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I cried out as the vibrations started again while his eyes got brighter, even fierier than they’d already been.

  “Is that so? I like your thinking, Pet.”

  “Please, Master,” I moaned.

  He removed the clamp from my clit, but before I could breathe a sigh of relief, his fingers replaced it, rubbing soft and slow. I tried to press my clit harder against him, but he wouldn’t allow it. The fingers on his other hand slid along my sex, so slippery it felt like I was covered in the lube he’d put on the plug. And when he held his fingers up in front of me, I could see they were soaking wet.

  I watched as he slid them into his mouth and sucked off my juices. Then his fingers were back, gliding along my sex. He lifted them to my mouth this time. I offered no resistance when he pushed them past my lips. I sucked just as greedily as he had.

  As if in reward, he replaced his fingers on my clit with his tongue. God yes, it was all I needed.

  I only just managed to avoid biting down on the finger still in my mouth as an orgasm tore through my body with the force of a hurricane. Wave after wave after wave. I wasn’t sure if it was ever going to stop.

  When it finally did begin to subside, his tongue left me, and I thought I might just fall asleep in the blink of an eye and not wake up for a week. But then he was untying me and stripping off his pants. My mouth started to water and the flames that had only just barely been squelched flared to life.

  He gripped his massive erection and stroked it slowly while he looked down at me. When his eyes settled between my open legs, I started to worry that he intended to do the thing I’d thought about. Suddenly, I wanted the plug out of me, as if that could somehow make him forget all about that part of me.

  “Relax, Pet. I’m not going to fuck you there…yet. But I am going to keep that plug in your ass while I fuck your pussy.”

  Now that he’d put that worry to rest, arousal surged through me at full force. He was on top of me in seconds, and his cock slid through my wetness up to my clit. I jerked beneath him as I lunged for his mouth. He let me slide my tongue between his lips and it was strangely erotic to know we were both tasting me.

  He thrust in all of a sudden, hard and deep. God, so freaking deep. Though he only filled one part of me, I could feel him everywhere, from my fingertips to my toes. Connected. Joined. Possessing every fiber of my being.

  I wrapped my legs around his hips and reached for his shoulders at the same time, clinging to him as he withdrew until only the tip of him remained inside me. He lingered there, and I arched my hips, trying to draw him back in deeper.

  “Tell me what you want,” he demanded against my lips.

  “I want you to fuck me, Master. I don’t want you to ever stop.”

  He groaned and plunged in, but just a little. “It seems this morning has made you greedy, Pet.”

  Was that a good or bad thing? I had no idea what the right answer was. Had it even been a question? So I just nodded against him.

  “Good. I like you this way,” he said as he slammed in deep.

  I cried out as he thrust against my cervix. It hurt in the most sinfully exquisite way. The pain burst outward and electrified every nerve in my sex.

  “You like that?” he asked as he withdrew and rammed back in.

  “Yes,” I cried. “Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.”

  And he didn’t. He drove in deep, over and over again. I climbed so high, so fast, I had to look down to see heaven by the time he sent me careening over the precipice.

  “Fuck!” he shouted as shockwaves pulsed through my own body, and he swelled deep inside me.

  I imagined his liquid heat filling me as I continued to spasm around him, forcing every drop of come from him before he collapsed on top of me.

  When he withdrew, he leaned up to watch as he removed the plug from my body. I felt empty, but I was too tired to care.

  I closed my eyes the moment he rolled onto his back and I was nestled in the crook of his arms. I could feel his heart beating against my hand on his chest, and the steady rhythm brought me under fast. I was so tired. It felt like I’d spent the past hours running a gruelling marathon with a fifty-pound weight on my shoulders. So tired.

  “Scar, I need you to get dressed.”

  His words seemed muffled and I had to struggle to make sense of them. And once I had, I wanted to ignore them and continue to drift off, wrapped in his arms. Something in his tone kept me there though. It wasn’t urgency exactly, but he wasn’t happy about something.

  “What’s wrong, Master?” I asked, trying to will my arms to push me up.

