walked around. Went into the stores, rode some rides. It’s been years since I went into the park.”
“Hmm. Did you use the credit cards I gave you?”
“Oh, no. I used some cash I had. I . . . well, silly of me perhaps, but I’m still not used to having you pay for things for me,” she said glibly. Looking to trip me up on something, are you, you prick?
“The reason I gave you the credit cards was so you would use them, Ella. Please keep that in mind. You’ll be my wife and I’ll be the one providing for you.”
She curled her lip, staring at her toes so none of the cameras he had in the room would catch the sneer that crept over her face. “Of course, Patrick. As I said, silly of me. I’m just so used to doing for myself and all that.”
“Something you need to get over.” He spoke to somebody else, his voice muffled. “I’ll be up to see you shortly. I’m glad your appetite is returning. Perhaps you’ll be a little less tiresome.”
Tiresome. She gripped the phone, clenched her jaw. Oh, she could show him tiresome.
“I can’t wait to see you,” she murmured.
But he’d already hung up the phone.
Hanging the receiver up, she lifted her head to stare into the mirror.
Tiresome . . . that was his code.
There was one thing she hadn’t been prepared for when she started this job. A job she was sacrificing everything for. Even her sense of pride, her self-worth.
She’d never planned on sleeping with him.
Nor would she have if she hadn’t realized just how messed up things were. At least she liked to think that. But after he’d raped her, things changed. It hadn’t been cruel, not compared to the way he’d treated many of the girls he sold—she knew that in brutal, stark clarity—but the son of a bitch had still ignored her when she said no. She hadn’t been able to fight him and make him stop the way she could have . . . not without making him question too many things.
It had come to down to two choices . . . lie there and just take it, or make him stop. But if she’d done that, it would have shattered everything. All the things she’d done would have been in vain.
She still had the shame, the anger tugging inside her. Even knowing she’d done the right thing, it had taken her weeks to be able to look herself in the eye. Now, she lived with that memory in her head. The next day, he’d informed her, “Hopefully you won’t always be so tiresome in bed, Ella.”
From then on out, even as the nausea twisted through her later, she made it her mission—she’d damn well not have the choice taken out of her hands. If she was going to have sex with the twat, she’d do it on her terms.
If that made her less in the eyes of some, so be it. But she’d rather have sex with the monster and be in control than be another one of his victims.
It wouldn’t last forever, either.
Sooner or later, it had to end, she told herself.
Sooner or later.
Sooner or later . . . but how much longer was that going to be?
* * *
HE was staying on the property.
Joss figured that little detail out about two hours later, after Mike had finally stopped trailing along after Alyssa Brascum.
Mike had managed to get her full name out of her, had flirted with all the girls in the group, had made buddies with the guys, and then disappeared, a nice, friendly sort of guy who had been killing time in between jobs.
That was the line he’d used.
Contract work. He did contract work and he was between jobs.
Nice way to describe stealing girls, Joss thought as he settled himself down in the shadows, staring toward the little cabin. All around him there were trees, and it was the best camouflage he could ask for. It wasn’t bad security there, and Sellers wasn’t exactly unaware. Still, neither the security nor Sellers was prepared for somebody like Joss.
As he shifted on the ground, back against a tree, he pulled out his phone, checked his e-mail. So far, no information back from Jones about this scumbag. Not promising, that. Could be somebody they didn’t know about.
Could be—
Heat . . .
Joss hissed out a breath as lust hit him square in the gut, hot and hard, like somebody had just shot him full