Sean finally lapsed into silence, and we all watched as Isabel lowered her face into her hands and started to cry.

Uncertainty flickered across Sean’s features, and he held a hand over her shoulder. When he finally did touch her, he looked stiff and uncomfortable, as though the display of raw emotion left him discomfited.

It was the broken, defeated sound of her sobs that had me rising from my seat and sitting by her side. Sean gave me a look that I could only describe as relief as I wrapped my arm around her shoulders.

She leaned into me and closed her eyes.

“It’s going to be alright,” I told her.

“How?” she whispered, the simple word breaking the tension in the room. “How can anything be alright now? My family…I come from monsters.”

Both Sean and Brooks flinched at the venom in her voice. I kept my concentration on my friend, although I wasn’t unaware of their reactions. “That doesn’t make you one,” I said quietly.

Isabel continued to cry, and I rocked her as the storm raged, then passed.

A heavy silence had settled in the room by the time her tears slowed. She looked around and sniffed, wiping her face with her fingers. “I need a minute,” she said stiffly.

I caught her hand. “Want me to go with you?”

“Thanks, but I need to be alone for a few minutes.”

I nodded, understanding completely.

As she left the room, I sagged back onto the cushions of the couch, feeling drained.

“How are you?” Sean asked, his tone oddly formal.

I tilted my head and studied him, wondering if he was even interested in the answer.

He looked away after a few seconds, and I realized he was embarrassed. Maybe even ashamed.

Part of me wanted to be angry with him for how he’d treated me throughout all of this, but I understood one thing—he’d done everything to protect Isabel. Not just physically, but from the truth as well, because he’d realized how it would hurt her.

I’d done the same thing when I hadn’t been upfront with her about the threats from Duardo, then Marcos’ assault.

I understood the need to protect those I loved.

Because of that, it was a little easier to let go of the antipathy I felt toward Sean. “I’ll manage,” I said, my tone nearly as stiff as his had been.

He nodded and got up to pace.

He was on his second circuit when Isabel reappeared in the doorway. Her face was pale, save for two flags of color flying high on her cheeks. She didn’t look at him or Brooks. She simply stared at me where I sat, waiting.

She came over and sank down on the cushions next to me.

“Do you hate me?” she asked, her voice hitching.

Without even thinking about it, I opened my arms to her. She all but flung herself at me, clinging tight. “Of course I don’t hate you,” I whispered against her hair. “Why would you ever think that?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, the words thick with tears. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, and I’m sorry for what my brothers and my father have done to you. I’m so sorry, Daria.”

I closed my eyes. “It’s okay, Iz. It’s okay.”

“It’s not—”

“You love your family. I can’t imagine how hard all of this must be for you. It’s okay.”

She sagged against me, and I held her more tightly.

I didn’t know how long we sat like that.

The ache in my heart had both eased and magnified. Isabel believed me, which helped in some ways, but in others, it only hurt more. She’d had to accept some of the ugliest truths one could be handed out when it came to family.

If there had been a way to protect her from all of this, I would have taken it in a heartbeat.

But there wasn’t.

If we wanted Marcos and Duardo stopped, if we wanted Basilio stopped, we had to do something, and whatever that ended up being, we might need Isabel’s help.

That meant she had to know, had to believe what was going on.

And I hated it.

She eased away from me, and I let go, watching as she rose and wandered a few feet away, swiping again at the tear tracks on her face.

“We can’t let this go on,” she said softly, turning to look first at me, then at Brooks before finally focusing on her husband. “If my family is involved in forcing girls to dance and…” She stopped and shook her head. “If they are doing this, we have to stop them.”

Sean hesitantly reached out to her. She stared at his hand for a long moment, then met his eyes. “Did you know about the girls? Underage girls?”

“No,” he said softly, a muscle twitching in his cheek. “I don’t have a lot of lines, but that’s one of them.”

“Find a few more lines,” Isabel advised. Then she looked directly into my eyes. “What do you need from me?”

I was exhausted when we left Sean and Isabel’s.

A car was waiting out front, and I sank into the plush, padded leather with a sigh of relief. Brooks was next to me a moment later, and he wrapped his arm around me. I sank into the hard lines of his body with a sigh that was born of relief and need. He turned his head and brushed his lips against my forehead.

The car’s powerful engine roared to life, and I closed my eyes, thinking that maybe I’d just rest my eyes for a few minutes as we headed to the hotel.

An untold time later, I opened my eyes and looked out the window to an unfamiliar city.

