Page 27 of His Pet

“I’m not going to sit like an animal anymore. If you want to torture me with your food, you’ll need to get me a chair.”

My hands fist at my sides instead of covering my body, and I make a point to hold my chin high. I can’t tell if I’m embarrassing him, pissing him off, or boring him. He gives nothing away. I thought he was hard to read before, but now, it’s impossible.

I point my stare at Anthony for a moment, just to show him the scared girl from this morning is gone. That I have just as much disgust for him as he does for me. He has a hand over his mouth covering a smile.

I meet Lorenzo’s gaze once again, and he tosses the napkin from his lap onto the table and leans back in the chair.

“What are you going to do if I don’t?”

What the hell is he doing? I glance around the room at the faces gleaming with surprise and anticipation. Lorenzo is the only one treating me even remotely seriously, and that’s a stretch.

Frustration builds until I feel like I may explode. Scream at all of them. Tell them how sick they all are. How cowardly they are for putting up with a man like this.

I look right at Lorenzo, grab a piece of asparagus off his plate, pop it in my mouth and start toward the exit.

My nerves are too wired to enjoy the piece of food. I’m not exactly confident in my decision. In fact, I’m pretty fucking terrified that this is going to end horribly for me. But I remind myself that it was always going to end that way. This is his game and I have no doubts that he’ll win. At least I can say I didn’t lay down and let him. I need that.

I don’t feel Lorenzo at my back as I walk out. I don’t feel anyone at my back, but I can feel the eyes of everyone. I can’t believe it when I’m walking down a hall and out of their sights, my heels clicking on the marble floors the only sound I hear.

My heart ramps up, and I look back, still seeing no one. No one is coming for me.

I start running.

I took the elevator when I was brought here, but it had another one of those stupid passcodes, so I pass by it. I race down marble steps and hit an abandoned lobby. I know the lobby is on a high floor in this building, and I’m not foolish enough to think anyone here will help me.

I won’t make that mistake again.

I search for an exit. Any exit that doesn’t involve an elevator. The marble steps end here, but I know there must be more. It would be a huge fire hazard not to have them.

I pass by closed doors with opaque glass beside them and assume they’re offices. Finally, an exit sign above a metal door glows and I hurry toward it. I kick off my heels and throw the door open. It slams into the wall and echoes in the concrete stairwell.

I race down the steps, my heart pounding in my ears. When I’m three floors down, I hear the unmistakable sound of the door above me creaking open and then the bang when it closes.

I pick up my pace, not bothering to be quiet. I start leaping down steps, taking them three at a time and praying I don’t stumble.

Adrenaline pours through my system, and I lose track of how many floors I’ve run down. I glimpse over the railing and see I still have far to go.

I slow and try to listen past the blood whooshing in my ears. I don’t hear anyone. I pause and gasp, sucking air into my burning lungs. I place a hand on my aching side and hunch forward. Sweat drips from my nose, and hair sticks to my face. I brush it away and stand straight.

With a few more deep breaths, I take off again, my strides not quite what they were before. I make it another ten floors before I halt again.

Below me, not far at all, maybe one floor down, I hear a door opening. The clang this one makes reverberates in the stairwell, and I’m frozen with trepidation.

I snap out of it and slowly walk up the steps backward, planting my feet on each one as gently as I can.

Please go down.

Please go down.

The person starts up the steps, and I fling my body around and start climbing as fast as I possibly can. Even with the adrenaline, I’m winded. I can hear them gaining on me, and I throw a glance I can’t afford over my shoulder to see Lorenzo.

He’s bounding up the steps two at a time. I face forward, plunging upward with all my might, and I manage to make it two more floors before he catches me.

He threads his fingers through my hair and jerks me back into him. I can feel strands of hair being pulled from my scalp, and it stings, but I don’t have time to dwell on it. He spins me around and slams my back into the wall, bracing his hands on either side of me to box me in. For a minute, my panting is all that I hear. His shirt grazes my breasts each time my chest rises and falls.

“You’re fast,” he says, a little breathy himself. “I didn’t expect you to have made it down this far.”

“Get off of me!” I yell, prying my hands between us to push against his chest. His smell fills my senses until it suffocates me. My head spins, but I don’t stop trying to get him away from me.

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