Bram doesn’t come until half an hour after Coral leaves. It could be longer than that, but I wouldn’t know. I don’t have a phone, or a clock, or any of the normal ways to tell time that people who aren’t prisoners have.

He knocks twice, then opens the door. He steps into the room wearing a dark suit with a faint plaid pattern and a white shirt with a cobalt blue tie. He looks so gorgeous it makes my stomach turn. My deprived, lonely eyes feast on the sight of him.

“Hello, Grace,” he says.

I don’t answer. I stand under the window with my arms crossed, because it’s better than sitting on the bed like I did all day.

He comes closer. Even in these ridiculously high heels, he makes me feel tiny. “You’re beautiful tonight.”

I’m too angry to take in his compliment. By now the front of the kimono is wrinkled and the bra is pinching my ribs, and I don’t care. I’ve been waiting too long to hold in my words.

“Why are you doing this? Keeping me alone and waiting all the time?”

His broad shoulders rise and fall as he sighs. “I’m sorry I was late. You’re right to be upset.”

“It isn’t just tonight. It’s all day, every day.”

“I know. But this is part of the process.” He’s so calm I want to scream.

“The process of what? Killing me?”

He raises his eyebrows. “You haven’t had a drink since you’ve been here. You haven’t hurt yourself. You haven’t made a scene in public. This is me protecting you. Undoing an upbringing by parents who couldn’t handle you. I can handle you.”

“By isolating me in a cell?” I scoff. “That doesn’t take much skill.”

“I think you’ll agree it’s been effective.”

“At what? Making me crazy?”

“No. Bonding you to me.”

He backs me against the wall. Raising my chin, he forces me to look at him. “What was the first thing you said when Coral walked in tonight?”

Shrugging, I press my lips together.

His eyes burn into mine. “You said, where’s Bram.”

“So? I was wondering, that’s all.”

His eyes are so close to mine, they feel like my whole world. “You wait for me to bring you breakfast. You listen for my car. You think about me. You look forward to seeing me. This horrible man you hate so much. Don’t you?”

He knows everything. I have no thoughts or feelings of my own. He said I was a good liar, but I’m not. I’m the worst liar who ever lived.

He shakes me by the shoulders. “Don’t you?” he shouts.

I glare at him. “I won’t stay here locked in some ridiculous bargain with you. I have a life to get back to.”

His eyes pierce my bravado. “Really? Tell me about that life, Grace.”

My answer catches in my throat. “I have – options.”

He lifts his eyebrows. “Okay. Let’s list them, shall we?” He puts out his big, powerful hand and extends his forefinger. “Living on the street. Winter’s coming, and you almost died of hypothermia once.”

I roll my eyes. “I won’t be homeless.”

“All right, then. You stay off the street, but hook up with some predator asshole who fucks you in exchange for a few bucks.”

“I’ve never whored myself out. Unless we count living with you.”

His mouth tightens as my words hit their mark. “Option three, you get a job and support yourself. But to get a job, you need money and a place to live, which you don’t have. In fact, when I peeled your dress off the other night, you weren’t even wearing shoes. You want to go? Tell me where. From what I’ve heard, your friend Stephanie has a full house with her kids and husband, and your parents aren’t too keen to take you.”

I try to bluff my way through with the last miserable thing I have. “I’ll live with Isaac and his family for a few months. At least they won’t keep me locked in.”

Bram’s stare is steady and intense. “That’s worse than no plan at all. If you don’t have a plan, you’ll stay here until you have one.”

“I hate it here,” I spit out. “I hate what you’re doing to me.”

His eyes narrow. “Did you think this would be easy?” he says. “Did you think I’d give you everything in exchange for nothing?”

I shake my head. “Of course not, but this –”

“This, Grace, is just the beginning.”

The beginning. The thought is so ominous and sickening I can’t bear it.

I hear his voice and Coral’s on a loop, each one battering my brain. I don’t know what’s real anymore. I don’t even care. I just want out.

Leaping to my feet, I run for the open door. Bram grabs me by the hair and pulls me back against his chest. The breath knocks out of my lungs and my vision blurs.

He’s so powerful. I’ll never get away. I was stupid to even try.

“You want to see how dark life can get?” he growls in my ear. “Because that’s next.”

