I don’t know what Declan’s doing, but I bet he’s having the time of his life.

I, on the other hand, am certainly not. If the last few days have taught me anything, it’s that I’m not very good at being bored. There’s a fire in the seat of my pants that kindles every time I sit on my ass for too long, and it’s lighting up again.

I don’t know why that is? Maybe it has something to do with never having time to myself once I had Luke to worry about. Maybe I was just born this way.

Who knows?

The thing is, I promised Declan I wouldn’t go anywhere; and after the mess with Vince, it’s a promise I know I can’t break.

So I’m stuck. I’m trapped in a glass and brick apartment, in a converted warehouse on the South Shore, slowly going stir crazy in a luxury prison.

“Talk about first world problems,” I groan.

It’s not like Declan hasn’t catered to my every need. The fridge is stocked with any and every item of food that I can think of: and even with some I’ve never seen; like papaya. Who eats papaya?

Judging by the thin layer of dust on some of his crockery, I don’t guess that he does much cooking. But that’s fine. I’m something of an addict. Working two jobs to put Luke through college – when there was still a chance he’d go – I never got the chance. But now, with all this time on my hands…

… It doesn’t feel the same.

I don’t think that Declan knows a damn thing about it, but the items in my room brought a smile to my face. I see wax and shaving foam in a bag that has appeared in my bedroom. Whoever he sent shopping for all of this knows her stuff. It was definitely a woman – some of the touches have a woman’s feel about them. Still, the most intense beauty regime in the world doesn’t fill an entire day. At least, not mine.

Legs? Check.

Armpits? Check.

Crotch? Check.

I’m hairless, and it’s not even lunch.

I leap lightly off the couch. I’m going exploring. There must be something to do in this apartment other than watch TV and cook. It’s too…anemic.

Declan’s a freaking mafia killer, but his place is more Desperate Housewives than the Sopranos. Just like the man himself, there must be more to the apartment than meets the eye. I just haven’t found it yet.

I walk down the long hallway, paying everything more attention than when I first arrived, head still spinning from the zero-to-sixty ride I’d been dragged on. Back then my hair was messy, whipped by the wind, and mussed by Declan’s hand.

I shiver. That memory’s not one I’m going to forget for a long time.

It’s not every day you nearly die with your lips wrapped around a man’s cock.

Family photos mark the walls in a nice, regular pattern. I hide a grin from the empty apartment. I never knew a Mafia family could be so… normal. I guess the impression from the movies is that everything is all explosions and killing: but the pictures on the wall tell a different story: movie nights; family meals; Declan, or his brother Kieran – I can barely tell – draped around his mother’s arms; their dad in the corner, trying, but failing, to hide the proud smile on his lips.

It’s a look at a life I never got. A life, I realize, I’ve a desperate longing to be a part of.

“The hell?” I mutter. My right eyebrow dances upwards of its own accord. “I know you said you had four brothers…” I whisper, reaching up and picking a photograph off its hook on the wall. “But this is crazy.”

The picture shows a long line of men, six strong. Declan’s dad – at least, I assume that’s who it is, is in the middle, and he’s flanked by his two eldest sons. Another set of twins is stood to Kieran’s right, and one last – and comparatively lonely – kid to Declan’s left.

Every single one of the kids – and their mother, caught in the reflection on a mirror taking the photo, has the same shock of white hair in the midst of the black, just over the temple.

“I wonder what happened to you,” I murmur, studying the one out on his own. He’s clearly the youngest – the one Declan mentioned was still at college. “Did you have a brother, too?”

The twin thing clearly runs in the family. I start to wonder who the gene came from – Declan’s mom or dad, and whether it carried on through him. I’d like twins.

“Where the hell did that come from?” I ask the air, gulping with embarrassment. I look around instinctually – as if to make sure that no one else heard me think it. Safe in my solitude, I walk on, still clutching the photograph. I’m not quite ready to give up on the idea. Not yet.

There’s only one door at the end of the corridor, and I try it. It’s locked.

“The hell?”

It’s the only room in the whole damn apartment I haven’t been able to get into: and because I can’t, I want to. I feel like a kid again, like someone’s snatched away my toy. I want it back.

“Keys, keys,” I mutter, searching my brain for any memory of a basket of them. My head drops as I think, and I get an eyeful of light gray carpet. But nothing useful comes to mind. Besides, ever since I tried to make my own path in paying Vince back, it’s almost like Declan doesn’t trust me anymore. The last thing he’s likely to leave lying around is the key, so to speak, to my escape.

