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I’D NEVER SEEN ANGEL like that—his face etched with pain, his dark eyes haunted. He’d always been the relaxed, fun one, the small beam of light in this place. Now it was as though the darkness had ebbed into his soul.
Women died here. I already knew that. I’d seen it for myself over the years, countless times. Sometimes things went wrong with the men, though the man was always made to pay for what he did to them. Then was never a good time to be living at the compound, but it was just a part of life here. I’d never seen Angel respond to one of their deaths in such a way.
Maybe it was because he felt responsible.
Maybe he was.
I glanced over at the rooms of the other women. Several of their lights were on, but no one made an appearance. Everyone knew it was dangerous to get involved when something like this had happened. Emotions were running high, and a simple question could be rewarded with a slap or worse.
I slunk back into the moonlight-cast shadows. I would go back to bed, though I doubted sleep would come to me. I imagined both Angel and I would spend a sleepless night, in separate beds, at the farthest corners of the house. Would he think of me at all, or would his thoughts be crowded with the death of the young woman who I had never even spoken to?
I made my way back to my bedroom, opening and closing the door quietly and crawling back beneath covers that were still warm from where I’d vacated the bed not long ago.
What was the girl running to that was worth risking her own life for? I’d heard stories from the other women about how things had been for them before they’d been brought to the compound—lives spent on the streets, sleeping in doorways, going days without meals, beaten for the few meagre belongings they had, and sometimes even raped. How could that life be worse than the one they’d been given here? I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else, though that was going to change sooner rather than later.
I sighed and rolled over, pulling the covers tighter up around my neck.
What had happened with the new girl had distracted Angelo for the moment from the task his father had left him, but I wondered if he’d had the chance to make a call to any of his friends before tragedy had struck. I still couldn’t believe he was actually going to hand me over to someone else—and not the person I’d been sold to. I understood why he struggled with it, but it was more that he was going against his father’s wishes that surprised me. Angel rarely did anything against his father.
But then I remembered all the times he’d broken the rules for me when I’d been small. The books he’d steal for me, so we could sit, hidden in a cubby with a flashlight while he read the stories contained within the pages. He’d keep back a piece of cake from dinner and sneak me extra treats. If his father found out he broke the rules, he’d be punished for it, but he did it anyway.
Could it be that by going against his father’s wishes now, I was getting a glimpse of the boy I’d known back then, even if he wasn’t doing what I would have wanted?
I sighed again, desperately wishing for sleep, but thoughts of Angel crowded my mind. If only he’d give in and do as his father asked. I might be untouched, but I wasn’t naïve. I’d grown up with the women here. It would have been impossible for me to have not been exposed to what they did for the men. I might not have any practical experience, but I knew what was involved. Why was he so against the idea of teaching me? Did I disgust him, or was it something else?
My body tightened and tingled at the thought of Angelo being the one to teach me how a man’s body worked. My core clenched, my nipples contracting into buds beneath my t-shirt. I squirmed, squeezing my thighs together. I imagined him kissing me, his perfect lips meeting mine, his hand lacing into my hair. I imagined him telling me that he’d always loved me, and now that love had grown into something more—passion, desire, obsession.
Was that what I wanted from him?
Even as I slipped my hand down across my stomach and between my thighs, I questioned myself. There was no point in wanting what I couldn’t have.
My fingers pushed beneath the waistband of my panties, and I slipped the tips between my folds, skirting over the top of my clit, to dip into wet heat. Pleasure wrapped me in its coils, and I drew some of my own wetness up to my clit, rubbing in slow, languid circles. Thoughts of Angel filled my head, my heart swelling with emotion for him. My stomach muscles and thighs tightened, and I squirmed against the bed. I might never have been touched, but that didn’t mean I didn’t know what it felt like to desire something. Someone. It had only ever been him.
A girl had died tonight, and I was masturbating over the man who might have caused her death.
I was messed up, but was that any surprise? It wasn’t as though I’d ever been given the opportunity to have a normal life. Fantasizing about Angel didn’t do any harm. No, it would be whatever decision he made about his father’s instructions that could have the potential to destroy me. Would he bring in someone else, as he’d promised? Though my heart grew heavy in my chest at never getting to touch him like this, a part of me knew it would be the right thing.
I was frightened that if I got a taste of Angel, then when I was handed over to Elliot Torres, I’d truly know what I was missing out on. Right now, it was all in my head. I couldn’t miss what I’d never experienced. But once I had a taste of his skin, had drowned in his kisses, had listened to his breathing and watched his face as I pleasured him, I knew leaving would only hurt more. I’d forever compare Torres to Angel—his taste, the noises he made, if he touched me in return. Would Angel’s touch be gentle and cautious, or did he like it rougher? Would he pin me by the throat and shove his hand between my thighs, roughly seeking entry?
I groaned at the thought, my head twisting against the pillow. My fingers strummed my clit faster, and a gush of liquid soaked my pussy. He might still see me as a child, but I was very much a grown woman now, and I had needs and desires, just like everyone else. He couldn’t bring himself to touch me, even though his father had told him to, but that didn’t change the fact that I wanted him to. Maybe he needed to know that. Perhaps that would make all of this easier. If he knew how much I wanted him, and if I made him see me in a different way, then he would be able to bring himself to do as his father requested.
My orgasm was almost on me now, winding me into a taut band of energy, ready to snap at any moment. My fingers moved faster, but in my head it was Angel’s hand jammed between my thighs, his hard, lean body pressed against mine. I imagined him kissing me as he brought me to orgasm, holding my body captive, forcing my climax from me against my will.
