1
Mara
I wake to the sound of waves crashing against the cliffs below. Cole keeps all his windows open on the north side of the house. I smell salt and iron, the scent of the bay. Fog drifts into the room, swirling around the posters of the old-fashioned bed.
I slip out from under the heavy coverlet, naked, my nipples stiffening in the cold. The fog condenses on my warm skin, making me slippery as a seal.
Cole has left a silk robe for me—the kind a vintage film star would have worn. It swirls around my body, heavy, sumptuous, and ridiculously extravagant.
He left slippers for me as well, but I ignore those, preferring to pad across his thick Turkish rugs in my bare feet.
Walking through the halls of Seacliff is like walking through Versailles after hours. It seems outrageous that I’m even allowed inside this place, let alone that I live here.
I could never have imagined what real wealth looks like, what it feels like to the touch. Palatial, empty, echoing space. Priceless art hung in distant wings where months or even years could pass without a single person viewing it. The aesthetic perfection of every last faucet and doorknob—each made of the finest materials. Patinaed with age, but never becoming broken or run down.
Motion sensors are everywhere. He already knows I’m awake.
Cole is the most observant person I’ve ever met. He uses technology to enhance what he can see, what he can hear, until he’s god-like in his reach.
Inside this house, he could always be listening. He could always be watching.
I want him to be.
I’m safe from the rest of the world when I’m under his eye, under his protection. No one can hurt me, no one can touch me.
Except Cole himself.
I walk down the wide, curving staircase to the main level, the long train of the robe trailing behind me like a wedding gown. I haven’t belted it. I see the hunger in Cole’s dark eyes when he sees my bare breasts slipping in and out of view within the folds of the liquid, shimmering silk.
He’s already dressed for the day, the soft black waves of his hair still damp from his shower. Freshly shaved, the sensual curves of his mouth and the sharp line of his jaw look impossibly youthful. He’s ageless. Eternal. Beautiful in a way that hurts me, that grabs hold of my heart in my chest and squeezes hard.
He holds out a double-walled glass, the layers of espresso, milk, and foam seeming to float in space.
“I made you a latte.”
He must have started it the moment I opened my eyes. Perfectly timed to the minutes it would take me stretch, slip out from under the covers, pull on the robe, and pad down the stairs.
His precision terrifies me.
In the same breath, I feel deep admiration for what I—distracted and impulsive as I am—could never hope to accomplish.
I could never be this calculated, this patient, this effective. He really is superhuman.
And he’s not even trying. It’s just a game to him.
A game to hand me this perfectly prepared latte, exactly the way I like it. He already knows this, too: the temperature I want, so I can sip without burning my mouth. Sweetness enhancing the flavor of the expensive beans, but not obscuring it. Extra foam, thick and rich as whipped cream.
I trail my tongue through it, unembarrassed. I lick it off my lips. Because I’m learning too: he likes to watch me enjoy things. It gives him more pleasure to watch me lap up this foam, to lick it off my fingers, than it could ever give him to taste it himself.
I saturate my mouth with the delicious flavor, and then I kiss him so he can taste it on my lips.
The coffee makes my mouth warm and sensual.
That’s why he made it for me.
This is all calculated so I won’t walk over the fridge and start rummaging. He wants to select what I eat, what I drink, what I wear. He wants to choose better than I could choose myself, so I won’t fight him, so I’ll submit to him.
Each time I accept one of his choices, I see the glint of triumph in his eyes. This is how he intends to tame me.
I’m not an easy pet.
I’m wild and feral. What I want is capricious, it changes every moment.
“Do we have any more of those peaches from last night?” I say.
I see the flame flicker up in his eyes, irritation that he failed to anticipate this.
“You ate them all before bed.”
“You didn’t think I’d eat six at once?” I say, that light edge of teasing both infuriating and arousing him. He grabs my wrist, pulling me toward him.
His rough growl swipes up my spine like sandpaper: “If we were on a ship stranded in the ocean, and all we had left was one bar of chocolate, you’d eat the whole thing in five minutes and lick your fingers afterward.”
I smile up at him, unrepentant.
“I don’t want to be hungry while I get that ship working again,” I say.
I gulp down the rest of the meticulously-prepared latte. “Rationing is for people who only want to endure.”
“I would have thought hard times would have taught you the value of planning,” Cole says, his other hand snaking around behind the back of my skull, gripping me tight, his fingers twined through my hair.
I tilt up my mouth to him.
“I don’t want to survive. I want to thrive.”
He kisses me like he does every time, like he’s eating me alive. He slips his hand inside my robe, cupping my bare breast. His sensitive fingers explore my body like a blind man: learning every curve by feel, not sight.
I try to resist the power of those hands, but it’s impossible.
I go limp, falling back against the supporting strength of his arm. The robe opens, giving him full access to the naked body beneath. I’m dizzy and swooning as that warm, powerful hand roams over my exposed flesh.
The ornate tin tiles of the kitchen ceiling fill my eyes with their silvery glow. His fingertips dance across my collarbone, before his hand closes around my throat. I feel his cock stiffening against my hip as he slowly cuts off my air.
“What were you dreaming about last night?” he murmurs in my ear. “You were moaning in your sleep …”
“I don’t remember,” I lie.
His fingers tighten until black spots bleed over the tin tiles and I can barely feel his arm beneath my body.
“You can’t keep secrets from me, Mara,” he growls, his teeth bared against the side of my throat. “I will break you down systematically, relentlessly, until you give me what I want.”
I turn my head, looking directly into his eyes.
“What do you want?”
He licks his lips, our mouths so close together that his tongue almost touches mine as well.
“I want all of you. Every single part of you. I want to know everything about you: all your history, and every thought that comes into your head. Every desire, no matter how dark or how perverse. Every fantasy, no matter how impossible it may seem. And most of all, Mara, I want to occupy your thoughts like you occupy mine. I want you obsessed with me, bound to me, dependent on me. I want you to live for me, not just with me.”
To me, this is a more terrifying prospect than when I thought Cole might murder me.
My whole life has been a struggle for independence.
Every person who was supposed to love me tried to control me instead. They tried to bend me and shape me to be what they wanted, so they could use me, so they could consume me like fuel.