Free The Romantic Dominant by Maggie Carpenter Page A

into the ocean depths.
    Bolting upright, sweating and panting, he blinked his eyes open. His heart was pounding, and as he scanned the still, silent room, he tried to come to terms with the dream.
    Switching on his bedside lamp he took several deep breaths, then rolled from his bed and padded into the bathroom. Running a hand towel under the cold water, he wiped it across his face, staring at his reflection.
    “You have to do something. I don’t know what, but something. You won’t have any peace until you find out where she is and why she disappeared on you.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    G abriela finished loading the dishwasher and stared out the window at the manicured backyard. Rose bushes, olive trees, and a green lawn that sat majestically like a rich, verdant carpet, made for an engaging picture. At the far end sat the storage shed where the gardeners kept their equipment. It looked innocent enough, but behind a false wall was the cage.
    She had spotted the tiny spy camera the first time he’d thrown her in there, and knowing she was being monitored she’d immediately feigned comfort and ease. He’d left her for three hours, and in the dim red light she had hummed for a while, then sung Brazilian love songs in her native Portuguese before yawning and laying down for a nap.
    Though Gabriela had been suffering, she would have appeared completely calm. Her ruse had worked, and he’d never put her in the cage again.
    The first time he’d placed the blindfold around her eyes, gagged her and tied her to the bed, she’d pretended to be upset and begged him to let her go. Consequently he used that to punish her, never knowing she looked forward to the serenity and peace it afforded her.
    It was his threat to harm her young nephew, Nicholas, that had controlled her. She simply couldn’t take the risk that Connor might make good on his hateful promise, but what Connor didn’t know was that her sister, Aveena and her husband, Thomas, took Nicholas to Brazil every year in October, and they always left on the fifteenth, staying for a month. It was already the seventeenth, and Gabriela could safely assume Nicholas was out of danger, at least for the moment.
    Things in the Tudor house were questionable at best, and she was convinced Connor’s frustration with her had reached its peak. Though she had been methodically planning her escape, she believed she was running out of time.
    Connor could only fire up an erection when she called him Master and claimed to need him and his money, but he’d only been successful the first week or so she’d been there. Ever since, though she’d be bent over, skirt up and wearing no panties, it didn’t matter how many times she’d repeat the words, he would end up screaming in frustration and marching away.
    His other bizarre habit only lasted the first few nights of her captivity. She was made to wear a plain cotton nightie, open the top buttons to expose her breasts, and after tying her arms above her head he had slathered them with whipped cream and lapped it up. She’d hated it, and during a particularly grotesque episode she had snapped her head down on to his, viciously head-butting him.
    Screeching in shock he had leapt backwards, then lunging forward struck her across the face. She had sported a painful bruise for some time, but he never attempted to devour her breasts again.
    It had been weeks since he’d attempted any lewd attention at all, and while it was a relief it was also a worry. Would he simply let her go, or was there a greater threat?
    The sound of the garage door snapped her from her reverie; it was lunchtime and Connor was home. His habits were chillingly consistent. Every day he would arrive at 12:10, sit at the table while she served him a small steak or chicken breast, steamed broccoli and brown rice. It had to be followed with a cup of coffee accompanied by steamed milk in a small jug, and during the silent meal she was required to stand next to him.
    In the early days