by Nikki Rose
Hunter ran the water while I sat, still bound in ropes. When he came out of the bathroom, he was drying his hands on a small towel and smiling. “All ready.”
He knelt down at my feet and untied the ropes before doing the same with my wrists. Hunter took me by the arm and gently guided me into the bathroom while I struggled to keep the sheet secured around me. I was lucky he’d been so careful to always wrap me in it when carrying me from one place to the next.
My cheeks heated as I let the sheet fall to the floor and climbed into the tub. Hunter pretended not to watch, but I could feel his eyes burning into me as I lowered myself into the foamy water. The warmth penetrated my trembling, achy muscles and soothed my frazzled mind. I leaned back with a relaxing sigh. I still couldn’t fully let my guard down as I felt him watching me.
“Do you have to watch me the whole time?” It wasn’t like it was the first time he’d seen my naked body, but he still looked at me as though I was a work of art all my own. It made me uncomfortable.
“I’ve seen how fast you can be. Never can tell what you might do next so I have to keep a close eye on you.”
I rolled my eyes and began letting the water relax me farther.
We sat in silence for so long I almost thought he’d left the room until he suddenly broke the silence. “About ready for bed? That water has to be getting cold by now.”
“Oh, yeah. It is kind of chilly.”
“I’ll get you a towel.” He crossed the bathroom to the counter where a white fluffy towel waited. “Here you go.” He extended his arm but kept his distance as he offered me the towel.
“Thank you,” I whispered, feeling shy as I stood up and wrapped myself in the towel.
He led me into the bedroom and nodded toward the bed. “Sit.”
A sickening feeling twisted in the pit of my stomach. He didn’t think we were going to have sex again, did he? Not now that I knew the true him. Not as his prisoner. No way. He cast me a warning glance and I did as he said, sitting on the very edge of the bed.
Hunter dug through a trash bag, pulling out some of my bathroom items and a few knick-knacks from my house.
“Shit, I grabbed the wrong bag. I left your clothes bag downstairs.” Hunter dug through the dresser drawer until he pulled out a large t-shirt. “Put this on.” He tossed it to me and I barely caught it.
“I don’t have panties.”
“Chris packed them. Once I get you secure up here, I’ll get them from your bag.”
I didn’t like knowing Chris had gone through my most intimate items but I was glad I would have some of my own things.
“Tomorrow I’ll be making adjustments to the room to make you more comfortable, but for tonight I’m afraid I’ll have to secure you to the bed to make sure you don’t try to run. I know being bound doesn’t make it easy to sleep so I’ll give you a choice. I can use rope to tie both of your hands to the bed or I can use handcuffs and just cuff one wrist. The handcuffs are harder but it would allow you a little more freedom to get comfortable.”
“You don’t have to tie me up. It’s late, I don’t know where we are. I won’t run.”
He knew me better than that by the way he tilted his head and looked at me. “Choose or I’ll choose for you.”
“The handcuffs,” I whispered, feeling ashamed for giving in but not wanting him to take away the one choice he’d offered to me since taking me.
“Up on the bed.” He commanded.
I crawled up on the bed and laid down on my side while my heart threatened to jump out of my throat.
“Covers?”
I nodded and he gently draped the soft quilt over my lower body. Hunter dug through another drawer at the side table. The rattling of handcuffs made my body stiffen. I couldn’t breathe with him so close as he leaned over to secure my arm to the headboard.
He was slow to pull back, taking in a deep breath as he brushed against me. I froze, afraid to move until he pulled away and moved toward the door.
“Hunter?”
“Yes?”
“How long are you going to keep me here?”
“Sleep, Addy.” He slipped out the door before I could protest.
Hunter
“How long do you think you can keep this up?” Chris sat on my couch with a bottle of beer in his hand as I came down the stairs.
“Keep what up?” I plopped down on the opposite side and he tossed me the extra beer on the coffee table.
“I get that you had to make a split decision. She was making a scene and you needed to get her somewhere and calm her down. But you’re talking about making alterations to the room. You had me go out and pick up metal bars for the windows and a deadbolt for the bedroom door.”
“She already tried to escape once.” I opened my beer and took a long drag.
“Then you need to put her in custody. There are certain protocols for this kind of situation.”
“You want to lock her up?”
“It can’t be any worse than what you’re doing to her here.”
“Here she is close to me. I can keep her safe.”
“You don’t think she’d be safe in federal custody?”
“No. Not after hearing how deep this thing goes. We don’t know who we can trust.”
Chris sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. “You can’t keep her locked up here indefinitely. People will get suspicious.”
“If I could tell her the truth—”
“No. You know you can’t trust outsiders with this kind of information.”
“It doesn’t have to be all of it. Just enough to make her understand.”
“You think anything you say is going to turn you into the good guy in her eyes? She saw you kill a man for god’s sake.”
“I think she would eventually understand.”
“Girls like her, they see things in black and white. We work in the gray. She’ll never understand that.” Chris’s phone buzzed and he pulled it out. “I have to take this then I’m heading to my place.” Chris and I had been friends for as long as I’d been in the agency. We’d decided to both setup houses nearby in case we both needed them.
