Twisted Souls (The Alpha Boss Book 2) (4 page)

Anna could take many things from a man, but Caden’s stubborn refusal to admit his feelings she couldn’t stand. She had reached her limit.

Anna drew in her breath to say that she quit.

Looking into her eyes, Caden Morning put the tip of the crop in his mouth and suckled, getting it wet. Then, he ran the leather down along his jaw and traced the line her eyes had taken, over his powerful chest, around his delectable nipples, then over his ribbed stomach, and finally, along his fine cloth covered leg.

“If you want more of me, you’ll stay at Darco and take what is coming next. This is how I separate the quitters from the team.” With that, he turned and strode from the room.

Anna realized she’d been holding her breath while Caden made his declaration. She exhaled and rubbed her head with her hand. His words sounded insane. The whole thing was insane. The company…she thought of some of the other employees: Marcy from accounting, Jennifer who handled scheduling. Did they all have to sit on a dirty table like this at some point, with whip wounds marking their bodies and decide whether to go or stay? Was that where the odd loyalty and nerdy dedication she had witnessed in the company originated?

She stood, rubbed her sore bottom, and looked at the stack of papers next to Caden Morning’s case. What else might be waiting in that leather box for her? Peering inside, the valise was very well organized, everything neat and in place where he’d returned each item after use. The martinet, the rattan cane, the dressage whip. There were also metal torture tools and more straps. She picked up one of the devices. A clamp with sharp teeth along the business end. Another was some sort of wheel with a handle, that looked something like a pastry cutter or pizza wheel, but this one was all shiny and evil-looking with wicked needle sharp projections along the wheel. She ran the round device down her arm and shuddered at the piercing line of pain the spiteful points left even though she didn’t press the gadget into her skin with any force.

Embossed into the device’s side was the word
Wartenberg
.

The slate-gray handle had sort of a plug on the end and there was also a box with black wires coming out. She didn’t want to think what those might be for. The box sported Darco’s logo on the top.

Also wearing the Darco logo, the paddle lay next to these implements. He wouldn’t have that thing if punishment wasn’t company policy. She rehashed her situation. If she left now, there would be the bills, and then the calls from the collection agencies, and later, the visits from the police. Maybe a trip to jail. Caden Morning said he would forgive what she owed, but would Darco? Tolling? The accountants? Promises were like babies: easy to make, hard to deliver. Plus, the debt was hers, she owed the money.

Seven thousand dollars and change, plus interest and she didn’t want to do the math on that. She just knew it was more than any friend or family member had or could get. Anna was the successful one in her circle of family and friends. Everyone looked to her for loans and advice because she’d scored an office job, and pulled herself up from the swamp of manual labor.

She put the Wartenberg wheel back in its place, and picked up the paperwork.

ten

Semi-colon packed legalese again swam before her eyes, and more tears splotched the paper.

Two paths forked before her and she had misgivings about either one. Staying, taking the punishment, and seeing where the connection with Caden went— she was sure it was there. Finding the signature lines in the mass of ant tracks and scrawling her name next to the words
Voluntary Termination
was the other choice. The story where Caden took her in his arms and kicked the bag of evil tools aside, didn’t start with her giving up. The tale might never start. Certainly, she would never find out the ending of her ideal saga if she signed the papers and walked out of the office. Out of his life.

Her pains had subsided and she felt like she could take more. Depending on how he punished her, how slow he built up, the hurt sometimes felt good. Even when he hit her too hard, the experience was something different from the mindless burger flipping she saw in her future if she left. Taking advantage of the high unemployment rate, the coffee shops and burger joints used computer programs to analyze how customers shopped and hired employees only to cover high traffic times instead of for regular shifts, though employees were expected to come running when called.

Being on-call without pay was certainly a form of torture. Her friend Jane constantly complained about the never-ending un-scheduled disruption. For all the people Anna knew, life was a daily grind of slaving for someone else’s dream, followed by one night stands with strangers discovered by clicking through faces on a Smartphone app. Only to start the whole thing again the next morning until, at some point, one of the faces sticks around. Or maybe not.

If a swipe did hang around, there would be the usual tension from never making enough money to cover the lifestyle sold in the nightly info-tainment until things fell apart. Then, there would be bankruptcy. Screaming fights. Divorce. She’d seen that road take a hundred acquaintances and she’d seen true love happen in the movies and romance paperbacks.

Here with Caden lived adventure and risk and maybe reward promised by the path of staying. Pain, certainly, sometimes pleasure, but also something different, something new. A life without lawyers, bill collectors, and other forms of pink slime.

She put the papers down and took his shirt. She used the fine cloth to cover one of the break chairs to protect her naked skin, and primly waited for Caden Morning to return with whatever appallingly awesome adventure he planned to take her on next.

eleven

With an evil clanking approaching from the hallway, Anna regretted her decision to stay. The door burst open and in strode Caden Morning’s shirtless glory, carrying something long and made of metal.

Anna bolted to her feat.

A…step ladder?

He did say that. She had been certain she misheard.

“You’re still here, I see. Good. I wanted to try this.”

Caden gave her a predatory smile that sent her pulse racing.

She had hoped for more feeling from him when he saw she’d remained, but he acted like a hawk stalking a hare.

All he cares about is what he wants to do to my flesh.

Or was that a twinkle in his eye she saw just then?

With a great clacking and clanging, he pushed the table aside and set the triangle of the ladder up in the middle of the break room.

Anna looked around, afraid some employee at work late would see her standing there wearing the red stripes from his recent punishment. But the windows of the break room, shades pulled up, watched over the hallways and the cube farm where she spent her days, like the eyes of an empty skull.

