The flight was a little over three hours, and then we landed with a gentle bump at a private airfield. I had no idea where we were.I exited the plane and followed marcus to a waiting car, this one a stretch limousine. He held the door for me, closed it, and then slid into the driver’s seat. He said nothing, only waited as someone else loaded my suitcases into the trunk.I’d half expected to see someone sitting in the shadows of the limousine, but there was no one. Only long expanses of black leather, lights, and a radio, and more champagne. I folded my hands on my lap and waited as Marcus drove. It was a long journey, and we got closer to what looked to be New York. We went over the Brooklyn Bridge and into Manhattan. We wove through thick traffic, heading uptown.After almost an hour of driving, high-rises piercing the night sky all around, Marcus pulled the limousine into an underground garage.My heart was hammering as He led me, sans suitcases, to the elevator. The elevator rose
I gulped, probably loud enough for him to hear. “If you won’t tell me your name, what do I call you?”He chuckled, and the sound of his laughter caressed me, mocked me. “You and I are completely alone, Freya. If you speak, it can only be to me. You need call me nothing.”“So I don’t have to call you ‘sir,’ or ‘master’?”His voice went sharp and cold. “I am not a dominant Freya, You are not my slave, nor my submissive.” He moved, now standing behind me. He was close to my ear, and I felt him at my spine. “I own you, but you will submit to me willingly.”“I will?”“You will.”“Why?” I wanted to turn, to touch him, to take the blindfold off. Something prevented me, and I didn’t dare examine what it was.“For the period of one year, I mailed you checks for twenty thousand dollars, one every month. You cashed and used them all. You spent my money, freya. You lived on my generosity. My reasons for this will remain a mystery to you…for now. But you are in my debt. You would have been homeles
You’re very sure of yourself,” I said, trying to sound stronger than I felt. In truth, the raw sincerity and utter surety in his voice shook me to the core. He believed what he said to be nothing but the unquestionable truth.“Yes, I am.” Now his voice was a mere breath of heat on the shell of my ear. “I will make sure you beg me for it.”Holy shit. What was I supposed to say to that? I could barely stand up. The potent mix of emotions this man engendered in me had me trembling, knees knocking. I was turned on, I had to admit. And that scared me. So badly. I didn’t want to want him. I didn’t want to be owned by him. But somehow, with nothing but a few words and touches, he had me aching in ways I’d never thought possible.“See?” His fingertip traced the apple of my cheek, ran beneath the swell of my lower lip. “Already you begin to understand. You’re turned on, freya. I can smell it on you. Your nostrils are flaring. You’re trembling and blushing. You hate it, though, don’t you?”I di
I will send you home. You would sign an ironclad nondisclosure agreement, and you’d be free to go.”“Just like that?” I put all the sarcasm and bitterness I possessed into those three words.“Just like that.”“And I wouldn’t have to repay you?”“No.” He paused for effect. “Except, you wouldn’t receive another dime. And you still have a very long way to go to finish your degree. The jobs you’re trained for right now will never offer the funds necessary for you to take care of your mother and brother. And even if you could stay afloat long enough to finish your degree, and get a job in your field, do you really think a social worker could ever make enough money to pay the kinds of bills you’ve got hanging over your head?”“I’d make it work.”“Yes, freya. I do believe you’d kill yourself trying.” He paused to sip his drink again, and I took another drink as well. “You could take that route. And you might be able to make it work. But…your choices are limited. Very limited. How long do you
“It’s…subjective, I think. The difference in definition varies from person to person.”“Yes, I know. That’s why I’m asking you what you think.”I blinked behind the blindfold, an instinctive reaction to thinking. “Could I…sit down? Please?”“Of course. How rude of me to leave us standing here in the foyer.” He took my hand. “Come.”“Wait…the blindfold…aren’t you going to take it off?” I pulled back against his hand, reached for the fabric covering my eyes.Strong fingers imprisoned my wrist, stopping me gently but firmly. “No. Not yet. Not for a while, I think.”“What? What do you mean, not for a while?” I jerked my hand free, turned to where I thought he was standing.“I mean that I’ll remove the blindfold when I’m ready to do so. I am not yet ready for you to see me. You have four other senses, Kyrie. Focus on those.”“Are you, like, ugly or disfigured or something?”He laughed, and the sound was loud with raw amusement. “How very blunt of you. ” He took my hand once more, and I cou
“Yes, precisely.”“It’s about emotion, I think,” I said. “Sex is the clinical term, the context-less word for the act. It means nothing else, holds no meaning or importance beyond the mere physical act of engaging in sexual intercourse. Making love is…well, obviously it’s about love. It’s about the expression of the way you feel about someone. Fucking is…I guess I think about it as something crude. Rough and empty of emotion. Hard and fast. Although I guess it doesn’t have to be rough or hard, just…devoid of emotional exchange. You’d fuck someone you just met at the bar. You wouldn’t, and I think couldn’t, make love with someone you just met. You have to know them, understand them, care about them, actually love them to make love, whereas you can fuck anyone, anytime, no emotions or connections required.”“And have you personally experienced both?”I hesitated to answer. “I…I don’t know. I think so? I thought I was in love once. I thought what we had meant something. I’ve had sex, obv
