“Kneel beside the post.” His voice crept over her shoulder, shockingly close.
She turned to face him. He wore a black button-up tucked into the narrow waist of his pants.
In his hand dangled a length of chain. Her stomach collapsed, and she spun back to the post. There, screwed into the wood near the floor, was a metal ring.
“If I told you I wanted to leave,” she said, mouth dry, “that I wanted to go home, would you let me?”
“Never.” He walked past her, locked the chain to the metal ring, and held on to the leather collar at the other end. “You want to be owned.”
“Said no slave ever.” She stood her ground. “But I won’t try to escape. You don’t need to chain me.”
He widened his stance, hands clasped at his back with the short chain hanging behind him. But it was the cutting look in his eyes that made her shake from head to toe. It conjured dark enclosed places, ear-piercing screams, and bruising thrusts against the back of her throat.
Her heartbeat went ballistic, banging in her ears. He wasn’t Van, but he wasn’t Matias, either. The man standing before her made a living off of human pain, and his interest in her was personal.
She lowered her head, her feet moved, and the sour taste of dread flooded her mouth.
Lifting the towel from her grip, he folded it on the floor in front of his shiny shoes. Then he straightened and touched his lips to her forehead.
She cringed, eyes glued to the square of terrycloth, knowing what he wanted and inwardly fighting it.
You won’t win this battle. Focus on the end goal.
Methodically, one muscle at a time, she knelt for him. Back straight, weight evenly balanced between her hips, palms facing outward on her thighs, eyes on his belt. Then she adjusted, spreading her legs shoulder width apart to allow full view of her pussy, her skin prickling with self-loathing.
“Your orgasms belong to me.” He glanced at the ceiling and the camera tucked in the corner. “I’ll know if you touch yourself.”
She gritted her teeth. As if!
“Any man can chain you to a post.” He buckled the leather collar around her neck, securing it with a four-digit padlock.
The leather sat snugly against her skin, the gravity of it choking her air.
“Any man can rip off your clothes.” He tested the chain between her neck and the wooden column. “Fuck your throat, call you a whore, and you might even like it. That’s rough, gritty sex. But it isn’t dominance.”
Her heart stuttered. He’d described her experience with Van so accurately.
He glided a finger across the line of her jaw, tilting her face upward. “Dominance is when I kiss your brow and you obediently lower to the floor. Willingly. No hesitation.” His eyes flashed. “It’s when you kneel for me, give me the power to break you inside and out, and trust that I won’t. You will surrender your vulnerability without shame, because that’s what I want, and what I want, you crave.”
“You’re delusional.” She struggled to swallow. “I’m not—”
“You’re not there yet. So in the meantime, I’ll settle for rough, gritty sex.”
With that, he left her trembling on her knees.
INSTINCT GUIDED CAMILA THROUGH the next few hours. Naked and shivering with raw nerves, she’d attempted dozens of combinations on the lock she couldn’t see at her throat. She’d tried to unscrew the metal ring on the post until her fingers turned red. Then she’d walked the radius, measuring the span of the chain.
With arms out, she could stretch about six feet in every direction, but the bed sat twice that far. The bathroom, couches, and built-in wall cabinets were even farther. The doors to the hall and balcony closed off the exit points. Another door, also shut, must’ve led to a closet. There was nothing within reach except the towel and an expanse of gleaming white marble floors.
Not that she intended to break out of this fortress, but dammit, she needed to snoop through drawers and closets to find out what Matias was hiding, anything that might explain why he was so obscure.
She glanced up at the camera in the ceiling. Was he watching her now, waiting for another reason to hurt her?
There was also a building pressure in her bladder. Probably shouldn’t have drunk so much water, but come on! Van would’ve at least given her a bucket to piss in.
Restless and wary, she paced circles around the pole like a tetherball, switching directions, and pacing again. She replayed her conversations with Matias, searching every interaction for hidden meanings in his words, clues that would indicate there wasn’t a monster behind those mercurial eyes.
But she recalled nothing helpful. Everything he’d said and done implied he was one-hundred-percent invested in the cartel. And owning her.