I stared blankly at the skyline for several moments before my brain finally kicked in, and I straightened, looking outside before turning my attention to Brooks. “Where are we?” I asked.

“Philadelphia.” He brushed my hair back from my face. “I’m tired of hotels. I wanted to sleep in my bed…with you next to me.”

My face flushed at the intensity of his words. Licking my lips, I searched for the right words before I finally managed to say weakly, “What about my clothes? I don’t even have any toiletries.”

“I’ve already taken care of that,” he said softly.

My heart fluttered at the look in his eyes, and as he leaned in to kiss me, I had to fight the urge not to melt against him. “Well.” I licked my lips as he pulled back, tasting him on my mouth. “I guess there’s no reason to argue then, is there?”

A wolfish light came into his eyes. “Well, you can argue if you want to. I wouldn’t mind giving you a little bit of discipline once we’re in the penthouse.”

My breath hitched. “Discipline?”

“Hmm.” He put his hand on my thigh and leaned back into the seat, slouching down comfortably. “I’ve wanted to get you to my place almost from the first second I laid eyes on you.”

His hand crept higher.

“And why is that?” Without conscious thought, I spread my legs for him.

The driver of the limo didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. Brooks hit a button in the armrest, and a window rose between the driver and the back seat, leaving us essentially alone. My breath came harder and faster as Brooks slid his hand under the hem of my skirt, then inched it higher.

“I just want to show you around. Give you a personal tour, if you like.” He slanted a look at me. “I’ve got any number of interesting…objects.”

I had no doubt about what kind of objects he might be referring to, and I swallowed back a whimper as he touched me through my panties.

I was already wet as his fingers sent the satin sliding back and forth over me. One tug and he could slip his fingers inside those panties and touch me with nothing separating us.

As if I dreamed it into reality, he tugged on the elastic leg band, then he was there—sinking one finger into the liquid heat of my pussy.

“Do you think you’ll be too tired for a tour, Daria?” he asked, pushing inside me, hard and fast.

Although he had only used one finger, he felt so large inside me I clamped my legs shut around the intimate intrusion, staring at the back of the driver’s head through the glass.

Brooks, undeterred by my clenched legs and rigid posture, continued to work his magic inside me, wiggling, probing, seeking. Before I had even realized what I was doing, I let my legs fall apart, opening to him.

“Daria?”

Drugged with lust, I turned my head and stared at him.

“Are you…” he twisted his wrist, screwing his finger deeper inside me. “Interested in a tour?”

I swallowed a ragged moan and nodded wordlessly.

“We’re almost there, sir.”

I jolted at the unfamiliar voice coming through a speaker and turned my head, fastening my gaze on Brooks. A slow smile curled his lips as he withdrew his hand from my panties, from under my skirt.

“Excellent, thank you, Steven,” he said. And the entire time, he stared at me.

When he slid his finger into his mouth and licked it clean, I had to swallow a whimper.

The tour consisted of the route we took from the elevator to the penthouse, stopping in front of a massive door at the end of the hallway.

He’d practically carried me to this very spot.

My heart was still racing from the thrilling foreplay in the car, and I had to lock my knees to stay upright. The wetness between my thighs might have been mortifying if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was eager for him to pick up where he’d left off.

I squeezed my thighs together as he unlocked his front door, then stepped back, waiting for me to step inside.

Forcing a nervous smile, I asked, “Is this where you keep all your old wives?”

“If it is, I guess you’re in trouble,” he said, giving me that wolfish smile as he clicked the light on. He quickly led me down a corridor past many closed doors and into a room that had its own special lock.

When he flung the door open, I gasped as I looked around, trying to take everything in.

It was a room of unmatched luxury. That was obvious from the first glance. From the fine furniture, to the gleam of the antique table in front of the couch, to the highly polished hardwood floors, it was unlike anything I’d ever seen. I eased a few feet into the room, my mouth agape.

At first, I thought it was just a bedroom, outfitted with a sitting area and fine art.

But then as I studied the pieces of art hanging on the walls—everything from modern, black-and-white photographs to exquisitely rendered oil paintings—I understood the motif of the room.

Sex.

Bold, in-your-face sex.

A photograph of a woman on the far wall, lying back on her elbows and staring down at the head of the man who knelt between her thighs demanded my attention first.

Then the painting. Another woman on her hands and knees, and over her, a man stood with a long, slender length in his hand. I thought it might be called a crop, but I wasn’t sure.

Where to look next at this feast for the senses?

