Tender Mercies

Eight

Asher descended the stairs, clicking the most recently dialed number on his cell as he went. “Hello?” a guarded voice answered.

“Is this Lainey?”

“Yes, who is this?” But she knew. He could tell from her voice that she knew.

“This is Asher. Grace is with me.”

A long silence. When she spoke, her voice cracked. “Please let her go. She needs to come home where she’ll be safe.”

He sighed. “I need you to listen to me, Lainey. The things she’s been through . . . you don’t just recover from them. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

There was more silence, except for the sound of soft crying. Perhaps he was justifying keeping what he wanted, what he’d paid so much money to acquire.

No. He was right. Even the way she’d reacted to calling Lainey, like he was somehow punishing her by trying to get her to speak to someone who loved her. She couldn’t live in that world. Not anymore. But he could give her a small piece of it.

“I need you to do me a favor.”

“Why would I do anything to help you?” Her voice was like acid.

“It’s for Grace. I’m not the one who hurt her.”

“But you’re the one keeping her now.”

He sighed. “I’m not going to debate this with you. You can think I’m the bad guy all you want. There is nothing you can do to alter the course of her life. What you can do is help her by doing what I say. I want her to be able to maintain a friendship, so I need you to agree to not bring up anything about her current or past situation on the island. It’s too upsetting for her. If she chooses to talk about it, let her come to you. Can you do that for me?”

“Fine. But I don’t like you.”

He chuckled. “I can’t imagine what you must feel about Lucas, then. And Lainey?”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

He stared at the phone, unsure why it mattered so much to him that Grace be able to connect with this friend. It made her so uncomfortable.

Even so, he couldn’t let her erase it all. He wanted to give her every chance possible to heal as much as she could. Rekindling a close friendship seemed like a step in that direction.

A few hours later he returned to the bedroom to find Grace standing naked in the corner, just as he’d left her. His cock hardened at the sight of her so delicate and vulnerable. He’d made sure to keep his footfalls silent when he’d come back, to see if she was where she was supposed to be, not trying to cheat or squirm out of the punishment. She hadn’t moved an inch.

“Kitten?”

She looked up, her eyes red, her lower lip trembling. It made him want to shove her against the wall and f*ck her right then. It was so wrong that her tears turned him on.

“Yes, Master?”

“Are you going to continue to show me attitude?”

“No, Master.”

He knew it wasn’t the punishment that drove her. It wasn’t the idea of standing for hours in a corner like some recalcitrant child. She was ashamed she’d displeased him. It genuinely upset her. When she looked at him, he could see how much she wanted to give to him and how afraid she still was that he might be toying with her. He was surprised she was already as willing as she was to please and obey, but she’d latched onto him as her savior, as her god. And every second standing in her presence made him want to step more firmly into that role.

It obviously weighed on her, her two minor bits of disobedience. With Darcy, he wouldn’t have worked up to punishment for such minor issues. It wouldn’t have been worth the hassle. Right or wrong, though, he couldn’t stand to let Grace get away with even the smallest infraction. He wanted everything from her. Every tiny corner in her mind and in her heart he wanted as his own personal real estate. He wanted not the slightest bit of hesitance when he issued a command. He wanted her to be willing, grateful, subservient putty in his hands. And he was quickly running out of motivation to feel guilt for that.

He handed her the cell phone. “Call Lainey again.”

A flicker of something passed over her face. Not defiance. Resignation. Good. She was already resolving to be his good girl.

She took the phone from him and dialed. The call started tentatively, but within a few moments they were edging around the circumstances of Grace’s life to talk about other things, catching up on what Lainey had been up to. He was thankful the friend was listening to him and not letting her personal feelings get in the way of Grace’s own good.

He made the bed, smiling when she lost herself for a moment and gushed about her room and the balcony and the view. Already she sounded somewhat like a person. For all Lucas had done to her, he hadn’t left her an empty shell yet. She was still in there somewhere, with wants and desires and dreams that had been cast aside in favor of survival.