  “I went to meet with someone—someone who’s going to help us. He’s come back with me.”

  I bolted upright and looked around, my tiredness forgotten. Someone here? No, I didn’t want anyone but Derek here. Derek was safe. I could trust him.

  “Breathe, Scar. It’s OK.”

  I grabbed onto his words. I breathed in and out slowly, and I tried to believe it was OK. He was rubbing my back, but it made me cognizant of the wounds there, and I wanted him to stop.

  He did stop, without me asking, and he sat up, too. “Do you remember the man who helped us escape?”

  I thought back to that day, though it was the last thing I wanted to do. I remembered the men who had whipped me. I could see Derek’s big frame appearing there outside my cell, and felt the overwhelming urge to make him leave me there. I saw my father and the man holding the gun to his head. I could recall grabbing the gun Derek had placed on the floor for me, and I remembered shooting my father.

  Another man, though?—one that had helped us? There was no help in that place. There was no help in hell. But wait, I vaguely recalled another figure standing there. He’d led the way out of the basement and then disappeared to unlock the doors.

  Oh god, the doors. He was the man who controlled the locks? He was the one who’d unlocked my cell to let those monsters in over and over again? He was here, in Derek’s house? No, please no. He couldn’t be here.

  “Please, I don’t want him here. He was there. He saw…everything. He let them…”

  “Scar, I wish there was another way, but there isn’t. Michael—that’s his name—he hated what happened to you. He wanted to help, but there was nothing he could do, not until I showed up there.”

  I nodded, trying to accept what he was saying, but it wasn’t just that he hadn’t stopped them. I wasn’t stupid—they would never have let him interfere. But he knew everything. He’d seen everything. He’d watched my wretched body respond to the things they did to me.

  “I know you don’t want this, but there’s more I have to tell you. OK?”

  “OK,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure if I was acknowledging he had more to tell me, or that I was OK to listen—I wasn’t sure about the latter.

  “Your mother had a sister. Her name was Alicia. Marcos took her—eight years ago. Before that, Alicia was married—to Michael. In a roundabout way, that makes him your uncle.”

  My uncle? I dimly recalled my mother talking about a sister, but I’d never met her. I had an aunt?—married to a man who was apparently my uncle? I’d never had an uncle before, and I didn’t want one now. It made it worse, didn’t it? It wasn’t some stranger who’d borne witness to my depravity. It was a man who’d been married to my own flesh and blood.

  “You don’t have to come meet him if you don’t want to. I just thought if he was going to be in the house, you’d prefer it, so it didn’t feel as much like a stranger was here.”

  What Derek was saying made sense, but he didn’t understand. He still thought there was nothing dirty or wrong about how my body had responded. He didn’t understand that of all the things they did to me, that was the worst. The wounds on my body, they would heal, but the ones in my soul, the ones that had torn bigger with every orgasm they drew from my body, it felt like they would fester forever.

  They’d changed my perception of myself. I’d always been terrified of turning into a whore like my father had ac
cused me, but I’d always fought it, too. I’d known that part of me existed, and worked damn hard to keep it buried down deep.

  If I was being brutally honest though, in that dungeon, I’d stopped fighting. It didn’t take long before that twisted part of me looked forward to it because there was no pain when he forced me to feel pleasure. No whips. No fists. No tearing me apart. For those few minutes, there was only pleasure.

  How could I face the man who’d seen me become a whore? Would he scoff at the feelings I had for Derek? Would he think someone like me was incapable of loving a man with every piece of my heart when I had willingly given my body to someone else?

  I was about to tell Derek I didn’t want to see him, that I couldn’t possibly face him when another thought—a much more important thought—struck me. Derek had said this man was here to help. Help, how? Help Derek confront Mateo Lopez? Or help get me far away from here? If it was the latter, I needed to meet this man. I needed to get to know him—fast—so I could figure out exactly how to manipulate him into ignoring Derek’s plan.

  I couldn’t get on that plane. I needed to follow Derek so I could help him. I could distract Lopez’s men, or even Lopez himself. I could shoot them if I needed to—I’d shot the man who’d been my father for years without hesitation when he’d threatened Derek’s life. So, I knew I could do this. And this man who knew all my darkest secrets was going to help me.

