by Kitty Thomas
It wasn't the kink. It was the fact that it wasn't a game and she didn't want to be another man's property again.
Before she could express this to Brian—and she couldn't believe she actually had the nerve to express this to Brian—the front door opened and Gabe stepped in, dropping his bags by the front door. He immediately spotted her at the piano and Brian hovering over her.
"I can't leave for a single day?" Gabe asked, his bitter remark aimed at Brian.
"I thought you wouldn't be back until tomorrow."
"Clearly. I got done early and didn't feel like spending the night in a hotel. I drove straight through." He crossed the foyer and handed a manila envelope to Brian. "Here's all the information you requested. You're right, he's breaking the contract and needs to be dealt with."
"You could have dealt with him if you were so sure," Brian said.
"Not my monkeys, not my circus."
Brian rolled his eyes. "Fine. I need a good kill anyway. I'll go take care of this tomorrow." He took the envelope and disappeared down the long dark hallway.
When he was gone, Gabe turned his attention to Julie. "Was he bothering you?"
"No, not really."
"What did he say?"
"Not much. He was upset that I'm not wearing your collar."
The tension radiated off of Gabe. Gabe was also upset she wasn't in his collar. He probably hadn't thought it would take this long. He'd probably thought she would gratefully do anything he wanted as some sort of payment for rescuing her from Dmitri. And there was a strong argument there to be sure. She could see how another woman might rationalize such a choice. Many women would. After all, Gabe was beautiful and kind and-
But if he was really giving her a choice... If it wasn't a formality to make him feel better about what he was doing-
"Julie?"
"Yes?"
"Why aren't you wearing my collar?"
The lump formed in the back of her throat so quickly and so solidly that she wasn't sure she could breathe around it, let alone talk.
"Gabe, I can't."
He sighed. "I can give you more time."
"Time isn't the problem."
"I thought you were attracted-I thought you just needed to see you could trust me. Can't you see that?"
Julie stared down at the bright white piano keys. "I am attracted. I think I can trust you. I'm not sure how it would feel to be in a sexual relationship after what happened at Dmitri's, but I think it would be different enough with you that I could probably handle it."
"So-what's the problem then?"
"I don't want to handle it. I don't want to make compromises and bargains for what I can handle."
"But you're like me. I'm sure you are. The way you reacted to-you are kinky. This is in your nature."
"It doesn't matter if it's in my nature. This isn't a game. You want me to be your property for real. And it doesn't matter how kind you are, or how many nice things you give me. At the end of the day, I have gone from being Dmitri's property to share and abuse, to your property. And it doesn't matter if you treat me nicer. I'm not a fucking house cat! I don't want to be owned. Not by you or anybody else. And I don't give a shit if I'm kinky! What difference does that fucking make? Do you think that means I want no rights!?! Do you think that means I want to be at your sexual beck and call from now until my lady parts fall out? Really Gabe? Why the fuck do you think this should appeal to me!?!"
He leaned forward over the piano, suddenly far more menacing than Brian had been. "You're already mine. I bought you. I own you," he practically growled.
"Then do whatever you're going to fucking do. But you don't get to bully me and guilt me and pretend like this is my happy little choice to make yourself feel better about your actions because it's not. I told you from the very beginning, but you wouldn't listen to me!"
He started to pace, growing more and more agitated. "I get to do whatever the hell I want. Do you think you're ever leaving this house? You're my prisoner whether we fuck or not. Or whether you wear a collar or not. Maybe I should remove my protection and let anybody in this house do whatever with you."
Julie glared at him. "Then you're the exact same kind of monster as Dmitri and you never loved me or cared about me. You just cared about what you wanted to get from me."
Gabe seemed to snap out of whatever kind of psychotic zone he'd fallen into and scrubbed a hand through that blond surfer-appropriate hair. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I'll leave you alone. But you're switching rooms with me. I'm not giving you my room for the rest of time if I don't ever get to return to it."
"Great. I'm happy to move. I never asked for the fucking room! Hell, put me at the other end of the house as far from you as humanly possible and forget I exist."
"Fine," he snarled.
Chapter Nine
Gabe moved her to another room at the other end of the hallway. She learned his routine so she could avoid bumping into him. Weeks passed like this and a chill seemed to form in the house around both her and Gabe. When she would catch a glimpse of him, it was as if there were an icy wall that had grown around him. Everyone else in the house seemed to sense it as well.
He was no longer everybody's favorite trainer. Now most considered him nearly as dangerous as Brian. Julie didn't care. Fuck him. If that was all it took for the mask to come off and the monster to come out, better that she know it now than after she'd agreed to some insane arrangement with him.
A part of her brain said that if he really were that evil he'd put her in a collar and do what he wanted, or follow through on his threat and throw her to the wolves. But neither thing happened. He stayed away from her and she stayed away from him and she remained untouched and unmolested by any of the men in the house. Including Gabe. Including Brian.
