by Kitty Thomas
She didn’t know what to feel. She didn’t know what she was supposed to feel. Yes, Jason had abused her, but she’d consented to… she’d agreed to… It wasn’t as if he’d kidnapped her or held her against her will. She’d chosen… and now…
The bathroom door shut and the shower came on.
What was she giving her heart to?
Chapter Ten
Brian didn’t need to kill. He was largely indifferent to the act, but he would do it when he felt he needed to.
For the past three weeks, Brian had moved down Mina’s list, eliminating a few unnecessary genes from the evolutionary pool every few days until it was taken care of. Some of them had lived in different states. That helped. And he never killed the same way twice. Killing the same way twice was stupid. No sense in hitting law enforcement radars. They were drawn to big body counts like flies to corpses.
Three weeks. It seemed an impossible length of time to keep his attention on a woman without hurting her. Not only had he not hurt her, he hadn’t fucked her, either. And although she hadn’t yet attempted another blow job, he hadn’t pushed her.
Each time she trusted him more, he wanted to put a bigger wall around his heart. He feared what this new vulnerability could mean for him, the power she could hold over him because he cared for her. He couldn’t stand this free fall with nothing to hold onto, no steady solid ground on which to stand. He hadn’t been this vulnerable since he was a child. The moment he’d gotten big enough and strong enough to fight back, he’d sworn he’d never allow himself to experience a moment of vulnerability or weakness with another soul. No one would ever have the chance to gain the upper hand again. No one would ever get the drop on him.
And yet he’d allowed another person to sleep in his bed, unchained, with full knowledge that during his vulnerable hours of sleep, if she wanted to, she could find a way to end him.
But Mina let him sleep at night. Her warm body wrapped around his kept the nightmares away. Except for that first night, he hadn’t had a bad dream from his past in the entire time he’d had her. And since he’d started disposing of the men who’d hurt her, she hadn’t either. He was unwilling to mess with what worked.
He stepped out of the bathroom to find Mina lounging on the bed, a sheet draped over what he could tell was a nude body. She didn’t speak, but she beckoned him to her with an uncertain gesture. He let the towel drop and joined her. He couldn’t bring himself to speak either.
She slid down his body, kissing a trail from his neck, down his chest, over his abs, and to his cock. Her hot tongue began to lav the bundle of nerves there. Brian gripped the edge of the mattress with one hand, and petted her hair with the other. He couldn’t stop touching her to make sure she was real, to reassure her she was safe with him.
Brian stayed very still as she took him fully into her mouth. He inhaled sharply as took him in deeper and sucked.
He didn’t make demands or orders, afraid to break the bravery she’d found. He could barely focus on the physical pleasure, instead consumed with the fact that she’d come to him on her own, that she must have worked up to this to push all the images of other sadistic men before him out of her head. Their taunts. Their cruelty. All the things Brian unapologetically was—with everyone he’d ever touched but her.
He refused to break the spell or give her another flashback. He let out a hiss when he came and stroked her throat as it worked to swallow his release.
When he was spent, he pulled her to him so that her head rested on his chest. He ran his fingertips over the scars on her back, pausing over each one as if his fingers pressing against them enough times could erase them. He wanted to make them go away. He wanted to make her history go away.
“Y-you can fuck me if you want to. I-I mean, I know you need to recover, but… then after that… if… if you want,” she said.
“No.”
“Why? Do you not want me?”
“Not like that.”
Brian continued trailing his fingertips over her skin while he tried to figure out how to express the thoughts in his head. “I don’t want to fuck you, Mina. Fucking is not a compliment. Maybe others can do it and call it making love, but for me it’s an act of aggression. I’m afraid if I dominate you in that way that nothing will hold me back from the other ways I could hurt you. I can’t separate it from how I am with other women down here. I can’t go there with you. I didn’t think you wanted me to.”
She released a sigh. He was sure it wasn’t meant to be heard or discerned by him, but it was relief. What could have gotten into her head to make her think that the contract had changed? Or that he wanted it to?
“I thought maybe you were getting bored with me, or maybe it made you angry… the limits in the contract… and that you would just… take it.”
Oh. She wanted to feel like she had some control.
The contract held no power over him. There was no one to enforce it. Brian was the only enforcer at the house. He had no one to answer to. It was just a piece of paper with words that he could choose to follow or not. The only reason he chose to follow them was because he couldn’t be his own tormentor. And whatever evil crawled beneath his skin demanding satisfaction, passed over her when it saw her as if sacrifices had already bled to spare her his wrath.
The intercom came on, breaking the moment.
“We’re sending someone down to you,” Lindsay said over the speaker. “She’s new and too rebellious. She’s causing chaos up here with her demands. Where do you want her?”
“Put her in cell A. I’ll deal with her in a few minutes.”
Mina tensed beneath him. He knew she hated what he was. He wished that just being with her could soften his edges and make him good—for her. He wished he wasn’t so broken and damaged. If she could understand what a miracle it was that he could be gentle with her—just one person in the entire world—maybe she would accept what he had to do. What he wanted to do and could muster no guilt for.
