Carnal Captive

by Vonna Harper

  The moment she stepped outside, a water-scented breeze caressed her cheeks and hair. Wildly delighted and scared at the same time, she looked at her master. She was barefoot in contrast to his tennis shoes. Maybe that’s all he needed to keep her under his control. Not wanting to, she ran her fingers over the metal around her wrists.

  “Sit.” He pointed at one of the patio chairs.

  Wondering at her willingness to obey, she did. His outdoor furniture put her cheap one to shame. Despite her warning to remain alert, the view spun around her. A handful of clouds gave the sky definition, and she’d been right about seagulls. His sailboat was tied up to a well-constructed dock next to a sleek sailboat. The two served as even more proof of what his career had given him. Trees and bushes grew all around while a well-maintained lawn swept down to the dock.

  Realizing he was studying her, she turned toward him. She started to open her mouth. Shaking his head, he held up a finger.

  “It’s me, Bay,” he said after punching keys on his cell phone. “I take it you got my text that I’d be calling. We need to talk.”

  He was going to send her back. If she knew how to handle it, she’d sprint for the boat and put as much distance as possible between herself and him.

  And undoubtedly pay the consequences.

  “This isn’t up for discussion,” he said after a short pause. “I’m telling you what’s going to happen. I don’t want her.”

  Worthless. She was worthless.

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying. Damn it, listen. Her association with Carnal Incorporated is over. Done with. Whatever happens from now on is between her and me.”

  Looking irritated, he listened. He held the phone away from his ear, and she heard a muffled male voice.

  “That’s enough!” her master snapped. “You are going to the hell listen to me. If you and your goons so much as touch her, I’ll blow the whistle on the whole operation.”

  Not believing what she was hearing, she leaned forward and locked her gaze on him.

  “She won’t go to the authorities. I’ll make sure she doesn’t.”

  By keeping her in the cage? She rubbed her collar.

  “You have your damn money. What more do you need? Bow out of her life and mine.” Frowning, he listened some more. “Yeah, of course. Do you think I wouldn’t?”

  The voice on the other end started up again. She wasn’t sure but it might be the man she’d known as Master Jones.

  “This is the only time I’m going to say it.” Her master stared at the phone before speaking again. “I know your goons will look for her. There’s nothing I can do to stop you. But if you so much as touch her, I’ll go to the authorities. And getting rid of me won’t get you off the hook. I have that covered. Yeah, I mean it.”

  With that he hung up, leaned back, and stared at her. She couldn’t speak.

  “That’s it,” he said at length. “You’re free.”

  Free. The word meant nothing and everything. “I don’t understand.”

  Standing, he walked over to the railing. Turning his back to her, he looked out at his world. A few moments ago she might have jumped to her feet and run. Now she knew she had to stay.

  “I don’t trust myself around you. Last night, damn it, I could have killed you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Afterward I told myself it wasn’t going to happen again. I know my strength. I can the hell control my temper. Then you got your hands on the knife. I had to take it from you before you hurt yourself.” He spun toward her. “For a moment only protecting you from your desperation mattered. Then you stabbed me and something else took over.”

  Burying his hands in his back pockets, he shook his head. “I didn’t give a damn about you. The animal in me was screaming to be let out. I wanted to set it free. I’d been hurt. It was revenge time.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  Shaking his head again, he shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “I know I am.”

  Despite the fear clinging to her, she forced herself not to bolt.

  “That’s why this can’t go on.”

  “This?”

  Pulling his right hand free, he pressed it to his forehead. “I don’t have all the details worked out, but that’ll come. Look, you’ll never be completely free because Carnal will watch your every move.”

  “Free?”

  “They have every right to be concerned and pissed which is why I need to cover my tracks as well as yours.”

  This man was strong enough to hold his own against any other human being, but they were talking about an illegal organization. “What are you going to do?” Were they really having this conversation?

  His fingers left indentations in his forehead. “I think my best insurance is to prepare a document spelling out everything I know about Carnal and give it, sealed, to my attorney with the stipulation that he hands it to law enforcement if anything happens to me.”

  To her surprise she realized she didn’t want him to come to harm—and not just because, maybe, he was handing her back her freedom. Think. “Will your lawyer be safe?”

  “Good question. He’s a member of a prominent firm. I’ll give copies to all the partners, make no secret of what I’m doing. Carnal Incorporated can’t get to everyone.”

  “Then you’ll tell Carnal what you’re doing?”

  “I have to.” He made a move as if to close the distance between them only to stop and stare at her.

  “What?” Oh God, had he changed his mind?

  “I can’t leave you out there all alone. They might grab you to get to me.”

  Yes, they might. “What if…”

  “What if what?”

  I don’t know. I’ve never done anything like this. I still don’t believe what you’re saying. “I could prepare my own document for the firm. If I disappear—“

  “That’ll trigger an investigation.”

  “Yes.”

  For the first time since the conversation had begun, he smiled. “Another copy of what we each writes needs to go to my agent as a kind of double insurance. The only thing…”

  “What?”

  “You’ll never be as free as you once were.”

  Despite the knot in her stomach, she knew he hadn’t changed his mind. The longer she waited for him to continue, the more she relaxed. She could never love him. The thought was insane. But she was learning to trust him—maybe more than he did her.

  “You told me that the most important thing in your world is being able to paint.”

