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“Beg for it.” I grind my hips in a slow, shallow circle, teasing the sensitive walls of her pussy without giving her the friction she craves. “Beg for permission to come.”

“Please.” She arches up, chasing my cock, but I hold her hips down. “Please let me. I need to. I can’t hold it. I’m yours. I exist for you. Please, Jax, please, please let me.”

The frantic desperation in her voice is a potent drug. I plunge deep inside her, burying myself to the hilt. “Come for me, Liv.”

She shatters. The second climax hits her harder than the first. She wails, a loud, ragged sound of total surrender, her body convulsing wildly. I let go of my own control. I drive into her frantic, clenching heat and empty myself deep inside her with a low groan. I mark her internally, claiming her core as thoroughly as I claim her skin.

I pull out, and she whimpers at the loss of connection, already missing the fullness. The room smells of sex and sweat. Liv lies wrecked on the sheets—flushed, marked, dripping with my cum. Utterly satisfied.

She doesn’t stay still. She rolls toward me, seeking the heat of my body. She presses her bare breasts against my side and drapes a leg over my thigh. Her fingers trail over my chest, tracing my scars, possessing me in the small ways I allow. She knows she is permitted this comfort. She has learned she can claim me in her small way even as she belongs completely to me.

“Thank you.” She presses a kiss to my collarbone. “It was so good. I needed it so much. It felt perfect.”

The gratitude isn’t forced. She genuinely finds fulfillment in being my toy. I run my hand through her tangled blonde hair, untangling the knots at her nape.

“You take my cock so perfectly.” I stroke her back, tracing the curve of her spine. “You looked beautiful coming apart for me. I’m proud of you, Liv. You surrender so perfectly.”

She glows under the praise. She presses open-mouthed kisses over my chest, her devotion absolute. “I love this. I love belonging to you. I love being used by you.”

I stare up at the ceiling, my fingers still stroking her hair. Eight weeks ago, she fought me with everything she had. Now, she begs for her own objectification. Her desire has been reshaped entirely around my existence. But a dark, uncomfortable truth settles in my chest. I want her happiness, as long as I am the source. I want her pleasure. Watching her shatter beneath me, seeing her satisfaction in being used, affects me in ways I never planned for. She has become my masterpiece, and in the process of rebuilding her, she became important.

Feelings give her a strange power over me. A vulnerability I can’t afford, yet refuse to relinquish.

“You’re my favorite.” I tilt her chin up, forcing her to meet my gaze. “Ari is just a project. A means to an end. But you will always be special, Liv.”

The manipulative words serve their purpose, reinforcing her status, but they taste uncomfortably close to the truth. She is special. She belongs to me in a way no one else ever has.

She presses flush against my side, murmuring into my skin. “I belong to you. I need you. I only want you, Jax. I live to please you.”

The psychological dependence is absolute. She can’t imagine existing without me now, and she doesn’t want to. I press a kiss to her damp forehead.

“Sleep now.”

She closes her eyes and falls asleep within minutes, sated and trusting in the arms of her captor. I stay awake in the dark. I listen to her steady breathing, and my thoughts drift to the reinforced room down the hall. Breaking Ari Carter will require different tools, a different kind of pressure, but the reward will be the same.

Eventually, I will have them both. Desperate. Devoted. Finding ecstasy in their submission. This is the twisted family I am building. A sick, perfect dynamic where I am worshipped and central to their existence. It isn’t normal. It isn’t healthy or ethical. But as I hold Liv’s warm, sleeping body against mine, a deep contentment settles over me.

She is mine. And she doesn’t want to leave. She finds genuine purpose in this cage. I haven’t just trapped her physical body; I have made captivity feel like freedom. I have made being used feel like ecstasy. Soon, Ari will learn the same lesson. Soon, they will both exist only for me, loving me in their beautiful, broken way. I am their god, their devil, and their home all at once.

9

ARI

Istare at the cracked plaster ceiling. Sleep is a joke. I lie on the narrow mattress and listen to the silence of the compound, but my ears still ring with the echoes from the adjacent room.

The walls are thin. Too thin. I heard every moan. Every gasp. Every filthy, degrading command Jax gave her.

The worst part is not the act itself. It is her voice. Liv did not just endure him. She begged for him. She wept with desperation, matching his rough thrusts with eager cries. Eight weeks since the masquerade, through cells, a cabin, and this house, and he has changed her in ways I barely recognize.

I press the heels of my hands against my eyes. The phantom sounds loop in my head. The wet slap of skin. Her breathless pleas. The dark, approving rumble of his voice.

Beneath the disgust, a different sensation twists in my gut. My cock presses hard against the fabric of my boxers. It has been painfully rigid for an hour. I hate myself for it. I hate the rush of blood, the sick fascination, the heavy heat pooling in my groin.

I built a life on charm. I play the wealthy, untouchable playboy. I keep women at arm’s length and never let them see the rot inside me. I bury the truth under designer suits and easy smiles. I hide the quiet, pathetic urge to surrender control. To be owned by a man strong enough to take me apart.

Listening to Jax break Liv open dragged that buried urge into the light.

Will Hunter find us? Does Aurora know I am still alive? Grayson knew where I was before Jax moved us. Hunter will weigh the risks. A rescue mission against a fortified Viper compound could start a bloodbath. I am likely written off. Expendable. A casualty of a war we cannot afford.