Sebastian scoops up a small clump of caviar with one of his crackers, as if it’s onion dip on a potato chip, then shoves the whole thing into his mouth. And grins around it. He doesn’t look truly happy—he’s clearly concerned about both my feet and the men he ran off—but I appreciate the effort.

He could easily have killed them instead of letting them go. I’ve seen him snap necks, break bones, dislocate joints, and tear into soft tissue with his bare hands. But to his credit, he doesn’t seem to enjoy any of that.

Back in zone one, he never returned from the arena glorying in the bloodshed. Sebastian acknowledged the necessity of his position and he rose to the challenge, but the only time he truly seemed to celebrate was when Sylvie returned from the sand intact.

Well, that, and when I tolerated his flirting. At the time, I’d just assumed he liked the challenge of pursuing a woman he could never have—an employee of the company keeping him prisoner and forcing him to kill. But after the way he tended my feet just now…

He probably feels guilty for dragging me out here. As well he should.

Sebastian smiles when he catches me staring at him. I dig into my pasta, and he crunches into another cracker.

“You can’t just eat rice crackers and caviar. Here, have a cookie.” I toss him a small vacuum-sealed packet.

“Yes, that’s just what will balance the nutritional scales.” He grins as he tears open the package and pulls out a mass-produced treat probably so full of preservatives that eating it will add a year to his life. “Not exactly a made-to-order omelet station, is it?” he says, turning the cookie over to examine it.

I shrug. “I’ve had worse.”

Sebastian huffs around his first bite. “What, did someone accidentally serve you room temperature gazpacho at a five-star restaurant?”

I blink at him. Then I drop my spork into the empty past packet and slide it into the larger food envelope for disposal. “I don’t know what you think you know about me, Sebastian, but I assure you I didn’t grow up on caviar, nor have I spent much time in five-star restaurants.” Especially considering that I’ve spent most of the past five years in orbit around a prison planet.

“Challenge accepted. Tell me when I get one wrong.” He takes another bite of his cookie and studies me, as if the key to my past is written somewhere on my face. “You’re an only child.”

For a second, I can only gape at him. Then I school my features. Lucky guess. “How did you know?”

“You never talk about your family. That either means you’re not close to your relatives or you don’t have many relatives.”

“My parents died when I was eleven. My maternal grandmother raised me after that, and she was…strict.”

“I’m guessing strict is an understatement. She’s religious, isn’t she? The kind who believes that pious is as pious does.”

I don’t bother to answer. Even if he’s right.

He stares at me while he chews another bite. “You went to a private university. Something small and elite. Probably a school with a strict religious affiliation.”

“Two for three, on my school.” I try not to let on how impressed I am by his guesses. “But why would you think I went to a religious university? Because of my grandmother?”

“Because you’re so buttoned up.”

“Buttoned up?” I glance down at my blouse, and for a second I’m surprised to see his tee-shirt instead.

“You know.” He shrugs. “Uptight.”

Heat flares like coals behind my cheeks. “I’m not uptight!”

“You’re right.” Sebastian snorts. “You’re totally relaxed and comfortable with your body, and not at all the kind of woman to wear uncomfortable shoes and button her blouse up to her neck. And you never hold back your thoughts, just because expressing them effectively would require the use of profanity.”

“So, you think anyone who wears conservative clothing and refrains from profanity is uptight?”

“Yes. And you left out the part about being comfortable with your own body.”

“That was an intentional oversight.” I don’t want to discuss my body with him.

Sebastian laughs. “I think you just made my point for me.” Then he shoves the rest of the cookie into his mouth, grabs the filthy, blood-and cocklebur-encrusted socks and stands. “Eat the fruit bar.” He points at another vacuum-sealed food packet from the larger meal envelope as he disappears backward down the short hallway. “I’ll be right back.”

I contemplate the fruit bar and have just decided to save it for him—he’s hardly eaten anything—when I hear water running the back of the small building.

