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  In the next heartbeat, she lay bare beneath him, her disloyal body lubricating his entry, programmed to respond. He fisted the sheets, panting and rocking his hips to the rhythm of her faltering vocals. Against her will, his thrusts woke her hunger, massaging sparks of pleasure along her inner walls. She lost her voice and burrowed into the remote pocket of her mind.

  He raised up, shed his shirt, and lowered the sweat-damp heat of his chest to hers. Circling his pelvis, he dipped his dick in and out and dragged his teeth over her throat. “Your pussy’s so hot, clenching around me.” He nuzzled her neck, his arms stretched above them, fingers linked with hers, his biceps contracting beside her head. “Your voice makes me want to shoot my fucking load. I’m going to come so hard inside you.” He sank and withdrew, his girth a piston of stretching, hammering power. His exertion intensified, pounding her raw. “Keep singing.”

  Beneath a different man, in another life, she might’ve sang with a passion to match the intimate connection. With Van, she was a cold voice in a warm embrace, her pussy an entity of its own. The needy slit existed objectively, disciplined to accept and serve. She sang from that carnal place of flesh and superficial appetite. The place where emotions didn’t dwell.

  His grunts deepened, the roll of his body sliding and slapping against hers. “Come now. Come all over my dick.”

  The command tore the orgasm from her well-conditioned body. She focused inward, singing in her head, safe behind the shield of her mind as the sweep of unwanted sensations overtook the rest of her. She knew it could be truly pleasurable, and it had been many times with him. But she was too jumpy that night. She didn’t trust her feelings because every damned nerve in her body irrationally pulsed for the boy in the box one floor above.

  Van arched his neck and shouted his release to the ceiling, his pelvis slamming once, twice, and done. Then his mouth covered hers, moved over her jaw, and latched onto the curve of her neck. His whisper laved her shoulder, hot and wet. “I love you.”

  It was the part she dreaded most about these unions. Those gentle words bore the strength to shatter her from the inside out. He believed what he’d said, but she only had to think of him with the girl who, less than an hour earlier, was sucking him toward the same neck-arching finale.

  So she responded the way she always did, with thick bitter silence.

  He flicked off the bedside lamp, gathered her in his arms, and trapped her hips with a leg. She lay on her back, her face angled away from his, and her cheek pressed against the edge of the mattress.

  Her gaze locked on an arm poking from beneath the bed frame.

  The night could’ve gone worse. That could’ve been a real arm, decaying into the carpet and stinking up the scenery in Van’s garden of crazy. Despite all his cruelty and creepiness, he’d never killed anyone. She couldn’t say the same for herself.

  But obsessing about her felonies was dangerous in this business. Human sex traffickers were systematic and violent. Didn’t matter that Mr. E’s three-person operation wasn’t linked to the realm of nationwide organizations. The punishment was the same. Mr. E could easily be some douche of a car salesman in nowhere Texas, but he was a douche with Mom and Mattie’s addresses. The minute she lost her focus, one fucking slip, and they were dead.

  Van’s breathing steadied into the rhythm of sleep, and the weight of his arm and leg relaxed into pliancy. She eased from beneath him and caught herself before sitting up. Following the curve of the arm beside her pillow, she found his hand entangled in her hair, each finger meticulously coiled through its own strand. For the love. She stifled a sigh.

  After a long-suffering endeavor to extricate her hair without waking him, she collected her clothes and crept into the hall.

  As she walked to her room, her thoughts churned around the newest threat to her arrangement. Over six years, she and Van had captured five boys and two girls. All of them from ghettos along the Mexican border. Her first slave worked side jobs for a cartel, but the girl’s business connections hadn’t seemed to care when she went missing. None of their captures had been attached to families who would miss them.

  Until Joshua Carter.

  Not only would his parents devote their lives to finding him, his community would sponsor a massive rally to search for their football star. But the buyer’s demand for chastity had given her little choice. Boys without parents lost their innocence at young ages. There were no twenty-one-year-old virgin males among the sediment of broken families.

  The boy in the box would be missed.

