Captive in the Dark (The Dark Duet, #1)

by C.J. Roberts

“I am your master.” A cold hand pressed against my sweat-slick forehead. Again, a nagging sense of familiarity. But it was stupid. I didn’t know anyone with an accent. “You are where I want you to be.”

She scowled at him, injecting as much loathing as was possible into a look. Caleb resisted the urge to smile. He guessed she no longer thought he was cute. Good. Cute was for pussies.

“Address me as Master. Every time you forget, I will be forced to remind you. So you can choose to obey or choose punishment. It’s entirely up to you.”

His touch was simple, but specific, meant to show me he could be like a lover, gentle, intimate, but also he was a man unaccustomed to hearing the word no.

The condensation on the bottle instantly reminded him of sweat. He thought of the girl again, and other girls, past slaves; he never tired of their salty taste, and sweet smelling sweat. Only women could boast of such a thing. Only women were capable of being so fucking sexy you wanted to lick them clean when they considered themselves dirty.

What would it be like to touch him the way he touched me? Would he be as thoroughly under my spell as I seemed to be under his?

It wasn’t enough to fuck my body; he wanted to mindfuck me as well.

I was numb—heartbroken. Not only was I shocked over what he’d done, but I was more shocked over how he’d managed to turn my body against me. The pain had been intense, and yet at times it was as if that same pain added to the violent shiver that coursed through me when he’d made me come.

He was my tormentor and my solace; the creator of the dark and the light within.

His touches were expected now. My skin unconsciously eager, waiting for a stroke to feed this new hunger in me.

He had that big smile on his face again. The same smile he had been using to cause so much inner turmoil. In the dark, it twisted me in knots, in the light—it was almost crippling.

If the first lesson every slave had to learn was to accept that their wishes did not matter, then the first lesson every master had to learn was not to be a slave to their own desires.

He suddenly ached to see her smile up at him like that. Instead, he pressed her back so he might kiss her warm, salty tears from her soft cheeks. She even tasted like sun. Did he prefer her smile or her tears?

All the slaves he had trained had touched him, frequently. But with them he had always remained detached, clinical, informing them what felt good and what needed work along the way. With her, he wanted…something.

He is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen: that includes puppies, babies, rainbows, sunsets, and sunrises. I can’t even call him a man—men don’t look this good.

I felt my arm being lifted slowly and then I felt Caleb’s soft lips pressing against the back of my hand. “For what it’s worth, Livvie, I never thought of you as a whore. And you are…the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”