“Come here,” he said softly, but I knew it wasn’t a request. Conveying a confidence I didn’t have, I crossed the short distance between us and stood next to the bed.

As I stood there, trying not to let my knees knock together, he looked me up and down, and from that alone my entire body grew uncomfortably warmer. He reached out with one hand and ran his fingers from my elbow to my wrist. He pressed his lips to the inside of my wrist.

“You slapped me,” He said. He looked up into my eyes and I swallowed.

“Yes, Master,” I whispered. I hoped addressing him properly would please him. He intertwined his fingers with mine, and pressed firmly. I winced.

“Before you, I’ve never known a woman to get away with that.” Tears fell from my eyes. I couldn’t pretend to be brave.

“Please, don’t hurt me,” I sputtered.

He looked at me calmly, with a smile playing across his lips. “Well, it wouldn’t take much would it? You’re already broken as it is. It wouldn’t be any fun for me.” I let out a deep breath I didn’t know I was holding, and took another. “Still, I can’t exactly let it go.” Without thinking about it I squeezed his hand when he spoke. “What are you bracing for?” he asked. “I already told you I’m not going to hurt you.”

Inexplicably, sobs caught in my chest, but I managed to respond, “You’ve already hurt me, Caleb. Why would you do that? Why?”

He was silent for a long moment before he responded, “This thing between us…it has to stop. I don’t like it. I’ve tried to make this easier for you, as ridiculous as it sounds. I can’t keep you, Livvie. Stop trying to make me.”

My heart clenched in my chest at the sound of my name. He remembered. I hadn’t imagined those moments with him. They were as real to him as they had been to me and it was almost more than I could bear. Everything he had said was true. I’d been trying to manipulate him since the night he’d told me the truth. The night I realized I was nothing more than an object, a thing to be bought and traded.

I had no guilt over it, either. Caleb wanted me to survive and I was trying my fucking best. I’d chosen my path and carefully placed my moments. Caleb was my way out of this whole thing and I was set on doing all I could to bend him to my side. What I had never anticipated was the way my feelings would develop.

“I don’t know what to say,” I finally replied.

He smiled sadly, “Don’t say anything. I shouldn’t have. Just get in the bed.”

A look of shock crossed over my face. “I’m not getting in there with the both of you,” I said matter-of-factly. “Besides, you’re naked.”

His laugh was a low rumble that made me feel like a petulant child, but I didn’t care. He sat up, and the sheet did a bad job of covering his thickening penis. He put his hands on my hips and gently urged me forward. Heat spread through my belly and I looked up past his head, my eyes landing on Celia’s sleeping form.

His breath touched my belly through the thin fabric of my nightgown as he spoke, “I’m not asking, Kitten.” I was about to say I didn’t feel right sleeping next to Celia when his hot mouth closed over my puckered nipple, and an unbelievably hard tug inside me quickened my pulse and made the lips of my sex swell.

He let go quickly, but the damage was already done. The residual wetness left by his mouth continued hardening my nipple as the air touched it. My breath was seemingly harder to come by, but Caleb seemed calm and in control.

“Now,” he said over the roar in my ears, “are you going to get in this bed and go to sleep, or are you going to give me a reason to torture you in a thousand different ways that don’t hurt?” A whine escaped my throat.

He coaxed me toward the bed, but I dug in my heels and gently refused to move. Caleb sighed deeply.

I knew I was testing his patience, but I wouldn’t relent. “Please make her go,” I whispered.

“Wouldn’t that be mean?” he teased me from previous conversation, and I smiled in spite of myself. He regarded me for a few moments, then rolled his eyes playfully and yelled, “Celia!” I jumped. Celia woke with a start and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

“Sí, Señor?” she said, alarmed and groggy.

“Go back to your room.”

Chapter Thirteen

Matthew sat in silence for a few minutes, trying to soak in the story. What could he say? There wasn’t necessarily any relevant information to be gleaned, but he was beginning to become curious about Caleb and the kind of man he was.

Caleb seemed like a very conflicted person. To Matthew’s thinking, the conflict didn’t excuse Caleb’s actions, but as he sat in Olivia’s hospital room struggling not to notice the throb of arousal he experienced every time he shifted in his seat and thought of Sloan, he wondered if he didn’t share something in common with the man. It wasn’t a comforting thought by any stretch, but there it was. He was curious.

As Olivia spoke, he recalled their earlier conversation about whether or not monsters were born or made. He believed they were made, as did Olivia, but Matthew had trouble with the notion that cruelty, justified further cruelty. Or a lust for it.

In Matthew’s case, he felt he should be able to subjugate his need to be humiliated and dominated sexually. His desires were a remnant from a childhood spent taking care of a weak woman and getting verbally and physically abused by an even weaker man. That Matthew had become a strong-willed and self-assured person was a blessing, but his need to be abused from time to time was a curse he struggled with in every romantic relationship he had.

Matthew wondered if the situation were reversed between him and Caleb, if it would have made any difference in how either of them turned out. Would Matthew have been a kidnapper? Would Caleb feel the need to submit instead of dominate? Or were certain aspects of a person’s personality ingrained in them from birth?

A loud ping from his laptop snapped Matthew out of his thoughts. He received an email from Agent Williams. It was probably rude to open it, but he was glad for the distraction and the information could be important.

“Sorry. I have to read this email,” Matthew said.

“Can you tell me what it says?” Olivia asked. She seemed to also need a distraction.

Matthew’s finger scrolled through the email. His brows furrowed as he went over bits of information, his mouth quirking in different expressions depending on what he read. “I suppose. It might be helpful if you can tell me anything new.”

“I can try,” she said and Matthew realized he believed her. He still strongly believed Olivia was suffering from Stockholm’s Syndrome, but it didn’t mean she was trying to stop him from doing his job.

“Demitri Balk has gone through a lot of trouble to cover up his past. According to this, prior to 1988 he was known as Vladek Rostrovich. Allegedly, he was a small-time arms dealer out of Russia,” said Matthew.

“He disappears after ’88, and then reappears as Balk in ’98. In 2002, his company goes public and he becomes a billionaire seemingly overnight.”

“What does that mean?” asked Olivia.

“I’m not sure,” Matthew said. He obviously couldn’t give Olivia all the details. She didn’t have a need to know. However, he hoped giving her some of the information might lead her toward divulging information she was either keeping or didn’t know she had.

Given the information, Matthew surmised that Pakistan, like many of their neighbors, bought weapons from Russian arms dealers in the 1980’s. It was the most plausible explanation for Rafiq and Vladek crossing paths. For a moment, Matthew wondered if the bad blood between Rafiq and Vladek revolved around the sale of weapons to enemies of Pakistan, but that didn’t seem like the kind of thing that would justify a vendetta spanning twenty years. It had to be personal.