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Authors: Jessica Gadziala

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BOOK: DEBT
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But... yeah, his Barbie-like date made it really hard to not start to wonder if maybe my thighs would benefit from a couple thousand extra squats per month. Or day. Or hour.

I snapped back to the present, cringing at my growling stomach, when I saw St. James stand, help his date out of her seat, and start moving toward the door. I hung back, not sure if he was walking her out to her car which I knew from experience myself, generally meant some necking. But then he barked over his shoulder at me,"My six," and I moved to follow, slowing my pace as I realized he was leading her and, therefore me, upstairs. I sucked a deep breath as he went down the hall and he moved inside his bedroom door, leaning out to remind me in case I was indeed too simple-minded to remember, "You know your place." With that, he shut the door, leaving me standing in the hall.

And, well, yeah.

Everyone who had a brain knew what happened next.

There was some soft laughing (from the girl), some rumbled words (from him) and then the bed squeaking and moans and grunts and, yeah, well... one can fill in the blanks.

At first, I was seething. I was tired, sore, and starving and he was making me stand there and listen to him screw his woman?

But as the moans from the girl got louder and more desperate-sounding, I maybe felt that weird biological response again. Biological. I was only human. It was like porn. No woman in her right mind liked it, but, well, sometimes if it was on and there was the groaning and flesh-slapping sounds and the curses from the men, well, the body responded no matter how much the mind didn't want it to. That was all it was. It was real life porn. And my underused lady bits just weren't listening to my mind which was telling them that, one, Byron St. James while hot and alpha, was a bastard, and two, making an employee listen to you boink your woman was beyond seedy. So I stood there and pressed my thighs together as I tried to distract myself by naming off the states and capitals as the moans hit an ear-splitting level, culminating with a choked call to the lord as I ignored the fluttering in my sex in response to the very intense-sounding orgasm going on behind the door to my right.

It was less than a minute later that I was startled by the sound of the door jerking open, making me scramble away from the wall as my eyes fell on St. James. And, well, hell. He was in a pair of lightweight gray sleep pants slung low on his waist, low enough for me to see the point where his pelvis sloped into the triangle above his cock. A cock which, by the way, was still half-hard through his pants, I noticed with an almost guilty-feeling as I jerked my head up, taking in his abs, glistening slightly with sweat, before my eyes found his face.

His dark eyes were on me. That in and of itself wasn't surprising. His eyes were on me a lot. But there was something different there I hadn't seen before, something I didn't know him well enough to interpret, but it my my chest feel a little tight for a moment. His mouth opened for a second, closed, then opened again.

"You're off for the night, Miss. Marlow," he said, his voice losing the sharp edge it usually held. "Make yourself at home."

With that, he turned back into his room and shut the door with a quiet click.

Make yourself at home?

Make yourself at home?

I paused for all of three seconds to ponder how uncharacteristic that request sounded from his lips before I flew across the hall, kicking out of my shoes and making a bee-line for the bathroom. I had managed a quick pee break while fetching his coffee once that afternoon, but had been holding my bladder since then. I stripped out of the obnoxious, binding clothes and threw on my own normal, cute cotton panties, a pair of silk sleep shorts and an oversize navy long-sleeve Disney tee and stuck my head out into the hallway, listening for any sounds. Hearing nothing, I tiptoe-ran down the hallway, the stairs, and into the kitchen.

The main floor I found completely abandoned, as if the other employees actually had some kind of schedule and weren't on call at all times as I was apparently. I could make out the guards out front when I passed the front doors, but, well, he was rich. That was to be expected. I quickly rummaged around the kitchen, making myself a sandwich and locating a box of granola bars in the kitchen, snagging two and a bottle of water. I figured I could, I dunno, stick a granola bar into my bra or skirt the next day in case of another full day without being given a food break.

I was moving out into the hallway when I heard the click of heels on the floor, accompanied by the slap of bare feet and I slunk back into the kitchen, shamelessly eavesdropping.

"Come on, Byron. Don't be such a dick," the woman said and I saluted her with my sandwich. She was right there; he was a dick alright.

"One and done, Lyla," was Byron's typical douchbaggy response.

One and done?

Seriously... who said that to a woman?

Even if it was true.

Well, I guess you had to respect a man who was upfront about being an asshole and didn't do the 'I'll call' thing that you knew he didn't mean but waited for your cell to ring anyway.

"It was good," Lyla insisted,pathetic pleading clear in her tone.

"Not denying that."

"And you still don't want a repeat..."

"I think I've made myself clear. Have a nice night, Lyla," he said and I heard the door swing open. I shoved the last of my sandwich in my mouth, chewing as I listened to Lyla's heels drift off into the night and the door close and lock. "You can come out now, Miss. Marlow," his voice called, making my heart fly up into my throat, making the food I was swallowing feel chalky and gross as it slid down. I raised my water and took a swig, forcing myself to move out into the hallway. I'd be damned if I let him think I was too chickenshit to face him just because I was eavesdropping.

As soon as I rounded the corner into the foyer, I saw him standing on the bottom stair, arm on the railing, obviously waiting for me to emerge. When I did, his gaze dipped, doing a slow inspection from my bare feet and all the way up to my head where I had piled my hair in a messy top-knot. His lips actually twitched for a second before they settled into their typical straight line as his eyes pinned mine. "Seriously? That's what you wear?"

I felt the immediate urge to shrink away, to drop my shoulders, to somehow feel ashamed of myself. But I pushed that away and put my chin up. "I have no one to impress," I said pointedly, eyes daring him to say otherwise, to remind me that I was told that I was supposed to wear my uniform under my clothes even when off-duty, to, well, be the jackass I expected.

