Some foreign response stirs deep within me, and I shift uncomfortably. Alex holds my face, unwilling to let me go. I lick my lips, knowing what that action does to him.

His gaze drops to my mouth, ravenous hunger burning in his liquid blue eyes. His face nears mine, and that strange feeling deep down reacts instinctively. I turn my head and drop a kiss to his neck.

“Don’t give me a necklace, then,” I say, picking up his goddess thread.

This elicits a breathless laugh. “Why am I not surprised you know the myth.”

Curling my fingers at the back of his head, I smile against his neck. “Technically, she’s a force, not a goddess.”

“That’s debatable,” he counters, his will weakening.

While he’s preoccupied, I ease my hand down his chest and tear the snap of his pants open. The guttural sound that Alex makes excites me, and anticipation has my fingers seeking beneath his boxers.

I take his hard length in my palm as he becomes bold, lost in his arousal, and cups my breast. When I believe he’s completely under the spell, I snake my other hand away from his neck.

“Blakely…we have to stop,” he says, voice thick with restrained desire. “This isn’t right. You’re my patient.”

Alex’s delusion—that he believes I’m his patient—urges me on, and I hurriedly sink my hand into his pocket. With the other, I grip his cock like a vise, making sure he won’t budge as I yank the keyring free.

“Sorry, Alex, but I just can’t fuck this level of crazy.” I grab his balls and twist hard.

He utters a ardent curse as pain radiates through him, giving me enough time to bound free. He clutches his crotch and doubles over on the chair.

I don’t have much time, so I have to get as far as I can. I don’t bother fixing my shirt, letting it fly open as I rush to the curtain and throw it back. I saw a door here when I was sedated and groggy. Whatever is behind that door, I need to know.

Another curtain lines the wall and I shove it aside to reveal an old barnwood door. I fumble through the keys on the ring, trying one, two, and then the third key until the lock turns. I pull the door open and stare up at a dark flight of stairs. The sound of Alex getting his bearings spurs me up those steps.

A second door at the top, but this one isn’t locked. I enter the cabin damn near breathless…shock halting me to a full stop.

A pitch-black void engulfs me.

The darkness is so consuming, as if I stepped right into space, or walked right off the edge of a cliff. The eeriness of it seeps past my skin, and I pull my shirt closed. I feel dizzy, like there’s no ground beneath me. As my eyes begin to adjust, circular lights appear…and I hear the ticking.

“Oh, my God.”

Clocks.

Backlit by faint-white lights, dozens of clocks seem to float midair. I know it’s not possible, an optical illusion, a trick of the mind—but it’s still terrifying. A nightmare made real.

To ground myself, I reach out and touch a wall. The cool and smooth surface is solid beneath my fingertips, and immediate relief rushes my veins.

This room is completely closed off and isolated from the cabin.

From ceiling to floor, clocks of different shapes and sizes scatter the walls. I move toward one and stare past the glass. Then I look at the one beside it. They’re all displaying different times. The pendulums swing back and forth, the rhythmic sound reverberating through the room, growing louder as the walls seem to close in.

“What is this room, Alex?”

I know he hears me, because he’s standing right behind me. I can feel heat rolling off his body, the vibration of his skin humming so near mine. His breaths come hard and ragged, and I wonder how painful that climb up the stairs was for him. Though right now, looking around at the very horrifying inside of his mind, I don’t give a damn.

“Get out,” he orders. A veiled desperation edges his low voice.

Other than the many clock faces scattering the room, I notice a splinter of light coming from the opposite wall. The entryway door has been boarded up.

I grip the keys in my palm.

Whatever the inside of this cabin means to him, it’s dark and twisted, and he has it sealed tight. He doesn’t want anyone to see, to enter. And no one can leave.

I’m yanked by my arm and towed back into the stairwell. Alex slams the door shut, his back to me, hands planted against the door. I should do exactly as he said. I should run down those stairs and get as far away from him as I can. He’s more unstable in this moment than I’ve ever seen him. I should leave—but his volatile state is a gravitational pull anchoring me here.

He lets his hands fall away from the door and, without any words, turns slowly to face me. Eyebrows drawn together, he drags his gaze over me. My white Oxford is open in front. I make no move to cover myself.

With cautious movements, Alex steps closer and takes his keys from my grasp. I forgot I was holding them. He slips the keyring into his pocket, then his hand goes to my waist, startling me.

Eyes cast downward, he flattens the back of his hand along my stomach. I can’t help it; I flinch at the tender feel, my belly tensing instinctively.

He traces his knuckles upward, his touch gentle and examining, as if he’s learning the curves of my body. My breath stills in my lungs as he reaches the contour between my breasts. His fingertips rove over the delicate arch of one breast, allowing him to trace the shape, and I’m studying his features, expressions, the way he looks pained, and trying to understand what’s causing that pain.

Alex abruptly stops. As he reaches the divot of my breastbone, he secures the top button of the shirt. He fastens it, then works his way down gradually to close the shirt.

He clasps my face between both hands, those blue eyes intense. “A subject has never made me feel so weak.”

“That’s because I’m not a subject. I’m a woman.”

He releases me with a forced breath. “You’re a parasite.”

I lift my chin, defiant. “And yet that doesn’t change how badly you want me.” I lick my lips to wet them. “You’re the one with the illness, Alex. Why don’t you just give in? Accept that you can’t cure me, that there’s nothing to cure.”

He steps backward, moving down the stairs. His face is level with mine. “It damn near breaks me…I’ve never wanted a woman more.” He takes another step down. “But not like this. Not without you able to reciprocate what I feel. It can’t happen any other way—that would make me more vile than the fiend who put my sister in the ground.”

He starts down the stairs, letting his words hang in the dark between us. Before he’s gone, I make sure he hears me. “If you actually succeed…the feelings I’ll have for you won’t be what you want, Alex.”

“I’m willing to risk that,” he says.

A chill touches my skin and I cross my arms. I look at the cabin door. If there’s any chance of escape, it’s not through here. No, hiding that door, keeping me in the basement, isn’t a means of security. That cabin belongs to him.

His own personal ninth circle of hell.

When I enter the basement, Alex is waiting for me with the leather cuffs in his hands. For now, I accept my temporary fate. I won’t find a way out of here by physically overpowering him, or seducing him.

Alex plays on a psychological playing field, and I need access to that chamber locked away in his mind, the one with all the ticking clocks.

That’s my way out.

I hold out my wrists to him, and he locks a cuff into place. He won’t meet my eyes, his gaze distant and evasive. I’ve pushed him too far tonight, but not far enough to snap.

He leaves the room, and I sit on the cot and pull my knees to my chest. He returns with the jogging pants I left in the shower room.

“I would appreciate it if you stayed clothed,” he says.

I huff a soundless laugh. “Sure. Anything for my captor’s comfort.”