by Kitty Thomas
“Do you want me, Astrid?” He knew that she did. No woman who was indifferent or repulsed, responded like she had responded the previous night. Nor would she have been so shy at breakfast, or looked at him with that desperate hungry look she didn't realize she telegraphed. She had such an open face that showed every emotion that flitted across it.
“N-no.” Astrid flushed bright red as she looked away. “It's wrong.”
“Why? Is it wrong, or are you just afraid?”
She looked back at him, her expression shocked. “Of course I'm afraid.”
“And if I'm a threat to you, giving in to me won't change that. I could do whatever I wanted anyway. So what difference does it make if you enjoy the fall?”
She actually seemed to consider this line of reason. She should. It was utterly insane to Angel that she would fight something they both knew she wanted based on some irrational moral reasoning which no longer applied in the situation she'd found herself in.
“Let's go back inside.”
She shook her head and took a step back. “I can't.”
“I wasn't asking.”
He waited a moment to see how she would respond. His suspicion was proven right when she gave him one final pleading look before moving back to the house. He was stronger and faster than her, and they both knew that. She'd likely only run in the first place because of blind panic at what she'd seen downstairs. He needed to get some kind of security bracelet or ankle monitor to keep her on the property.
When they were inside, he took her hand and led her back to the piano room. She didn't struggle, but the fear emanated from her like palpable waves threatening to consume them both. He took her back down the stairs to the dungeon.
“Please,” she whimpered.
“I'm not going to hurt you.”
Reluctantly she let him lead her down the stairs. He stopped next to a large bondage bed with various means of restraint around it.
“Sit,” he said.
She sat.
The dungeon was a warm, exposed-brick basement with plush white rugs over a dark hardwood floor. The walls contained hooks and shelves which displayed an endless array of toys and whipping implements. High-end sex furniture and bondage equipment were spread throughout the room.
In one corner, was a large dark walnut wardrobe. Angel opened it and retrieved some sexy black lingerie that would be just about her size. He laid the lingerie beside her and put his hand gently on the side of her face.
“A-Angel...” she said uncertainly.
“I want you to call me, Master.”
“I-”
He let it go for now. It was, after all, very fast. She'd been with him less than a day. What had happened to his noble idea of giving her weeks to come to him? Well, she did come to him. And then she'd come for him. Angel had decided he now had an all-access pass and was no longer willing to wait weeks or months to woo her. Any fears she had could be dealt with this way just as well as by pretending to be a gentleman.
“Astrid, let's say we had met in a different, normal way. What if you had never met Joey, you met me instead, and you never knew about what I did for work. If I was kind and took care of you, would it be okay under those circumstances for you to want me?”
“Y-yes, I think so.”
“And then, what if... in the course of this normal relationship, you discovered I had some kinks and I wanted to play a trust game with you? What if you played it, found that you liked it, and learned that it was safe to trust me? Would that be okay?”
“I mean... yeah. People do that stuff safely. It's just that you're a killer and...”
Angel pressed a finger to her lips. “No. This is a hypothetical conversation. In this world you don't know that.”
“But I don't like it,” she said.
“Because of Joey?” Angel asked. “Is that your only experience with this?”
“Yes, but...”
“And in the scenario I laid out, you never met Joey. I was your first exposure. Is there no part of you that can see the possibilities?”
She shrugged and looked away. “I don't know.”
“Well, I do. The way you responded to me last night, I could make you want anything. Play a trust game with me, Astrid. You'll see.”
She shook her head. “I could never trust you.”
“I'll make a deal with you. Give in to me today, everything I ask, and if you don't love everything, I'll back off.”
“You'll let me go?”
“I didn't say that. I said I'd back off.”
“Again, how can I trust you?”
“If you couldn't, would I have bothered with this conversation? We both know I could have done anything I wanted with you from the moment I took you. I don't need to negotiate. There is nothing to stop me. If I was really the monster you fear, you'd already be chained down to that bed accepting whatever I decided to do to you. So I'll ask again, will you give me today?”
She bit her bottom lip and sighed as if this were the weightiest decision of her life. How could it be when he was allowing the decision to begin with? She had to know this was the truth of her situation. Maybe she thought if she said no she could delay things. As if slowing down the timeline changed the destination.
“O-okay,” she finally said.
“Okay, Master,” he corrected. “If you're giving me today, you're also giving me the title I requested.”
“Okay, Master,” she said.
“Good girl.” Angel was sure if he were to slip his hand underneath her panties, she would be warm and wet and ready for him already. He gestured to the lingerie on the bed. “I want you to change into this and then come upstairs.”
He saw the excitement in her eyes when he gave the order. Yes, this girl was his. She just didn't know it yet.
***
Astrid sat alone in the dungeon room staring at the lingerie beside her. It was an elegant black leather corset, lace panties, and a black satin robe with lace trim.
Classical piano music drifted down the stairs to her. She was surprised he played. She'd just assumed he had a piano because it seemed like the kind of thing someone with a lot of money would have to appear more cultured—though as far out as he lived, who would he have to impress? Angel didn't seem the type to host large gatherings.
