I slid down the wall, hugging my shaking knees to my chest. A damp spot now existed on my belly, leaving behind his mark.

I hated him.

Hated him.

The front of his slacks was stained, and his body continued to jerk with pleasure as he dropped his hands and stared at me.

What an absolute bastard.

What a messed-up, dangerous man.

He didn’t speak as he glanced down at his groin and noticed the stain of what he’d just done. His jaw clenched until every tendon in his neck stood out. His face turned thunderous. For a second, he raised a fist and looked like he’d strike me to death.

But then, a wash of absolute shame coated his face. A shadow of conflict and shyness. With a snarl, he stormed to the door.

Fumbling for the key, he wrenched it open and almost fell through it.

He slammed it shut a second later, followed by the scratch of metal and the clunk of a lock.

Sighing hard and giving in to the hot wash of tears, I rested my chin on my knees and cried.

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CHAPTER TEN

OUT OF ALL THE things I’d done.

Out of all the years I’d been alive, and all the things I’d seen, experienced, and endured, the worst was closing my eyes. Worse than masturbating on that girl. Worse than all the black images of fucking her against her wishes.

I’d lost control.

I knew that.

But in the darkness, all alone, I couldn’t focus on that. Couldn’t come to terms with how easily I’d broken.

If I closed my eyes, the nightmares came.

If I went to sleep, the memories were waiting.

If I let myself relive what I’d done, the thirst for her became fucking unbearable.

Night for me was the worst kind of torture. Sleep would always be my nemesis.

Therefore, instead of seeking rest and willingly giving myself over to the blackest pits of my mind, I stayed awake.

I lay in my single, sunken bed with just a worn sheet over my nakedness and stared at the lacy cobwebs in the rafters.

My hands never unfurled.

My body never relaxed.

I lay in a state of explosive readiness. Ready to slaughter anyone who came after the girl imprisoned in my cellar. Ready to leap from this room and spill blood in the corridors.

She couldn’t leave.

I knew that.

She was locked below. Completely captive. Her very existence relied on my generosity.

I could keep her for however long I wanted, or I could kill her and end the misery she’d created, or I could fuck her until I cured my sudden insanity.

Regardless if help did come for her, she was mine. Like I’d told her in the cell, this was her fault. She’d trespassed. So didn’t that give me the right to do whatever I wanted?

Seriously, what are you thinking?

I groaned and glowered at the shadows.

Keeping her was an inconvenience. Keeping her meant double the work, double the preparation, and a whole shit ton of personal pain.

But I couldn’t let her go, either.

No one could know about this place.

No one.

I sat up in bed, checking for the millionth time that the locks on my door were still in place and the warning alarm was still rigged against my window. Just because no one had come to find her in over fourteen hours didn’t mean they wouldn’t come. That they weren’t waiting for my guard to drop.

But that was the thing. I’d learned the hard way that to survive, you couldn’t stop looking over your shoulder. I’d been doing it for eleven years. I’d become a master at it.

No one would touch her without my permission.

Running my fingers over one of the three knives resting in grabbing distance, I glanced at the other two. One beneath my pillow, one on the floor, and one on my current book.

If more people came, I was ready.

And if they don’t?

If it’s just you and her?

Alone?

For days? Months? Years?

I gritted my teeth.

Then we’re both royally fucked.

Tonight had shown just how weak I was. Just how screwed up I’d become by denying natural urges. I’d broken within moments of being in that cell with her. I’d gone down there to demand answers, yet instead of a calm interrogation, I’d lost all sense of who I was.

I shattered every shred of discipline.

I’d become like them.

I drove my head into the pillow and bunched the sheet over my thighs.

Just because nightmares couldn’t find me didn’t mean the memories of what I’d done to her didn’t. They ignored my command to stay the hell away. They bombarded me with sensation.

Memories of how delicious she’d felt as I’d driven my cock against her came fast.

Her vulnerability made my balls ache to claim her.

And I knew, right down to my rotten soul, that the next time I saw her, I’d want more. I’d take more. I’d use her, with or without her consent, and that left me hard, hurting, and horribly eager to storm down the stairs and command her to her knees.

* * * * *

Standing in the kitchen, I fought against necessity and nastiness.

I was hungry, starving actually, after not consuming a thing yesterday. And if I was hungry, that meant my prisoner would be equally malnourished.

Which led to the dilemma I now faced.

If I fed her, that meant I intended to keep her alive.

If I didn’t, that meant I was destining her to die.

Both scenarios came with ramifications that I wasn’t prepared to deal with on an empty stomach after a sleepless night.

Stalking into the walk-in pantry, I grabbed the rest of the loaf of sourdough rye bread I’d made two days ago. Disformed and stale, it wasn’t exactly enjoyable. It was moderately edible, and for the past few years, that was good enough for me.

In the beginning, I’d eaten like a king.

The cellar once had another purpose instead of housing trespassing girls. It’d been teeming with food. Canned vegetables, huge sacks of rice and potatoes, barrels of sugar and salt, shelves upon shelves of chocolates, wines, and liquors.

There’d been enough rations to last almost four years. I’d stretched certain things, done without on others, and began the necessary shift from eating prepared grains and gathered ingredients into growing my own.

Thank fuck the owner of this place had entered the wilderness prepared. Once a year, they’d have supplies brought in. Huge crates of linen, soaps, juices, savory, and sweet. On top of all the frozen, smoked, dried, and packeted food, they’d imported seeds of every fruit and vegetable. Stocked the library with every book on horticulture, employed gardeners and chefs, and straddled the convenience of modern living with the old ways of cultivating the land.

Those deliveries had stopped long ago, and I’d learned how to stay alive through trial and error. My body had been used as a tester on more than one occasion, confirming what was palatable and what was not. And now, I’d become fairly proficient at providing for one man through four seasons.

I had a system in place.

Chores that needed to be completed each month. Checklists that couldn’t be ignored. And all that had now been thrown into chaos with an additional mouth to feed.

Wrenching open the ancient fridge that ran off hydropower thanks to the swift currents found in the cave system, I yanked out fresh strawberries, a bowl of crunchy snow peas, and a few sticks of last week’s celery.

Placing equal measure of food onto the fancy plates where the gold leaf had long since washed off, I tore up the rest of the bread and carried the two meals down the stairs and to the cellar.

The instant my bare feet landed on the damp concrete of the lower level, a chill shot up my spine.