Up in the air, alone with Luther, I grip the handles on the passenger side door, my knuckles turning white.

This isn’t right.

“No need to cry, darling. I’ll take good care of you.” Luther grips my knee. “Ryder has always been a bit of a control freak, thinking he knows best,” Luther says. “But the fact is, he kidnapped you. And he will certainly pay for this.”

I swallow, trying to regulate my breathing. Everything feels so off.

A part of myself was left on that dock.

Ryder’s ice-blue eyes seared my heart with the way he looked at me through the window before the plane took off.

Desperation. Longing. Regret.

“Is there a radio in here?” I ask. “I have to call my family.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Luther says, flipping a switch on his side of the control panel.

“Why not?” I ask, my voice quivering. Fear growing in my belly.

“Because first I need to take you home and make sure Ryder didn’t tamper with my prize.”

Prize.

Me.

Luther bought me, fair and square and he wants to cash in on what he is owed.

Pressing my lips together, I don’t know what to do. I can’t exactly jump out of the plane.

“You don’t have to donate the money, Luther,” I say. “The auction, the night together…all of it’s called off.”

“Called off?” Luther sneers. “I paid for you, wrote the check to HAHA. Already. It’s done.”

“I’ll give you a refund. Pay you back myself.” I shake my head. “But if you were married to Helen Ottenbagh, why did you bid on me? Half of her estate was willed to the charity.”

“I don’t care where the money went. I came to the auction for you, not for your cause. I had to have you. And now I will.”

As he speaks, I realize just how compromising a situation I have put myself in. “I’m not going through with it,” I tell him firmly. “I changed my mind. I need to see my family, speak with my lawyer. Don’t take me to your house. Take me to Anchorage.”

He cocks an eye at me, shaking his head ever so slightly.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“It won’t?” I ask, my voice cracking.

“Look at you, so scared.” He pats my knee again. “There’s no need to fret. Your family is at my estate, waiting for you. I promised them safe delivery. The police are on their way to arrest Ryder as we speak, and I arranged for your parents—who flew up last night—to be there when the plane lands.”

My shoulders fall, I exhale.

I read Luther all wrong. “I thought you were kidnapping me, trying to...”

Luther clucks his tongue. “That was Ryder getting in your head, making you doubt yourself. He probably told you all sorts of nasty lies about me. Truth is, he never liked me, even when his sweet mother was alive, always resented that I was a part of his family, didn’t want to share. So when the police found his abandoned truck last night, I put two and two together. Of course, he would want to sabotage this. To try to take you from me.”

“He knew you wanted to bid on me?”

“Of course.”

“But why didn’t he just bid himself.”

Luther squeezes my knee again. “Would have been the gentlemanly thing to do, wouldn’t it?”

I nod, my mouth going dry at his touch.

“My family is probably worried sick.”

“We all were, Justine. I just can’t believe Ryder would do something so cruel.”

Even now, with everything I know about Ryder, the word cruel is still hard to accept when describing him.

He may have kidnapped me, but then he held me in his arms, cradled me against his body and rocked slowly against me as I came undone, our bodies becoming one.

How he can be called cruel, a monster, a madman when last night he was also gentle and tender. They are too many conflicting adjectives to use on the same man.

I don’t speak, my head feels foggy. Just wanting to be hugged by someone familiar. My mother and father. Eileen. The people who have always supported and looked out for me.

But deep in my core, what I really want is for Ryder to wrap his strong arms around me, squeeze me tightly and swear he will never let me go.

I want the man who took me against my will and held me hostage. That confuses me, scares me. Makes me doubt everything I have ever believed about love and desire.

I can’t possibly want that—want him.

But I do. Oh, how I do.

I blink, looking out the window of the plane. The deep green forests as far and wide as the eye can see, and the vastness of this place soothes me, reminds me that my emotions have taken hold of me in ways that aren’t healthy.

I’ve never been a lovesick girl before. All wrapped up in a man and I don’t want to be that now.

The ice blue rapids in the river below the plane weave through the woods, and I know, just like the water moving toward the ocean, that I will wind up where I belong.

It just might not look the way I expected.

I gave my virginity to a man who now has a part of my heart, forever.

And I can’t take that back.

I don’t want to take it back.

I’ll get to Anchorage and make a statement of apology to the auction goers and to HAHA. The auction was a foolish idea, but falling for Ryder was not.