It made her wonder who he even brought to this room. Had they been girlfriends? Prostitutes? What if they had been women like her? Where were they now?
But he was right. About everything. She was attracted and wanted him, even though she knew it was wrong. And he could do whatever he wanted. No one could stop him. Joey had never shown this sort of patience or willingness to reason with her. Wasn't that a sign that these two men were not the same?
Her experience with Joey had colored things to the point her first urge was to flee. She'd tried to run from Joey once even before she'd known too much about his business. It had ended in pain and blood and bruises. He'd been absolutely enraged that she would dare try to leave him. She'd learned quickly from that mistake. And the lesson had only grown stronger when she'd discovered how much criminal power he held in the underworld and just how secure her cage was.
Angel hadn't reacted that way. She'd been sure he would. After all, if she got free, he had a lot to lose. But instead he'd tried to reassure her.
The piano music upstairs turned darker and more fast-paced, almost as if he were playing his frustration and impatience. Astrid quickly changed into the lingerie and put the robe on, tied the belt around her waist, and went upstairs hoping she was right that this was a different thing from Joey and somehow it would be okay to want this.
Angel looked up when she came into the room and switched to a slower, more soothing song. He paused and motioned her closer, then went back to playing. Astrid crossed the room to him feeling all fluttery and nervous.
The horrible truth was that he did excite her. Even after everything she'd been through with Joey. Part of her couldn't help seeing Angel, not as the Angel of death, but
as an avenging angel rescuing her from the pain and terror she'd been trapped in with no way out. She felt ridiculously grateful to him for getting rid of Joey, even for kidnapping her in a weird way.
If Angel hadn't brought her home, it would have been Little Tony next, and he was as bad as Joey, but in a much more repulsive package. Just the idea of Little Tony touching her was enough to make her want to vomit.
She kept saying she wanted Angel to let her go, but the truth was, she knew she was safe from Joey's people here. They would never find her.
She'd had more than one illicit thought since the previous night about Angel throwing her down and fucking her into oblivion. Each time these thoughts attempted to intrude upon her mind, she'd tried to shove them away and think of something else. She didn't want to think about him that way, but it was impossible not to. He had a powerful energy that pulled her in.
He was right, though. He could have just done what he wanted already. She'd known what he wanted the moment their eyes had locked when she'd walked in on her husband's murder. There had been a raw, naked lust in his eyes. And the truth was, she wasn't sure if she'd run from him because of the murder, or because of that look. That absolute look of possession.
Had she been afraid he would kill her... or fuck her? And that she might like it?
Angel stopped playing the piano and poured a glass of whiskey. He must have gotten it from the bar.
He offered the tumbler to her. “Drink?”
Astrid shook her head.
“You sure? It might loosen you up.”
She probably needed it, but she wanted to maintain the smallest pretext of control. Alcohol would erase the one thing she still had control over.
He took a sip of the whiskey and set the glass back down on the piano. “Come here.”
Astrid felt her pulse pounding in her head as she moved closer to him. The last time she'd been this scared was the last time Joey had chained her up and beaten her. Was that what she was afraid of this time?
No. It was hard to pinpoint what she was afraid of exactly. Maybe she was afraid that there was just something profoundly wrong with her. She should fight him. She should make him be a monster if he wanted to fuck her or do anything else with her. Because it was wrong to want him. It made her wrong.
With Joey she'd been dumb and naïve. She could perhaps be given one free pass for a youthful indiscretion. But she knew what Angel was. And yet all she wanted was for him to put his hands on her—like the night before in his bed.
As soon as the memory arose in her mind, an intense throbbing arousal started between her legs.
Angel continued to play soft, soothing strains. It wasn't until she began to relax that he stopped and pulled her toward him. He stroked her ass over the satin robe and kissed the side of her throat. She couldn't help the moan that escaped her. Nor could she help rubbing against him like a cat begging for attention.
“Are you going to be a good girl for me today?” he whispered in her ear.
She knew there was only one correct reply to that. “Yes, Master.” Even as she said it, she wanted it to be true. If he'd decided to shove aside the robe, rip off her panties, and fuck her over the piano, she wouldn't have protested.
But instead of doing that, he pulled away and went back to playing the piano. “Go over to the pole and strip for me. Slowly.”
“I-”
“The appropriate reply to that is, yes, Master.”
“Y-es, Master.” What was wrong with her that even saying that turned her on? Everything about this man turned her on. No doubt there had been a sense in which she had been Joey's slave. She hadn't been truly free to leave him without consequences... and the things he'd done to her most people wouldn't even do to a dog. But Joey had never made her call him master or any other title.
The raw honesty behind what Angel demanded made her want to trust him a little more. If he were being so honest about this, could it also be true that he was being honest about not hurting her? He'd said it so many times. Joey had never uttered the phrase 'I'm not going to hurt you.'
Astrid wasn't a stranger to the art of the striptease. It had been a reasonably good way to appease Joey when he was in one of his moods. It resulted in a near fifty percent rate of avoiding an angry flip-out.
