“Faith.”
She looked up, startled to find Leo on the stairs, a rattan cane in his hand. Her crying must have gotten louder than normal, loud enough for him to hear. Faith had been so wrapped in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed when things had gone quiet and Leo had climbed the stairs to investigate.
“Faith? What are you doing here?”
He was still a few steps down from her. Enough that she had space to get up, so she did. She ran up the rest of the stairs, down the hallways, through the entryway, and up another flight to the east wing. She locked the door behind her even though it was useless.
That other woman knew Faith had been there. What must she think? Was she going to be angry about it? Embarrassed?
A moment later, the key turned in the lock and Leo stepped into the room, sucking all the air out. Snowball and Squish hid under the bed. Whether they were responding to his energy or her fear, Faith couldn’t be sure.
She eyed the cane firmly clasped in Leo’s hand. This could be the moment he lost control. She dropped to her knees, her legs not able to support her in the face of what might come next. She held her arms defensively in front of her. “Please, I’m sorry…”
He looked down, as if only now noticing he still held the cane. He crossed the room and set the rattan on the fireplace mantle, then stood next to her while she stared at his shoes, hoping for the moment to end or for Leo to develop amnesia and forget he’d found her crying and pathetic, hiding while listening to everything he did.
“How many times have you been there when I’ve been downstairs with someone?” His voice had softened, but only by a fraction. There was still something in his tone that demanded absolute obedience and honesty or else.
“A-all of them. E-every time a woman has come here.”
“Why?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“That’s bullshit,” he bit out. “Tell me why you were listening.”
She looked up at him, pleading in her eyes. “Leo, please, I’m sorry. I won’t ever do it again.”
“Answer me.”
“I can’t stand you with them,” she blurted. “I can’t watch this. Let me go. Let me leave this place.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?” She chanced a look into his eyes. His expression was hard.
“Won’t. Besides, what would you do now? Your job is long gone.”
“I’ll find another one. I’m very qualified for what I do. I’m young. And I have savings. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure you would be. But you aren’t leaving here.” Leo crossed to the intercom box. Faith struggled to stand and sat on the edge of the bed.
He watched her briefly, then pressed the white button. “Demetri?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Would you please go untie Miss Lin? I shouldn’t leave her alone like that. Instruct her to stay in the dungeon and wait for my return.”
“Right away, sir.”
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 h
e’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.
***
As recently as the family’s departure, Faith had thought she just wanted to live and stay safe. But as the other women began to arrive, the pain and fear had crept up on her—the fear that he would turn that look of pleasure and approval on another woman, and Faith would become like lonely furniture forgotten in a corner of the room.
But now that she’d attained his undivided attention, the idea of being forgotten furniture felt so much safer.
She watched the clock above the fireplace as it moved far too fast to the moment she would see Leo again. She dreaded whatever business he had to discuss with her. But as long as he was talking, he wasn’t hitting.
When she couldn’t wait any longer without being late, she got up and made her way to the office. An imaginary, disembodied voice echoed off the walls: “Dead woman walking.”
She stood in the doorway to the office, her arms wrapped around her.
Leo glanced up from his desk and put his pen down, closing the black book she’d seen him writing in before. He motioned for her to come to him.
He rubbed her arms when she got closer. “You look white as a ghost. Are you cold? Do you need a sweater?”
“No.”
“No, Master,” he corrected.
“No, Master,” she whispered, her gaze cast down.
“We’re just going to talk.”
She nodded and sat in the offered chair on the other side of his desk. She clasped her hands in her lap, staring down at the ring on her finger. “A-are we really getting married?” It was still too impossible and bizarre to be true.
“Yes. I told you already, it’s either that or stay in the dungeon during Christmas every year. Is that what you want?”
“No, Master.”
“Then yes, we’re getting married.”
“But you don’t love me.” She couldn’t say she didn’t love him because she wasn’t sure anymore. If all this were real and normal and without all the layers of strangeness on top of it, she would have accepted a proposal from Leo without hesitation. But this wasn’t her fantasy, this was the real Leo, and she knew the engagement wasn’t real to him, even if the end result would be legal.
“Marrying for love is a new idea. For centuries men and women married for many reasons that had nothing to do with their feelings. Grammie and Papi had an arranged marriage, and they love each other now. Feelings grow over time. We are attracted, and that’s more than what most had. Do you think I would keep you here if I di
dn’t at least want you?”
She wondered if he would take a mistress, but she didn’t ask. It was inappropriate to badger him as a normal fiancée might. She had no right to demand anything, least of all fidelity. Faith wasn’t sure if he experienced love in a way she’d recognize, anyway.
“Are you on birth control?”
Her head snapped up. It was one of the last things she expected to hear and brought back the fears that he’d try to make her have babies to promote the sham marriage. After all, hadn’t she given him her consent… for anything?
“You know I’m not,” she said.
“I have no way of knowing that. The shot lasts three months. You could have taken that right before you met my brother. You could have a contraceptive implant, or an IUD, both of which can last several years.”
“No. I’m not on any form of birth control.” In all the anxiety about pain and scary kink, Faith had forgotten the normal things couples in sexual relationships obsessed about: diseases and pregnancy. With him being a medical professional, she was sure Leo had been careful with the former, but the latter remained a small risk. “A-are you going to make me have babies? Before you said that you wouldn’t.”
“Do you want babies?”
The truth might upset him, or he might use it against her. “There’s about a 90 percent chance I can’t have them. That’s what my doctor said. I’ve always had issues with my cycle, and I had an illness. The odds aren’t good for me.”
“If you could have them, would you want them?”
She shrugged. “A-are you angry?”
“Why would I be angry?”
“I could be infertile… and your mom…”
“I told you I wouldn’t force you to have children if you didn’t want them. Do you think my word is worthless?”
“No, Master,” she said quickly, grateful he wasn’t angry.
“Decide if you want them. You’d be surprised how often a 10 percent chance turns into a pregnancy. If you don’t want them, we’ll use birth control. I won’t force you to have my children.”
“What about your mother? She’ll hate me.” Gina had been so nice. Most of them had, in fact. Having family was still a new and novel concept. She hated the thought of dashing all their hopes and dreams for more children in the family and being resented for it.