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Veronica waited until she heard the even hum of breath from her captor’s room that indicated he’d fallen into sleep. She prayed he was a deep sleeper. She was careful to stay close to the walls, so the hardwood wouldn’t creak. But when she turned the knob and pushed it open, the door gave a loud groan. He turned in his sleep, his breathing pattern interrupted. She stayed frozen in place, barely breathing until his pattern resumed. Then she crept into the room. If there were no women’s shoes, she wasn’t picky. Luke wore shoes. She’d just take some of his.
The moonlight came into his windows and fell over his face. Damn him and that face. That face had already made her hesitate a few times because something inside her responded to him. His mere presence did everything to her that her every sexual fantasy had done, but she was smart enough to know that the men she invented in her mind didn’t exist—couldn’t exist. She’d wasted enough time figuring that out.
She hadn’t been out with a man since college. The whole thing seemed pointless. Men slowed you down. They complained when your career was going better than theirs. They wanted you to pop out babies and make sacrifices for the kids because aren’t women all supposed to be maternal? Even in New York, you didn’t have to peel through too many layers in a man to find the caveman underneath. All the equality and supportiveness on the surface was window dressing.
After her second abortion, Veronica had found a doctor to tie her tubes. He’d been against it at first, but given his conservative leanings and her past history of killing the unborn, he’d decided it would be best if she didn’t get pregnant again. Smart doctor. Following that episode, she’d switched to women doctors for everything. Fuck the patronizing bastards who would give a man a vasectomy at nineteen but felt a woman couldn’t know her own mind until she’d already had children or turned thirty-five.
For a fleeting moment, Veronica wanted to go downstairs to the kitchen, take a knife, and lop off the dangerous part of Luke Granger. While he hadn’t hurt her...yet... she’d seen the perverted wheels in his head turning, and he’d admitted as much. She wasn’t going to think about the brief inappropriate wetness she’d felt between her legs as the wordsluthad tumbled out of his gorgeous mouth.
Perhaps worse than that, he’d decided she’d be free labor around the house. He didn’t seem intent on paying her. And even if he would, he hadn’t given her the choice to refuse the job.
His boots weren’t on the floor, so she went to check the closet. Behind the dark wooden doors, were his clothes and a large safe, but no shoes. Could he have put his boots in the safe? He’d put his cell in there. To be that meticulous... How many times had he done this? No matter what he said, Veronica didn’t believe he hadn’t killed Trish and whoever else had been before her. This behavior was too pathological.
Somehow on the trip, she’d convinced herself that he was attracted to her and wanted to help her, and maybe the way things were out on the ranch didn’t translate to more enlightened relationships between men and women. Perhaps he thought he was helping her, but since she was too stubborn to accept help, he’d had to take drastic measures—like an intervention with a drug addict.
She slipped past his bed to go back to her room when his hand shot out and grabbed her, pulling her back onto the bed with him. Her bathrobe bunched up around her thighs as he flipped them so he loomed over her. His hand slid up her thigh and between her legs, his fingers teasing just over her clit for a moment. It was enough to confuse her—to make her unsure if she wanted him or not. Even if her body did, she didn’t. She hated him. He was the embodiment of why she didn’t trust men. Weren’t they all savages under the civilized exterior? Wouldn’t they all do whatever they could get away with and rationalize it?
Luke Granger had decided he could keep a slave on his ranch and save some money. And past experience without getting caught proved his point. He sat up then and put her over his knee. It happened so fast she couldn’t find the words to protest before her robe was up around her waist and his hand was coming down hard across her bare bottom.
She squirmed and struggled against him, screaming at him to stop. Indignant. Pissed-off. Humiliated. Scared. The threat of him was a reality now. He grabbed her wrists in one hand, the non-spanking hand. She would have bitten him, no matter the cost, if she could have reached him.
“Let me go you fucking bastard. I hate you. You are a sick motherfucking psycho who should be locked up!”
He ignored her screaming and kept spanking her until she’d reached her pain threshold. Her cursing and yelling turned to begging.
“Luke, please. I’m sorry, please.” She didn’t know what she was apologizing for. She’d say anything to make him stop. It hurt too much for pride to get in the way. In her mind, she reasoned she could just let go of it for one second to make him stop this, then she could reclaim her identity in the light of day when the pain had faded.
“You don’t come into my room unless I send for you. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes.”
“Yes what?”
She recoiled and resumed struggling, not yet ready to give in to the next step in her degradation.
“My hand isn’t even tired. I can keep going.”
Just the threat was enough at this point. “Y-yes, sir.” If he didn’t kill her, she’d jump off the balcony. “This is why I hate men. No one hurt me. But any one of you could have done what you’re doing now. Isn’t that enough reason to hate and not trust? How do I know when a man looks at me like you did in the diner that he isn’t planning to act on his fantasies? I don’t. None of you can be trusted.”
He’d gone to stroking over her skin where he’d struck her. She tried to pull away when his finger dipped between her legs.
“You’re wet. Dripping.” He practically growled when he said it.
“Stop it.”
“No. Say ‘Sir, please stop groping me,’ and I’ll think about it.”
“Never.”
Another sharp slap landed on her ass.
“Sir, please stop groping me,” she whispered through her tears. She was glad they were in the dark, because her face must be the color of a maraschino cherry.
He gathered her in his arms and held her, stroking her hair...comfortingher.
“Please just kill me if that’s what you’re going to do. Don’t do this on top of it.”
“Shhhhh. The first week or so will be the hardest, after that you’ll be happy with me.”