“Oh God... Oh, oh...” The cries peeled from my lips as I toppled over the peak, my toes curling under the sheets, my back arching from the bed. But still I came, the grip of pleasure not releasing me yet. “Angel, God, yes, Angel...”
I was lost in my fantasy, never wanting it to end—
A knock came at the door, and I gave a start. “Catalina?”
I gasped and yanked my fingers, wet with my own arousal, out from between my legs.
The door opened, and light shafted in. Angel was silhouetted in the doorway, like my fantasy had brought him to life. I was able to make out the concern on his handsome features. “Catalina? Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I blurted, my face burning. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“I heard noises. I thought you might have been upset by what happened tonight.”
He stepped more fully into the room, his expression curious. Could he smell me on the air? Did the room stink of sex, even though I’d been the only one in it?
I sat up hurriedly, pushed a hand through my hair. I wore a sleeveless tank top, and no bra. It was cut low, and my chest was flushed both from my arousal and from my humiliation at getting caught. My nipples were hard and pressed like bullets against the material, creating outlines that were impossible to miss.
“I thought I heard you crying...”
His gaze flicked over me, and something changed in his eyes, concern morphing to a flash of panic. His Adam’s apple bobbed noticeably, his eyes widening. His gaze stopped at the swell of my breasts, still heaving from my orgasm. God, had he heard me calling his name? I wished the bed would part in the middle so I could sink right through it.
“I’m fine,” I said, staring down at the sheets covering my legs. What else could I say? Sorry I made so much noise—I was just masturbating while imagining you were the one who was doing it. For one brief, crazy moment, I almost opened my mouth and said exactly that, but I managed to clamp my lips together, preventing the words from spilling out.
He didn’t see me that way; that was the problem. He still saw me as a little girl and not a young woman who had a sexuality of her own. If it had been anyone else, and he’d walked past the door and heard those noises, he’d have recognized that they weren’t cries of pain at all, but because they’d come from me, he hadn’t even considered that they might mean something else.
He did now, though. I saw it in his eyes. It wasn’t disgust or dismay, or even embarrassment. It was a sudden burst of lust, a darkening of his gaze, a slacking of his lower lip. He sucked in a breath and quickly glanced away again, but it was too late. The moment had happened.
He shook his head. “No, sorry. I... I must have imagined things. It’s been a... difficult night.”
Wanting to make him more comfortable, I pulled the sheet up around my chest, hiding my breasts. I suddenly didn’t want him to go. My heart reached out for his.
“Are you all right?” My voice was softer. He’d been about to back out of the room but stopped at my words.
He looked down at the ground, his head hung. “I have no right to complain about anything.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I can’t talk about this with you,” he blurted. “It’s too hard. Not when—” He gestured into the air in front of him.
“Not when I’m going to be leaving soon,” I filled in for him.
He nodded but didn’t answer. I wished he would come over to me, sit on my bed and talk to me like we did when we were children, but he remained lurking in the open doorway, like he knew he didn’t belong.
“Just because I’m leaving,” I said, “doesn’t make me a different person. Nothing has changed, Angel.”
“Everything has changed. You’re not a little girl anymore, Kitty.”
We’d fallen into our old names for each other.
“I know that.”
“The world out there isn’t a nice place, especially for girls like you. It has teeth, and it’s ready and willing to bite.”
“The world in here isn’t such a nice place, too, sometimes.” I thought of all the women we had lost, to the times when one of the men visited and the woman ended up with a broken nose and spitting teeth. The master always made sure those men paid for what they did, and they were never seen again, but that didn’t stop it from happening.
He paused, and I readied myself, waiting for him to speak. “When I was out there tonight, all I could think about was you. I kept imagining that you were the one who’d tried to escape, only from Mr. Torres’s house, not the compound, and that it was his men chasing you.”
“You were thinking about me?”
Was that why he’d been walking past my bedroom in the middle of the night as well? Had he needed to come? Had he been worrying about me, and needed to check that I was all right, and then when he’d walked past, he’d heard my cries, and his already fear-ridden mind had translated them into a cry of a different kind?
But my heart felt full. He did care.
“I’m worried you’re too soft for Torres’s world. I’m worried he’s going to eat you alive, and because I haven’t given you the tools to prepare yourself, you’re going to end up like the new girl tonight.”
“I’m stronger than you think, Angel. I’m not as naïve as you believe either. I’ve seen things, heard things, even if I haven’t experienced them for myself. And that girl tonight didn’t grow up like I have. This was all new to her, but it won’t be for me.”
His expression hardened, his jaw tightening as he gritted his teeth. His fists were clenched by his sides. “Being with Mr. Torres will be new for you. He won’t be gentle, either, Catalina. It’ll hurt.”
“There’s nothing I can do to change that. But you can, Angel. You can do what your father asked and help me.”
He was Angel. My Angel. The boy who had always taken care of me and protected me. Though we’d grown up in the same place, I’d never thought of him as an older brother. Our lives were too separate for me to ever think that way. He was the rich boy with the powerful father, and I was a girl with nothing and no one.
Yes, I’d been sold to someone else, and I wasn’t fighting against that—I’d always known what purpose I’d been raised for, and just like the other women here, if I didn’t have a value, I’d never have been given a home—but this felt right. We’d been given a few days, and Angel had been given a job to do. He should be the one to give me all of my firsts, apart from that one thing he could not take from me.
He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. “This is too hard.”
“No harder than it’ll be for me when I’m given to him.”
He shook his head again. “I’m sorry, Catalina. I shouldn’t have disturbed you. You need to get some sleep.”
“No, Angel. Wait.” I desperately didn’t want him to leave, but he backed out of the room and gently closed the door behind him.
I slid back down in my bed and turned to my side and wiped away the tear that traced its way down my cheek.