When she’d asked him where she’d be staying, he’d said her life was with him, diminishing any hope of disentangling her past from the present. This was no longer just a battle against slave traders. She would be fighting to protect the heart of the girl he’d abandoned in the citrus grove.
She gripped the chain and yanked. Fuck! How long would he keep her locked up?
God, she’d thought she was so fucking clever. Thought she could just smuggle her way into a slave ring and single-handedly take out the asshole in charge.
She didn’t know shit.
How arrogant of her to assume she’d end up in the boss’s bed. While she didn’t want to be anywhere near Nico Restrepo, the alternative called into question some seriously conflicted desires.
She glared at Matias’ bed across the room. Forgive him. Bite off his dick. Fuck his brains out. End his life.
No, killing him wasn’t an option. To put an end to the cartel’s slave trading, she needed to get to Nico. To do that, she’d have to win over Matias by any means necessary.
I’ll settle for rough, gritty sex.
She could still feel his voice vibrating through her, and she shuddered anew. Worse, he knew he affected her. He wasn’t a stranger she could inveigle and trick. He could see past her act, undress her mind, and fuck her thoughts.
She tapped her fingers against her thighs and pulled in a deep breath.
When they were kids, she’d anticipated what he wanted and followed his every whim without reservation. Hell, she’d followed him around like a lost puppy. But he was also two years older.
No, that wasn’t why. There had always been a captivating shift in the air around him. A dominant man stretching the skin of his prepubescent body. A Master lying in wait.
She leaned against the post and slid to the floor, tucking her knees to her chest. With a shaky hand, she traced the stiff band of leather around her neck. The texture and weight felt like Van’s restraints, but the similarities ended there.
Being bound by Van had made her feel defenseless, trapped, uncared for like an insignificant nothing. But this… She pressed her palm against the leather, squeezing it around her throat. Matias’ collar felt like armor, his armor, protecting her from the world. Why? Because they shared history? Or were his parting words messing with her?
Kneel for me…give me the power to break you…trust that I won’t.
Funny thing, trust. It was so hard to give, yet easy to rip away. He’d earned her trust through sixteen years of friendship. Then he’d lost it. Not the day he left, but in the phone call that came a month after. It’d been the coldness in his tone and the furtive way he’d steered the conversation away from commitment and love. He’d chosen his future, and it hadn’t included her.
She lowered her hand to the round metal ta
g that hung on the collar, tracing the engraving for the hundredth time. What she wouldn’t give to know what it said. Was it his name and phone number like a damn dog tag? A quote from a handbook on how to destroy human lives? Or was it something personal, like his tattoos? Not likely. Dozens of his slaves had probably worn this very collar.
She sucked in a breath, hating that the pang in her chest was jealousy of other women rather than remorse for the abuse that might’ve occurred. Yet the idea of being owned by him, being the only one he’d ever kept, made her crave things—filthy, kinky things she’d fantasized about during sex.
It didn’t matter how skilled her lovers had been, none had taken her to the depths she hungered for. No matter how much she begged, no one spanked her long enough, choked her hard enough, or left her unable to think afterward, lost to sensations. She ached to be fucked violently and loved tenderly, and for the life of her, she didn’t understand why.
She wasn’t one of those women who needed a man, but she longed to be the kind of woman a man couldn’t live without. And while Matias’ intentions hovered somewhere between terrifying and soulless, the way he looked at her made her feel treasured. Protected.
His spoken promises should’ve horrified her. Instead, they poked at the twisted parts of her soul that wanted things she was too afraid to ask for.
What the hell was wrong with her? This wasn’t Stockholm Syndrome—she’d loved him before he was her captor. Insanity, maybe? Brain damage? Or just good, old-fashioned stupidity.
As the balcony glowed orange in the blaze of the sinking sun, interior lamps flickered on around the room. Growing more distressed about his return, she resumed pacing, which seemed to ease her irritated bladder. She considered peeing on the floor and thought better of it. Van would’ve pressed her face in the mess. Who knew what Matias would do?
An hour after sunset, footsteps sounded in the hall. As if compelled by the confident pace of the strides, she knelt at attention on the towel, facing the door. With shins placed against the floor, thighs vertical, and body held upright, she positioned her arms in strappado—behind her back with elbows, forearms, and wrists pressed together with imaginary restraints.