I could feel Brooks behind me, his intense scrutiny boring into me, but I didn’t say anything as I entered the room.

Another piece of art instantly caught my attention, this a black-and-white sketch of a woman’s face, her mouth open in ecstasy.

“Where are we?” I finally asked, surprised at how normal my voice sounded. “The Modern Museum of Lust?”

“Cute,” he murmured, dipping his head to kiss the arch of my neck. “This is my…well, I hate the word playroom. Some use the term dungeon, but it’s not exactly that, either.”

I slid him a look over my shoulder, then went back to studying the world around me.

“I bet you can guess what this room is for,” he murmured, pressing his lips to my ear. “Take a look around. What do you see?”

I shivered as I took a step away from him, needing some distance in order to think.

The huge, elaborate bed took up the far wall, the four wooden posters playing tricks on the eye. An elegant bed at first glance. But it wasn’t just elegance the bed possessed. It was also a work of sheer eroticism.

As if standing at each corner of the bed like guardians from the Kama Sutra, four ornate, sexually explicit carvings offered up examples of erotic pleasures should your jaded imagination falter. But then I realized with a jolt that those wooden statues were for bondage, for tying a woman to the bed and leaving her open to the man’s mercy. There were nooks and crannies to use for restraining the hands and feet, but the footboard itself had also been designed for bondage. I saw five intricate openings and stared at them as my mind spun in crazy imaginings, trying to picture just how Brooks might use those devices.

My heart hitched, and I dragged my gaze away, trying to moderate my breathing.

I found myself staring at another piece of…well, furniture, I guessed. It looked almost like a padded weight bench split in the middle with the upper half adjusted to a forty-five-degree angle. I pictured myself sitting on it and realized with a jolt just what purpose such a piece of equipment would serve. If I sat on it, he could spread my legs open and…

Wow.

There was another bench, also padded with the inclined angle running down to a box. “What’s that for?” I whispered, staring wide-eyed at the hole in the middle of the box.

“For me to play with you,” he murmured into my ear. “It’s a spanking bench, and while I have your ass in the air for my pleasure, you’re bound hand and ankle while your head is in the box. You’re my toy, there for my pleasure.”

It should have sounded horrifying, but I found myself imagining the picture he’d painted, me with my body exposed so completely to him. Unable to move, and thanks to the box, unable to even see.

There was a table tucked up against the opposite wall, padded again in rich velvet, with a series of rings and bars over it. “That?” I asked.

“My torture table. You lay on it, and I bind your legs and wrists, leaving you open.” He gestured to something else, and my mouth went dry at the sight of the large dildo on the end of a piece of metal. It was a machine of some sort.

My mind finally put it together, and I said, “That’s set up to…um…”

“The words you’re looking for are fuck you. It’s set up to fuck you.”

Face burning, I turned to him. “How many women have you brought here?” I demanded.

“Only a couple,” he said, reaching up to caress my face. “And I’ve replaced all the pads, all the toys. A few of these things, I’ve never even used. I guess I was waiting…for you.”

He slid his hand down and cupped my right breast, teasing the already stiff nipple.

“Tell me, Daria…are you ready to play?”

Nerves and fear licked inside me, but the look in his eyes drove me beyond reason. I nodded and whispered, “Yes.”

If my heart beat any harder, I thought it might explode out of my chest.

Out of all of the things Brooks had in his room, the one item I hadn’t taken much notice of was the hook affixed to the center of the ceiling.

I sure as hell would never fail to notice it again. I was bound to it with a cord around my neck, one that was affixed to a padded collar set into a piece of wood outfitted with openings for my wrists. There were also supporting cords attached to the tethers on my wrists to relieve the pressure at my neck.

Brooks told me it was a stock.

As he fitted various restraints into place, he talked to me, explaining each piece and how he’d use it, including the band he put around my left thigh, complete with a hook that let him draw my ankle up until my foot was almost touching my butt.

I had never been so helpless or so exposed.

I might have been afraid as Brooks approached me once he’d finished attending to all the hooks and ties. He held a crop in his hand, one with slender tassels dangling from the end. My breathing ratcheted up as I wondered what he planned to do with it.

He slid the end of it up the inside of my right thigh, sending shivers of sensation through me.

“You remember your safe word?”

I nodded and wondered if this time, I’d have to use it.

“Good.” He flicked his wrist.

I cried out as those velvet tassels slapped against my exposed folds. I braced for pain, but that wasn’t, precisely, what I felt. There was an edge of pain, yes, but as the tip of one tassel hit my clit, it sent a rush of intense heat shuddering through me.

