Chapter 27

Crack.

Liv raised the four-foot stock whip, the rigid handle sweaty in her palm, her stomach twisting. They had to leave for the meeting in one hour.

She swung again. Crack.

He flattened his hands on the wall, feet spread on the subfloor, and accepted each strike with a twitch in his sculpted back. No chains, no clothes, no words. When she’d told him she had to mark him, he’d stripped wordlessly and gripped the nearest wall. The knot in her gut doubled.

Mr. E had taught Van the art of whip cracking, and they used her body as Van’s cutting target. Van eventually passed the skill to her. But it didn’t matter if she was on the end of the handle or the fall, she had never experienced the kind of trust evidenced in the relaxed muscles before her.

That he would find credibility in her despite the cruelty she’d inflicted upon him twisted her insides.

She snapped back the single tail, popped it forward, and let the fall lash his upper thigh. Crack.

His legs trembled and his back rippled, but he refused to move, bound by trust alone.

Her heart squeezed, but she kept the whip moving over her shoulder, elbow in. A hairpin wave uncurled like an extension of her arm. Crack.

Another welt joined the others striping his back, ass, and thighs. His head dipped between his braced arms, the hair at his nape damp with sweat.

She swung her arm back. Held it.

Every strike left a new scar inside her. No more. She dropped the whip, her blood beating cold. “I’m done.”

Turning, he closed the distance, cupped her jaw, and rested a hand on her hip. “I’m kind of starting to like those feverish little love taps.”

A glimpse of his erection confirmed it. “Kind of starting? You’ve been getting stiffies under my whip since day one.” If he weren’t locked in her room, facing an unknown future, maybe she wouldn’t feel so sick about her part in it. Maybe she would wrap her legs around his waist and fuck him like she’d wanted to the moment she first saw him.

But he deserved a good, clean girl. She drew in a slow breath and raised her eyes.

His smile creased his clean-shaven complexion, lighting up the pale glow of his green eyes and chasing away some of her overflowing guilt. It also wobbled her footing as his Mistress.

She glared at him, her insides melting under the warmth of his affection. “Remove your hand from my face, boy.”

“What’s your last name?” His hand dropped, but only as far as the bust of her corset, fingertips caressing the pillow of her breasts above the binding. He bit his lip, watching her with a lopsided grin.

Fuck her, he was so damned charming. She emptied her expression. “I’ll break your fingers.”

He arched a challenging eyebrow.

She arched one in return.

He ducked his head and took her mouth, lips brushing, tongue teasing, flicking, kindling a slow-burning fire. His hands traveled around her ribs and clutched her back, tugging her close. He ate at her mouth, and she met him lick for lick.

She loved his kisses, his confidence, his stubbornness. She loved every goddamned thing about him. He only had to glance in her direction, and the floor dropped away. She was freefalling, riding the wind of his breaths, hoping he’d catch her.

She rolled her hips forward, the hard heat of his desire jabbing her hip. “Reed,” she breathed. “Liv Reed.”

His lips floated along her cheek, his smile tickling her jaw, one hand returning to her breast, curling fingers beneath the binding on her corset. “Are you worried, Liv Reed?”

By using her name, he was prodding her to say his. But she needed the designations to resume her role. Just needed to get through the meeting.

She stepped back, chilled by the distance she’d put between them. “My worry is none of your concern, boy. Stand straight. Shoulders back. Eyes down.”

He bent his knees to meet her eyes. His grip on her hips was hard and soft all at once. “Then whose concern is it?”

Her heart fractured. Think about Mom and Mattie. “If the buyer is satisfied and doesn’t back out after tonight, Mr. E will send new videos.” She left out the part about watching them with Van. She would deal with that detail later.

His jaw slackened, and his arms fell to his sides. “All right.” He straightened, squared his shoulders, and lowered his eyes. “Will you explain why you just whipped me?”

She clicked through the room in her thigh-high boots, the stiff leather mini-skirt pinching her legs and shortening her strides. “The buyers aren’t just purchasing slaves. They’re paying for the training of their property.” The cold words shivered through her.

“And the marks on my body show you’ve been beating me properly?” He leaned a shoulder against the wall, arms crossed, unabashedly nude.

A swallow dragged down her throat, her skin tight with a strange, intense emotion. With the others she’d delivered, she experienced remorse, regret, self-hatred. With him, she burned with a sense of possessiveness.

