Page 42 of Owned

He was so fucking hot I couldn’t breathe.

I was fighting shock at the things he’d said, as well the dark, dirty hunger that had flickered into life as soon as those words were out of his mouth. A hunger that wanted his dominance and his darkness, that wanted to be his fuck toy to play with whenever he wished. That wanted to be owned, because a possession never had to make decisions or be strong, or earn money, or care for anyone. A possession only needed to exist, and there was a part of me, buried so deep I hadn’t known it was there, that only wanted that.

Except, that was wrong. It was very, very wrong. I’d never wanted to be dependent on men, not emotionally, physically or monetarily. Not for anything, not like my mother had been. Yet that’s what Atlas wanted and while there was a secret part of me that longed for it, the rest of me was frightened by it. I didn’t want to do everything he said without argument. I didn’t want to be punished or to have what I wanted not matter.

You want to be his. You’re desperate for it.

I looked up at him, almost battered by the ferocity in his eyes. What would it be like to be owned by him? He’d be demanding, oh yes, and possessive. He’d also be dirty and rough, directing all that intensity on me…

He’d make you like it, and that’s what you’re really afraid of.

Yes. I was afraid that way deep down inside me, there was a part of me that was just like Mom. Desperate for male attention. Desperate to be looked after and protected. Desperate to hide behind someone else’s strength, because it was so hard relying on my own.

Atlas could be that for me. He could make himself my whole world. He could make me do whatever he wanted just to please him, and that was what scared me. He was everything I’d secretly been longing for my whole life, and I couldn’t let myself have him. I couldn’t. Not if I wanted to still be standing when he walked away.

But wouldn’t it feel so good to stop fighting what you know you really want? To let him own you? Even just for a little while…

A shiver went down my spine, my skin tight and hot as the images of me trembling before the priest, of Atlas’s fingers pressing down on my clit, and then of myself kneeling before him and opening my mouth to receive him played in my head.

My face was on fire. I wanted to tell him that no way in hell would I let him do any of those things, that I didn’t want to be owned, and yet the throbbing between my thighs gave me away. My own desperate need gave me away. What would he taste like? What would it feel like to have his cock in my mouth? What would it be like to give him pleasure? Would it be humiliating to kneel before him? Did I really want to submit to him like that?

“Well?” he demanded, rough and uncompromising. “Are you brave enough for a blow job or are you going to run?”

My sex throbbed, my heart battering itself against my ribs. “So what are you saying? If…if I do that for you, you’ll own me?”

His gaze on me was relentlessly fierce. “A blow job. Yes or no, Rowan.”

“But what do you mean about?—”

“It’s a simple question. Yes or no. Answer me.”

“But I…I don’t…”

“Don’t think. Just choose.” There was no mercy in his voice, only a demand that hooked into that buried part of me and dragged it into the light.

“I can’t.” The words came out in a breathless rush. “I can’t choose.”

The pressure of his gaze was relentless, studying me as if he was a scientist and I was a new and interesting specimen he’d just discovered. “You want me to choose for you?”

I sucked in a trembling breath, caught on the horns of my own indecision. Too afraid to say yes, too desperate to say no. “I…I….”

“Stop thinking,” he ordered, his voice deep and heavy with a certainty that made something in me freeze. “I’ll make the choice for you.” Then he stepped around me, coming to stand behind me, and he put his large, warm hand on the back of my neck and gripped me by the scruff like a kitten.

I went still, my breath coming in rushing pants as slowly, inexorably, he pushed me down onto the floor on my knees. My mind had gone blank, no thought in my head as my nerveless fingers let go of my bouquet, leaving it to fall on the floor in a splash of fragile white petals.

Then the dominant pressure Atlas’s hand released and he walked around to stand in front of me once again, the black tips of his shoes nudging the white silk of my wedding gown.

“Eyes up,” he said, and like I was already his to command, I lifted my gaze to his. The heat and the intensity in it almost knocked me flat and automatically I looked down again. “No. I gave you an order, toy. Do as you’re told.”

I should have protested, should have gotten up and walked out, proved to him that I wasn’t a damn toy, but I found myself staying where I was and looking back up at him again, caught in the unholy magnetism of his gaze.

His hand dropped to his belt and what little breath I had left vanished.

He was silent as he undid the buckle of his belt slowly and with some deliberation, watching me all the while. And weirdly it felt as if he was giving me time to understand what was going on and to stop if I wanted him to. Or maybe he was simply ramping up that anticipation and the throb inside me, a deep, relentless ache that kept me glued to the floor, no matter that another frightened part of me wanted to get up and run out that door.

That fear again. Fear of what he made me feel, of what he could make me do, of the depth of my hunger for him and what that said about me. Back on the couch, before he’d touched me, I’d gotten beyond that fear, but now it returned full force. And this time it had another component: what if I couldn’t do what he wanted? What if I couldn’t give him the ‘best blowjob of his life’? I’d never done this before so I had no idea what would give him pleasure and what wouldn’t.

“Toys don’t think,” Atlas said, apparently reading my mind as he flicked open the button of his pants. “Toys only do what they’re told.”

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