She stood, adjusting the dress’s fabric down over her arse and up to her shoulders, then left him with her head still lowered.
The second she was gone a heaviness settled on his chest. He missed her. He didn’t like not having her in his sight.
Colin lay back heavily, running his palm roughly over his short hair. He was exhausted, both physically and mentally. That painting had taken a lot out of him, and then this morning…the way she’d seemed to need him inside her.
He couldn’t do this much longer. And if he was being honest with himself, the things he was doing with her made him just as guilty as sex would have, but he just couldn’t bring himself to take full advantage of her. At this point he didn’t know if it was for her future benefit or his own. Her parents had basically hired him to save her, and here he was enjoying the fuck out of their enslaved daughter. Wishing he could have more.
The thought made him want to vomit.
He rolled out of bed and took a scalding shower. Then fell back into the sheets and slept restlessly until after lunch. He woke with Angela’s sweet, feminine scent around him.
Immediately, he became hard.
And his stomach growled.
Hungry and horny. Fucking fantastic.
It was one thing to be turned on by the girl when she was right in front of him, but craving her when she was out of sight was not acceptable.
Still, he wondered where she was now. Marco knew he preferred her. He wouldn’t have leant her to that Italian bastard before he had to leave today, would he? Colin sat straight up in bed, his heart hammering at the thought of that arsehole touching her.
Easy, laddie, he told himself, but he couldn’t seem to calm. His chest constricted and his skin flushed as something shifted and changed inside him. Marco had no right to give her to another man.
No right? Ha. Colin scrubbed his face with his hand and fought back an ironic laugh as reality hit him.
Somewhere along the line in these few short days he’d stopped thinking of Angela as Marco’s, and started thinking of the girl as his. His to protect. His to save. His to…pleasure. The very idea that another man could have his hands on her at that moment had him climbing out of bed and throwing on clothes, pissed off and ready to beat some serious arse into the ground.
Christ Almighty. Colin was right fucked.
That painting…
Oh, God, that painting. It was all I could think of as I lay on my small bed listening to Mia hum a European folk song as she played solitaire at the table.
Mr. Douglas’s image had detonated some kind of bomb inside me, hitting every nerve and conjuring every emotion. I was a mess. The painting was like a nightmare—vivid in its terror, and in the midst of it all had been me. Beautiful.
He thought I was beautiful. Not just a sex object or toy. Nobody at the villa had ever made me feel that way except Josef, but he was my friend. Mr. Douglas had depicted me as soulful. Alive.
And I felt it.
It’d been so long since I felt alive. It almost hurt to feel that way in a place like this, where I had no chance of acting on it. I was a caged animal with a will to live fully. I’d worked hard to kill that will, because it did nothing but hurt me to feel that way in here.
Why was he doing this to me? Part of me felt angry at his insensitivity. How dare he paint me like that, drudging up old hopes and wishes, when it was only a short matter of time before he’d leave me and possibly never return?
Stop! There I went again, thinking as if Mr. Douglas saw me as anything other than a slave. Less than human. Which he couldn’t possibly. He was only seeing me with his artist’s eye. I was over-thinking the whole painting.
My feelings were all over the place.
Josef came in the room, his hair a mess. Must’ve been an active morning for him. He grinned at me and stripped naked. He was so cute. Marco kept him lean by not feeding him enough and not letting him workout with weights, which made Josef appear younger. He looked like a teen when he was actually in his mid-twenties. He came over and squatted next to me, running a hand over my forehead.
“You feeling okay?” he asked in Spanish.
I nodded. He frowned, obviously able to tell I was lying. The press of his lips together showed me he wanted to say something—ask something, but he couldn’t.
“Patrons…” he said, searching for the words. “They come and go. Our time with some is more significant than others. We enjoy the better ones while we can, and then we must let them go.”
“I know,” I whispered. He was right, and I could always count on Josef. But his words stung my eyes.
He ran a hand through my hair, which appeared bright yellow-gold against his tanned skin.
“You are to put on a bathing suit, sunhat, and sunglasses and be at the ready in case Se?or Douglas asks for you. He is at the pool. You are being permitted in the lounging area. We will go together once I’m showered.”