Water! There’s water! I grab the empty drinking bottle and stand. Then I freeze, gasping as a burning sensation shoots through my feet. Now that I’ve had a chance to let the fire in the soles of my feet fade into a dull ache, this fresh pain feels even sharper by comparison. And the rough concrete beneath my abused skin makes it feel like I’m standing on shards of glass.

“Kaya?” Sebastian appears in the doorway, holding a sock dripping pinkish water on the floor. “Sit! You’re supposed to be letting your feet heal!”

“There’s running water. Why would you wash my feet with our bottled water if the sink still works?”

“Because I figured that even if it did work, it wouldn’t be as clean as bottled water, and we’re trying keep your wounds from getting infected.” He glances pointedly my feet. “You’re not helping that effort by standing on the filthy concrete.”

“Can we drink the water?”

“Sit,” he orders. Then he takes my arm in his spare hand and helps me lower myself to the mattress. “The bullpen has running water, and it’s potable, so this probably is too. Just in case, though, we’re only going to drink it as a last resort, if we run out of bottled. But there’s a good chance that the toilet is functional. I’ll let you know in a minute.”

I start to interrupt, but he speaks over me.

“I have several more bottles in my bag, so don’t worry. We will be well-hydrated while you let your feet heal.”

“Okay, but what’s the point? I don’t have any shoes, so this is just going to happen all over again when we do leave.”

“No, it won’t. I’ll tie my spare shoes to your feet. Hell, I’ll carry you all the way across zone three, if I have to. So just sit still for a few minutes and let me clean these out.” He lifts the dripping sock, and I nod.

“Thank you.”

“Please don’t thank me. I promised I would protect you and look what happened.”

Before I can figure out how to respond, he disappears down the hall, and again I hear the sound of running water.

After Sebastian has plucked all the cockleburs from his socks and rinsed out the dirt and blood, he lays the socks over the sink to dry. Then he carries me to the bathroom so I can use the miraculously functioning toilet without breaking open the brand-new scabs on my feet. Though getting my skirt up and my underwear down on my own without putting my feet on the ground is a bit of a challenge.

But I’m not about to ask for help.

We spend the afternoon inventorying our supplies. He’s stolen a really uneven mixture of gourmet food and survival equipment, but the real surprise is the bundle of three large, tightly rolled bath towels at the bottom of Sebastian’s bag. At the end of every fight day, the production crew lets the surviving gladiators choose something to take with them from the greenroom into the bullpen. Yesterday, Sebastian asked to take a clean towel, and I could not be happier to see that he actually snuck two extras into his bag.

Together, the three bath towels are almost enough to cover the small mattress, which at least puts a layer between us and the filth of who knows how many prisoners who came before us.

When the sun goes down, we split another prison-issued meal packet, brush our teeth—in addition to his own, Sebastian has a spare toothbrush, still sealed in plastic, which he took from the greenroom at some point—then wind up face-to-face on the mattress, trying not to move too much and mess up our makeshift, patchwork sheet.

It’s cold, now that the sun has gone down, and most of the windows in this building are nothing more than square holes in the walls. With no blankets, I have to clench my teeth to keep them from chattering, and the fact that I have nothing suitable to wear doesn’t help.

I’m still in both my torn blouse and Sebastian’s spare shirt, but my skirt ends at my knees, leaving my lower legs completely uncovered. And since the socks are still wet, my feet are bare too. But they’re clean, and the pain has faded into dull ache again. Mostly because Sebastian has insisted I stay off of them. He’s even carried me to the toilet twice.

Why would he do that? Why would he be so kind to me—kidnapping aside—when a day ago, he had his face buried between Yelena’s thighs?

Sebastian frowns. Evidently the moonlight is bright enough that he can see my face. “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar. Out here, I’m your best friend, Kaya. You can tell me anything. Unless you’re too uptight…” He grins.

I know he’s pushing my buttons on purpose. Just like he knows damn well that that will work.

