“I sent you away against my will, too,” he said. “I never wanted to let you go, but I had to.”
“That’s bullshit. You did what you wanted, just like you always do, and now you do this to me? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I’m sorry. This was never my intention.”
“So what’s this all about? Take off the hood, Monster.”
“No.”
“What?” She rocked in the chair, slamming her feet against the floor. “Take off the fucking hood.”
“I can’t. Nothing has changed. I still need you to agree to the terms before I can set you free.”
“The terms?”
“Yes, to leave the city, change your name, and never come back.”
“So just sending me away from Cuba wasn’t enough. You want to make it look like I never even existed.”
“Yes,” he said, though the words hurt to say. “That’s exactly what I need to happen.”
“How about what I need? What I want? Does that count for nothing?”
“What you need and want will mean nothing if the man who wants you takes you.”
She froze.
He wished he could see her face, look into her eyes, even if it was so she could shoot him daggers as though she hated him. Somehow he felt like even more of a coward by not looking into her face. But if he gave her what she wanted, if he made her think he would give in by even a fraction, then she would think he’d give in altogether. He couldn’t do that. He needed to force her to leave, even if it hurt her. Even if it hurt them both.
“What did you do with Cameron?” she asked suddenly, steering his train of thought in another direction.
“Who is Cameron?” He kept his tone cool, though he knew exactly who Cameron was.
“The man I was with.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because he’s a friend. He was helping me, unlike you.”
“Only a friend, Flower? I’ve heard he was more.”
“That stopped being your business the moment you drugged me and had me carted back to America like a piece of livestock. Where is he? Did you kill him?”
“No, not me.”
“So you had someone else do it?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“Fuck you, Monster!”
Her voice may have been muffled, her face covered, but he felt every syllable of anger in her words as though she had struck him with them. He longed to remove the cover from her face. He’d silence her words by pressing his lips to hers and forcing his tongue inside her mouth, while his hand knotted in her hair to hold her still, but he turned away, fighting against the desire.
“Please, Flower, just do as I ask and this will all be over.”
“You’re asking me to give up everything—my home, my job, my name—and on what basis? Because you said so?”
“There are no other options.”
She sat up straighter. “Yes, there are. There are always options. That’s the thing about being human. God gave us free will—remember? We get to make choices.”
He gave a short laugh. “To believe that, I’d need to believe in God.”
“Or maybe just believing in your own humanity would be enough.”
Humanity. How was he supposed to believe in a species that seemed intent only on hurting and murdering one another? His whole life, he’d known nothing but pain. Even his love for her couldn’t heal the wounds that had been festering ever since he was a small child. It wouldn’t stop. This world would keep hurting him, and the worst possible thing he could imagine was Lily dead and him forced to live in a world which she was no longer in.
Fifteen
She couldn’t believe Monster was the one responsible for abducting her again.
A huge part of her was relieved. At least she wasn’t about to be sold off to some millionaire Arab sheik—though she couldn’t imagine what an Arab sheik would ever want with a woman like her. Another part of her—the girlish, stupid part that was still in love with him—was happy and thrilled he’d come to America for her. Doing so must have been a huge step for him. After all, it had only been a matter of weeks since he’d left his property for the first time in his life. Getting on an airplane and traveling to another country must mean he cared about what he was doing, however screwed up he was.
But the final part of her was just really fucking angry.
“Fine,” she said, “so say you don’t believe we get to make our own choices, and we have to do as we’re told. What exactly are you planning on doing? Are you going to keep me tied up in a hotel suite until I agree to what you want?”
“That’s pretty much my plan right now,” he said, his tone cool.
She wished she could see him. Did he look different than he had a couple of days ago? It felt like so much longer, a month, at least, a lifetime, in fact. Had his birthmark faded at all? Had he been applying the creams he needed? She knew she shouldn’t care, but she couldn’t just switch off. Not like him.
But if he’s switched off his emotions, why is he here?
If he no longer cared about her, why would he go to all this effort to try to make her disappear? If he felt nothing, surely he’d just let whoever wanted her take her. Why would he go to all this trouble?
“Please, Monster,” she said, between gritted teeth, trying to repress her fury. “Just take this God-damned bag off my head so we can talk like two reasonable adults.”
He laughed, and the sound did strange things to her insides. How could she both love and hate the same sound? “Oh, Flower. Since when have I ever been reasonable?”
He had a point.
“So you keep me here, and what? Deprive me of light, of food, of the dignity of using the bathroom?”
“I never did that to you,” he said, quickly.
“Perhaps not directly, but it was because of you I went through that humiliation.”
When he spoke again, it was measured. “There are certain things I regret about how I brought you to Cuba, but I knew no different.”
“Ignorance isn’t an excuse,” she spat.
