"But he who dares not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose," she repeated after him. "That's lovely. Did you think of that just now?"

He smiled at her again, more subdued, and hiccupped. He covered his mouth with his hand. "Excuse me. No, I can't take credit for that. One of the Brontë sisters...Anne, I think. Don't hold me to that, though, I'm hopelessly drunk right now."

"I hadn't noticed," she said, clearing her throat pointedly.

"Have another drink with me," he said, his head tipping so far forward that she thought he might fall face first into her cleavage.

"Um, I think you've had enough...John. Besides, I'm not thirsty," she said, trying to sound amiable.

"That wasn't a goddamn question, woman. Get up, and fix us another round of drinks. And don't skimp on the alcohol. I paid good money for that fine arse of yours, so tonight you get to be my drinking buddy. Now fucking do it," he said, his voice gone dangerously soft. Jesus, but he didn't just run hot and cold, he ran Saharan desert to Arctic tundra. She got up, though, and went for the bar, grateful for the opportunity to escape that piercing gaze for the moment.

Most of his alcohol was in crystal decanters, rather than labeled bottles. She could look at the color and give it a sniff, though, enough to tell that he had gin, vodka, whiskey, rum, tequila, port, and some violently green liquid that smelled almost as foul as it looked. She pushed that bottle far to the side of the bar, looked at what she had available to mix and garnish with, and started to fix them each a whiskey collins.

"Hey, why don't you have a little sour mix with your whiskey?" he critiqued from across the room, and his tone was so harsh and condescending, she had to quell the desire to throw the cocktail shaker at his bloody head. She picked up the decanter of whiskey and tipped it over the shaker, 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10. "There. An extra two and a half shots of whiskey, no skimping. Happy? Maybe you're looking to put hair on your chest, but I like mine pale and smooth and the way it is, thank you."

"I like your chest the way it is, too," he said as she handed him the cocktail.

She just sighed. "Of course you do. You're a man, and you're drunk. Boobs are like A-list celebrities in your world."

"Shut up. I'm not that simple minded, I just appreciate a well-crafted set of breasts when I see them, that's all. Like you've never looked at a man's bum before," he said, snorting and rolling his eyes through another sip of his cocktail. "Oh, wow. Damn, that is a bit strong. No matter, though...s'what I asked for."

She took a sip of her own drink and tried not to gag at how strong it was. She almost never drank hard alcohol like this, and she was already feeling slightly buzzed from that first drink. Internally, she cursed herself for accepting his offer the first time around; she had a feeling she would be paying for it later.

"So...Rose. Tell me about my future wife," he said, sucking on an ice cube. She realized she was staring at him doing this, and she had to catch herself and stop before it became too obvious.

"Like what? S'not much to tell. Mum got pregnant with me at seventeen, my dad did a runner when he found out. I never knew him. We always grew up poor, but she would give up everything just to make sure I had a little bit extra. We both worked full-time, but it just wasn't enough to keep up with the bills, and you know how corrupt the people running the council estates have become. We told them it would only be a few more days until pay day to make rent, but I guess they couldn't wait.. We've always only ever had each other...now she'll have no one," Alba said, biting her lip. She was determined not to let him see her cry, but that was proving to be more and more difficult as the night wore on.

Her admission seemed to make him pensive. He sank back into one corner of the loveseat, and swirled the ice around in his glass again. The nervous habit of a habitual alcoholic, she decided. But was that a trace of guilt she saw on his face?

"Your mother will be taken care," he repeated softly.

"Yeah? And what exactly does that mean, 'taken care of'? How do I know you're even telling the truth, and what's in it for me to keep playing along with your little game?" she asked, knowing she was pushing the boundaries, but needing to call him on what she thought were obvious holes in his plan. "What's to stop me from telling your trust fund flunkies exactly where you got me from?"

That grin again, like a cat toying with a mouse. "What's in it for you to not tell them, besides the money I'll give your mother? Well Alba, let me just put it to you like this: a dead woman can't spend anyone's money, mine or yours. Are you following me?" he asked, his smile growing wider.

She felt her guts turn to ice again. She did follow him, to the T she was pretty sure. But the smile he had given her while he said it…

"So there it is then," she said weakly. "The nub and thrust of it. If I comply, I'll be rewarded. And if I don't, you'll kill my mother. Great. I'm glad we're both on the same page with this now."

"Who said anything about killing your mother? I'm just saying...so long as you do your part, I'll make sure that no harm comes to your mother. You know how dangerous the council estates have become…" he said, unspoken threats implicit in his tone. "But if you don't comply...well, there's just no incentive for me to keep a watch out for Andrea, make sure she stays out of trouble. I am a businessman, after all, I have to protect my investment. In this case, that's you. I'd like to think that the generous financial windfall I'll be providing at the end of this will be incentive enough, but should it prove not to be I still have my own interests to look out for."

Her heart sank. Not only was he some kind of sociopath, but he was apparently a genius one at that, using her mother against her. Brilliant emotional manipulation, top notch. She wondered how he had known her mother's name, and how close the two of them were, but she supposed the slave exchange probably provided dossiers of some kind. Still, she knew then that she would have no choice but to do whatever he wanted, a prospect that was becoming increasingly more terrifying. If she had to lose her mother, by God at the very least she would try to protect her from the same monsters who had taken her from her home.

"Maybe we should have this ground rules talk tomorrow morning, when we're both more lucid. If I'm drunk and you're drunk, we're hardly going to remember this conversation."

"Well, luckily for you, you've got all the fucking time in the world to have it over and over and over again with me, and if that's what I want, then that is what you will fucking do!" he shouted at her. "Quit trying to goad me into doing what you want, woman, and finish your goddamn drink!"

