I walk into the blue bedroom and don’t turn around when the door closes behind me. I have too much on my mind and I know the man will stand guard outside. I know I won’t be allowed out until Kill comes for me. But for right now, that’s okay. I need to process what’s happened. Who I’m dealing with. Because I’ve just realized who he is.

I go to one of the three windows lining the walls and push it open. My room overlooks the back of the property. I know the layout of the house. I’ve studied the design. Was obsessed with it for a time.

I leave the window open even though it’s cold out because the room has a smell to it. The whole house does. It’s like the stain of the past. Of secrets being locked away for too long. It’s stale and decrepit even though the mansion is in excellent condition. I try to imagine what it must cost to maintain it. Wonder how often Kill comes here. It’s a hell of a weekend getaway.

Keeping my coat on, I let fresh, cold air into the bedroom and look around. The Persian carpet is slightly worn but in good condition, and pretty. A light blue with elaborate, beautiful patterns along the four corners. I go to the bed, pull back the duvet, and sit. It’s much more comfortable than I expect it to be, but the mattress is new, even though I can tell the bed is an antique. It has four posts and a canopy over the head. I smell the comforter, the pillow. They don’t smell like the room. These are new.

I open the single drawer in the nightstand and a pencil rolls forward. It’s kind of creepy, the sound. I pick it up. It’s only about three inches long and the eraser has been chewed on. I wonder about the person who did that. If it was her. Kill’s sister, Virginia. Ginny for short. I put it back and close it.

There are two doors and I open the first one to find a bathroom. It’s large and luxurious, although the fixtures are old. Fresh towels are stacked on a shelf with bottles of shampoo, conditioner, soap, and anything I could ask for, really. I recognize the brands too. Nothing I can usually afford to buy.

Back in the bedroom, I open the other door and a light goes on. It’s a large walk-in closet. And it’s stocked. Hanging on a rack are too many dresses for me to count. Shoes are lined neatly on shelves along another wall and the drawers are filled with jeans, sweaters, shirts, belts, underthings. I check the labels. Look at the tags. Everything is new and everything is my size.

I step back, confused. There are more clothes here than in my closet at home.

Back in the bedroom, I pull my coat tight around me as a gust of cold wind blows in rain and a few yellowed leaves from the tree outside. I go to it, let my face get wet as I survey the property. It’s vast, although needs maintaining. Everything is overgrown and melds into the thick cropping of trees at the far end. The pool is unprotected. The tarp is torn and weather-worn. Leaves lie inside, rotting in stagnant rain water. The abandoned feel of the place gives me a chill and I draw the window closed. I lean my back against the wall, hugging my arms to myself.

I wonder why he brought me here.

It’s all coming together now. Who he is. What this place is.

About two years ago, I’d done a story on haunted mansions in the northeast for a Halloween ghost story. Rockcliffe had become the headliner of my piece with not one ghost but two.

Earlier, when the doctor had called Kill by his last name, it wasn’t that I recognized it, but it had jogged something in my brain. Kill. Mr. Killian. Mr. Black. Kill is Killian Black. His family is notorious. His father and uncle were both criminals with ties to the mafia. Killian now runs Mea Culpa, a high end gentlemen’s club, essentially a strip club for the elite, which I was sure was used as a front to launder money. That’s where I must have been yesterday, where they’d taken Jones and me. That would explain the music. And why no one cared that I was being led out so obviously against my will.

The only photographs I had ever seen of Kill when I’d found the house and my interest had been piqued had been taken when he wasn’t quite eighteen. The way he looked then versus the way he looks now, you wouldn’t say it was the same person.

Although, the piece I wrote was essentially fiction but for a handful of facts, when I’d been researching Rockcliffe House, I learned about the Black family’s tragic history. Killian’s father and uncle had been enemies, but when his father had died, his uncle had been granted custody of him and Ginny. Kill would have been sixteen at the time and Ginny fifteen. The tragedy had come almost two years later when, in the same week, Kill’s sister hanged herself in the barn which had been partially converted into a greenhouse on the property, and his uncle had been found brutally murdered. The shock had come when Killian had been arrested for his uncle’s murder. He’d been two weeks’ shy of his eighteenth birthday, and was tried as an adult, sentenced to a twenty-four year prison term.

