Deliver (Deliver, #1)

by Pam Godwin

“My first…” His hands tightened on the wheel, slackened, and a sick kind of attachment slithered into his tone. “My favorite capture.” He squeezed her knee.

Requirement One. Slave has never experienced sexual intimacy with a woman. Slave is heterosexual but hates women. He desires only his Master.

“Pretty as you are, you can’t be too trusting.” A frigid clamp closed over her heart. Stupid, stupid boy.

His confidence wasn’t boy-like at all. It was admirably mature. And problematic. It would require breaking, likely through physical humiliation.

He’d unwittingly jumped from his path and fallen onto someone else’s. What she had planned for him would challenge his notions of coincidence and every other damned thing in his life.

Josh sensed Liv’s huge brown eyes making furtive sweeps in his direction. Addictive eyes, the kind that tunneled through his outer shell and scrambled his mind until he forgot where he was going.

There were moments in his life when he wanted to bypass the road chosen for him. He was staring at one now.

The most attractive woman he’d ever seen. In his tru...

Her silence challenged what he knew about girls and their self-involved monologues. He wasn’t usually a nervous talker, but seriously, her lack of conversation was growing more awkward and irritating by the second.

Pity she didn’t want to talk. He had thirty minutes with this gorgeous girl. Thirty minutes to speak openly, to be himself in the company of a stranger.

The girls hanging around his practices didn’t arouse him like the bruise of a tackle, the pains of farm labor, or the mental strain that accompanied religious stringency. He’d accepted his unconventional urges long ago and locked the darkest ones deep inside. If his parents knew the kind of thoughts he entertained, it would destroy them. His chest tightened.

Perhaps leaning into her touch had been too forward.

She needed to think of him as a boy. Boys were malleable, unsteady, and less attractive. “For now, your name is boy.”

In the center of the room, the girl remained folded on her knees. Since her training neared completion, she could demonstrate some expectations for the boy.

What would he do? What was he thinking? Planning?

At the end of the day, she was just as trapped as the boy.

Had he already reached the compliance stage? That usually took days to weeks of unrelenting pressure. Perhaps he was just being vigilant and probing his hopeless situation from all angles.

The little shit actually grinned. It was shaky as hell, but he had brass balls. Her stomach sank at the thought of breaking them.

The boy’s eyes widened, likely in realization that this wasn’t a spontaneous kidnapping. Yeah, she knew all about his jockstraps, but she’d never mentioned his package to Van.

She despised the idea of scaring the boy. Fuck, she was scared every damned day of her life, but she maintained the bitchy role she was required to play.

Though he gave her the response she needed, her heart felt like it was shrinking. She relaxed her mouth in a painful smile.

She dragged her gaze from his body to his face, and guilt slammed into her. He stared up at her with so much pain in his eyes. “Don’t hurt my parents.” Her gut twisted. She knew that pain, lived it every day.

The sudden desire to comfort him drew her closer, bending her at the waist, until her mouth brushed his, softly, unjustly. His lips pulled away in a quiver that she felt throughout her body.

“I’m so sorry.” A whisper, too low to pass through the earphones. Then she closed the lid.

The real reason made her throat tighten. He represented purity, beauty, family, all of the things that had been taken from her. He was a glimmer of goodness in her dark fucking world, a warm spark she could hold, if only for a fleeting span of time.

“And the way he was looking at you really pisses me the fuck off.”

But without Van’s overbearing protection, she was on her own. And given this buyer’s expressed hatred for women, the clench in her stomach was threatening to double her over.

“Glory and Gore” by Lorde invigorated her lungs and heart as she scanned the trees, searching for a sign of her secret saviors. Ricky, Tomas, Luke, Martin, Tate, and her very first captive, Camila.

She knew them by the names she’d once refused to use, by the bruises on their skin, and by the strength of their forgiveness. Her six deliveries in seven years were dead to her. Until she called. Her freedom fighters always came when she called. And they came for blood.

A sharp pain ripped in her chest. She inhaled deeply. Josh was safe.

Young men she’d abducted, humiliated, whipped, and jacked off. Killing herself would free them for good. It would also free Mom and Mattie. Mr. E would have no reason to harm them if she weren’t around to experience the horror of it.

She should’ve ended her life years ago, but Josh had been the push she needed. Releasing him back to his parents was the right thing to do. Perhaps it was his integrity that had given her the strength to be honorable.

she’s terrified her expressions or reactions around Mr. E and Van will give us away. So she lies to herself when she’s in that house. She thinks of us as dead.” She turned toward Kate, whose eyes were glazed and distant, and stroked her hair. “Until she needs us.”

“No cops,” Van murmured. He raised the wadded paper in his hand. “He’ll know.” She flattened the edges of the news clipping, watching at Van’s shallowing breaths, and read the first sentence of the article. Austin Police Chief, Eli Eary, stood at the podium during a recent celebration to honor his career… “Mr. E.” Van’s voice jolted through her.

Her veins seized with shock, her body shivering. “Eli Eary? The police chief who handled my disappearance? He’s Mr. E?” Van nodded, his hand gripping her knee. “My dad.”

Across the street, Livana interlaced her tiny fingers with those of a man who trafficked sex slaves. A man who followed through on his threats, evidenced by Liv’s dead mother. A reminder that, once again, there were no nonviolent options left. As long as Mr. E lived, that little girl’s life was in danger.

Liv sagged against the wall. Their son was kidnapped and trained as a sex slave. Jesus, they were in serious fucking denial about his captivity.

The freedom fighters, on the other hand, popped in frequently. Overwhelmed with their sudden wealth, they spoke of the future with glimmering, wide eyes. A future that included her and Josh.

He was out there somewhere, and she deeply hoped he found something worth living for.