I thrash like a bird caught in a net. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me!”

“I said I wouldn’t hurt you except for a very good reason. Like if you tried to run back to the life that almost killed you.” He lets me go and steps away. “Turn around,” he barks.

Heart thundering, I turn slowly to face him.

His eyes are bright, lit by an internal fire. “You’ve been so good. So obedient. I was going to reward you tonight.”

I swallow. “What?”

A shadow crosses his face, disappointment so deep my heart feels cold. “I had a special night planned for us. Why do you think I was late? Why do you think I dressed you in beautiful clothes?”

My stomach is in my throat. “A special night?”

“Dinner. Here with me. The chef at Meridian is a friend of mine. Our four-course dinner is waiting downstairs.”

My heart splinters under the weight of my mistake. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I just thought –”

He grits his teeth. I’ve seen him angry, but this is much worse. “You thought, you were wrong, and now it’s come to this.”

With casual cruelty, he reaches out and rips the beautiful robe off my shoulders. It falls in a heap of silk around my ankles.

“Too bad,” he says. “It looked so pretty on you.”

“Why did you do that?” My voice is thick with tears.

He grabs my upper arm and yanks me toward him. “Rewards and punishments,” he says, ripping the satin panties off my body. “Trust and discipline. We had this discussion, remember?”

My skin stings where the side of the panties snapped. He rips the bra off next, grabbing it between the cups and jerking so the clasp in back snaps. It drops off my arms to the floor.

“I’ve offered you safety. My belief in you. Millions of dollars. But you’d rather fuck up your life by living with the man who almost raped you. Clearly we have more work to do.”

I suck in a savage breath. I’m so ashamed I can hardly look at him. “I didn’t mean it.”

“So you lied. Again.”

“I never lied in the first place.”

He silences me with a look. “Kneel by the bed. Bend over.”

“Why?”

He points across the room. “Now.”

I shake my head. Wrapping his hand around the back of my neck, he marches me to the bed and forces me to the floor. Pain burns through my knees as they hit the stone.

“How dare you,” I say, glaring up at him.

Yes. How fucking dare I.” He slaps my cheek hard.

My mouth drops open. “You didn’t just do that.”

“You never learned to bite your tongue, did you? Even when it was good for you.”

Though my lips tremble, my voice sounds strong. “I have opinions. I have a voice.”

“Yes. But I have the upper hand. And you gave it to me willingly.”

He sits on the edge of the bed in his suit, looking every inch the dangerous businessman he was in court. His neck looks even thicker with a silk tie knotted around it.

“Bend over before I give you to Isaac on a silver fucking platter.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I’ll drive you to his house myself. The choice is yours.”

I almost say yes, just to see his face. To win after a week of losing.

But then I think of James’s father, and how sad his eyes looked the last time we went to the cemetery. He could hardly look at his own son’s grave. I think of his shuttered furniture store with the Everything Must Go sign still in the window, and his depressing one-bedroom apartment with the popcorn ceiling and the La-Z-Boy in front of the television.

He needs me. He needs me to be strong.

I kneel and bend forward. As my breasts make contact with the sheets, a shiver runs all the way to my feet.

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

Bram leans down so his mouth is next to my ear. I breathe in his scent, letting it soothe me even as my heart screams in fear.

“I’m going to tell you a story,” he says in a deep, low voice. He runs his hand over the garter belt, following one tight silk strap to the top of the stocking.

“A st – story?”

“Yes. It’s about a man and a woman.”

“Who are they?”

“Hush. Listen.”

He pauses. His hand strokes over my backside, a light touch that makes my clit and nipples tighten. I never knew my cunt had a heartbeat until now.

“He was the kind of man people stare at on the street. Big, strong, and tall, with a face like a villain. Can you picture him?”

I close my eyes and imagine Bram. “Yes.”

I hear the first blow before I feel it. Swallowing a shriek, I clutch the sheets with both hands. Pain explodes across my ass like thorns and fire. I feel every knuckle and line in his fingers like a sizzling brand.

No one has ever hit me. Not my father, not James, not Isaac. The privilege and cruelty are all Bram’s.

“She was young and innocent,” he says, “and so beautiful she hardly seemed real. They were strangers. Then one day something happened, and that’s how they met.”

