He hadn’t killed either of them. Maybe he should have. He’d filed for divorce…and in revenge, she’d told Mamá about her son, the dom. The master. Raoul had tried to explain the BDSM lifestyle to Mamá. All she saw was that her son was a pervert. Sick. An abuser.

Raoul sighed, his throat tight. Her eyes used to light up when he came home. She’d scold him in Spanish for being so long away. Now her gaze held revulsion.

The phone on the bedside table rang, and Raoul grunted in pain as he stretched to answer it. “Sandoval.”

“Hey, buddy.” Cullen’s hearty voice blasted through the phone. “Galen sent me to pick up Kim’s mom at the airport. We’re downstairs. Can you tell Kim she has company?”

Her mother. “Is she a good woman? Able to care for her daughter?” Raoul asked slowly, trying not to let his growing loss show in his voice.

He didn’t succeed, for Cullen’s voice turned cautious. “Seems to be. She’s been in tears half the time and furious at the slavers the rest. Good thing none of them are within her reach. Reminds me of Jessica. And your Kim.”

“Bueno.” Blackness welled inside him, until the air itself seemed to darken. The time had come. “Bring her to the waiting room at the end of my hallway. I will meet you there.”

Kimberly should not remain with him longer. She needed to heal, and once she did, he doubted he’d ever see her again. To step back into a D/s relationship would be more than she could tolerate, no matter how brave she was.

And she was so very courageous. She’d tried to protect him, had crawled into a cage to save him, had killed a man.

Last night, in his lightless room, she’d sat on the foot of his bed, and the hall light had haloed her small figure as if her soul had turned luminous. Her spirit, despite all the hurt, remained beautiful and giving.

But she’d given enough. He swallowed the tightness in his throat away. The next meeting would play out as it should, and then it would all be over. As would the dreams he hadn’t realized he’d held. Foolish Sandoval. She’d made no secret of the fact that she didn’t want a Master/slave relationship or to be a full-time submissive. Even if she hadn’t lived through what she had, she still wouldn’t have wanted it.

Yes, before the auction, she’d asked him to continue as her master, but she’d only needed someone to cling to.

He scowled. Yet she’d been happy with him. Content. Fulfilled. He hadn’t imagined that. He should give her a choice.

First, he’d meet her mother. Make sure his gatita would be cared for if she went home. He glanced at the IV bag and started undoing the tape holding the needle in his arm.

* * * *

Kim sat on a chair in the cafeteria, watching the torrents of rain outside the hospital, listening to the bone-shaking thunder. Thunderstorms, waves… No matter what stupid things humans did, the universe continued. The tides rose and fell; storms rolled in off the ocean; the sun came up every morning.

Life went on.

What about my life? Galen said she could go home now.

Home. She frowned as lightning flashed from cloud to cloud, and a few seconds later,

thunder rumbled.

Go back to Savannah? To what was familiar. Away from slavers and FBI and kidnapped women. Homesickness surged in her, pushing her like the gusts of wind outside. She needed to return to her own life, her work, her duplex, her friends. Her mom.

Time to go home. But…Master R? The thought of leaving him made her chest ache as if the lightning had hit it. She pushed to her feet and headed back to his room.

Could she bear to not see him anymore? To never again feel his hand on her head, or kneel at his feet, or hear the warm pleasure in his voice when she anticipated his needs. But then other memories oozed up, nauseating her: the Overseer stomping on her foot, Lord Greville whipping her until blood ran down her legs, the cage trapping her.

She froze in the center of the hall and concentrated on breathing. I can’t go through that again. Master R’s mother said he was an abuser…but he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. But Mrs. Sandoval was so sure. What am I going to do?

She stopped in his doorway.

He looked exhausted. Pale. Hurting. Had he tried to get up to use the bathroom? Stubborn dom. “I think you need to push the button for your pain medication,” she said sternly.

He glanced at the IV, his expression odd. Then he looked at her. His gaze was intent, as if memorizing her face, lingering on the puffy bruise on her left cheek, the tender split in her lip. His mouth tightened. “I did not care for you very well, did I?”