But Gabe wasn't the only one who had grown cold. Julie had as well. The other girls hated her now. They blamed her, maybe rightly, for the change that had taken place in their favorite trainer. Annette and Mina were more distant with her these days. She'd hoped she would at least have them as friends but both of them were in the happy slave fog and they loved Gabe. Gabe was just so wonderful. Why couldn't Julie be a good little victim and give him whatever he wanted?
Sometimes, even knowing the bracelet around her wrist made it impossible, she fantasized about escaping. She wasn't sure if she would report Gabe to the police. She still wasn't sure she could do that to him. No matter what other ideas and desires he'd had toward her, objectively he'd rescued her from Dmitri's house. He at least got a few points, however grudging, for that. Despite the current situation, it was a really big deal.
It was well past sun down. Julie had finished a late dinner and was thinking about going to the foyer to play the piano. Even though it made her think of Gabe. Everything in the house made her think of him for better or worse, so she may as well derive some sort of enjoyment from the situation she was in.
The cafeteria and most of the main house had cleared out. A lot of girls were at the pool now for a late evening swim. It was still warm enough out for that, and the pool was heated. A few were at the gym. A few were with various trainers. Julie thought she'd glimpsed one of the girls go to one of the training rooms with Gabe. She'd caught the brief play of light against sun-kissed blond hair and felt the chill in the air from his presence.
Otherwise things were pretty deserted. Julie was about to sit down at the piano when a hand clamped over her mouth, and she was dragged down the narrow dark hallway and down to the dungeons.
It had happened so fast. Within minutes, Julie found herself strapped down to a metal chair in one of the dungeons, Brian grinning down at her.
"I've waited so long for this," he murmured against her hair. "Since you rebuffed our boy, Gabe, I've been waiting for the right moment to-fix you." He'd rolled a chair up to her side and now leaned back, taking in his prize.
Beside her was a metal tray table that she kept trying not to look at. He'd laid out some kind of white paper that lo
oked like something you'd see in a dentist's office. And on top of it lay his "tools". It looked like every torture scene in every movie she'd ever watched through the spaces of her fingers.
He rested a hand gently on her knee. "You're trembling, Julie," he said, clearly satisfied by this reaction.
Was she? She barely felt real. How had this happened? She'd been so careful to avoid him. Every time she passed him in a hallway, every time their eyes locked, she knew he was waiting to hurt her. By now, she knew that look in a man's eyes.
Mina was away from the house on some kind of business Brian had sent her on. He'd never pull this shit with Mina here. At the same time, whatever happened, when Mina found out about it, Julie knew she'd side with Brian. She had to. He was her first loyalty, and she would never betray him.
She might act to divert Brian's attention and stop him from hurting people, but she wouldn't get in his direct way or argue with him over what he'd already done. The two of them were an unbreakable pair, even if Julie would never understand how Mina could love and submit to such a monster. Whatever was between them ran so deep, whatever he'd done for her-the way he treated her-that no one else could ever hope to come between it.
Finally, Julie found her voice. "Please... don't do this... you can't. G-Gabe is my master." She couldn't believe those words were coming out of her mouth, but what else could possibly stop Brian but a former claim by another trainer in the house? Even if they both knew it was a lie. Everybody in the house knew it was a lie.
Brian laughed, a crazy maniacal sound that filled up the space of the cell. The laugh bounced off the walls in a chaotic rip of noise that felt as though it could tear her head off if it were to make direct contact with her.
"Oh, that's rich. Gabe is your master. I've seen no indication of that. You two don't even talk anymore. But clearly you know that's the only real protection from me. A collar around that pretty little throat that doesn't have my name on it. It's really the only deterrent I'll listen to. But you knew that. That's why you avoid me and try to stay in groups. It was a hell of a thing finding you alone with no witnesses around." He smiled. "Gabe is your master. That's adorable."
He picked up a gleaming metal clamp and slowly, calmly, started to unbutton her blouse. Somewhere in her head, she'd thought simply saying Gabe was her master would work like a magic incantation, that it would stun him so she could escape. Despite how obviously untrue it was.
Anyone in the house could see they were avoiding each other. Gabe probably hated her by now. Every indication she could see said as much. She used every ounce of energy to stop her endlessly swirling thoughts. She had to focus and find a way out of this.
She couldn't let Brian drag her back into mental hell. This couldn't become Dmitri's house Part Two. She'd heard too much about what went on down here. Whatever it took, she had to stop this from happening. Julie struggled and pulled at the bonds, panic rising higher, threatening to choke her. She'd made so much progress. She'd started to feel at least a little safe. She couldn't lose that now.
"Please! Please! Gabe is my master. I swear it." Her voice came out shrill as the tears began to slide down her cheeks.
Brian still looked amused, but he put down the clamp. "All right. Let's find out. You better pray he confirms your side of things. If he doesn't, nothing will stop me from the sadistic nightmare I will rain down upon you. And it will only be worse for this lie insulting my intelligence. Given these facts, do you want to alter your story?" He said all this in a normal tone with a smile on his face as if he were ordering a burger and fries at the drive thru.
Julie shook her head. Staying down here with Brian for a supposedly lesser form of horror wasn't an option. Gabe had to get her out of this. He would, right?
