Manipulate (Deliver 6)

“I agreed to it.” She clutched her throat and glanced around before giving him her eyes. “He raped me, too, Ricky. Whatever you’re feeling, the filthy things he planted in your head, his taunting voice in your ear whenever you’re alone, the shameful memories… I understand all of it. But unlike you, I get to spend every night with him, working through it and repairing the parts he fractured. If you need this from him, I’m cool with it.” She shoved back her shoulders. “As long as you remember he belongs to me.”

“You’re a possessive little thing.” He grinned.

“With him? You bet your ass.”

“No betting needed, considering I’m about to hand my ass over to him.”

“Good.” She smiled.

“Good.” He nodded at the path. “Shall we?”

She breezed past him, navigating the steppingstones with the grace of a beauty queen.

“No one else has sought him out like this.” She peered at him beneath her lashes as she made her way around the side of the cabin. “I mean, other than Camila asking him to help with her vigilante work, you’re the only one of his…uh…”

“Ex-slaves. You can call us that.”

She nodded. “You’re the only ex-slave who has reached out to him. He appreciates your trust more than you know, but I’m curious…”

“Why am I here instead of plotting his death like my roommates?”

“Yeah.” She padded along the lit path, her expression pinched with wariness.

“Pain makes you stronger, and time heals all wounds. Blah, blah, blah… I’m sure there’s truth in that, but to be honest, I sympathized with him and Liv when I found out they were forced into that life.”

Back in the day, long before Van met Amber, Van had a hard-on for Liv Reed. He and Liv had made quite the dysfunctional, human-sex-trafficking duo.

Over six years, they enslaved five males and two females. Camila Dias had been their first. Ricky was slave number two.

The night Ricky was captured, he’d taken one look at Liv and followed his dick. The alluring, irresistible beauty had led him out of the dance club, into her car, and straight into shackles with an unspoken promise of fun, kinky, consensual sex.

Unbeknown to him, she’d drugged his beer at the bar, which had caused him to black out during the drive. But that wasn’t why he ended up in her car in the first place.

He’d wanted her, despite her scarred face, and when he saw Van with a matching scar, he wanted both of them. Separately. At the same time. Any way he could get them.

Apparently, gorgeous criminals were his weakness. He was shallow and reckless like that.

But at the time, he hadn’t known what he wanted. Not completely.

“Before Van, I didn’t know I was bisexual.” He stopped walking and waited for Amber to glance back. “I always knew I wasn’t like other guys, but I didn’t know how or why until I was chained in Van’s attic.”

“Oh.” She pulled in a slow breath and turned to face him. “He was your first?”

“I’d been with women, but never with a man. Not until him.”

“I’m sorry.” She cringed. “I imagine he didn’t break you in gently.”

“No.” He laughed with a grimace. “During those godawful months with him… Jesus, he fucked me up so badly I thought I was going to die. But the experience opened my mind. It forced me to examine my curiosities, desires, and all the socially unacceptable things I would’ve never explored on my own.”

“He broke you and put the pieces back together the way they were meant to be.”

“Exactly.”

It felt good to talk about this, and she seemed to relate to him on a level most people didn’t. Because Van had put her through the same hell.

“Had he not subjected me to the things he did…” He gripped the back of his neck. “I don’t think I would’ve ever acknowledged my bisexuality or my need to be dominated in bed. It’s crazy that I feel grateful to him for that, considering the nightmares and years of mental trauma he caused me.”

But he had time and distance on his side. It’d been eight years since his captivity. Nine years for Camila. Every day was easier than the last.

That was the only reason he was able to face Van tonight.

His roommates—Tomas, Luke, Martin, Tate, and Kate—didn’t have as many years to heal. Not yet. They would come around eventually, and maybe someday, they would forgive Van’s cruelty.

Even so, the decision to pick up the phone and call Van hadn’t been an easy one. It had taken him a year of dialing and hanging up before he let the call go through.

He didn’t know if Van would reject him or if he was even ready to take this step with his former captor. He didn’t know if he would ever be ready.

“I’m growing impatient.” The deep baritone punched from the tree line behind the house, shooting a delicious shiver down Ricky’s spine.