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Yet I’d been beyond desperate when he still held off another entire day before giving me an extended spanking that made my ass so sore I could barely sit the next day. But he’d massaged me afterward and hand-fed me the next day, making me feel so damn cared for and precious that I knew I’d undergo any humiliation to avoid that again.
I came out of the shower and smiled at him, still a little shocked at the warmth that flooded my chest every time I looked at him. It was such a new and foreign sensation.
His dark eyes came my way. I waited for his usual smile to light his face and for the secret look of heat to pass between us. I was only wearing my towel, and yes, I might have been trying to tempt him to break his own rules and fuck me before the Trial.
But he frowned and looked at his watch. “Why aren’t you ready? We need to leave soon.”
I blinked, suddenly unsure. My hands grasped the top of the towel I tied around myself. “It’s no big deal. There was nothing in the box but the heels anyway, and those don’t take long to put on.”
He just stared at me. “But aren’t you going to do something with your hair. And your—” He gestured toward me. “—makeup and all that.”
My open and trusting heart crumpled and sank through the floor. I swallowed and nodded, backing up and running into the bathroom door.
He stood up, and I saw he already had his dark suit pants and white shirt on, pressed to perfection, and his gold and diamond cufflinks in. “It’s just… you know we need to be perfect. The red lipstick would be good.”
Away. I needed to get away from him. I turned around and fled back into the bathroom, shutting it behind me. Shutting him out. And his words.
My eyes squeezed shut, other words ringing through my ears. My mother’s words. Never even go to the mailbox without your face on. You have to be perfect. The world is always watching.
I opened my eyes and looked at myself in the mirror. My face was pale, and there were circles under my eyes. Plus, my nonexistent lips.
Emmett was such a goddamned liar. He was just like the rest of them. He didn’t think I was perfect just as I was. Because I wasn’t. God, wasn’t that the whole point of him mastering me? I wasn’t good enough as I was.
I’d been deluding myself to think he respected me or thought I was beautiful. And God, I’d been waltzing around the room without my makeup the last couple of weeks. Ha, I guess that showed him just how wrong he’d been about the whole makeup thing. Come to think of it, he’d been fucking me from behind a lot. Could he not even stand to look at my real face while he got off?
I yanked open the drawer with all my makeup in it and glared down at all the tools I’d used my entire life to paint myself into the perfect ideal of female desirability. I started with lip liner, drawing the line outside my actual lips to make them appear almost twice as big.
When I finally emerged, fully made up, buffed, and polished half an hour later, Emmett was standing in his full suit and tie, looking anxious.
“Cutting it close, don’t you think?” he barked. “We’re almost late. What kind of impression do you think that would make on the Elders?”
I wanted to bare my teeth at him and tell him to fuck off, that I didn’t give a shit what a bunch of stupid, flabby old men thought.
Instead, I did what I’d done my whole life. I was a good little Southern girl. I swallowed it all down, went and put on some death-defying sparkly heels, and took his arm. He didn’t waste any time sweeping us from the room. He was single-minded, after all. I was just arm candy. Meant to look beautiful and be a hot hole to fuck.
So glad he reminded me of my place before I completely lost my head, thinking this was something that it wasn’t.
Usually, I felt a fizzle of excitement when we were approaching a Trial. Usually, I was excited to put on a show in front of the Elders, to enjoy that special connection between Emmett and me while we performed whatever perverted acrobatics they prepared for the evening.
But all I wanted to do right then was turn around, run back up the stairs, and scrub what felt like a pound of makeup off my face. Instead, I stepped off the last stair of the grand staircase and followed Emmett into the white ballroom—except unlike usual, there wasn’t music or other naked women draping themselves over the silver-robed members.