  She reached the top of the stairs, her fingers finding the keypad with ease in the dark as Van’s words whispered through her head.

  The job’s the same. The slave we deliver will be exactly as he ordered.

  The goddamned job. She coded herself into the attic, tiptoed to the closet beside the sleeping girl, and selected tomorrow’s costume. Time to put on the mask. One that would hide her face and the fears it might show.

  CHAPTER 10

  Boy. Eyes down, boy. Strip. The haunting voice in Josh’s head penetrated the never-ending tonality blaring in his ears. The flat line of sound wouldn’t shut up. Not for hours. Not a single breach in range or volume. Hours and hours and hours.

  Your name is whatever I want it to be. Boy. Boiyyyyee. He knew he was imagining the voice, angelic in melody, cutting in its intent.

  No matter what they planned to do, no way would he become a sex slave. He would not break.

  His thoughts stumbled into a stunned silence, battling through the horrifically endless tone. How far would he bend if pushed? Especially without the strength that came with food and sleep. He’d dozed a bit off and on, but his body was flagging. His thoughts pounded to exhaustion.

  He yearned to hear her sing, to invade his isolation and twine her soulful harmony around him. He needed to speak to that girl. Surely whatever lay beneath her chilling exterior wouldn’t hurt his parents.

  That’s up to you.

  Anger lashed through him, curling his fingers around the chain. An achy, unrelenting pain hammered his hips, back, and legs where they pressed against the wood. He wanted to choke her with the unforgiving chain and watch her stillness ripple with useless spasms.

  He sucked in a breath, swallowing that hideous thought into the recesses of his gut where it could soften and disintegrate. Why? Because it was God’s place to judge her? Or because he’d been raised to look for the best in people? Or was it his need to believe there was a virtuous quality inside of her that he could free and possibly use to escape?

  The voice faded. His ears told him the single note stopped, too, but its echo left a lingering shard in his mind. Would the tone begin again at any moment? Had they returned to pull him out of the box? Had they ever left? His ears were playing tricks on him. Or had his sanity finally fled?

  Seemed like days had come and gone since the pangs of a full bladder began their unrelenting jabs. He wouldn’t be able to hold it much longer, but focusing on not pissing himself had diverted his mind from the weight of the chains, the eternal time in the box, and Mom and Dad’s safety.

  His throat and tongue withered with each intake of waterless air. Maybe they’d already buried him in the box out back. Maybe his next exhale would be his last.

  No, he would’ve felt them move the box. And his life was valuable. They couldn’t sell him if he was dead.

  Something tickled his face. Another delusion. They’d left him alone for so long, his muscles were stiff from inertia, his fingers and toes numb from loss of circulation. Had they forgotten him? But the noise that had embedded itself in his brain was…silent. Nothing. Gone. In its place was the galloping thump of his hopeful heart.

  The press on his ears vanished, replaced by the tingle of cool air. Then the blindfold lifted away. Blinding light stabbed his crusty eyes. He blinked, blinked, blinked, gasping, the chains clattering with his spasmodic attempts to free his arms.

  Fingers touched his nose, removed the clip. His nostrils responded
with greedy pulls of air, widening, clearing the snot, and filling with the scent of sweat and fear.

  As his vision adjusted, the figure towering over him took shape. A gas mask encased its head. Three plastic circles darkened where the eyes and nose should be.

  Was the air poisoned? Were they gassing him, drugging him? His heart hammered against his ribs, his lungs struggling to keep up. “What are you—” He coughed, harsh and painful. “Am I—”

  “Drink.”

  The voice was a muffled tinkling of ice. He thanked God it was her under the mask but didn’t understand why that knowledge had coaxed his joints to relax. She had put him in that box.

  She palmed his nape, raising his head. Cool water sluiced over his parched lips, his tongue, trickling down his throat, both abrading and refreshing.

  The pressure in his bladder twisted tighter. “Bathroom.”