“Okay, and thanks for everything.”
“Just think about what I said.” Chris slipped out the front door and I followed to lock it behind him.
I had to find a way for her to see me as something other than a murderer. We were so close, if not for that damn tattoo.
CHAPTER 17
Addy
“Rise and shine.” The sudden bright light streaming through the uncovered window nearly blinded me as I heard Hunter’s warm voice.
I moved my arm to cover my eyes but the clanking metal handcuff kept me from it. I groaned and turned my face into my pillow to hide from the sun. “What time is it?”
“Seven o’clock. I figured you had a rough night so I’d let you sleep in.”
“This is sleeping in?” I heard him moving around the room and squinted as I peeked out at him.
His heavy metal toolbox clanged as he sat it on the floor and sent my imagination reeling. I shot up in bed nearly pulling my cuffed arm from the socket. “What are you doing? What is all that?”
Hunter looked up at me in bewilderment. “It’s a toolbox.”
“W—what are you going to do?”
He gave me a soft smile that made his eyes slightly crinkle. “I told you last night I was going to make some adjustments to the room so you’d be more comfortable.”
I situated myself on the bed so the handcuff didn’t cut into my wrist. Hunter stood from the box and moved to the tray of food on the nightstand I hadn’t noticed until then.
“Here., I figured you could eat in bed while I work.”
He situated the tray over my lap. I looked at it suspiciously but my stomach growled at the sight of the bacon, eggs, and toast. “You cooked breakfast?”
“Yeah of course. I figured that sandwich last night wouldn’t last too long.”
“Thank you.” I took a bite of the toast
and a sip of orange juice.
“You’re welcome.” Hunter smiled and turned back to his toolbox which brought my nervousness to the forefront again.
“Can I ask what changes you’re making?” I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to know.
“I’m adding window bars and a deadbolt.”
“Window bars? Like a prison?” The blood drained from my face and I put my fork full of eggs down.
“It’s so I can let you move around freely in here. Being handcuffed like that can’t be very comfortable. And, as much as I enjoy watching you, I can’t always keep an eye on you twenty-four-seven. This way you can get up out of bed, go to the bathroom, take a bath... all without having to depend on me to unlock the cuffs and watch you.”
The idea of being more securely trapped in this house sent dread coursing through my body but at the same time, not having to be handcuffed had its appeal.
Hunter worked and I sat on the edge of the bed to watch. He added a deadbolt to the bedroom door and steel bars to the windows. Even though they were decorative, they still enforced the realization that I was, in fact, a prisoner in his home.
He screwed in the second to last window grate when I finally couldn’t take the questions building inside me. “You sure are making a lot of changes around here for this to be temporary. You don’t plan to ever let me go do you?”
He jerked his face toward me and his wide eyes met mine. “Of course, I plan to let you go. Jesus, what do you think I plan to do here?”
What did I think he was going to do? Kill me? No, he was going through a lot of trouble to make changes for me. If he was going to kill me, he could have done that somewhere with less risk than bringing me to his home. It was much more likely that he would want to keep me. I wasn’t sure which thought terrified me more.
Hunter quickly moved to my side. “Addy? You look pale. Are you okay?”
His warm hands on my shoulders soaked through the sudden chill that had taken over me and I startled. “Are you planning on keeping me?”
The corner of his mouth turned down and Hunter looked out the window. “For a little while.” His voice was soft but certain.
“How long?” I prayed I wasn’t pressing him too much.
He turned back to face me with sadness lacing his eyes. “However long it takes.”
“Takes for what?” I wanted desperately to understand what and why this was happening. Nothing he did or said made any sense to me.
He let out a loud sigh and his jaw tensed. “To make you understand.”
I clenched my fists and resisted the urge to scream. “If you’d quit talking to me in riddles and just tell me then maybe I’d understand a lot faster. Then, I could get out of here.”
That softness in his eyes hardened as a shadow washed over his face. “I have to get back to work. Once I get these windows done, I’ll fix us some lunch.”
“Hunter, please? I just want to go home. Just explain to me what’s going on.”
“Question time is over.” He snapped as he stood from the bed and went back to work on the last window.
I sighed and leaned back against the headboard as he worked. I stared out the caged window at the beautiful blue sky. The white fluffy clouds seemed to mock me as a soft breeze rustled through the trees. It felt wrong somehow that just on the other side of that window was such a beautiful day when I was locked up inside this prison. It should be gray and gloomy. In the movies, it was always storming during moments like that.
It wasn’t long before the clanking of tools stopped and Hunter walked back over to me. “Ready for lunch?”
“Sure.” I waited for Hunter to unlock the handcuffs but instead, he went to the nightstand drawer.
After digging around, he came back with a piece of rope and stood beside me. “Hold out your hands.”
“You’re going to tie my hands again?”
“This room is secure. Here you don’t have to be bound but in the rest of the house I can’t trust you won’t try to escape.”
“Please don’t?”
