by Pam Godwin
His chest heaved, and a moan rumbled in his throat. She savored the response, wanted to hear more, feel him closer. She wanted to crawl inside of him. She slid her hands down his chest and slipped under the hem. Gliding back up the warm taut brawn of his abs and the velvet skin wrapping his pecs, she paused over the beat of his heart against her palm.
He gripped her nape, angled her head, and intensified the kiss. She didn’t know if it was her emotional exhaustion or if he was more experienced than she’d thought, but his mastery over her was assured and exquisite. Every lick and nibble tingled through her body, curling her toes against his thighs, racing her heart, and fuzzing her brain.
Too soon, they came up for air. After a few noisy breaths, she gave him a smile, which he returned with warmth and affection.
“Wow.” She shook her muddled head. “You’ve done that a lot, haven’t you?”
He captured her lips again, his mouth just as maddening and curling, leaving her body shivering when he finished. “Kissing is the only thing I can do.”
Her heart pinched. Unfortunately, her bladder, too, but she refused to leave the embrace of his arms. Emotions swept through her as she snuggled against his chest, swirling her thoughts into a jumbled knot. She wasn’t ready to voice her worries and ruin the moment, but he did it for her.
“Does Van know Mr. E’s identity?”
Their eyes met and she nodded.
“Do you?”
She traced his strong jaw, the whiskers rasping against her finger. He held still as she followed the smooth skin stretching over his cheekbones, between his enchanting eyes and disappearing beneath the soft inky hue of his hairline. His beauty had the power to enthrall and distract.
She dropped her hand. “If I knew Mr. E’s identity, we wouldn’t be sitting here.” She would’ve tracked him down. Perhaps he had a family she could’ve threatened. “Van claims he’s only seen beneath the mask once, when Mr. E lured him from his mother’s meth house. I have my doubts.” Her bladder prodded again.
Something shifted through his eyes, and his jaw twitched. “Mr. E basically pushed you into my arms last night.” His embrace tightened around her, punctuating his point. “Why would he do that? And I see the way Van watches you. Why would Van let him do that?”
The answers weren’t simple, most of which were based on her own theories. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
He carried her to the toilet. She might’ve refused out of pride if she weren’t so reluctant to leave his arms. He lowered her to the rim and squatted before her.
Her head spun from the sudden loss of his supportive strength, but she still mustered a glare when he propped his chin on a fist and settled in.
“You look like you’re about to fall over.” His tone was gentle.
Too tired to argue, she closed her eyes and released her bladder. “Van may not agree with everything Mr. E does, but he’s never challenged him. He loves the cocksucker like a father.” She glanced up and found him observing her steadily.
The set of his jaw matched the hardness of his eyes. “Van thinks he loves you.”
That truth didn’t need acknowledgment. She flushed the toilet and moved to the shower. “Mr. E’s actions aren’t always transparent. Last night was the first time he’d ever raised a hand against me. Other than…” She touched the scar on her cheek and turned the tap to warm.
He sat against the wall outside the open shower as she undressed and washed. Her movements were robotic, but her thoughts were an utter mess. Now that he knew her situation, what was he willing to do?
She needed to know where his head was. “Maybe Mr. E pushed us together to wrangle your sympathy for me, a ploy to persuade you to do what needs to be done, using me as leverage.”
Though his eyes followed the motion of her hands, they were unfocused, turned inward.
“He’s never attempted anything like this.” It seemed too complicated to be worth the effort. As she washed her belly and thighs, she lay a soapy hand over the horizontal c-section scar below her bikini line. It was one scar she wished hadn’t faded. “Honestly, I don’t know why he’s kept me alive all these years.”
“Do you have sex with Van privately? Or do you just screw him in front of your slaves?” Quiet words at odds with his finger digging restlessly at a frayed hole in his jeans.