But only four years later, he was free. Only four years for a brutal act of murder. Both the suicide and the murder had taken place on the property only days apart. I’d tried to gain access to the trial records, but the case had been sealed and this house had sat empty, I guessed apart from maintenance judging from the state it was in, since the day Killian had been taken into custody.

Kill’s uncle’s death, like so many things, got lost in the weeks following as other news stories took over the headlines. And no matter how much I dug, I couldn’t find anything more about the story and I knew there was a cover-up.

And now I stand wondering why in hell he’s brought me here.

* * *

Day turns into night before I hear his voice in the hallway. I get up from my place on the bed and want to put my boots back on, but don’t have a chance to before the door opens and Killian Black stands in it, looking like a giant, a formidable force. He’s no longer wearing his suit jacket or tie and his shirt sleeves are rolled half-way up thick, tattooed forearms. The top two buttons are undone and I see the dark ink of another tattoo on his chest.

I’ve been thinking about how to handle this the whole day. Wondering if I should tell him I know who he is. Know what he did. But when I see him, it’s like all my courage dissolves.

Kill walks inside and looks around the room. I wish I’d had time to put on the boots because I’m two inches shorter without them and I need the height with him. Seeming satisfied with the room, he looks me over.

“Your STD test came back negative.”

“I could have told you it would.”

He glances up at the canopy over the bed before returning his gaze to me. “Are you comfortable?”

“Is this where I’ll be locked up for the next thirty days?” I don’t know why I’m being combative. It’s like I can’t control the words as they come hurtling out.

He steps closer, a devilish grin playing on his lips, and takes my arms, rubbing them up and down—he’s holding back, I can tell—before closing his hands over them. “There are less hospitable rooms.”

“I’m sure there are.”

“You’re ungrateful.”

“I know who you are.”

He studies my face, searches my eyes. I don’t know what I expect him to say, not sure he realizes I mean I know what he did. Not when he doesn’t acknowledge my comment.

“Dinner’s ready. We’ll talk about rules and expectations after we eat. You’re hungry, I presume.” Someone had come up with food earlier but I’d turned it away out of pure stubbornness and regretted it later because they hadn’t asked me twice.

I nod, because the growling of my stomach tells him yes, I’m starving.

He walks into the closet and returns a moment later with a dress. It’s a calf-length pale violet dress with spaghetti straps. He tosses it on the bed along with a pair of strappy sandals.

“Change.”

I look at it, then at him. “It’s cold for that, don’t—”

“Change.”

I exhale, and pick up the dress, making a point of checking the size, turning my nose up at it even though it’s beautiful. “Can I have some privacy?” I ask finally.

“No.”

My jaw tightens.

“This can go like last night went, but if that happens, it’ll be me stripping you and taking you downstairs to eat naked in front of the staff.”

I swallow. His tone is just this side of controlled. My hands shake as I pull my sweater over my head, then push my jeans off. I take the dress off the hanger and go to slip it on but he stops me.

“Nothing underneath.”

I look up at him, then down, closing my eyes for a moment before reaching back to undo my bra. He watches silently as I take it off. I then slide off my panties, everything feeling like déjà vu. It’s humbling, this re-enactment of the night before. I pull the dress over my head. The silk is cool against my skin, and my nipples push against the fine material. It comes to just past my knees and is a perfect fit. I sit on the bed to slip on the sandals. He watches me quietly and when I stand, he looks me over, gives me a nod and gestures to the door.

“Let’s go,” he says.

I walk ahead of him out into the now abandoned hallway, acutely aware of his eyes on me, a fine layer of silk the only thing protecting me from his gaze. For now. We go down the stairs. As we near the lush dining room, the smell of dinner makes my stomach groan again. If he hears, he doesn’t say anything.

The dining room table is a rectangle that can seat about sixteen. Two places are set, and when we reach them, Kill pulls out my chair. I sit and watch as he takes his place at the head of the table. The large crystal chandelier blinks once. We both glance up at it.

It’s strange to look at him now. He seems so civilized, so different from the man I met just yesterday. The man who had my brother and I kidnapped, who threatened to break his legs. A man who deals in drugs and sex. Who makes trades that save one man’s legs from being broken in exchange for the ownership of another’s body.

