Dark veins flowed from the tip of my color pencil, the hue giving the appearance of black blood streaking through the leaf. I’d never gotten my hands on a sample of Tacca chantrieri, so I was thrilled to find it in the acquisitions Gerry had brought by earlier, once I’d returned from my last failed escape attempt. My subject sat in the middle of the wide wood table near the library windows, and I drew it as accurately as I could. The plant, often called the black bat flower, had a particular beauty that spoke to me. Inky leaves with ever darker veins were accompanied by a light green display of tendrils that appeared like whiskers on an old cat. I only hoped I could translate it onto paper.

A knock at the door drew my eye, and Timothy strode in with a box in his arms.

“What’s that?”

“A microscope, slides, mortar and pestle, tools, and a few other items to get you started. I’ve ordered the rest and will set up a small science area right inside the music room, unless you’d prefer it in the greenhouse or here.”

I stopped drawing. “If I said I wanted the moon, do you think he’d get it for me?”

“I daresay he’d try.”

I lifted my gaze to the chandelier. “Sebastian, hey.”

Silence.

“Hey, I’m about to take my top off. You have any thoughts on that?”

“Camille, please.” Timothy closed his eyes. “I don’t know if I can handle any more today.”

I rose and walked to him so I could help with the box. “I just wanted to see if he was listening.”

He didn’t give me the box, but carried it to the table where I was working.

“Can I ask you something?” I peered into his light blue eyes.

“If it’s about you leaving, I’d rather you didn’t.” He grimaced and took a step back.

“No.” I gestured toward the leather sofa and the comfortable chair I liked. “This isn’t about me escaping. I promise. Can we sit for a minute?”

“I probably shouldn’t.”

“Please?” I perched on the edge of the chair and hoped he’d follow my lead.

He gave a long look at the door.

“Just for a minute, I promise.” I clasped my hands together.

He sighed and moved to the couch where he sat gingerly and threw frequent glances to the chandelier. “What can I do for you?”

“When we spoke last, you said that Sebastian saved you. Could you tell me what you meant by that?” I was looking for any insight into my captor I could find, and Timothy seemed like a direct inroad.

“That’s not something I like to talk about.” He tangled his fingers together and avoided my gaze.

I rose and sat next to him. “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable. I’m just trying to understand him.” I kicked my leg up, the golden anklet barely visible at the hem of my jeans. “I don’t want to be a prisoner forever. If there was some way I could…I don’t know, trust him, then maybe I could find some better ways to deal with him. Does that make sense?”

“It does.” He sighed and unbuttoned his fitted black jacket before leaning back against the cushion. “He’s not a good man. He’s not a bad man. There’s no direct way to explain a man like him. So much of what you see is the real him, undiluted, but then there are parts he hides away. I didn’t even realize he had that extra depth until you showed up. It was the first time since I met him that I actually saw him change.”

He’d left an opening, and I took it. “How did the two of you meet?”

He pressed his lips into a thin line, as if uttering the answer aloud would hurt him.

“Will you tell me?”

He grew more tense by the second. “I don’t know if I can.”

I took his hand and squeezed it in mine. “Help me understand him, please. It’s the only way I’m going to be able to survive here. Besides, I think you owe it to me, Dr. Williams.”

He turned to me, regret in his eyes. “You know that wasn’t my idea, don’t you?”

“I realize that, but I will use whatever I can to get you to talk, up to and including guilt for getting me into this situation with your telephone trickery.”

He shrugged. “I was quite proud that I was able to talk science with you enough for you to fall for it.”

I rolled my eyes. “No wonder you and Sebastian are friends.”

“Friends?”

“Yeah. I mean, I realize you’re his butler or manservant or whatever, but I can tell the two of you have a bond like old friends.”

He smiled. “I like to think so.”

“It’s true.” I patted the back of his hand. “Now spill the history or I’ll tell Sebastian you made a pass at me.”

He snorted. “I don’t think he’ll find that believable, but you’ve done enough strong-arming already. I’ll tell you. But, please.” He squeezed my hand again. “Don’t judge me too harshly.” Pausing, he closed his eyes, as if collecting his thoughts before handing them to me. “When he found me, I was in an institution. I was only twenty, and I’d been in the system for four years.” His voice didn’t stop as much as it faltered away into silence. He cleared his throat. “I was there because when I was sixteen, I killed my boyfriend.”

