because my cock couldn't decide if it wanted to piss again or come instead.

And then it stopped.

I was a rag doll on the mattress, all weak limbed and unable to move. Oisín walked carefully around to my side of the bed again, and I turned my head as much as I could, watching him strut. I am the Master, his strides said, and I believed him this time.

The cleaners shifted away, giving Oisín room to move as he sat on the edge of the mattress and let his fingers trail down my arm, provoking goose bumps to break out over my exposed skin.

He tsked at me gently. "You poor beast, thinking you have control here. I told you I was going to make you afraid of me, and I wouldn't lie to you. I have been too kind, haven't I? I've let you get away with too much, and then you embarrassed me in front of my guests." More tsking. "I am disappointed, but I know now what I need to do. You will fear me, Beastie."

He hooked his fingers between the collar and my neck and pulled, hard, and I had no choice but to get up and let him lead me out of the bedroom. My knee was a stabbing reminder of the type of pain my body could toss at me. I managed a short glance toward Caden, who gave me a sympathetic smile and a thumbs-up, as if that would help me with what was about to come. I had no fucking idea what Oisín was going to do to me, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to find out or not.

My thighs were sticky from my piss and sweat clung in the concave spot between my pecs. Every sensation circulating through me was a new and terrifying feeling. My legs shook under me as he hauled me back toward his playroom, and I winced when I put too much weight on my healing knee. Then, a realization came to me, something that I could use to protect myself.

"The docs said I need to take it slow," I babbled in a rush as he shoved open the door and dragged me inside. I winced as I turned my knee at a bad angle. "You don't want to do anything to risk my recovery."

He laughed as he turned toward me and there was nothing pleasant in the sound. He finally released my collar, but he stalked past me to close the door. The click of the lock latching signaled there was no way I was getting out of here.

He took one step forward, then another, and I stayed rooted in place, both too proud and too fucking afraid to back away from him. His muscles shifted, his slender frame so godlike that I wouldn't have believed it was real if I didn't stand in front of him right now, seeing him in all his naked glory.

"Oh, trust me, my big beast, I'm not going to do anything to hurt that part of you."

His entire mouth curled in a way I didn't think was physically possible, and ice seeped into my veins, making my body go numb. He stopped right before he reached me, and he stroked his index finger over my left cheekbone, mapping my face carefully like an artist would with a paintbrush on paper. In a lot of ways, I was his masterpiece, his project, the animal he was training to be his.

"How should I start, hmm?" He trailed his finger down my neck, over the collar, and along my collarbone, and I stayed as still as possible, keeping my eyes on him. I suspected that if I even looked in the direction of escape, he'd make me regret it. He pinched my right nipple, and I shivered. "This is not going to be pleasant for you, Reed."

I swallowed at the use of my real name but kept my mouth closed.

He grinned wider. "I want to taste your fear. I need to see it in your eyes when you look at me. I hunger for it." He squeezed my nub between his fingers tightly and a sharp shooting pain joined with the desire. "You continue to surprise me with how much you enjoy what I do to you." His gaze slid down to my cock, half hard but not quite at full mast yet. "What gets you going." It wasn't a question and seemed more like his own internal monologue, so I stayed silent. "How do you make someone afraid of you when they enjoy the torture?" He raised his gaze to me. "But you didn't enjoy what Cillian and Aspen and Rowen did to you? What did they do different?"

Fuck if I knew. I had more questions than Oisín did about this sort of shit. I'd never been interested in this type of sex, and now after a year of not getting hard, he had my cock acting like a puppet on a string, moving for his amusement.

He shoved, and I hadn't expected it, and I nearly fell on my ass. He kept pushing my chest, and I shifted backward until my knees hit a chair and I fell onto it.

"Stay," he growled, and the sound of his voice alone had me doing what he'd ordered. Another part of me rebelled, though—latching on to the urge to jump him right now and knock him out, taking the chance to escape—but I didn't. According to my mom, I never knew what was good for me.

He moved to a closet and opened it, dragging out ropes. I watched, unable to tear my attention from him as he came back and got to work tying me to the seat, and I let him because I was a fucking weakling now, apparently. It was only when he had me fully restrained that my brain seemed to catch up with what was happening, and I struggled.

He snorted and stood back to peruse his work, testing the ropes with a few tugs. "You're not going anywhere. Circulation seems good." He tapped my hands, then my feet.

I glared. "Fuck off."

He raised his eyebrows at me. "There he is. How long does it take your brain to get online after an orgasm?" His laughter grated on my nerves, and I gritted my teeth.

Oisín crouched in front of me and patted my knee, and some of that danger returned to his eyes and made me still again. "This is how it's going to work, my wild beast. I am going to make you suffer in every way possible." The words rolled from his mouth sinfully and his tongue poked out between his teeth when he paused to grin wider. "By the time I'm done, your pleasure will be mine and you won't know whether to be afraid of me or attracted to me. I am going to break you into a thousand pieces." He licked a hot stripe up my cheek, and I attempted to turn my face away, but he grabbed it between his fingers and jerked it back toward himself. "And then, I am going to put you back together exactly how I want you."

"I'm not a puppet you can control, you crazy motherfucker," I growled out, though the words sounded weak to my ears. I wasn't feeling strength behind the sentiment, and by the smirk that slid onto his wicked mouth, I suspected he heard the exact same thing.

"No, but out there—" He nodded toward the door. "—you will be my big ruthless attack dog, and in here, you'll be my wild beast who'll come on my command. You will fear me while you want to fuck me. I let you heal, mostly, and now I'm going to show you what I can really do." He tapped me on the nose. "Cillian has nothing on me. You'll find that out."

"I'm not afraid." My head pounded as I screamed at myself in my mind. Why the fuck couldn't I shut up?

He laughed. "You will be." Straightening, pure bliss fell across his face. Deadliness shone in his eyes, promising all the hurt to come, and my stomach clenched. "Where do I even start?"

Jesus Christ. I was fucked.