She should be kicking and screaming and fighting. She should be running. But she didn’t want to die. It was easier to be his slave in a mansion than run and wait to be gunned down in the streets. It was hard to hold the idea in her head that he was her captor when he was also her rescuer. The roles were too different. If she let herself, she’d forget the captor part and latch onto the rescuer part.

When she’d brushed and flossed and scrubbed her face and changed, she sat on the edge of the tub. She should go back out there. He might get angry and take this fantasy away if she stayed too long. But she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t make herself leave the room. It was easy to pretend he could forget about her in here and she could stay, unmolested forever.

But the knock on the door burst that irrational bubble. “Faith. Are you all right in there?”

She held back the hysterical laugh as it danced in her throat. Was she all right? She was so not all right. But she could never explain the reason she wasn’t all right was because none of this was playing out as she’d imagined it would. If he kept playing his hand like this, he might actually succeed in seducing her. The thought made her recoil.

When she opened the door, Leo blocked her path, wearing nothing but a sinister smile. She tried to avert her eyes from his impressive erection, tried not to hyperventilate. Not going to fuck her? Like hell he wasn’t going to fuck her. The next thing he’d be saying was “Don’t worry, I’ll just put the tip in.”

She was beginning to wish she’d gotten a lot more drunk tonight.

He gave her a once over then shook his head. “No.”

She forced herself to look at his face and nothing else. “No?”

“I don’t recall saying you could wear pajamas to bed. I want you naked.”

She took several steps backward. “E-excuse me?” What happened to his promise to leave her unmolested for a while? Did “a while” translate into fifteen minutes in his world? “I-I thought you said…”

“I said nothing about sleeping attire. Take it off.”

His words were clipped and hungry… nearly a growl. If she did what he said and took it off, what would protect her from him? Nothing. But what was protecting her from him now? Did she think her pajamas had magical powers?

“Leo, please…”

His eyes glinted dangerously as he gripped her wrist and pulled her closer, causing his hard-on to brush against her thigh.

“What did we say about that? Address me properly.”

“Master. I-I meant Master, please… I can’t…” How could she disrobe in front of him? She couldn’t make herself do it. It wasn’t that she wanted to enrage him or bring retribution on herself, she just couldn’t do it. Spinning through her head were thoughts of her foster father with whiskey on his breath, cornering her in a back bedroom at a party, trying to pull her top over her head moments before they were thankfully interrupted.