The women who came to his bed knew his requirements. They knelt and obeyed and served or they went home. Most who’d attempted to seduce him had found the scar on his face attractive. They’d been excited by the evidence of darkness etched down his cheek.

When Faith had called him Master again, Leo had been stunned. It made him want to break her and train her. If he had more time… if his family wasn’t breathing down his neck, he might do it. He reminded himself she’d shown no physical signs of kink-wiring. Even completely vanilla activity with him distressed her.

Maybe she had a need to serve, in a nonsexual capacity. But he wouldn’t be happy with that. He wanted a sub who would warm his bed. Hearing the word Master fall from her mouth because she’d thought that was what he wanted to hear, only made him want to assert his ownership. She had no idea the fire she played with, and the real trouble was… she’d done it innocently, with no idea what she might awaken.

6

At dinner the next night, Leo grilled her on the questionnaire, surprised she’d studied so much.

“Tell me what you know about my work,” he said, as he sliced into his New York Strip.

She took a deep breath. “Y-you went to medical school and became a s-surgeon, but you felt the heart lung machines you needed c-could be improved upon—”

“Faith?”

She looked up like a rabbit caught in a trap—a mixture of pain and fear on her face. Or perhaps the anticipation of pain.

“No more stuttering. I mean it. It’s gotten tiresome. We have four days. You have to break out of this fear by then or I have to put you in the dungeon.”

Leo placed a hand over hers. She jumped and stared at her plate.

“Look at me.”

She looked up, her lip trembling.

“I don’t want to put you down there. If I did, I wouldn’t waste this time on you. But I care about my family. The women don’t need to know about this nasty business. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“Now try to speak naturally and tell me the rest.”

With great effort, she pushed the words out of her mouth, working to keep the stutter out. “Y-you designed an improvement on the m-machines and got a patent, and now you sell them to hospitals and surgeons all over the country, which is where your money came from.” She gathered steam as she spoke. “You still do surgeries two days a week, and with your money, you opened a private clinic here when you had this house built.”

“And? What about the blood?”

“Oh,” she blushed at her oversight. “You got involved with consulting on artificial blood, and you’ve been engaged to run clinical trials, which you’ll do in a lab you’ve set up next to your operating theater. They’ll start bringing you regular shipments of the blood late next spring.”