  “You shouldn’t have held it.” The mask’s filter concealed her mouth. He couldn’t read her and wondered if that was the intent. She worked the chains quickly, tugging at his hands and feet. “Your bladder is breeding bacteria as we speak.”

  She’d chained him in a box and was worried about a UTI? The restraints slackened, but his wrists remained locked together. He pulled up his legs, bending at the knees and trembling through the effort. He didn’t have the strength to drag his hands to his chest.

  Releasing latches at both ends of the box, she let one side fall open and lay flat on the floor. He rolled out in a haphazard tumble, arms bound together, legs free but weak as hell.

  A random pattern of eyehooks protruded from the subfloor around him. There were hooks everywhere, the ceiling, the walls. They dangled padlocks, chains, and cuffs of leather and steel.

  She left him lying there, heeled boots encasing her calves and clicking on the wood. His view from the floor arrested on the black PVC-like corset dress molding the curves of her waist and hips and stopping just below the creases of her muscular backside. Wrapped in pleather, she was a promise of suffering and ecstasy.

  The sudden stirring in his groin shot a burning stab to his bladder and spurred him to his knees. He slid one foot forward, his muscles screaming, and rose, swaying on his feet. “How long was I in there?” He swung his cuffed-together hundred-pound arms toward the box.

  Her silence magnified his heartbeat thrashing in his ears.

  With unmoving eeriness, her blacked-out lenses watched him stagger toward her, his toes catching on the hooks. He could physically feel his body tensing with hatred for this woman, who regarded him without a twitch to assist his clumsy advance.

  When his shins hit the porcelain rim, he dropped his shackled fists on the wall behind the tank, and lost the fight with his bladder. He’d meant to sit. Too late for that. Needing his hands on the wall to hold himself up, he melted into the relief pouring from him, the stream of urine spraying unguided. Thanks to his shaking legs, his aim was marginal at best.

  Her mask tilted downward. At the mess he was making? At his nudity?

  Let her stare. He’d showered and peed in the presence of others every day in the locker room. This was different on so many levels, but he didn’t have the strength of mind to care.

  He’d never been drunk, but it probably felt like this. His brain struggled to engage, his perceptions clouded by fatigue, his legs and arms wrestling to respond. He was nude and helpless before a woman who meant to sell him as a sex slave, and he grappled to keep his eyes open.

  Bladder empty, he dropped the weight of his head on a braced arm and angled his face to glower at her. “My parents?”

  Her vinyl-wrapped head cocked. “Last check, Mr. Carter was celebrating his empty nest at the kitchen table, wrinkling the lacy tablecloth and toppling over that god-awful ceramic rooster centerpiece as he pounded his cock into Mrs. Carter’s ass.”

  He swung his bound arms—To shut her up? Make her hurt? Knock off the mask?—and missed. His sideways motion sent him careening into the spot she’d vacated, tottering past her and into the open shower stall.

  The boot slamming into the back of his knee brought him stumbling to the ground in a discombobulation of limbs and defeat. Flopping to his back, he could only glare up at her. Even his frustration required more effort than he could manage.

  She squatted over him, a boot on either side of his hips, the gap of her thighs wide enough to expose a swath of black lace. He jerked his eyes away, disgusted with her and himself.

  “You can look.”

  “No, thanks,” he ground out, tried to buck her off his hips, and failed.

  “Soon, you won’t be able to stop yourself.” She grabbed his jaw and shoved her mask in his face. “Requirement number five. Slave will not touch Master or Master’s property in a sexual way without permission.”

  Master’s property? She didn’t mean—

  “For the next ten weeks, I am your Master, and this is my property.” She released his chin and gripped his penis, sliding down, stretching brazen fingers to cup his testicles.

  Blood rushed to his groin. No one had ever touched him there and definitely not like that. He hated the visible response of his body but couldn’t stop it. Nor could he stop his fury. He scuffed his heels on the tile, breaking her grip. His back hit the wall. “You’re a rapist.”

  Holding her crouched position, she dropped a forearm over one knee. “The first requirement set by the buyer was your virginity. You will never put your cock in me or any woman.”

