There is a half-smile on his sensuous lips, and I can’t help feeling nervous. “Um, Julian,” I say uncertainly, “what . . . what are you doing?”
“Giving you a massage,” he says, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “Why don’t you relax and enjoy it?”
I blink, watching as his hands slowly move up my calves. He has large hands—strong and masculine. My legs look impossibly slender and feminine in his grasp, though I have well-defined muscles from all the running. I can feel the calluses on his palms scratching lightly against my skin, and I swallow, the unbidden thought that those hands belong to a killer entering my mind.
“Turn over,” he says, tugging on my legs, and I plop over on my belly, still feeling nervous. What is he up to? I don’t like surprises when it comes to Julian.
He starts kneading the back of my legs, unerringly finding the areas most sore from yesterday’s race, and I groan as tight muscles begin to loosen up under his skilled fingers. Still, I can’t relax completely; Julian is far too unpredictable for my peace of mind.
Apparently sensing my unease, he bends over me and whispers in my ear, “It’s just a massage, my pet. No need to be so worried about it.”
Somewhat reassured, I let myself relax, sinking into the comfort of my mattress. Julian’s hands are magic; I’ve had professional massages that were nowhere near as good. He’s completely attuned to me, paying attention to the slightest change in my breathing, to the most minute twitch in my muscles . . . After several minutes of this, I no longer care about his strange behavior; I’m simply wallowing in the bliss of this experience.
When my entire body has been thoroughly massaged and I’m lying there in limp contentment, Julian stops and shepherds me into the shower. Then he goes down on me, pleasuring me with his mouth until I explode in mind-blowing release.
At breakfast, I’m practically humming with contentment. This is the best morning I’ve had in months, maybe even years. By some strange coincidence, Beth made my favorite food—Eggs Benedict with crab cakes. I haven’t had anything this decadent since my arrival on the island. The food Beth cooks for us is good, but it’s usually on the healthy side. Fruits, vegetables, and fish seem to make up the majority of our diet. I can’t remember the last time I had something as rich and satisfying as the Hollandaise sauce Beth made today.
“Mmm, this is so good,” I moan around a mouthful. “Beth, this is amazing. These are probably the best eggs I’ve ever had.”
She grins at me. “They did come out well, didn’t they? I wasn’t sure if I got the recipe right, but it seems like I might have.”
“Oh, you did,” I reassure her before I serve myself another portion. “This is great.”
Julian smiles, his eyes gleaming with warm amusement. “Hungry, my pet?” He himself has already eaten a sizable serving, but I’m on the verge of catching up to him.
“Starving,” I tell him, bringing another forkful to my mouth. “I guess I burned a lot of calories yesterday.”
“I’m sure you did,” he says, his smile widening, and then he tells Beth about how I almost won the race, leaving out the part about our fucking and my passing out afterwards.
When the breakfast is over, I’m so stuffed I can’t eat another bite. Thanking Beth for the meal, I stand up, about to go get a book for a relaxing reading session on the porch, when Julian surprises me by wrapping his hand around my wrist. “Wait, Nora,” he says softly, pulling me back down into my seat. “There’s one more thing Beth prepared today.” And he shoots Beth an indecipherable look—at which point she immediately gets up and goes into the kitchen.
“Um, okay.” I’m beyond confused. She had prepared something, but didn’t serve it during the actual meal?
At that moment, Beth comes back to the table, carrying a tray with a large chocolate cake—a cake with a bunch of burning candles.
“Happy birthday, Nora,” Julian says with a smile as Beth places the cake in front of me. “Now make a wish and blow out those candles.”
* * *
I blow out the candles on autopilot, barely registering the fact that it takes me three attempts to do this. Beth cheers, clapping her hands, and I hear the sounds as though they’re coming from a distance. My mind is whirling, yet I feel oddly numb, as if nothing can touch me right now. All I can think about, all I can concentrate on is the fact that it’s my birthday.
My birthday. It’s my birthday. Today I turned nineteen.