I froze, unsure if I wanted him to continue. He seemed just as unsure, but eventually found his voice. “But I loved him, so I didn’t see how I could have done it. I still don’t remember it. Not all of it.” He opened his eyes, though he seemed to be looking far beyond the walls of the library. “I’m bipolar. I’d just been diagnosed a few months before…” He swallowed hard. “Before it happened, but my parents didn’t believe in medication or anything like that. When I was eight, we’d moved to the States to join a church with a dirt floor, daily baptisms, and a pastor who had five wives. They thought that my diagnosis was the result of me consorting with the devil. Even though I would fall into these senseless violent rages, they said that prayer was the answer, not pills. They thought that church would cure me.” He smiled, though the sadness in his expression made tears well in my eyes. “They thought church would cure a lot of things about me. But they were wrong. Sam died because they were wrong. And I was thrown into the darkest hole at St. Andrews after the judge found me incompetent to stand trial for his murder.”

The pain in his voice tore at my heart, but there were no words I could say to change it, or make it better. I could only listen.

“I won’t tell you the details of how St. Andrews treated what they deemed as criminally insane inmates. Those four years are like a blank space in my mind now. I had to cover them over or they would have eventually killed me.” He blinked hard and swiped at his eyes. “During my fourth year, the ownership of the hospital changed hands, and Sebastian joined the board. He toured the facility and found me cuffed to my bed, covered in filth, and with open wounds along my face and body. The guards liked to use me for a punching bag.”

“God, Timothy.” I couldn’t imagine how hellish it must have been.

“Sebastian took one look at me, skimmed through my chart, and ordered the new doctors to treat me with the proper medications. He fired the guards and turned the entire place around. After six more months of treatment, he arranged for my release into his care, and I’ve been with him ever since. He still visits St. Andrews once every six months, though it’s a completely different place now.” He laughed, the sound half sad and half amused. “He even donated money so the psychotic ward would be named after him.”

“Fitting.”

“Very.” He nodded.

“Timothy?”

“Yeah?”

I pulled him into a hug. “I’m sorry about Sam. It wasn’t your fault.”

He returned my embrace. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I squeezed him once more before letting him go.

He met my eyes. “So that’s what I meant when I said he saved me. He did. And he’s saved plenty more at St. Andrews since then.”

I arched a brow. “You said he wasn’t a good man.”

“He isn’t, not in the classic sense. Look at my story in the abstract, the way he would. He saw a young man with a treatable mental illness who’d been locked away and mistreated for years. I don’t pretend to know his thought process, but I would assume it went something like ‘if I can rehabilitate him, he’ll be loyal to me for the rest of his life.’”

“Harsh.”

“True.” He tapped his temple. “If you want to understand him, you need to look at things without the lens of emotion.”

“But that just leads me back to him being a robot.”

“Robot? No. That’s too mechanical, even for him. He has motivations that are sometimes, good, sometimes bad, but he is always motivated.”

“What motivates him to keep helping the people at St. Andrews?” I made a show of looking around the library. “I don’t see him creating any other loyal friends to help him keep me prisoner around here.”

“That’s a fair point. But look at it without emotion. Or, better yet, look at it as if it’s a deal. What does he get out of helping St. Andrews?”

“Good press maybe?”

He nodded. “Now you’re getting it. Good press and a place that is dedicated to understanding mental illness, including his own.”

“So it’s selfish?”

“Let’s just say it’s in the interests of self-preservation.” He rose and re-buttoned his neat coat.

I got to my feet. “So are you saying you can figure out everything he does just by parsing out the logic of it?”

He smiled, the sadness from his past disappearing back into whatever recess he hid it in. “Everything until you, yes.”

Sebastian arrived home early that afternoon. He spoke with Timothy for several minutes before meeting me in the library. I’d almost finished my drawing of the black bat flower and stared at my color pencil. The tip seemed plenty sharp.

“You better go for the eye if you’re serious.” Sebastian leaned over me and perused my work. “Shove upward hard if you want to impale my brain. Finish me off or I’ll find you. How was your run this afternoon, by the way?”

“You are sick.”

“That’s what all the professionals say.”

“I could, you know.” I turned to look up at him. “I could stab you right this second.”

“You won’t.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he spoke, the light shadow along his jaw shading him just as sharply as I had the leaves on my drawing.

“What makes you say that?”