She should count herself lucky that she didn’t ping his radar as someone it would be fun to harm.
He eased out of the bed. “Go upstairs for a while.”
He’d been open with her. She had to accept it. Period. And yet, lately he found himself trying to shield her, to hide it. Each time, he grew more irrationally angry. As if it were her fault he was turning so soft. She was making him a liar.
“Yes, Master.”
There were tears in her voice, and it enraged him. He gripped her tighter, and she gasped before he realized he’d done it.
“Go now before I say or do something I’ll regret.”
She looked on him with that fear again, the same fear from the first day after he’d bought her. The same fear from the night she’d met him. It would never go away. She would never trust him because he couldn’t trust himself. The shared intimacy of only moments before seemed like a dream. Every time they inched toward something good, it shattered again when reality came crashing back.
***
Mina moved quickly down the dungeon corridor, but not quickly enough. The new girl was already being brought downstairs by Gabe. She struggled in his arms and cursed at him. She was too defiant. Brian would love breaking her.
Don’t look at her. Don’t think about her. Just go upstairs. It’s not happening. It’s not real.
If she could only narrow everything down to the small world in which she and Brian inhabited, everything would be fine. She darted past the girl and up the stairs, forcing herself not to look back.
She wished she could go to the spa with Annette and get a massage or a manicure, but Shannon had looked on her with too much accusation. Everywhere Mina turned, evidence of Brian’s brutality stared her in the face. The women in the house were all waiting for her to fall, for Brian to lose it, for her to be reduced to the same status with him that the rest of them lived in.
Besides her, only Annette was protected. And that was because she belonged to Anton. The collar protected Anton’s slave in the same way Min
a’s collar protected her. Her fingers strayed to touch the metal at her throat.
Mina felt herself pulled back toward the dungeon. She didn’t want to go down there. She didn’t want to see or hear what Brian was doing. She wanted to stay upstairs where it was safe, where she could pretend that he didn’t do these things.
Brian had been nothing but protective toward her. Even when he seemed angry or scary or intense, he always found another outlet. Never her. But it was in him—deeper and darker than it had been with Jason or any of the others.
He was a bomb that could go off at any moment. Any time Mina got too close, she heard the ticking. She crept down the stairs, knowing she’d regret it. But the darkness inside Brian pulled her like wispy black smoke, embracing her and calling her to him. It demanded that she watch, that she couldn’t hide from what he was.
She was barely down the stairs when she heard the new girl’s screams and begging. Mina had been sure the second the blindfold had come off on the day Brian bought her, that the rest of her life would be nothing but screaming and begging and cringing and cowering in corners. And more scars. So far she’d been shown mercy.
But the rooms underground smelled like pain and fear. And she couldn’t quite convince herself that it was any better when she was spared and it was someone else taking the beatings.
Mina flinched as the whip cracked. Sometimes he was more methodical. He took his time. He mentally tortured them and worked them into a state to burn off the worst of whatever was inside him that needed sated. She knew why. If he went full out from the beginning, he might make too many of them unsaleable like Shannon in the spa. He had to ease his way in.
But today, he’d moved straight to the whip. Mina edged closer and peered through the window to find the new girl tied with her hands over her head against the pole in the center of the room.
“Please, please I swear I’ll be good,” she screamed. And she meant it. It had taken only a few minutes with Brian for her to realize the folly of whatever stupid thing she’d done.
“Will you?” Brian asked. “Because from what I heard you were making all sorts of demands as if you were queen of the castle. Tell me, sweetheart, do you think you’re the queen, now? We had one of those once. It didn’t end well for her.”
“N-no, Sir!”
Crack.
“What are you, then?”
“J-just a slave.”
He laughed. “Oh, you’re not even fit for that yet. Right now you’re just a dumb whore that might amuse me enough to let you live to be trained and sold. Do you know how many people I’ve killed?”
She shook her head vigorously.
“A. Lot. And I don’t feel a thing except relief when another life slips away. If I spare you today, think about that when you’re upstairs with one of the others—one of the gentle souls who can barely stand to venture down here because they aren’t dark or hard enough for it.”
“Y-yes, Sir.”
The whip cracked against her skin again, and a few drops of blood hit the floor.
“I can fuck you or I can beat you some more. Which would you prefer?”
“F-fuck. Please fuck.”
He laughed. “Good girl. Your smart mouth has no purpose here except to worship my cock. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes, Sir.”
“The only thing I want you to think about in this house is how you can please the men who wander these halls. When you’re up there being a dirty slut and you think you’re being as slutty as you can possibly be, remember you can always be better. Always strive for more. You’d better if you want to stay out of the dungeon. Obey them fast. Get sold quickly. And move far from my reach.”
He thrust into her, and she whimpered in something like relief. That was when he looked up to find Mina watching him. He was not happy.
She fled up the stairs. When she reached the top, she scanned the main hall, then ran outside and to the cafeteria. There was a game room in the west wing and the spa in the east. She bumped into Lindsay while trying to decide which direction to go in next.
“Where’s Annette?”
He gripped her shoulders, a look of concern in his eyes. “Mina, are you all right?”