“What are you thinking?”

I shake my head, realize I’ve been staring at him. “Nothing.”

He takes the open bottle of red and pours us each a generous glass.

The kitchen door opens and Helen, the woman I’d met earlier in Kill’s penthouse, enters, followed by two young girls in uniforms. One is carrying a large, closed serving dish from which wafts the most delicious smell of beef and spices. The second girl has a plate of roasted vegetables. Helen directs them to set the dishes down and removes the lid from the main dish.

“Mmm, my favorite, Helen.” Kill closes his eyes as he savors the scent.

Helen smiles and I know she’s been with him for a long time. She knows him. And he seems to trust her. “I figured homecoming required a special meal. Girls.” The two girls begin to serve us. They fill Kill’s plate first, then mine, and I can’t help but appreciate the exotic scent wafting up from my dish.

Once they’ve served us, they leave us alone. Kill takes his napkin and places it on his lap. He glances at me over a forkful of food. “Eat.”

I follow his lead and take my first bite and oh my goodness. It’s heaven. The meat melts on my tongue, the flavors exploding, tasting like nothing I’ve eaten before.

“Helen is an amazing cook. She’s been with my family for years.”

“Are we going to make small talk?” I ask. “I mean, let’s be straightforward about the fact that I’m here against my will. This isn’t exactly a date.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be anything but straightforward. But I like to take care of my things. Don’t want them breaking down. Passing out. Fading away with hunger. What would be the point?”

I set my fork down. I’ve lost my appetite. His reminder is blunt, cutting.

He sips his wine and takes another bite. “Don’t pout, Cilla. It’s not becoming.”

“What do you want with me? You can have anyone you want. You have a strip club full of women I’m sure would love to be here in my place right now. What do you want with me?”

He tilts his head to the side as he chews another forkful. I realize I’ve given something away. I shouldn’t know about Mea Culpa. I’m sure that’s where I was when I was blindfolded, but I shouldn’t know it. And from the look on his face, he didn’t miss my slip.

I clear my throat and force a potato into my mouth.

“We made a deal. I want what you promised. And in return, I’ll keep my promise. That’s all.”

“There’s a closet full of clothes upstairs.”

“If you prefer to walk around the house naked, that’s certainly—”

“I know who you are,” I blurt out, wanting a reaction. “I know what you did.”

He considers me, his eyes clouding, darkening. Like they did last night before he attacked me. I wring the napkin in my hands and push my chair back a little, readying to run. But where? Where would I run to?

Kill takes the last bite of food, cleaning his plate, then wipes his mouth and sets his napkin on the table. He rises and looks down at me.

I push my chair farther back and stand. He leads the way out of the dining room, past the living room and to another door. When he opens it, I stand in awe. It’s a library. A fully stocked library with high oak shelves and arched, leaded windows. This room must not have a floor above it because the ceilings are high on one half and a staircase leads to a balcony on the other with more books lining the circular back wall.

Kill walks inside and moves directly to a cart of liquor. He pours two glasses of whiskey and turns to me. “Come inside and close the door.”

I do. It’s darkly intimate with only three lamps providing the softest light.

He points to the leather armchair and I sit, taking the drink he holds out to me. He remains standing.

“Rules for the time you spend at Rockcliffe House. You’re allowed to come into the library whenever you like. You can spend as much time in here as you want. Same with your bedroom. When you’re hungry, go to the kitchen and Helen will prepare something for you. When I require your presence for a meal, you’ll dress as you are tonight.”

“You mean almost naked.”

“You’ll curb your tongue when speaking with me. From this moment forward, I will punish you when you aren’t respectful. Am I clear?”

“Punish me how?”

One side of his mouth curves upward. “I’ll show you. I’m sure an opportunity will present itself soon.”

I don’t want him to see how his warning impacts me, but I know he sees my shudder.

“You’ll be allowed outside twice a day with supervision.”

I open my mouth to remark on that, but close it again. I’m not sure I want to learn about his punishments just yet.

“Questions so far?”

“Will I be here for the full month?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“You said I’d be able to work. I need my laptop to do that.”

“Once you earn it, you’ll have it.”

