"So is it a sheikh who buys you?"
She shook her head, then couldn't stop, kept shaking it. She made an inarticulate plea and he had his hand under her hair, digging into a handful of it, holding her fast. "Ssshh," he said firmly. "Be still. Focus. Madison, I'm ordering you to be still. Contain it, hold in the arousal, let it get more intense that way."
It was as difficult as being told she had to do fifty more ab crunches at a fitness class, but she did it, because he'd commanded it.
"You haven't answered my question. Is it a sheikh?"
"It's a soldier. He doesn't fit in. The others look at him, aren't sure why he's there. He's high-ranked, like special ops. I don't know much about the military."
"Again, doesn't matter. Your fantasy. What's he wearing?"
"A dress uniform, very intimidating. He wants his own personal slave. The way he looks at me, I know I'm the one he wants."
"Are you frightened of him?"
"Yes." She shifted. "But during the auction, the way he looks at me . . . I can't imagine belonging to anyone else."
"Like he knows you'll be his, no matter who he has to kill to get you."
She shivered at the very real threat, the determination in the masculine voice. She could hear it in her fantasy.
"How do you feel, when he looks at you that way?"
"Like I'd do anything to please him," she whispered. "He looks stern, a little cruel . . ."
Was she really doing this? Telling it as if it was real, as if she was playing make-believe with Alice and they were teenagers? Only they'd never played make-believe like this. Not together.
"He's making you understand that he's in charge, that you won't manipulate him. That you're his slave; he's not yours. As long as you follow his rules, you're safe, within the structure he's set. There's a big difference between a prison and a fortress. What do you do when they bring you to him, after the auction?"
"I . . . go to my knees while he's holding the chain attached to my collar. It's heavy. It was attached to a concrete ball. We wouldn't run, we were trained for this, but--"
"But everything reinforces that you're not free, your choices are not your own."
Why was she finding this so incredibly arousing? She cried out as he removed his finger and the current went back to the stroking pattern. Another tear leaked out of the corner of her eye as her hips worked. She couldn't come, it wasn't strong enough for that, just enough to drive her even more insane.
Every word she spoke was something she'd never said to anyone. But in darkness, all secrets were kept, right? There was no shame. "I bend and kiss his foot, and he gives me enough slack to let me do it. That's when I know . . . that I really belong to him. Not just as a piece of property. He wants me, not any slave. Or I hope."
"As I said, the underlying needs are always simple." His breath teased her skin. "Tell me about his shoe."
"Polished, slick. I can smell the shoe polish he uses. Oil and smoke, like a gun."
"When he takes you home, what do you imagine him doing first?"
"He puts me in his tub, scrubs off the hands of all the other men who touched me. He tells me that's why he's doing it, why he's doing it himself."
"You're his prize. His possession. His treasure."
"Yes." She was whispering every word now. Those tears kept coming. "He commands me not to speak. But I'm lost in the way his hands feel. He tells me it's okay for me to look at him. They train us not to lift our gazes except when ordered to do so. So I watch his face, his mouth . . . like I've been given a Christmas present. At one point I forget myself, reach out to touch it. He catches my hand before I can do that, ties my wrists to a bar in the tub until he's done. Then he unties me, carries me to the bed."
"What does he do then?"
She hesitated. Then she shrieked as the current shot up, a quick, hard sting, setting her tissues on fire. "Stop . . . help . . . Logan . . ."
It eased off, leaving her heart racing, her hips still jerking at the sensations. She'd been on the cusp of climax for so long, she knew she couldn't go there, but she'd never been so close and held in such stasis. Imprisoned by his will.
"You'll answer my questions right when I ask them, Madison. No thinking or pausing. What does he do then?"
"He examines all of me, every inch of skin, every crevice. Then he goes down on me."