  Her definition of virginity was too specific, or perhaps not specific enough. That did not sit well. He clenched his butt cheeks, a sheen of sweat icing his spine.

  She stood and reached for the yard of chain hanging from a hook beside the shower head. “Raise your arms.”

  He tucked them to his chest and stared at the drain, fighting his eyes to stay open. Twenty-four hours in the ear-numbing, sleep-deprived box. Leading up to that had been an exhaustive day of hauling cotton bales, classwork, and the big game. He didn’t have enough steam left to stop her from hanging him in the shower, but he refused to make it easy.

  “If your concentrate every breath on anticipating my orders, your time with me will be much less painful.” Her voice reverberated against the tiles, hollow and robotic. “If you swing at me again, I’ll suffocate you with much, much more discomfort than you experienced in that box.” She bent over him, boots shoulder-width apart, hands on her hips. “If that doesn’t penetrate your thick skull, I’ll collect another keepsake from your mother. Perhaps something attached to her little gray-haired head.”

  His heart sped up, heated with anger, knotted with dread. When he recovered his strength, he would escape, and he might knock her across the room on the way out.

  Straightening to her full height, she slid the chain through her hands. “Swallow your fantasies of escape and rescue. The house is soundproof. There are keypads on every exterior door. I’ve ordered Van to stay in the garage all day to dismantle your truck. When the parts are dispersed to various dumps and junk yards, they’ll be untraceable.” She held out her hand, waiting for his. “No one is coming for you, boy.”

  A guttural, sick hatred for her spread its poison inside him, twisting and taking over. What was next for him after she strung him up in the shower? “My virginity…you said…” Dear God, he didn’t want to say it out loud, but he had to know. “What about sodomy?”

  Her hands dropped to her sides, the chain slapping against the tile wall. She strode to the door and raised her finger to the keypad.

  Was she bringing in Van? To beat him? To bend him over in the shower and pump away in his backside? “Wait.” His attempt to stand on jelly legs collapsed into a bone-crunching sprawl on knees and elbows. “Please. I’ll follow orders.”

  She tapped in the code.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Please, wait.” The effort to stand had depleted Josh. His head swam, and his body screamed for food and sleep. He stood no chance. This had been the aim of the box, he realized. A total mental and physical s
hutdown. He raised his bound arms and his eyes, reaching toward her goggled mask.

  She entered the final digit on the keypad, and the door clicked open. She stared into the outer room, statuesque in her posture. “Requirement number six. Slave will use the title Master.”

  His extended arms shook, the lump in his throat sprouting jagged edges. “Please…” It was just a word. Too tired to fight. Just a word. “Master.”

  She made him wait another agonizing moment before closing the door and returning to his side. In a practiced movement, she locked the end of the waiting chain to one of his wrist shackles with a combination lock and removed the existing chain that squeezed his hands together. One arm dropped to the floor; the other tied to the shower wall.

  He probably looked like hell, but he was a strong guy. Even in his weakened state, he could overpower her. Wasn’t she afraid he might trap her and squeeze his free arm around her neck? The confident, relaxed pose of her body told him she expected it.

  “Master is how you’ll refer to the man you are training to serve. With me, you’ll use Mistress. Say it now.”

  The bite in those last three words snapped his teeth together. His breath hissed past his lips. “Mistress.” Was she smiling behind the mask? Did she get off on binding and selling men? Didn’t matter. He would never serve a man. Never. “How many times have you done this?”

  She moved to the perpendicular wall of the corner shower. A chain dangled from another hook. “Other arm, boy.”

  How many had she forced through the horror of this exact moment? Where were they now? Did she even see them as human? What about their kiss in his truck? Her actions seemed so genuine at the time. “How many people have you ripped from their lives, their dreams, their families?” He squinted into the lenses of her mask, his muddy reflection glaring back. “Mistress,” he spat.

  Her fist slammed into his mouth, spiking fire through his jaw and knocking him off balance. His back smacked the cold tile floor. His arm, chained to the wall, twisted. Pain tore through his shoulder, ripping a shout from his throat.