“Do we have to go back?” she asks softly. “We can just run away, you know.”
It breaks my fucking heart. I want to leave with her and never return, but we’d be hunted down by my own people, not to mention by the Russian mob. They’d never let us get away.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She nods and silently climbs from the cave.
I clench my jaw and smash my fist against the wall. I have to control myself and take deep breaths before I climb back out after her. When I do, I find her standing in the water up to her ankles, looking out across the ocean.
I let her stand there for a couple of minutes before finally walking up and taking her hand. She doesn’t resist. We walk back toward the compound and slip inside.
There are no good options here. I get her safely back into her cell and stand there in the doorway for a second.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I promise.
She just nods and rolls over, pulling the blankets over her head.
I leave, locking the door behind me.
19
Riley
I feel like I’m losing my mind.
When I wake up the next morning, it feels like the night before was just a dream. The beach, the cave, the way Logan fucked me and held me, it all seems so fake and surreal. If it weren’t for the sand on my clothes, I’d believe I made it all up.
For a second, I lost myself. I was able to imagine that we were just two normal people, lovers even, out for a stroll at night. We snuck into a cave to have sex because we couldn’t keep our hands off of each other. We were just two crazy people on vacation.
But that wasn’t the truth. No, not even close. The truth is, Logan is my captor. He is training me to become a perfect little sex slave, and then he’s going to sell me to the highest bidder.
For a second, I almost forgot that fact. I asked him if we could just run away and live together, but he refused. He walked me back and locked me back up.
He shouldn’t have brought me out. I never really thought it meant that I was going to be free, but there was something in the way he looked at me and touched me that made me think maybe, just maybe, he understood and was going to release me.
Instead, I wake up on my cot in my prison cell, just as stuck as I was before.
I sigh and roll over onto my side. I don’t know what I want from him. It’s all just so confusing. One part of me wants to give in to him completely, to obey his every word and command, but there’s still the part of me that remembers what it was like to be a free person. I don’t have to do whatever he tells me to do just because I’m stuck in his cage.
True, he makes me feel good. I can’t deny that to myself. He has treated me very well, and he even promises that I’ll somehow get through this. He says he won’t let anyone hurt me.
It’s just hard to believe. We had the chance to escape, but instead he took me back. We could have just walked off. It might have been hard, but I know that Logan could have handled it. He has the experience and the strength, although there is still a lot of mystery about him.
I want to know him, but I’m afraid of what I’ll find. He’s here in this place for a reason, and I’m afraid that the reason will terrify me. Maybe it’ll make me want to run away from him. That could be why he’s not telling me everything about him and holding so much back.
I just don’t know what to think. He’s handsome, gorgeous, and the way he fucked me still makes me wet just thinking about it. Even as confused as I am, I still feel tingles along my spine just imagining the way he took me. There’s so much more than that to him, but that’s a big part of it. We also have small things in common, like hard pasts. When I talk to him about my life, I feel like he genuinely understands. Maybe that’s why he’s so protective.
And there’s the way he looks at me, like it’s the first time every time. He marvels at me, and it sends chills of joy through my stomach. It confuses me even more, makes me wonder what’s happening here, and what’s going to happen in the future.
Is he really going to sell me into sex slavery? I can’t imagine he’s going to let another man touch me. But that’s where this is headed and we both know it.
We should have escaped. He should have let us run away. Either that or he should just have kept me in my cell and never let me taste freedom.
He comes with my breakfast, but I don’t look at him. I roll over and face the wall. I hear him place the tray next to me and pause, staring down at me, but I don’t look at him. I want to so badly, I want to see his face and ask him so many questions, but I hold back. I refuse to look at him.
He should have set me free last night.
He leaves and when he’s gone, I eat breakfast.