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  You don’t know anything, I wanted to say. But the scars on his chest, the healed tissue, made me question if that was really true. He looked at me like he could read the questions in my mind.

  “Most of these are scars from my assignments. I do dangerous work, you know.”

  I gulped. His hand was tracing the long line of the biggest scar, the one that ran down his whole chest.

  “But this one… this one was from my last girlfriend.”

  I eyed him in disbelief. I didn’t know what was weirder, the fact that he was telling me this, or the fact that Vale had dated a girl before. I couldn’t imagine him taking a girl out.

  “Your girlfriend?”

  “She wanted to kill me.”

  “Why?”

  Vale smiled, and it was the coldest smile I’d ever seen. Behind that mirthless expression, I saw the thing he had been hiding from me this whole time. A deep sorrow. It touched his eyes, drew the corners of his mouth down. I could see him struggling to contain the sorrow.

  “She was sent to kill me,” he said.

  “What was her name?”

  “Jen.”

  “How… how did she…”

  I didn’t know how to ask it, but I didn’t have to. Vale understood what I was trying to get at.

  “When you trust someone, they can do anything to you. They can hurt you. They can hurt you really bad.”

  He looked up at me, his face now plainly marked with sorrow. And despite myself, I was curious… curious enough not to worry about making him upset with me. For some reason, standing here in chains in front of the man who had kidnapped me, I felt utterly safe.

  “Tell me what happened,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Vale

  I stared down at Jessica. I’d thought that she might react differently if I showed her my scars, but now I wasn’t sure if I could handle her questions. There was an innocent sincerity in her voice when she asked me what had happened. Like she really wanted to know.

  Like she cared about me.

  Of course, that couldn’t be it. I shook the thought away and went back in my mind to Jen, the one who was responsible for the white bolt of scar tissue going down my sternum.

  “I loved her,” I said. “At least, I thought I loved her. I thought she loved me, too. She convinced me that what happened between us… was real. I let her in. I told her everything. I was trying to get out of doing—well, this kind of work. I wanted to clean up for her. Get straight, you know. Stop all the bullshit.”

  I waved my hand around, as though to indicate that all this was just bullshit.

  “I bought her a ring. How stupid can you get, right? I was going to propose to her. And we were together that evening, and she took off all my clothes, and slept with me. And before I could pull the ring out of my pants, she’d pulled a knife.”

  Jessica’s eyes went wide.

  “But… but you’re so big. How could she…”

  “How could she attack me, you mean? Yeah, well, that’s the thing about trust. We were big into bondage.”

  Jessica’s eyes, already wide, seemed to pop out of her head. I could see the mental image she had of me, but I had already told her part of the story. I might as well tell her all of it.

  “I was—uh, a little tied up when she pulled the knife.”

  “But… but you got away, though.”

  “Yeah. Barely. She stabbed me in the wrong spot.” I touched the place where the scar started. “Hit my sternum. Bone stopped the tip. Dragged the knife down. Down my chest. I was so surprised, it took a few seconds before I even reacted.”

  “What did you do?”

  She was staring at me with a strange mix of curiosity and horror in her face. At least she wasn’t thinking about El Alfa anymore. I was good at telling stories that take your mind off of things.

  “Right away I kicked out hard, broke her arm. She dropped the knife, and I snapped the chain tying me to the bed. I mean, it wasn’t a real chain, you know, not like these. It was just for fun. My hands were still cuffed when I caught up to her, though, and the cuffs were real enough. I put the cuffs around her neck, and—”

  I broke off. Thinking about Jen made goosebumps stand up on my arms.

  “You killed her.”

  I nodded.

  “I could feel her heart slowing down as I choked her. The woman I loved. The woman I wanted to spend my life with.”

  As I spoke to Jessica, I felt myself slipping back into the past. I could see Jen like she was right there in front of me again. Her face had turned red, then blue. Her lips had gone pale.

