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  The doctor rummaged through a briefcase I hadn’t noticed before, and withdrew a tube—one that looked similar to the soothing cream Derek had applied to the wounds Marcos had inflicted. He handed the tube to Derek.

  “It’s expensive, but after our last…meeting, I went searching for something that would be helpful. It’s recently been approved for wound care, and I think in this case it will be well worth its price. Applied three times a day, it should prevent most scarring, even in deep wounds.”

  My gaze shot to Derek’s hand and the inconspicuous looking tube in it. No scars?—or at least far fewer. No proof of my body of all the vile things that had been done to it? It seemed like a precious gift, so much that I could feel a tiny tug at the corners of my lips, trying to shape them into a small smile.

  But did it change anything? Would Derek ever be able to look at me and not see what I’d looked like when he’d stormed into my cell? Would I? If the scars were gone, could I forget what they’d done, or how the devil had made my body respond? No. I would never forget. Those endless days had been burned into my memory like a brand from the hottest iron.

  I closed my eyes, having lost interest in the tube. I heard the rattle of pill bottles—probably more painkillers—and then footsteps retreated toward the door. They conversed in low tones, but I had no interest in eavesdropping this time.

  By the time Derek returned, I’d already begun to drift off. I debated continuing down into oblivion, but the tension that radiated from him kept me teetering on the edge, and eventually, drew me back u to the surface. When I opened my eyes, he was standing next to the bed, looking down at me. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Explain it to me, Scar,” he said. His voice was gentle, but it brooked no refusal.

  I had no doubt what he was referring to, but how could I explain it to him? Maybe simple was best. “I need it to be my choice. I need to experience it, and know I put myself here this time.”

  He nodded, and I expected him to say something, either in agreement or in protest, but he didn’t. Not one word. He strode out of the room and into the ensuite and shut the door behind him. I debated following him, but if he’d wanted me there, he would have brought me with him. He didn’t want me there.

  He didn’t want me. If he understood what I was asking, then it was the only explanation that made sense. When he’d kidnapped me, he had wanted me. He’d wanted to control me. He’d wanted me to submit to his will, and his alone. But now, when I was choosing to offer myself up to him, he walked away and locked himself in the bathroom. I was used goods. I wouldn’t want me either.

  I curled up as tight as my ribs would allow and closed my eyes. Tears leaked out the corners, but before they’d saturated the pillow, the bathroom door swung open. He was standing in the doorway, a towel slung low around his hips and his flesh still damp from the shower. He was beautiful, perfectly sculpted. Awareness crept through my veins—a feeling I hadn’t experienced in what seemed like a very long time. I wanted to block it out. The deep, dark shame inside me said I had no right to be looking at him this way, but I couldn’t help it.

  By the time my gaze had made its way up to his eyes, I was warmer. The heavy blanket was stifling. But he was looking back at me, and the reflection I’d glimpsed of myself earlier in the broken shard of glass flashed through my mind. That’s what he was seeing. That’s what I looked like now. The heat fled and I tucked the blanket more tightly around my body.

  “Dr Fuentes left this for you,” he said, picking up the tube he’d left on the nightstand. “You’re going to roll over for me, and while I put it on you, you’re going to tell me exactly what’s going through your head.” He tone was still gentle, and it still brooked no refusal.

  I struggled from my side and onto my stomach while he stood motionless. He wasn’t going to help me. He wasn’t going to move until I’d complied. It was the closest I had felt to peace since he let me kneel between his thighs and he fed me his fast food burger from his fingers. Fucked up, maybe, but it was the least fucked up I’d felt since that day.

  My ribs protested, but I succeeded, and then waited patiently as he picked up the tube, rolled down the blanket to expose my back, and sat down on the bed next to me. “Talk, Pet,” he said as he squeezed some of the thick, opaque gel onto his fingers and rubbed it gently across a wound just below my neck.

