Chapter 1
“Do I make you nervous?”, she asked, knowing full well that his carotid artery was throbbing incessantly against the thin skin of his neck.
She stood behind him as he sat in a velvet-lined wooden chair fit for a bar instead of this place. Her eyes forward, she saw herself in the stained mirror as well as her well-kept pet. She was enveloped in red from her decollete to her strong, yet feminine ankles. Her suit was sewn from the finest satin, curling and twisting around her slender frame until reaching her firmly starched collar. She wore a black tie and black patent leather boots reflecting the dim light against the mirror.
“No,” he calmly said, desperately trying to get his heartbeat under control as he knew she could feel his fear from 10 feet away.
What he saw in front of him was not reality. It was a twisted, writhing, pulsating picture that would be his only sight for the foreseeable future. He was nervous alright. He felt a constant urge to run his fingers through his sandy blonde hair or crack his knuckles. How badly he wanted to cross and uncross his legs, but they were strapped to another pair of wooden limbs.
She was as tall as a skyscraper dripping in blood, encasing every window and balcony with a reminder of her reputation. She looked through her abyss-black bangs with transparent green eyes into the mirror and back into his own. The mirror distorted her in the best way possible. She was a giant, a beacon of power, just the way she liked.
Step. Click. Step. Click. Step. Click. Step. Click. Step. Click.
With each step her scent became stronger and stronger. Ginger, bergamot, and musk slithered ever closer until he heard the satin of her suit slide against itself as she bent down. In the mirror, a straight line of blue-black hair and rosy-pink lips lowered themselves in the right angle between the shoulder of his blazer and the trunk of his neck.
“I think you are nervous, James.” She purred. “In fact, I know you are.”
With one quick motion she licked his neck from his collarbone up to his ear which she satisfyingly sank her teeth into. Her left hand slipped up his left arm, over his shoulder, and found its place gripped around his unassuming neck. His heart rate boomed through his chest as she held his life in her red-tipped fingers.
“Well, well, well. Your pulse is a little high, 114 beats per minute to be exact.”
“What do you want from me?” James said, breathlessly.
“I want you to be my pet for a bit, my toy.” She grinned, kissing his right cheek as she bore holes in his irises through the mirror.
James strained against the leather restraints, slowly creating bands of irritated skin around his wrists and ankles. He really didn’t have a choice here, did he? She had a grip on his life, literally and figuratively. As her red-tipped fingernails dug slightly deeper into his throbbing neck, he was reminded of her control over him.