She grabbed his jeans from the trunk and tossed them to him. “The slave’s obedience during the introduction proves the validity of the training.” She moved to the cabinet. “Since the sale is not final until delivery, Mr. E claims fresh welts are…a marketing tactic. Seals the deal.” Mr. E’s words. She unlocked the door and removed what she needed, avoiding his eyes. “Sadists get excited seeing a body marked up.”

Her breath strangled. She couldn’t tell him how cruel these buyers were at these meetings. She didn’t want to give him any more reasons to run.

Clothing rustled, sounding his approach. “Look at me.”

She raised her chin, fell into his eyes.

“We’ll get through this.”

His affirmation gave her strength. She rubbed arnica into his welts and gave him Tylenol, something she’d done for every slave after every beating. Then she held up the long rope of chain in her hand. “Ready?”

He answered her in a heady, tongue-swirling, toe-curling kiss.

Ten minutes later, he followed her into the outer chamber. The girl lay on the cot, her eyes closed. Liv suspected she feigned sleep to avoid attention. The thought didn’t help the knot in her belly.

Josh walked beside her, wearing only his jeans and boots. Chains wrapped his torso from neck to waist and locked his forearms together. Metal cuffs secured his wrists to the links on his chest.

The restraints she hated most forced his hands into fists against his sternum, encasing them in a tangle of strong wire. The strands of metal twined in and around his knuckles and thumbs, preventing him from straightening his fingers. He couldn’t clasp a door handle or squeeze the trigger on a gun. The gun she would carry and hoped she didn’t have to use.

Van was waiting in the kitchen with lunch. She ate her burrito in silence, feeding her prisoner between bites. Van watched with panic straining the edges of his eyes. He feared these meetings as much as she.

Van wasn’t allowed to join them. The first time they met a client together in her role as a deliverer ended with Van’s fist in the buyer’s face. He hadn’t liked the way the man was gaping at her. Fortunately for Mom and Mattie, the transaction went through despite the misunderstanding. Since that night, she was the only face of the operation.

But without Van’s overbearing protection, she was on her own. And given this buyer’s expressed hatred for women, the clench in her stomach was threatening to double her over.

She forced resolution into her knees and stood. “Time to go.” With her phone, a hood, and a long scarf in hand, she snapped her fingers and walked to the garage and the waiting van.

The van’s only two windows and windshield were tinted to conceal the interior but not enough to risk getting pulled over. She and Van restrained him on the floorboard in the cargo area. He lay on his back, eyes on his boots, retractable tie-down straps holding him in place.

She wedged a ball gag in his mouth and covered his body and face with a sheet, smothering her unproductive emotions with long, deep breaths. Then she climbed behind the wheel and rolled down the window.

Van opened the garage and approached her door. “I put the cooler in the back.”

“Thank you.” She meant it. She hadn’t remembered to pack dinner, wasn’t thinking past the meeting.

He handed her a small LC9 handgun and a disposable phone through the window. “He’ll call at seven o’clock.”

The clock on the dash read 3:58 PM.

“Take 35 south until he calls. He’ll tell you where to go from there.”

She nodded, gut churning.

He placed a hand on her jaw and a kiss on her opposite cheek, over her scar. She held miserably still as he kissed the corner of her mouth then fully on her lips. The skin around his mouth was colder, harder than Josh’s smooth complexion. The movements of his lips forced, pried, and dug in. The scent of his breath wasn’t unpleasant, but it was…wrong.

His hand fell away. “Come back in one piece.”

“I always do.” Key in the ignition, she started the van and backed out. He stood in the driveway, hands in his pockets, his expression tight, worry rimming his eyes. If she never returned, that would be the last look she saw on his face. Her chest hurt, a complicated pain.

Ten minutes outside of Temple, she pulled into a vacant parking lot, tucked the gun in her thigh-high boot, and climbed into the back. A whisper in her head begged her to not to deter from the routine. Slaves always rode in the back. Would he cause her to wreck in an attempt to escape? What if she was pulled over by a cop?

She didn’t listen as she yanked back the sheet and removed the gag. “I can’t…I don’t want you back here…like this.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. What the hell was she doing? She raised her eyes, clung to the calm strength in his. “Will you try to run?”