I smiled. “You know my real name. Call me Tess.”

She grinned. “Wait here.”

She flew up the staircase, leaving me all alone. I linked my fingers, lost. I was an intruder in this amazing home, asking a hugely successful man to stop being an ass**le, and take me back. To show me his ruthlessness. His compassion. To give me the life I truly wanted.

A sound rustled from the lounge. I spun to face a woman in baggy track pants and a sweater three times too big for her. She walked with an air of rejection and sadness. The moment she made eye contact, she whimpered and fell to her knees, bowing.

Time screeched to a halt. I could only stare.

Fifty-nine.

My hands curled. This was slave fifty-nine. My replacement. Where had she come from? Jealously cramped my stomach, but I forced myself to relax. Franco said Q never touched other slaves. I was the first. His last. His f**king only if I had my way.

“It’s okay. You can stand,” I said softly, inching closer. Brown, straggly hair hung with grease, huge shadows ringed her eyes. Her wrists were brittle thin. Aura beaten and trodden. Everything screamed abuse.

Is this how they all arrive? Was that why Q seemed so surprised, so intrigued by me? I refused to bow. I swore. I hissed.

My breathing stopped.

I saw myself how Q did that day: a fighter through and through. A woman not stomped into depression or servitude. A flash of brightness in a world of sadness. I was the polar opposite of this poor girl.

I dropped to my knees, holding out a hand. She scuttled away, trembling.

I stood, backing up. “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.”

“Sephena. Stand up.”

My body clamped and clenched and melted. His voice. Him. Master. Controller. Sexy as hell control freak.

I shivered and spun. Facing my master. My chosen fate.

Q stood halfway down the staircase, pale jade eyes blazing with a mixture of amazement, lust, and anger.

The air arched and crackled, tension flooding the space. Goosebumps erupted and nothing else existed but him.

The huddling girl shuffled beside me, climbing to unsteady feet. I tore my eyes from Q as she bowed and went to him.

I followed, drawn like a magnet to Q’s power.

Q only had eyes for me; he moved silently down the stairs. His black pin-stripe suit with aubergine shirt and faded grey tie, whispered with every step. His polished dress shoes shone against blue carpet. I drank in everything about him.

There were lines around his eyes that weren’t there before. The knotted tension in his shoulders. His whisper-thin control frayed, showing a less than perfect posture.

He stopped two steps above, glaring. “Que fait tu ici?” What are you doing here?

I waged the battle to swoon at his voice. My sense of hearing, so completely owned by him, ordered me to worship. To climb his magnificent hard body, and never let him pry me away again.

I licked my lips, smouldering with need. The spark between us couldn’t be denied. It burned like a tripwire, waiting to explode.

The entire time I lived with Brax, I had no interest in sex. Now, I would die if I didn’t have him. Legs trembled, body flamed, and wetness melted unashamedly. Q erupted all my longing into a fireball, incinerating my insides.

Poor Sephena was completely ignored.

“I came for you,” I whispered. “On my own accord.”

His nostrils flared, mouth parted. That mouth, oh, how I wanted to kiss it. Tongue him. Have it all over me.

“Sephena. Go and find Suzette. She’ll show you where the swimming pool is.” He softened the hard edge in his tone. “Remember, you’re free to do whatever pleases you.” Q stressed the word free. I fell a little more.

The girl didn’t show surprise, but I sure did. How did I not know Q had a swimming pool? What other surprises would I find? I would make sure Q kept me so I could find out. I wanted to help in every part of his life. He needed someone.

I blinked, realizing just how lonely he was. A parade of broken women, sharing his home, never finding solace in them.

He worked and slept and worked some more.

The moment Sephena disappeared, I balled my fists. “We need to talk.”

He bared his teeth. “We don’t need to do anything. I sent you back. What the f**k are you doing here?”

My palm itched to slap him, to knock some sense into him. Was he clueless to the pain he caused? Or so suffocated by his own, he couldn’t think straight? Everything I planned to say flew out of my head; I folded to the floor.

A submissive talking to her dominant. But I wasn’t a submissive. I was the woman who would steal Q, just like he stole me. He had no choice. I wasn’t going to give him one. “Master…Q…Quincy… ”

He sucked in a huge gust of air, suit rustling as he shifted.

