Page 22 of Payback
“No basement. I need you within reach at all times.”
“There’s a bed!”
“I see it,” I responded in a husky voice, knowing she could decipher my thoughts. Fuck, having Alison under my control ensured that my cock wouldn’t go down anytime soon. All I desired was to dominate her over and over, to make her feel the same disgust she had made me feel. There had been one person I had detested more than Alison, and that person was myself. But now, I had transformed from that scrawny kid. I had evolved, and if Alison expected any mercy from me, she was sorely mistaken. She wouldn’t be able to catch a break. Whenever I wanted her, she would be at my disposal.
“I can sleep on that.”
“If you’re on the bed, we fuck,” I declared.
“What?”
“The bed is reserved for sex and your suffering. If you’re on it, it signifies that we’re about to fuck. As for that cage, think of it as your new home, doggy,” I informed her.
“You’ve lost your sanity, Jared. I won’t subject myself to sleeping in a damn cage. That’s insanity!” she exclaimed.
“You made me eat from the floor and reveled in seeing me kneel. How is this any crazier?” I challenged, observing her self-assuredness falter as she averted her gaze. Closing in, I seized her jaw, ensuring she met my eyes. “It’s a taste of your own medicine, Alison. How does the bitterness taste now?”
She had no intention of answering my question. She understood the implications of that response, and even as I released her, she kept her eyes down.
“We were children,” she whispered.
“And?”
“Children do foolish things.”
“Is that what we now term as extreme bullying?” I asked her, watching her gaze gradually shift toward me. To provoke her, I reached out, resting a hand on her lower abdomen. Her eyes widened as she looked at me, surprised. “Imagine if it were your child. Envision them coming home with bruises. Crying incessantly, describing how a mean girl had forced their head into a toilet or beaten them so severely they could hardly walk. What would you do then, Alison?”
She opened her mouth, but no words escaped. I recognized that a child might find it difficult to envision such a scenario, but Alison was an adult now and had fought desperately to conceive. I wanted her to feel the horrors of that potential child of hers being a victim.
“I would never have allowed it to happen.”
“And I believe you would succeed because you possess the means,” I growled softly before raising my hand and gripping her hair, pulling back firmly. “I didn’t…”
My words lingered in the air as she stared up at me, fear evident in her eyes.
“But your parents did. Anything to shield their precious girl, am I not right?”
“Is that your what you think?” she asked, a mocking smile playing on her lips and bewildering me.
“I know what they did. I know the considerable sum they paid to sweep it all under the rug,” I snarled.
“But you assume it was for my sake?”
“Then for whom?” I questioned.
She began to chuckle slightly, further perplexing me, and I tightened my grip on her hair, eliciting a hiss.
“For whom?”
“For them,” she informed me.
“For them?”
“Where do you think I learned it from? Always protect the image, Alison,” she repeated mockingly, making me realize that those words had been drilled into her countless times. Why else would she utter them in that manner? It was a rehearsed script.
“So your mother and father needed their family to appear flawless?”
“They needed their daughter to appear flawless,” she corrected. “How else could she secure admission into Harvard, Princeton, or any Ivy League school? Do you think they would accept someone who caused so much trouble?”
