"What are you working on?"

Adrian wrapped his arms around my shoulders and nuzzled my ear with his nose as he looked at the computer screen in front of me. I giggled and shivered, but he didn't release me from his arms. They felt so good wrapped around me, strong and safe, and I couldn't imagine anything bad happening to me while they were near.

"It's a new line of cruise-wear. I got the idea from looking out whenever we're anchored in clear, blue water. I'm using different shades of blue and green with layers of sheer, gauzy fabrics to create the feeling of depth and movement."

"Sounds sexy," he said as he kissed and bit my ear. "You're going to give a whole new definition to the term cruise-wear. Whenever I hear the term all I think of are tent dresses and Hawaiian shirts."

"You're not the only one. Gina really likes the idea and thinks this could launch a new line under her brand. She's going to take care of the marketing and wants me to come up with the designs. We're meeting again in a month. Where do you think we'll be then?" I asked, twisting around in my chair so that Adrian's lips brushed up against mine.

"Well, we're headed east right now. I was planning on going south once we get around the Minahassa Peninsula. There are hundreds of islands in Indonesia. We could really get ourselves lost down here."

Adrian's lips moved along my cheek and down past my jaw. I knew he was headed for my neck, and once he got there I would be useless.

I felt my whole body melt into his hands as he brought them up and buried both of them in my hair, then pulled it to the side to completely expose my neck. His lips started behind my ear and slowly moved down my neck, and a breathy moan escaped from my lips.

"I need to get a little more done today, okay?" I said, barely above a whisper. My eyes were closed and I was barely able to hold my head up once his lips left my neck.

"Okay, you're the boss," he said with a grin. "But just wait till I get your clothes off. You won't be the boss anymore."

A flash of intense tingles shot through my body as I looked into Adrian's eyes. I could tell by the look in his eyes that even though he had a playful tone in his voice that he was dead serious. And that thought took my breath away. I suddenly felt self-conscious and shy and looked down while I tried to regain some composure. It was strange to me how I loved and hated the way his stare made me feel at the same time.

It was something that started when I was back at the villa with him. At the time I thought it had to do with the fact that he was holding me prisoner there. Or that his father was.

In the beginning I thought it was Adrian, that he was the reason I was in that horrible place. But I realized very quickly that he was trying to protect me. And even though I knew what he and his family did with all of the girls they kept and trained underneath the villa, I couldn't stop the feelings I had for him.

He told me he wanted to get me away from there and I believed him. I believed him because I had fallen in love him a long time ago, when he was a different person. And when I looked deep into his eyes I saw that person and I knew he was telling me the truth.

But the very first time we made love, when he looked into my eyes I saw something completely different. Something both terrifying and thrilling that I had never seen long ago on that beach. I knew when he looked into my eyes then and told me what he wanted me to do that I had no choice.

An overwhelming feeling swept through me and made it impossible to say no to him. There was a feeling that I couldn't say no because he would be disappointed, but also a feeling that I didn't want to say no because I would be too. And I always I hoped, when I saw that look in his eyes, that he would ask me to do the most dirty, filthy, and most humiliating things imaginable. I wanted him to make me do those things.

Part of me thought those feelings were tied to his father's villa, where his brother had stripped me and assaulted me, and that they would go away after we had left that place. But they didn't. I still feel like those eyes of Adrian's can see straight into my soul.

I didn't think that, after all this time, I would still feel as incredible naked as I do when he looks at me that way. Like he has finally found his prey after a long hunt. After months of being on this boat with him and getting to know him and feeling my love for him grow more than I had ever expected, I am always startled by my reaction to his burning gaze. I didn't think it was possible for me to feel even more naked than after I had removed all of my clothes, but when he looked at me that way, I did.

When I saw him look at me with that look in his eyes, it felt like everything was on display. Not just every inch of my body, but every thought and feeling and emotion I was having or had ever had. There was nowhere to hide any of that from those eyes. And something about it was both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.

But feeling that naked, that vulnerable, brought up glimpses of thoughts and memories I had locked away a long time ago. Not memories of abuse or of being terrorized by someone I loved, but of feelings and a vague knowledge of conversations that had taken place. Words that had been said about me at some point in my life by people who mattered to me and confirmed my greatest fear. That I didn't belong anywhere.

