Torment Me (Rough Love Part One)

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Author: Annabel Joseph

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Synopsis

Chere isn’t happy with her life as a high-class escort, but she can’t seem to find the motivation to change. Then she takes on a mysterious new client who won’t share his name, or even allow her to see what he looks like. Their first session is a headlong tumble into tantalizing sensation and fearsome control that leaves Chere picking up emotional pieces she didn’t know she had.

“W” is roughly seductive, and dominant to the core. His demands shock her as much as they turn her on, and soon the line between bad choices and emotional fulfillment becomes alarmingly blurred…

Note: This book is super rough. There’s love, but it’s rough. Hence, Rough Love series. This full-length novel is book one of a three-part storyline that culminates in Happily Ever After. But, full disclosure, it’s going to be a rough ride.

Excerpt

There are a lot of fucking weirdos in the world. I know because some of them are my clients. Something about money and privilege turns men into perverts, and you don’t want to expose the wife to those unseemly urges. Not when you can hire a high-class call girl and meet her in an upscale hotel.
It was the W Hotel today, near Union Square. I crossed to the elevators and checked Henry’s email again. New client, two hours. Super asshole about privacy. Put on the blindfold before you knock on the door.
I slid a hand into my designer bag, past condoms and sex toys, to locate the black eye mask the client had provided. It couldn’t be a pink, fuzzy, soft blindfold, or one of those cucumber-scented spa things. No, it was heavy black leather with a buckle in the back. Like I said, fucking weirdos. Here’s some news for the privacy assholes of the world: We escorts are as concerned about our privacy as you are. The escort-client relationship is a covenant. You don’t out me, I don’t out you. Let’s keep things pleasant and professional. I know how much you’re paying. To the best of my ability, I’ll treat you well.
I stopped outside a corner room on the eighth floor and double-checked the number. My stomach jumped a little. You never knew what you were going to get with new clients. Henry checked them out pretty thoroughly, but still, you never knew. Money and respectability didn’t mean you weren’t going to death-choke a whore on the eighth floor of the W Hotel.
I’d had pretty good luck the last ten years, so it wasn’t that hard to pull out the blindfold—okay, let’s be honest, leather fetish mask—and strap the thing onto my eyes. Maybe he was really that concerned about privacy. Maybe he had some kinky games in mind, which might be fun. Maybe he was butt ugly. There was no way for me to find out. I couldn’t see a damn thing.
I knocked on the door and hoped he answered before someone came strolling down the hall. What would they think of me in my pale pink, skintight, high-class-whore business suit and stilettos, with the black blindfold strapped onto my head? They’d probably think, pfft, New York, and go about their business.
I heard the lock click and I felt very, very nervous, since I couldn’t tell if or when the door opened, or who might be standing there to guide me inside. I jumped when the client took my arm.
“Miss Kitty, I presume?” His voice was deep and lacking inflection, or maybe I was just lacking the vision to see his expression.
“Meow,” I said, flirting into the darkness. “That’s me.”
Miss Kitty. Sweet, petite, sensuously feline, but not in a pet-play kind of way. Unless the client was into it. I had long, white-blonde hair (fake, so fake) which I straightened to a bouncy shine twice a week. Unlike my hair, my size D boobs and curvy body were all natural. I was a friendly, pretty, brown-eyed, bleach-blonde kitty, ready to crawl into your lap and blow your mind.
The faceless stranger pulled me into the room and collected my wrists behind me in a rough, strong grip. “I’m not going to call you Miss Kitty. What’s your real name?”
And my real name—Chere—came spitting out of my mouth. I can’t say why, except that his forceful grip compelled me to reveal it.
“Chere?” he repeated, like a taunt. He was cinching my hands behind my back with, oh my fucking God, zip ties. I could hear the susurrating sound of the tiny tabs and feel the unforgiving plastic. Jesus. Zip ties. So murder-y.
“Since this is an introductory session, we should talk for a minute before we go any further,” I said in a firm voice.
“Oh, I think I’m going to run this rodeo, especially considering what I’m paying to have this ‘introductory session’ with you.”
Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. Just because his voice was deep and harsh, just because he felt big and muscular, just because I couldn’t see a thing, just because my hands were zip-tied behind my back...it didn’t mean I was turning my last trick.
“Don’t struggle, or those ties will hurt your wrists,” he said. He picked me up and deposited me in a chair, one of those slick, padded, modern chairs they had at all the W hotels. I usually liked being manhandled, but I didn’t like it as much when I couldn’t see or move my arms. The room was silent. He was still. I didn’t know if he was close to me or far away.
“Will you take off the blindfold?” I begged in my sweetest voice.
“No.” Not his sweetest voice. More like his deep, rough, mocking voice.
“Pretty please? I’m dying to see what you look like.”
“I’ll describe myself, then. I have black hair, piercing blue eyes, a chiseled jaw, and an 8-pack. Or maybe I have white-blond hair, high cheekbones, bronze skin, and a smattering of freckles.”
The latter part was describing me. He was lying, which clients always did, but I felt too powerless to be okay with it. I thought about ending the date. Henry would be angry, but panic was crowding in on my dark world. I took a shuddery breath. My heart was beating too fast, and my brain was thinking too fast.
I felt his palm against my cheek, cool but warm. Static. Non-violent. “Calm, Chere. Be calm. I’m not a bad guy. I just like to be in control. Breathe in. Breathe out.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
“You’re not doing it. Breathe for me.”
Sharp voice. Dominant, demanding voice. He was clearly a liar, and might machete me at any moment, so I sucked in a big breath and let it out nice and slow.
“Good girl,” he said. “It’s not like I’m going to hurt you. Or kill you. Your agent has all my information.” He chuckled. “All my bank account numbers, anyway.”
“I hate this,” I blurted out. “I hate this date so far. I want to take off the mask.”
“No, you’ll leave the mask on, and I’ll keep my identity secret. You’ll sit there and let me do things to your body, and we’ll keep it civilized. Okay?”
Civilized. More sarcasm.
“Are you still breathing?” he asked. “I paid for two hours, and I’m using two hours, whether you’re passed out or not.”
His jokes weren’t funny. His voice was too intent and too scary to be funny. I could feel him close to me but I didn’t know what he looked like. He ran a hand up my leg under my pencil skirt.
“Why are you wearing panties?” His voice was smooth now, like silk.
“It’s a thong.”
I gasped as he twisted it in his fingers and ripped it off. “Which is a form of panties. Don’t talk back to me, Chere. I don’t like it.”
So that thong was history. Okay, I had a thousand of them. More pressing: this guy was terrifying me.
“I think we should talk about what you like, and what you want to do,” I said, before my courage left completely.
“Talk is cheap. Basically I want to fuck you.”
His fingers were inside me now, probing through slickness. Why was I wet when this guy was freaking scary? “Well, what kind of things do you like?” I asked. “I mean, what kind of fucking? What positions? Do you like toys?”
“I should have made you wear a gag in addition to the mask.”
I wasn’t making any headway at trying to get this guy in line. Henry was my agent (because high-class call girls did not have “pimps.”) He was supposed to protect me from these kinds of situations.
I was just summoning the words to end the date when his thumb pressed my clit. Ah, God, he’d found my spot. My legs opened wider of their own accord. This was the part of the date where I was usually thinking what to do to get the client off most quickly. Right now, I wasn’t thinking about anything except that he knew his way around a clit.
Then the fingers were gone and he was gone, moving around, doing something. Rummaging. He returned and knelt in front of me. He zip-tied one of my ankles to the chair before I knew his intent. I tried to save my only remaining free limb but he grabbed that ankle in his big, firm fingers and zzzip. Tied. Fuck.
I tried to stand up but he pushed me down again. “Don’t move.”
The stern voice. The control. I wanted to hate it, but I also wanted him to finger fuck my pussy until I came.
“What’s your name?” I asked. “What do I call you?”
“Nothing. You don’t get my name.”
“But you know my name. My real name,” I said in my cutesy Miss-Kitty whine.
“It’s not my fault you told me your real name like a fucking idiot.” He touched my chin, my hair. “If you want, you can call me W.”
I knew from the way he said it that W had nothing at all to do with his real name, and everything to do with it being the name of the hotel. He moved away. More rummaging. This time when he came back, he put something thin and cold and metal against my thigh.
