Page 22 of His Dark Purpose

“Yes.” She sniffed, her feet stilling as he retreated to the nearest couch. “I understand, sir.”

“Good.” Reaching out for the leather settee, he ran his fingertips over the cool surface as he settled onto its comfortable confines. Sitting at an angle, he could make Amy out in his peripheral vision, but picking up the book from the next seat, he didn’t make eye contact with her. “When you’re ready…”

His words hung in the air as he opened the book, his gaze scanning the lines as she hovered over the bucket again. Though his focus seared the page, the words printed there were lost to him, his attention fixed solely on what Amy was doing. He nearly cheered when the noise he wanted to hear finally reverberated from the corner, his lips twitching with triumph.

It wasn’t much in the grand scheme—one woman perching over a bucket in the far corner of his enormous room—but it was what it represented that stirred emotion in him.

She’d accepted the adjusted status quo that she was there to be tied and contained by him.

She’d succumbed to his will.

Chapter Seven

Cascading Doom

Amy

“Do you feel better?”

His question resonated from the fancy-looking sofa at the other end of the suite, but it may as well have come from Mars.

Finishing with the toilet paper as best she could, she straightened, all too conscious of the flaming embarrassment on her cheeks. She couldn’t believe what had just happened, refused to wrap her head around the utter denigration of having to pee in a bucket just to appease her lover, who seemed to have temporarily lost his mind.

“Well?” Putting down the book he’d pretended to be reading, he glanced her way.

“I... I suppose so, sir.”

What did he want her to say? She certainly wasn’t going to express gratitude for the bucket. Even the time he’d stripped her in front of his so-called friends hadn’t been as degrading as that.

“You suppose so?” Slamming the book closed, he tossed it aside. “After all that?”

“It’s not exactly the most salubrious place I’ve ever…” She hesitated, unwilling to humiliate herself further by articulating what had just taken place. Frankly, the memories would probably be burned into her psyche for all time.

He chuckled as he rose and wandered closer. “You’ll survive.”

That was easy for him to say, but then she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that the man who’d found it sane to handcuff her to his bed also considered the bucket a favor.

Something had definitely shifted in Kyle’s head since he’d dragged her up there to his room, as though disclosing his murky past had flicked a switch in his head. The man standing across the room from her looked the same—wore the same dapper suits and revealed the same knowing glint in his enigmatic eyes—but there was no doubt in her mind… he wasn’t the same.

The man staring at her wasn’t the one who’d loved her, who’d inspired her to divulge her feelings and pleasured her day after day. He wasn’t someone she’d contemplated spending the rest of her life with.

She knew the difference as he beckoned her forward with his index finger. That man, the one seemingly so cold and detached from her basic needs, was somebody else—a stranger—and he frightened her.

“Are you ready to discuss what happened earlier?”

He lifted his chin as she inched closer. Each step reminded her of her newfound captivity—the ropes around her ankles tangible evidence that their trust was in tatters—yet only she was in fetters.

“Sir?”

She had no desire to talk to him. All she wanted was to rid herself of the bondage and be out of there. Glancing back at the door, she remembered that he’d failed to lock it when he’d first come back with the refreshments.

A long time ago.

She swallowed at the knowing voice in her mind. It was right.

Hours had passed since she’d witnessed that error. Hours when she’d been unconscious, and he’d cuffed her to the bed. He could easily have come and gone from the bedroom in that time and subsequently locked the door. There was no way of knowing unless she tried the handle for herself, and to do that would risk riling the animal in him.

She’d only just got him to remove the cuffs; what might he do if she actually attempted to leave the room? It didn’t bear thinking about.

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