Buttons and Shame (Buttons 4)

“You’re a guest. You can leave whenever you want.”

But there was only one place I could go.

“You don’t need to avoid me. As you’ve figured out, I’m not the beating type.”

I immediately took a deep breath, feeling relief surge through me. I was tired of being knocked around. The pain wasn’t the worst part of it. It was the indignity of it all. It was being treated as less than human. “I know you aren’t.”

“Then get your ass downstairs and eat.” He got off the bed and walked back to the door. “Or I’ll make you.”

I took Cane’s offer and went outside. He didn’t have a backyard like homes in South Carolina. There was no fencing around the perimeter, allowing a glorious view of the hillsides and the distant city of Florence.

The sun was bright that afternoon, and instead of moving to the shade to avoid the heat, I let it absorb into my skin. I should have been home after my visit to Greece by now. My parents knew I’d been missing a long time ago because I always checked in with them every night. When that phone call never came, they undoubtedly filed a report with the local police. And when no one could get a hold of Lizzie, the truth was inevitable.

I felt worse for them than I did for myself.

Not knowing what happened to me was worse than knowing the truth.

That I was a human trafficking victim.

I wanted to read a book, but I didn’t want to get too comfortable. It would be easy to fall in love with the luxuries Cane offered me. He had incredible food in the kitchen, books in his office, and a beautiful home that had the comfiest couches in the world.

But I had to go back.

It was only a matter of weeks until that chain was returned to my ankle and my eyes would turn black again.

No, I shouldn’t get comfortable.

Cane didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day. He stayed inside, probably working in his office. When he said I wasn’t a prisoner, it sounded like he meant it.

He was right. I wasn’t.

But knowing I had to return someday hindered any temporary comfort. I couldn’t truly be happy knowing what was at the end of the road for me. It was a slow death. I almost wished I was back with Tristan so he could hit me too hard and end my life then and there.

When the sun set over the horizon and the crickets started to chirp, I walked back inside. Cane was in the living room with a glass of scotch in his hand. His tablet sat in his lap, and he seemed to be reading something as he sat in front of the fire.

He would expect me to please him tonight. I could feel the tension just as I could feel the heat from the flames. He would want to fuck me sooner rather than later, and I couldn’t deny him forever.

When he heard the door click shut behind me, he looked up from his tablet and locked his eyes with mine. Despite how pretty his eyes were, he had a dark soul. I could tell he was a conflicted man, a man with demons that he would never share with me. I suspected he was a lot more dangerous than he let on, but something about me had softened his resolve. “A lot better view than staring at the wall, huh?”

I crossed my arms and walked into the living room. The other couch was vacant, so I took a seat and pulled my knees to my chest. I was still in the jeans and t-shirt he had given me. It was nice to walk around the house fully clothed rather than being stripped to the tiny fabric of a thong.

Cane drank his scotch without moving his eyes from my face. He swirled the ice cubes in his glass before he took another drink, drinking it like water rather than hard liquor. When he swallowed, I could see the movement in his throat. His five o’clock shadow was heavy from not shaving since that morning. It coated his hard jaw and made him handsome like an old-fashioned movie star.

I felt that familiar burn in my thighs, the need to close my knees tightly together. My lips suddenly ached from the hard way he kissed me the night before. Could I hate this man but want to kiss him at the same time? Was that possible? Was this lust? I’d never felt it before, and I didn’t think it was possible after the savage way my virtue had been taken from me.

When his gaze became too much, I looked at the fire instead. Somehow, the flames seemed cold in comparison to the surging heat of his gaze. I could be looking into a volcano, and the lava still wouldn’t compare to the smolder in his eyes.