Her throat convulsed, her stomach caving with humiliation. Was he regretting the kiss they’d just shared? He wasn’t glaring at her with judgment or pumping his muscles with jealousy. But he’d also been raised to approach problems with civility and grace. She shut off the water and faced him, wet and naked, with a quiver in her voice. “It’s complicated.”
The hand on his leg curled into a fist, and his chest heaved. He straightened his fingers, cleared his throat, and imprisoned her eyes. “Complicated how? Is it consensual?”
Was it? She nodded. Unsure, she shook her head then nodded again.
He stood, slowly, his expression tight, and wrapped a towel around her. “I really need you to explain that answer, Liv.” He rifled through her trunk while she sketched out Van’s tricks, his mind games, and his threats to involve Mr. E.
“He doesn’t physically force me.” She felt sick, weak, frozen in the shower stall. “Having sex in front of you…” She shivered with self-hatred. “I was cornered. He’d told that morning he was going to fuck you. I convinced him jealousy was more effective.”
He glared at his hands, gripping the edge of the trunk, his eyes full of pain, his face red. When he returned, he handed her a t-shirt, jeans, and a pair of panties that matched the mint green of his irises. He touched her face, his fingers lingering on her mouth. “Do you come for him?”
Shit, she didn’t want to answer that, but he looked at her as if he were consumed by the need to know. She gripped the towel around her chest. “Yes.”
Tension vibrated from his body as he stormed through the room. He seemed to be trying to drive it away with his swift strides back to the trunk and whatever was distracting him there. She didn’t own anything personal. Only meaningless things she’d collected while living in that room. She dressed and sat on the mattress.
While he rummaged, she told him what the news had been reporting about his disappearance, highlighting the resiliency his parents exuded during their interviews. Then she talked about her own experience with Mom’s grieving and her eventually moving on. “When enough time has passed, your fake decomposed remains will turn up somewhere and put an end to all the searching. I don’t know how Mr. E arranges such a thing, but he pulled it off when I disappeared—” her throat dried, scratching her voice “—and Van says Mr. E intends to do the same with you.”
During her one-sided conversation, he’d found a tennis ball in the trunk, a gift she’d earned as a slave. He tossed it against the far wall, caught it, tossed it again, over and over. He didn’t seem to be listening.
“Am I boring you?”
He snatched the ball out of the air and jerked his head toward her, his eyes clouded under the V of his dark eyebrows. “Mr. E has a pretty twisted hold on me by threatening your life. How does this affect the threat against my parents?”
“That threat was my creation.” She felt sick. “An empty one.” Harming his parents had never been an option. She wanted to go back to the day she took him and erase the worry she’d planted in his head. She also wanted to bury her pen knife in Mr. E’s jugular and watch his stupid mask soak up the blood. Damn him for manipulating Josh into feeling sorry for her.
He watched her with eyes too perceptive for his age. “Is Van a threat to my parents?”
She pressed a cool hand against her burning cheek. “Your parents are entangled with media and detectives. He wouldn’t dare go near them.” Even without the risk, she didn’t believe Van would murder an innocent person.
Josh’s fist flexed around the ball, his other hand scraping roughly over his face.
“What’s bothering you? Besides the obvious.” She gestured around the room,
indicating his prison cell.
He glanced at her, the tightness of his chest visible in the muscles straining his shirt. “I work my parents’ farm at dawn and dusk.” He flung the ball, caught the bounce back. “At practice, I sprint, tackle, and sweat through endurance exercises for hours every day.” His voice lowered. “Now I’m locked in an attic with the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.” The ball sailed through the air, returned to his hand. “Whom I just shared a very. Arousing. Kiss. With.” A toss and catch punctuated each word.
A warm tendril of pleasure shivered through her. She wanted to close the distance and wrap her arms around him, but he seemed to be trying to control his arousal and pent-up energy. She had no interest in taunting him.
Lowering his head, he pressed the ball to his brow. “And there is a tyrant waiting outside that door to have sex with you. Again.” He resumed pummeling the wall. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. “I’m trying real hard to keep myself in check, Liv.”
