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But she hadn’t acted with Jay, had she? How would she know? Held captive from sixteen to eighteen, on the run until twenty-two, she’d changed identities the way normal girls her age changed fashion styles.

Before Roy, she’d been a free-spirited liberal who hungered to help people, burned to take risks, and found pleasure in pushing buttons. How many times had she been issued a detention for sketching images of her high school math teacher’s genitals? Yeah, Jay had unearthed the real her. How had he done that?

Finished with the shaving, Roy rose to his feet and pressed cold lips to hers. “Got to go, beautiful girl. Come to my office when you’ve finished priming yourself for me.” He stepped out of the shower, taking the razor with him. A moment later, the whir of a hairdryer hummed through the room.

She twisted the tap to increase the temperature. The scalding water did nothing to burn away the previous minutes, but she lingered under the spray until his presence disappeared from the room.

When she finished drying off, the Craig stripped the towel from her grasp and tossed it on the floor. “Mr. Oxford requires your teeth brushed, hair dried, and every inch of your body lathered in lotion. Shall I assist you?” His leer sent her teeth crashing together.

He knew as well as she did he wasn’t allowed to touch her intimately. As nonexistent as Roy’s compassion was with regard to her, it was something.

She went about the tasks, taking her time. What did Roy have planned next in her never-ending nightmare of horrors? More caning in the stockroom? More forced orgasms? Maybe he would take her out of those rooms and into another part of the penthouse. Hope surged. Another room might present an opportunity for escape. The kitchen alone would be a warehouse of potential weapons.

At the office door, the Craig snapped the leash, and she skidded off balance, naked and irritated. “He’s hosting a live teleconference. I don’t need to remind you not to fucking breathe.”

Her tongue darted to the porcelain crowns fused to her front teeth. No, the punishment from her last conference call misstep left a permanent reminder.

The door opened. With the Craig’s shove at her back, she moved over the plush carpet in a soundless stagger. She understood then why the chain was wrapped in silk.

Surrounded by monitors on the walls and desks, Roy smiled at one of the screens. “You call it freedom, Nancy, but arming our civilians…our youth? That isn’t life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Not when they’re turning those guns on each other.”

The leather-etched wallpaper created an ostentatious backdrop for his pinstriped Amosu suit and ebony hair groomed in thick waves off his face. His shoulders were loose, his smile charming, and his timbre was as smooth as his bullshit.

His billions per annum didn’t come from his legit conglomerate of aerospace, defense, and software companies. She’d overheard enough of his conversations to deduce that arms-trafficking was the real money maker.

Not that he needed the money. She suspected his control of the underground firearms trade helped him strengthen his international connections and broaden his power in the defense business. Maybe his anti-gun falsehoods kept his political adversaries at bay. He seemed to thrive in deception and immorality.

The widescreen on the wall facing him broadcasted a CNN interview on mute. The separate locations of the people on camera were displayed side-by-side. A blonde woman, Nancy Davis, smiled in one of the picture-in-picture views. In the other view, Roy Oxford, Chairman of Oxford Industries, straightened his red tie…three seconds after he straightened it real-time.

The temperature in the room soared, and perspiration surfaced on her skin. This wasn’t the first time he’d requested her presence during a live interview on CNN. She could yell, jump in front of the webcam, and announce her captivity, nudity be damned.

But the three second delay afforded him time. He could hit the safety switch and cut the transmission. Then he’d cut her.

“…it’s a security, Mr. Oxford.”

He smirked. “The Second Amendment doesn’t make us safe from outsiders. It makes us dangerous to each other.”

“Then what makes our neighborhoods safe?”

“Home Owner Associations should spend less time and money on their pools and landscaping and focus their resources on perimeter security. Digiford Solutions has a new line of digital neighborhood watch guards. They offer surveillance technologies…”

His voice droned on, but the words were absorbed by the roar in her ears. He smiled into the webcam, lips moving as his index finger stretched along his pant leg. It pointed at her then to the floor beside his leather loafers. Damn him. It was a test. A test she so often failed.

The same finger lowered his zipper and crooked between his thighs.Come here.

Inhale. Exhale. She dropped to her knees and crawled, her pulse cresting. Chills raced through her limbs. Silent and mouselike, she moved across the carpet on hands and knees like she’d done so many times before.

“Since Digiford is your latest acquisition, your argument sounds more like a marketing plug.”

He tsked. “Nancy, I hardly need shameless advertising. Digiford stock tripled when we acquired it, and it continues to pressure the competition.” Beneath the desk, he gripped the base of his length and wiggled it, bare and erect.

She swallowed back rising bile and knelt between his legs.Get it over with. Don’t fuck up.

The chain at her ankle jerked, snapping her leg straight behind her. At the other end, the Craig fixed her with a warning in his eyes, prepared to extract her at the first sign of infraction.

Roy clenched a hand in her hair and guided her mouth.

Don’t gag. Keep quiet. Oh please, don’t gag. She inhaled without sound, and he shoved her face to his pubis. She stretched out her tongue to accommodate him, breathing shallowly and silently through her nose.