Leo turned back to Faith, his arms crossed over his chest. “Now. What are we going to do about this situation?”
“What situation?”
“The situation where I want you and you want me and neither one of us is happy.”
“You still want me?” She sounded so needy. It was mortifying that he’d found her crying over him. And now to pathetically beg for reassurance that the man holding her hostage still wanted her. Maybe she had that Stockholm thing.
“I do.”
Faith started pacing. He was everything she could ever want in a man except for one thing. Every guy had that one thing. But this wasn’t a minor irritation like random scratching or belching at the table or refusing to throw out the socks with holes in them.
She rounded on him, fed up and frustrated and lost. “Why can’t you be normal?!”
It was the wrong thing to say. He came toward her full of purpose and force like a freight train, backing her against the wall. He pinned her.
“Why can’t you be kinky? You’re submissive, now why can’t you be a good little masochist?”
Her breath came out in pants as her bravery deflated, leaving her staring at the floor again because she couldn’t take his intensity for longer than a few moments at a time.
She cried out when his hand came up in her peripheral vision, but he only brushed her hair out of her face and wiped away the few stray tears on her cheeks.
“Mei down there is submissive and a masochist. Do you know how hard it’s been for me to find a genuine sub and masochist? Someone who doesn’t play at being one or the other? Should I not be happy?”
“No, the man keeping me prisoner shouldn’t be happy! Let me go and live happily ever after with her. Tell Angelo I’m not a threat and release me. Please. I’m dying here. Please.”
He stared at her a long time before he spoke again. “Part of me thought I could train Caprice to be submissive. When she was here, we had a few moments where I thought maybe I hadn’t tried hard enough to break through her walls. But deep down I knew I could never trust her. She’d be a danger to you so I sent her away. Mei isn’t a danger to you.”
“Maybe not to my life, but she is a danger.”
“How long have you been here with me?”
“A couple of months,” she said, puzzled by the question. It had to be rhetorical because surely neither of them could have forgotten that night or when it had occurred, so close to the holidays.
“In that time have I harmed you?”
The first night he’d spanked her and briefly touched her, but if she was honest with herself, it was mild compared to what he could have done. And
she couldn’t bring herself to classify it as harm. “No.”
“Have I forced myself on you?”
“No.”
“Have I tied you up or locked you in the dungeon?”
“No, but you threatened to,” she said, remembering his intensity as he’d gotten her on board with the fake engagement. She glanced at the glittering rock on her hand and another tear slid down her cheek. Gina was supposed to call again tomorrow. She had new ideas for color schemes and themes, no doubt trying to get Faith excited about her wedding. Gina was going to see through this sham long before June arrived.
“But did I actually do it?”
“No.”
“Then do you trust me?”
If she didn’t know where his line of questioning was leading, she could say yes without reservation, because he had kept her safe and taken good care of her, and being a doctor, she knew if she got sick or hurt he could heal her. But a yes was all the invitation he needed to shoo Mei Lin out of the dungeon and replace her with Faith. “Please let me go,” she whispered.
“Never.” He practically spat the word at her, his eyes blazing.
“But why? I frustrate you. Sooner or later, we both know you’ll take what you want from me.”
Leo backed away from her, giving her room to breathe. “You’re the only one I’ve ever really owned. I need the other things I do down there, but they can’t replace the one thing I can’t get in any moral way. I know it’s wrong to keep you, but I can’t help myself. You’re like a priceless piece of art kept in a glass case. I can’t do anything with it but look at it, but I know it’s mine. And sometimes that’s enough.”
Faith wondered if that was why Leo had put her in this room. With all the large windows, it was like a glass case. And she was the fragile figurine he kept inside.
“But it’s not enough. You don’t just want to look at me.”
His gaze swept over her in such a predatory way, it was as if he’d stripped her bare. “Come here.”
She took a few tentative steps toward him until she was within easy reach. He took her into his arms and pulled her against him. His fingers threaded through her hair and his lips met hers, hungry, exploring, his tongue pushing past the barrier of her lips. She couldn’t help the involuntary whimper he drew from her.
It was the first time he’d kissed her, the first time he’d touched her at all since the holidays. And in private. Not for an audience. That made it the only real kiss they’d ever shared.
“You’re mine whether I use you or not. You get that, right?”
His words were harsh and cold, but there was so much warm intensity in his tone that all she could manage was a breathless yes.
