Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 481

SERAPHINE

I lay sprawled across the bed, naked, my chest heaving while sweat cooled against my skin, my heart drumming so hard I could feel it in my throat. I had never been so exhausted in my entire life, and yet rest would not take me and peace would not come. Every time I closed my eyes, the hall came rushing back, and I snapped them open again, staring at the ceiling until my pulse slowed.

What happened in that hall was something I never wanted to remember for as long as I lived. The number of men who had taken me, the way they had used my body like I was nothing but a home for their cocks, the way they had passed me around and stretched me and filled me until I could not tell where one of them ended and the next began.

They had been so brutal I doubted I would have survived it without the pill. That little white pill had carried me through the whole ordeal, had turned agony into pleasure, had kept me smiling and begging while they used me, had made me want it. And when they were finally done, I had lain on the floor of that stage, my body trembling, my throat raw, struggling to hold onto consciousness until the darkness simply opened its arms and swallowed me whole.

When my eyes opened again, I was in a tub. Cold water, up to my chest, my naked body shivering inside it, my teeth chattering. Emerson stood over me with that slow smile of his, watching me the way a man watches a horse he has just won at auction.

"You did a very good job, Seraphine," he said. "I am impressed. Very impressed."

I tried to answer, but my lips would barely move, so I only stared up at him.

"As a bonus for your performance," he went on, "I have sent an extra five billion to your account."

Five billion. On top of everything else he had already given me. For a moment I felt like I could float right out of that cold water. I managed a smile, weak as it was, and let the warmth of those numbers seep into my bones.

I nodded again. What else was there to do?

He patted my head a second time and walked out, and I heard the heavy door of the house close behind him. I barely had strength enough to drag myself out of that tub. It took forever, one trembling limb at a time, water sloshing onto the floor, and by the time I reached my room and threw myself onto the bed, I was certain I had never been so tired in my life.

I fell asleep almost immediately but it did not last.

I woke to my own heartbeat. It was slamming, racing, pounding inside my chest like a caged animal trying to claw its way out. My insides were burning. My heart felt like it was being squeezed in a fist, and every breath came harder and harder, as though the air itself had turned to syrup.