“What are you doing?” I asked in a panic.
He clapped a hand over my mouth. “Undressing you. Hush.”
He let go of my mouth, and I heard the snip-snip of scissors through fabric. Your hearing really is heightened when your other senses are dulled, because I could hear every thread of my thousand-dollar designer skirt being cut in two.
“Stop,” I yelled. “What the fuck are you doing?” This was one of my best, priciest outfits, a classic Lanvin number that fit me like a second skin. It was ruined now. “You’re paying me for this suit, motherfucker. While you have the scissors, cut these zip ties and let me go. I’m leaving.”
“You’re not leaving yet.”
“It’s a designer suit.”
“I know. Shut the fuck up and sit still, or I’ll graze you with the scissors.”
His calm voice confounded me. He got through the skirt and started cutting away the blouse. He could have just unbuttoned it. He was doing this out of spite.
“This isn’t sexy,” I spat at him.
“Good.”
“I would have taken my clothes off when I got here, if you’d only asked.”
“I like cutting them off better. Now shut the fuck up.”
One of my favorite lace bras was removed with a snip at the front. The cool air hit my breasts, tightened my nipples to rebellious peaks. I didn’t want to be turned on. My pussy shouldn’t have been clenching at the cool, selfish hauteur in his voice. He cut right up to my collar and then through it. I turned my head to the side because I didn’t want to get stabbed in the neck.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” I said.
“That doesn’t sound very classy. I thought you catered to a finer clientele.”
“I do, usually. I cater to clients who’d never destroy a Lanvin suit.”
His hand replaced the cold metal of the scissors against my neck. He squeezed a little. I could feel his body against the front of me, clothed, not naked. He smelled rich, like power and money. I felt his lips against my ear.
“The only thing you like more than this designer top, Chere, is the feeling of me cutting it off when you can’t do anything about it.”
“That’s not true. And you can’t do this. You can’t bind me with zip ties and use scissors on me, and make me wear this black leather mask.”
“I think I can.”
“You’re not supposed to.”
“Your pimp didn’t say anything about limits. He said I could do whatever I wanted for two hours. Oral. Anal. Fingerfucking. Pussy fucking. Mindfucking. Clothes cutting.” His hand left my neck but he was still close. I reeled from his heat, his presence. “Don’t be scared,” he said. “You’re going to like it. Or remember it, anyway.”
“Jesus.”
When I sucked in a breath, my bare breasts brushed against the fabric of his shirt. I tried to picture how I looked, sprawled back in the chair with my clothes cut open, and how he looked in…whatever he was wearing.
“Why are you still dressed?” I asked, trying to gain control. “When’s this fuckfest going to commence?”
“Are you horny? You want some cock, Chere?”
“Yes,” I snapped.
“Too bad. You don’t get my cock yet. You might not get it at all. You’re kind of a bitch.”
A bitch? That hurt my feelings, and clients didn’t get to hurt my feelings. Clients were nothing, men to exploit. Cocks to service. Whatever. Fuck him. I inched my thighs together as far as I could and sat there, and tried to blank my expression so he wouldn’t see he was getting to me. We were what, fifteen minutes into this scene? I felt wrung out already.
“Oh, no.” He pushed my knees apart again. “You don’t close those legs unless I tell you to. Answer Yes, Sir.”
“Yes, Sir.” You fucker.
He slapped my cheek. Fucker slapped me. “Try again. Nicer this time,” he barked.
I swallowed and leaned my head back. “Is this some kind of BDSM shit?”
“This is kinky shit, yes. I’m waiting.”
“Aren’t we supposed to negotiate first?”
“I’m waiting.”
“Yes, Sir,” I said, like a pussy. “But we’re not supposed to do BDSM scenes, not without talking about things in advance.”
“We’re talking, baby. Otherwise you’d have a gag in your mouth.”
The way he said it, I could tell he really, really wanted to put a gag in my mouth, which was so not what I wanted. The only BDSM I’d ever done with clients was the kind of BDSM where they’re the bad boys and I’m the mistress in shiny latex, standing over them with a novelty whip. I didn’t know how to do this kind of BDSM. I didn’t know how to not be in charge.
I felt his body move in front of me. He took off one of my shoes, then the other. “All right, if you want to talk, let’s talk,” he said. “Ask me your questions.”
“What are you going to do to me?” That was the number one thing.
“I’m going to fuck you, I promise. I know you want my cock. Patience, Chere.”

Publisher Notes

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