The carpet’s frayed.

I stare at it. I’m not hugely OCD, but there are some things you just can’t ignore. In this perfect apartment, this is one of them. It’s the only thing that’s even slightly out of place. I kneel down to tuck it in, and as I do my fingers brush against something hard. I feel something sticking out from under the door.

I reach under it, searching blind, and the tips of my fingers touch cold metal. I pull, and the tiny object comes loose.

It’s a key.

I can’t resist myself: in seconds the key’s in the lock, turned, and I’m in.

I don’t know what I expected: guns, maybe. If not weapons, then perhaps bales of drugs, or stacks of cash. If you would have asked me a thousand times what might lie behind that door, I’d have given you a thousand different answers; but not one of them would have been right.

The door clatters against the far wall and my mouth drops.

The walls are lined with whips, chains, lengths of rope, ribbon and handcuffs. My mind tries to tell me that it’s some kind of torture chamber, or interrogation room, but it isn’t, and it isn’t.

It’s a dungeon.

Not for prisoners, but women: female submissives, I think is the term.

I once asked Declan how he would punish me, and he didn’t give me a response. Now, I have my answer.

Something draws me into the room. I couldn’t do anything else, not after getting this far. I set the framed photograph down on a counter, on top of a selection of sex toys so fast it makes me blush, and forget about it. It seems out of place – something so innocent in a room like this.

My fingers trail across a leather…something in the center of the room. It’s like a dentist’s chair, but with adjustable arms, and legs. I can only imagine what might happen in it.

And I do.

I press my legs together and shiver as a wave of excitement rips through me. It’s me I’m picturing on that couch, my body, while Declan towers over me.

I break myself out of the trance, and push on to the far wall. It’s mirrored, and polished to a fine sheen. Not a single fingerprint marks its surface. I wonder whether he gets someone in here to clean, or –

“I’ve been looking for you,” Declan says, his voice low and throbbing. It almost seems to carry a threat as it rumbles across the tiny room.

I nearly jump out of my skin. I have the feeling I used to get as a kid, when I got caught somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be. My heart feels like it’s beating at a dozen times its normal pace, and my tongue’s become the Sahara.

“Declan?"

“Declan?” His name seems to echo through my head; throughout the room.

“Expecting someone else?”

I turn, and there’s nothing I can do to hide the guilty look from my face. To my surprise, Declan doesn’t seem to care that I’m in here, or that I’ve clearly been prying into the only place in the apartment that he was trying to keep secret. He sure as hell doesn’t bother asking why.

He strides forward, closing the yards between us. His face is black, and I start to wonder whether he truly is angry. More importantly, I wonder whether he is going to punish me: and if yes, how…

And will I be able to take it or not.

I wipe my hands nervously on my jeans, and he’s already on me, in my space, and the only thing I can see. I suddenly realize exactly how big Declan is, and how powerful – and that he could crush me if he chose without breaking a sweat.

He grabs my wrists and pins them against the wall. “What are you doing in here?” He asks.

“I –,” I croak, licking my lips. “I didn’t know –”

I don’t know what to say. Any excuse is going to sound like exactly what it is – an attempt to wriggle out of the trouble I’m in. Declan’s not acting anything like I’ve ever seen him before. Even when he had to drag me out of Vince’s clutches, he never behaved like this. He was angry, sure, but this Declan is different. He seems… driven by something. I just haven’t the faintest idea of what it is.

“Didn’t know what?” He says, with the faintest hint of a snarl. “That this room was private? That the only goddamn locked door in this entire place might be somewhere you weren’t supposed to go?”

“I –,” I stammer. “I’m sorry.” I say in little more than a whimper.

Declan’s breath is my entire existence. It’s all that I can hear, and it’s stroking my skin. He’s little more than an inch from my face, and I can’t break away from his eyes. The glittering orbs, one hazel, the other green are bearing down on me, and drilling a hole into my soul.

“I’ll do anything you want,” I whisper. “Anything…”

His response is as chilling as it is exciting. He utters just two words. “I know.”

The look, on his face, morphs and changes: it’s not anger; it’s not rage; it’s not even hunger; but whatever it is I can’t pin it down. Something is going on inside that head of his, but I’m too scared to find out what.

