Page 4 of Never Broken

He laughed. And not a fake chuckle designed to humor a master’s stupid, unfunny joke. Areallaugh, like a real person, and for some reason, a warm, strange thrill shot right through my body. What the hell was going on with this guy—no, not guy. Slave.Slave.

“Sure. If that makes you more comfortable.”

“You know what would make me comfortable?” I asked.

“Let me guess. A good f?—”

“Don’t youdare.”

“Foamy espresso. Why, what did you think I was going to say?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly, face on fire now. “Foamy espresso. A good foamy espresso. That’s what I want.” I cringed, wondering why the hell I was still enabling this, even as I waited breathlessly for his next remark. My room, like every room in the desert foothills, was air-conditioned, but it felt like the temperature had shot up twenty degrees.

“Oh, you mean this?”

From the speaker came a high-pitched grinding noise, then a gurgling that was unmistakably the sound of, uh, foamy espresso being poured into one of Mom’s tiny, hand-painted china cups. Sohe’dfigured the machine out easily and he couldn’t have possibly been in this house for more than a day. My mouth watered; I could practically smell it. Damn him.

“Ah, organic Ecuadorian caramel macchiato,” he said as if he were leisurely sitting back in a chair and sipping it. “The last one in the house.”

I gasped. “You’re not allowed to drink that.”

“Who’s going to stop me? You won’t come down here, and there’s nobody else around.”

“I can tell Daddy. He’ll have you whipped.” I mean, he could, but he wouldn’t. Not forthat.Plus, I couldn’t imagine a stupider thing to go tattling to him about.

“Or you could come down here and do it yourself.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” I’d never whipped a slave—never even seen it done. Daddy kept a switch and a cane around but rarely touched them himself, andIcertainly never had. For anything beyond that, we had always hired a handler, who was discreet enough to do his work well out of earshot of us.

“Come on. You’re not curious about me?”

“Hardly.” Curious? The word hardly seemed adequate, when literally the only thing I could think about right now was throwing open the door, sprinting down the stairs, and glimpsing for myself just what this mystery guy—mystery slave?—looked like.Of courseI was curious. I’d never before been so thoroughly overwhelmed with curiosity about anyone. And even though I still hadn’t a clue what he looked like, the flush in my face and the tingling in my thighs was leading me to suspect that curiosity wasn’t all it was.

“Miss?” I realized I’d stopped talking, and here he was, suddenly being all proper. Still, there was a challenge here and something else I couldn’t put my finger on. Sarcasm? Bitterness? No, danger.

That was it.

Danger.

A massive, blinking red warning sign.Slave:do not approach.

“Okay, I lied,” he said, almost sincerely, like he was afraid he’d disappointed me.

Disappointing?This?Thatwould be the biggest laugh all night. In all of five minutes, I’d been revived, struck dead, and revived again.

“There’s some coffee left,” he said. “You still want it?”

“I—” Yes. Yes, I did want it. Desperately. “Forget it,” I said and released the button.

I sank back into my desk chair, staring at the door, flushed, heart rattling, even a little out of breath. I flipped open Malchow, but at this point, even a triple macchiato wouldn’t be enough to help me concentrate. I’d had no pills, no caffeine, and yet for the first time in months and months, my whole body felt awake, and it had nothing to do with chemistry.

Or maybe it did.

2

HIM

EARLIER

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