  “I know it probably sounds crazy…”

  “No,” he interrupted. “Don’t tell me what you think is going on in my head. I want to know what’s going on in yours.”

  “It’s…what happened, is in my head all the time. I feel helpless.”

  His fingers faltered but then moved smoothly again across my mutilated flesh.

  “I learned a lot about myself with you…before. I learned that I didn’t need to be in control, that as long as I trusted you, I didn’t need that. It felt as easy as breathing to offer that up. But…but it was never my choice. I need it to be my choice.”

  “I want to help, but fuck Scar, do you have any idea what you’re asking? Before…it was never an act. I feel guilty as fuck for what I did to you, but…I wanted to do those things—and that makes the guilt about a thousand times worse. Now though, after all, I did to you after all those sons of bitches did to you…how can I do what you’re asking?”

  At least it did seem like he understood what it was I wanted. Except, I didn’t just want it—I needed it. And by Derek’s own admission, it hadn’t been an act on his part. It came naturally to him. I was only asking him to be…him. Thinking about it that way made it easier to push harder.

  “I need this. And you’re the only man I want to do this. I don’t want to even think about trying to find some professional dominant…”

  “Over my dead body,” he said, his voice calm and cool—and a little scary this time.

  But it was precisely the response I’d been hoping for. It meant that some part of him still wanted me and had no intention of sharing me with anyone. I held my breath, waiting. I could think of no other way to sway him, so I could only hope what I’d said was enough.

  “All right,” he breathed, and I exhaled with him. “But not here. I’m taking you home, Scar.”

  Home? I didn’t have a home anymore. Derek was my home. “I don’t…”

  “My home.”

  “I didn’t know you had a home,” I said stupidly. Of course, he had a home somewhere. He wasn’t a desert nomad.

  “That’s because no one but me has ever been there.”

  I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I didn’t want to consider what it meant that he wanted to take me to his home. I didn’t want to hope that maybe, even after I was healed, he would still want me. But it was difficult not to when he said things like that. He was taking me somewhere no other person—no other woman—had ever been. That had to mean something, didn’t it? But…

  “Is it safe? I mean, don’t we need to stay hidden?”

  “I’ve been in touch with various contacts since we got here. The story is you escaped when Marcos’ car was attacked, but recaptured by a rival group. I’ve been hunting you down and looking for signs that Marcos is still alive. As a loyal follower, I can’t accept that he’s dead, and I’m keeping you in tow to hand over to him when I find him.”

  Oh. I’d had no idea he’d been busy setting up a story that would mean we no longer had to run and hide. I didn’t care in the least that it cast me as the naughty runaway slave. It was perfect because it meant no one would come after me since I was already in Derek’s possession. And most importantly, it means no one was coming after Derek. He was safe.

  He was taking me to his home, and there he would help me heal. I allowed the ripple of hope that ran through me to have its moment. I didn’t even try to squelch it. I closed my eyes and focused on the feel of his strong hands as they smoothed miracle-cream down my back.

  “Thank you,” I whispered as the tiredness I’d pushed back earlier closed in on me again.

  “Save your t
hanks, Pet. You might not be feeling so appreciative soon,” he whispered back, his voice as raw as it had been that first day I’d woken up in the hotel room.

  I was too tired to respond, so I brought his words down with me, trying to mull them over as I drifted off to sleep. Was he right? No, he couldn’t be, I decided as I lingered somewhere between awake and asleep.

  My tormentor’s whip cracked in the air all around me, echoing off the stone walls as the nightmare pulled me in. Always helpless. Powerless. Awake or asleep, nothing was my choice.

  But it would be soon.

  2

  Derek

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What the fuck had I agreed to? I asked myself for the thousandth time since Scar had made her request. Three days had passed since then, and I felt no better about it now than I had then. She’d said it was what she needed, but could I do it? I’d told her I would do whatever it took for her to heal, but could I go through with this?