His words tied her up with heartache and compelled her to silence. She clung to the sounds of the thumps against the wall and the way he controlled his body despite his turmoil.
He caught the ball, clasping it in his hands behind his neck, and looked heavenward. “If I escape, I might be able to track Mr. E down. But he will kill you before I do. If I take you with me, he’ll kill your mom and daughter.”
Her breath stumbled with the acceleration of her pulse.
“If we follow all the rules, your arrangement is safe.” He dropped the ball and sat beside her on the mattress. “Given my background, I think he knew you would trust me with your predicament, and he’s counting on me not to put you or your family in harm’s way. We’re both being played, Liv.”
Hearing him voice her fears churned her gut, boiling bile through her chest. “I want to kill him.”
“Murder’s not the answer.”
Maybe he’d meant to find some preacher comfort in his response, but the sinews in his neck were taut against his skin.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I can’t kill him anyway. He has a contract out on Mattie and Mom. It’s part of our arrangement. If anything happens to him or Van, the contract will be activated.”
Blood drained from his face. “A hit man?”
She lifted a shoulder, swallowed. “Something like that. He’s in the business of trafficking humans. I don’t doubt he has connections with an assortment of criminals. But I’ve not been inclined to test his threat.”
He leaned forward and laced his fingers through hers. His perceptive eyes projected an intrusive quality, one that could unearth her weaknesses or nurture her strengths. “You’re going to teach me all the rules. Train me as your slave.”
Regret pinched her chest. Mr. E succeeded where she failed. The boy would be cooperative. What an elegant fucking play. “I can’t—”
“You will.” He squeezed her hand. “And since there’s no way I’ll let you go out there alone—”
“Let me?” She pulled her hand from his. “You’re pushing it, boy.”
He barked an unsmiling laugh. “I’ve stomached the boy crap long enough.” He stood on the mattress, feet planted on either side of her knees, and stretched out his arms. “Do I look like a boy to you?”
Dark stubble shadowed his masculine jaw. His biceps were damned near the size of her thighs. The brick wall of his torso narrowed into low-hung jeans that cupped his groin. She knew too well the shape and girth of the cock that formed that bulge, and it could only belong to a man. “Cocky bastard.”
He dropped to his knees and straddled her thighs. With a dip of his head, he stole a kiss. “You’re going to text Van and tell him to bring us food.”
“He won’t—”
He kissed her again. “Shut up and listen. You’ll tell him I’m becoming the perfect little slave— Don’t look at me like that. I can act out the damned requirements.” Determination sharpened his eyes.
“Van will test you before the buyer’s meeting tomorrow.”
His face slacked. “Does the buyer expect to have sex with me at this meeting?”
The other boys she’d enslaved weren’t virgins, and the buyers did fuck them during the introductions. But this deal was different in so many ways. “I’ll do everything in my power to prevent it.” She filled her eyes with the truth of her words. “I promise.”
“Then we’ll get through the next few days and figure out the rest.” His tone sobered. “But Liv?” He held her eyes, drew in a long breath. “Requirement number two is my limit. The only way I’d have sex with those men would be by force. Do you understand?”
She could hold her promise about the buyer’s meeting. And she could calm down Van by sending him a text. Once he knew she was okay, he’d leave her alone to do her training. It was the rest that made her want to throw up. She nodded, her heart lodged somewhere in her stomach.
CHAPTER 23
Josh knelt in the center of the room, naked, and fixated on the nimble movements of Liv’s fingers. His muscles quivered from holding still for so long.
Crouched before him in her jeans and t-shirt, she tied a long coil of rope into loose bows, sliding his arms through the loops and cinching the knots along his sternum.
Flashes of dizziness reminded him he’d only eaten a couple energy bars. He nodded toward her phone. “Send Van the text, Liv.”
She’d texted him an hour earlier to check in but had yet to request food. She slid another knot in place, her eyes narrowed in concentration on the laced web that began with a noose around his neck and intertwined a dragonfly pattern down his chest. Her tongue touched her upper lip. “We’re not ready for him yet.”