He did it again, and again before leaning into me and hooking his hand around the back of my head. He kissed me roughly while prodding me between my thighs with the blunt end of the crop. I gasped as it penetrated me, sagged until the pressure of the stock at my neck and wrists forced me to lock my knee to stay upright.

He thrust the crop into me, and I arched my spine, whimpering.

After a few more thrusts, he pulled the crop out and backed up, flicking his wrist again so that the tassels lashed my cunt.

When he went back to fucking me with the crop, I thought I just might pass out and die from the pleasure of it, but he stopped just as I hovered on the edge of climax.

Before I could process what he was doing, he freed the cords that kept me locked in position there in the middle of the floor, all but dangling from the hook in the ceiling.

He then freed my bound leg and swept me up, carrying me over to one of the various padded benches, placing me on my back. He released my neck from the stock and brought it forward, hooking it into place on poles that went up on either side of the padded bench.

I whimpered as he restrained my legs, both of them brought straight up and guided into place on the knee rests for this particular bench. He adjusted a few things, and I gasped as the knee rests slowly moved apart, spreading and opening me.

He stared down at me, a feverish hunger in his eyes.

I cried out as he swatted me with the crop, right on the exposed folds of my pussy.

He did it again and again until I was thrashing in the restraints, burning up inside with the need to come.

He stopped, and I cried out, but a moment later, the sound was already turning into a moan when he pushed something between my thighs. I craned my head, trying to see and realized it was the mechanized device that sported a dildo at the end.

Slowly, it pushed inside me, and I whimpered, shuddering in both fear and arousal. It picked up in rhythm until it was practically battering me, and I was helpless against it.

Brooks moved around the table, and I felt my head drop. He caught the back of my skull and guided it down. Now, my head hung upside down, and I gulped in a breath of air as I watched him unzip his trousers and free himself.

He pushed something into my hand. “If it gets too much, drop that, and I’ll stop,” he said.

I squeezed down reflexively and felt my fingers tighten around something squishy and round.

I opened my mouth to say something—and he penetrated my mouth with his cock,

At one end, I was being ruthlessly fucked by the toy he’d put into position, and at the other, he was fucking my mouth with his cock.

Something flicked against my clit, and I realized he was using the crop, just as the pleasure arced through me like lightning.

It was too much. Way too much. I almost dropped the ball he’d given me.

But then he groaned out my name, both hands coming up to cradle my head.

His voice shook as he rasped my name.

I was bound and helpless, but he was the one with the plea in his voice.

As the dildo rammed into me, as Brooks pushed himself all the way to the back of my throat, a sense of power flooded over me.

I started to suck on him, working his dick as best I could from this angle.

Soon, he was cradling my face with one hand and using the crop to spank me between the thighs with the other.

A scream built inside me, trapped in my throat as he used me for his pleasure. Knowing I couldn’t hold it inside any longer, I dropped the ball.

He thrust inside my mouth one last time, then withdrew, breathing hard.

“Daria?”

I came, twisting and writhing around the sex toy that continued to plunge inside me.

“Shit…fuck…”

I opened my eyes and lifted my head for a few scant seconds at the wet, rhythmic sound.

Brooks was pumping his fist up and down.

A few seconds later, a hot stream of his cum splashed across my torso.

“I ought to spank you,” Brooks murmured against my hair almost an hour later.

After his orgasm, he’d freed me from the restraints, and we’d gone into the shower tucked behind one of the doors in his playroom.

My bones were all but mush, even now, cradled together in bed. I had to force myself to crack one eye open so I could study him. “Why?”

“Because you break my control, almost every time.”

Amused, I craned my head back over my shoulder to look at him. “So, it’s my fault your control breaks?” I snorted. “Just like a man.”

He shifted upright and rolled me onto my back, settling between my thighs. “Are you making fun of me? If you are…” He pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to my neck. “I just might have to punish you again.”

“If you think that’s going to dissuade me, Brooks…” I laughed and shook my head. “I’m not at all dissuaded.”

“That makes me think you enjoyed being punished, baby.”

I grinned up at him. “Maybe I did. Does that mean I get it again?”

He was the one to laugh this time. But I couldn’t help but smile as he pressed his mouth to my lips. “I have absolutely no doubt that you’ll do something to merit that kind of…punishment again.” Then he moved back to my side and tugged me up against him. “For now, though, I’m damn tired. What about you?”