  The most fucked up part of it was I knew the answer. As much as I hated myself for it, I knew. I would never stop hungering for it—for her. I craved her submission like an addict. Scar, offering herself up—it was the most potent drug on earth.

  I crossed lanes and took the exit off the highway. Twenty-three minutes—less than half an hour, and I’ve had to make good on my agreement. Already I’d noticed a change in her. She’d still slept a lot the past three days, but when she was awake, it was as if more of her was awake than had been before. She was still content to lay in my arms as I rambled on about shit—most of which I’d never told another living soul—but she asked questions now and then, and even injected a few thoughts of her own.

  When I’d found her in that basement, I’d feared that even if she healed physically, she would never fully come back from the dark place those fuckers had taken her. But I’d known she was strong, that she would find a way. I’d just never imagined this would be the way.

  I glanced over at her sleeping form, her lips slightly parted and her features relaxed. Inside and out, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever known. I would never stop craving her, but right now, after all, that had happened to her, what I was about to do was going to be the most difficult thing I’d ever done. Difficult, not only because of what they’d done to her but because part of me was going to enjoy it.

  The streets flew by without my notice. I was on auto-pilot. It had been months since I’d been back here, but I would have been able to make the trip with my eyes closed. It was home, far-removed from everything else in the world. No one else had ever been there because I hadn’t wanted them to taint it. But Scar, she belonged there. Our home.

  Fuck, that was some sappy shit, but there it was.

  I made a quick stop at the post office and then, precisely twenty-three minutes after pulling off the highway, I slowed as I approached the gates. A retinal scan and 12-digit code later, the gate opened and I put my hand on Scar’s shoulder to wake her.

  Her eyes fluttered open and then went wide in fear, but she became aware faster than before and she turned to look at me. I smiled and then nodded ahead of us, then drove slowly up the winding drive. Her eyes went wide in astonishment, not fear this time, and I bit back a grin. Yeah, she was impressed. Two storeys of stone and glass—a five-thousand square foot escape from my everyday life. It was small in comparison to Marcos’ home, but it was perfect for me.

  We reached the top of the drive, and she was still staring wide-eyed at the house. The property surrounding it wasn’t much to look at—rock and stone and self-sustaining shrubs. Allowing no one else here meant I didn’t employ landscapers, and I wasn’t exactly the gardener type. It was tidy though and serene.

  “It’s beautiful,” she breathed finally.

  “It’s ours…unless you want to tear it down and build something from scratch.” It seemed like a waste of a house, but if that’s what it took for her to feel comfortable here, I’d do it.

  “Of course not,” she said, though her countenance had changed.

  She was nervous. A new place. More unknowns. Maybe I should have insisted we stay at the hotel longer. Since it was too late for that, I slid out of the car and came around to help her out. Her ribs were healing, but the seats were lower than the bed height she’d had to manage at the hotel.

  She wrapped her arms around me as I slid my hands beneath her arms to help her up, but once on her feet, she didn’t let go. She was breathing faster and I could feel the pounding of her heart against my chest.

  “I know it’s ridiculous, it’s just…” she started to explain.

  “It’s new and different, and it’s already hard enough to deal with things you are accustomed to,” I finished for her. She knew my history now. She didn’t have to wonder how I could relate.

  She nodded against my chest, and it only took a minute for her breathing to return to normal. When it did, I took her hand and led her up the front steps. She was intrigued by the retinal and fingerprint security checks at the door, and hopefully, it would help to reassure her nothing was getting in without my permission.

  And then we were inside, and I was closing the door and re-engaging the security system. Clutching tight to my hand, she gazed around in wonder. Marble and granite, leather and crystal, the décor were extravagant, and the open floor plan, even more of a wonder to behold—not nearly as magnificent as the woman standing next to me though.

  This was it. She was here—in a place I could never have imagined she would be a few short months ago. But I knew what came next—what I’d agreed would come once we were here. A part of me hoped she’d forgotten or changed her mind. Another part of me very much hoped she hadn’t.