She heard him exhale a long sigh, and sensed his movement and heard his footsteps as he paced slowly in front of her. She wondered if the other man was still in the room, or if he’d left already to give them some privacy. If he had, she hadn’t heard his movement, but then she assumed trained … what, kidnappers? … would be practiced in stealth.
He finally spoke, and his voice made her jump.
“I want to know about the man you’ve been with.”
Her stomach coiled with a sickening guilt. “He’s a friend, that’s all, or at least he was.”
“So why were you kissing him?”
She started back. “I wasn’t! He kissed me, but it wasn’t the same.” She thought of something. “So you were watching me, even then?”
“Not me, but the men I hired, yes. You don’t think I would just leave you unsupervised in the city?”
“I’m not a child,” she bit out. “I don’t need supervising!”
“But back to this man,” he continued, ignoring her comment. “I was only told about what happened outside of the apartment. What about inside?” She sensed him approach, the scent of his aftershave increasing, his footsteps growing closer, the air between them charged.
“Did he touch you, Flower?” he asked. “Did you let him? Did you like it?” Though his voice was measured, she could hear the anger barely veiled behind it. Her own emotions rose like a viper coiled to strike. How dared he be the one who was angry? After everything he’d put her through, he had no right.
“What if he did? You lost any right to me the moment you decided to send me back here. Perhaps I liked having a good man touch me, for once?”
“No, I don’t believe you. Even if you won’t admit it to yourself, you like the darkness I bring. Everyone else has left you cold. Something inside me speaks to you, the same way you connect with me. Perhaps we balance each other out—my darkness to your light.
”
She shook her head beneath the hood. “I don’t have any light. I haven’t since I came into adulthood.”
His voice softened. “I don’t believe that. You helped me. You brought me back to life.”
Lily held back a choked sob. “And you repay me by doing this to me.”
His fingertips made contact with the skin of her throat and she jerked away. What was he going to do to her? His touch ran lightly down her neck and onto her collarbone, before drifting lower, toward the swell of her breast. Her breath caught, every muscle in her body tightening. His touch left a trail of goose bumps across her flesh, sparking that fire inside her in a way no one else seemed capable of. Was it because this was all so taboo? Deep down, did she have a kink, or a fetish, she’d never been aware of, and now Monster had opened up her body to that way of thinking? Or did this go deeper, and she reacted to him simply because she loved the man—however fucked-up and cruel, and heartless he could be—and her body responded to him because her heart was already his?
His hand moved lower, skirting over her nipple, causing the areola to crinkle, and she took a sharp breath. He paused, his fingertips closing around the hardening bud, and he gave it a slow, firm squeeze that sent sparks racing down through her belly to collect between her thighs.
“Get off me, Monster,” she said, but her voice was breathy.
“Did your friend touch you like this?” he growled. “Did he touch your breasts and make you sigh?”
His hands slipped across her chest to apply the same attention to her other nipple.
“I told you,” she said, her breath heaving. “He didn’t touch me.”
The pinch on her nipple tightened, and she gasped. “Don’t lie to me, Flower. My guy saw him with his hands all over you.”
“He saw wrong. Cameron kissed me, and I tried to kiss him back, but I couldn’t make myself respond to him.”
“In the way you respond to me, you mean?”
She felt his other hand skim along the waistband of her jeans, and linger at her button and zipper. Was the man who’d taken her still here, watching Monster touch her? Why did that thought send a sick little thrill through her body? The spark had ignited a burn, a desire which took hold and thrust away all sensible thought. She wished more than anything that she didn’t want him the way she did, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Monster, please,” she managed to say, but even she didn’t know how she planned on finishing the sentence. What was she trying to ask him? Please stop, or please don’t stop?
His fingers slipped beneath the waistband of her jeans, skirting the soft breadth of her stomach. With a flick, he popped the button and dragged the zipper down. She sensed him kneel at her feet, his hand finally leaving her breast, and she missed the contact with a physical need.
Already her underwear was wet with her cream, her labia swollen and tingling with the rush of blood to that area.
Monster pulled off her sneakers, and then his hands met with her hips. While she knew she should be resisting him, her body had other ideas, and she lifted up her backside, allowing him to drag both her jeans and panties down her legs, until her limbs were free of material.
Blindfolded, she didn’t know how the man—or possibly men—was reacting to her partial nakedness. Was his employee watching as well? Where was Monster looking? Were his eyes focused on her now exposed pussy?
“Spread your legs for me, Flower,” Monster growled.
Did she dare? She should be focusing on far more important things than his commands, but she needed him. She’d missed him with an ache that felt as though someone had hollowed out her insides, and the throbbing pressure in her core begged for a release. If that made her weak and needy, then that was exactly what she was.
She stepped her feet apart and exposed herself to him.
His soft hair brushed against her inner thighs, and his breath gusted against her most intimate skin. Then his tongue was against her flesh, burying into the hot, wet core of her.
