He pauses, rubs the area soothingly, and then does it again, slapping my right cheek with his open palm. Twenty slaps in quick succession, each one harder than the rest. It hurts; this is not a light, playful spanking.

He means to cause me pain.

Forgetting all about my resolution to play along, I begin to struggle, frightened. He holds me down easily, then transfers his attention to my other butt cheek, slapping it twenty times with equal force.

By the time he pauses, I’m sobbing into the mattress, begging him to stop. My backside feels like it’s burning, throbbing in agony.

Even worse than the pain is the irrational sense of betrayal. To my horror, I realize that I had begun to trust my captor, to feel like I knew him a bit.

He’d caused me pain before, but I didn’t think it was on purpose. I thought it was just because I was so new to sex. I hoped my body would adjust and there would be only pleasure in the future.

I was obviously a fool.

My entire body is shaking, and I can’t stop crying. He’s still holding me down, and I’m terrified of what he’ll do next.

What he does next is as shocking as what he did before.

He turns me over and lifts me into his arms. Then he sits down, holding me on his lap, and rocks me back and forth. Gently, sweetly, like I’m a child that he’s trying to console.

And despite everything, I bury my face against his shoulder and sob, desperately needing that illusion of tenderness, craving comfort from the one who made me hurt.

* * *

After I’m a bit more calm, he stands up and places me on my feet. My legs feel weak and shaky, and I sway a little as he carefully undresses me.

I wait for him to say something. Maybe to apologize or to explain why he hurt me. Was he punishing me? If so, I want to know what I did, so I can avoid doing it in the future.

But he doesn’t speak—he simply takes off my clothes. When I’m naked, he begins to undress himself.

I watch him with a strange mixture of distress and curiosity. His body is still a mystery to me because I’ve kept my eyes closed for the last two nights. I haven’t even seen his sex yet, even though I’ve felt it inside me.

So now I look at him.

His figure is magnificent. Completely male. Wide shoulders, a narrow waist, lean hips. He’s powerfully muscled all over, but not in a steroid-enhanced bodybuilder way. Instead, he looks like a warrior. For some reason, I can easily picture him swinging a sword, cutting down his enemies. I notice a long scar on his thigh and another one on his shoulder. They only add to the warrior impression.

His skin is tan all over, with just the right amount of hair on his chest. There’s more dark hair around his navel and trailing down to his groin area. His skin color makes me think he either goes around naked, or he’s naturally darker, like me. Perhaps he has some Latino ancestry, too.

He’s also fully aroused. I can see his cock jutting out at me. It’s long and thick, similar to the ones I’ve seen in porn. No wonder I’m sore. I can’t believe he’s even able to fit inside me.

After we’re both naked, he guides me to the bed. “I want you on all fours,” he says quietly, giving me a light push.

My heart jumps in panic, and I resist for a second, turning to look at him instead. “Are you—” I swallow hard. “Are you going to hurt me again?”

“I haven’t decided,” he murmurs, lifting his hand to cup my breast. His thumb rubs my nipple, makes it harden. “I think it’s probably enough for now.”

Enough for now? I want to scream.

“Are you a sadist?” The question escapes me before I can think, and I freeze in place waiting for his answer.

He smiles at me. It’s his beautiful Lucifer smile. “Yes, my pet,” he says softly. “Sometimes I am. Now be a good girl and do as I asked. You might not like what happens otherwise . . .”

Before he even finishes speaking, I scramble to obey, getting on my hands and knees on the bed. Despite the warmth in the room, I’m shivering, trembling from head to toe.

Violent, gruesome images fill my mind, making me feel ill. I don’t know much about S&M. Fifty Shades and a few other books of its ilk are the extent of my experience with the subject, but none of those romances depicted anything like my situation now. Even in my darkest, most secret fantasies, I’ve never imagined being held captive by a self-admitted sadist.

What is he going to do? Whip me? Torture me? Chain me in a dungeon? Is there even a dungeon on this island? I picture a stone chamber filled with torture instruments, like in a movie about the Spanish Inquisition, and I want to puke. I’m sure normal BDSM is nothing like that, but there’s nothing normal about my situation with Julian. He can literally do anything he wants to me.

He gets on the bed behind me and strokes my back. His touch is slow, gentle. It would be soothing, except I’m cringing, expecting a blow at any moment.

He probably realizes it because he leans over me and whispers in my ear, “Relax, Nora. I won’t do anything else tonight.”

I almost collapse on the bed in relief. Tears run down my face again. This time, they’re tears of relief and gratitude. I’m pathetically grateful that he won’t hurt me again. At least, not tonight.

And then I’m horrified. Horrified and disgusted—because when he starts kissing my neck, my body begins to respond to him as though nothing had happened. As though it’s never known a moment of pain at his hands.

My stupid body doesn’t care that he’s a depraved bastard. That he’s going to hurt me again and again. No, my body wants pleasure, and it doesn’t care about anything else.

His warm mouth moves from my neck to my shoulders, then over my back. My breathing is shallow, erratic. Despite his reassurance, I’m still afraid of him, and the fear somehow makes me wetter.

His lips move to my buttocks, kiss the area that he hurt just a few minutes earlier. His hand pushes on my lower back, and I arch slightly under his touch, understanding his unspoken command. His fingers slip between my legs, and one long finger finds its way into my slippery channel, entering deeply.

