Holding Hannah Read Free Page A

where future customers could pay for their purchases. Purchases like ball gags (written in black felt tip marker across one box) and handcuffs (marked across another) and nipple clamps (her own tightened in dread—or was it eager?—anticipation) and that miscellaneous box marked novelties. A single glass dildo sat in an otherwise empty display case, sending a fan of pure heat flashing beneath her skin and spreading out into every trembling part of her.
    “Are you all right?” Sam asked, smiling, looking down at her as if he could see exactly what was happening within her, as if he liked the way this was affecting her.
    “Of course ,” she lied, trembling. She had to get out of here. She hurried to the door, which was a veritable homage to the Kama Sutra of BDSM.  It was covered with a series of tiny two-by-two inch carved panels, each one depicting a different submissive act or sexual position. Her hand burned to touch it each one individually, but she resisted and and pushed the heavy thing open. She passed back into the main foyer just as Goodson disappeared with Marshall around a second floor balcony corner.
    Her heart was pounding so hard that it hurt. Hannah touched her chest, wanting to follow, but needing very badly just to get this riot of nerves back under control, the pins-and-needle-like prickling out of her nipples, this languid flow of pulsing, thrumming heat out from between her legs.
    F rom behind her, Sam’s low voice practically purred, “Have you ever been to a place like this before, Hannah?”
    The way he said her name made her whole body tighten and ache in a way she had never felt this intensely before. Hannah had no defense against him. Safely ensconced within her skirt and blouse, her arm and her thigh burned and tingled. She dared not touch her leg, not where he could see her, but she gripped her arm, squeezing hard in an effort to get the prickling, touch-me sensation to stop. She shook her head.
    The palatial foyer echoed each slow, deliberate step that brought Sam to her. His breath caressed her ear again as he leaned in close, looming but not touching, heating that thin sliver of air trapped between them at her back and somehow burning her whole body with the overwhelming heat of his.
    “Would you like to?”
    He was temptation personified, the devil in the guise of a smile and a man she should not want this badly.
    He knew .
    Hannah clutched her arm tighter. “No,” she tried to say, but there was no sound to it. No sound at all, and even less conviction.  She tried to shake her head, but no part of her would move. Only her knees, dipping feebly in and out, and her hand, tightening claw-like as she squeezed and squeezed at her left forearm.
    He knew . It wasn’t possible, but he did. She knew he did. She could see it right there, right in the midnight depths of his mocking, laughing, hungry, unblinking eyes.
    “ Don’t be afraid, Hannah.” He reached for her hand and took it gently, loosely, giving her every opportunity to pull free if she truly wanted to. She did and yet she never even tried. He coaxed more than he pulled, but the end result was still the same. He drew her back with him toward a thin door tucked practically unnoticed under the shadows of the curving staircase. “Come. I want to show you something.”
    She didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to see any more. What little she already had seen was having such a terrible effect on her. She could feel them, all those dark familiar urges stirring so deep inside her again. She didn’t need that, didn’t want it. They weren’t a part of her anymore.
    She was better now. She was better !
    But her legs wouldn’t stop walking and her hand stayed willingly captive in his. She couldn’t look away, not even when he opened that thin door to reveal a narrow corridor of grey stone steps trailing down into darkness. He tapped what must have been a light switch tucked up behind the door’s molding and a long series of wall