Several minutes later she shyly handed the phone to him, brushing a stray strand of hair behind her shoulder. “Thank you, Master.”

He slipped the cell into his pocket and pulled her flush against him, not giving her time to react or process. Then his fingers were inside her. He let out a satisfied chuckle at how wet she was for him, how desperately her body sought completion with his, even if her mind was still quite terrified. His mouth moved to the shell of her ear.

“I plan to be inside you, very soon,” he practically growled at her.

Her answering whimper drew his eyes to hers. He could see the conflicting emotions flitting over her face, the edges of lust trying to overtake the fear, the confusion and shame over feeling anything at being treated this way. Too many negative emotions appeared to overwhelm her, until she seemed to crawl inside herself and go numb.

“Grace, stay right here with me. You aren’t with him. I’m not him.”

The use of her name called her back. She was still afraid, obviously. No reason she shouldn’t be. He was moving the timetable of his plans for her at a warp speed that made even him dizzy. He knew it was unfair, wrong. He knew how broken and damaged she was, how traumatized.

She did something to him, something almost hypnotic. There were no words in the English language, or that of the island, to express the mad possession he felt when he was near her. The need to mark. And take. And rut like animals until they were both sweaty and sated.

He wanted her to beg him to never remove his hands from her body. And though such an outcome seemed improbable given her history, some part of him still hoped for that ending. Asher licked the side of her throat and sucked on her pulse point. It was beating wildly against his mouth like a bird trapped in a small cage, fluttering to escape.

His fingers dove back inside her at a harder and heavier pace. In his head he could hear tribal drums as if they’d been taken with a sexual possession they were both helpless to stop. In reality, she was the only helpless one in this equation, but it only made his cock harder, only made him grip her tighter.

“Grace, Grace, Grace.” He chanted the word, soft and low, like a prayer in her ear, and with every repetition of her name another muscle group seemed to relax until her body was loose and receptive, waiting for him to come fill her. “Yes, that’s it, kitten. You know what I want from you. Whose cunt is this?”

“Yours, Master.” Her hips were bucking against him now, f*cking his fingers, giving as much as he gave. It was clear she’d moved beyond cognitive thought and all the reasons she should feel shame for still wanting something so carnal. The only thing that seemed to exist was her body and what it needed from him in this moment.

“I will never use your kink against you. I will never deny you an orgasm. I don’t want you to ever lose touch with your own body and pleasure again. Come for me.”

She tensed as if she wasn’t sure she could just come on demand like that.

“Grace . . . relax. Your body knows what it wants. Just let it obey me.” As his fingers moved inside her, his thumb stroking over her *, he felt her let go and come apart in his hands.

***

Grace shuddered against him as once again her body’s reactions spun out of control. The pleasure seemed to go on for a quiet eternity, punctuated only by the ragged sound of her own breath. What was this man doing to her? How can I feel this way after Lucas? What’s wrong with me?

The sound of a zipper pulled her out of her thoughts. He’d moved away to get his clothes off. And then he was standing there, too beautiful to be real. Her mouth went dry. Sure, Lucas had been attractive. Muscle-group to muscle-group, it would have been a hard contest. Until she moved up to faces. Whereas Lucas had black eyes like pits you could starve and die in, Asher’s were like intense blue flame, eyes that softened when they looked at her in a way Lucas’s never had, no matter how hard she’d tried to please him.

She carefully avoided staring at his cock, unsure if she could deal with that appendage in a positive way again. Her hand had been on it the night before, and she’d been okay enough then, but what about when he f*cked her? He was thicker than Lucas. He would feel different inside, right? The self-talk was still running through her head when Asher moved her to her hands and knees on the bed.

The world narrowed to the feelings gathering below her waist. Her wetness made everything feel as if it throbbed more, blood rushing south to prepare her for what was about to happen, even as her mind struggled to catch up to what her body wanted. Her body wanted to submit to him like some bitch in heat, wanted to be spread open until his leering gaze could take in every contour of her cunt.