The realization makes me want to scream.
I met Julian shortly before my last birthday—and he brought me to this island shortly thereafter. If it’s my birthday today, then nearly a year has passed since my abduction—since I’ve been here, at Julian’s mercy and entirely isolated from the rest of the world.
A year of my life has passed in captivity.
I feel like I’m suffocating, like all air had left the room, but I know it’s just an illusion. There’s plenty of oxygen here; I simply can’t seem to breathe in any.
“Nora?” Beth’s voice somehow penetrates the din in my ears. “Nora, are you all right?”
I finally manage to draw in some much-needed air, and I look up from the cake. Beth is staring at me with a puzzled frown on her face, and Julian is no longer smiling. Instead he looks like a dangerous stranger again, his gaze filled with something dark and disturbing.
Holding myself together with superhuman effort, I squeeze out a shaky smile. “Of course. Thank you for the cake, Beth.”
“We wanted to surprise you,” she says, her features smoothing out as she takes my words at face value. “I hope you have some room left for dessert. Chocolate cake is your favorite, right?”
The ringing in my ears intensifies. “Um, yes.” Despite my best attempts, my voice sounds choked. “And you definitely surprised me.”
“Leave us, Beth,” Julian says sharply, glancing at her. “Nora and I need to be alone right now.”
Beth blinks, obviously taken aback by Julian’s tone. I’ve never heard him speak like that to her before. Nevertheless, she obeys immediately, practically running up the stairs to her room.
I haven’t seen Julian this angry in a while and I know I should be frightened, but at this moment, I can’t seem to bring myself to care about what’s to come. Every muscle in my body is trembling with the effort to contain the terrible storm I can feel brewing inside me, and it’s a relief to have Beth away from here. A year. It’s been a fucking year. The rage that’s building inside me is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before; it’s like a dam has broken and would not be contained. A red mist descends on me, veiling my vision, and the ringing in my ears grows louder as my emotions spin out of control.
As soon as Beth is out of sight, I explode. I’m no longer rational or sane; instead I’m fury personified. I grab at the nearest thing I can reach—the chocolate cake—and throw it across the room, the dark-colored icing splattering everywhere. My plate and cup follow, hitting the wall and shattering into a million pieces, and all the while, I hear screaming, coming at me from far away. Some still-functioning part of my brain realizes that it’s me—that it’s my own screams and curses I’m hearing—but I can’t stop it any more than I can contain a typhoon. All the anger, terror, and frustration of the past year has boiled to the surface, erupting in a lava of fierce rage.
I don’t know how long I exist in that mindless state before steely arms wrap around me from the back, imprisoning me in a familiar embrace. I kick and scream until my voice grows hoarse, but my struggles are futile. Julian is far, far stronger than me, and he uses that strength now to subdue me, to hold me tight until I completely exhaust myself and slump against him in defeat, tears running down my face.
“Are you done?” he whispers in my ear, and I can hear the familiar dark note in his tone. As usual, I find it both sinister and arousing, my body now conditioned to crave the pain that’s to come—and the mind-shattering bliss that inevitably accompanies it.
I shake my head in response to his questio
n, but I know that I am done, that whatever it was that came over me has passed, leaving me drained and empty.
Julian turns me around in his arms, so that I’m facing him. I stare up at him, my tear-glazed gaze helplessly drawn to the perfect symmetry of his features. His high cheekbones are tinged with a hint of color, and there is something disquieting in the way he looks at me—as though he wants to devour me, to tear out my soul and swallow it whole. Our eyes meet, and I know that I’m standing on the edge of a precipice right now, that a sinkhole is opening up underneath my feet.
And in that moment, I see things clearly.
I am not angry because I’ve been imprisoned on the island for an entire year. No, my rage goes far, far deeper. What burns me up inside is not the fact that I’ve been a captive this whole time—it’s that I’ve grown to like my captivity.