I hang onto his deep, rough voice as if it’s a rope dangling over an abyss. When I close my eyes, I can almost see his words written on the air.

He spanks me again. I clamp my jaw shut as tears flow down my cheeks. Pain rips into my lower back and sears across my skin. “No,” I whimper.

I thought I knew what spanking was, but this is different. It means something. He might as well say it out loud. You belong to me. You’ll never escape me.

In the deepest, most shameful part of my heart, I’m glad. I didn’t want to be free.

I ran, and he wouldn’t let me go. He wants me in the worst, sickest way, but he wants me like no one else ever has.

I bury my face in the sheets. It’s not Grace thinking these things. It’s the girl who’s been imprisoned for a week, afraid to stay and afraid to leave. I’m changing. Bonding to the devil himself.

He slaps me again, cupping my ass so his fingers barely miss my pussy. As a sob escapes me, he nuzzles my neck. “Sweet dove. You’re so pretty when you hurt.”

A tear drips across the bridge of my nose. “No more. Please.”

“We just have to finish our story, sweetie, then I’ll stop.”

He slaps the other side this time, a fresh expanse of skin that burns until my toes curl. I can only imagine the handprints he’s leaving. The bruises and welts that will last for days.

“The first time he saw her, he couldn’t stop staring at her,” he says.

I gulp down a knot of tears. “Why?”

“It wasn’t because she was pretty. It was like…he knew her and always had.”

“Did he talk to her?”

“No. He was afraid to. He didn’t talk to her for a long time.”

“Why was he afraid?”

“Because he wanted her. And the way he wanted her was dirty and wrong.”

My heart breaks open. He’s talking about us. This is our story. It’s dark and terrible, and I’m addicted to every word.

He was afraid of me. He wanted me. He felt just like I did, all this time.

“Did he ever get her?” I ask, through hot, dry lips.

“I don’t know, Grace,” he says. His voice is rough. He sounds almost sad.

“You don’t know?”

“The rest of the story is yours to tell.”

He slaps me again. The pain ripples up my spine and vibrates through my pussy. My clit tingles even as I scream. I have the urge to spread my legs wide apart.

“Please, no,” I beg as his finger probes between my slick cunt lips. He’s never touched me before. No man has ever put his hand there.

He strokes me like he owns me, with a cocky roughness that makes me gush. He takes what he wants, and what he wants right now is my cunt.

He runs a thick, strong finger from just under my clit to my ass. I bite back a cry of pleasure.

“Lift your hips,” he grunts. “Ass in the air.”

The sobs of pain turn to humiliation as I give him my most private places to violate. I feel so slutty, so needy and desperate. I bury my face in my hands as I soak his fingers.

If my parents knew where I was and what I felt, they’d wish me dead. It would be more dignified and moral to die than submit like this.

Bram’s hand whistles through the air and slashes across my skin. I scream and bite my lip until I taste blood. His possessive fingers tease and grope my pussy like he just bought me.

“My good girl,” Bram whispers. He kisses my temple, my cheekbone, and my jaw. “You love it. I knew you would.”

I can’t look at him. “Why do I love it? I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to. Just feel.”

The first touch of his finger to my clit is pure sensual electricity. He teases the very tip, making me grind against his hand for more. It’s so fucking good. So much better than touching myself. A big, strong hand. A man who knows how to take everything by brute force.

I moan like I do when I’m alone. I wish I could stop but I can’t. I’m just the toy he teases and plays with.

“You’re going to come,” he says.

My tears flow. “I don’t want to.”

“Good girls don’t come with men like me, do they? Is that what you were taught?”

He spanks me again. The sound echoes through the room and makes my ears ring. “Yes,” I gasp.

“Good girls aren’t supposed to come at all,” he murmurs in my ear.

“No, they aren’t.”

“That’s right. They aren’t supposed to think about big cocks fucking their little pussies until they scream.” He slicks a wet finger around the tight entrance of my cunt. My whole pussy throbs. He lets out a long breath when he feels the soft, wet pulsing.

“But that’s not what happens, is it? Good girls touch their pussies when they’re all alone. They put their faces into pillows and moan the names of big, bad men while those men watch.”

He hits me again, so hard my teeth clench. The pain fans out, rippling into my thighs and back. By the time it reaches my clit, it becomes pleasure.

