Page 48 of Lacey's Fight

This room looked like …

Could it be?

Had their cover really been blown?

Was that why Ben had never returned to their room? Had he been taken too? Was he down here somewhere in the tunnels and rooms hidden beneath the estate?

Fear for him overrode everything else including her ability to do what she had been trained to do since she was a toddler.

She knew she liked Ben more than she should considering neither of them was looking for anything permanent. But just because it was inconvenient didn’t mean she hadn’t caught feelings.

Long before they slept together too.

Small tremors wracked her body, and she couldn’t even feel the pain through her arms and shoulders she knew should be there from being strung up like this.

This was one of The Master’s favorite ways to punish her. He’d bind her wrists with ropes because he knew how much she hated the way the fibers tore at her skin. Once he had her secured, her feet dangling above the floor so there was no respite from the agony shooting down her wrists to her shoulders he’d pull out a whip.

Slicing through the skin on her back until drops of her blood dotted the floor.

Then he’d come around in front of her naked body.

Naked because he knew how badly she hated being so vulnerable before him. A vulnerability he never missed an opportunity to exploit.

His hand would move between her legs, and he’d touch her, stimulate her, until her body had no choice but to give in and give her an orgasm she didn’t want.

It didn’t matter that everything inside her revolted at his touch, her body had been designed a certain way, and he knew just how to touch her to make her come.

Each time she did he goaded her, telling her that she secretly liked what he did to her, but it was lies.

Lies.

She hated it.

Hated that she responded.

Hated that she had no control over her own body.

And yeah, it didn’t take a shrink to figure out that was why she had fallen into using sex as a coping mechanism once she’d been rescued. She wouldn’t have her body used as a weapon against her ever again, and that meant being the one who decided when, how, and who got to give her an orgasm.

Mastering that pleasure instead of having it used against her as torture was the only thing that had kept her holding onto her sanity. And each time an orgasm brought her pleasure instead of humiliation and degradation, it made it a little easier to find something to smile about.

How did whoever had tasered her and brought her down here know how much she hated being restrained this way? Was it just coincidence or was it possible that …?

“Hello, Lacey.”

The voice from her nightmares had her straining to look over her shoulder, sending her helpless body swinging from the ropes.

Seeing him earlier, walking through the halls in the manor house, and sitting in the ballroom during the auction was nothing compared to being alone in a room with him. Alone and at a major disadvantage.

“I’ve missed you.”

The crack of the whip in the air had her body tensing even before it made contact with her back. At least she was still wearing her clothing and the T-shirt and tank top, thin though the material was, both offered some protection from the lash of the whip.

Another hiss of air before the whip hit her again, then again, and again.

Wetness on her back told her whatever protection her clothing had offered had been destroyed, the material no match for the thin strips of leather.

A fingertip touched one of her wounds, and she bit her tongue to keep from crying out as it gathered blood from the open sore. Then The Master moved so he was standing in front of her.

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