Page 19 of Gambler's Conceit
“I was willing to be nice,” Caleb says, grabbing my chin. “But you wasted no time at all to push.”
I squirm, but he doesn’t let go and Vortex doesn’t back off. “Being nice would’ve been to let me go when I made it super fucking clear I didn’t want to be here,” I snap at him.
With my grand total of a hundred and fifty-two dollars, maybe, but I’d have been on my own.
I’d have beenfree, and money isn’t the only currency I have to offer.
“You want to be out there?” Caleb repeats. “Are you sure? Because right now you are Caleb Spade’s esteemed guest. Nobody in Calamity City will bother you. If you leave… word might get out. I don’t just mean to the Diamantes or the Harts. I mean to everybody who likes pretty boys with lips made just for blowjobs. I mean the people who trade well-trained individuals?—”
My heart drops into my stomach, nausea threatening to make what I’d eaten earlier come back up. “Shut up,” I rasp. “Just shut up.”
Caleb smirks at me. “Oh? When you go missing, you don’t want me to ask the local police to help me find my new… boyfriend?”
Tears burn at the corners of my eyes, and my hands ball up into fists at my sides. “I told you to shut up!” I yell at him, trying to jerk back.
Vortex is still a fucking wall behind me, and he doesn’t budge. He stays silent, and I hate him for it. I hate both of them for this, and I realize I’m shaking with unbridled rage.
Not that it matters.
Neither of them care.
The thought is like a physical blow… or worse, because it’s so familiar, and it brings up so many thoughts, and?—
“Are you going to behave?” Caleb asks coldly.
I swallow hard against the tears. “Yes,” I croak out.
What other choice do I have?
What other choice do Ieverhave?
Caleb finally releases me, then nods at Vortex. “Carry him into the bedroom. Then strip him down.” He stops and looks atme. “Although maybe we should strip him first before you sling him over your shoulder.”
“Done,” Vortex says, his voice as ragged as mine is—though I don’t think it’s for the same reasons at all.
His hands go to the hem of my sweater, and he yanks it over my head. He tosses it to the side, then does the same to my shirt. I just stand there, letting him strip me completely naked as the stunned shock of what’s happening reverberates through me.
For a minute, I’d maybe thought that Caleb Spade wasn’t that bad.
I’d been fooling myself.
Vortex grabs me and tosses me over his shoulder like I weigh nothing as he hauls me off to Caleb’s bedroom. “Where do you want him, boss?”
Caleb strokes my ass before he answers, “Bad little pets need to be spanked, don’t they?”
I’m trembling, and I struggle to hold in my rising panic. I don’t want to get beaten, even though old habits, old thoughts, tell me that I deserve it for trying to run. They tell me, too, that if I was caught by… anyone else, the consequences would be far worse.
The people who trade well-trained individuals…
“Yeah,” Vortex says, his voice still rough. “I…” He keeps me hefted on his shoulder. “Do you want me to stay?”
No.No no no.
A wretched, pathetic sob rips itself out of my throat.
Caleb moves so he can pet my hair. “If you’d like. Seven severely inconvenienced you with his antics, after all.” He forces my head up, his smile cruel. “You want to make it up to Vortex, don’t you?”
I swallow hard around the lump in my throat, whimpering. I know the expected answer. I know what I should say, what might make this easier on myself. “Y-yes,” I whisper through anothersob. “P-please, Master,” I try. “Let me make… make it up to both of you.”