Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

C harlie

I am absolutely mortified. I cannot believe Marcus did that to me. I cannot believe he pinned me down over his lap and spanked my butt like I was some bad little girl.

My head is swimming both with the effects of alcohol, and with the shame of my ordeal. My pussy is aching. He didn't just fuck me. He fucked me so well I will know I've been fucked for a very long time.

"Where would you like to go?" The taxi driver looks over his shoulder at me.

I give my address. It's a long ways away, and I hear the driver hesitate for a second, right before he remembers that rideshare apps exist and he's lucky to get a fare at all.

As the city starts to slide by the windows, I sink down in the cool leather seat and I try to both forget about what just happened as well as focus relentlessly on it. I really thought the evening would be more of a success than that. I thought he might find me boring, or perhaps be called away to one of his many important meetings. I never imagined I'd have his full physical attention, and that he would manhandle me.

My ass is still stinging, and there is an ache that abates sometimes but starts up all over again every time I move. I hate that I can still feel what he just did to me. I should press charges for that. I should make him fucking pay for treating me like I am one of the very, very many things he possesses.

I'm going to get even. I've already decided that. But I'm also not going to make a formal report to the authorities. Not yet. I want to get Marcus Waterstone brought to justice, but not for smacking my butt. I want to go deeper. The absolute embarrassment he's made me suffer is going to motivate me the rest of the way. He made a mistake when he treated me like a simple girl and he's going to regret…

"We are here, miss."

"We are?"

I look out the window and see that he is correct. My apartment building is right across the street from us. Everything is smaller and plainer here than it was in the part of the city where Marcus dwells. People rush by on the sidewalk, wearing jeans and sneakers and puffy plastic derived coats. I feel myself relaxing a little as I find myself once more among my own people.

I get myself together, cursing under my breath as I realize I've lost a shoe. This is so messy. I haven't been this out of control since college.

"How much do I owe you?"

"Nothing whatsoever, ma'am."

"But we came almost an hour out of your way."

"That's my job."

I am confused. I haven't paid much attention to the cab. Or wait, is it an uber? I have been much more concerned with my own disappointing experience with Marcus Waterstone than paying attention to the manner of my leaving his building. I must be even more flustered than I thought.

"Who is going to pay you?"

He simply smiles. "Mr. Waterstone will take care of this."

Things are starting to click. "You work for Marcus Waterstone?"

"I do, yes."

"So you just happened to be sitting at the side of the road with taxi signage?"

"I don't believe I have any signage."

"I could have sworn…" I look at the car, and now I see that there's no signage after all. I got into this vehicle without even knowing who was driving.

"I'm so embarrassed! I'm so sorry!" I reach for the door handle, fumble it, and then try again for a second time. This time I manage to get out of the vehicle like an actual human.

I hobble my way across the street with one shoe and one bare foot. I could take the other shoe off, but I just want to get out of the driver's sight. This is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me. Not only have I totally failed to gain any real insight into Marcus Waterstone, I've been humiliated, and then gone and humiliated myself on top of it.

I let myself into the building and rush past whoever is at the mailboxes. There are tears filling my eyes as I ascend the stairs, though I have to pause to wrench my surviving shoe from my foot.

The stairs stink and are sticky in ways and places they shouldn't be. I can't afford to think about that too much. I can't afford to think about anything here. City living is expensive, and this is one of the very few places I was actually able to afford on my own.

My apartment is on the third floor. It's super small, and it's cramped, but so is everything else in this city. I shut the door behind myself and lock it. That's second nature.

Then I get into the shower, which is three steps from the front door, and has a toilet in the same cubicle. Modern, the leasing agent described it, like they do in Tokyo.

I have to wash the failure off myself. I have to wash the fucking come off myself. As I peel off my underwear, I feel it sticking to my skin just a little. Marcus has left himself all over me. I'm lucky he didn't do it inside me. He strikes me as the sort of guy who would fuck you and expect you to just take the morning after pill.

Hot water hits my skin, invigorating at first and then painful as I turn around and let it strike my ass. I can feel the places he spanked me reigniting with the incessant drumming of the water. I spin quickly all the way around, but I can't avoid the pain forever. I need to wash myself properly, with soap. I need to make sure that my skin is clear of his billionaire emissions.

"Asshole," I curse to myself as I am once more exposed to the pain of washing a spanked and fucked ass.

He's managed to ruin a shower, and that's practically impossible to do.

I wash quickly and get out of the shower.