Over the past few months, I have somehow come to terms with my new life. I’ve grown to enjoy the calm, relaxing rhythms of the island. The ocean, the sand, the sun—it’s about as close to paradise as anything I can imagine. Freedom and all that it implies is now just a vague, impossible dream. I can barely picture the faces of those I left behind; they are just blurry, shadowy figures in my mind. The only thing that matters to me now is the man holding me in his hard embrace.
Julian—my captor, my lover.
“Why, Nora?” he asks, almost soundlessly. His arms tighten around me, his fingers digging into the soft skin of my back. When I don’t reply, his expression darkens further. “Why?”
I remain silent, unwilling to take that last, irrevocable step. I can’t bare myself to Julian like that. I just can’t. He’s already taken far too much from me; I can’t let him have this too.
“Tell me,” he orders, one hand sliding up to twist in my hair, forcing my neck to bend backwards. “Tell me now.”
“I hate you,” I croak, gathering the last shreds of my defiance. My voice is like sandpaper, hoarse from all the screaming. “I hate you—”
His eyes flash with blue fire. “Is that right?” he whispers, leaning over me, still holding me arched helplessly against him. “You hate me, my pet?”
I hold his gaze, refusing to blink. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Yes,” I hiss, “I hate you!” I need to convince him of my hatred because the alternative is unthinkable. He can’t know the truth. He just can’t.
Julian’s face hardens, turning to ice. In one swift motion, he sweeps the remaining dishes off the kitchen table onto the floor and pushes me onto the table, forcing me to bend over, my face sliding on the smooth wooden surface. I try to kick back with my legs, but it’s useless. He’s gripping the back of my neck with one strong hand, and then I hear the menacing sound of a belt being unbuckled.
I kick back harder, and actually manage to make contact with his leg. Of course, it gains me nothing. I can’t escape from Julian. I will never be able to escape from Julian.
He leans over me, pressing me into the table, his hard fingers tightening around the back of my neck. “You’re mine, Nora,” he says harshly, his large body dominating me, arousing me. “You belong to me, do you understand? Each and every single part of you is mine.” His erection presses against my buttocks, its uncompromising hardness both a threat and a promise.
He rears back, still holding me down with one hand on my neck, and I hear the sibilant whisper of a belt being pulled from its loops. A moment later, my dress is flipped up, exposing my lower body. I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing for what’s to come.
Thwack. Thwack. The belt descends on my ass, over and over again, each strike like fire licking at my thighs and buttocks. I can hear my own cries, feel my body tensing with each blow, and then the pain propels me into that strange state where everything is turned upside down—where pain and pleasure collide, become indistinguishable from one another, and my tormentor is my only solace. My body softens, melts, each stroke of the belt starting to feel more like a caress, and I know that I somehow need this right now—that Julian has tapped into that dark, secret part of myself that is a mirror image of his own twisted desires. It’s a part of me that longs to give up control, to lose myself completely and just be his.
By the time Julian stops and turns me over, there isn’t an ounce of defiance left in my body. My head is swimming from an endorphin rush more powerful than anything I have ever experienced, and I’m clinging to him, desperate for comfort, for sex, for anything resembling love and affection. My arms twine around Julian’s neck, pulling him down on the table with me, and I revel in the taste of him, in the deep, hungry kisses with which he consumes my mouth. My backside feels like it’s on fire, but it doesn’t diminish my lust one bit; if anything, it intensifies it. Julian has trained me well. My body is conditioned to crave the pleasure that I know comes next.
He fumbles with his jeans, opening the zipper, and then he’s inside me, entering me with one powerful thrust. I shudder with relief, with ecstasy that borders on agony, and wrap my legs around his waist, taking him deeper, needing him to fuck me, to claim me in the most primitive way possible.
“Tell me, baby,” he whispers in my ear, his lips brushing against my temple. His right hand slides into my hair, holding me immobile. “Tell me how much you hate me.” His other hand finds the place where we’re joined, rubs there, then moves down a couple of inches to my other opening. “Tell me . . .”
