“What do you feel guilty about?” He rested one arm over the back of the couch, his warm skin touching the back of my neck.
“Us.”
He looked down into my face, waiting for an explanation.
“You kidnapped me, but I still love having sex with you. You’re holding me here against my will, but I trust you. You’ve slapped me and whipped me, but I feel safe with you.”
“That’s nothing to feel guilty about. We’re attracted to each other.”
He didn’t understand. “I have a boyfriend...” Crow knew about him. He saw it in my file. “And I feel bad for enjoying you when he’s at home worried sick about me. He doesn’t know what happened to me. He probably can’t sleep or even think...”
Crow tensed beside me, clearly irritated by the subject. “You’re mine now, Button. Forget about him.”
“But I can’t. We lived together. We were together for a year. We had some hard times, but I know that didn’t change our feelings. I know he’s trying to get through each day, hoping I’m not dead in a ditch somewhere.”
Crow looked away, his cheeks red and his nostrils flaring. Rage built inside him and reached a breaking point. Then violence shook him, making him a man I didn’t recognize.
“Don’t be jealous.”
He clenched his jaw and stopped himself from speaking.
“Please let me call him. Just let me tell him I’m okay, and I’ll be back in a year.” That would alleviate some of my guilt. Jacob would know I was alive and taken care of. I wasn’t drugged in a brothel somewhere in the Middle East. I lived in luxury with a man who protected me.
“You aren’t calling him.” He pulled his arm away and scooted to the edge of the couch. He rested his arms on his knees, his head tilted toward the floor. “Don’t feel guilty for anything. Don’t even think about him. Pretend he doesn’t exist.” Anger burned in his voice. “He’s a piece of shit. Don’t you dare think about him.”
I knew Crow was possessive of me, but I never suspected him as the jealous type. I was his slave, his plaything. But I was never his girlfriend. I was never his lover. He made that abundantly clear. “Please let me call him. Just two minutes.”
He rose to his feet, his arms shaking. “No.”
“I’m not going to tell him where I am, okay?”
He turned around, giving me a look that actually scared me. “No. Now drop it.”
“Crow—”
“You’re forbidden from thinking of him. End of story.”
“Forbidden?” I asked. “Crow, there’s nothing to be jealous of.”
“I’m not jealous,” he snapped. “I hate that fucker with every fiber of my being. Just listen to me. Don’t think about him. Forget you ever knew him.”
The conversation wasn’t adding up. Crow claimed he wasn’t jealous, but he was violently angry, angrier than I’d ever seen him. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He avoided my look, staring into the dead fireplace.
“Crow?”
His jaw remained clenched, refusing to speak.
I rose to my feet as my suspicion grew. I’d been around Crow long enough to understand him. His moods were different from this. His anger didn’t come out of nowhere. He had a reason for every action he took. There was an explanation behind this. “Tell. Me. Now.” He only responded to strength. The harder I pushed, the more he gave. He didn’t submit out of weakness but respect.
He turned his gaze on me, his green eyes deliberating.
“I can handle it.”
He held another moment of silence before he spoke. “I wasn’t going to tell you. I didn’t see the point.”
“Tell me what?”
“But I’m not going to let you feel guilty for enjoying me, a real man. I’m not going to let you think he’s at home searching for you. I’m not going to let you think that asshole loves you.”
Now I was scared. Actually scared.
He broke eye contact for a second, glancing at the floor before he turned back to me. “He’s the one who sold you.” His words thudded against the air like atomic bombs. Each one exploded with the power to decimate mountains.
I heard what he said. I understood it perfectly. But my brain rejected it because it didn’t add up. “What?”
“He took you to the dock because that’s where they agreed to meet. He was supposed to hand you over and leave.”
“But...he was knocked out.”
“A part of the plan. He didn’t want you to know he was responsible.” The ferocity still burned in his eyes. His anger increased with every passing second, reaching each corner of the room.
“He wouldn’t do that.” I refused to believe that. Our relationship was rocky for months, but he would never resort to that for some quick cash. “No.”
“He had some serious gambling debts. If he didn’t pay them back, he was going to be killed. He got a hundred thousand dollars for you since you were American and beautiful.”