A shiver slid over her. So, so wrong. Fear warred with lust as he prodded at her opening, and then he was inside her. She panicked as memories of Lucas raping her bloomed in her mind, fresh pain lancing through her.

“No, please . . . oh God, please stop.” She was whimpering, shaking, not believing he would stop, hating herself for begging him to, for being anything but endlessly grateful for the things he’d given her and the things he’d chosen not to take away.

And then he wasn’t inside her anymore.

Asher moved onto the bed, cradling her in his arms, rocking her, whispering Shhhh in her ear. She knew her body was his to take and bizarrely wanted to give it to him. She wanted to wrap her will up in a box, shutting out all her protests and fears. She wanted to put a bow on it and lay it at his feet.

And yet.

At some point he would take her, and he wouldn’t stop. If she’d kept her mouth shut and let him keep going, maybe the flashback would have passed. Now it would only be more frightening the next time he approached her like this. Until they breached this wall without her losing her mind.

What if she kept begging? What if she couldn’t stop and just let him take and use and have that which he’d paid for and fed and clothed? Some wild and frenzied part of her prayed that the next time he would gag her so her protests couldn’t reach him and they could get through it without the event building ever larger and scarier in her head with each failed attempt.

There was a long moment of silence. He was thinking so loud she could almost hear it. Or perhaps that was just the way of things after being held captive in a dungeon for months. You became less human, more animal. You lived on instincts, read body language. You learned to anticipate things even if sometimes you desperately wanted to remain in the dark about the next moment.

Right now, Grace knew he was contemplating his next action. Would he punish her for begging him to stop? Would he start again? Would he start handling her like a piece of fragile, blown glass? Something of beauty to keep in a curio cabinet, but never to touch.

He sighed, and she went stiff.

“I’m sorry, Master.”

“For?”

His hand had gone to stroking through her hair and down her back. It was so soothing she couldn’t think. Was he angry with her? He didn’t sound angry. Was he disappointed? It occurred to her that the last thing she ever wanted to do was disappoint this man. And it was becoming less about the fear he’d return her to Lucas. On some basic level, she couldn’t convince herself he’d do that even though they were still relative strangers to each other. Another part of her brain jumped in immediately to chastise her for being so stupid and trusting. Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time? With the last one?

“I must be such a disappointment for you,” she whispered, finally.

He stopped petting her hair and the silence seemed to suck the oxygen from the room. “Let me get this straight . . . you are tortured for months and nearly starved, then you consider it your fault when you’re afraid of a complete stranger who just bought you?”

She shrugged, no longer sure what the correct answer was. She’d made a list in her head of all the times she’d already disappointed or disobeyed when she’d never before wanted this much to give something to another person in gratitude for the hell he’d taken her away from.

“Look at me,” he demanded.

She raised her face to his. If she hadn’t been wrapped in his arms, she would have run far away from the look in his eyes. She was still terrified to have that kind of intensity turned on her. Especially when she wasn’t altogether sure what it meant yet. If it meant pain or pleasure or something in between.

His fingers played over the column of her throat above the collar whose weight was already becoming a comfort of sorts. “I believe you and I both came to this island for the same reason. We both wanted something real. I wanted something real that was legal, where I could be sure the other person came to me freely. I never saw myself as the type of man who would just take without some basic initial consent in place first. But when I saw you, the only thing I could think of was possessing you. I know what you’ve been through. I know I’m probably damaging you further. I should stop making excuses and release you, find someone out in the real world that can help you somehow.”

He said real world as if they had both been caught up in some fuzzy bubble of a dream. Was this not real? And had he damaged her further? She couldn’t think of a way he had.

She gripped his arms, clutching onto him like a lifeline. “Please, don’t get rid of me.”