Automatic lights in the hallway would snap on if anyone walked down them.

“Come here,” he said and took up some of the straps he’d used to bind her to the ottoman earlier.

In silent submission, she shuffled over to the ladder.

“Mount the first two rungs.”

Anna climbed as she was told. Caden leapt in and grabbed her hands, pulling them above her head to the top of the ladder. She tried to jerk her forearms down as he wrapped the straps around her wrists.

“You don’t have to tie me. I stayed here for you. I’ll do what you tell me to do, and take my…my punishment. But please, don’t tie me up again.” The ladder was cool to her touch and she had to hold herself away from the rungs to lift her breasts and thighs away from the hard metal.

Caden pulled over one of the folding chairs, and stood on the seat to tie her wrists up to the top of the ladder.

“You broke my trust and the company’s trust, Anna. You deserve this, and I need to be able to describe your punishment to the board and to other employees. Then they will know that theft and dishonesty are not rewarded at Darco.”

A wave of heat rushed over her. “You’re going to tell other employees?”

He gave a final tug to make sure the straps held their place. He motioned with his chin to the overhead security camera, red light winking away. “That’s part of your contract. You gave us the right to record and display any punishment we saw fit to undertake.”

Caden Morning stepped back down off the chair and ran his hands over her breasts where they bobbed close to the metal of the ladder. Metal that had been climbed and touched by countless work boots and dirty hands. By the look of it, Caden had not bothered to wipe the aluminum rungs before making her touch them.

“Didn’t you read any of it?”

“I didn’t read the fine print. I don’t want to get into a legal debate, I just want to stay here and work for you.”

With you. Under you.

“Why do you have to show this to anyone else?” she wailed. “Can’t you keep my punishment just between us?”

“Maybe I can, Anna. For the most part. To reinstate you, I’ll have to show the recording to a few of the board. But perhaps, if you behave, I can keep the video from being used in company training tapes and from being shown to your co-workers.”

Oh, God, her co-workers. Would they sit in this very room and watch her being whipped while they had coffee? On the big-screen TV that usually played speeches by company founders and marketing videos extolling the virtues of Darco? The same screen where she’d first seen Caden Morning speak about the importance of teamwork and loyalty? Yes, she would do anything to avoid that. But with her contract and her the decision to stay and bear this final punishment, she was at his mercy.

“Thank you, Mr. Morning, I will obey. Please, I’ve learned my lesson. You don’t have to hit me hard.”

“You should thank me, Anna. There are other implements I could use besides the crop and the cane.” She shuddered to think of the toothy electric wheel in his bag. “I’m also trying to make this as pleasurable for you as I can. You are one of those who converts pain to pleasure. The board will look at the strikes of the whip, and not at the strokes of my hand between them.”

Caden tugged the nylon straps where they bound her wrists to the ladder, and Anna felt his torrid skin against her back. The rush of cinnamon rose stronger now in her nostrils. She breathed, pushing back against him.

Was he right? His punishment did get easier to bear when he played with her pussy and nipples between blows.

Like the brunette in the park.

“However, I’ll continue to be severe with your correction as I can be without causing any permanent harm.”

He caressed from her shoulders to her bottom. She had to push her booty out to keep her belly away from the rough metal ladder. The concave hollow of her spine tingled at his touch. “You have a sweet ass, Anna. Frequent whipping will make it fuller and rounder, which is quite the fashion these days. Some girls pay big money for injections to expand their posterior. Flagellation has the same effect, and it’s all natural. Organic. Gluten Free.”

She eased against his hand, wishing he would just keep rubbing her. The position of being tied up in the break room with her shirtless boss caressing her ass kept all her switches flipped on.

Reading her mind again, Caden slipped his hand down and rubbed the lips of her pussy. She pushed back against him, feeling his finger teasing around her entrance, not going in, but making clear his ability to penetrate her at will. There was nothing she could do to prevent him, tied to the ladder as she was, but she had no desire to stop him, either. She wanted him to push his finger, and keep pushing it. She wanted him to replace his digits with his cock and take her right on the ladder. She wondered how he would do the deed if he decided to, would he stand on a chair? Would he push the ladder down and take her pressed against the dirty rungs? Anna leaned forward and let the metal rub her nipples. The rungs had shallow treads cut into them to help work-boots keep their grip. These brushed the skin of her breasts like hundreds of pinprick teeth, biting and scratching, adding to a rhythmic pleasure as she bumped over them in time to Caden thrusting his magic fingers in and out.

Caden leaned close to her; with his height and her perched part-way up the ladder, his mouth was just below her ear. Close enough for his breath to tickle her. Caden whispered to her, “Do you swear to obey me and take any punishment I decide to give you from this day forward?”

His hands and his scent and his rich, masculine voice washed over her, carrying her conscious mind out of the picture.

“Yes, Caden, I will obey you. Anything. Please, keep going.”

He spoke louder now. “You swore to me and to the company that you would take any discipline I decide to give you, correct?”

She nodded.

“I can’t hear you, Anna Whitehorse, speak up.” His hand rubbed harder.

“Yes, yes, I will. I do…I’ll take my punishment,” she wailed. Caden’s hand sped up and the regular scraping of her nipples over the rough ladder increased to match Caden’s tempo, sending shots of pleasure into her chest and up to her brain.

“Now I’m going to test your loyalty, obedience, and how well you recall the contract you signed.”

He removed his hand.

“What…why are you stopping?”

Caden laughed at her desperate wail. He moved around the ladder and stood in front of her.