“My name is Tess Snow. Not Sweetie, or Tessie, or Honey. I’m a woman only now realizing what she’s capable of. I’m no one’s daughter. I’m no one’s girlfriend. I’m no one’s possession. I belong to me, and for the first time, I know how powerful that is.”

I stared at the marble, laying my heart at his feet. “I came back for the man I see inside the master. The man who thinks he’s a monster because of his twisted desires. The man who rescues slaves and sends them back to loved ones. I came back for Q. I came back to be his esclave, but also to be his equal.”

My voice trailed off as my throat clogged with passion. “I came back to be your everything… just like you’re becoming mine.”

My heart thudded like a drum, roaring in my ears.

He stepped closer.

Shoes appeared in my line of vision. His voice echoed dark and thick. “You don’t know what you’re offering.”

I lifted my head, boldly wrapping a hand around his ankle. “I’m offering you my pain. My blood. My pleasure. I’m offering you the right to whip and f**k. To debase and harm. I’m offering to fight your needs with my own. I’m willing to join you in the darkness and find pleasure in excruciating pain. I’m willing to be your monster, Q.”

I dug nails into his trouser leg, voice aching with truth. “We’re the same.”

With a snarl, he yanked his foot away, prowling into the library. I looked after him, shocked. Damn, he was hard work.

I stood and followed, locking the huge glass door behind us, flicking the switch to turn the glass from see-through to opaque. Privacy descended and tension threaded between us, exploding into the realm of scary with need. I could see it: hot ribbons of crimson lust, glittering with stars of want and intoxication.

Q bent over his desk, pinching the bridge of his nose. The dark room whispered of sin, compelling wrongness. Books full of erotic stories looked down from dust-free shelves, encouraging me to finish what I started.

I returned to Q. But he had to work, too. He owed an apology, an explanation. He owed me his heart.

Q whirled away, pacing, running a hand over short hair. Eyes flickered to me and I tried to read the burning feelings in his gaze.

“You can’t force me to leave, as I came on my own freewill. This may be your house, Q, but you don’t have the strength to throw me away twice.” I hoped to God I was right.

He growled under his breath, prowling, never stopping.

Standing in the centre of the room, I watched. Letting the beast roam, expelling excess angst. While he paced, I talked.

“That night, before you sent me away, was the best night of my life. The marks you laced me with lasted a full week. Every time I looked in the mirror, or touched a bruise in the shower, I grew slick for you. You visited my dreams. I woke to aching wetness and an empty heart.”

My skin grew hot, remembering how many wet dreams I enjoyed under his brutal demands. I loved how his fingernails left faint scars on my ass. “Flashes of memories haunted me at the supermarket, at university. I could never escape you.”

He stopped pacing, his gorgeous, angled face frozen in need.

I tiptoed closer, murmuring, “I ached for you to dominate. I throbbed for you to f**k. I missed you. I missed the man I know is in there, but you never let me see.” I held up my wrist.

His eyes flashed down and he grabbed me, lightning quick. “Merde.”

I stifled a moan as fingers kissed the bird fluttering in its prison of barcode, whispering over the number fifty eight.

“Why?” His voice was tortured, wavering and gruff.

“Because you set me free.”

Eyes locked on mine, angry. “You’re insane. I warped your mind. After everything I did… everything you went through because I kept you. How can you speak such lies?”

I cupped his cheek, wincing as sparks zapped my fingertips. I couldn’t touch him without pain. It seemed only fitting.

“It’s not a lie. You showed me who I truly am.” My heart grew warm with steel and iron. “I’m strong enough to fight you. I want to give you everything, but only if you give me what I want in return.”

“You really are insane. I hurt you—you should run and never come back.” Fingers lassoed around my wrist, tugging me closer. “I’m not something you can tame. I’m not a man who will sprout poems and treat you nice. I’m. Not. That. Human.”

I swallowed hard, buffeted with Q’s temper and rage. “Did I ask for poems and niceties? No! If I wanted those, I would’ve stayed with Brax.”

Q froze, nostrils flaring. Hardness etched lines around his mouth. “Don’t mention that name to me again.” His icy cold voice scattered goosebumps on my spine.