  I’d killed her. Killed her, killed her, killed her. That’s all I was. A killer.

  I felt myself starting to lose control. I felt the darkness curling up inside of me. I blinked hard, getting away from the past. I was back in El Alfa’s hell, but at least it was a different kind of hell than the one in my mind.

  “She was the only person I ever trusted. And the last.”

  Jessica was quiet. She didn’t look scared anymore, only sad. And there was a mark of pity in her face that I didn’t want to see. I didn’t deserve her pity. I didn’t deserve pity from anyone. I was a murderer, and if I’d been tricked by another assassin, then it was my own damn fault.

  I turned back to the matter at hand, even though I knew I’d be pushing Jessica away.

  “Did El Alfa… did he fuck you?” I asked. I was almost scared to hear the answer to that question, but I had to ask.

  She shook her head no, and relief flooded my system.

  I went over to the chains and loosened them. Her arms dropped down to her sides. She looked defeated already. I swallowed the lump in my throat. I had to do this. As much as I was afraid to hurt her, I had to act like I was her trainer, her master.

  When I pulled down my briefs, though, her eyes widened in fear. I stepped out of them, completely naked. I looked down. The scar ended only a couple of inches above my cock. I wondered if I would be able to get aroused after all that. Shit.

  “Tell me what he asked you to do,” I said. If El Alfa wanted me to train her, I would train her in exactly the way he wanted.

  “He t—told me to suck it. I—I tried. I can’t.”

  “You have to.”

  Her eyes flashed angrily up at me.

  “Is that why you said all this? To get my sympathy before you do the exact same thing to me that he did?”

  “No.”

  “Good cop, bad cop, right?”

  I shook my head. There wasn’t anything I could do to make this right. I would just have to do it, and get it done with. I only hoped—and this was a stupid hope, a desperate hope—that she wouldn’t hate me when it was over.

  “No,” I said, stepping forward in front of her. “There are no good cops in here. I’m sorry.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jessica

  “Take it in your hand.”

  I stared at his cock. It hung slightly to one side. Already, it seemed huge, and he wasn’t even erect. Fear bolted through my heart.

  “I already told you,” I said, tears threatening to choke my throat again. “I can’t.”

  “Take it,” he said. “Just hold it.”

  I touched it with my hand. The skin was silky smooth. As I held it, it twitched in my palm.

  “Jessica—”

  I tilted my chin up. Vale was looking down at me with a look of tenderness in his face. I hated him, God knows I hated him, but there was something else in the way he looked at me that made me feel a little less scared.

  “We’ll go slow. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, in a voice so small I couldn’t believe it belonged to me. My whole body was tense.

  “Take your time.”

  I bit my bottom lip and heard him draw a breath. His cock swelled in my hand.

  “Just like that,” he said.

  “Like what?”

  “Your lip… when you bite it like that. Lick it.”

  I licked
my lips experimentally. Vale’s cock throbbed, stiffening.

  “You’re—Christ, you’re gorgeous.”

  I didn’t know why he was saying this. El Alfa hadn’t said anything at all. He’d just come in and—no. I blinked away the image. That man wasn’t here anymore. Instead, it was Vale, Vale with his ice blue eyes and muscles as hard and sculpted as ice, and white scars all over his body, God, they were everywhere.

  He’s no better.

  Intellectually I knew that he was as bad as El Alfa. That this kind of treatment wasn’t about him being kind to me. It was about him manipulating me. I struggled to resist my attraction as he stroked my hair back as gently as if he was my boyfriend.

  He wasn’t kind. He wasn’t good. And yet, when his fingers stroked through my hair, my scalp sent tingles straight down through my spine.

  “Your hair is so soft,” he murmured. “So beautiful.”

  I couldn’t understand why he would try to ply me with compliments. It wasn’t as though I could argue with him about any of this. I’d tried to stop El Alfa, and it hadn’t worked.

  I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to do this, that I would do it all wrong. And then Vale might kill me.

