Page 38 of Captive

"No," I say sharply. "It's nothing you did. Just get her out. Give her some money if she needs it. But get herout."

"Right. I'll get her dressed to leave." He backs out and closes thedoor.

My pacing starts again. I've taken care of the problem just like that. Pack her up and send the girl on her way. Distractions lead to mistakes and mistakes lead to the end of everything. I don't need a dangerous distraction. Ever. No matter how much I want her. She will only lead to mydownfall.

I pace to the other side of the room and stare down at the bottle of whiskey on my dresser. I pour myself a glass and drop it back like its water. I pour another glass. A good night of inebriated sleep and she will be gone from my head and the underground complex for good. That thought pierces me like a shard of glass. Gone forgood.

I spin around and fly out of the room. Everything in my head tells me to turn back. This is a mistake. I march back to my bedroom door and stand there, looking at it as if I can melt it with my angry stare. I turn on my heels and head back to the women'scorridor.

I hesitate in front of her door but only for a second. My mind games are over. The dark, self-destructive side of me has won. I pull the entry card from my pocket and flash it in front of the key pad. I push the door open. There's no more hesitation or secondthought.

She is standing naked in the center of the room, dazed and confused and visibly shaken as Blake hands her a pair of jeans. Blake looks at me as if the devil himself has entered the room. And the girl . . . the girl is fucking perfection. Nothing can stop me.Nothing.

Blake opens his mouth to speak but I shake myhead.

"Get out now," Idemand.

The woman, my Sweet Sin, blinks at me, stunned and speechless. There is as much fear as there is desire in her big brown eyes. The mixed expression only makes me want her more. I hear the door close. I march toward her, unable to think about anything but havingher.

I take hold of her arms. She is naked and trembling as I pull her to me. Her lips, those lips. Fucking hell, those lips. My mouth covers hers. I'm close to devouring her as I lift her off the ground. Her arms circle my neck as I carry her to the wall and press her up against it. She mewls and moans softly against my mouth as I continue to kiss her. I shove my pants down, freeing the cock that has been hard since I first saw her standing in the shower room at the warehouse. She tightens her long, sleek thighs around me and whimpers softly as I thrust into her already tender cunt. There is no space between us. Our flesh has sealed together as one hot mass. I pump into her again and again, wanting nothing more than to stay right there buried inside of her for eternity. She ismine.

It seems I am a monster likehimafterall.

26

Angie

The thin linebetween illusion and reality has officially been erased. I can hardly remember the woman who walked into the room just days before. I have not been outside the walls of the bedroom, but it's a prison I relish. My only human contact has been Blake and Kane. Attaching the human label to Kane seems lacking,understated.

As Blake gently brushes my hair, I stare at my refection in the mirror trying to find any piece of Angie Tennyson. But she is gone. I should be sad about it, but I'm not. The undercover assignment, my life before, are just smoky memories. I have one sole purposenow.

The nectar warms me from the inside as it flows through me, plunging me into the blissful state of mind where none of the ugly stuff in the world exists and living is about pleasure. Happiness centers around being taken to the height of ecstasy again and again. Something that Kane has mastered. He has masteredme.

It seems I've been here for years, but it has only been days. Living underground takes away any sense of time. I wake, sleep and breathe around the moments when he is with me. I can't remember a time when his strong hands hadn't touched me, when I wasn't firmly in his grasp being taken in every way. Always ending with me trembling from physical and emotionalexhaustion.

Blake finishes with my hair. The red strands look like copper under the overhead lights. It's not a natural life. I should crave the sunlight and the fresh air, but there is only one thing I crave. Only one thing I need tosurvive.

"Darlin', I sure wish you'd eat more. You're losing too much weight. Mr. Freestone has asked me aboutit."

It's the first conversation about food that has caught my attention. I turn around on the chair. "Has he said something? Am I too skinny?" My frantic questions have only one purpose, and Blake knows thatpurpose.

He walks over with a buttered toast and hands it to me. "Don't you worry, darlin'. You haven't lost his interest." His mouth drops in a frown. "I know you don't want to hear this, but I wish he would. I wish he would grow tired of you." The concern in his voice should send a wave of fear through me, but all I can think about is the despair of having Kane grow tired ofme.

I pull the long sleeves of the baby soft cotton t-shirt down past the leather cuffs to cover my hands. When he's not with me, my body shivers with cold, a chill that only he can relieve. The shirt is long enough to cover the tops of my thighs and the lacy thong panties, a new pair everyday because every other pair has been torn from mybody.

I take a nibble of the toast. It nearly lodges in my throat. I'm lightheaded from lack of food, but it's a struggle to eat. It's a side effect of the nectar. Blake says everyone reacts differently. The nectar has become my life's blood just like Kane has become my oxygen. I wake thinking about both. I fall into the strange hallucinatory sleep thinking about both. Losing either is impossible toconsider.

I walk across the room. The nectar makes the lush carpet beneath my bare feet feel like a sensual caress. I sit on the end of the bed between the two posts and pull my knees up against me to wait. "Was he nearly finished with his paperwork?" I ask, sounding like an impatientkid.

Blake cleans up the vanity and picks up the plate of food. "I don't know. Are you sure you don't want any more of thisfood?"

I shake my head and hug my knees tighter. I stare at the door as if that might help conjurehim.

"It could be awhile. Why don't you take anap?"

"No. I'll justwait."

Blake stands and stares at me with the mostly full plate in hishand.

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