“No. I’m not all right. I will never be all right. Where is Annette? I have to talk to her!”
Anton’s slave was the only person in the house that Mina felt she could be open with.
“She’s meeting with some guests. She’s not here right now.”
Mina began to pace, not caring that she looked completely insane. The other girls in the cafeteria backed away, but managed to stay close enough to eavesdrop because apparently she was the best gossip here. Her and this sick thing with Brian.
“What happened?” Lindsay asked.
“I can’t talk to you! I’m not allowed to talk to you!” She was screaming now, her voice carrying all the way out to the pool from where a few girls and trainers straggled in to watch the show unraveling before them.
“Come to my office. You need to talk. You’re falling apart.”
Tears streamed down her face. “I feel something for him. I don’t know what but something. I can’t… not when he… how can I feel anything for him when he’s such a monster? How can I do anything but cringe when he touches me? What’s wrong with me? I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. I can’t. Why did you do this to me? Why couldn’t you just follow what you said you’d do and sell me to someone kind?”
***
Brian groaned as he came, the new girl trembling in his arms. Her fear was intoxicating. Just the knowledge that he was in control, that he could do anything, gave him a rush like no other. He might feel peace in Mina’s arms, but he felt powerful here.
He untied her, and she slid to the ground. “Go,” he said, “before I decide I’m not finished with you.”
She scrambled to get back into her clothing and out of the cell. He doubted he’d see her again for the rest of her stay—if she had any sense in her head at all.
Now what to do with Mina? He’d told her to go upstairs. She knew why. And yet she’d defied him. She’d slunk back down in the shadows—his little voyeur who just couldn’t help touching the darkness. He’d have to do something to stop these displays of disobedience. So far it had been minor things, but he refused to let her undermine him, to become some insufferable brat.
When he reached the top of the stairs he heard Mina yelling. He ran to the cafeteria, thinking she was being hurt, only to find her talking to Lindsay. About him. About them.
“Mina!” Brian roared. “What did I tell you? And yet you go behind my back and defy me? Me! I told you to stay the fuck away from the doctor!”
He wouldn’t be affected by the terror that crossed her face. He couldn’t. He couldn’t let himself love her. She made him weak. This weak, helpless feeling in the center of his chest. It was worse than what he remembered. He had to stop caring. He had to stop.
He felt the walls as they grew around him to protect him from her.
Mina dropped to her knees. “Please, Master. I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt me. Please.”
She cringed as he got near.
Lindsay stepped in front of her. “Brian, you need to calm down. She’s not betraying you. She’s not doing anything wrong. She’s struggling.”
“I will show her struggle,” he said. He gripped Lindsay around the throat and shoved him. The doctor crashed into one of the tables, upending it and sending chairs scattering on the hard floor. “Stay out of it! How many times do I have to fucking tell you? How little do you value your life?”
Mina trembled. He raised his hand, then dropped it by his side. He was so close, so close to shifting her the barest bit out of the protection box and into a box he could deal with. Something familiar. Something that would release the knots tied inside of him instead of tie them tighter. But all he could see was the marks on her back and the stairs and the darkness and the twisted rage of his stepmother’s face as she raised the switch over and over. All
he could hear was that stupid dog whimpering and then him whimpering and Mina whimpering. Only her whimpering was real—happening now.
The people who’d been crowded around when he reached the cafeteria, backed away quietly, as if trying to make themselves invisible from him. Good instincts.
Brian stalked across the room and grabbed the first girl he came to.
“NO!” she screamed, trying to struggle from his grasp, but he held firm.
Mina looked up, confused.
“Are you familiar with the concept of whipping boys, Mina?”
She shook her head. “I-I mean yes. I know what they are. W-what they were. D-don’t do this. Please, Master. Take me. Please.”
He laughed. “Such bravery all of a sudden. What happened to begging me not to hurt you? I’m sorry, but you will not defy me. If you persist in your disobedience, I will be forced to punish someone in your place.” He started to drag the girl from the room and looked back to find Mina struggling to her feet, a look of indecision on her face.
“Mina, come with me,” Brian said. “This, you will not be shielded from.”
He didn’t look back to see if she was following. He knew she was following. He took the girl to an empty cell he hadn’t used in a while and shoved her into a chair and strapped her down. Mina hovered behind him in the doorway.
“Please take me. Please don’t do this,” she whispered. “She hasn’t done anything wrong.”
He stormed across the floor to her, and she cringed. “Is that an admission of your own guilt? First you sneak back down here and watch through the window while I’m punishing someone after I told you to go upstairs. Then you go to Lindsay and share our private business.”
“Master, I’m sorry. Please. Please just let her go.”
“No!” He grabbed Mina’s wrist and dragged her to a second chair and strapped her down. “I am going to punish her, and you are going to watch. Since you can’t seem to stop yourself from watching. Here, have a front row seat. Enjoy the show. Let me entertain you.”
He couldn’t stop the words flying out of his mouth. He couldn’t feel anything. Everything shut down. Her wrist was red from where he’d grabbed her so hard.