  The way he’d killed his last girlfriend.

  “Please don’t.” I turned my head down, breathing out a tremble. His cock was hard in my hand, hot and throbbing. It was so big that I didn’t know how I could manage. It would be worse than El Alfa if he tried to make me take it in my mouth. Tears stung my face, burning in the back of my nose and eyes.

  “Sorry,” he said. He paused to swallow, shifting his weight back. “I can… we can do this later. If you need time.”

  I blinked back the tears, anger welling up to replace my self-pity. His fake concern was worse than if he had just done it.

  “No,” I said bluntly. I wanted to get it over with.

  He nodded solemnly. His hand cupped my chin and drew me forward. My fingers were loose around his cock. It was hard now, standing erect in front of my face.

  “Kiss it,” he said. “Wet your lips and kiss it.”

  I licked my lips. As I did, I felt his whole cock jump in my hand. A strange jolt of pleasure went through me. I could control him.

  With only a lick of the lips, I could control him.

  I tried it again, and again his cock twitched. And again, the strange burst of pleasure that I could do this.

  “Jessica—” he murmured.

  I leaned forward and pressed my lips against the tip. The skin was like silk stretched taut, and there was a drop of wetness at the slit. It was sticky against my lips. As I pressed my lips to the hot skin, I could feel the throb of his heartbeat through his cock.

  I squeezed the hard length slightly with my hand, testing his cock like it was an animal I was meeting for the first time. A stranger. The vein under my palm beat quickly and I felt my own heartbeat begin to quicken. And how strange it was, to control him with such a little change in pressure.

  “Now slide your lips over it.” His voice was a low rumble, rasping in the air. “Just the tip.”

  I followed his instructions, but all of my attention was on the throb of his heart coming through my hand. I began to probe with my tongue, seeing what I could do.

  With each touch of my tongue, I found the secret places that made his heartbeat quicken. The coil inside of me tightened. Feeling him enjoy what I was doing—it was as though I was experiencing it myself. I felt part of me loosen inside as he gasped with pleasure. His eyes were closed when I looked up, and he was biting his lip, and the image tore at me. I shouldn’t have been enjoying this, but I was.

  “Swirl your tongue around. That’s right. All around the ridge of the tip. The most sensitive spot is right underneath on the ridge. If you—ahh!”

  He reached forward to brace his hand against the wall. One of his legs was trembling. I could see the muscle in his thigh spasming.

  “Fuck.”

  The word came out loud, echoing in the small cell. He swallowed hard, the sound audible in the small stone cell. I froze, unsure if I had done something wrong.

  “Oh, don’t stop. Don’t—fuck, you feel amazing.”

  There was sweat on his brow and he was still bracing himself with one strong arm over my head.

  I touched my tongue again to the spot I’d found, and he groaned again. Again, too, the heat inside me blossomed. I could do this to him.

  I was in control.

  “Ohhh.”

  His hips were beginning to twitch, thrusting his cock back and forth. I slid my mouth farther over his shaft with each stroke. At the tip, I would make sure to push against that spot I’d found. His cock was slick with my saliva now, and it slid through my hand even as I gripped it tighter.

  “Fuck yes. Yes. Oh God, yes!”

  I matched his rhythm, feeling his heart beat faster and faster. My own ache clenched deep inside of me. As much as I tried to shut down the thing inside of me that liked this feeling, I couldn’t. I loved the sensation of his heartbeat in my hand. I loved the smooth skin, his cock swollen hard with desire. I had created that desire.

  Suddenly he stopped rocking his hips into me. Not wanting to stop, I slid my mouth forward and took him as far as I could into my mouth. My lips wrapped tight around him. I felt his hand on my shoulder.

  “Oh Christ, Jessica, I’m going to come—”

  His cock went rock hard and I felt the spasm come through my hand as I slid back. With my tongue, I flicked the spot just under his tip. There was no time for more before he exploded inside of my mouth.