He lifted her chin. “Kitten, I don’t want to be a monster with you, but I won’t own you while you call the shots. No matter your history. I understand what you’ve been through is unimaginable, which is why I’m offering you your freedom off this island. I’m sure you would be welcome with Lainey. But if you stay, I will f*ck you, and there will be no plea for mercy that will make me stop. When I said I was going to be inside you very soon, I meant it. I won’t have another slave that I don’t own on every level.”

Something that had been coiled tightly inside her, feeling like a bomb about to go off, began to loosen. The vise in her chest released, and she could breathe normally again. He wasn’t going to torture her with the growing dread, wondering if he would stop or if he wouldn’t. She had her answer on that, at least.

Grace knew she should take the offer. But then what? If she took her chance at freedom she’d die alone and miserable. She could see no other way it could play out. In all the times she’d thought about it outside of impossible daydreams, she’d imagined being scared to leave her house, jumping at every noise, fearing every man that got near her, bile rising in her throat if one actually touched her, no matter how innocent or accidental the touch, never being able to have a normal relationship with a man. And kink was definitely off the table.

But Asher was right. Her body responded to what it responded to. Inexplicably, all of Lucas’s cruel treatment couldn’t rewire her brain or make her skin stop humming when in the presence of a dominant male. No matter how scared she was.

If she went back home, she could pretend she wasn’t wrong, but she knew her hand would still drift between her legs, and she’d still have the same f*cked-up fantasies. And each time she brought herself off, she would die just a little more. And not a single living soul would understand her, what she felt, what she needed but could never have, what her body still wanted in spite of all the evidence she’d acquired to prove it could never work. Not in real life. Not ever.

The alternative was still holding her, waiting. She wanted him to rescind the offer because she couldn’t handle this kind of responsibility again. His jaw clenched as if holding back the words that would say: F*ck it. You’re mine. You belong to me and I’ll take you until you stop crying and beg me to keep going.

God, why couldn’t it have been Asher instead of Lucas the first time? Why? She was being teased with something she should have had. And if she took it now, what did that say about her? Somehow him giving her a chance at freedom was worse than not giving it because once again she was faced with the choice . . . be free or be a slave. And once again she wanted to be the latter, wanted to trust that this could be something other than a waking nightmare.

But if she made the wrong choice again . . .

Him buying her had been the one shining beacon. Whatever he did to her, she hadn’t voluntarily walked into it. Those thoughts ran on a loop in her mind until finally he broke the tension, shoving past the barriers of a battle he’d been waging in his own mind. A battle she’d felt as his hands had tightened on her arms, no doubt leaving marks that would later turn to bruises.

She knew she’d stand in front of the mirror, running her fingers over the marks left by his hand, and that somehow, it wouldn’t be the same as the marks Lucas had forced her to endure. They would be marks she’d touch and look at every day, becoming sadder as they faded, leaving nothing but the memory of his hands on her.

He gripped her even tighter so that she had to bite her lip not to cry out. “No,” he said.

Grace was so still her breath seemed to move in and out of her more slowly and quietly, as if in stealth mode. No, what?

“I’m sorry. I thought I could give you the option of freedom. I know it’s the right thing to do. I’ve only had you a day. I shouldn’t be this attached. But I can’t do it. It’s worse that I even offered. You’re never leaving here. I will never free you.”

His voice was threaded with regret and pain, emotions she couldn’t convince herself were the same as Lucas’s Puppet Theater of Fake Feelings.

She said the only thing she could say, the only words that would move from her brain to reach her mouth. “Thank you, Master.”

Asher tensed. “For?”

“For giving me the choice long enough to know I didn’t want that burden anymore. And for taking it away before I had to decide.” Suddenly something felt safe. He wasn’t going to leave her to go through life alone and broken. He wouldn’t return her to Lucas. The flashbacks would stop; eventually they would. And if they didn’t? Then they wouldn’t have anyway. At least now there would be someone to hold her and keep away the chill from that cold, dungeon floor.