“I’m showing you mercy by not taking you downstairs. Remember
that.”
There were electric butterflies in her stomach: arousal as well as fear over what she was about to say next. “If you want to show me mercy, send Mei Lin away.” She shut her eyes, her breath suspended while the words floated on the air like snowflakes.
“Will you take her place?”
She looked away. “I’m scared.”
“I know you are.” His tone did nothing to disguise how much her fear excited him.
“You sent me away the last time I offered because you said I didn’t want this, what changed?” It would have been easier if he hadn’t rejected her, if he’d forced her to keep to her word after she’d given it. Asking her to say yes again, after sitting on the stairs, listening to what sounded like torture, was too much. It wasn’t reasonable to ask this of her. And yet, she couldn’t stop herself from making the offer because whatever he might do to her down there would hurt less than the bond he would otherwise form with someone else, shutting her out a piece at a time.
“The last time I thought it was about you being afraid for your safety if I became interested in someone else. Now I know it’s more. You have feelings for me separate from the situation you find yourself in.” He stroked the side of her face, causing her to look up into his eyes. “Tell me you’ll take her place, and I’ll condition you to love everything that scares you.” ***
Leo descended the stairs into the dungeon to find Mei Lin sitting on the red leather couch against the wall, her feet pulled up with her. She hadn’t bothered to get dressed, but had put down a towel from the bathroom to sit on.
She looked up when he entered the room, and he felt a moment’s guilt for what he was about to do. Mei Lin was the whole package, and if not for Faith, he might have tried to see what could develop. But taking his ownership of Faith to the next level had become an all-consuming obsession.
Her consent upstairs had been given with a large amount of fear, but an equal amount of dignified determination. He was almost tempted to call it off again, but he needed this. How could he know what she could and couldn’t handle if he didn’t give her the chance?
“I’m not going to see you again, am I?” Mei asked. Hearing Faith’s crying on the stairs was all she’d needed to start putting pieces together. “We keep missing each other. I’m with someone or you are. Perhaps in another life?”
“Another life, definitely.”
Leo extended a hand to help her off the couch then pulled her into an embrace. “I don’t want to be your rebound, Mei,” he whispered in her ear.
“I know.”
She’d split from her master of six years over the holidays-a man she’d truly loved. Leo had heard about it through the grapevine when he’d been on the prowl for a play partner. This wasn’t their time. As a Catholic, he didn’t believe in reincarnation, but if Mei Lin was right, his agreement for another lifetime was sincere.
He released her and took a step back. “Turn around. I want to look at the marks I left one more time before you go.”
Mei Lin turned silently, her silken hair falling in a black cascade down her back. She bent to retrieve the shiny silver hair sticks she’d left on the couch on her arrival. He enjoyed the view until she righted herself and pulled her hair into a bun, securing the soft wisps into place.
Leo eased closer, running his fingers over the whip marks across her back and the welts on her ass. “Such lovely skin,” he murmured against her shoulder. “None of us deserve to mar it like this.”
She laughed. “You’re such a gallant gentleman when a woman is free. Those wouldn’t be your words if you were my Master.”
“No. They wouldn’t be.” Because in that case, she’d be his to do with as he wished. It was the same as how you might dog-ear the pages of your own books, but never a book that didn’t belong to you.
He trailed kisses along the marks he’d left and then stepped back to enjoy the vision in front of him one last time. “I’ll leave you to get dressed.
You can show yourself out.”
“Yes, Sir,” she said. Her voice stopped him when he reached the stairs.
“Leo?”
He turned. “Yes, Mei?”
“Be careful with her.”
He nodded and went upstairs to have another talk with the possession he’d finally fully acquired.
He knocked softly on the door when he reached Faith’s room.
“Come in.” Her voice sounded terrified from the other side of the wood, as if he would unleash some uncontrollable animal on her before the ink was dry on their agreement.
He pushed the door open to find her at the desk, a solemn expression on her face. It didn’t escape him that she’d moved as far from the bed as humanly possible, as if to dissuade him.
“We need to discuss some business,” he said.
“Business?”
“A few details. Meet me in my office in twenty minutes.” He wanted to give Mei time to clear out so the two women wouldn’t have an awkward meeting in one of the hallways.
She nodded like she understood the stakes, and Leo left and shut the door behind him, a small smile of triumph curving his lips.
***