by Vonna Harper
“I pride myself on being honest,” he said. “If nothing else I owe you that on this, our last night together.”
Don’t say that.
“Your new owner will know everything you told me about the impact your father’s death had on you.”
“My guilt?” she whispered. “He’ll know…”
“That isn’t the only thing, of course, but maybe it’s the most important.” He returned to her and rested his all-controlling hands on her shoulders. The oversized garment did nothing to lessen the impact. “Maybe it won’t matter to him. It’s possible he won’t give a damn about you as a human being but—”
“He’ll know how much being a jockey meant to me,” she blurted. Damn these tears! “He’ll use that against me, bring me down with reminders of everything I’ve lost. Everything you’ve taken from me.”
There. She’d said it. Thrown blame at him. Regardless of the consequences, she wasn’t sorry.
“You’re right.” His chest rose and fell. “I kept after you until you had no choice but to tell me what you did. I know what it’s like to be passionate about something, which means I have a damn good idea what no longer being able to race has done to you.”
He was hitting her with too much. She couldn’t deal with it all. Angry and confused, she jerked free. For one wild second she imagined herself running, then reality circled her. “You don’t know everything. Almost, but not everything.”
“Does it have to do with your father?”
Surprise warred with the sexual need she felt every time she was close to Master. If she answered honestly, would he pass that information onto whoever bought her? A month ago she wouldn’t have said anything because Master hadn’t touched her heart. That, like everything else, had changed.
“Yes,” she said. “How did you—?”
“You aren’t the only one with parents.”
Had he mentioned his parents before? If he had, it had only been superficially. Now, maybe, he was ready to go deeper. The thought of what he might be willing to share with her thrilled her. However, she didn’t know how to make that happen. Maybe if she opened up, he’d do the same.
And if not—
“Losing Dad impacted me in so many ways.” Much as she wanted to go on looking into his eyes, she couldn’t and get the words out. “Every time I started to care about a man I got scared. I was afraid something would happen to him or he’d leave me. It was easier to walk away than to live in fear.”
“It wasn’t just easier, Marina. You took the coward’s way out.”
Marina. He’d called her by her name. “Do you think I wanted to be like that? Of course I didn’t, but…”
His hands again settled on her shoulders. For reasons she didn’t comprehend, she stepped toward him and rested the side of her head against his chest. When was the last time she’d willingly turned herself over to someone else? Maybe years.
“I didn’t expect that,” he said.
“Neither did I,” she admitted.
“Please don’t hold back.”
I’m trying not to. “I think I was finally getting strong enough to take a chance on a relationship before—before this happened. I’d finally figured out that my inability to commit revolved around how I’d lost my parent.”
“Self-analysis can be a bitch.”
No matter how wonderful his arms around her felt, she had to study his expression, so she pulled back a little. Her hands went to his waist. How strong he was.
“You said something about knowing what I’ve gone through because— Were you talking about your relationship with your parents?”
He shook his head then clenched his teeth. “I don’t have to say anything.” Soft as his voice was, she suspected he was talking more to himself than her. “Only we’ll never see each other again, so what the hell does it matter?”
‘Never see each other again’. Her throat tightened so she couldn’t respond.
“But it does,” he muttered. “You didn’t tell any of the men in your life that you’re afraid you’d lose them like you did your father, did you?”
“No.” Maybe she should add that she’d ended things before the relationships could become more than casual, but she wanted this to be about him, not her.
“We all keep secrets. Every damn one of us does.”
Just this morning she’d believed she understood what existed between Master and her, but that had changed in the past few minutes. Maybe that’s why she reached up so she could caress his cheeks. Stubble abraded her fingertips.
“What’s your secret?” she asked.
“Mine,” he muttered. “Yeah, it’s come to that.”
“I hope it has.”
After a moment he nodded. “I considered myself a jock almost from the time I learned how to walk. I still think of myself as one. Jocks are defined by what they are on the outside.”
“Maybe, particularly in football, because they have to be so tough.”
He looked surprised. “That’s right. What brought you to that conclusion?”
Smiling came easily. “I’m in—I was in a sport that calls for a lot of toughness.”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “You’re right and I needed the reminder. No one ever asked me why I was so aggressive. They didn’t care as long as I did my job.”
His football career was behind him, which should have meant he never had to talk about this, but maybe he was trying to explain why he’d been drawn to slave training. As for why he’d chosen her— “Why were you aggressive?”
When he stepped back and faced the ocean, memories of what had taken place between them nearly distracted her, but she forced herself to remain in the present. To wait for him to speak.
“Several reasons all rolled into one.” He jammed his hands into his back pockets. “My old man’s a total opposite from yours. He should have never had children. He sure as hell didn’t want me. It was my fault for being born that so many of his dreams didn’t come true.”
Pain tore at her, but as much as she longed to comfort him, she sensed he needed time with his thoughts.
