I let her wake. She’d been my paperweight on my large, timber and glass-topped desk for some time, lying on her side on the blotter. It must be five AM by now. Having her there let me think while also admiring the view.

It was wise to let some of the girls drift away and forget, lessened their anxiety. I hadn’t been sure I could do this to Red but I had, with difficulty.

Her eyelids fluttered. Eyelashes so delicate a butterfly would be jealous.

I raised the calligraphy pen and considered where to write on her. One of my hobbies, though I’d never written on a girl. Red seemed a good manuscript.

She pushed me into a new realm. She could bear the consequences and the evidence.

Where better than her areolas. Pink, circular perfection. Her upper breast lay over the lower, presenting me with an exquisite female canvas.

I began writing in black ink. The lines and loops stood out against the white. When I reached nipple, I dipped the line and wove around it in a pretty curve.

I placed a dot lower above her navel. Let it dry for a few seconds, then licked. The mark stayed, if dull. Good.

Her eyes opened fully. Pretty, light-green eyes looked out through the fan of red hair I’d arranged across her face. Green eyes. What else for a redhead. Her pubic hair, the thin arrowhead she’d left herself after, I presumed, laser therapy proved her color was inherited.

After placing the pen on the desk, I leaned back into my chair, considering my prize.

“Who are...” she began then stopped.

“Isak Bain. You know that.”

“Yes.” The change in her eyes was from fear. I let it happen. Dampening all her reactions was probably futile with Red, as well as less interesting.

“Do you remember the last words I said to you when I left you in Cuba?”

Cogwheels turned somewhere in that skull, neurons clicked, and finally: “Yes.”

“What did I say?”

She wet her lips with tongue, then lay staring until I tired of waiting and leaned in. I gestured – flicking a finger. “Raise your leg. I want to see more of you.”

Her eyes flared with anger. “Why?” Anger was remarkable, that she could so easily get angry at me.

“Now.”

Though her leg shook, though her forehead crinkled in a cute line, she lifted her upper leg, bending at the knee and placing her foot on the desk.

Pushing my will at her came naturally after these years. I rolled my chair sideways, put my hand between her legs then idly played with her slit until she grew wet and wriggly.

“What did I say?” I drew the copious liquid lower and painted her leg, dipping my finger into her entrance, observing her shudders, the squeeze of her cunt.

“You said, not to find you.”

“Exactly. Why then are you here?”

“To kill you.”

“Of course. You are brave, and stupid, and it’s amazing you managed to even think of killing me, let alone getting this close to me.” I toed off my shoe, pushed back and brought my leg up, placed my foot before her face. “Suck.”

My toe was definitely not one hundred percent clean, and that was all part of the allure in getting her little tongue and lips to latch on.

The no was blatant in her expression but after a moment of squeezing her eyes shut, she opened them and her mouth then shifted until my big toe was reachable. The warm wetness, as she engulfed it in her mouth, went straight to my cock.

“Keep sucking,” I murmured. “I should fuck you then kill you, by making you kill yourself. You’re trouble. The CIA will look for you, won’t they?”

She nodded, making my toe move, making me grin. What a situation – a CIA agent naked and on my desk doing oral on my toe. Not that novel, perhaps, after all, the mayor’s wife was one of my collectibles.

I was going to have to sort this out quickly, efficiently, with rigorous attention to why the fuck she attracted me more than others. What to do with her? I wanted to keep her but that was problematic.

“My little talisman, that’s you.”

Her eyes fixed on me but the pulsing, the play of her tongue on my dirty toe never stopped.

“Taste good?”

Her mouth screwed up.

“Good girl that you are, I will explain, as all villains do to their victims, though in your case I like torturing you with possibilities.” A joke though she likely wouldn’t see that. “I have a monster inside me. You can spit out my toe.”

I lowered my foot to the floor, pulled a tissue from the box in the desk drawer, then gently wiped the spit from her mouth.

“Of course you do,” she said.

“Yes. Of course I do.” Such an honest conversation. Casually, I waved the tissue. “Some days I can see it lurking in my veins.” Though it was a strange statement, she barely blinked.

“How long do I have before your agency finds where you are?”

“A...week?”

