Claiming My Sweet Captive

I was behaving like a boy with a new favorite toy. Samantha might be the first woman I’d had in my care since I’d been scarred, but that was no excuse for my childish, reckless behavior.

“Give me a month.” I told Cristian coolly.

“You can have three weeks,” he countered. “I don’t have time for you to play with your new toy. Break her, or I’ll find another way to guarantee her cooperation.”

My new toy. His use of the terminology that had

just run through my own mind let me know that I’d shown my hand. I’d always been possessive of my toys as a child, because Cristian reveled in stealing them and breaking them.

He’d do the same to Samantha if I gave him even a shadow of an excuse.

Keeping my expression carefully neutral, I nodded my agreement.

Samantha trembled at my side. “You can’t do this to me,” she whispered. Her porcelain skin was completely devoid of any trace of rosy color, her freckles standing out starkly on her slender nose.

Without thinking, I hooked my fingers through the collar at her nape, adding just enough pressure so it would pull snugly against the front of her throat. I controlled her body, her breath.

She belonged to me now.

“Quiet, cosita,” I chided, calm settling over me when her pretty eyes flew wide and she softened in instinctive submission. “It’s done.”

Her sensual lower lip trembled, and her thick lashes glistened as her tears began to overwhelm her.

I was dimly aware of Cristian and his men leaving my bedroom, but I couldn’t look away from the pretty tears shining on her pale skin.

A rush of jealousy soured my mounting desire. Cristian had caused these tears. I wanted her to cry for me.

And she would. She’d cry in pain; she’d cry for mercy; she’d cry from excruciating pleasure.

She wouldn’t understand yet, but she would learn.

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her against my chest. The warm wetness on her cheeks dampened my shirt. I wanted to strip it off and feel her tears on my skin, but that could come later. When her tears truly belonged to me, I’d allow them to soak into me and cleanse my soul.

Chapter 4

“You haven’t eaten, sirenita,” I eyed the untouched food on the tray beside the bed. Despite the admonition, I continued to run my hands up and down her back.

She sniffled against me, and I savored the last little sound of vulnerability before she pushed away from my chest to fix me with a glare. I firmed my arms around her lower back, pinning her against me.

Her pale gaze sparked. “I didn’t want to be drugged again.”

My stomach twisted at the very idea of Samantha subjected to the Bliss that my brother and his men used against the women in his brothel. She’d be mindlessly compliant and weakened by artificial lust. It would hollow her out, just like Lauren.

“I don’t need to drug you to keep you compliant. I wouldn’t do that,” I promised.

“You drugged me last night,” she shot back, reminding me of how I’d sedated her so I could tend to the cuts Cristian had sliced into her skin.

I fixed her with a frown. “You were hurting. I was sparing you more pain. Would you have preferred to suffer?”

She lifted her chin. “Yes,” she declared, defiant. “Then I could have at least kept the dignity of my clothing. You stripped me as soon as I was unconscious.”

If she thought she could make me feel guilty for revealing her body, she was mistaken. She was mine to admire, and I’d keep her fully bared to me at all times.

“Do you really think you’d still be wearing clothes if I didn’t want you to? You can’t hide from me, Samantha.”

To prove my point, I fisted the sheet at her lower back. I’d allowed her to remain covered for far too long. The challenging tilt of her chin proved that much.

She twisted against me in a vain attempt to hide from me. Her squirming only made the sheet fall away that much more easily. Within seconds, her naked body was pressed to my suit-clad form. I liked her like this: wearing nothing but my collar while I kept her slim body locked in my embrace.