“If you were going to make a move, it would have been with the fork two nights ago. At this point, you have grown more used to me.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to my ear. “As I heard earlier today.”

Mortification rained down on me as the memory hit me right in the stomach. How could I have forgotten that? Timothy had thrown me off.

He plucked my drawing from the table. “This is beautiful, by the way. Is it native to the rainforest?”

“No.” I reached for it, but he held it higher. “It’s mine. Give it back.”

“I want it framed.” He smiled down at me. “How about a deal? For each one of these prints you make for me, I’ll give you one orgasm?”

An angry sound lodged in my throat, and I stood so fast I knocked my chair over. “I’m done with your deals.” Turning on my heel, I strode away from him.

“I don’t think that’s true.” He followed me down the hall and into the greenhouse.

The hiss from the sprinkler in the exotics area drew my attention, and I studied the spray from the iffy nozzle. It seemed to be working.

Sebastian edged up behind me, then put his hands on my shoulders.

I shrugged him off and looked around at the small world I’d built over the past week. Disgust rolled through me at how quickly I’d fallen into my own captivity. Here I was, worrying about whether a mister was working correctly in my captor’s glass menagerie. What the hell was wrong with me?

I turned to him. “School starts back in three weeks. People will notice I’m missing. What’s your big plan for that?”

He stared at me, searching my face for some clue about how to respond. It infuriated me even more.

“Surely your robot brain thought of that, right?”

“I have a plan, yes.”

“What is it?”

“I intend to fake your death in the Amazon.”

My mind blanked, and all I could do was stare up at him. I blinked hard, and tried to give his words some meaning other than the obvious one. But there was no alternative. He was going to tell my friends that I was dead.

“I won’t let you.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“I’ll get out of here.”

“Camille.” His warning tone did nothing to stop the torrent that raged inside me.

“I will.”

“You belong here.”

“No. I belong with my students at Trenton. I belong with Veronica. I belong with—”

“Him?” He tightened, his strong body becoming stonier as he peered down at me.

“You mean Link?”

He winced at the name. “Yes, him.”

It was a question I’d been avoiding for months. One I still couldn’t answer. Link was everything I should have wanted, but I hadn’t been able to commit. But Sebastian didn’t need to know that. Given the way he asked, an affirmative answer would hurt him. And, oh, how I wanted to hurt him.

I straightened my spine, refusing to yield to him anymore. “Yes. We’re in love.”

He clenched his eyes shut—the same way people did when they’d suffered some grievous injury and were trying to collect themselves.

When his lids opened, the sparkle I’d seen only seconds before was gone. In its place was harsh resolve and a darkness that chilled every part of me.

His voice was so low, I almost missed it. “I’ll kill him.”

I followed him as he stormed up the stairs. “Sebastian!”

He barreled down the hallway toward his room, entered the code, then strode inside.

I managed to catch up just in time before the door clicked shut and locked me out. “What are you doing?”

He vanished into the bathroom and then his closet. “What I should have done months ago.”

I skidded to a stop in his closet door as he swiped up his wallet and ripped a jacket from a hanger. Fear rocketed through my heart. He’d shut down when I’d lied about being in love with Link. And now he was like a dark tornado, twisting and wrathful.

“Stop, please.” Alarm bells sounded in my mind, and I was certain I’d just put Link in grave danger.

“Not until he’s gone.” He snagged a pair of shoes. “You don’t have to love me, but you sure as hell won’t love anyone else.” Brushing past me, he strode toward the hall door.

If he left and the door shut behind him, I’d be trapped here with no way to help Link. Panic erased any care I had for myself as I imagined what Sebastian was capable of. Link wouldn’t see it coming.

I rushed around him and plastered my back against the hall door. “Don’t go.”

“I have to. Don’t you understand?” He rested his fingers on the keypad. “For us. He has to go.”

“I lied.” I peered into his eyes and hoped my confession would be enough.

“Of course you’d say that to protect him.” His sneer sent a blade of fear deep inside me. He was serious. Link wouldn’t see another day if I didn’t do something.

“It’s true. I’ve never told him I love him.”

He rested his palms against the door on either side of my head, caging me with his body. “Saying it doesn’t mean anything. Do you feel it for him?”

“No.” The truth flew from my lips.

“I want to believe you.” He leaned closer, his eyes filling my vision with promises of violence.

I thought fast. “Remember when you picked me up that day I thought I was going to the airport?” It seemed like a lifetime ago. “Link told me that he loved me.”