Asher lay back on the bed, a satisfied and predatory gleam in his eyes that only made Grace fall further under his power. “Straddle me, kitten.”

She followed the instruction, this time more hyper-aware of the fact that his erection was pressing against her mound and lower belly. Only this time there was no fabric standing between them. He took her hand and brought her closer to him, kissing her palm.

His words were soothing when he spoke, as if he understood she was a frightened, wild thing, and he was trying to coax her toward something she would like if only she could learn to place her trust in him. There was a promise there, and she wanted to believe in it so badly it made her ache. If only she could keep Lucas from crowding out all the good thoughts and feelings in her brain to experience one thing that was pure.

“You were okay when my fingers were inside you. This is only another part of the same body that already made you come. I perhaps shouldn’t have taken you from behind the first time, where you couldn’t see me. I was trying to avoid hurting your back.” He looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to mount him.

He was trying to make it easier, but the look in his eyes said his cock would be inside her one way or another within the next couple of minutes, either of her own volition or against her will. She could pretend she was in control and ride him like he wanted, or he could take her the way he’d started out.

No matter how long she’d been on the island, with its strange culture and laws, there was still the part of her that saw the world in the same black and white she’d been trying to escape. The thoughts that this was wrong, that she was wrong, wouldn’t stop going through her mind, even though she knew she had no hope of ever leaving this place, and no one would judge her for being a good slave.

Whatever fears she had of flashbacks and dreams that might haunt her forever, Asher was a different man, and she was his property. Her stomach fluttered at that idea, and she had to push back another redundant wave of self-recrimination. Right now, she was on top. He was giving her this to help her. And she was grateful for the small mercy.

Before he could say her name or his pet name for her in the master voice, she made the decision and shoved his cock inside her. In spite of everything that had happened, she was still dripping, a furnace of want and need and primal urges that refused to take the past into account. Everything was quiet then, except for the sound of their bodies sliding against one another as she raised and lowered herself on him.

“Good girl,” he said, the praise sending another flip of pleasure through her. The look in his eyes was so intense that she couldn’t break the contact. It was a connection that flowed between them and gave her something that felt safe to hold onto as they broke through the one wall that had scared her so much.

She’d expected he would f*ck her soon enough, once she’d known she’d been bought for that purpose. But she hadn’t expected some part of her to want him to.

“Grace,” he hissed, closing his eyes briefly, “. . . so f*cking tight. This is exactly what I want from you right now.”

The eye contact and his repeated use of her name tethered her to the here and now, and though she could feel Lucas pounding on the doors of her mind, trying to slither in where he could harm her, Asher wouldn’t loosen the connection enough for her to be tormented by the ghost hanging over them.

He did feel different. So different. His cock expanded her walls to a degree she hadn’t known was possible. A few minutes of this leisurely pace went by before he lost patience with it. He gripped her waist, holding her in place as he drove into her from below. “Come again,” he growled.

She did. And then he did. And suddenly she was lying on top of him, and he was panting. Then the realization hit her. He’d come inside her. So he must know what Lucas had done. It must have been in the papers he’d had on her that gave her name and her measurements, and God only knew how many other private details.

A few days into her imprisonment with Lucas, he’d brought a doctor in who had performed a procedure to make her unable to have children. She’d been sore for days afterward. Grace had never thought about having children. Such a choice didn’t seem to fit into the kind of lifestyle she’d wanted. With kids, she’d have to circumscribe her life so as not to warp them. In a world without legal slavery, it would have been child abuse for them to even see an obvious collar clasped around her throat, not understanding what it meant or why it was okay for a man to treat a woman that way when the whole world said otherwise.

Her fingers strayed now to the platinum band resting securely in its place around her throat. No, she’d never thought she would want children, and yet the shock of having that choice forever revoked, of no longer having the option to feel a life growing inside her, had left her mourning for days. The memories caused tears to fall again, a few dropping onto her master’s shoulder.