Brian pulled a phone from his pocket and dialed a number from the contact list. "Gabe!" he said, "It's your friendly resident psychopath."
Julie couldn't hear what was said on the other end, but whatever it was made Brian laugh. "Tell me, is Julie yours?"
More speech she couldn't hear. Though she took Brian's advice. She was praying, praying that Gabe didn't contradict her story, praying that he'd go along with it this one time. Even if he hated her now, he couldn't hate her this much could he? If any part of him had ever cared a tiny bit about her, he had to just confirm the story. If he got her out of this chair, she would be even more careful to avoid Brian from now on.
"You know what I mean," Brian said. "Is she your slave? She tells me you're her master. She's begging and pleading and swearing to it so I won't hurt her. And I wanted to know if... okay, very well."
Brian clicked the phone off and set it on the metal table before sitting back in his own chair and pinning her with a glare. "He's coming down."
Julie let out a long, slow, shuddering breath. She wasn't out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot, but he was coming at least. She had a chance. Surely he would stop this. She'd come to believe he cared about her, so he couldn't possibly let this go on. If he'd pay half a million dollars to Dmitri to rescue her, and he'd punched Anton that first night for calling her a whore, surely it would be nothing to him to stop Brian now, even with the current stalemate between them.
Less than five minutes later, Gabe's large, intimidating presence filled the doorway. He wasn't fucking crazy like Brian. Or if he was, it was a different brand of crazy. But he still scared the shit out of her sometimes.
His arms were crossed over his chest, a hard look in his eyes. But that look was directed at her, not Brian. Oh shit. Could he be the kind of man who would let someone like Brian hurt her simply for saying no? If he would, he was as big a monster as any she'd encountered at Dmitri's house, and everything he'd tried to portray to her about himself was nothing more than a carefully crafted lie. Of course she'd already hurled that insult his way, so it might not hit its mark if she attempted it a second time.
The tears started to flow down her cheeks in earnest now because this betrayal hurt more than anything else. She'd really believed she could trust him, so why the fuck was he mad at her? What happened to that conversation the first night in the car when he'd told her he would never force himself on her and that she had a choice? Obviously he only cared about the imaginary movie playing in his mind where he got to pick her reactions to everything, instead of her. She was just supposed to follow his script. At the moment, seeing the other alternative-Brian-she was willing to follow that script to get away. However much she might later resent Gabe, he was—as always—the lesser evil.
"Well, Gabe? Is she yours?" Brian asked, growing ever more amused by the scene in front of him. Brian knew. He knew this wasn't true. He knew it was a desperate ploy. He was playing with her. Would he let her go if Gabe confirmed the story? Wouldn't he have to? Would Gabe be willing to fight him to protect her? He'd saved her from Brian before. Couldn't he do it one more time?
She tried not to think about all the money he'd spent to free her from Dmitri. The debt that loomed over her every time she looked into his eyes, every time she avoided giving him all the things he wanted from her. It didn't matter how much he'd denied she owed him a debt. She did owe him a debt, and the only way she could process payment was with her body. It was the only currency she had, and she knew it was the only one he wanted. But how could she? Wouldn't it be moving backward? What if she gave him what he wanted and lost herself completely in the process?
Gabe didn't break eye contact with her to spare Brian a glance. But the expression in his eyes changed. It went from a hard inscrutable stare to... a question? An expectation? Waiting.
"Okay, well, until somebody learns how to use their words, I'm going to play," Brian said.
Her shirt had been half unbuttoned, but now he unbuttoned it the rest of the way. He took a small knife from the table. It gleamed off the lights recessed in the ceiling, and she started to panic and struggle again. Oh god, what was he going to do with that knife?
"Please," Julie whimpered. But her plea was directed at Gabe, not Brian.
Gabe looked at her for another second, and then turned away. He was leaving her? How could he leave her? If he walked out that door, Brian was going to hurt her, badly.
"Master, please don't leave me with him!"
He stopped in the doorway, the muscles of his back rigid, straining so hard, she thought he might burst apart from the tension. Or she would.
He turned slowly back around. "Brian, release my property."
Brian put the clamp back down on the table and sighed. "If she's your property, where's her collar? How am I to know who is protected if they don't have a collar?"
"It's being made."
"If it's not around her throat by the end of the week she's fair game."
"It will be."
"If she's your slave, why doesn't she act like it? Why don't I see any signs of it?"
"It's new."
Yeah, five seconds new. Julie shivered from the heated possessive look he gave her. She was no longer sure this could qualify as rescue.
Brian began to unbuckle the straps attaching her to the chair. "Hmmm, I'm still not convinced. Julie..."
She tore her eyes from Gabe. "Y-yes?"
"If you're really his slave and he's really your master, crawl over to him, kiss his boots like a proper slave, and thank him for his mercy."
Julie had no doubt that if she didn't obey Brian's directive that Gabe would turn around and leave her again. So as soon as Brian finished unbuckling the straps, she knelt on the cold hard floor and crawled to Gabe. She should hate him for making her do this. But all she could think was that she was mere feet away from safety.