He grimaced. “This isn’t helping your case.”

“I didn’t say it back. I couldn’t, because it would have been a lie.”

He recoiled, his anger dissipating a fraction. “I saw that.” A slight smile teased the edge of his mouth. “He looked like a kicked puppy when you got in the car.”

“That’s because I didn’t say it back.”

His frown returned. “But the fact that he said it to you. I should kill him.”

“You’ll get caught.” I had to change my tack.

He moved closer, his presence invading every cell in my body as he leaned his forehead against mine. “I’ve never been caught. So many dirty deals, so many lives destroyed just because I could. Link would be no different.”

“I don’t love him.” The truth, in all its ugly glory.

“I wish I could believe you.” He sighed.

“I’m telling the truth.” My voice cracked on the last word as his warm breath ghosted along my lips.

“If only there was some way you could prove it to me.” His cruel smirk had returned, and he rested one warm palm at my throat.

“How?” My breath hitched as he squeezed the sides of my neck gently.

“I have a few ideas.” He brushed his lips across mine.

Goose bumps raced along my arms. “I’m not having sex with you.”

“Not yet, but you will.” His lips grazed mine again, and an unwelcome thrill shot through me from the heat of his touch. “So let’s make another deal. Though, I’ll warn you, this one has higher stakes than your botany books. What will you give me for Link’s life?” His thumb stroked back and forth along my jugular.

Could he feel the chaotic beat of my heart?

“Another kiss.”

Heat sparked in his eyes. “Deal, but I get to choose where I kiss you.”

“No.” I pushed against his chest.

His eyes darkened. “Fine.” He moved his hand to the right and started pressing buttons. The beep of the keypad made the panic rise inside me.

“Wait!” I clutched his shirt and wrestled with my next words. “If I give you what you want, will you promise to never hurt him?”

The beeping stopped. “If you let me kiss you here”—he cupped my pussy with one hand—“then I’ll never harm that pathetic white knight unless you ask me to.”

“I have your word?”

“Yes.” He didn’t remove his hand. “But there’s still a problem.”

“What?” I balled my hands into fists. “What now?”

“I need you to tell me you want this.” He rubbed his palm against me, sending a buzz through my clit.

“Since when does it matter what I want?” I gave him a glare that I hoped curdled his insides.

Instead, he smiled. “I like it when you’re feisty. Maybe even more than when you’re sweet.”

“I hate you.” I put all the venom I possessed into the words.

“We’ll see if you still say that when I’ve got my face buried in your sweet cunt.” He slid his index finger up and down the seam of my jeans, sending shocks of desire skittering along my skin. “You can tell me you don’t want this, and I’ll stop.” He bent lower and pressed his lips along my jaw line. “But if you want me to taste you, to devour you until you lose control, I’m going to need you to ask for it.”

“You’re sick.” I gripped his shirt and closed my eyes, trying to be anywhere else but here, pressed against this door, with a devil whispering dark desires.

“And you’re wet.” He claimed my mouth, his tongue delving and exploring, taking my breath and replacing it with his.

I hated him, hated everything he’d already done to me and what he had planned. But more than anything, I hated the way he made me feel—the tightening in my stomach and the heat between my thighs as he took what he wanted. All of it was so wrong. The one man who was right for me never made me burn bright, never set me spinning the way Sebastian did. I was sick and twisted for enjoying his touch, but I couldn’t stop it any more than I could leave this house.

My thoughts vanished in a haze of lust as his tongue stroked mine, teasing and taking as he pressed me against the door. He worked my pussy, sliding his hand over my jeans. Then he pulled back and slapped me right on my sensitive clit.

I bucked and cried out into his mouth, but he swallowed the sound and returned to stroking me. Another slap from his palm made my knees go weak.

He grabbed my ass and lifted me, carrying me to the bed and laying me down with my hips on the edge. “Take off your clothes.” His pupils had grown larger, swallowing the green with the same blackness that resided in his soul.

I hesitated. He dropped to his knees between my legs and yanked at the button on my jeans.

“I’ll do it.” I grabbed his fingers and held on.

“Make it quick.” He sat back on his heels.

I sat up and, with shaking hands, unbuttoned my jeans and pulled the zipper down. He watched like a cat stalking a bird—no movement undetected.

