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Even more arousing when he starts rubbing my clit again. I moan for him. Dig my heels into the mattress and claw my nails into the pillow beneath me.

“I hate you so much.”

“Yes, you do. Dirty, good fucking girl.” He rubs me faster. The speculum, though, he holds it in place. Opens it by pressing the handle and the thumb hinge together. “Let’s take a closer look at you.”

The expansion hurts until pleasure warms me from head to toe. My head thrashes back, my mouth gaping. Guttural moans escape past my lips as soon as James’s hot breath licks the inside of my thigh. He bites it, sinking his teeth in for one torturous second.

“You have a beautiful pussy. Squeezing the speculum like that. You’re dying to have my cock inside you.” He’s merciless, pinching my clit and tugging. I scream. “Shh. It’s okay. Let it out. You can tell me how much you need to be fucked. How having me down here, looking at you, turns you on.”

“Never.”

By now, I know Topher wouldn’t come down here. James must have made sure he was asleep. Locked the door to the basement so no one would hear me.

I’m not sad about it. Or scared. I don’t need saving.

Tomorrow, I will.

The sick woman I am tonight, I don’t need anyone other than James here.

The man I’m attracted to. The man I want to kill.

“Your pathetic son,” I spit out. James remains in place. Doesn’t so much as look up at me. “He wouldn’t fuck me, and you know what? I bet it has nothing to do with your stupid auction. I bet he’s useless in bed. Both of you.”

“Oh, yeah?” He applies more pressure on my clit. Circles it. Flicks it. The pleasure is too much. Too fucking much. “Be explicit. Tell me why you don’t want my son. Tell me why you want me instead.”

“I don’t want either of you—Oh God. Oh, Jesus.” I lose it as he closes the blades of the speculum. As he drags it in and out of my opening. His eyes are on me. Cold as the darkest night. “Either of you.”

I bite my bottom lip, glaring at the man who insists on commanding pleasure out of me.

“You’re hot when you lie.” The tip of the speculum rubs my walls, and that’s it. This is how I lose my mind from a gentle, obscene touch. “But when you come, you won’t be able to anymore. You’ll never be able to hide from me.”

“I’ll never see you again, you psycho fucker.” I wish I could. No, no. I can’t fucking wish that. “Ever.”

“Shut up,” he thunders, shaking me down to my core. “Admit it. You want me.”

“What difference does it make?” The tingling of my oncoming climax has my vision darkening around the edges. “You s-s-said it yourself. Someone else will buy me.”

“I also said”—tilting the speculum, he teases me at a new angle and I cry out—“shut up. You don’t need to talk. You need to come, Ophelia.” He pulls the speculum out of me, flinging it across the room. Replacing it with his fingers, to my horror. “Come all over my hand. I won’t ask you twice.”

I whimper. My back arches higher off the pillow. My thighs tremble.

I’m the most embarrassed I’ve ever been, riding his hand like that. Rocking my hips as he teases my entrance and flicks his thumb on my clit.

“Oh.” My mouth opens in a silent scream. “Oh God.”

“Eyes on me.” At his hushed, deadly order, I snap my eyes to his.

He’s beautiful. Terrifying.

James lowers his mouth to my clit. He licks. Sucks.

James ruins me.

“Fuck.” I finally stop caring, breaking into pieces for him.

His name is a prayer on my lips as my orgasm ripples through me. He helps me ride it out, rubbing and stroking. Calling me his good girl. His good slut. It’s the longest orgasm of my life. I’m not sure I’ll ever come down from this.

Eventually, I do. My pulse evens out, and my lungs don’t feel too big for my body.

Reality sets in. An ominous, heavy curtain that reminds me exactly where I am.

In my worst nightmare. With my captor.

Who dips his wet fingers into his mouth and sucks. I’m too exhausted from my orgasm and this long night to be humiliated. I know I ought to. It’s wrong to want to embed that decadent image in my head. This wanting is all I’ve got at the moment.

“You have the sweetest pussy.” He climbs out of bed, still rock-hard in his pants.

“Go to hell.”

His lips part. He’s about to say something.

He won’t.

His mouth closes, and he goes over to the sink, grabbing the cloth hanging there. The water runs as he soaks it. His footsteps echo in the quiet cell as he returns to sit on the edge of my bed.

“Why can’t you buy me?” Better the devil I know. He might even like me. I could break out of here when he’s at work or sleeping. “You have plenty of money. Plenty of power and influence in the city. You could keep me here.”

Thick eyebrows slam down, a silent shut up order. I have never witnessed a scowl taking over a person’s face so fast.

“No.” The cloth is warm on my bare thighs. A lover would wipe me clean this gently, I imagine. A lover, or my ex-boyfriend’s psycho dad who used me up and now needs to put me back together. “I got what I came here for. You’re a virgin. Our buyers won’t be disappointed.”

The humiliation is overwhelming. Clouding my vision. Flattening my lungs.

I will not cry. I will not.

James puts my dress back to rights. He flips me to my side and cuts off the zip ties. Brushes my wrists and murmurs to himself, “Good, no bruising.”

Not a tear slips out when he pulls the duvets over me. When his palm closes on my arm and his lips brush my cheek.

Even when he says in a voice that drips of poison, “Goodnight, Sonnet,” I hold them at bay.

It’s when the lock clicks and his footsteps are silenced that I let them out.

That’s when I cry and cry and cry.