I ease open my bedroom door and slip down the hallway. My eyes and my imagination are on the fourth floor. The cold air assaults my thin nightie, but that’s not the reason for my shudder. Whatever’s luring me to the forbidden darkness is impossible to ignore. The only real answer I got at dinner was that I’m not getting any answers at all. I’ve been so fearful of learning my fate that getting nothing hadn’t ever crossed my mind.

Each barefoot step is careful, and my fingers trail the railing as I climb. I never take my eyes off the shadows, expecting someone to appear and send me back to my room. At the top, I hold my breath. A squeal rips through the quiet, and rakes over my jittery bones. My heart pounds, my body a statue, until I’m sure nobody’s coming. I’m drawn closer to the squeaks and feminine yelps coming from behind a sturdy pair of double doors.

His jaw at dinner was set sternly, even as he chewed. His brown hair obedient except when it fell over his forehead. Those stormy eyes. Calvin Parish fits the role of captor too well, and my mind has already reconciled my mistake. A bass growl jerks me back to reality. My front is molded to the wood doors and my ear to the sliver where they meet.

Warmth behind my ears prickles its way up my scalp. My teeth dig into my lower lip. Calvin’s grunts are virile venom injected into my bloodstream and surging between my legs. There’s a sharp slap. My hand curls around the doorknob. It turns. Adrenaline courses through me faster than disbelief or sense. I push it open.

The woman on her knees has her cheek on the mattress. Calvin’s muscles are tight, and his ass flexes as he thrusts into her. He smacks her backside, and she jerks, but he holds her to the bed with a hand around her neck.

My dry throat turns my cry for help into a stunned whisper. Calvin whips around anyway, jarring me from my trance. “Help,” I screech suddenly as he jumps from the bed. “Please h-help, I’ve been kidnapped, my name is Cat—”

In a split second, my back is pulled against his front. His hand clamps over my mouth. My screams don’t relent as the woman looks over her shoulder. She’s blindfolded with fabric that almost covers her entire face. I’m fighting Calvin’s strength, trying to ignore the hardness digging into my back while he drags me from the room. He throws his shoulder into the next door we come across, and it pops open. He kicks it shut with his foot before throwing me further into the room.

Before I can even right myself, he picks me up and tosses me. I land with a bounce on a mattress. He’s on me in a second, his long body covering mine, his hand back over my mouth. “What the fuck are you doing?”

The harder I wriggle, the heavier his torso gets, but even when my breath runs out, my screams don’t stop. His fingers seem to go through my cheeks to my molars.

“Shut up,” he snaps, pinning my arms to my body with his elbows.

My hips rear to shove him off. My screaming dies instantly because he moans, a pained but lustful sound. It’s then that I notice his length has slid up my inner thigh, under my nightgown. His mouth drops to the curve of my neck, and his hand muffles my gasp. He bites my shoulder, pulling skin between his teeth like he’s about to dig into a meal.

My protests are pathetic gurgling under his gag. I yank at his wrist, trying desperately to free my mouth.

He lowers his hand to trace the line of my underwear. “If you don’t stop squirming, I’m going to fuck you.”

He shifts my panties aside. I shake my head hard, pleading with eyes swallowed by pupils. He fixes my thigh against the mattress with a firm hand. He’s everywhere at once, making me his doll. There’s pressure at my entrance, and it’s burning hot. My legs fight to close. His fingers squeeze into my thigh. My pussy grasps for his crown, but my teeth try vainly for the skin of his hand.

His hips roll in waves. “Come on,” he says, his jaw so tense it could snap. When he’s worked his head in, I’m groaning from my chest, my face flushed. “You like that,” he says.

I want to hit him, slap him, push him away. More than that, there’s this visceral need unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It’s so thick I’m choking on it.

He lowers his mouth to my ear and waits there. His breath seems like it could blister my skin. “Tell me you like it.”

I shake my head hard.

His tongue traces the shell of my ear until it reaches my lobe. He takes it between his teeth. “No?”

I’m certain my tightly-coiled body is going to break in half. His head rises to hover above me. He removes his hand, and my mouth tilts up. He laughs something base and gritty and stands in a flash, leaving me open and bared to him. His gaze drops between my legs, and his dick is thick in his large hand. He takes another step away from me.

“Do not pull a stunt like this again,” he says. “This is your warning. Go back to your room. Stay there until I say you can come out.”

The next thing I hear is the slam of his bedroom door. I’m stunned and alone, my chest heaving with deep breaths. I fix my nightgown, my underwear. I follow his scent until my ear is back at the doors where I hear muffled voices. A hand on my shoulder makes me spin around with a gasp and flatten my back against the wood.

“Shh, Cataline.” Norman’s eyes are sympathetic in the dark. “I’ll escort you back to your room.”

My breath catches in my throat at the sight of him. Had he heard me scream? Did he see anything? “You don’t have to escort me,” I say. “I’ll go.”

His head hangs slightly as he shakes it. “It wasn’t an offer.”

I descend the stairs with him behind me.

“I’m sorry, dear, but I have to lock it.”

“Oh,” I say, clasping the doorway’s molding. “Please, Norman. Don’t lock it. I can’t stay in this room alone any longer.”

“I’m sorry. It’s not up to me.”

He pulls the door shut once I remove my hands, sliding the lock into place after him. Alone, I am unable to fight the feelings of confusion washing over me. I slip between the buttery sheets feeling filthy. There is a strain of anger coursing through me—anger for my missed opportunity, anger with Calvin. But my hottest anger stems from the fact that underneath him, my fight wavered. My body threatened to give in. I began to melt.

I get fleeting satisfaction from the way my bedroom door splinters down the middle when I slam it. My control is proving slippery around her—a first for me. I’m too strong, too powerful for that. I’m not built to lose control, except when it comes to those who deserve it. Criminals. Killers. People who hurt the innocent. Even whores, who can sometimes fix what a good kill can’t. Cataline is none of those things.

The woman is still in position on my bed, her ass red with my handprints as it wiggles in the air. Unlike Cataline, she knows better than to move an inch without my permission.

“Who was that?” she asks, searching for me behind the blindfold.

“Nobody.”

“Did she say something about being kidnapped?”

I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose as I cross the room. “It’s my niece. Got into some trouble at home, so her parents sent her here for the school year.”

“Oh.”

I snatch her clothing from the floor and toss it at her. “Get out.”

Her bottom lip puckers. “But you paid for the whole night.”

“Consider it a generous tip.”

Her body sags before she huffs and leisurely gets to her feet. She pulls off the makeshift mask, and I cringe, wishing she’d leave it until she’s out of the room. I recline on the bed, my arm behind my head, watching as she pulls a tube top over her gigantic tits and squeezes into jeans. She shoves a hand into her pocket and tosses gum in her mouth as she prowls toward the bed.

“You sure?” she asks. She pops the gum and leans over to wrap her hand around me. She winks and drops her gaze as her fist moves up and down. “Pretty thing like this should be in the movies.”