Hurriedly, she gulped it down, feeling her body trying to reject the whiskey even as it passed her lips. She swallowed hard, and took a few deep breaths to keep herself from retching. She was feeling more than a little blurry around the edges now, and if he was about to pick a fight she was hardly going to be able to fend him off. Thing was, she didn't really drink whiskey because it tended to make her belligerent, and her mouth was already getting her into trouble when she wasn't trying to purposefully be a cheeky ass.

"I'm sorry, Doctor," she said demurely, folding her hands in her lap.

"You're goddamn right, you're sorry. Remember-I ask the questions. I give the orders. I own you, it is not the other way around. And be lucky, because most of the men who frequent places like the exchange do not have the generous and tender heart that I do. I paid almost half a million pounds for you up front, and I'm prepared to pay you more than that if you can get the job done right. So you just smile and bat your eyelashes, and you tell me all about your goddamn self. Your hopes and dreams, your favorite color, the first boy you kissed, what the fuck ever. But if I ask you questions, I expect answers, not more questions, not your unsolicited advice. Got it?"

"Got it," she nodded in affirmation, and then thought to herself, Half a million pounds?. He nodded too, and sank back against the loveseat. The fire had gone out of his eyes, and he just looked tired now. A dab of blood was dried at the corner of his mouth, and before she had even really thought about what she was doing, she licked her thumb and reached out to wipe it away. When she finished, she went to pull her hand back from his face, but he caught her by the wrist and stared at her, his pupils so large that his eyes almost looked black. He planted a kiss against the inside of her wrist, and she felt her knees start to tremble. He worked his way up her arm, kissed her throat and collarbone, and oh, my God, was she completely turned on right now?

"Now why are you going to go and start something you can't finish?" she panted, desperate to put the brakes on.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he whispered against her throat, letting his fingers trail down her thigh.

She knew it was probably a bad idea even as she said it, but maybe a part of her were hoping it were true, to prolong the inevitable. Besides, for some reason the whiskey thought it seemed like a perfectly appropriate thing to say to the mercurial and seemingly dangerous man she was currently sharing a loveseat with. "Well, it's hardly like you'll be capable of..performing, not when you're this intoxicated. I had a boyfriend who had that problem. Said guys can't get it up if they're too drunk, he even called it 'whiskey dick'..."

"Is that so?" the Doctor asked, that mad gleam returning to his eye.

"Ummm…" she stammered, realizing now in retrospect that what she had just said to him probably sounded an awful lot like a challenge or a come-on, especially in his intoxicated state.

"Well, my dear, I'd be more than happy to prove the both of you wrong," he growled low in his throat, pinning her against the side of the loveseat. The piece of furniture was hardly big enough to attempt much besides a grope and a snog, so she wasn't really sure where he was going now with this, but the sensations weren't altogether unpleasant so she let it ride.

Now, though he was nibbling on the tender spot just below her ear, and as she suspected, she was too intoxicated to levy much of a protest, though she wasn't sure she would've even if she could have done. If anything, the uncoordinated flailing of her limbs might've been misinterpreted as her urging him on, because he only became more frantic and persistent in his efforts, and he was sucking and nipping at her throat and shoulders so hard now that she was sure it would leave bruises.

And then, any hope she had of fending him off was lost when he pulled the cups of her chemise down and started sucking on her nipples. She let out a moan, so soft and tiny she didn't even know how he could've heard it over the sound of the crackling fire and their own drunken, labored breathing, but obviously he had heard it because he took it as an unspoken invitation. He pulled her with him off the loveseat and onto the rug in front of the fireplace, where he began tugging the chemise off her body. The thin lace material got caught and bunched up around her waist, and when he couldn't get the material to slide past her hips he just ripped the fabric in half with a frustrated grunt. Having freed her of the only garment she was wearing, he turned to his own clothing and began fumbling with the buttons of his dress shirt. She watched him from her spot on the floor, wondering if she should try to help him undress, wondering whether doing one over the other might incur his sudden and seemingly spontaneous wrath. Now she was glad she had plied herself with liquor, to dull her nerves just the slightest against whatever might come next, however pleasant or unpleasant whatever that was might prove to be.

And then she made it worse for herself yet again, by gasping when he finished taking his pants off. She wasn't so drunk that she didn't catch the pleased little look on his face when he caught her reaction to his raging erection. Whiskey dick? Apparently it wasn't even in his vocabulary, because he was beyond pissed drunk right now and still looked like he could split wood with the tool he was wielding. In the absence of any lumber, she realized he might have to settle for splitting her in half instead, and she was genuinely afraid again. He had a good couple of inches on even the biggest of the guys she had ever slept with, and she remembered how sore ithat/i particular encounter had left her.

He was teasing her now, rubbing the head of his cock against her entrance. "You're already wet, you dirty little slut. You like playing hard to get, don't you? Or maybe you just want it as bad as I do, hmm?"

Her cheeks burned with shame, but she said nothing. What could she even begin to say? He had her by the balls, figuratively speaking. She was wet, her nipples were hard, her breathing was rapid and shallow...her body was acting a traitor, responding to him even when she was willing it not to, and it certainly wasn't responding like that of someone who was either unwilling or uninterested.

"If you don't mind, I'll skip on the foreplay just this once. But it doesn't seem like you mind that much at all…" he said, using the smaller of his heads to tease her again. Finally, he lowered himself down over her and she could feel him reaching between their legs and then in one smooth motion he was thrusting up inside of her, battering against her cervix like he was taking revenge on it. "How do you like my whiskey dick now, whore?"

She supposed she had provoked him, after all. That was something she was going to have to learn to be more careful about.