DELIVER(23)

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 shutdown. 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.

“Other. Arm.”

Well, that was stupid. And incredibly satisfying. He’d found a nerve to pick at. He crawled to his knees, spitting blood on the floor at her feet, and offered his arm with a belligerent smile.

She made quick work of tightening the chains to the walls, the pull of the restraints stretching his arms out to the sides like Jesus on the cross. Naked, on his knees, his chin hanging on his chest, he didn’t feel the forgiving virtue of Christ filling his heart. It pumped, instead, with the spirit of revenge and loathing.