Of course Angel wasn't angry. It had only been one day, but even when he'd gotten into the argument with the guy on the phone the night before, he'd been pretty calm about everything. Of course, calm wasn't necessarily a great sign in a killer.
Killing someone calmly or killing them hysterically, they were still dead. Perhaps it should worry her more that he could take a life so calmly.
“Astrid? Care to let me in on your internal monologue? It looks interesting from over here.”
There was a touch of amusement in his voice.
She considered not answering, or answering with a lie, but she felt compelled to know how he would respond to what was really inside her head. So she told him what she'd just been thinking, practically letting her thoughts of only moments before spill out word for word.
Angel continued playing. He didn't miss a note.
“Would it interest you to know I've never killed a woman? I've never killed anyone I haven't been paid to kill, and they were all men. My interactions with women are strictly for pleasure. I've never hit a woman outside of play in the dungeon, and I definitely don't leave behind permanent marks.”
A shiver skated up her spine. “How many women have you brought here?”
“Dozens.”
“And where are they now?”
“At work, I presume. They were escorts.”
“Oh.” Well, that was comforting at least. If he was telling the truth. “What will happen when you get bored with me?”
“That's very unlikely, but if I somehow lost my good taste and got bored with you, I wouldn't kill you, if that's what you're asking.”
“Okay.” What else could she say to that? Could she even trust him?
This still didn't explain what he would do. Would he let her go then? If he lost interest? The idea of him losing interest was suddenly upsetting on a level totally separate from 'what he would do with her'. She found she didn't want him to lose interest—if he really wouldn't hurt her. In fact, it was the only thing that stood between her and 'enjoying the fall' as Angel had put it—the fear that she would willingly give in, and that he would take that trust and use it to abuse her.
If there had been no Joey and if she didn't know what Angel did for a living, Angel was exactly the kind of man she would have fantasized about and wished for. Wealthy, even-tempered, capable of protecting her, good looking, and absolutely consumed with her. Could her attraction to him be somewhat normal after all? What if she'd found out about what he did long after they were bonded?
It had been that way with Joey, but Joey was abusing women. Selling them. Doing sick, twisted things that were unforgivable. Angel was killing people like Joey. He was doing the world a favor. Joey profited off the pain and suffering of innocents. Angel profited off the pain and suffering of the guilty. These things were only the same by the most simplistic, surface understanding of the world.
She'd lived in Joey's world long enough to know that Angel killing him was a just act—an act no one else seemed willing to perform. Where had the institutions meant to protect and serve as well as punish the guilty been while Joey was torturing innocent women—Astrid among them?
The fact that Angel was financially rewarded for the lives he took, somehow seemed just in itself. She knew too much about what Joey had been into to see it any other way now that the immediate panic and fear of Angel was beginning to fade and her ability to think clearly was returning.
She watched him as he played the piano, seemingly lost in music centuries removed from him. An intensity built in him as he played. It was an intensity that had been present the night before in his bed and which she desperately wanted aimed in her direction again. If it could somehow be safe.
&nb
sp; It occurred to her that it was possible Angel was exactly the kind of man she'd truly craved from the beginning. Joey had merely been a false positive. Qualities she'd thought she'd seen in Joey early on had been something quite different. It was sometimes hard to tell the difference in a man who was dangerous in all the right ways versus a man who was dangerous to her.
The world of sexual choices for a woman now were divided into completely weak, pandering men and men who would hurt her. Where were the strong, alpha males who would keep her safe? Why were the choices... a man who would be kind to her but couldn't protect or excite her... or an abuser?
Astrid had beaten herself up endlessly for choosing a man like Joey. For choosing wrong. But she hadn't chosen Angel... so why not just see where it could go? In any event, pissing him off wasn't exactly a sane survival strategy just so she could have the virtue of not giving in to another monster. And what if Angel was that man she so fervently wished existed?
Who was there left in the world to judge her? Who could wag their finger or say “I told you to stay away from men like this, Astrid”? It was increasingly likely that Angel would never let her go, and that any attempt of escape on her part would be just as weak and doomed to fail as today's attempt. And escape to what? The clutches of Little Tony? One of Joey's other goons?
The absolute best-case scenario was somehow fully escaping Joey's world and all his sordid underworld associates and ending up settling down with a man who drank soy lattes and microbrews unironically. Both outcomes sounded like hell. What if Angel and what he offered was real?
“You're stalling. Strip. Do my game today, and we'll do your game of twenty questions tomorrow.”
He still sounded amused. Not angry, or impatient. Astrid was sure it was because he knew he'd won. He somehow knew she'd crossed this distressing bridge in her mind and now she was ready to play this game with him. Even though she was afraid it was stupid to trust him, she was willing to go along for the ride. Because really, what other option was there? If her only issue was that she was afraid he might hurt her—even though she had no evidence yet that he would. Especially given that, inconvenient realities of how they met aside, he was the total package. And the other male options in the world involved far too much soy.