He keeps my wrists pressed against the wall above my head with his left hand and slides his right down my body. He’s not soft, or gentle about it, he goes straight for the slit between my legs and grinds his palm against my pussy.

“Declan –,” I groan. I want to deal with whatever the hell’s going on with words, not just sex. But then, we’re not in a relationship. We aren’t on equal footing. At the end of the day, I’m still his property, not his girlfriend. For the next four months, I’m his to-do-with-as-he-wants property, and right now, he wants me.

He crushes his mouth against mine and bites my lower lip, pressing down hard enough with his teeth for a tear to form in my eye.

It should hurt, but it doesn’t. Something is happening to me: something I’ve never experienced before. The way I spoke to Declan in that car – it was all bravado. I did it because I saw that’s what he wanted, deep down – a girl who could match him blow for blow: a girl who wasn’t afraid.

But it was all an act.

I am afraid.

I’m afraid of him. Right now he’s a force of nature, and I don’t know if I’m cut out to handle it.

I’m afraid of myself.

I can’t tell him to stop. Not because I think he wouldn’t – he’s a better man than that, but because my body won’t let me. I don’t want him to stop. That’s what’s truly terrifying – the way I’m reacting. The way I’m driving my hips forward into his hand, and the way I’m biting back. I want him to take me like I’ve never been taken before. I want him to do things to me, dark things, things I’ve never even let myself imagine I wanted, even in my darkest moments.

But I do.

I want them all.

He spins me around so quickly I can hardly catch my breath, and rams me against the wall. His hand breaks free of my pussy as I turn, and it feels cold and alone, but not for long. Declan’s fingers attack the button holding my jeans closed, and the first cool tendrils of air lick at my freshly shaved skin.

My shoulders are beginning to ache because of the unnatural position Declan’s holding them in. “It hurts…” I whimper.

His reply is simple and uncompromising. “Good.”

It sends a shiver through me. Declan’s not bending for anyone, least of all me, and that excites me. He pulls my jeans off me roughly, and I step out of them. The second I’m free he spreads my legs wide and once more grinds his palm against my pussy. A moan escapes my lips.

“Stay there,” Declan grunts. He steps back, and suddenly his heat abandons me and I’m alone. All I want is for him to put that huge cock of his inside me, but I’m too timid to beg. I need him; my body is crying out for the thing that only he can give me.

But I do as I’m told: I don’t move; I don’t look behind me; I just stand there with my legs apart and arms spread-eagle against the wall.

He doesn’t leave me alone for long. A loop of ribbon sheathes my wrists and he pulls it tight. I test them, but I’m not getting out of this one.

“What are you going to do to me?

“Whatever I want.”

An electric shock sparks through me, and I tried to clench my legs together, but Declan roughly bats them apart. He tears my underwear off my body and leaves me clothed only from the waist upward. His hands paw roughly at my breasts, tweaking my nipples, and every time his fingers dance across my skin a whisper of pleasure escapes my lips.

But Declan reminds me that this isn’t about me – it’s about him. Whatever’s driving him doesn’t care about my pleasure, it only cares about filling whatever hole has opened inside him.

I hear his jeans drop to the floor, the crinkle of a condom, and then whimper as his huge cock presses against my spread pussy. There’s nothing I can do to stop him, and I wouldn’t if I could.

The second it’s in, he starts to fuck me roughly. He’s got one hand on my shoulder pressing me against the mirror, and my hard nipples burn as they rub against the cloth and then the wall.

“Please…” I gasped, but I don’t know what I’m asking for.

Declan redoubles his pace, and my face and my body and my legs and my hips all bang against the mirror until I worry it might break, but Declan doesn’t stop.

Sparks of electricity are shooting through my body, and even though he doesn’t care about what’s happening to me, I know I’m about to come. My breath is ragged when it’s there at all, and I close my eyes, only for a whiteness to explode behind my lids like I’m looking directly into the sun.

My skin’s on fire, and Declan slams into me once more, and my pussy clenches around his huge cock. I’m sore; I’m broken; I’ve been completely used, but none of that matters right now because the orgasm that’s overcoming me is like a tidal wave breaking against the shoreline, and my pussy and my nipples and every inch of skin is still crackling and sparking with pleasure.

But the stars fade, and the pleasure subsides, and I realize that Declan’s not made a sound.

“Didn’t you…” I say, hating the sound of my own voice, and my awkwardness. “Didn’t you come?”