The Executioner by Suzanne Steele Page B

shocked when Selena makes her way over and takes it off the hanger to give it to me. “You can have it.” She reads the shocked expression on my face and hugs me. “I told you, you’re part of the family.
    Tears well up in my eyes because this is the first time in my life I have ever been part of anything. I know I can’t leave Trent but the thing about it is…I don’t want to.
    The three of us look up when there is a tap at the door and a voice informs us that the men are through with their meeting.
    We make our way out and say our goodbyes. I feel good with the buzz I have going on, but better about being part of something that is bigger than I am.
    Trent grabs my arm, pulling me out the door and seating me in the car. I can’t read him. His face looks like stone and it’s scaring me a little.
    “Did I do something wrong? Am I in trouble?”
    He looks over at me through hooded eyes and raises a sardonic brow. “Should you be?”
    My answer is to look away and stare out the window as I search my mind. Suddenly the space in the car seems too small; Trent seems to take it all up with his intensity. I have never been around anyone who affects me like he does and I don’t know how to deal with him. I find myself becoming more and more nervous and by the time we make it up to his mansion, my heart is racing.
    As soon as he opens the door, I take off running and all I hear is a sadistic laugh ringing in my ears from behind me. I run up to the bedroom and quickly hide in the closet to avoid him. Something is wrong. He’s pissed and I don’t know why. I don’t fucking want to know why either. My ass is still burning from the caning I got and getting another one isn’t on my agenda for this evening.
    “I can smell you—you smell like prey. Predator wants to play,” he taunts me, making his way into the closet. I crouch back into the corner, looking up at the terrifying hooded man above me. The hoodie juts out from his face, casting shadows on the menacing bone structure of a killer.
    He jerks the dress I am holding onto tightly and close to my body as if it will protect me.
    “Do you think that I need another man to buy clothes for my woman? He gives me no time to answer as he continues, “Did you do any coke tonight? Don’t fucking lie to me.”
    “I don’t do street drugs. You know that. And Selena gave the dress to me. I would never take a dress from another man. He was at the table with you all night. How could he have given me anything?”
    I watch in horror as he takes the dress and tears it from top to bottom and repeats my own words back to me.
    “Curious prey, curious prey, let me whisper my intentions into your curious ear.”
    He reaches down, fisting my dress, and pulls me right up into his face. My legs are dangling and tears have begun to stream down my face. “I don’t know what you want.”
    “I think I have made it very clear that I want you. He tilts his head and asks, “Are you thinking of going somewhere, my little pet?”
    I frantically shake my head no and I can’t help but be impressed that he is holding me up mid-air, my legs dangling as if I’m weightless.
    “Do you like what you see?” he growls. A monster, do you like knowing the man who holds you in his power is a monster?”
    My hand trembles as I touch his face and whisper, “My beautiful monster.”
    “I don’t like you taking anything from another man.”
    “Selena gave it to me.”
    I jump as his voice turns to ice and he jerks me closer, “Who the fuck do you think bought it for her? Maybe you want to sleep in the basement tonight?”
    “No! Anything I’ll do anything!”
    His hooded eyes take on a look of amusement. “Anything?”
    “Yes, for you…anything.”
    He walks into the bedroom, still carrying me, and tosses me onto the bed. He grabs a set of handcuffs and the clink I hear as he squeezes them on makes my abdomen clench, partly due to fear and partly due to excitement.
    He reaches into his boot and