Page 81 of Breaking Rosalind
I remain silent, letting the accusation hang over my chest like the door of an iron maiden. Every moment with Leroi was an affront to my psyche. He’s cold, calculating, controlled, and conceals his emotions deep within a heart of ice. Not to mention the age gap. I despise older men.
“Answer me.” Cesare’s voice cracks like a whip.
“What’s the question?” I snap back.
“What about you is even real?”
My lips clamp shut.
He grabs my throat. “If you want food, then you’ll earn it.”
“Fuck your food,” I yell. “I told you everything about getting the firm to call off the hit. I even explained how I escaped. You don’t get to crack me open and expect me to spill out my life story.”
Tensing, I steel myself for his hand to tighten around my neck, but he releases his grip, turning his attention to the puddle and cleans up the water with his mop.
My temples throb in time with the pounding of my pulse, and I watch him return the mop and bucket to the sink, then wash his hands with the precision of a surgeon. Cesare Montesano is so mercurial one would think he had multiple personalities. That, or he regulates his emotions like a thermometer.
After drying his hands with a paper towel and tossing it in one of his color-coded waste containers, he walks to a table beneath shelves of plastic boxes.
I bite down on the inside of my cheek to sharpen my senses. Do I stay silent and wait for his next move, or do I try to appeal to his last shred of sanity? Unlike his cousin, Cesare isn’t a man of stone with veins filled with ice. He’s tempestuous, hot-blooded, and impulsive. I need to learn to navigate the nuances of his temperament.
“Do your brothers know you’re withholding information that could call off the hit?” I ask.
As if not hearing a word I say, he opens the box and extracts an AAA battery. After putting it back into place, he selects another container and pulls out a little black toy about the size of a lipstick.
My jaw tenses and the pulse between my thighs quickens.
The dirty fucker.
“You can’t keep me here as your plaything,” I say. “Even if you don’t care about my firm’s retaliation, think of mine.”
Calmly, he sets the items on a trolley, along with a metal box and a bunch of medical supplies, then wheels them over to my side.
“Cesare Montesano,” I say through clenched teeth. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Choking doesn’t work on you,” he says. “It only gets you wet. Pain doesn’t work either. And I can’t starve you into submission, so I need to get creative.”
“With a vibrator?” I laugh. “You do understand the effect they have on women?”
Ignoring me, he walks around the end of the table, where he pushes down a lever and the lower half of it collapses. My legs fall at a ninety-degree angle, making me stifle a gasp.
The only thing I found tolerable about Leroi was that he was also a pleasure dom. Before I ruined our arrangement by snooping around his apartment, he would make me orgasm repeatedly until I would cry for mercy. I doubt Cesare will be so giving.
He loosens the straps around my knees, forcing them apart and exposing my pussy to his scrutinous gaze. If my ankles weren’t so tightly restrained, I would kick him in the face.
“What are you doing?” I say through clenched teeth. “I don’t consent to sex.”
He scoffs. “I wouldn’t fuck you if my cock was on fire and your cunt was the only wet surface.”
I huff a laugh. “You’re only saying that to get the upper hand.”
“Which of us is strapped to a bondage table and is about to earn themselves a gag?” he asks.
“Which of us is still bitter about being beaten up by a girl?”
He slaps my inner thigh, the sting shooting straight to my clit. I exhale a shuddering breath, trying not to moan.
“Fine words for the bitch who can’t get enough of me. You’re soaked.”