“You promise you won’t hurt—”

“I gave you my word. Now quit stalling.” He reached out again, but I slapped his hand away and pushed my jeans down my thighs and then to my calves.

Impatient, he pulled them the rest of the way off. “Now your panties.” He smirked up at me. “I can tell they’re already soaked.”

Heat bloomed in my cheeks, and I prayed for some miracle to save me from his clutches. But nothing happened, and I would have to comply if I wanted Link to see another day. A dark voice whispered that I was enjoying it, that I wanted Sebastian’s tongue inside me, but I refused to listen to it. It wasn’t true, was it? My fantasy from earlier resurfaced, and the shame of it almost choked me, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.

I hooked my thumbs along my hips and pushed the material down. Keeping my legs together as much as possible, I slid my light blue panties over my knees and let them drop down my calves.

“I want to see all of you. Pull your shirt up.”

I narrowed my eyes. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

He tore his gaze from my thighs to give me a sharp glare. “Is that how you’re going to play this? If you comply”—he ran his fingers along my knee and higher—“I’ll go easier on you.”

I wasn’t giving him anything extra. This little part of me was all he’d ever have. “Do your worst.”

His handsome smile reappeared, and if I looked at him in the right light, I could almost think he was a charming man. But I knew different.

“I like it better this way.” He pressed his wide palm to my chest and pushed my back down to the bed.

His hands ran up the insides of my thighs, easily overcoming what little resistance I could give. He spread me wide, cool air hitting my hot skin, and then moved closer so that his shoulders pressed against my legs.

“You’re going to enjoy everything I do.” His warm breath on my pussy sent a tremor through me. “But I’m going to enjoy it far more. Now, ask me for it.”

I clenched my eyes shut.

“You have to ask, Camille.” He breathed against me, and I bit back a cry. “Just say please. One simple word.”

He was torturing me, every word from his mouth delivering a silky promise of pleasure.

I told myself I had no choice, that I didn’t want his mouth on me, but each fevered beat of my heart told me I was a liar. My complicit mouth whispered the one word that sealed my fate, “Please.”

His tongue was sudden, hot, and insistent. He groaned as he ran the length of it from bottom to top. I gripped the sheets, twisting them in my palms as I tried to fight off the surge of arousal that shot through me.

“I never want to forget the way you taste.” He flicked the tip of his tongue against my clit, then licked me again. “Sweeter than anything I’ve ever had.”

I bit my lip, forcing myself to stay silent. He tasted me, darting his tongue inside me, then up to my clit where he languidly stroked me. I panted and fought the urge to move my hips in time with his attentions.

“How many fingers does my damsel need? How many did you push inside yourself as you came with my name on your lips?”

I stared down at him, his eyes hooded as he feasted on me.

“One?” He slid a finger inside me, and a low moan escaped me. “You’re so tight. So fucking delicious.” Moving his finger along with his licks, he worked me until I broke out in a sweat and my fingers ached from gripping the blanket.

“I’m certain your white knight never ate you like this.” He darted his tongue along my clit. “Never savored you the way I do. He couldn’t, because he tried to take something that wasn’t his.” He worked his finger in and out in an unhurried rhythm. “I think I underestimated you.” Another finger joined the first, filling me and stroking the one secret spot deep inside. “That’s it. That’s what you need, isn’t it? He couldn’t give it to you. You had a white knight, but you were waiting for your monster. Here I am.” He seized on my clit, his tongue lashing it in vicious strokes.

His words swirled inside me, turning and twisted, eating away at me like acid. Because they were true. Link was everything I should have wanted, but he wasn’t the one whose name was on the tip of my tongue.

Sebastian’s fingers and mouth drove me to the edge of my control, then broke it. I cried out and moved my hips, dancing with the devil who laughed against me and pushed me closer to release. My resolve shattered, and I became a slave to his mouth. I ran my hands through his dark hair and pulled. He growled against me and increased his tempo, finger fucking me hard as he tongued me.

My breath became shallow, and my legs shook as I ground against his mouth, chasing my orgasm as he chased me. The bogeyman nipped at my heels and drove me toward ecstasy.

“Give it to me. All of it.” He seized on my clit, sucking on the swollen nub. When he grazed me with his teeth and bit down, my back arched off the bed. My body tightened and narrowed into a tiny pinprick of light. And then I exploded in a crash of rolling waves, each one dragging me deeper until I was eye to eye with Sebastian in the darkest circle of hell.