“What a beautiful little cunt,” he says. “And it’s all mine.”

I’m going to come. With Bram Russell. While he spanks and uses and talk dirty to me. I’m lost forever, and there’s no turning back.

“Hit me again,” I whisper. “Please.”

His fingers dance across my clit, slipping together every few seconds like a firm, hungry mouth. His mouth.

He lets out an animal groan and slaps my ass with all his might. In the back of my mind, I think, it must hurt him, too. He’s breathing hard and his palm stings. He rubs his thick, long cock against the side of my thigh and does that thing again. Captures my clit between two extended fingers. Tugs gently on the wet flesh while pain surges from my ass to my pussy.

I turn my head and look at him. My upper lip is damp with sweat and my face is flaming hot. His eyes are so close, so deep and intense. He doesn’t blink.

I can’t be this intimate with him. I can’t let him make a possession out of me.

I call up all of the pain he’s ever caused me, the grief and fury and misery. I try to protect myself with my hatred, but I can’t find it anymore.

He destroyed it. He broke it. He broke me.

As fire starts to coil through me, I force myself to say it. I hate you. But somewhere in the tangled wires between my pussy and my brain, hate transforms into something else. “I want you to fuck me,” I whisper.

His lips part and his silver pupils flare. It’s too late to take it back, or to stop the orgasm that’s unfurling inside me.

“And I will,” Bram whispers back, spanking me one last time.

A cry rips from the deepest part of me. It’s the sound of a female animal in heat. The sound of everything I’ve never let myself feel. All the desires, the bad thoughts, the dreams, the deep, intense craving to live.

I shiver as my hips buck and pleasure destroys me.

“Bram,” I say, and then he kisses me silent. His tongue dances with mine and fucks my mouth, in and out like he’s going to fuck me.

I come on his fingers with high-pitched moans of ecstasy. His teeth nip at my lower lip, tasting my blood and kisses.

I want him to devour me. When this is over, I want to be part of him. I don’t want to exist anymore.

Because if I do, I’ll be changed. Grace will be gone, and in her place will be a complete stranger.

As my shudders fade, tears stream down my face. Bram hauls me against him. I fling my arms around his neck and clutch my nails into his back for dear life.

“My girl,” he murmurs, stroking my stinging skin in soothing circles. “You came like the angel you are.”

I sob into his shoulder. “It was wrong.”

“Why?”

“I promised…”

He clucks his tongue. “Promises are dangerous. Especially when you make them to a memory.”

I stiffen my body against his words. They feel like an assault, an insult to what I felt for James. “He’s more than that.”

Bram holds me tighter. “No, Grace. He isn’t.”

No. He isn’t.

I take a long breath and, like a heartbroken little girl, sob as I’ve never sobbed before. My soul cracks and splits in two, then splits again.

James is gone forever.

No promise or vow of celibacy can change that. Nothing can bring back the person I thought had saved me. Not even the man who took him away.

Sobs rack my chest until I can’t breathe. I try to keep crying. I reach into my soul for more pain. I have nothing left. After two years of weeping and bitterness and hate, I’ve run out of tears.

“I’m sorry,” I choke.

“Shhh.”

Face smeared with tears and strands of hair, I look at Bram. “Why did you do it?”

His eyes are sharp and alert. He knows exactly what I mean.

With gentle fingers, he pushes my hair back from my sweaty neck. “I had to, Grace.”

“But…the James I knew wouldn’t follow you. He wouldn’t force his way into your house.”

“James was a chameleon.”

I shake my head in frustration. “What does that mean?”

“It means…he pretended to be what people wanted.”

I frown. “How do you know?”

Bram hesitates.

“You can’t say that. You didn’t know him. You couldn’t –”

Something in Bram’s eyes makes me stop. An expression I can’t read. Shadows so dark I don’t dare get close to them.

“It’s okay,” he says.

“Is it?”

“Yes,” he says, and wraps me in his arms. “I promise.”

“I thought you said promises were dangerous,” I whisper.

He doesn’t answer. I can’t see his eyes or ask questions. He holds me so tight I can’t move.

And I let him. I let him silence me.

Whatever it is, he doesn’t want to tell me. And I don’t want to know.