As the days continued, each one felt like a mark off a calendar for an event that set his blood racing.
Asher threw himself into work, even while he messaged and talked with and had taunting dates with her.
It was as if she were the female animal who was pushing and testing him, needing to be held down so she could feel the strength and power that could make her safe.
It was a few days before she asked him to come over to watch a movie with her.
Jezebel chose V for Vendetta, something he had never seen, but he quickly caught onto the undertones and felt himself pushed and taunted again.
Of course, it could have been all in his head. Could have, if she hadn't paused the movie, when V kidnapped Evey to torture her and asked him if he would eat her out.
Asher laid Jezebel on the floor, and whatever his smile looked like, it made her quiver beneath him. He fucked her with his tongue, switching to his fingers when he wanted to bite at her clit.
Her cries were like music and her scent drove Asher crazy, so that he strained in his cock cage.
There was a dark current to Jezebel request, as if she were trying to snap his control or make him act, so he would take her and hold her captive in a cave or a dungeon.
The second time, she didn't even bother with a movie. For the first time, she didn't call, didn't warn, and didn't ask for permission like she always did.
She knocked on Sulfur's back door, and he gave her an indulgent smile while he stared at her from the doorway, waiting.
She fidgeted and looked away from his eyes, looked behind her as if she might change her mind, his Pet.
But then she swallowed and pushed past Asher, grabbing his hand to pull him to his bondage bed. And still Pet didn't say a word, and he refused to break the silence, refused to break at all.
Instead, he merely watched, smiling vaguely when she shoved him backward onto the bed, when she straddled him.
Asher's cock strained against the cage but in the state she put him in, in that magical place of perfect and pure control, he grabbed her thighs and helped her grind against him.
Whatever pleasure Jezebel felt was purely psychological since he was obviously limited. But it was clear that she felt a lot of pleasure.
Jezebel moaned when she straddled him, grabbing his hand so she could suck his fingers between her lips.
She squealed when Asher withdrew to shove her on her hands and knees, to hold her still beneath him. While she trembled, he gripped her chin and pointed, forcing her gaze to the dungeon door.
Asher didn't say a word with the threat, but he didn't have to. Her lips parted, and she moaned, bowing low in front of him, and the sight of her like that was like a siren call, commanding Asher to take, to own.
Since the night where he had tied her to the Saint Andrew's cross and made her face her emotion, she had been in this mood, pushing him and pulling away.
Jezebel was like a fox pawing at something it didn't know very well, only to prance away, but never far because it was too curious.
Asher let her leave that night. He held her down on her hands and knees, holding her wrists together with one hand while his other held her hair and forced her to look at the door that he so rarely got to use.
But eventually, he relaxed, breathed, and released her. Jezebel had been so still under his hold as if waiting, petrified, but as soon as he let her go, she jumped away and turned to stare at Asher from the doorway before she left him.
It was the third call that did it. She asked him to come over again, and when he showed up, he changed his greeting. "Hello, Jezebel."
Her eyes went wide, and she whispered, "Hello, Master." She had the movie waiting for them, and she curled up at his knees, as she had taken to doing.
Jezebel had taken to wearing a bow in her ponytail after he had told her how pretty it looked one time. Asher toyed with her hair while they watched, running his fingers through the silky strands.
And eventually, she paused the movie and turned to watch Asher, where he played.
"Did you kill someone?"
Asher had to smile. It was perfect, the way she asked it of him. It was without fear, without judgment, without much concern at all. It was exactly the way a slave would ask a Master about their violent past.
Because a slave wouldn't need to fear those things. As belonging to Asher, whatever violence he possessed would only be used to protect her.
Even so, he considered his answer. Asher's past wasn't something he had ever spoken of, and even his brother didn't ask questions for concern of what he would find.
Ivory had guesses, he knew, but he had growing up with a different mother, one who had run from their father.
Asher's had stayed, and he had paid for it, not that it made him bitter or anything. No, those events had forged him, and he was perfectly content with that fact.
"Whatever violence I have done before, I can promise you that it took a lot for me to be driven to it."
"So you have." Jezebel met his gaze so easily by then, her eyes crystal clear and endlessly curious. Asher had learned that her mind rarely stopped once it was detoxed from her drug use.
"I didn't say that, now did I? The details are something I'd share with a slave." Asher touched her nose playfully.
She pouted. "Well, that's me, so I-" She cut off, blinking, eyes going wide.
And then she turned around to start the movie, quickly covering her face so that he couldn't see her anymore, but the damage had already been done.
She thought of herself as his slave and now he knew that, had the proof for it.
Asher went back to petting her hair, but his mind was far away, in his dungeon, thinking about the pink collar he had to start her with, and the eternity collar he intended to work towards with her.
Their dance had been fun, but he was done with it. She had had her time of pushing, of bratty behavior, but now he thought that was enough of that.
***