He was right earlier. I was scared of what falling so hard, so fast might mean.

But I don’t care about the risks anymore. It’s sure as hell a lot safer than riding in this plane with a man I am growing to realize is not who he seems.

Luther’s hand doesn’t leave my knee, though, and for the rest of the ride, he holds on. When he lands the plane on his private lake, I curtly thank him for calling my parents, for coming for me. I’m planning on running from him as fast as possible.

And calling Ryder as soon as I can.

To ask for another chance.

“Anything for you,” he says with sinister eyes.

He helps me from the plane by taking my hand a little too tightly, leading me from his massive dock toward the mansion up on the bank.

It’s an unreal piece of property, in different ways than Ryder’s is. Ryder’s was untamed, a wild forest and an untouched lake. This estate has a massive gate keeping out anyone who might come close. It’s ornate and flashy and the closer we get the more my skin prickles.

I don’t want to be here.

As we walk up the steps toward an entrance, I try to focus on anything other than the fact he is still gripping my hand in his, not letting go even when I try to pull away. “Did you live here with your late wife?”

“I did indeed.”

I try to ask him about Helen, but he brushes me off, forcing me to drop it.

But as we enter the house, the thick-carpeted foyer with an elaborately gaudy staircase in gilded gold, I try to imagine the down-to-Earth vision I have of Helen Ottenbagh.

“Were you and Helen married long?” I ask, unable to help myself.

“Long enough for her to rub off on me.”

I smile. “She gave you a passion for animals and protecting undeveloped land?”

Luther poorly conceals a smile. “No.” He stops walking and faces me. “She had a lot of money and was easily charmed.”

He steps toward me, his hand suddenly on my waist, drawing me to him. “Just like you, pet. You find me charming, don’t you?”

I step back, not wanting this to be happening. Ryder was so very right.

I squeeze my eyes tight, wanting this all to disappear.

“Don’t be scared little one. I know you will be very good for me, won’t you?” he purrs in my ear and my skin crawls.

Then I remember I am not alone here. “Where are my parents?” I ask, opening my eyes and looking around. The house is quiet, there are no sounds coming from anywhere.

“They haven’t gotten here yet. But they’ll be here any minute. Why don’t I take you upstairs while we wait? Get you a nice bath, wash your hair. It looks like Ryder made you rough it a bit more than a rich girl like you is used to.”

“No, I’m fine right here,” I tell him, suddenly desperate to call my dad, ask him to come quicker. Now.

“I know what’s best for you, darling.” He cups my cheek with his hand and I swat him away.

“Don’t call me that. I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”

“Oh,” Luther says with a devilish grin. “Playing hard to get, is that it? Is my little virgin needing to be taught a lesson?”

“You are not my teacher and I’m not a virgin.”

He raises his eyebrows and I immediately realize my error.

“Not a virgin?” he grabs my wrist, pulling me up the stairs. I try to resist, but he pulls harder, and my feet move not wanting to be dragged against the hardwood. “Did Ryder tarnish you or were you a lying slut this whole time?”

I cry out in pain as he pushes me into a room, locking the door behind us.

It’s dim, the lights are low, but it is obvious what kind of room this is.

A pleasure room. A sex chamber. But amidst the swing and the whips and the handcuffs, all I see is pain.

Torture.

Agony.

I don’t want to be here with him.

Ryder’s words from this morning ringing in my ear as Luther pushes me to a bed, cuffs me to the headboard. He’s a creep. A monster. He doesn’t deserve you.

I didn’t believe him. I told him he was jealous, wrong. I thought Ryder kidnapped me because he wanted to sleep with me and didn’t have the balls to stand up and bid on me like everyone else.

But that wasn’t it at all.

He kidnapped me because he knew what kind of man Luther was.

What kind of man Luther is.

Luther unbuttons my jeans and pulls them down and I close my eyes, my cuffed hands making it impossible for me to do anything but kick and squirm.

And kick and squirm I do.

But it does no good.

Luther leans over me, pressing his nose against my covered pussy, holding me in place.

This can’t be happening. Please don’t let this be happening.

All I want is to go back in time, to this morning. To Ryder and me.

Ryder.

Ryder.

I squeeze my eyes closed tighter as Luther pushes down my panties, my body exposed.

I need Ryder. I need him now.