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“Then why did you insist on staying with me?”
Saskia shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you’ll have plenty of time to think about it.”
Quill’s key creaked in the lock of the cage. The door swung open with a matching cringe of metal as he motioned her inside. Her lip quivered.
“No,” he said, his voice flat. “Your tears won’t have any affect. I told you this is where you’d be sleeping.”
“But...” She’d thought surely if she pleased him enough, if she were obedient enough, he’d forget about keeping her in the cage and let her sleep with him. If he was so set on having her, why would he lock her up in the gallery all the time? Didn’t her choice to stay with him rather than flee earn her a place in his bed? She internally cringed even thinking this way. What woman with any self-respect would ever think this way toward someone who obviously didn’t value her?
Or maybe she’d thought he was bluffing this whole time. Even with the cage on the plane, she’d just assumed once they were at his house... things would be different.
“In the cage, Saskia. You don’t want another punishment just before bed, do you?”
“No, Master.” She crawled inside, and he turned the key in the lock.
She reached through the bars. Quill took one of her hands in his and kissed the back of it like some old-fashioned gentleman. Then he retrieved a small remote from his pocket and gave it to her.
“This is for emergencies only. If you need to use the restroom or something of that nature. Do not abuse this. If Marcus tells me you’re calling him in for frivolous things, there will be consequences. Press the button now to test it.”
Saskia pushed the button, and a few seconds later, Marcus sprinted in as if flames were shooting from the gallery. Even with what had happened between them before, she still felt shy around him. She drew back, covering herself with one of the bedsheets inside the cage.
“She was just testing the remote.”
Marcus glanced briefly at her, then nodded and went back to his post outside the door.
“I’ll see you in the morning for breakfast,” Quill said. He shut out the gallery lights. The switch echoed in the large, hollow room. His footsteps receded, clicking over the marble.
But even with the lights off, it wasn’t dark. The moon outside was full, shining almost directly over the skylight, casting a pool of bright illumination over the cage. A surreal sort of feeling swept over her—as if she were about to undergo some monstrous transformation under the light of the moon, and caging her was merely a precaution meant to keep the villagers safe from her evil.
She peered through the bars at the paintings. All these women were inside their own cages, trapped behind glass—desperate eyes looking into her, following her every movement in the cramped quarters she’d been reduced to.
Saskia shifted and fluffed the bedding, pulling the blankets over her. She tried to curl up and sleep, but every time she shut her eyes, she saw the club. She kept seeing that moment... the potential moment of her redemption which she’d squashed like a helpless bug in her frantic bid to stay with a man who simply brought her home and made her sleep in a cage.
She couldn’t believe she’d chosen to come back with him. She didn’t know where Ari would have taken her or what he would have done with her, but she felt certain that if she’d gone with him, she’d be sleeping in a real bed right now either alone or with him. Both options were better than this.
If she could just find sleep, it wouldn’t matter. It would be as if only a few minutes passed, then it would be time to get out. This didn’t have to be the end of the world.
But it was.
The footsteps returned. At first she thought Quill had changed his mind about the sleeping arrangements. But the cadence of the steps was different. The length of the stride was different. She knew it wasn’t Quill well before Marcus reached the cage.
Even after his head had been between her legs in the studio, she still worried something more might happen between them. And yet...she hadn’t had an orgasm since the last one with Marcus. She was sure Quill had intended for it to happen at the club before things had gotten out of control with The Viking.
Marcus sat on the ground, his back pressed against the bars looking in the other direction at some undefined patch of white wall across the gallery.
“Are you going to let me sleep?” she asked.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
His hand was propped on the floor beside the cage. Without thinking about what she was doing, Saskia reached through the bars, her hand covering his. She didn’t want to be by herself in here. Even though she was afraid of what could happen with the whole night stretched before them and Quill asleep in the house, she’d do anything Marcus wanted if he just wouldn’t leave her alone.
Their eyes met.
The intensity of his stare held the same frightening edge as Quill’s. She tried to pull away, but Marcus threaded his fingers through hers, his grip stopping her retreat. After a while, his thumb began to stroke the back of her hand, and she relaxed into his careful caress.
This was how she found sleep in the cage with her arm stretched out holding her guard’s hand in Quill’s gallery.