The urge to suckle that taunting tongue sensitized his skin where it rubbed against the nylon bindings. The knotted bows formed taut sleeves over his arms, holding his elbows in an X over his stomach.
“You made a straight jacket from rope.” He waited for the panic to set in, but all he felt was wonderment.
“I’ve learned how to do a lot of awful things.” Painful memories pulled at the corners of her eyes. Then they were gone, and her calmness returned, flowing through the fluidity of her fingers as they moved down his abs.
The torturous caress of her full attention both soothed him and made him antsy. Van was probably prowling on the other side of the door. Or beating on it. She’d said it was soundproofed. “Why are you the only one with a code to this room?”
Her rich dark eyes, lashes fanning thickly through slow blinks, were as arresting as her hands on the rope near his groin. She pulled his hips closer to her. “When I was returned by the man who bought me, Mr. E put me in Van’s possession.” She kept her eyes on her hands, plaiting and twisting the rope. “I requested to have the only code to the door, and I think Mr. E agreed because he knew if he didn’t limit Van’s access to me…” Her voice wobbled, strengthened. “I wouldn’t have survived all these years if I had to live every minute under Van’s thumb, sleeping in his bed with nowhere to escape.”
Her courage knew no bounds. Maybe it was God working through her, but she radiated an inner strength he was certain she’d never acknowledged. “You’ve done a hellacious job surviving. You don’t have it in you to give up.”
“I would have.” She glanced up, eyes hard, and returned to her rope work. “But this living arrangement, this room, has kept those thoughts at bay.”
For how long? Mr. E could take it away any moment. “Van’s okay with it? How long before he swings a chainsaw at that door?”
“He’s accepted that this is the only way I’ll be a part of his life.” She yanked on a knot with more strength than was needed. “As long as I’m around, Van has an outlet for his desires. The virgin slaves remain virgin. Mr. E knows this and lets me keep the code.”
His heart ached for her. She deserved a life beyond masks and locked doors and black eyes. Something about her, captor or not, brought out a fierce drive in him to take care of her, to serve her. Not that he could do anything with h
is hands tied, but she’d asked his permission before restraining him with rope. It was the asking that compelled his cooperation.
She wound the ends around his upper thighs, tightened the final knot, and sat back on her heels. Rather than studying her intricate work, she peered into his eyes, her posture motionless and her face framed by ribbons of metallic copper in her chestnut hair.
When her silence stretched, he tilted his head. “What is it?”
A deep groove appeared between her eyes. “You’re not broken or defeated.” The side of her mouth tipped up into a trembling curve, making his chest swell against the restraints. “But you let me do this.” A whisper.
When her eyes lowered, he bent his head to remain in her line of sight. “I have faith in you, Liv. You know how to handle Van. What’s wrong?”
The furrow in her brow deepened. “This kind of bondage is about trust, not control.” She traced a finger over the rope harness and adjusted a knot to line up with the others. “I would’ve never attempted it on one of the captives.” She glanced at him through her dark lashes. “I practiced a lot on a borrowed mannequin.”
Given the labyrinth of knots, it was a binding that couldn’t be easily forced, a position he certainly wouldn’t have volunteered before Mr. E’s visit. He pressed his lips to her forehead. Maybe his trust was too soon, but somehow it had braided a bridge between them that was as complex and sturdy as the rope that bound him.
“You trust me.” She wasn’t asking, but disbelief creased her face.
He captured her parted lips, stroked his tongue over hers, tasting her sincerity, and straightened to behold her. “I trust your intentions.”
Soft brown eyes stared back, her hand settling on his inner thigh. He felt that single point of contact through his whole body, warming and stirring. She stretched a finger and stroked down his semi-erect shaft. “You shouldn’t.”
His breath strangled. “Liv.” He groaned, his penis jerking against her touch. “What are you doing?”