  By instinct, I swallowed, my lips still around his throbbing head. He shuddered, his hand softening its grip on my shoulder. He let out a gasp of air, and I felt him jerk again in my hand. A shiver went through him, and the shiver thrilled through my body as well.

  “God, that was incredible.”

  I sat back against the floor, astonished at what I’d done. This…this wasn’t me.

  “Jessica—”

  I’d done it. I’d liked doing it. And if he was a monster, then what did that make me?

  “Jessica, come here—”

  He was pulling me up, and I let him. My legs trembled as I stood, and I felt again the immense ache inside of me, the coil stretched tight. I stood up between him and the wall, the chains clinking at my sides. In the morning sunlight I saw his eyes shining bright like the sky.

  Then he bent his head and kissed me.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Vale

  I lost control. There was no getting around it. It had only taken what, five minutes? Ten? Her lips on my cock had turned off any rational side of my mind.

  I couldn’t even pull out in time. She’d been perfect, so goddamn perfect. And then she’d stayed there, sucking the last of my come as I tried not to slam my hips into her while I orgasmed.

  So when I pulled her up from the ground, there was nothing I wanted more than to kiss her. My lips pressed against hers, hot and wanting. I’d thrust my tongue against her bottom lip, sucking and biting, and she moaned a small, needy moan that made my cock throb again right away.

  “Jessica—”

  I kissed her again and again, and my hands drifted down over her curves as I pinned her up against the wall. Her lips yielded almost instantly to mine. Her body arched forward against me.

  She was breathless, and I did not let her breathe. I wanted to cover her with my kisses.

  I shoved her hips back, pinning them tightly against the wall. She yelped as my mouth moved down to her neck, sucking hard under the collar. Not hard enough to leave any marks. Just enough for a taste. She was sweet and salty and I licked her neck, wanting more.

  “Ohh—” she cried.

  I kissed her again, sucking the breath from her lungs. My hand slid down under her panties, and I was shocked to find her already soaking wet. Even though I’d just come, I was instantly hard again.

  “Fuck, Jessica. Look at how wet you are.”

  My fingers slid al
ong her dripping slit. I stroked lightly, teasing little strokes. She squirmed against me, soft cries escaping her lips as I stroked her under her panties. My fingers dipped into that sweetness, and I could feel her clenching against me.

  “I want you. Jessica, oh God, Jessica.”

  I wanted to taste her so badly. I wanted to give her the same pleasure she had just given me. My hands tore her panties down. She yelped as I shoved down the fabric and grabbed at my hands.

  “Vale,” she said.

  It was the sound of my name on her lips. She’d never said my name like that before. It made me pause. In an instant, I blinked and saw her as she really was. Her wrists were cuffed, the chains running outward on both sides. She had a collar around her throat. I had her trapped. She was a prisoner.

  She was my prisoner.

  I tensed up, pulling my hands away from her. Something in her face changed, as she looked up at me. A question in her face. This was all part of training for her, I realized. My stomach lurched.

  My prisoner.

  “Vale?”

  I looked down into her innocent face, her hair haloed by the sunlight. Such a beautiful woman. She didn’t deserve this. Not at my hand, not at anyone’s hand. I hated myself then for what I had done to her. Dirty work? This was way past dirty. This was wrong.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I’ll stop now. You did so well. You’re perfect. I don’t… I’m sorry.”

  I bit my lip, unable to form another sentence. Her eyes searched my face. I don’t know what she was looking for, but whatever it was, she wouldn’t find it. I was blank, empty. I was hollow with the horror of what I’d done. She didn’t look scared anymore, though. As she looked into my eyes, I saw a deep well of courage inside of her.

  More than that, though, I could see that some small part of her was suffused with desire. It was there, clear as day, and despite everything, I found myself hoping that her desire was real.

  Then her lips parted. Her voice trembled, but when she spoke, it was an order, not a question.

  “Vale. Don’t stop.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six