“Fine. I’m wondering why you agreed to sleep with Yelena Aslanov. Was that to give you a chance to crash the ship, or because you’ve spent months in prison and men have needs?”

“Men have needs?” Sebastian gives me a surprised look. “Women have needs too, Kaya. You have needs.”

I scowl at him. “You don’t have any idea what I need.”

He laughs so hard he actually rolls onto his back for a second. Then he props himself up on one elbow and gives me a look that seems to see right through me. “I know exactly what you need. And I suspect you’ve needed it for a good long while. Which makes no sense, considering that you’re engaged to some Universal Authority stockholder.”

“He’s also a UA executive.”

Sebastian’s brows drop into a scowl. “Not that you bothered to tell me that, before I kissed you.”

“I didn’t know you were going to kiss me.”

“Bullshit.” He leans toward me, his gaze on my mouth, and for a second, I want to close the distance between us. I want to press my lips to his and open my mouth, and…

I jerk back, before temptation overwhelms me.

“Why did you pull away?” Sebastian demands softly.

“Because you were going to kiss me!”

“See? You can totally tell. And you could tell last time. In the greenroom. But you let it happen. You kissed me back.” He swallows thickly, then retrains his intense focus on my eyes. “I told myself I wouldn’t ask, but…why?”

“Why did I kiss you back?”

“No, Kaya. Why would you marry someone else, when you look at me…like that?” Like I want to rip his clothes off with my teeth. He was right about that.

“It’s complicated.”

“It shouldn’t be,” he says, and I want to smack him. “If you love this guy, you shouldn’t be looking for opportunities to kiss me. You should only want to kiss him.”

“What do you care?” Indignation burns in my chest. “You had your tongue deep inside Yelena Aslanov last night, so what right do you have to—?”

“You’re engaged.” Sebastian says the words like he’s pronouncing my sentence. As if I’m the criminal, and marriage to a UA stockholder is my lifelong sentence. Though he probably has no idea how accurate that is. “So I’ll put my tongue anywhere I damn well please. But if you weren’t engaged…” His voice drops into a husky whisper as he pierces me with blistering eye contact. “I could put my tongue anywhere you please…”

Oh, god.

Just tell him the truth, Kaya.

But why? What’s standing between us isn’t David. It’s the fact that Sebastian’s a death row inmate. Who just crashed a yacht full of wealthy, powerful executives.

“So, if I didn’t have a fiancé…?” What the hell am I saying?

“Hypotheticals are a fool’s fantasy, Kaya. You do have a fiancé.”

“You started the hypotheticals.” I suck in a deep breath. Then I look him right in the eyes. “And I actually don’t have a fiancé.”

“What?” He sits up on the towel spread beneath him. “You lied?”

“No. I let him lie.” I sit up facing Sebastian and tuck my legs to one side, keeping my knees together. Sitting in a pencil skirt is a total pain. “David is a very… He’s…very strong willed,” I finally finish, for lack of a better explanation. “When he sees something he wants, he goes after it with everything he has. That’s how he became the only UA executive under forty.”

Sebastian frowns. “So, he wanted to be a powerful, wealthy executive. And he wanted you. Sounds like he’s checking off boxes on some idiot’s list of ingredients for a successful life.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not an ingredient. He proposed over the hiatus, and I said yes because we were surrounded by friends and family. Because I was backed into a corner, and he was on one knee, holding out this huge ring, and I’d had too much champagne, and…” I shrug miserably. “Because that’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to find someone to settle down and make beautiful children with.”

“Who the hell told you that?” Sebastian demands.

I can only shrug. “That’s what people do.”

“People, meaning your friends, from your expensive private university?”

“Yes. Though they’re really just acquaintances, now. I hadn’t heard from most of them in years, until my grandmother sent out the wedding announcements.”

“But you’re not getting married?” He looks confused.

