Page 11 of Brutal

Some of them already have been.

I’m glad that the first one is over breakfast because I’m starving, and the place we’re meeting has pretty decent steak and eggs. Of course, I have to leave forty minutes later on the dot so I can get back in time for another meeting. I would have lingered longer, except my assistant texts me to remind me of the upcoming meeting.

Ugh.

I barely have time to sip a coffee before the meeting at the office starts. It’s some guys from a tech company that wants to integrate some synergies and manage our corporate strengths while increasing our value proposition… blah blah blah. I know all the marketing bullshit.

But I can’t blow them off because the one guy’s daddy is influential in finance, and so I have to smile and nod and tell them I’m really excited about the prospect of future cooperation if the numbers make sense.

When they’re finally gone, I slump across my desk and click the button for my assistant’s intercom. “No more meetings,” I tell her, like there’s actually room in my schedule to play the petulant child and skip work.

“Three more meetings,” she tells me. “You have ten minutes before Janine Hernandez from NB Bank arrives. I can stall her for maybe five minutes once she’s here, but if you blow her off, we’ll lose access to the higher ups and we’ll be dealing with the same runaround we had five months ago.”

Five months ago, which had been the last time I’d canceled a meeting with Hernandez at the last minute. Fuck.

I grab a pen from my desk, starting to click it.

“What about after that?” I ask. “I really need to get out of here, Caroline. You know better than to book five fucking meetings in one day.”

It’s not her fault, not really, but between acquiring Mimosa and my usual impatience, it seems like she did this to set me up for failure.

Caroline sighs, that great huff of a breath that lets me know exactly what she’s thinking.

I almost snarl at her that I’m the one who pays her fucking salary, but I can’t go through yet another assistant. Finding competent, discreet assistants isn’t exactly the easiest thing.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Brutal, but these are too important. The only reason I scheduled them all in one day is because you’ve been telling me to keep your Fridays clear.”

Right. I hadn’t known when Giulio and I could make the deal, and I’d wanted to be ready to drop everything to go pick out my new pet.

“Stall Estela when she gets here, then,” I tell her, clicking the pen more furiously. “I need… I need a few minutes to clear my head.”

“Yes, Mr. Brutal,” Caroline says dutifully.

I cut the call and get up, heading into the bathroom. I have to do something to take the edge off, and that means…

Fuck. I’m out of the pills that make it so much easier to bear the rest of the day, and alcohol isn’t an option yet, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do anything at all.

I lock the door and undo my fly so I can pull my cock out.

The first few times I did this, I wondered if I was really jerking off at work. It’s so unprofessional.

But I’m in charge here, and it’s my private bathroom in my private office. I really don’t give a shit about professionalism.

I brace one arm against the wall by the toilet and close my eyes as I start stroking myself.

I think about Mimosa, trapped in the cage by the bed the night before. It couldn’t have been comfortable. The metal had bitten into her skin, leaving tally marks no matter how much she squirmed and tried to readjust herself.

When she behaves, I’ll give her a pillow and a blanket, but she has to earn those.

She’ll have to earn everything from me, and that thought has me biting back a groan.

I remember what she felt like in the shower, when I was fucking her ass, and I remember how her tits felt in my hands.

I’ll have to be careful with her; she’s bitten other men. But if she bites me, she might not have any teeth left to do it again.

I’m not fucking around. I’m not getting soft, the way Hunter and Chase have.

I tighten my grip and go faster, imagining Mimosa chained up and spread wide for me. I want to see her skin red with humiliation. Fuck, it would be so hot to parade her in front of a bunch of guys and make her debase herself for me.