Mate: The Complete Serial

I have made a decision.”
“About what?” It’s an unconscious decision, when it comes out as a whisper, but I see Jim’s shadow out the window and for some reason am paranoid he can hear us.
“You.”
“Oh,” I whisper. “What about me?”
He grabs my chin between his fingers and I feel his breath mingling with mine as he says near my mouth, “You have two choices: you can tell me to take you home and I will leave you alone forever, or you can say my name and I will feed you as I promised

The warm feel of his now free hand sliding along my jaw before cupping my cheek makes me suck in a breath of surprise, chasing away the words while my whole focus shifts to his touch, and the insane way my body responds as if it knows him

But as I put in his name and hit search, there’s not much more than nothing about Isaac Toft. It’s clear after opening a few different pages that he’s a notoriously mysterious and reserved man which accounts for the utter lack of information. The most well-known public facts are about how he was born in England to his English mother who was a nurse and his Danish father who was an eccentric and reclusive geneticist, and they moved to the US when Isaac was ten

When I lift my head to look at him, he leans in while moving to cup my cheek in his hand, and presses a light kiss to my lips before pulling back, saying, “I will see you soon

Yet I know I don’t fear him because it’s just like everything else since those two months I spent in the dark: I don’t fear anything. I know this probably makes me so messed up, but I’ve not been right mentally after that and I’m aware of that fact. I’m in love with a man I’ve never seen and I have a child with him; it couldn’t get any more messed up than that at this point

“I would like you to trust me, even though you don’t know me, Simone.” He speaks softly, his mouth near my ear, as he releases my hand to clasp the back of my neck

“You are smart,” he says with a chuckle, dropping his arm. “I can see your mind working. Suppose I should introduce myself if I expect you to let me walk you home. Isaac Toft

His lips compress as he realizes I’m not going to finish my previous sentence, then proffers his arm as he steps closer. “Let me walk with you. You should not be walking home in the dark all alone.” When I hesitate in taking it, he lets out a soft laugh. “You could tell me no, but then I will just follow you anyway to make sure you get there safely. So, stop overthinking it, take my arm, and we can get you out of this cold

God, three months pregnant with the child of a man I don’t know; a man who’d been paid to act out a fantasy and instead, had committed a crime in reality. And from my perspective, it really fucks up everything because I fell in love with my captor only to find out he’d been paid, and probably did that sort of thing for so many others.
Sitting back on my heels, I bury my head in my hands.
What in the fucking world am I going to do

“What the fuck do you mean? I’ve been gone two months!”
“Baby.” His tone is soothing, speaking low as if I’m a wild animal about to attack, as he steps closer to me. “Don’t you remember us talking about fantasies? You said you wanted the whole experience of being kidnapped and kept as a slave…?”
“Oh my god.” I step forward and shove him, which he doesn’t expect, and as he lands on his ass, snap, “You fucking idiot! I wanted us to experiment with it together, not be taken by a stranger and…and…Oh my god! How could you be so stupid?”
From the floor, Henry’s face blanches as he realizes what he’s done, and shakes his head. “Simone, I figured you would know. I didn’t mean