I’m losing. He’s not seeing.

I slapped him.

My palm smacked satisfyingly against rugged five o’clock shadow. He reared back in shock, then his whole deposition crouched into hunter—killer—monster. “You go too far. Leave before you regret it.”

I wanted to stomp my foot like a child. Throw a terrible tantrum to get him to open his eyes. Forcing words between clenched teeth, I said, “I want you. I want your complexities, your shadows. I want your whips, and chains, and brutality. Listen to me! I’m willing to give you a slave who will never break, if you give me what I want in return.”

Q cocked his head, finally some shred of amazed compression glowed. “And what do you need in return?” he murmured, so close I breathed his question.

My body went from strong and defiant to fluttering and delicate. “I need you to care for me. Promise you’ll share your life and not shut me out. I want to know who Quincy is. I want to belong to Q. I want you to be honest with yourself that I mean something to you, too. Do you have that in you, Q? To care for me completely, so I can give you what you need?”

He dropped his head, suddenly nuzzling my neck. Hiding his thoughts and feeling in my blonde curls. “You’re asking for an impossibility. You’re asking me to love you.”

My heart squeezed at the pain in his voice. Eyes glowed with agony as he pulled away. “I can’t. I don’t know how. The things I did to you were tame to what I really want. I can’t stop it. I can’t control it.” He pushed me away, hands shoving deep into his pockets. Walking away, he barricaded further connection. “Who wants to hurt someone so much if they’re supposed to love them? Who wants to see them writhe in agony and completely submit? No one sane. I’m f**ked up, esclave. I can’t give you what you want.”

Esclave.

My body shuddered. Q’s face tightened with need, realizing what he said.

“Did you call any other girl esclave?” I noticed he called the girl in the lounge Sephena—a name, not a title.

Eyes glinted, shaking his head.

I stepped forward, trapping him by the fireplace. “Whatever you think of yourself, you do care. You gave me the sketchpad. You gave me what I needed after I was raped. You’re a good person, Q. A saviour to so many women. I want to make you happy.”

Q sucked in a heavy breath, watching with unreadable eyes as I reached up, cupping his throat. He stood taller as I squeezed, flaring with power at the thought he let me dominate. I said what I came to say, I needed to hear his proclamation to be satisfied.

Pressing against his larynx, I whispered, “Did it hurt you, sending me away?”

When he didn’t answer, I leaned in, tightening my fingers. He swallowed beneath my touch, Adam’s apple bobbing with masculinity.

He glared, waging an internal war. I knew he wanted to shrug me off—and he could—there was nothing I could do to stop him, but he let himself be ruled, just for a moment. Finally, something unlocked in his eyes; heart-shattering passion blazed. He nodded. “Yes.”

I could barely breathe. “Yes, you hurt?”

He rolled his shoulders, breaking my hold on him. He towered over me, gathering shadows from the room, crackling with energy. “Yes, I f**king hurt. I haven’t slept well in weeks. I can’t go in my bedroom because I get so hard. I f**king come twice a day remembering how you writhed beneath the whip. How your skin flushed and crested with red.” He stopped, breathing hard. His body beseeched mine and I struggled to stay frozen.

Dragging hands over his head, he forced himself to go on as if the confession was the hardest thing he ever had to do. “You’re everything I’ve been looking for and you scare me shitless. You want me to hurt you! You’re f**king crazy for taunting me that way.” In cobra-strike quickness, he kissed me hard. “I’m terrified I’ll end up killing you.”

We locked eyes, overcome with truth. My blood thrilled at the thought of his deep desires.

With shaky hands, I unbuttoned his shirt, pushing it aside under his blazer. Every button, he breathed harder, until his chest strained and panted. My own breath matched his.

“Stop it, Tess.”

I swallowed. “You won’t kill me. You wouldn’t go that far.” I traced inked sparrows on his skin, following ribs, and hard planes of delectable muscle. “I know you deplore what happened to the women you save. You won’t turn me into a broken shadow of myself. Your ferocity feeds me.” I ducked to nip his nipple, teeth aching to draw blood. “Whatever you give, I can take… as long as I know how you feel.”