Word by word, he detailed what growing up with a distant and unloving father had been like. His mother had been so passive she wondered if the woman had been emotionally abused. At the same time, she blamed Tray’s mother for staying with a man who’d barely acknowledged his son’s existence. His father had shown some affection for the girl who’d been born when Tray was five but had continued to treat Tray like a non-entity.
“I tried so damn hard to get him to notice me—at least I did, until I finally got it through my thick head that nothing I did would make a difference.”
“You hoped excelling at football would—”
“Yeah.” Shaking his head again, he faced her. The moon touched his features with silver highlights. “Coaches and other players’ fathers applauded my performances. I got written up in the local paper and girls—I never had to worry about attention from the opposite sex.”
She didn’t want to hear that, not that she hadn’t already concluded he must have been quite the stud.
“Did he ever watch your games?”
“Oh yeah. He’d come with his drinking buddies and get all puffed up if I did well, but if he ever hugged me after a game I don’t remember.”
She studied Tray’s face, looking for a hint of tears, and when they didn’t appear she realized how successful he’d been at locking his emotions away. One thing she was certain of, he still felt the pain. Otherwise they wouldn’t be having this conversation.
His father had been a trucker, which meant his job had kept him on the road for extended periods. His parents had gotten married when his mother was a high school junior and pregnant with Tray. They hadn’t had a honeymoon, and his mother had moved into the one-bedroom apartment over a grocery store his father rented. She’d dropped out of school and, although she’d eventually gotten her GED, she had few employable skills and worked sporadically at minimum wage jobs. Once Tray had become a pro,
he’d told his mother that if she wanted to get a divorce, he’d buy her a house, but although he knew she’d been tempted, his parents were still married and living in the place he’d paid for. Tray’s guess was that she was afraid to be on her own. He wasn’t sure what kept his dad in the marriage, maybe inertia.
“My being able to pay cash for a new three-bedroom place was more than my old man could wrap his mind around. He kept asking how much I was making—questions he wouldn’t have had to ask if he’d been involved with my career.”
“It’s so hard to believe,” she said. “You’ve done something only a very few people are able to, something I’d think would make any father proud.”
“Yeah.” He studied the sand. “His old man was the same way and Grandma wasn’t much better. Affection wasn’t in their DNA. My old man was a product of his upbringing, just like me.”
“You’re wrong,” she blurted. Despite her vow to give him the space he needed, she grabbed his hands and rested them against her breasts. A familiar fire seared her. “You aren’t cold or remote.”
“Aren’t I? Most of the guys I played with are married and here I am.”
“You didn’t meet the right woman.” Why was she saying this when it might not be true? “Eventually you’ll—”
“And then what? I’ll tell her where my paycheck comes from, invite her to watch me at work?”
Of course not. Maybe he’d become a slave trainer as a way of keeping a barrier between himself and a prospective wife. The only women he’d get close to for the rest of his life were like her, sex slaves.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked. “Tell me I didn’t turn out to be a bastard like the sperm donor.”
He was asking too much of her, maybe deliberately forcing emotional distance between them. She should let him do what he wanted so she could face tomorrow having made a break with the man who’d molded her in ways she hadn’t believed were possible. They were done.
Except—
“Answer me something,” she said as she returned his hands to his sides and back-stepped. When she was sure she had his full attention, she pulled the jersey over her head and dropped it to the sand. “Can you imagine your father handling a woman the way you did me? Getting close?”
His attention remained on her face. “No. Absolutely not.”
“What do you think he’d say if he knew what you’re doing now?”
“Who the hell knows or cares? It isn’t as if I’m going to tell him. Look, don’t get me wrong. He loved bragging about his son the pro football player. He just never sat down with me and asked what the life was like. What I’m like.”
“I don’t know you either.” And it’s too late for that to happen.
“You know more about my upbringing than anyone else. While I’m at it I might as well explain about something. When I was twelve, we moved near a horse stable. My little sister always wanted me to take her there.”
“She was horse crazy?”
“Was she ever. At first I wanted nothing to do with them. One day I was there when a foal was born. I got to touch it when it was only a few hours old. Its mother—she was so gentle. They both liked being groomed. The more I worked with them, the more comfortable I became.”
“Handled right they’re affectionate.”
“Yeah. We never had pets because my mother was allergic. I didn’t know getting close to an animal would—I learned to ride, not as well as you do. There’s something about a horse’s warm breath and seeing trust in their eyes.”
You needed to connect with something alive. She tried to blink away her tears. Then, as one trickled down her cheek, she decided to hand him as much as he’d just given her. To remember more than just her body.
“Trust is a beautiful thing,” she said. “You understand so much about me. And not just about this.” She flattened her hands over her breasts with their hard nipples. “Like the impact my parents’ deaths had on me.” She swallowed. “My dreams.”
Watching his eyes narrow and his jaw tighten, she knew she’d said the one thing she shouldn’t have. Every nerve in her body screamed at her to run, but she couldn’t let things end between them like that.
Her tears dried as she leaned over and picked up the jersey, intending to put it back on. “I was wrong,” she whispered.