Then why…like this?” I gestured to the blindfold, and then away, meaning the way I was picked up. “Why the checks? Why the hired goon saying he was ‘collecting’ me? Why the blindfold and the…the mysteriousness? Why? If you wanted me, why not simply arrange to meet me?”“Would you have come?” I heard leather creak, and his voice sounded nominally closer, as if he’d leaned forward. “If I’d arranged so that we ‘accidentally’” —I heard the quotes around the word— “met, would you have believed me? What would I have said? ‘Oh, hello, freya, I’m the guy who’s been sending you the checks.’ I think not. And if I’d arranged a meeting and gotten to know you under what would be considered normal circumstances, and then eventually revealed that I was the one who’d sent the checks, would you not have been upset that I’d kept the truth from you? That knowledge would’ve tainted whatever relationship we’d established up to that point. Am I wrong?”I sighed. “I guess you’re right. I hadn’t thought abou
“I was always there, Miss lomie. Out of sight, but there. You and Kelly were too drunk to even walk straight that night, but there were no cabs, and the bus didn’t go where you needed to go. So you ended up walking—and I use the term ‘walking’ very loosely—all the way home. Seventeen blocks. At two in the morning”I shuddered as I remembered that night. We had been living together then, in a shitty-ass apartment downtown. We rarely ventured outside past dark and never, ever, alone. That night, though, we did. And we’d thought, the next day, that it was a miracle we’d made it home alive. Now I was starting to think it was less a miracle than Harris’s unseen protection.“That was an insanely bad decision on our part,” I said. “We woke up the next day amazed that we’d made it home intact.”“You shouldn’t have,” he said. “You almost didn’t.”“What?” I took a sip of Scotch, for courage. “What do you mean?”Marcus answered. “Kelly was so drunk you basically carried her the whole way. She co
“Such thin cotton…” he murmured, his voice rough with suggestion. “I could rip it apart so easily. Have you bared to me, just that easily. I could kiss you…everywhere.”I put my hand on his, between his fists, keeping my shirt down. “Lucas…don’t….”“No?” I felt his hands stretch apart, felt the cotton starting to give. “You’re still scared? Don’t you want to feel my lips on your skin? I know you do. You want it. You’re afraid to want it. You’re afraid to give in to me. But you want to, just as much. Have you ever really given yourself to a man before? I don’t think you have. And certainly never to a man like me.”“A man….” I swallowed hard, fighting for words. He had my brain spiraling, my body shuddering, my blood thundering, my common sense eroding, and my senses humming. “A man like you?”“Yes, Freya. A man like me.” Another tug of his fists, and I heard a distinct rip. “A man who knows exactly what he wants, and exactly how to get it.”“And…and what do you want?” I was trying so ha
I felt his presence recede a little, heard him take a swallow of his beer. I faced away and stared out the window. It was a constant effort to not turn around, yet for some reason, it was an effort I continued to make.“All that is understandable.” He paused to drink. “Why you? Let’s just say for now that…I’ve got my reasons. I chose you because I want you. I know that doesn’t really help much, but it’s all I’m willing to say at the moment. So besides that, what could I do to alleviate some of your fears?”I tapped my fingernail against the bottle. “I don’t know. A name? A nickname? Something for me to call you? It doesn’t have to be your real name, just…something.”“Hmmm. That is a reasonable request, I suppose.” A deep breath. “You may call me…Lucas.”“Lucas?”“Yes. Lucas. It is…one of my names.”“You have more than one?”He laughed. “Of course. Don’t you? Freya Anderson Lomie. One could. It is a truth I’m giving you, and for a man as…reclusively private as I am, that is no small gi
“This is all so…much,” I heard myself admit. “So different. So strange. So scary. I don’t know what’s happening to me. You—you do something to me. Just by—I don’t even know—without trying. Like you know all my switches and buttons. But you couldn’t. You couldn’t possibly know what makes me tick this well. No amount of stalking, watching me from a distance, could tell you what turns me on.”“Yes, you’re right.” His voice, coming from so close, from his chest, from above my head…was loud, pure energy and vibration. “I told you, Kyrie. I can read you like a book. You’re scared, but you want this. You hate the fact that I affect you so much, but you like it in equal measure. The fear makes it that much more exciting.”Glass touched wood, and then he took my bottle and set it down as well on the table behind us. His hands slid down my arms. His body towered behind me. His breath blew on my neck.“Eyes closed, Freya"“They are,” I told him.“Good.” A brief pause. “Do you trust me?”“I’m try