“And will they see the connection between this and Cuba?” Which would surely mean whoever had been chasing Wolfe, would become curious about me.

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

Her responses seemed slow. “Is your brain still foggy?”

“No.”

“Wolfe had to hurt you here.” I tapped the center of her forehead, kissed her nose, stayed there face to face. “To make you vulnerable. I love how different you are.” I wiped clean my toe. “I’ve been wondering how he did it.”

No matter how I explored her head, it was an inexact thing. I couldn’t read thoughts, only emotions. I could feel a collectable at a fair distance, could often pull them to me once in tune, but the mechanisms of this were mostly a puzzle.

“I’ve used you.” I nodded, mostly to myself. “I’ve used you for a long time to ward off my monster. But now you’re here, I’m wondering why you are. Is it fate poking at me? Telling me to do something new?”

“No,” Red said softly, eyes a little dull, which told me she was still affected by the forced sleep, though the poor thing didn’t see it. “It’s my need to kill you.”

“I should just fuck you.” Something was wrong with that idea... The leather chair squeaked as I leaned away. “Fucking collectibles fixes things. You’d be happier. But me? You bother me. A deal for you. Argue your side. Convince me I’m wrong to keep you, fuck you...” Maim, kill, etcetera, all my options scrolled past. “Just follow my rules. Don’t try to thwart me or there will be suffering. Immense suffering.”

I reassessed the undulations of her sprawled body. The line of hair leading to her clit and pussy charmed me every time. Shaving it off would be a crime...though I did like crimes.

“Do that and maybe I’ll release you.”

“Maybe?” By the cracked syllables in that word, the lovely girl was enticed.

My gaze sharpened. “Best offer.”

Vitor walked up to where this open plan study-and-bedroom merged onto the outside, seaward-facing deck. He waited, knowing that by this time of morning, I should have instructions for him. I crooked a finger, watched him approach to within a yard of my desk and stand behind Red.

“I have a question for you.”

“Sir?” Dressed in a smart shirt and pants, Vitor looked the part of a bodyguard – which he partly was. Despite his nonchalance, he perused the girl’s body. The man loved girl’s asses and he knew my tendency to throw them his way when I was bored or done with them.

“You want to fuck this?” I lightly patted Red below her hip, across her bottom.

His eyebrows rose. “Yes. It’s time for me to remind you though, sir.”

Of the ritual. True. Twice a day. Clockwork. She’d messed with that.

I could feel Red striving to glance behind her but shook my head. She subsided almost as readily as any ordinary collectible. Almost.

It was the almost that fascinated me.

I liked her remnant of ferocity.

I was bored with the other girls because they were perfect robots. Red was fractured, flawed – what Wolfe had done was not complete and left openings for defiance. Defiance, I decided, was the frosting on the cake. A pity there was only one of her.

“Maybe I’ll let you have her.” I switched my focus to Red in time to see her flinch. “I have five girls, so five chances for you to argue your way out of me keeping you. Maybe you can save them too. Give me good reasons. Get enough ticks from me, and there you have it. Freedom.”

“For us all?”

I shrugged, then reached and put my forefinger below her eye where tears had gathered. I pulled my finger across her face, her cheek, creating a glistening track. “This isn’t some typed contract, it’s one written in spit, tears, and cum, and in blood. Blood is easier to read.”

Her mouth made an O.

“Stick out your tongue.”

I took hold of the tip. Slippery, squirmy thing. “I like you. Argue well and I won’t have to cut this off and shove it up your cunt. It’s a retribution the cartels might use.”

I let go of her tongue, wiped my fingers on her tits.

“Fuck, I hate you.”

Her shoulder-length hair had slipped across her face again. The red strands stuck to the tears, to her full lips, shielded her eyes.

“I can fix that. The hate. For a CIA agent, you have such an innocent face.” She grimaced. “The first time we met you were a field agent, had this short hair, shaved on one side. No-nonsense, fuck-the-world hair. Do you remember what I told you?”

Frowning, she shook her head, stirring the hair tucked between her neck and the desk blotter.

“I told you never to cut it. I made it a quiet command, whispered it, told you not to remember my command, just the need to obey. I bet you haven’t cut it since.”

For the first time after I’d caught her again, she blushed. “I don’t believe you.”

“I see it worked.”