Since the previous night, he’d tried without much success not to think too hard about the things that must have happened to her at Dmitri’s house. And for all those months. Gabe couldn’t stop thinking about their date where he’d learned just how innocent she was. Not for the first time he found himself fantasizing that he’d taken her that first night and to hell with morals. As wrong as it was, it still would have spared her what actually happened. Even if she couldn’t have known that without comparison, Gabe would have been the far kinder option.
Or... if he hadn’t left her. He should have kept going to the bar. He could have gotten rid of whatever jackass had lured her away. Or he would have known the second she’d gone missing. Had nobody cared to search for her? Had no one noticed her missing? What about those assholes at her work? But where would they have looked? Where would Gabe have looked? It wasn’t as if he could have foreseen the Dmitri situation. It was dumb luck that he’d stumbled upon her again.
He’d been angry with Anton for setting the meeting up, but if he hadn’t, Gabe never would have found her or known she was missing. Julie on the screen disappeared into the bathroom, probably to turn on the water.
Good girl.
She returned a few moments later, kicked off her shoes, and sprawled across the bed, sobbing. Of course she was. What had happened with Brian… well nothing had happened with Brian, but from her perspective it wouldn’t be nothing. There was a knock on the door and Julie wiped her eyes and went over to it.
“W-who is it?”
“It’s Phyllis, dear. I brought you some peppermint tea.”
Julie opened the door and Phyllis rolled in a little tray with a pot of tea, a teacup, and sugar. “Push that button on the wall, number 3, and I’ll come up and take it when you’re done.”
“Thank you.”
From her expression, Phyllis noticed Julie had been crying but she didn’t say anything. She knew better than to butt into the house affairs. When she’d gone, Julie went back into the bathroom to shut off the water.
She went to the tray. Her hand shook as she poured the tea and dropped a couple of sugar cubes in. Gabe winced as the metal spoon scraped around the cup. He’d put the microphone too close to where she now stood. Julie sat on the edge of the bed with the cup and saucer in her hands. The porcelain shook as tears moved down her cheeks.
That was it. He wasn’t going to sit here and watch her fall apart. To hell with giving her space. He’d tried desperately not to touch her at all the previous night. Except for the brief hand on her knee and the hand at her back as they’d walked into the house—an old unconscious habit he barely noticed anymore—he’d kept a polite distance because she didn’t need another man pawing at her. Not now.
Gabe turned off the flat screen and went to her room. She jumped when he walked in without knocking. It made him irrationally angry. It was his goddamn room. He wasn’t going to knock every fucking time!
“Gabe? What…?”
He took the teacup and saucer from her hands and set it on the cart. Then he pulled her up and into his arms. She sobbed against him while he petted her hair.
“Shhhh you’re okay. Everything’s going to be fine now.”
“W-what if he comes back?”
Who? Dmitri? No… Brian.
“He won’t. Everyone in the house knows you’re off limits, and now Brian does, too.”
He guided her back to sit on the edge of the bed and passed the cup and saucer back to her. “Drink your tea.”
Gabe sat in a nearby chair while she sipped at the hot brew.
“Did you run a bath?” he asked. He was certain she had, but it wasn’t as if he could announce he knew that.
“Yes. It might get cold.”
“I’ll drain it and start it over. Finish your tea.”
She didn’t protest when he went to the bathroom and drained the water out. Gabe’s bathroom had a large claw foot tub. It was deep enough for the water to nearly cover a grown man if you sunk down a little.
When he refilled it, he added bubbles. He should have wired up this room too—as if that wouldn’t have betrayed bad intentions. If he was watching her to keep her safe, then wiring up the bathroom would be inappropriate. He’d known that the previous night, and he knew it now. Still, he wasn’t sure if he had the strength to leave her naked in the tub without at least having a high definition view of the event.
She was his. He’d paid half a fucking million for her. No. You paid to rescue her… his better angels whispered. Fuck that. She’s mine!
He could look at her whenever he wanted. He could touch her whenever he wanted. However he wanted. He could make her wear humiliating outfits that barely covered an inch of her skin. He could share her. He could parade her around. He could fill those delicate little orifices with anything he wanted. Fingers, tongue, cock, toys, those twisted little fucking machines they kept buying. He wanted to put her in one of the house’s special chastity belts with the attached dildo set on the lowest vibration until she crawled and begged for him to let her come. He wanted to watch her whimper and writhe at his feet, begging for each new delicious game he would introduce her to.
She was all his. There wasn’t a thing in the world she could do to stop him or protest or escape him. He could have her every night and every day however and whenever he wanted for as long as he wanted and the only weapons she had were that pouty lip and her tears.
That was enough.
He couldn’t bring himself to betray her or hurt her, and he didn’t get off on unwelcome pain like Brian did. Now, in the light of day, it seemed impossible to think she would ever willingly come to him. How would that bridge be crossed? How could it be? If he tried anything, he would never know if she wanted it or if she was just scared and didn’t want to anger him. If he didn’t, he couldn’t imagine she’d ever approach him on her own. How could anyone who’d been treated like she had willingly enter even into a vanilla relationship with a man again? This whole thing was fucked.
And the worst part was, no matter what he’d told her, he could see reaching a point where he had no more patience, where he might just take and damn the consequences to her soul or to his. If he couldn’t manage to find a way to woo her into his bed and then further into his darker tastes, at what point would he snap and do it anyway? At what point would he resent her too much to give a damn about her feelings?
It was evil and unfair, but goddammit she’d wanted him so much. As much as he’d wanted her. They’d spent months flirting and bantering at the bar. And if he hadn’t been so fucking stupid and scared her away the night they went out, things could have been so different. He could have had her in his collar by now. It wasn’t as if she’d never been attracted to him. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen the whisper of the submissive urge in the way she reacted to him without realizing it.
She’d begged him not to leave her that night. And yet he had. Like a fucking idiot. And here they were in this place where she might not feel safe to do anything with anyone again, where she might be too traumatized to cross that bridge and where he didn’t know if he was strong enough not to push her across it.
Gabe turned the water off and went back into the main room. Julie had finished her cup of tea and was now looking at him like a cat about to be taken to the vet. Wary. Ready to scramble and claw if he got too near. The embrace she’d melted and sobbed into minutes before would not have an encore.