“But you said—”

“Thirty days. Our agreement. It was your idea, remember. You’re mine for the next thirty days.” There’s a pause while he drinks, his eyes watching me all along. “I don’t want you wandering around the house alone. Bedroom, library and kitchen only. Clear?”

“Clear.” I say what he wants to hear.

“Good. Finish your drink.”

As if to set the example, he drains his glass. I know what’s coming after this. And I know there’s no way to get out of it. My heart is racing and goosebumps make the hair on my arms stand on end. I finish my drink and set it down on the side table beside me.

“Come here, Cilla.”

I just look at him for the longest time. My insides are churning. I have a thousand questions and none that matter. Because what’s left for me to ask?

I am his whore.

It’s what I offered. What it cost to save my brother. Maybe after this, I’ll be finished owing Jones, but I know that’s not true. I’ll never be finished. So I do as Kill says. I rise to my feet and go to him.

“Closer,” he whispers.

I move one more inch. The toes of my sandals are touching his shoes, my nipples brushing his chest. I have to crane my neck to look up at him.

“I won’t ever want you, you know,” I start. “I won’t ever give it. Know that you’ll have to take it every time.”

He cocks his head to the side, his gaze unreadable, intense. “Maybe I like taking, Cilla.”

“I hate you.”

“That’s a shame.”

“I’ll never enjoy it. You’ll always know that you forced me. That you hurt me.”

“Kiss me.”

A kiss? Just a kiss? I expected him to push me to my knees. To use my mouth in other ways. But a kiss, it’s intimate. More intimate than other things. And the command makes me shudder.

“Kiss me,” he repeats.

He wants a kiss. It’s not a fuck, is it? It’s not that. Why does this feel like so much more than that? Why does it make me feel so much more vulnerable?

When I don’t move, he wraps a hand in my hair, tilts my head back and kisses me. We’re close. So close, I can see specks of gold in his dark eyes. I want to close mine, feeling too naked. Too exposed. But I don’t. I won’t. I have to watch him, like he’s watching me.

The softness of his lips surprises me. It’s such a contrast to the stubble that’s scratching my cheek, my chin. To the fingers tugging my head back. Such a contrast to everything this man is.

I take his lower lip between mine, tasting whiskey as I kiss him. Taste him.

Sink my teeth into him.

He groans. His hardness presses against my belly. It’s thick and big. I meant to hurt him. To make him flinch. But I seem to have done the opposite. When his hand closes over my hip, I draw back, breaking the kiss, my breathing coming hard, my heart beating fast.

Kill looks down at me, his pupils dilated, eyes glistening. He moves his hand from my hip to capture my wrist and turns my palm to him, wrapping it over his erection.

I gasp and try to pull free and the spell is broken.

“Let me go.” My voice comes out strange, not high, but low and quiet.

“Make me.”

I look at the scratches down his face. Look at the deeper one, the permanent one. Did someone else try to make him before?

“Make me let you go, Cilla.”

I squeeze my hand around his cock, but it only makes him moan with pleasure, makes him swell in my palm. And when I try to pull away again, he twists my wrist, drawing me even nearer, our bodies pressing against each other.

“Fight. You want to,” he says, his voice also low and deep, barely a whisper.

“It’s what you want. I told you I’ll never give you what you want.”

Even as I say it, I know I’m a hypocrite because I am fighting, trying to free myself, I know it’s useless. I know the only way I’ll be free is when he frees me. And some part of me, it wants this. Some sick, destructive part of me wants exactly this.

Kill slides his free hand along my thigh, bunches up the silk as he hikes it up, all the while our eyes locked. But when he cups my sex, I go completely still.

“Why did you do it?” he asks.

“What?” I can’t breathe. Not when he’s holding me like this.

“Why did you come here? Why did you agree?”

Why did I offer myself in exchange for my brother? That’s what he’s asking?

I slide my gaze away. I can’t answer that. I won’t.

I shake my head once, he moves his fingers. I bite my lip.

“You’re wet, Cilla.”

“No.”

He grins. “Again,” he says. “Kiss me again.”

I begin my struggle anew, knowing I have to get away. To free myself. Because this man, he does something to me. Something wicked. A thing that will break me because he was right last night. I am a whore. I’m exactly his whore.