  “All right,” I whispered.

  He nodded and stood up, striding across the room to the closet bare naked. I loved that he was so comfortable with his body. There was something immensely appealing about that kind of confidence. So, I didn’t try to avert my gaze when he came back to the bed with a sweater in one hand. He grabbed one of the other unopened boxes and my breath caught in my throat. I’d seen—and experienced—the things in those boxes. What could he possibly have in mind now?

  “Don’t worry, Pet, there are no surprises in this box. Just clothes.”

  Thank god. He opened the box and handed me a pair of tights and a t-shirt, along with basic underthings. I hadn’t worn anything like these since before…before I’d been taken from Derek. It felt strange to put on clothes that covered up so much of me, but I couldn’t deny these were better than those old clothes. They were soft against my skin, obviously expensive fabric. And covering up made me feel a little better about meeting the man downstairs.

  It wasn’t cold in the house, but Derek helped me put on his sweater, and though the arms hung down past my fingertips, it was better. Like armor.

  He brushed my hair back and gathered it into a ponytail at the nape of my neck and then brought me a damp cloth for my face before he turned his attention to his own clothes. He could be so gentle when he wanted to be. It was strange, in the most wonderful way. He could tie me up, pin me down and spank me with just as much ease as when he brushed my hair or held me in his arms. I’d seen every side of him, and the way he embodied them all was fascinating.

  He took my hand when he was dressed and lingered only long enough to drop a light kiss on my forehead before he led me out of the room and down the stairs. My hands trembled, but I kept steering my thoughts back to the task at hand—finding a way to get that man to help me. It was all that mattered.

  11

  Scarlett

  We were down the stairs and across the house to the den in what felt like seconds. It was too fast. I needed more time. Except, looking around, there was no one here. Where was the man?

  “I left him in the garage,” Derek said with a sexy grin, and my cheeks grew warm thinking what the man would have heard if Derek had brought him in the house when I was still tied to the bed and writhing in rapturous misery.

  What difference would it have made? I thought glumly. That man had heard and seen everything in that dungeon.

  “Ready, Scar?”

  I nodded because I didn’t have any choice but to be ready.

  Derek left me with a kiss while I stood, staring at the floor. The hardwood was dark, so dark I had to look closely to see the grain in the rich stain. Mahogany, I thought, but it was only a guess. The planks were narrow. Thousands of them ran together to cover the floor space, though the stairs to the sunken den broke up their continuity. I wasn’t sure when I had become so fascinated with flooring. I suppose after spending a great deal of time with my head lowered, there wasn’t much else to notice down here but the floors.

  I heard two sets of footsteps returning. They moved almost in tandem, but just slightly out of sync. As they came closer, both sets slowed as if they were nearing a frightened animal and they were afraid of spooking it.

  I was the frightened animal, I realized, and that was precisely what they were doing.

  I saw Derek’s shoes first, and I felt the urge to kneel, but I didn’t. I wasn’t supposed to here. Besides, I somehow had to convince the other man I wasn’t a basket case. I took deep breaths and exhaled slowly, trying to ignore the way my heart pounded harder with every step the unfamiliar shoes took toward me. Thankfully, he stopped at least ten feet away. Derek kept coming though and I felt a little calmer when he was in front of me.

  “Scar, this is Michael Ramos,” he said. He tilted my chin up, but to look at him, not the other man.

  “Hello, Michael,” I said, still looking at Derek. That made it easier. But I couldn’t care about easy. Strong. Competent. That’s what I needed this man to see.

  So, I forced my gaze across the room to where he was standing. He looked the same as he had that day. His short, messy-styled hair with just a few strands of grey at his temples, his handsome features and cautious expression. The same. Is that how he always looked? When he watched me on the monitors, is that how he’d looked?

  I didn’t realize how badly I was shaking until Derek urged me to sit down with a gentle hand at my back. A tear trickled down my cheek as I lowered myself onto the sofa, and I brushed it away, angry with myself for being so weak. I had to pull myself together—fast.

