Witch Fire by Anya Bast

The color seemed wrong. Mira scowled at her reflection. She was no nurse, but she’d had her share of bruises, and this one looked older than it was. Definitely not pretty, but on its way to gone.
    How could that be?
    She shrugged. She was probably mistaken. It’s not like she ever went to med school.
    A towel, washcloth, packaged toothbrush, and fresh bar of soap lay on the small porcelain table near the shower, correction, huge, custom shower. A pair of jeans and a silky soft blue sweater rested on the marble counter. More castoffs from his friend, maybe? She was unaccountably annoyed that she was being forced to wear clothing left behind by Jack’s fuck buddies.
    Mira wondered if he’d tied them to the eyebolt.
    She shuddered, imagining herself tied to it for a moment. The images came without coaxing. Jack’s big body covering hers, skin sliding against skin, slick with their combined perspiration. Her wrists bound above her head. Jack between her thighs. Herself, at his mercy and completely possessed by him.
    Mira groaned, the sound magnified by the large room. How was she supposed to get through this while she was so attracted to her captor?
    Could Stockholm syndrome set in this early?
    She turned, locked the door, and checked it twice before she stripped off her clothes. She needed a shower. The smell of the diner still clung faintly to her.
    The custom shower could probably fit about four people and had jets that shot water from three different directions. After regulating the temperature controls to her liking, she stepped inside and closed the door. The warm water sluiced down her body, drawing a ragged groan of pleasure from her throat.
    Carefully keeping her bruise out of the path of the water’s spray, she soaped her hands and rubbed them over her arms and chest. Her body felt sensitized, sexually aware. It had been a long time since she’d felt that way. Her nipples went hard as she passed her hands over them, peeking from the white soap bubbles.
    Tipping her head back with a sigh, she ran her palms over her abdomen, passed her fingers through the coarse dark hair covering her mound, and then delved between her thighs. She brushed her sensitive clit. It had been a long time since she’d made herself come.
    She stood for a moment with her hand between her thighs, feeling the heat of her sex radiate into her palm. She was a healthy woman with needs that had gone unfulfilled. That had to explain her intense attraction to Jack. She was willing to accept that explanation, anyway, since the alternative was so scary. Did she have some dangerous, secret abduction fantasies she should seek counseling for?
    Mira finished bathing, then got out and dressed in the cast-off clothing.
    The jeans were uncomfortably too small for her and she ended up annoyed again as she stepped out of the bathroom, running a comb she’d found in a drawer through her towel-dried hair. Her annoyance was probably a result of her inexplicable sexual frustration just as much as having to wear the too-small castoffs from one of Jack’s lovers.
    Jack stood shirtless and shoeless in the middle of the bedroom. The sight of him there in the morning sunlight with his hair mussed from sleep was enough to drop her IQ about fifty points. She stopped and stared for a moment, slack-jawed, before recovering.
    He dangled her pentagram from one long finger. “I found this on the carpet in the living room.”
    â€œMust have fallen off while you were accosting me,” she snapped. She walked over and took it from him.
    He grabbed her wrist before she could pull away and drew her close to him. The muscles of his forearm and chest rippled with the movement. Skitters of pleasure and apprehension ran through her body as he brushed her damp hair away from her face and tipped her chin to the side to take a look at the bruise. “It’s better today.”
    Mira frowned. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s