He curves that finger inside me, and I gasp as he presses on some sensitive spot deep inside. It makes me tense and tremble—but this time, not from fear.

As he pushes that curved finger in and out, I feel a pressure gathering inside me. My heartbeat skyrockets, and I suddenly feel hot, as though I’m burning from within. And then a powerful orgasm tears through my body, originating at my core and spreading outward. It’s so strong that my vision blurs for a moment and I almost collapse on the bed.

Before my pulsations even stop, he gets on his knees behind me and begins to push in.

I’m wet and his entry is relatively easy, though he still feels huge inside me. My inner tissues feel tender and sore from last night’s hard use, and I can’t help a slight gasp of pain at the invasion. When he’s in fully, his groin presses against my burning bottom, adding to the discomfort.

Grasping my hips, he begins to move in and out, slowly and rhythmically. Despite the initial pain, my body appears to like the feeling of fullness, of being stretched, and responds by producing even more lubrication. As his pace picks up, my breathing accelerates and helpless moans escape my throat each time he pushes deeply into me.

Suddenly, with no warning, my muscles tighten as my senses reach fever-pitch. The release ripples through me, the pleasure stunning in its intensity. Behind me, I can hear his groan as my climax provokes his own—and feel the warm spurt of his seed inside me.

And then we both collapse on the bed, his body heavy and slick with perspiration on top of mine.

Chapter 9

I wake up slowly, in stages. First, I feel the tickling sensation of my hair on my face. Then the warmth of the sun on my uncovered arm. For a moment, my mind is floating in that soft, comfortable limbo between sleep and wakefulness, between dreams and reality.

I keep my eyes closed, not wanting to wake fully, because this is so nice.

Then I realize I can smell pancakes cooking in the kitchen.

My lips curl in a smile. It’s the weekend, and my mom decided to spoil us again. She makes pancakes on special occasions and sometimes just because.

The hair tickles me again, and I reluctantly move my arm to push it off my face.

I’m more awake now, and the warm feeling inside me dissipates, replaced by harsh, gnawing fear.

No, please let it all be a dream. Please let it all be a bad dream.

I open my eyes.

It’s not a dream. I can still smell the pancakes, but there’s no way it could be my mom cooking them.

I’m on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, held captive by a man who derives pleasure from hurting me.

I stretch carefully, taking stock of my body. Other than a slight tenderness in my bottom, I seem to be mostly fine. He had only taken me once last night, for which I am grateful.

Getting up, I walk naked to the mirror and look at my back. There are faint bruises on my buttocks, but nothing major. That’s one of the benefits of my golden-tinted skin—I don’t bruise easily. By tomorrow, it should look completely normal.

All in all, I seem to have survived another night in my captor’s bed.

As I brush my teeth, I think back to last evening. The dinner, my silly plan to seduce him, my feeling of betrayal at his actions . . .

I can’t believe I had begun to trust him even a tiny bit. Normal men don’t kidnap girls from the park. They don’t drug them and bring them to a private island. Men who like normal, consensual sex don’t keep women captive.

No, Julian is not normal. He’s a sadistic control freak, and I can never forget it. The fact that he hasn’t hurt me badly yet doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a matter of time before he does something truly awful to me.

I need to escape before that happens, and I can’t take my sweet time seducing Julian. He’s far too dangerous and unpredictable.

I need to find a way off this island.

* * *

After I take a quick shower and brush my teeth, I go downstairs for breakfast. Beth must’ve already been in my room because there is another fresh set of clothes laid out. A swimsuit, flip-flops, and another sundress.

Beth herself is in the kitchen, and so are the pancakes I’d smelled earlier.

At my entrance, she smiles at me, yesterday’s tension apparently forgotten. “Good morning,” she says cheerfully. “How are you feeling?”

I give her an incredulous look. Does she know what Julian did to me? “Oh, just great,” I say sarcastically.

“That’s good.” She seems oblivious to my tone. “Julian was afraid you might be a bit sore this morning, so he left me a special cream to give you just in case.”

She does know.

“How do you live with yourself?” I ask, genuinely curious. How can a woman stand by and watch another woman being abused like this? How can she work for this cruel man?

Instead of answering, Beth places a large, fluffy pancake on a plate and brings it to me. There is also sliced mango on the table, right next to a bottle of maple syrup.

“Eat, Nora,” she says, not unkindly.

I give her a bitter look and dig into the pancake. It’s delicious. I think she added bananas to the batter because I can taste their sweetness. I don’t even need the maple syrup, although I do add a few slices of mango for additional flavor.

Beth smiles again, and goes back to doing various kitchen chores.

After breakfast, I leave the house and explore the island on my own. Beth doesn’t stop me. I still find it shocking that they’re letting me wander around like this. They must be completely confident there is no way off the island.

Well, I intend to find a way.

I walk tirelessly for hours in the hot sun, until the flip-flops I’m wearing give me a blister. I stick close to the beach, hoping to find a boat tied somewhere, maybe in a cave or a lagoon.

But I find nothing.

How did I get here? Was it by plane or helicopter? Julian did mention yesterday that he had originally discovered this place while flying a plane. Maybe that’s how he brought me here, via a private plane?

That would not be good. Even if I found the plane sitting somewhere, how would I fly it? I imagine it must be at least somewhat complicated.

Then again, with sufficient incentive, I might be able to figure it out. I’m not stupid, and flying a plane is not rocket science.