I picked up the hairbrush I’d left on the nightstand, sat on the bed behind her, and set the crop and collar down so I could pick up her hair. I brushed the length of it, taking care to work out the knots, appreciating the weight of it, the shine when brushed. Once I finished, I braided it into one long, dark pleat down her back and secured it with an elastic wrapped around the handle of the brush. I got off the bed, squatted behind her, and took her in, appreciating how she knelt so quietly, so obediently, waiting. I wondered how hard her heart pounded, and when I swept the back of my hand over the curve of her neck, she shuddered.

I stilled.

I think we both held our breath.

I forced myself to continue and picked up the collar, raising it over her head to secure around her neck, locking the small lock at the back, one only I had the key to and the one she would wear until she was sold. I stood, with my hand on the top of her head and the crop held in the other, and circled to stand where she could see me.

She lifted her pretty gaze to mine, the green of her eyes bright, the pupils dark, dilated. There was a stillness about her. Her nipples tightened, and a scent—her scent, as I’d come to know it last night—hung in the air between us.

She was aroused.

I turned my hand into a fist and gripped the hair at the back of her head. She flinched but remained as she was, keeping her hands together on her lap. I brought her cheek to me, to the hardness just behind the fabric of the jeans.

“Men will want you.” Why did the thought not please me? “They will pay to have you.” In fact, the idea of it made the fist in her hair tighten. I only noticed it when the first tear slid from the corner of her eye, but I didn’t loosen my hold because right now, all I wanted were her lips around my cock, her tongue licking its length, her sucking me off. What I needed was to shoot down her throat, and when she choked, to come all over her, to mark her as mine, to destroy her. Because that would decimate her, and that was what I needed to do. Take her to the point of breaking, but keep her just on this side of that abyss.

Beauty knelt at my feet.

And I would be the beast who would break her.

The monster who would destroy her.

Better me than another.

She’d be mine then, in a sick, unnatural way. In a sick, unnatural mind.

“What happened to you that you’re like this?”

Her quiet voice broke into my thoughts, accused me.

“That you can do this?”