XXX - 145 Enslave: The Taming of the Beast by Cathy Yardley Page A

for something less tangible: maybe information? Although she doubted she would be able to find anything that would be useful to blackmail him with. After all, she was a prisoner here. Who was she going to tell? Even if she escaped, she doubted she was strong enough to stay away from him for long.
Especially since, with every passing day, she seemed to grow more and more addicted to him.
She didn’t know how it was happening. Stockholm syndrome, perhaps, that bizarre dysfunction where captives became dependent on their captors. Was she losing herself, then?
She sighed. It might be easier if he weren’t such a damned good lover.
The “punishments” had not stopped, but they were no longer menacing. They were strangely ritualistic. If she were the slightest bit uncomfortable, he seemed able to sense it, and quickly changed the scenario to better accommodate her. Last night, he’d handcuffed her to the banister of the curving stairs, going down on her as she writhed, unable to move. But when he’d seen that the cuffs were biting into her wrists, he’d quickly changed the binding to soft silk cloths. And she’d stood there, rubbing at her wrists…waiting for him to return. She’d actually lifted her arms, holding still so he could secure her in place before continuing his sensual torment.
He wasn’t trying to hurt her. He was trying to pleasure her. And it was working more than she’d ever dreamed.
She supposed it should have been demeaning, strutting around a man’s house completely nude, awaiting his orders, making herself available to his every whim. But what happened when your body started craving those whims? When you found yourself going out of your way to make sure he’d be around? When you started pretending defiance, rather than expressing the anger you knew you righteously deserved to display?
What was she supposed to do when she was starting to enjoy the game?
She explored the house instead. He rarely left the mansion—the fortress, to be more accurate—so now that she was alone and not locked in her room, she took the opportunity. Maybe she’d find something to answer the questions that were beginning to plague her, more and more.
Maybe, just maybe, she’d find a way out, literally and figuratively.
She went down the hallway that led to her bedroom. Grimly, she tried every door. Most of them were locked. She turned the handle on one, and when it opened, she entered cautiously.
It was a home theater, in the true sense of the word, like those owned by all those stars on Cribs or Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous or any of the other reality shows her sister Irina watched so intently had. There were eight very plush seats, a large screen, and discreet but obviously high-tech speakers. Built-in bookcases covered the back wall beneath the projector, stocked full of high-definition DVDs. She glanced over the titles absently. There were typical guy flicks: 300, Gladiator, Die Hard . Any number of mindless action movies that even she enjoyed from time to time. A lot of noir-styled movies with anti-heroes, she noticed: The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, L.A. Confidential. The Usual Suspects. Chinatown .
Depressing , she thought. So it was either blood-and-guts or criminal despair. It suited what she knew about him. She had to be crazy to feel anything for such a…
Her eyes narrowed as she got to the lowest corner of the bookshelf.
“Cartoons?” she murmured in surprise, tracing her finger over the covers. The Incredibles. 101 Dalmations. Shrek. Kung Fu Panda .
She heard a noise, and abruptly stood, her heart racing. It came from the door she’d left open. More specifically, it came from the far end of the hallway.
“Dominic?” she called softly. Would he be angry, finding her nosing about in his rooms?
What would he do?
It wasn’t fear, she realized. It was excitement.
She ignored that discovery, focusing instead on what she was hearing. It was a soft clicking sound, vaguely familiar. It was followed by a