Her Beast (Beauty and the Captor 1)

And I sobbed as he looked me over. His expression was neutral, controlled, but I could see the heat blazing in his eyes. It was strange. It was the kind of heated gaze I’d tried to avoid all my life but forced to endure it now, I could analyze it—probably because I couldn’t just sit there. I needed to think about something. And not about why he was doing this, or what he was going to do to me next.

So, where did it come from?—that heat? Was he turned on by me?—by something particular about my body? Or would he be just as aroused by any woman, naked and forced to her knees in front of him? And did that same rationale apply to other men, too? So long as a woman played into his fetish, was she interchangeable?

And how did it make me feel? If I could separate myself from my situation, and pretend he was just an ordinary man—an extremely attractive, ordinary man—how would I feel about him looking at me that way?

I didn’t like my answer.

“You have a very beautiful body, Pet.” He was looking at me expectantly as if he was waiting for me to thank him for the compliment. He really was insane.

He let out a sigh as if he was disappointed, but he seemed to dismiss it. “I’ll tend to your welts now. Climb up on the bed and lay down on your stomach.”

“My…my backside is fine,” I lied, but I’d rather live with the sting for the rest of my life than submit to whatever ‘tending’ he had in mind.

He eyed me for a moment, maybe debating whether my words constituted disobedience. But I had been careful in my phrasing. I didn’t tell him ‘no’, only that it was unnecessary. Apparently, this coward was a quick learner.

“Suit yourself,” he said then, but he proceeded to come even closer. He stopped right in front of me and reached out to stroke his fingers through my hair.

I wanted to pull away, but I held still. There were worse things he could be touching. If I was going to fight him, I was going to save my strength for that. And I knew ‘that’ was coming. If not now, then soon. I choked back a sob, knowing that in the end, no matter how much I fought him, he would take what he wanted. And whatever he couldn’t take, he would just hurt me until I handed it over to him. All it had taken was a few lashes with his belt and I’d jumped to obey. How much more would he take before he was done with me?

An icy chill shivered down my spine at the thought because the answer was clear and far more terrifying than I could have imagined not so long ago. He wanted everything. He wasn’t content to rape me and then leave me alone. If that was what he’d wanted, he would have gotten it over with by now. Forcing me to submit, to obey him…he didn’t just want my body. He wanted my soul.

It was too bad for him there wasn’t much of one left for him to take. But he didn’t care—whole or broken, he’d take it all.

“When I return, I expect you to greet me in this position. Always. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” I said, a little too eagerly. But if he was going to return, that also meant he was going to leave. I might still be trapped here, but at least I would be alone.

He chuckled, obviously not missing the eagerness in my tone. But he caressed my cheek once more, and then he was leaving. Across the room, at the door, and then he was gone.

When I heard the scrape of the lock, I breathed a sigh of relief and sprang to my feet. He couldn’t damn well make me kneel if he wasn’t here, could he? And I wrapped the blanket back around my body, pulling so tight when I tucked the edge between my breasts that it felt like an old-fashioned corset, cinching my breasts together. I didn’t care. It felt like armor, and I was glad to have it back on. Exactly how long I’d have it on before he made me take it off again, I didn’t know. But I intended to have a better plan than to cry and obey him figured out before he returned.

3

Derek

“So, how is our lovely, new slave?” Marcos queried as he sat back in the wing-backed leather chair, with one of his more recent acquisitions kneeling at his feet. The girl was plain, certainly nothing like the girl I’d left not long ago in the training room. But this one had submitted quickly and easily under Marcos’ guidance, and that was the way he liked it.