“No. Never.”

I break free and, before I can think, I raise my arm to slap him. I know he can stop me. I know because I hesitate, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t stop me and the sound my hand makes when it collides with his face is deafening. He flinches, but barely. When I prepare to do it again, though, he catches my wrist.

“Let me go!”

He’s watching me with that grin, the one that says ‘I know I’ll win’. The one that says, ‘I already have’.

Any momentary tenderness is replaced by dominance. By ownership. I lock eyes with him again, but this time, it’s like predator and prey. And I am firmly cornered. Caught.

“You want this, Cilla. You want this exactly like this.”

“I don’t.”

He walks me backward until my back hits the wall. That’s when he releases my sex, grabbing my hips instead, raising me up, fingers digging into me. I know he’s right. That I’m wet. He keeps me there with one hand while with the other, he undoes his belt, his pants, pushes them down. I look at his cock. It’s thick and big. Too fucking big, the bulbous head glistening with pre-cum.

“Wait,” I gasp, but he grips my legs, widening them, setting them around his hips. I feel him at my entrance and I’m sucking in air as I cling to his shoulders, his neck. “I—”

“Shh. It’s okay to want, Cilla.”

He’s taunting me and I hate him for it. For his control over me.

He closes his mouth on mine, biting my lip. I taste the metallic taste of blood.

He’s wrong. I don’t want this. I swear I don’t. I can’t want it.

My eyes are closed, and when I open them, I find him watching me.

“Cilla,” he says, his voice a hoarse whisper as he drives into me, his full length plunging too deep too fast. I’m not ready, even aroused—because I am aroused—I’m not ready, and I cry out.

He moans at the sound and slides out, then thrusts again. One hand is wrapped around my hip, with the other, he tears the dress apart and takes my breast between his fingers, kneading it, then gripping the nipple between thumb and forefinger, drawing it out as he thrusts again.

I gasp but the pain and pleasure, they’re confused. My clit is rubbing against him, his cock is splitting me in two and with his fingers punishing my nipple, I’m going to come. I don’t want to, don’t want to give him the satisfaction, but I’m slick and he’s fucking me harder, faster, and his eyes are watching me. Seeing me.

Fuck.

He closes his mouth over mine again and when he groans and stills and I again taste blood, I suck in a desperate breath and I come. I come as he empties inside me, filling me as he throbs against my contracting walls, his eyes shining, bright, his voice low and deep when he says my name, and I finally close my eyes, unable to hold his, hating myself for coming, for giving over to this pleasure, a pleasure that belongs to him.

Like me.

Like I belong to him.

He pulls out and a gush of liquid slides down my thighs. I look at the mixture of blood and cum. I’m not a virgin, but he was too big, too violent. My knees buckle when my feet hit the floor but he catches me. I slump into him, the top of my head in his chest. I am ashamed. I am…vanquished.

Kill wraps a hand around my throat and forces me to look at him, holding me up against the wall. His grip isn’t choking, but it can be. At any moment, he can snap my neck.

He looks at my mouth and I touch my lip with my tongue. I taste blood. He leans in and licks it, takes my lip between his, sucks hard while watching me. When he pulls back, I look down at my ripped dress, hear my own panting breath.

“Look at me,” he commands.

I don’t make a sound. I shake my head, the slightest shake.

“Cilla,” it’s a groan, a sound with an edge. A threat. And the squeezing of his hand is another warning.

I force my gaze to his, feel myself burn. I don’t know what I expect. Gloating? Some rude, demeaning comment? More humiliation? But all he does is look at me like he’s memorizing me, my face, my eyes, like he knows what I’m feeling. What I’m thinking. Like he sees right through me.

“You’re mine, Cilla. See it when you clean my cum off your thighs. Remember it when your cunt throbs as you try to sleep tonight. Know it. And know that you loved it. That you came so hard you couldn’t fucking stand when it was finished. And most importantly,” he leans in even closer so his mouth is touching my ear, “know that I know.”

He releases me and steps back and I can’t stand so I slide down along the wall and he watches me. There’s no pity in his eyes. No violence. Only a contentment, a victory. Because tonight, Killian Black won.