Prologue
“Daddy.”
Sophie’s lips parted as the word spilled from her, her back arching against the strong arms which held her in place.
His arms.
Daddy’s arms.
“Shhh.” He whispered the word into the side of her neck, and her eyes fluttered closed at the resonance of his deep, growly tone. “Stop fighting me, or all of this goes away.”
“No!” She gasped as her eyes flew open, focusing on their entwined reflection in the bathroom mirror.
Jared was behind her, his arms snaking around her naked body. One hand was massaging her breasts and playing with the eager nipples which greeted his palm, and the other stroked between her legs.
“Please, don’t let it go away.”
An errant smile formed at his lips. “It won’t if you’re my good girl.” Jared pressed a hot kiss at her nape. “You remember how to be my good girl, don’t you, Sophie?”
She groaned, the sensations he was creating with his fingers and mouth furling the hot ball of desire at her core.
She wanted him.
Hell, she always wanted him.
Sophie had missed her Daddy so much.
“Don’t you, Sophie?” His tone lowered further as he was forced to repeat the question, and right on cue, her chest began to rise and fall even faster.
“Yes,” she blurted, pushing her chest toward the fingers, tweaking and pulling her tightening buds.
“Yes, what?”
Oh, God. He wanted her to say the word again, didn’t he?
Even though he hadn’t commanded she say it aloud for so long, the term had haunted her still.
Even though she was wet with the notion alone.
But saying it on demand…
Oh, God.
Her gaze flitted back to the mirror to find his hard, blue stare waiting for her response. The weight of his gaze tightened the tension in her belly until it was almost painful.
“Yes, Daddy.”
Their eyes were locked together as she gave the appropriate response, Jared’s hand rocking against her throbbing clit in some sort of twisted reward.
“There’s my good girl.” His eyes flashed with salacious approval. “Daddy has missed her so much.”
She swallowed as the intensity of the statement hit home. She had missed him, too—more than she cared to admit to anyone, more than she should.
But then, who could Sophie ever make the confession to?
Her ex-husband, Jason, was long gone, their marriage over before Jared even sauntered into her life. The counselor, Helen, who she started seeing after the abduction, already seemed to despair at Sophie’s lack of progress, not that she knew the full story, of course. Sophie had scarcely admitted that to anyone, and there was no way she could confirm what the woman no doubt suspected—she was still hopelessly in love with the man who had taken her and demanded she call him Daddy.
That she couldn’t get him out of her head, even though she knew she should.
That she couldn’t let Jared go.
No. There was no one to confide in. No one she could relate those things to. No one who would understand.
His fingers slipped between her wet folds, easing into her in his usual slow, leisurely pace.
“Oh!”
Her knees wanted to buckle at the heady sensation, her left hand trying to rise instinctively to grasp his dark, luscious hair, but the arm at her chest stopped its progress.
“Stay just as you are,” he murmured into her ear. “Completely naked, legs apart, and submissive. Just how Daddy likes you.”
Jared pumped his fingers in and out of her, his rhythm increasing and the passion within her burgeoning. “There’s my good girl.” He smirked at her in the mirror, the image of everything that was wicked and divine. “So wet and pliant. So ready for Daddy.”
And she was. Sophie was so ready.
“All you have to do is let me in.” His words vibrated passed her, goading and taunting Sophie, daring her to respond.
To play his game again.
“Just let me in Sophie, and all of this will be real. Daddy will be back in your life. He’ll pleasure you, and he’ll punish you. He’ll look after you.”
“I can’t.” Sophie’s voice was strangled at the admission. “I can’t, Daddy.”
It was easier to say the word now that the digits at her sex were weaving their magic. When Jared was like this, he was at his most powerful. She often used to think he could have demanded anything of her at times like this, and likely, she would have ceded.
No doubt, he realized it, too.
No doubt that was why he was tormenting her with the promise of pleasure in the first place.
“Yes, you can.”
He was so damn self-assured—as always.
Except that final time, of course. The last time Sophie had seen him when she’d strode out of the restaurant on the other side of town and left him wanting.
But that was a long time ago, and things were very different then.
“You can do anything Daddy asks of you.”
“I can’t give up my life. I won’t give up my children.”
And there it was—in a nutshell—the true reasons why they couldn’t be together.
It wasn’t just the captivity that had pulverized their undeniable chemistry, although that should have been enough. In her heart, Sophie knew she had a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome. She’d fallen for the messed-up bastard who’d snatched her from her home, and in the moments he had worshiped her, she might truly have been besotted with him.
Of course, she had never told him.
That most dangerous of all desires was undisclosed.
Ultimately, it wasn’t even that which had doomed them. It was the dilemma Sophie faced. The need to be herself, a strong and independent woman, a good mother and friend, yet still be the woman who wanted to yield to a man like Jared.
Those needs were irreconcilable, and they always would be.
Jared’s demands could never align with those other important aspects of her life.
He wanted her absolute submission.
“Oh, Sophie.” He was disappointed, and his tone cut through her like a knife. “Why do you always say that?”
His fingers withdrew from her pussy, and she sighed with frustration. She had been so close to the precipice and he’d left her burning.
“I-I don’t have a choice, Daddy.”
“You always have a choice.” His hand rose to join the other at her chest, embracing her hard as they pulled her against his granite-like body. “You always had a choice, didn’t you, little girl, and in the end, you made that choice.”
Sophie blinked at the reflection of the man who had turned her whole world upside down.
“Didn’t you?”
“Yes.” She was despondent as she answered him. “Yes, I made that choice, Daddy.”
Sophie had. She had chosen to be free—to be free of Jared.
To let her Daddy go.
Now, he came to her every night in her hot, torrid dreams.
The image of him revisiting Sophie as frequently as a poltergeist.
She glanced away from his insistent gaze, watching the way his palm grasped her breast. She wanted this—she wanted him—yet she couldn’t have him.
Sophie could never truly have the things she craved.