“I won’t.” The room behind us was dark, so there was no reflection of him in the window. An admission burbled up and out; I had to know what he would do. This was my test for him. “I peeked, earlier. You were going around the corner. You’re really tall, and you have blond hair.”There was a long, significant hesitation before he responded. “Why did you tell me? I wouldn’t have ever known.”I shrugged, swallowed a mouthful of beer. “I don’t know.” A lie, but I couldn’t very well tell him my real reason for spilling the truth.“Hmmm.” I heard liquid glug in a bottle neck, and deduced he was drinking beer as well. “You shouldn’t have peeked, freya”know. I’m sorry.” Strangely, it was a genuine apology.Why did it matter? I couldn’t answer that question, except to say that it did. There was no point in denying his effect on me, no point in denying that I wanted his approval, his trust. What was it about him that created this reaction in me?He was standing far enough behind me that we wer
No, give me a guy who’s in decent shape, who can hold an interesting conversation any day of the week. Give me a guy who can show me a good time without having to flex his muscles six times a minute, just to make sure they’re still there. I would want to say, Yes, buddy, you’ve still got your muscles. They didn’t go away in the last five minutes. And, no, I’m still not impressed by how much you can bench. Can you carry me to bed? Can you last long enough to make me come? Those are the important things. Get me to bed, get me off. If you can manage those things, I’ll be impressed.This was why, at twenty-six, I was still single. Most guys didn’t pass the first-date test, much less the long-term test of holding my interest for more than a month. SportsmoviesIworkOUTlookatmymusclesI’msobuff. Shut up, I DO NOT CARE. Use the muscle in your skull, and then the one in your pants. Impress me with your vocabulary, and then your sexual attentiveness. See, that was the other thing. I didn’t reall
I closed the door, leaning forward to let my forehead rest against the wood.What was I doing? I kissed him. Twice. A man I knew literally nothing about. Yet I couldn’t deny that they were by far the best kisses of my life.And…I wanted more.TESTSI thought sleep would come instantly to me. I’d started the day at home in Michigan, living life as usual. Within a matter of hours, my life had been totally changed. Now I was in Manhattan, locked away in a tower like fucking Rapunzel. Only, I could leave whenever I wanted. The only thing holding me here was my own stubbornness, my curiosity, my need to make sure the only family I had left was taken care of. I smiled to myself. I might be blonde, but my hair wasn’t that long. So I wasn’t like Rapunzel at all, except for being in a tower. And there were many towers in those old fairy tales.Was this a fairy tale? If it was, I sure as shit wasn’t any princess. My…captor? My provider? What was he? A prince? He could be. Maybe he was some kind
“I almost wish I hadn’t,” I said. “But I did, and…thank you. For protecting me from him.”“Of course. I couldn’t sit by and allow him to hurt you.”“So…that goes a long way toward helping me trust you. But…it’s not that easy. Not for me. I don’t…I can’t just decide to trust someone. It takes time. Effort.”“And that is why the blindfold must remain.” One finger touched my chin, tilting my face up. “Kiss me.” It was a command.“Ask me.”“No.”“Then, no.”“You’re not grasping the arrangement, it seems.”“I don’t do commands very well.”“And I don’t repeat myself.” His voice grew sharp. “But, just this once, for you, I will. You want to know what I want? What this is about? It’s about trust. Obedience. Compliance. You obey, I learn to trust you. If I trust you, I will give you my name and allow you to see me. Then I’ll allow things to go further. If I don’t trust you, this will take much longer, and be much harder.”“You said you wouldn’t force me to do anything I didn’t want to.”I hear
“That’s why.”“Oh.”“Yes. Oh.” He gave my cheekbone one last graze with his thumb, and then I heard a utensil scrape against a plate. “Open.”At his command my mouth opened of its own accord. A fork touched my lips and tongue, and I tasted metal, and then salmon, light and flaky and perfectly flavored with herbs. He took a bite, and then told me to open again, feeding me potatoes, thick and strong with garlic, and then green beans, buttery and crisp. It was the perfect meal, filling and balanced and bursting with flavor, and even the oddity of being blindfolded and fed like an invalid faded.The maid brought dessert the moment we had finished the main course. It was a crème brûlée, creamy and sweet and thick.“You weren’t kidding,” I said. “rebecca is an amazing chef.”“I chose her out of a thousand candidates. I spent nearly a year vetting each individual applicant. I only interviewed four of them, and she, obviously, is the one I chose. She is a miracle worker, truly.”"thousand can
“I don’t think you would.” His voice was close, his breath hot on my ear, speaking just above a whisper.“You feel it, Freya, If I kissed you right now, I do think you might faint. You’re barely breathing as it is.”“I’m breathing just fine,” I lied. “Would you? Let me go home right now?”“No, I don’t think I would.”“Why not?” These two words slipped, breathless, from my lips.His breath moved, warming my ear, then my cheek, and then, oh god—I felt his lips on my skin, mere centimeters from my mouth. “This is why.” As close as our faces were, I still barely heard him.My heart was pounding, hammering, thudding in my chest, sending blood pulsing in my ears. My skin was tingling, my hands shaking. Nerves, anticipation…fear? Parsing what I felt was impossible. I only knew I dreaded and needed in equal measure the feel of his lips on mine. So close. Yes. There, please. A kiss, a single kiss.I’d only known this man for a matter of perhaps two hours, yet his lips were grazing mine, and he