His Indecent Revelations (Bound and Shackled to the Billionaire BDSM Erotic Romance) Read Free

could hate Channing.” Alia barks a short, sharp laugh. “But there you have it. Life never turns out the way it is promised, even if you were born a desert princess.”
    She fingers the curtains.
    “This was my room when I was a girl. I had it built just the way it was. So tell me.” She swings to Susan. “Was Channing kind to you? Did you treat you well?”
    Susan remembers the bondage and spanking she endured in their earlier days together. And then the subsequent events that shaped and changed their relationship. There was affection. Love . . . even though he would never say it to jinx her.
    Well, it’s all too late anyway.
    Her heart flinches as she replies, “Yes, he treated me very well.”
    “At least he learned his lesson where women are concerned. Is he still a good lover? Can he pleasure a woman in bed?”
    What an absurd question, Susan thinks.
    “I don’t think he has changed that much from when you knew him,” she says, her tone icy. “But why does that concern you? You have Hugh.”
    “Indeed. But Hugh can no longer be my lover in the physical sense.” Alia’s eyes take on a faraway look. “The child was so huge that I was badly injured when it came out of me. The women of the Order did not believe in Caesareans. I barely survived. I healed in time, but there were terrible scars. Scars that would not allow me to experience physical love again.”
    Susan can well imagine the gravity of what Alia went through. The horror washes through her. No wonder Alia is so damaged. And no wonder Hugh took her, Susan, so freely, as if he knows there will be no repercussions from Alia. As if he had Alia’s blessing. Fuck her if you must. Fuck her to punish him.
    Susan says, unable to mask the pain in her voice, “You’ve had your revenge. He’s dead. I don’t even want to ask you what you’re going to do to me now that I’ve served my purpose to lure Channing to you.”
    Alia throws her a sweet smile. “What makes you think Channing is dead? Do you think I’d make his way out of this world so easy?”
    Susan freezes.
     
    *
     
    She trembles as Alia leads her down the corridors of the new citadel. She’s afraid of what she will find.
    Her elation of discovering that Channing is still alive is now tempered with her terror of finding him infirmed . . . or worse.
    What have they done to him?
    The shrieking in her head would not abate. Neither would the hammering of hands from inside her skull, trying to escape from this miserable existence where nothing can ever be the same again.
    The words ‘Channing, Channing, Channing’ tumble in her mind, gathering moss. It is easier to fixate on a name rather than a frightening image of what that beautiful, virile man has been reduced to. Oh, can she even bear to look upon him after what they’ve done?
    How much of why she loves Channing has been wrought by his beauty?
    She clenches her fists.
    You stupid, stupid girl. How could you ever think you love Channing for his aesthetics alone? You love him for everything he is, and if he has to wear a mask for the rest of his life, you’d love him just the same.
    They enter a courtyard. In the center, surrounded by a spiked iron fence, is a rose red house made of brick.
    Alia says, “Enter as you wish. Tend to him. He needs you more than ever.”
    Susan rushes inside the house, her heart galloping like wild horses.
    What she sees makes her stop in her tracks.

4
     
    Channing lies on a bed, unmoving. His eyes are closed, swollen and purple. His lower lip is cut. He is covered with a sheet, but she can see the yellowing bruises on his naked torso and arms.
    “Channing!” she cries.
    She throws herself onto the side of the bed. She touches his cheeks, forehead, lips, arms – but he does not respond. He breathes the sleep of the comatose.
    “Oh Channing,” she whispers, tears filling her eyes.
    She reaches under the sheet to clasp his hand, willing him to life. But he does not open his eyes. She squeezes his palm,