“I’m alive. Not a slave. We took down a slave ring.” The expressionless look on his face sent warnings shooting through her in small unsettling flashes. “What’s wrong, Ma—Raoul?”

His muscles tensed, as if she’d hit him. He looked at her with a shadowed gaze. “Nothing is wrong. You have a visitor.”

“Who? More cops?”

“Not this time.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “They’re done with us—at least until they start the legal maneuvering.” He lifted his hand as if to touch her. “You can go home now.”

“I can?” He was sending her away. The realization felt like a blow, crueler than the Overseer’s fist into her ribs, solid enough to force her a step back.

He hesitated, and then asked slowly, “What do want to do, Kimberly?”

A surge of hope shivered through her body. He was giving her the choice. She wouldn’t have to leave him.

Only she wanted to go home. Didn’t she? No, I love him.

But was that enough? She wasn’t any blind romantic child. Love didn’t mean a person could live with someone or that the other person was trustworthy. Didn’t guarantee happiness. She knew she couldn’t stay—it wouldn’t work—yet the thought that he wouldn’t be there to hold her in the night, to greet her in the morning with heavy-lidded eyes as he rolled on top of her and pinned her hands over her head…

“I…” Her heart slowly split into two pieces.

His eyes closed, and his jaw tightened. “Your mother is here, sumis—Kimberly.”

“Mom?”

“Sí. She’s in the waiting room down the hall.”

Mom. Kim stared at Raoul, hearing his mother’s words. Thinking of her own. Her mother had loved her father in the beginning—she’d said so—and he’d loved her. But that hadn’t mattered. He’d ground her into the dirt with his demands. Made her a slave.

I don’t want to be that kind of a person. I’m not like my mother. Aside from sex, she’d never wanted to be subservient to a man. She’d only done it to trap the slavers, not to…to stay. I have a life. “I need to go home.”

The brown eyes watching her seemed to darken.

“Yes, I think you do,” he said, no doubt in his voice. Dominant. Master.

Her flare of anger was welcome. She stiffened her spine—look, I still have a spine— walked over to the bed, and held out her hand. “Thank you for…everything.” For the tenderness and firmness, for the understanding and the sex and the…love. She wanted to say more, but her throat closed, preventing words and tears.

His head bowed as he took her hand, kissed her fingers, and opened his hand. Releasing her. “Adios, gatita.”

The words echoed over and over as she walked away.

Chapter Seventeen

“Adios, gatita.” No more, Kim told herself. Stop hearing those damned words. Stop feeling abandoned.

When the hell would she be able to forget about slavers, horrors, and fear?

And love?

Damn Master R anyway. He should have pushed her more, done something—anything— so she could have walked farther than fifteen feet from the door. Fifteen feet wasn’t enough. Kim stood in the doorway of her duplex, staring out at her car. Parked at the curb, as always. So far, far away. Her hands fisted. I can do this, dammit.

Over the past week or so, she’d managed everything else. Her nightmares were helped by lights staying on—although nothing was as effective as a slow, dark voice and solid body pulling her into his safety. “Adios, gatita.” Drown him.

Work kept her busy, especially when she got out on the water. Her friends and coworkers had welcomed her back with joy. And worry over what to say, what to avoid. She missed the understanding of Gabi and the other Shadowlands subs.

But she was getting better, although every single day she ached inside from the loss of…

She shook her head. That’s in the past. This is now, and the task right now is to reach the car. She’d managed the first few days—and sat in the car shaking afterward—but her fear was getting worse every day.

She’d better find a place with a garage and an automatic door. Of course a garage wouldn’t rescue her in other locations, but at least she could leave her own house.

She sniffled a little, trying to steel her nerves. Steel, ha. Her nerves were pretty much frayed twine that snapped under tension, like a couple of nights ago. She’d stood in the door for twenty minutes, trying to go out for groceries. When she’d answered the phone and heard Gabi’s voice, that had done it. Hysteria city. Embarrassing as hell.

Time to try again. Kim made it three steps and froze at the sight of a van coming closer. It pulled up behind her car. Her skin chilled as she tried not to run into the house.