“No! I said yes that night, and for a while, I kind of rode that high. People kept congratulating me and telling me what a beautiful bride I’d be. What beautiful children we’d have. But eventually I realized I looked forward to those comments more than to actually being married to David. And the worst part is that I think the same is true for him. I think he’s more in love with the idea of me than with the actual me.”

“Why would you say that?”

I shrug. “He’s the one who got me this job. I met him at an event I coordinated a few years ago. He introduced himself and informed me that he’d be taking me to dinner the next night. Less than a month later he started buying me things. Nice clothes. The latest tech. He took me out in public at least twice a week, and we always saw someone he knew. Someone new to introduce me to. Then, a few months after we started dating, he had a job offer for me. Here. It came with a huge raise and a high profile within the company, and it would keep me out here on the edge of the galaxy. Away from other men.”

“Seriously? This place is crawling with male guards.”

I huff. “David would never consider a prison guard to be competition. Anyway, I think he was kind of…building the perfect society wife. New clothes. High profile career. Then, over the hiatus, I told him I had given my notice to UA. A week later, he proposed.”

“Because he realized you’d no longer be isolated out here,” Sebastian theorizes. “David figured he’d better make it official before someone else stole you away.” He’s looking at me as if he has no doubt that would have happened, if I’d left Rhodon for longer than a short filming hiatus. “That’s a man with a plan.”

“I know. And he doesn’t take no for an answer, so when I tried to give back the ring—”

“Wait, what does that mean, he doesn’t take no for an answer?” Storm clouds roll over Sebastian’s eyes. “Do you mean sexually?”

“No, I…” I shrug, and I can feel my face burn. “Well, I mean…” I don’t really want to talk about my sex life with him.

“Kaya, does he force you?”

“No! It’s not like that. He would never hit me or anything. He’s just very…persistent. It’s like… I don’t know how to explain this.” Or why I’m bothering. I don’t owe him an explanation. But I don’t want him to get an inaccurate picture. Or feel sorry for me. I shrug. “Sometimes it’s more work to get David to stop then to just let it happen.”

For a moment, Sebastian is quiet. Terrifyingly, eerily still. Then he takes a deep breath. His hand twitches, as if he wants to reach for me, but then he seems to think better of that. “Has he ever held you down? Squeezed your arm too hard? Used his size against you?”

I shrug again, and suddenly that feels like the most pathetic gesture in the world. “I mean, he’s pretty heavy, but he can’t help that.”

“Does he pin your arms? Does he force your legs open?”

I’m staring at the mattress now. I can’t look at him anymore. “It’s not force. I don’t really try to stop him.”

“That’s not what I—” Sebastian bites off the rest of whatever he’d been about to say. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me this, if you don’t want to. But do you tell him no, when you don’t want sex?”

“I mostly just ask him to wait. Or slow down.” Because no isn’t a word David likes to hear.

“And does he wait?”

I don’t answer. I can’t drag my gaze up from the towel beneath me.

“That son of a bitch.” Sebastian’s words are a growl so deep and fierce that for a second, I don’t understand how a human throat could produce such a sound.

“Wait. It’s not like I’m making it sound. I’m not saying this right.” I suck in a breath and start over. “It’s not as…dramatic as whatever you’re thinking, and it doesn’t happen very often. He’s only out here a few times a year, and wanting sex a few times a year is reasonable, isn’t it?”

“Not if you don’t want to sleep with him. Kaya, what David is doing to you is rape.”

“No, it isn’t. He’s not like those men.” I point toward the door, through which those two violent inmates fled hours ago. “Really. I don’t even truly try to stop him, because—” I bite the rest off so quickly that my teeth close over the end of my tongue, and it starts bleeding again.

“Because what?”

I swallow the blood. Then I suck on the wound.

“Why don’t you try to stop him, Kaya?” Sebastian’s voice is soft, and it makes this moment seem small and private. Safe.

“Because if I don’t try—if I just give in—I can assume that if I had tried, he would have stopped. That he isn’t making me; I’m letting him.” And I need to assume that. “Because if I truly try to make him stop and he doesn’t…

“Oh my god.” Just hearing my own words out loud brings a horrifying new perspective on something I’ve come to think of as normal. As my own mild sexual dysfunction, at most.