  “I know what I asked, but I don’t know how…or what I should do.”

  Well, she hadn’t forgotten.

  This part should have been simple. A master controls while a submissive submits. I wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with the premise. But I’d had some time to think this over the past three days, and if I was going to go through with this, I wanted a few modifications to the typical structure—whether she liked it or not.

  “I’m going to take you on a tour of the house, and then we’re going to discuss the ground rules.”

  “Rules?”

  “Tour first, then rules.”

  I kept the tour brief—she’d have plenty of time to get acquainted with the house—and I deliberately concluded the tour in the sunken den at the far side of the house.

  “All right, Scar, this room is my first ground rule. And it’s non-negotiable. In this room, you’re Scarlett Donovan. You say what you think and you do only what you want. Understand?”

  “I don’t…”

  “Consider it a rhetorical question, Pet. Like I said, it’s not negotiable. You will spend time in this room every day. When and how much time is up to me.”

  She nodded, though her teeth had clasped onto her bottom lip and she worried the plush flesh.

  “Outside this room, you will make every effort to obey me. Until your ribs have healed, you will inform me if you are physically not able to comply.”

  She didn’t even try to argue me this time. She nodded and continued to toy with her lip.

  That was it. There was just one more thing.

  “This is what you want, Scar?” I needed to hear her say it.

  “Yes, this is my choice.”

  There was no more putting this off unless I intended to back out like a pussy—and that wasn’t what Scar needed.

  “Do you remember the way to the master bedroom?”

  She nodded, and I waited patiently for her to remember her training and answer me verbally. “Yes, I do, M-master,” she whispered.

  “I want you to walk there now. Sit down on the edge of the bed and wait for me.” I had packages to collect from the car, and a chance to collect my thoughts wasn’t the worst idea.

  When I opened the bedroom door a few minutes later, she was sitting perched t the edge of the bed like I’d told her. Her hands were folded neatly in her la
p. She looked up at me uncertainly, then to the ground in front of her, and back up at me.

  Fuck. She was trying to figure out whether she should kneel, and the heat that shot through me had no business being there. This was for her—I wasn’t fucking supposed to be getting off on it.

  I walked to the bed and deposited the parcels and bag on the floor before pulling out the tube of cream. Whatever the hell it was, the cream was amazing. After just a few days, the wound on her cheek had gotten smaller and the edges were beginning to resemble the smooth skin on the rest of her face. She’d be beautiful no matter what, but I was glad she wouldn’t be left with permanent scars as a constant reminder.

  “Take off your clothes and lay down on your stomach, Pet.” This was a good place to start. She’d gotten accustomed to me touching her to apply the cream, and though I’d never made her strip down for it, she hadn’t objected to me helping her to shower. I ignored the way my cock twitched when she stood to obey me.

  I watched as she stripped. Her fingers shook almost imperceptibly, but she didn’t hesitate. The war in my head surged out of control as she exposed creamy flesh. She was too thin. She’d only gained back a small portion of the weight she’d lost and I could see every rib. But I could also see perfectly shaped breasts, curvy hips and long, lithe legs. All of her perfection was marred by fading bruises and cuts, but perfect nonetheless.

  Without looking at me, she climbed up on the bed and laid down on her stomach. I started at her feet, gazing upward over calves and thighs, the rounded curve of her ass. I wanted to fuck her, and I wanted to beat the shit out of me for wanting it. The proof of what she’d been through was right there, so how the hell could looking at her still be making me hard as rock?

  Feeling like scum, I sat down beside her and started at her neck, rubbing the cream like she was used to me doing. Her muscles relaxed beneath my fingers but as I rubbed the cream into the deep lash marks where the curve of her ass met her thighs, her muscles began to tense. I’d been applying the cream between her legs at the hotel, but always under the covers. She knew I would see her now and it was already making her breathing come quicker, in panic, not in the anticipation of pleasure.