“Yes, I can,” he calls out, not even bothering to turn around as he leaves the room.
“Fuck!” I curse as I pull at the restraints. This is insane. He’s insane. You might be insane, too, because you can feel how wet you are getting with the dildo stuck inside you. The villa is silent as I watch the candles flicker. The pool light ripples through the glass, throwing blue patterns across the ceiling. I'm sitting at a dinner table for two in a red silk dress with no underwear, impaled on a dildo, cuffed to a chair, and there is no one who will help me. I shift my hips and the pressure changes inside me, and I bite back a sound I refuse to make. Every small movement reminds me it's there and I can feel my pulse between my legs, slow and heavy, my body adjusting to the stretch. I count the minutes by the candle wax melting down the holders. The wax pools, drips, and hardens on the white linen. I don't know how long he's gone, ten minutes, twenty maybe, but long enough for the sweat to cool on my skin, and for my breathing to even out. Long enough for the fullness inside me to go from sharp to dull to more, and I'm trying very hard not to think about it.
When his footsteps come back down the stairs, I straighten in the chair, and the movement shifts the dildo. I clench my jaw hard enough that I have probably cracked a tooth. He appears freshly showered, hair pushed back, and his white shirt now fully buttoned. He smells like soap and cedar, as he takes a seat at the head of the table like this is a normal dinner.
“You’re very quiet, wife.”
“Fuck you.”
This makes him grin as he rings a bell beside his plate. The staff appear instantly, surprising me, two of them, a man and awoman, carrying plates and a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice. They set the food down, steak and greens, and they pop the champagne with a soft, practiced sound. They pour two glasses, and strangely, they don't look at me, not once, not at my cuffed wrists, not at the flush on my chest, not at the way I'm sitting perfectly still because any movement is dangerous. They set the bottle beside the table and disappear.
Kairo lifts his glass. "To us."
"Uncuff me," I say through gritted teeth.
“Are you going to behave?”
“You have a fucking dick stuck up me, of course I’m going to fucking behave,” I yell at him, which makes him laugh.
He stands and walks over to me, crouching beside the chair. His fingers are gentle on the bracelets as he unclips the left wrist, then the right. He rubs his thumb over the red marks the metal left behind, and then he leans in and presses his lips to the top of my head.
"I'm so proud of you," he murmurs against my hair.
I want to headbutt him, but I’ll probably orgasm, and that would be mortifying.
He walks back to his seat and sits down, picks up his knife and fork, and cuts into the steak like this is any other night. I grab the champagne glass and throw the whole thing back in one go. The bubbles burn down my throat and hit my empty stomach like a fist. I pour myself another one from the bottle.
"Slow down," he warns.
"Don't tell me what to do."
"I just uncuffed you. I can put them back on."
I take a smaller sip this time and pick up my fork. The steak is perfect, pink in the center, and delicious. I haven't eaten since breakfast, maybe I would have had more than toast if I had known today was my wedding day. My body wins over my pride, and I eat. Every time I swallow, I shift my weight, and the dildoreminds me it's there. I keep my movements small, controlled, and I focus on the food because if I think about what I'm sitting on, I'll lose it.
Kairo eats in silence for a while, watching me across the candlelight. The champagne is starting to soften the edges of everything, the heat, the humiliation, the ache between my legs. I hate that it's helping.
"Your father," he says, setting his knife down.
My fork stops halfway to my mouth.
"Do you know why you're here?"
"He sold me to you. That's all I need to know," I answer.
"But do you know why?" He leans back in his chair, champagne glass in hand. "Do you know what the debt was for?"
I don't answer because I don't know. My father and brother keep what they do from me because I’m just a fragile woman.Those were my brother’s words.
"Your father was supposed to oversee a shipment at the eastern port." Kairo swirls the champagne in his glass, casually. "Fifty million dollars’ worth of product moving through a window that was open for exactly two hours. Two hours, Summer, that's all the time he had to be focused for. Be there, watch it, make sure nothing went wrong."
I set my fork down. He has my attention now.
"He wasn't watching, was he? No, he was fucking a prostitute in his van. Spent the entire window inside her while my operation was wide open." He says it without emotion, just facts delivered across a dinner table. "The feds noticed. Nobody gave the warning, nobody redirected the trucks, fifty million in product seized. My people on the ground were arrested. Three of them are still in federal prison, and they're not getting out."
My stomach turns, and it has nothing to do with the dildo. I reach for the champagne and take a long drink.
"Fifty million dollars, Summer. All because your father couldn't keep his dick in his pants for two hours."