“Kaya…” There’s a mortifying amount of sympathy in Sebastian’s voice, steeled by an undercurrent of quietly churning primal rage. “David is a predator. He isolated you out here in a virtual prison of your own, so he could control you. So he could make fucked up conjugal visits and exert even more power. He’s as much a criminal as anyone on the surface of this planet.”

“I’ve always assumed that there’s something wrong with me. That the problem is that I don’t want to sleep with David. But the problem is that he doesn’t care what I want.”

“That’s the truest thing you’ve said all day.” Sebastian sounds…relieved. “Did he do this after you broke off the engagement? After you broke up with him? I assume you broke up with him?”

I nod, and Sebastian doesn’t ask whether I’m saying that yes, I broke up with David, or that yes, I kept sleeping with him after the breakup.

He kept making me sleep with him, after the breakup. And I kept letting him make me. It was just something unpleasant to get through. Like a dentist appointment.

Only the dentist doesn’t use me to get off.

I never said anything about it. I never did anything. I tried not to think about it, because…

Because thinking about it was too hard. Thinking about it would mean admitting things I didn’t want to acknowledge. Confronting the fact that I was letting him use me. And that I wasn’t sure I could stop him, if I tried.

“I’m so stupid.”

“No.” Sebastian takes my hand, and I start to pull away—his grip is loose enough that I can easily do that—but there’s nothing in his gaze but anger. Not at me, but on my behalf. “You’re not stupid. David is the problem. Not you.” He squeezes my hand, and I blink away tears.

This is a stupid thing to cry about, when David isn’t here. When I’m safe here with Sebastian.

The absurdity of that thought stuns me. I’m safer here, alone on a prison planet with a convict, than I’ve ever been in my suite, with my fiancé.

“I think… I think I hate him.”

Why does saying it out loud make me feel guilty? Why do I feel like I’m betraying David with those words, when I didn’t feel like I was betraying him by kissing Sebastian?

“Good,” Sebastian grunts. “Because if I ever meet him, I’ll fucking kill him.”

There’s an odd ache in my chest, like my ribs are bruised. No, like my heart is bruised. Like it’s swollen, and there’s no longer enough room in my body for it to beat properly.

Sebastian lets me sit with my thoughts for a few minutes, just holding my hand. When I finally blink away my tears and look up, he squeezes my fingers. “So, why do people think you’re still engaged?”

“Because David said he should be the one to announce that the wedding is off. Then he just…never did. And I didn’t push the issue, because I didn’t want to fight with him.” I shrug. “I mean, I’m not married to him, and that’s really all I wanted. I don’t care what people think.” I flinch when I realize how untrue that is. “Well, I didn’t care, until last night. When Yelena asked about the wedding in front of you. I wanted to tell you the truth, but I couldn’t. Not in a room full of people. And then you took her into the back and—”

“I didn’t do it.”

“What?”

A quiet smile blossoms on his lips. “I didn’t sleep with her.”

“Oral counts, Sebastian.”

“Hell, yeah it does. But I didn’t do that either.”

I pull my hand from his grip. “But I saw you!”

“No, you saw me get close. Then you ran.”

“Because I saw you bury your face between some other woman’s legs!”

His brows rise at my phrasing. At the implication that Yelena is the other woman, because I’m the…primary. Or whatever. “My point is that I only got close,” Sebastian insists. “And after you ran, I put her down and tied her to a chair with her own sash. Then I took out the guards. She was only a means to an end, Kaya.”

“Like I am?” That ache in my chest is a fierce pain now. “As your hostage?”

“No. I—” Sebastian clears his throat and starts over. “You’re not really my hostage. I would never hurt you, even if they don’t come through with my demands. I hope you know that.”