So in the beginning, back at the villa when I was scared, at first of him, but later of his brother and father, I thought maybe I needed Adrian so much that I would do anything he asked. No matter what he asked. And I did. I did whatever he wanted, whatever he asked of me. But I soon realized that I wanted to do it. He made me do things, but I knew what was inside me. I wanted him to make me do those things.

Then as time went on the need and the want didn't go away the way I thought they would. In fact, if anything those feelings became more intense. There were times when I craved being told what to do by Adrian. Not in everyday life, not where real life and my design career were concerned. I craved being told what to do in the bedroom, or wherever we were when we were having sex.

But because we were together all of the time now, because he was always there and his eyes were always watching me, because our life was on this boat which meant our sexual activities weren't confined to a bedroom, the line between everyday life and the way he treated me in the bedroom started to blur.

One look from him or a touch or a brush of his breath on my neck sent waves of pulsating need through my body, and all I wanted was to please him. To be owned by him. I didn't want to call him daddy or master or sir, because he wasn't any of those things to me. In those moments, when he would look at me like I was all he ever wanted, he would become everything to me, and a title would have made it all feel like an act. Like we were playing a game, and this wasn't a game to me at all.

But it was very different when he called me pet names. I loved it when he referred to me as his sweet angel or told me that I was a good girl. When he looked into my eyes and called me names like that it would bring me to tears. I would suddenly be filled with an overwhelming feeling of appreciation and love. A feeling that I was doing something good and right and I was making him happy. It was a feeling I don't remember ever getting from another man in my entire life.

I would always think to myself, something must have happened to me, someone must have done something to me when I was very young in order for me to want this. How could I want to be owned and humiliated and spanked by someone if I wasn't broken? Why would I need to be subservient in order to feel appreciated? Normal, healthy people didn't want to be treated like this, did they?

But no matter how hard I tried to remember, no matter how many nights I spent combing through my childhood for clues, there was nothing there. Nothing I could point to that said: there it is, that's why you like it when he does these things to you. That's why you want to please him so badly.

Nothing except the memories of not ever feeling like I was good enough. And the conversations my parents would have when they thought I was in bed. But I still didn't like to think about those conversations. The times when they came back strongest, the times when I couldn't push them away, were the times when I felt the most vulnerable with Adrian.

It almost seemed like the feelings that were brought up in me — the feelings of wanting to please no matter how dirty and nasty the acts I was asked to do made me feel — those were the feelings brought back the memories. There was nothing I could do to stop any of it, because when it was happening, it all seemed like a puzzle I had been waiting my whole life to be put together.

I could feel the changes in me, almost like the change in the atmosphere when the sky fills with rain clouds that are about to burst. The need would fill me and take me to a place where everything was reduced to sensations. Then as the intensity of the sensations built inside me, the feeling of vulnerability increased until I was sure that some part of me was freakishly wrong. I didn't want to be looked at anymore. I didn't want his eyes to be on me for another second, but by then it was too late.

By then he would already be inside me, telling me how good I was and how sweet I was and all my brain could do at that point was scream, You don't understand! I'm not good at all, Adrian! That's when the memories would come. At least that's what happened this last time when my mouth and the quivering felt out of control.

When I think about it now it all seems so silly, being embarrassed of my lips quivering uncontrollably. But I don't think the feelings had to do with my lips, or any other part of my body. I think that feeling had to do with something else. Something that had to do with a little girl disappearing into the darkness while she overheard her father telling her mother she wasn't his daughter. That she didn't belong to him.

"Just give me fifteen minutes," I said as I looked back up into those dark eyes. They were almost completely black now and they burned mercilessly into my soul, sending me almost gasping for breath as I twisted back toward the computer screen.

"I'll barely be able to contain myself until then," Adrian said as he kissed the side of my head.

As he started to walk back toward the door an image flashed in my brain that I couldn't shake.

"Adrian?"

"Yeah?"

"What was in that envelope? The one you brought back with you from your meeting with Grady."

"Nothing, it's not important."

"Was that what you were looking for out on the deck last night?"

"Yeah, I don't know what happened to it. Have you seen it?"

"No. I remembered it for some reason. Does it have to do with me?"

Adrian came back to the chair and wrapped his arms around my shoulders again, which sent another shock of tingles surging through my body.

"It's just some information I had Grady get for me. It's nothing you need to worry about right now."

"Okay," I said as I felt him slip away and out the door. I still had the feeling he was trying to protect me from something. Something more than men with guns.