It would be easier to go to bed, rather than keep living with the memory of what just happened in my head, but I can't afford to forget it. Not yet. All I can think about is Marcus Waterstone. I know I'll never see him again, but I'll never dismiss what he did to me either.

When I check in the mirror, I'm surprised at the lack of damage. I would have thought there would be bruises and welts everywhere. Instead, my butt is just slightly red, although he's left a mark on me that I'll never be able to erase. I'm going to remember the day a billionaire fucked me for the rest of my life.

I wrap my hair in a towel, fold another fluffy towel around my midsection, and go and sit in front of my laptop. My fingers start typing by force of habit, transferring the thoughts I don't dare think in my head to the screen in front of me.

Marcus Waterstone is the most insufferable, arrogant, and outright dangerous man I have ever had the displeasure of meeting.

Alright. Well, that's quite an opening.

My finger hovers over the delete key but doesn't make it all the way to pressing it.

Marcus believes he has dominion over everything and everyone he lays eyes on. He is the embodiment of the spirit of a conqueror, a holdover from a more toxic time. Marcus may only be thirty-nine years old to my twenty-six, but he is a dinosaur in every sense that matters.

That paragraph's not as good. It sounds sort of bitter. I want to be a little acerbic, but I don't want to come off like a jilted lover. Damnit, if anybody finds out that I slept with him, all of my work will be instantly undermined. I bet he knows that. I bet he thought about that before I fucked him.

I put my fingers on the keys again for one more try.

Marcus Waterstone is an asshole, and I don't like him.

Nope. I've completely lost the plot now.

Closing the laptop, I get up from the kitchen counter, walk a handful of steps over to the bed, throw back the covers, and fall in. I pull the sheet and comforter up over my head, close my eyes, and find the whole sorry situation playing itself over in the theater of my mind.

I find myself lingering on the memory of what it felt like to be handled by him. He's so strong. It's quite normal for a man to be stronger than a woman, but I've never been touched by someone who has that much latent power. It felt as though he could throw me around any way he liked. I was entirely helpless, not just physically, but mentally. Something about the way he spoke to me.

He's just a rich asshole, I remind myself. Charisma is usually a bad sign in my experience. Good people don't need it, and bad people almost always have an abundance of it. The fact that I'm thinking about him even though I hate him is a sign I'm falling under his spell. Hopefully tonight was just a weird one-off for him, because I don't know what I'll do if I do see him again for some reason.

In the midst of all of these thoughts, my hand has slid down between my thighs, and my fingers have found a part of my anatomy that shouldn't be as wet as it is. I ache in the places he touched me. My pussy is so tender and so sore. I feel as though touching myself is wrong—but I'm allowed to touch myself, of course. There's no way for anybody to know what I'm doing, which means it's fine to do it. It's not even more shameful now, to be touching myself to the memory of the worst thing that has ever happened to me.

Marcus

Marcus Waterstone is an asshole, and I don't like him.

I smirk at the screen as I read my new pet's assessment of me. Of course I'm nowhere near her little apartment, but that doesn't mean I'm not keeping tabs on her.

I know what she wrote because Charlie's laptop is mirrored on one of my screens. I also have her social media accounts on another window, and a readout of her bank account tucked away on another. It's all a terrible invasion of privacy, I suppose, but she doesn't have privacy anymore. Not since I decided to make her mine.

She's petulant after her spanking and her first fucking, but that's to be expected. She doesn't know how to take discipline. She's precocious and spoiled, temperamental and generally intriguing.

A soft buzz heralds communication from my driver.

"Go ahead," I say, accepting his call.

"Would you like me to keep watching, sir? I think she's gone to bed."

"Yes, Henry. Stay there a little while longer. I'm still compiling her profile."

"Maxwell's not doing it?"

"This is a special case."

Maxwell is the man who usually handles my private investigation work. He compiles complete dossiers on anybody I'm interested in, personally or professionally.

Henry doesn't reply. He'll do what I ask, I can be sure of that. I only have loyal men working for me. Men who know how to follow orders and keep their mouths shut. They are remunerated handsomely for their discretion.

I cannot stop thinking about Charlie, the way her eyes flashed at me when she scrambled up from the bar. She looked at me like a wild beast resentful of my effort to tame her. That's not a normal response.

I've spanked and fucked a lot of naughty girls in my time, and I know how to make them sorry. Charlie wasn't sorry. She was something else entirely.

"I'll organize a replacement for you so you can get home," I tell him.

What I don't tell him is that I'll be the replacement.