This wasn’t happening. It was a dream. A lovely dream. If she let herself believe this was real and then woke up…
“Drink.” The cool water sliding down her throat finally convinced her she was really with him.
“We’re going back to the house.” His tone brooked no argument, but she wouldn’t have argued. She would have begged to go back with him. She couldn’t believe he’d come for her. She’d been sure she would die in there. Maybe she was dead.
“I shouldn’t have released you. But I shouldn’t have tortured that girl in front of you, either.” Mina lay silently listening to him speak as he stroked her hair. “I don’t know how normal emotions work. I don’t know why you’re an exception that lets me feel something almost like a real feeling. I don’t know if I love you or if I’m capable of it, but you are mine. You will always be mine. In the future I will consider all the ways I could damage you, not just the ways prohibited in a contract. And I will protect you from those things. That’s the best I can offer, but I need your obedience, and I need you to understand that I’m too broken to ever fix. I am what I am, but you are under my protection. That has to be enough. Is that enough for you?”
It wasn’t enough. It should be, but it wasn’t. But it didn’t matter because whether it was packaged in the way she thought it should be, Lindsay had delivered to her exactly what he’d promised and what she’d asked for: a master who would be gentle with her and respect her boundaries.
“Yes, Master,” she said. It was a lie, but it didn’t matter. Everything he’d asked was rhetorical. He wouldn’t let her go again. Not ever. She could feel the weight of self-blame on him for releasing her and his determination to keep her this time. It was explicitly stated in the grip he kept on her waist as if she might levitate up and away from him.
“We don’t know how he found you.”
Mina tensed.
“But you do.” It was scary how little it was possible to hide from him, no matter how badly she wanted to. “Tell me.” It wasn’t a request.
“The girl you punished in my place before you let me go…”
“Cate?”
Was that her name? She hadn’t known.
“She knew he bid on me but that you’d taken the bid from him because of something Lindsay said. She broke into Lindsay’s office and found the man’s number.”
The look that spread across Brian’s face was so dark and hard, she almost regretted telling him the truth. She didn’t ask what he’d done at the Japanese man’s house, if he’d killed everyone, if he’d left any survivors. She doubted it, but she didn’t want to know, and she was afraid if she asked he might tell her.
“Rest. We’ve got a long flight,” he said.
That was no problem. She was certain she could sleep for the rest of her life if she made the smallest effort. The last thing she realized as sleep claimed her was that she could feel the weight of her grandmother’s ring on her finger.
Many hours later she woke in Brian’s bed. There was a tray of food on the nightstand. “You need to eat something. You need fluids, especially. I brought you soup, but you can have anything else in the kitchen after that.”
“Thank you for coming for me. And for finding my ring.”
He rested a hand against her cheek and nodded.
“I’m going to deal with Cate now. Don’t interfere. Just be grateful if I decide to leave her breathing when I’m done.”
Mina felt a coldness seep into her bones and spread to her extremities. She felt something flip over inside of her, a dark thing that she’d pushed aside each time before when she’d been hurt or misused.
It itched.
Her gaze rose to Brian. “I don’t care what you do to her.”
He smiled and pressed a kiss to Mina’s forehead. “That’s my girl. I knew you were in there somewhere.”
He lingered and held her gaze, a long moment of understanding passing between them. They were too broken—both of them—clinging to each other at sea on a raft that would never reach land.
Brian squeezed her hand and left. Minutes later Cate’s screams filled the hallway. Mina looked to the door then back at her food and finished her dinner.
30
BOOK THREE: Surrender
Dani’s Bar stood at the mouth of the bad side of town. But it was still close enough to the good side of town that an eclectic blend of respectable and shady customers always flowed through its doors.
“You’re late,” Danika said as Julie pulled her long, auburn hair back with a hair clip.
“I know, I’m sorry.” Julie hung her coat on a wooden peg in the back and carefully slid her time card into the old machine. It was finicky. If she didn’t do it just right, it wouldn’t click and count her hours right.
“Third time this week.” Danika hated late people. And though her boss was only five foot two and a hundred pounds soaking wet, Julie didn’t like to be on her bad side.
“I’m sorry. My roommate is completely unreliable, and you know we share the car.”
“You need to figure out a way to get to work on time.” Her boss sighed and pushed her long blonde hair behind her shoulder. “Anyway, he’s out there at the bar waiting for you. He won’t order until you get here.”
“Who is?” But Julie knew. Gabe Griffin. The man all her fantasies had revolved around since he’d started coming to the bar last April. Tonight he wore his standard white T-shirt that strained to cover the impressive muscles of his arms and back, Levi jeans, and some boots. She still didn’t know what he did for a living, but she always imagined some kind of construction work. The white of the shirt seemed to glow against his dark tan and sun-streaked blond hair. But the back of him was nothing compared to the front of him and those startling green eyes that seemed as though they could read all your secrets.
Danika laughed. “Girl, you’ve got it bad. You may as well own it.”
“Shut up. I do not have it bad. I’m not a thirteen-year-old school girl.” Though she felt like it when he was near.
Danika smirked. “Whatever you say.”
Julie went out to the bar, trying to push down the nervous giddy grin that would let him know how badly she wanted him. He smiled when she approached.
“Your usual, Gabe?”
“Yeah, sweetheart, my usual.” His voice was something between a deep purr and a drawl. He must have been a big jungle cat in a previous life.
She poured him bourbon and sat on the stool behind the bar. He downed it quickly and slammed the glass down on the counter.
“Another.”
Julie poured a second. “Rough night?”
“Nah. I just need a little liquid courage.”
“Oh?”
“Hey Julie!” a drunk at the other end of the bar shouted. “Can I get another beer?”
She turned to go fill the drink order, but Gabe’s large hand closed around her wrist.
“You’re so tiny,” he murmured as his thumb brushed softly against the back of her hand.
Electricity shot up her arm from where he touched her. That dark, beautiful tan, contrasting against her more delicate pale skin. He definitely did some kind of outdoor work. Construction. Landscaping. Something rugged.