But all I got was a shrug. "Fair enough. You'll be in my room at seven a.m., Miss. Marlow," he said, turning and moving up the stairs.

I took a deep breath then followed up the stairs, making sure to keep more than half the staircase then half the hall between us at all times. I locked my door and set the alarm on the dresser before climbing into bed.

I fell asleep wondering what the hell the next day would have in store for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FOUR

 

Prue

 

 

 

The alarm startled me awake, making me shoot up in the unfamiliar bed in the unfamiliar room and it took my sleep-sated brain a long minute to realize where I was and what had woken me up. Alert, I scrambled off the bed and ran across the room to hit the snooze button before turning the alarm off. I stood there for a long minute, hand over my heart as I tried to settle my frazzled nerves.

"Great way to start a shitty day," I told my reflection in the mirror over the dresser, taking in the pillow marks on my cheek and the sleep in my eyes. "Alright, you can do this," I told myself, going to the closet to grab another 'uniform' out of the box and heading into the bathroom for a quick shower. I climbed into my clothes, making sure I tucked in my shirt, raked a brush through my hair, and decided that was just going to have to do as I didn't have a blow dryer and I didn't have the time to let it air dry.

At five to seven, I walked into the hall and knocked on Byron's bedroom door, listening for a response. Hearing none, I paused, uncertain what the protocol was. I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to just go into his room without permission, but he had said the night before that I was to be
in
his room at seven in the morning. With a shrug, I pulled the door open and stepped inside.

"Mr. St. James?" I called as I walked in, taking in the mussed-up sheets.

"In here," he called from the bathroom and I followed, rolling my eyes, wondering what menial task he had planned for me. Cutting his toenails perhaps? I stopped dead inside the door though, my entire body going ramrod straight.

Shit.

Okay.

There was no way he meant for me to follow him into the bathroom.

No.

He was just telling me where he was.

I wasn't supposed to come.

I knew that because as I walked in, I saw him standing in his shower bay, under the steaming spray. Naked. Yes, naked. But more so than that, his hand was wrapped around his hard cock and he was stroking it.

Jesus.

Alright. I needed to quietly and slowly enough to not draw attention to the motion, back the hell right out of that room before he saw me.

"Don't," his voice called as soon as I moved one foot backward. I froze, my pulse pounding hard in unusual places: wrists, throat, and, um...
another
place.

"Sorry, I, ah .... I'll go," I said, dropping my head to look at the floor, squeezing my eyes so tight that it hurt.

"Miss. Marlow," his voice called, a little rough, a little sex-raspy. And the sound had a physical effect. Crap. Crap crap crap. "Eyes up," he commanded and I felt my head shaking since, one, I didn't hear the water shut off so he was still under the spray, and two, I was pretty sure my cheeks were beet freaking red. "Eyes now, Miss. Marlow," he snapped in such a cruel tone that my head jerked up and my eyes opened. As I had expected, he was still in the shower, under the spray, naked, his hand still around his cock. The only difference was, his eyes were on me. They were heavier than usual but just as intense as ever. "Right there, like that. You move, you blink, and I am having one of my men go find your father."

The deadness in his voice forced a cold sliver up into my heart and I knew, I just
knew
he meant that.

If I didn't stand there and watch him jerk-off, he was going to round up my father and either hurt or kill him.

It was the first time I felt real, genuine fear with regard to him since I moved into his house. Sure, he was an asshole one-hundred and ten percent of the time, but he hadn't out and out scared me like he had with the gun incident two days before. I had almost forgotten how dangerous he really was. But he was a man who was equally happy killing a man or taking his daughter as a... slave? Servant? Whatever I was. Normal, sane, safe people didn't do things like that. So that made him abnormal, crazy, and incredibly dangerous.

It was right that second that I realized how jolly well fucked I was in the whole situation. I understood why my father wanted to run away, why he was so hellbent on getting me away.

He knew what I was just finding out.

He knew that I had just become property. That I belonged to Byron St. James.

And if I didn't mind my p's and q's, there was no telling what could happen.

I felt my lower lip tremble and I bit into it as I fought the sting of tears at the backs of my eyes.

"Understood?" he barked and I jerked my head in a tight nod.

He looked back at the shower wall, no doubt having no worry that I would disobey his command, and continued working his hand on himself, his rhythm getting faster, rougher, almost violent as his toned, perfect body went taut. His fist slammed hard into the wall, making me jump as I watched his body jerk as he came.

He stood there for another minute, deep-breathing, then rinsing off before he shut off the water and wrapped a towel around his waist, not bothering to dry off and just dripping water all across his bathroom floor as he made his way toward me.

I felt myself frozen in place, every inch of my body tight and ready to flinch away as if he might pounce. He came right up in front of me, his mostly-naked body radiating heat and it made me do a full-body shiver against the coolness I felt inside. His head tilted slightly, his hand raising. His thumb moved out, stroking across my cheek, catching a stray tear I hadn't realized slipped over. Then his hand dropped just as quickly and he moved away and into his bedroom.

I swallowed hard, collapsing back against the wall, bringing a hand up to my slamming heart and trying to take a few deep breaths and remind myself that Byron, for all his faults, had made a promise to my father and me.

He wasn't going to hurt me...
like that.

He wasn't going to put his hands on me.

He wasn't going to force himself on me.

But I was just starting to realize that there was something to be said for emotional and psychological abuse being just as bad as physical.

Because the only thing I had that mattered in my boring, sometimes shitty life... was my father.

BOOK: DEBT
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ads

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