***
Angel sat in his office watching the security monitor. He'd been watching the monitor feeds from the various security cameras hidden throughout the house since Astrid had left the kitchen. He'd watched with fascination as she'd opened the pool door and then reacted. Such a strange reaction.
He hadn't expected her to trigger the alarm, but once she had it would have seemed more normal to go outside away from the sound. Now here she was in the piano room.
When he'd woken that morning, before starting breakfast, he'd put the key in the glass bowl on the bar. He wanted to see what she'd do. He wasn't sure exactly what he thought he was doing. After all, if Joey had been hurting her, and with the sorts of things he'd been into, it would be so easy for Astrid to take this the wrong way.
Still, he needed her to know, and the sooner she knew the sooner she could start processing it and make peace with the new layer of reality in her world. Besides, he needed her to react. He wanted to chase and hunt and subdue her. He needed to feel her panicked little body writhing in a feverish panic beneath him. He wouldn't hurt her, but he was hungry for something more than the desperate pleasure he'd pulled from her the previous night. He'd gotten that small taste, and now he wanted infinitely more. Of everything.
After what felt like a small eternity, she took the key from the bowl and unlocked the door. The lights had motion detectors and came on as she descended the stairs to his dungeon. He'd brought a lot of women down there, women he'd paid for from expensive escort services that allowed him to keep his location a secret. He'd brought women here blindfolded, but he'd never let anyone discover the dungeon alone.
Angel watched the shocked expression spread over her face, her hand coming to her mouth to silence a scream before it could find voice on the air. A few moments later she had turned and ran up the stairs.
He heard her tear down the hall, and then the sirens came on again as she flung open the front door.
Angel rose slowly from his chair and went to turn the alarm off. They were pretty far out, and it was simply too much ground for her to cover on foot. Let her run. The brief conscience he'd felt the night before over taking an innocent, had been swallowed up by the desire to possess her completely. To own her. He needed her to beg him and cower and call him master—needed it like he needed oxygen.
If she hadn't come so undone under his hands the night before... maybe he could have maintained some self-control. Perhaps he could have been more patient. But her hot little body writhing under him, begging him to take her... By the morning, he'd moved past all hesitation and shallow noble intention.
No matter how he'd tried to rationalize it and lie to himself and make up excuses, the second she'd walked in on his kill, the moment he'd seen her, some part of his lizard brain had lit up. Something deep inside his subconscious in that moment had already decided she would be his slave.
He was done paying escorts to play a game. He wanted something permanent. And real.
Angel stepped outside just as she reached the tree line. He took his time going after her. As much as he wanted to chase her, it was better to let her wear herself out a little. When he stepped into the wooded area, he heard nothing. No branches snapping or crushing or crackling of dry leaves. She was hiding somewhere within the dense woods—probably not far from where he stood. After all, she would need to catch her breath from bolting up the stairs and across that large expanse of open land.
“Astrid, come back to the house with me and let's talk. We're too far out. I don't want to have to chase you down.” Yes he did. He wanted it very badly.
Let her run. Let her try to defy him. He could picture her running and flushed, him tackling her to the ground and holding her there with her fiery red hair spread out like a blanket on the grass, looking up at him... begging him.
No one had ever had such a disturbing effect on him. He'd always felt so in control. Whether it was a kill or a sex game with a prostitute, he'd always been so... steady.
Nothing inside him felt steady now. Even though he was sure she couldn't escape, he thrilled at the possibility—the threat that she might somehow slip beyond his grasp forever.
“Astrid... come back with me. Let's play a game.” As he spoke to her, he walked through the woods, stopping every few steps to listen... for a snapped twig, breathing, tears.
What he heard instead was an unexpected sneeze.
He turned to find her several yards away, bolting back into the open field. Angel ran after her, quickly eating the distance between them. Finally he reached out and grabbed her arm, pulling her flush against him. He was sure she could feel his erection pressed against her.
It took her a moment to catch her breath so she could speak. “P-please. You said you wouldn't hurt me.”
She seemed hurt by this as if he were in the act of betraying her. And that bit of conscience sprung free to scold him again.
“And have I hurt you? Last night you didn't seem to think so.” If anything her response to him had been far more than he could have hoped for. It was obvious she wanted him on a level so primal that it scared her. Angel was sure she was fighting with herself and her own desires because of howwrongit was.
Intellectually he could understand this. Objectively it was wrong to fall into bed with the man who'd just murdered your husband, no matter how awful the husband had been. But Angel couldn't feel these things in the way she could. Whatever moral reasoning tormented her, didn't trouble him at all. For him, it was an intellectual exercise, nothing more. But she was far more sensitive and emotionally fragile.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I can't. Please, I can't. You're just like him. Please... please.”
“What did he do to you?”
She stopped struggling and looked at him for a long moment as if trying to decide something. “L-let go of me and I'll show you.”
Angel released her and took a step back to give her some space. He had a feeling he knew where this was going.
She turned away and pulled the light blue Nirvana T-shirt off. “Please don't do this. I-I can't go through it again.”
Angel stared in shock at the scars on her back. He shouldn't have been surprised, after all, he knew what Callazaro was into. And her timid behavior and lack of fight when he'd first taken her suggested the same. Yet, seeing it was different. No wonder she was having internal conflicts and fighting her desires. The evidence was painted quite starkly across her back, why she shouldn't give in to men like him.