I nod. Regardless of everything I’ve been through today, I never doubted that. “If I’m not really your hostage, let me go. Take me back to the yacht, Sebastian. Please.”

He exhales heavily. “I can’t.” Yet he looks so torn. “I care about you, Kaya. I would do anything for you—anything other than that. But I can’t give up my chance to get Sylvie off this planet. I can’t. I thought the best I could do was to be here so I could protect her, but if I can get her out of here? If I can tell my parents we’re both safe? That they haven’t lost all three of their children? I have to do that. But I swear on my life, I won’t let anything hurt you.” He flinches as his gaze finds my feet, one tucked beneath the other on the clean bath towel. “I’m so sorry about your feet.” A naughty grin curls up one half of his mouth. “Let me make it up to you. Let me show you what sex is supposed to be like.”

“What makes you think I don’t already know? David wasn’t my first, you know.”

“Yeah, but that other guy—or guys?—wasn’t much better.”

“How do you know that?”

His eye contact feels like heat from a bonfire. “You hold your breath every time I get close. You groaned when I kissed you. You want something. Badly. But you’re not really sure what that is.”

“I know what it is.” My cheeks feel like hot coals, but I hold his gaze.

“You know in an academic sense? Like something you learned in your expensive, private college? Something about nerve endings and the building and releasing of muscle tension?”

“No.” And oh my god, did he look up the physiology of an orgasm? Why haven’t I ever thought of that? Is there a class?

“Then you know because you’re good at…going solo?” he guesses.

“I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation,” I breathe. Sebastian opens his mouth, but I cut him off. “And don’t call me uptight.”

“I wasn’t going to. And I’m sorry I said that.” In fact, he actually looks guilty.

“Don’t do that. Don’t start feeling sorry for me because of David. If I’m uptight, that has nothing to do with him. Not that I am uptight. I’m just saying, he doesn’t get the credit or the blame for anything I am.”

“Understood. So, is that a yes?”

I exhale, then I make myself meet his gaze again. “Yes, I’ve…pleasured myself.” And that’s nothing to be ashamed of. No matter what my grandmother says.

“That’s not what I was asking, but…good to know.” His eyes flash. “That’s one hell of a visual.”

My face is on fire. “Then what were you asking?”

“If I can make this up to you.” He runs one finger lightly up the side of my right foot, from heel to the tip of my pinkie toe, and it’s everything I can do not to squirm and give away how very ticklish I am.

“You seriously want to apologize for the state of my feet with an orgasm?”

Sebastian’s eyes suddenly seem to glimmer in the moonlight. “Orgasms. Plural. I gave you pain. That means I owe you pleasure. And while I’m sure you’re good at…whatever you do to yourself…” His gaze strays to the front of my skirt. “I promise you I’m better. It’s always better when it’s not your own hand. When you can’t anticipate the sensations that are coming.”

The very thought makes unmentionable parts of me…throb. I want what he’s offering. Sooo much. But… “You’re a prisoner and I’m a Universal Authority employee. There can’t be anything serious between us, Sebastian. It’s actually illegal for me to sleep with you.”

“No one has to find out. And I’m not talking about anything ‘serious.’” He’s smiling again, that smoldering grin that makes me feel warm and tingly in all those special places.

All those neglected places.

“I’m talking about something casual. Fun. Consensual.”

Before, I couldn’t get involved with him because I was in charge of him. Now he’s my captor. The power dynamic is uneven between us, even if this kidnapping is a crime of convenience and I know he would never hurt me.

Even if he saved me from plummeting to my death. From a ship he crashed.

“Sebastian…”

“What about just my mouth, then? And my hands?” He holds them both up, as if I’m threatening to shoot him, and the thought of those fingers… “You can say stop anytime you want, and I swear on my life I’ll listen. I just want… I want to see you happy.”

“You mean you want to feel less like a jerk.”

“Yes. Exactly. And I mean that in the most selfless way possible. I’ll be all give and no take. What do you say, Kaya? Let me give you the pleasure you deserve…”