  “You knew my aunt?” I said, voicing the first thought that came to mind. Anything had to be better than sitting here crying, right?

  “Yes.” His lips curved up into a small smile.

  I think my aunt—whoever she was—probably liked his smile. It was nice. It wasn’t powerful enough to ripple through me like Derek’s smile, but it was pleasant. I hoped he smiled at her a lot.

  “I never knew her. My mother didn’t talk about her often. Maybe you wouldn’t mind telling me about her sometime?”

  His smile grew a little bigger. “I would like that, Scarlett.”

  Derek went and retrieved a bottle of something and three glasses while Michael and I remained a frozen tableau. When he returned, he filled two glasses. Then he splashed a small amount in the third one and handed it to me before giving Michael one of the fuller glasses. Both men quickly downed the liquid—scotch, according to the bottle. I sat staring at my glass. I’d never had scotch before. I’d never had any alcohol before, actually. And something about it made me think I didn’t want to start now. Maybe I was just offended I was getting a kid-sized drink in comparison to theirs. Either way, I just held the glass, staring at the golden yellow scotch that covered the bottom.

  “Michael is going to be driving you to Phoenix in three days. He’ll make sure you get on the plane safely the next morning,” Derek explained what I’d already suspected, but Phoenix? Was he driving me back to the U.S.?

  It didn’t matter. There was still no way in hell I was going to Arizona or getting on any plane. I nodded but kept my head down though so he couldn’t read what I was thinking.

  “You’ll be safe, Scarlett. I promise you,” Michael said, and though he spoke with well-meaning vehemence in his voice, I wanted to tell him not to make promises he couldn’t keep.

  “Thank you,” I said instead.

  I must have been convincing them both because Derek sat down and started going into detail about the plan—the part where he gets me out of here, not the part where he goes to face Mat
eo alone. I didn’t even know where he would be meeting him. I needed to find out without raising his suspicions.

  “Why can’t I stay with you? How far could it possibly be to the airport? And then you and I could go together—safe.” It sounded kind of lame once the words were out, but it was too late to take them back.

  “Scarlett, it’s an eight-hour drive from where Lopez is expecting Derek,” Michael replied—unknowingly helpful.

  Derek growled and slammed his glass down on the coffee table. “Can I have a word with you, Michael?” It might have been phrased as a question, but it wasn’t a question.

  “I only meant that it would be a long distance for the two of you to travel—possibly with his men after you the whole time,” Michael continued, thinking he was on the right track.

  “A word. Now,” Derek barked, and the two of them left the den, but the damage had already been done.

  Sure, it wasn’t a hand-drawn map to the meeting spot, but I also knew from what Derek had told me that the meeting would take place at a landing strip. All I needed to do was figure out what landing strip near here was eight hours from Phoenix.

  When they returned, Michael looked appropriately contrite, and I felt a pang of guilt for getting him into trouble. He couldn’t have known I had no intention of going along with Derek’s plan.

  Derek’s eyes were on me as he crossed the room and sat down next to me.

  “Scar, get it out of your head. I know you want to help, but I need you to live. Do you understand? There isn’t anything in this world more important. Not Mateo Lopez, not me. Nothing. I’d walk away from this and fly with you to the other side of the world if I could, but I can’t. I have to end this. No matter the cost, you have to be safe.”

  I looked at Michael, then back to Derek. They wore the same determined expressions. Damn it, Michael wasn’t going to help me. Maybe neither of them cared if Derek died, but I did. And it looked like I was going to have to do this on my own.

  We stayed in the den for another two hours, though there was no more talk of escape plans. After a few minutes of tense silence, Michael had turned the conversation to his wife, telling me about how they met, how she spoke of my mother often—their childhood together and my mother getting caught up with the wrong people. I told him what I could about my mother, how she spoke of her family on occasion, how we’d moved a lot, though I didn’t know why until recently. Whether it was James or Marcos she’d been trying to hide from, I’d never know for sure though—probably both of them.