Lily moaned and squirmed in the chair, lifting her hips to meet his mouth. Though she couldn’t touch him like she wanted to, lace her fingers in his hair, or see the expression in his eyes as he looked up at her, his face buried between her thighs, the removal of those senses only heightened the sensation of his tongue against her slit.
He licked her from her very base, right up to her clit. His tongue flicked over the little bundle of nerves, dragging a guttural noise from her throat. His fingers pressed at her entrance and then pushed inside, and she bucked, her cries growing louder. His fingers curled inward, finding the soft, fleshy pad on her inside wall, stepping up her arousal to a mind-blowing level. She struggled in her bonds, wanting desperately to break free and completely let go, forget all the misery and fear she’d suffered and lose herself in the pleasure coursing through her body.
She still couldn’t see him, didn’t even know if the other man was watching, or if Monster had silently asked him to leave, but right at that moment she didn’t care who was watching. All she wanted was to find her release and bathe in the waves of pleasure afterward.
He suddenly pulled away from her, leaving her writhing in the chair, so close to that precipice of pleasure where she would just tumble off the edge. But nothing but air touched her intimately. She sensed Monster move away from her.
“I’d missed the taste of you,” he said, his voice as seductive as chocolate.
She gave a scream of frustration. “God damn it, Monster!”
“What if I just torture you like this?” he said. “I could bring you to the brink time and time again, and never let you have that final release.”
“What for? Just so you can torture me? Do you enjoy watching me suffer?”
“No, I enjoy watching you come, but I need you to do what I ask, and if this is a way to make that happen, then so be it.”
Even though he couldn’t see her, she arched her eyebrows beneath the bag. “You actually think I’ll give up my whole life just for an orgasm? You’re insane.”
“I don’t want you to give up your life. I’m the one trying to keep you alive!” She heard him move closer again, and she snapped her thighs together—the feelings that had been coursing through her body only moments before now making her feel used and dirty. How did he have this power over her?
“Anyway,” he continued, his voice low and seductive, “you might not think you would give up your life for that kind of release now, but give it a couple of days and you’ll be begging me to finish it.”
“At least take off the bag, please, Monster. I need to see you. You don’t have to uncuff me, but give me this one small thing.”
She sensed him hesitate and her heart leaped. He was thinking about it, at least. Perhaps he was worried that if he was able to look into her eyes, he’d give her a way of letting her change his mind. But perhaps he also wanted to see her face as much as she wanted to see his.
He leaned closer, and fingers lifted the rim of the hood. Lily caught a waft of her own musky arousal on his hand. She sat, stock still, not wanting to do or say anything that might change his mind.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” he said, his voice soft.
“Since when has anything we’ve ever done been a good idea?” she replied.
And he lifted off the hood.
Sixteen
He removed the bag, and she blinked in the sudden, unnatural light. Night had fallen outside the hotel window, and she sat beneath spotlights embedded in the ceiling.
Immediately, her eyes were drawn to the man standing before her.
She felt like she was seeing him again for the first time, the impact of his beauty striking her like a blow to the heart. His wavy dark hair was swept back from his face, highlighting his cheekbones. His full lips parted slightly as he regarded her, and her gaze swept down the side of his face with the birthmark. Though she could still see the area where the birthmark was, the deepness of the color was nothing like it had been when she’d first
laid eyes on him. Then it had been a blackish-purple. Now it was greatly faded, the edges pink in color, though some darker patches still remained. Even though it wasn’t perfect, the difference was striking.
Pride swelled up inside her. She’d done that. She’d made a difference to him. He’d said she’d brought him back to life, but she’d done so both physically and emotionally. She’d removed the thing that had made him a captive the whole of his life. Whatever Monster said, whatever he tried to frighten or threaten her with, their souls were joined now, and nothing he could do or say would change that.
She stared at him, and he stared back, unwavering.
Her love for him filled her so completely she felt like she would implode with it.
Overwhelmed by her vulnerability, Lily gave a sob. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and bury her face in his neck. She wanted him to hold her, stroke her hair, and tell her this had all been a terrible mistake. She wanted him to tell her that he loved her more than anything in the world and he would take her home to Cuba.
But of course none of those things happened. She was handcuffed to a chair, and though they were only a few feet apart, there was a gulf between them, wide and deep enough for her to fall into and never be seen again.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed seeing him. His beautiful, chocolate brown eyes weren’t full of cold regret, or hatred, or spite. Instead, they were filled with the deep longing and sadness she felt sure was reflected in her own. He didn’t want to be doing this. He didn’t want to send her away, or make her start a new life, but for some reason he felt he had to.
“I don’t know who you’re trying to protect me from,” she said, softly, “but I’d rather have a few more days of me and you than a whole lifetime of loneliness.”
He shook his head and turned away. “Don’t say such things.”
“Why not? I can say it if I mean it.”
“Because it can’t happen. What you’re asking is impossible.”
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