“About what? Thinking you could seduce me?”
“No.” The truth was, she couldn’t say what had prompted her to do what she had. It wasn’t as if her body hadn’t belonged to him for the past month—or that she’d wanted more than what they had. “I know better.”
“Come here.” He jabbed a finger at the ground.
Yes, Master, she nearly said, but the need to have tonight end on a different note kept her quiet. Head high, she took the two steps. The hot buzzing throughout her kicked up a notch.
He slid a finger through the ring in her collar and forced her head up. His gesture was familiar, but it felt different tonight. Maybe it was the setting, maybe knowing they’d never see each other again. She no longer cared about tomorrow, let alone the rest of her life. Even the words she’d thrown at him that had ended their rare openness didn’t matter.
There was only him, his body and the way hers responded to it, the slave skin she’d allowed to be slipped over her.
“Do what you have to in order to survive,” he muttered. “Be proud of what you’ve become. Please your master and find pleasure in the act.”
His words rolled off her. She saw his mouth move and the darkness in his eyes—that was all.
“I’m not going to say I’m sorry for what I put you through. Even if I meant it, it won’t change reality.”
“No, it won’t.”
He let go of the ring, but she remained where she was. Several seconds ticked by while she stood before the man she considered her master. Maybe she should tell him how she felt, but there might be another way. One they’d both remember. She dropped the top he’d given her.
When she rose onto her toes, the sand beneath her feet shifted. What had started out as a graceful movement turned awkward. She grabbed his shoulders to keep from pitching forward. Off-balance, she leaned into him. Her breasts flattened against his chest. She started to laugh. His erection stabbed her. She fell silent.
Master was looking down at her with his mouth slightly parted. In the background, the sea endlessly churned and unseen seagulls cried out.
They kissed. Hard and long. Lips parted and tongues engaged in an erotic dance that had her moaning low in her throat. Her nipples throbbed and sex juices dribbled. Heedless to the strain in her calves and arms, she held on with all her strength. She locked her hands around his neck. He cupped her buttocks and all but lifted her off her feet. This isn’t happening, she tried to tell herself. She wasn’t clinging to and kissing the man who’d turned her into a sex slave, and yet she was.
Because she needed the memory.
When he stopped supporting her, she sank back down. Her breasts were no longer sealed to him, but the hard burning sensation in them remained, as did the pulsing in her sex. His cock had been a hard, insistent length, and his lips looked as bruised as hers felt. She had no words, no explanation for what had just happened.
“One last time,” he said and unzipped his jeans. She didn’t wait for him to pull out his cock before yanking off the shorts he’d given her and kicking them away.
He claimed her space with a single step, closed his hands around her waist and lifted her. Understanding, she spread her legs and arched her pelvis toward him. He entered her in a long, fluid invasion. She wrapped her legs around him and pressed her heels into his buttocks. She gripped his shoulders. Powerful as he was, he easily kept her in place as he began bucking against her.
She was riding him, being ridden by him, two bodies joined in an ancient and primitive ritual. No words. Nothing approaching an explanation, because there wasn’t any. He barely existed beyond body and cock and she didn’t care that he was using her, if he was.
&
nbsp; They were ending. Their chapter over. Finishing on a high and hot note.
She swore she heard her body snap and crackle as she had sex with the man who’d locked a collar around her neck. Thoughts came to life but kept dying.
“Damn you.”
“No,” she shot back. “Damn you.”
He made a sound that could have been a chuckle or a curse. Instead of trying to determine which it was, she stared up at stars she hadn’t seen for so long. A burning, building sensation exploded from her core and encompassed her. She started flying, drowning, rising and falling, screaming. Head back and nails digging into his shoulders, she lost herself in the moon and a long and thunderous climax. Holding her hard against him, he repeatedly slammed into her. Came.
When he had nothing more to give and her legs lacked the strength to go on gripping him, he eased her to the ground. They stood near but not touching for what might have been a full minute, each sucking in air. Then, saying nothing, he picked up her discarded clothes and pointed in the direction they’d come from.
Their time together was over.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“I’m scared,” the slave standing next to Marina whispered. “And excited. I think I know who’s going to buy me. If it’s him, I couldn’t ask for more.”
Instead of pointing out that freedom should have been that more, Marina only nodded. It was early afternoon and she, along with a half-dozen other slaves, were in a small, windowless room with two doors. One at a time they’d been led through the small door and were now waiting for the larger to open. Unlike yesterday when they’d been pawed over, except for their collars and the leashes dangling from them, they were free. They were naked, of course. Judging by the multitude of aromas, every slave had taken care with their personal hygiene. They even had makeup on.
Of course. A slave needed to look as attractive and valuable as possible in order to garner a high price. She’d thought Master would oversee her preparations, but she hadn’t seen him since he’d returned her to her room last night. Instead, the middle-aged woman she’d heard referred to as Mrs. Johnson had brought cosmetics and a curling iron and ordered Marina not to move as she painted her face and added waves to her straight hair.
