Alana reached for her sweater and bra.
“No.” Mark corrected her actions. “Nothing else. Just the jacket.”
Alana pulled on the jacket over her slender, bare torso.
He climbed out of the car and opened her door, his gun aimed at her as she exited the vehicle. Stepping behind her, he pressed the gun against the small of her back as he propelled her toward the front door.
Using the keypad he’d had installed beneath the lock, he punched in the code to release the deadbolt with his free hand. Opening the door, he gestured Alana over the threshold.
“Welcome to your new home. What do you think?” He beamed at her as she looked around the large room that was comfortably furnished with overstuffed chairs and a couch set in a semi-circle around a huge old stone fireplace, a large rectangular wooden table and chairs set up to serve for their more formal dining area. Mark was immensely proud of this room, which he had spent many weekends restoring, furnishing and decorating.
“Well?” he demanded, a little irritated at her lack of response.
Alana glanced down at the gun and up at his face. “It’s very nice,” she said in her trademark, slightly husky, incredibly sexy voice. “Is it yours?”
“It’s ours, Alana. Ours.”
Alana didn’t respond.
Frustrated, he grabbed her arm and pulled her through the space and along the narrow hallway. “This is our bedroom,” he said as he led her into the master bedroom, which was almost completely filled by a four-poster bed of dark pinewood, heaped with beautiful, handmade patchwork quilts. He had hung two whips over the bed, crossed in an X over a large ringbolt secured firmly into the wall.
“Those are for you, sweetheart,” Mark informed Alana as she stared at the wall. “And wait till you see the dungeon playroom.”
“The…what?” she said faintly.
Taking her arm again, Mark dragged Alana farther down the hall. He turned the large key in the lock on the last door and opened it. Turning on the light, he pushed Alana gently into the room.
Her eyes grew rounder, her mouth falling open as she clasped her hands over her heart. “Jesus,” she breathed, obviously impressed.
The room was white, stark white. Even the wooden floor was painted white, just like in his favorite fantasy. A vast array of whips, riding crops, chains, handcuffs, spreader bars, ropes and ball gags hung along one wall. Across from them sat a large wooden chair with cuffs built into the legs and armrests. There was a padded bar, perfect for bending a naked slave over. A thick metal rod hung parallel to the floor from a large pulley he’d affixed in the ceiling, chains dangling with cuffs at their ends. A St. Andrew’s cross waited for his captive, its leather restraints ready for their virgin use.
Mark turned to regale his beloved with all the wonderful, terrible things he planned to do to her in this room, but before he could get out a word, her eyes slid upward in her head as the color drained away from her face. Instinctively, he reached out to catch her as she slumped toward the floor.
Chapter 2
Alana awoke with a start, her mind muddled. It took her several seconds to get her bearings. She was in a bed, her head resting on a mound of soft feather pillows. When she tried to sit up, she realized her wrists and ankles were bound in thick black leather cuffs. She saw with horror that she was naked, and she let out a mewl of terror. Her legs were chained together, her wrists attached to a long chain that lay loose on the bed, its other end secured to a ringbolt in the wall behind her. The terrifying events of the past few hours, if that was how long it had been, crowded in on her like a dark, thick fog.
“Oh god, help me,” she pleaded into the air.
“I’ll help you, dearest girl.”
Alana jumped and whipped her head in the direction of the voice.
The madman who had abducted her was sitting on a chair in the corner of the room, his eyes fixed on her. He had changed from the driver’s uniform into faded blue jeans and a black T-shirt. He was actually quite good looking, and the thought somehow didn’t compute. How could someone so handsome be such a raving lunatic?
“You belong to me, Alana,” he said in a conversational tone, as if they were friends, his lips lifting into a friendly smile. “I know you aren’t very happy about it at the moment, but hopefully you will come to realize I’ve actually rescued you.”
Rescued her? From what? “Let me go,” Alana demanded furiously. “You can’t possibly think you’ll get away with this. People know me.”
“Ah, but they don’t know me. No one in New York knows me, except the people I work for, and as far as they know, I will now be working entirely from my country home. There’s nothing to tie you and me together. Nothing of mine is left in the city. I have vanished. And so, my love, have you.”