I gasp as his finger pushes into my anus, my senses overwhelmed by all the conflicting sensations. Dazed, I open my eyes and stare at Julian, seeing my own dark need reflected on his face. He wants to possess me, to break me so he could put me back together, and I can no longer fight him on this.
“I don’t hate you.” My words come out low and raspy, and I swallow to moisten my dry throat. “I don’t hate you, Julian.”
Something like triumph flashes on his face. His hips thrust forward, his shaft burrowing deeper inside me, and I suppress a moan, still holding his gaze.
“Tell me,” he orders again, his voice deepening. His eyes are burning into mine, and I can no longer resist the demand I see there. He wants all of me, and I have no choice but to give it to him.
“I love you.” My voice is barely audible, each word feeling like it’s being wrenched out of my very soul. “I don’t hate you, Julian . . . I can’t . . . I can’t because I love you.”
I can see his pupils dilating, turning his eyes darker. His cock swells within me, even thicker and harder than before, and then he pulls out and slams back inside, making me gasp from the savagery of his possession.
“Tell me again,” he groans, and I repeat what I said, the words coming easier the second time around. There’s no point in hiding from the truth anymore, no reason to lie. I have fallen head over heels for my sadistic captor, and nothing in the world can change that fact.
“I love you,” I whisper, my hand moving up to cradle his cheek. “I love you, Julian.”
His eyes darken further, and then he bends his head, taking my mouth in a deep, all-consuming kiss.
Now I am truly his, and he knows it.
Chapter Nineteen
The next three months fly by.
After that day—after what I think of as the Birthday Incident—my relationship with Julian undergoes a noticeable change, becoming more . . . romantic, for lack of a better word.
It’s a fucked-up romance, I know that. I may be addicted to Julian, but I’m not so far gone that I don’t realize how unhealthy this is. I am in love with the man who kidnapped me, the man who is still holding me prisoner.
The man who seems to need my love as much as he needs my body.
I don’t know if he loves me back. I don’t even know if he’s capable of that emotion. How can you love someone whose freedom you stole without a second thought? And yet I can’t help feeling that he must care for me, that his obsession with me is not only sexual in nature. It’s there in the way I catch him looking at me sometimes, in the way he tries to anticipate my every need.
He constantly brings me my favorite
foods, my favorite books and music. If I so much as mention needing a hand lotion, he buys it for me on his next trip. I am about as pampered as a girl can be. He even takes pride in my accomplishments, praising my artwork and going so far as to take several paintings with him off the island to hang in his office in Hong Kong.
He also misses me when we’re not together. I know because he tells me so—and because every time he returns, he falls on me like a starving man just getting out of prison. That, more than anything, gives me hope that his feelings for me go beyond that of owner for his possession.
“Do you see other women? Out there, in the real world?” I ask him at breakfast after one night when he takes me three times in a row. The question had been eating at me for months, and I simply can’t contain myself any longer. My captor is more than gorgeous; he’s got that dangerous, magnetic appeal that probably draws women to him by the dozen. I can easily imagine him sleeping with a different beauty every night—a thought that makes me want to stab something. Even with his sadistic proclivities, I know he would have no trouble finding bed partners; there are probably plenty of women who, like me, derive pleasure from erotic pain.
He smiles at me with dark amusement, not the least bit put off by my obvious display of jealousy. “No, my pet,” he says softly. Reaching over, he takes my hand, stroking the inside of my wrist with his thumb. “Why would I want to fuck someone else when I have you? I haven’t been with another woman since the day we met.”
“You haven’t?” I can’t conceal my shock. Julian had been faithful to me this whole time?
He looks at me, his lips curved in a sinfully delicious smile. “No, baby, I have not,” he says—and in that moment, I feel like the happiest woman in the world.
I love it when he calls me ‘baby.’ It’s a common endearment, I know, but somehow when Julian says it, it sounds different—like he’s caressing me with that word. I much prefer ‘baby’ to being called ‘my pet.’