  “It was. I want that back.”

  “I understand, maybe more than you’ll ever realize.”

  He was wrong. She did understand. Without football to give his life focus, he’d dreaded his future. That, in part, was why he’d bought a sex slave, something to fill his time with. Then his interest in exercise equipment had taken off. Focus had returned.

  “Hearing me say what I did about my art is part of why you made the decision you did, isn’t it?” She fingered her collar. “There’s more to where we are right now than you not being able to trust your strength and temper.”

  He didn’t respond for a long time. Then: “Let’s go inside. There’s something I need to do, for both of us.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  An hour later, she no longer wore any proof of her slavery. After he’d unlocked her collar and cuffs, they’d gone outside and dropped them in the garbage can.

  Back in his office, they’d made more decisions. At first she’d let him do most of the talking but the woman she’d always been came back to life. She’d agreed with Bay’s insistence that she remain in the area so he could keep an eye on her. Much as she hadn’t wanted to accept his offer of enough money to get her set up in her own place, she didn’t have a choice. Carnal Incorporated had left her dead broke.

  “It speaks to me,” he told her after paying her an insane amount for the buck-in-forest painting. Seeing the way he looked at it, she believed him.

  “I do
n’t want you leaving today,” he said when she thought all the decisions had been made. “And not until the documents are where they need to be.”

  “Leave? I don’t have anywhere to go.”

  “Or furniture. Do you want any of the stuff here?” He indicated, she believed, everything within the walls of his magnificent house. “Otherwise we’ll have to go shopping—after we find a safe place for you to live. No more being stuck out in the boondocks like you were before.”

  She agreed. Truth was, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to sleep if her place didn’t come with gates and guards.

  “Two bedrooms,” she said. “One for sleeping, the other—“

  “To set up as your art studio, I know. Shari, there’s one more thing we haven’t talked about.”

  “The others.” She hugged herself. “The women still at the training facility.”

  “Not just there.”

  How many women had Carnal turned into slaves over the years? Just asking the question made her sick at heart.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He was. “We can’t help them, can we?”

  “I don’t see how. Even if law enforcement charged everyone who works for Carnal Incorporated, I’m sure they won’t find any records.”

  “And if I told the authorities what I know—“

  “I’d go to prison.”

  “Yes. I feel helpless,” she admitted. “Almost as much as when I was captured.”

  He was sitting behind his desk looking for apartment complexes on the Internet. Pushing back his chair, he stood and walked over to the recliner where she was sitting. She didn’t flinch. “You aren’t. Look at your wrists and ankles. Touch your throat.” He did those things for her. “Soon you’ll pick up your brushes again, let your talent flow onto canvas.”

  He was right. And, for the first time, gentle.

  “Thank you.” Somehow she was on her feet and her arms were going around his neck. Heat touched heat.

  His arms circled her waist. “Are you sure about this?”

  “No.” She spoke to his massive chest. “I just…”

  It was too late to sit down again, too late to tell him to put distance between them. Their relationship was deeply flawed, created by forces that made her tremble just thinking about them, but even as she knew she could push him away, she pressed herself against his strength. Once again her body flamed.

  Groaning, he started to let her go only to draw her close. “You’re asking too much of me. I’m no damn saint, not that I have to tell you that.”

  His swelling cock had already told her that. Her own body cried out.

  “I need to feel like a woman.” She touched her mouth to his chest. “To feel whole.”

  Another groan wrenched from him. Lifting her in his arms, he started for the bedroom. He wasn’t going to say any more. If she didn’t want this to happen, she had to stop him, now.

  “Letting sex happen.” She nestled against him. “Doing what we want and need to.”

  Entering the oversized bedroom, he lowered her to his plush bed and reached for the fastening on his shorts. After stepping out of them and his briefs, he removed his shirt. A little dried blood stained the bandage, but if he was hurting, he showed no sign.

  Her sexual flames lapped higher, burned brighter. Dizzy, she sat up and yanked her shirt over her head. Before she could deal with her shorts, he pushed her back down, grabbed the waistband, and tugged it over her hips.

  Naked. Same as him. Waiting for—what?

  “I learned something,” he told her with his hand hovering over her crotch. “About what pushes you over the edge.”

  Her mouth dried only to fill with saliva. “What does?”

  “This.”

  His fingers blanketed her pussy. Strong and warm, they promised and challenged. A sound like a bleating lamb ran out of her, then he silenced her by pressing his mouth to hers. The images and sensations she’d been forced to live with for too long died. Grateful for a brand of freedom that had nothing to do with throwing away cuffs and collar, she slid her hands over his chest.

  She wasn’t sure when he climbed onto the bed and straddled her. Maybe minutes, maybe hours—her body had lost the ability to tell time. It knew one thing, the question inherent in his cock gliding over her sex.

  “Yes,” she whispered and guided him into her. His bulk filled her, took control and tossed her about.

  Handed her hot, rushing release.

  “I don’t want to talk about what happened,” she said afterward.

  “Neither do I.”

  “Or about tomorrow.” Being free. Having a place to call my own. Painting again.

  “In other words, there’s just today for us?” he asked. “And tonight?”

  “I don’t know about the future.” Cradling his spent cock between her palms, she willed it back to life. There was only now. Him. Taking the first step toward trusting him. Heat. Becoming a woman again.