For an instant, I thought I’d reached him. There was hesitation in his gaze but he pushed it aside and snapped his command. “Hands.”
The bark of his tone made me jump and I quickly offered my hands out in front of me. He tied my wrists and moved to my feet, leaving enough rope between them that I could walk on my own as long as I took small steps. There’d be no way of running. Once my hands and feet were securely bound, he grabbed the short bit of rope between my hands and used it to guide me from the room.
He took his time leading me down the stairs so I wouldn’t trip on the rope. Once inside the kitchen, Hunter sat me into a chair and knelt down to tie my ankles to the chair legs.
“Isn’t this a bit of overkill?”
“You proved yesterday that I can’t trust you not to run. I’m not taking any chances.”
There was no point in arguing. I sat as Hunter cooked us tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. “Chris will be stopping by after lunch so we can talk business so you’ll need to stay in your room for a while but at least now you can move around the room freely.”
“That’s looking on the bright side,” I muttered as he placed the food in front of me. The sandwich was pretty easy to eat with my tied hands but the soup proved more difficult as the first spoonful ran down Hunter’s white shirt I wore.
“Here, let me help you.” He took the spoon from my hands and scooped up a bite but I turned my head.
“I won’t be fed like a baby. Just untie my hands so I can eat like a normal human being.”
“You haven’t earned the right to have your hands untied. Yesterday you tried to run. Maybe when you can prove to me you aren’t a risk of running, I’ll untie your hands so you can eat easier. Until then, either let me help you or you can go hungry.”
He tried to push the spoon to my lips but I turned my head making him spill the spoonful down my shirt and onto my lap. He had told me over and over that, he wouldn’t kill me. If he was going to keep me here, I wasn’t going to make it easy on him.
“Damn it. You stubborn woman. Eat.”
“Untie my hands.”
“No. Eat like this or go hungry.” He raised his voice in a commanding tone but I refused to be fed like a child.
Against my still growling stomach’s protest, I turned my head. “Then I’ll go hungry.”
He stood so fast that his chair flipped back and crashed to the floor as he threw the spoon on the table. Chris burst into the kitchen with wide eyes looking down at me with horror.
“Shit, Hunter. What the hell did you do?”
“Stubborn woman refuses to eat.” He threw his hands in the air.
Chris’s shoulders relaxed as he walked closer to examine me. “Oh God, it’s soup?”
“Yeah, I made tomato—Oh my God, you thought—?”
“Well, I never would have thought you would but I hear a loud noise and walk in to see her covered in red—”
Both men laughed, though I still didn’t find much humor in the whole situation. All I wanted was my freedom back. “If you two are done laughing, I’d like to go back to the room. At least there I don’t have to be tied up.”
Hunter quit laughing and frowned at me. “I was hoping we’d have some time to talk during lunch.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Fine. You want to be like that then you can stay locked in the room for all I care.”
Hunter stormed over to me and I flinched. He lowered to untie my feet from the chair and tied them back together. He grabbed me by the rope holding my hands and practically dragged me up the stairs. I struggled to keep up, tripping several times along the way.
Hunter stormed into the bedroom and tossed me onto the bed. Other than when he put me in the trunk of his car, which had been surprisingly gentle, this was probably the most I’d feared him. What had I done? He held my life in his hands and I chose to be petty and make him angry. Stupid, stupid girl.
I cowe
red as he loomed over me and grabbed my ankles, pulling me down the bed closer to him. I thrashed and fought as he pulled me closer, unsure of what he might do.
“Please no. I’m sorry. Please?” I kicked, trying to knock him away though to fight him off until I realized he was untying my feet. My heart pounded in my chest so hard I could feel it over my whole body. He tossed the rope to the floor and my feet dangled off the bed, free of the ropes.
“Hands.” He barked and I offered him my hands. After untying the rope, he let me hands unceremoniously drop to my lap and tossed the rope to join the other in a pile on the floor. Without another word, he turned and walked out into the hall. I jumped as he slammed the door shut and a sickening feeling settled in my stomach at the click of the deadbolt being locked into place.
I crawled up the bed, thoughts of cleaning up from lunch far from my mind, as I curled onto my side and clutched the pillow to my chest and cried.
Hunter
The slamming door rattled the walls but I only stopped long enough to lock the door behind me before storming down the stairs. Chris stood from the couch and studied me with a tilt of his head.
“What the hell has gotten into you?”
“What do you mean?” I barked.
“You are the most level headed guy I know. Now you’re losing your temper over this girl?”
“She’s just—” I let out a loud sigh and paced the floor.
“You need to run some of this off.”
“I can’t leave—”
Chris held up his hand. “I’ve got an hour before I need to check in. I’ll hang out here.”
“Do not go up there with her unless you suspect she’s in danger or trying to escape.”
Chris nodded.
“I’ll be back in one hour.” I started out the door, stopping just inside the doorway to turn back to Chris. “And thanks.”
We exchanged understanding glances before I hurried from the house. I hadn’t run way out here in a long time. I missed nature. The feel of dirt underfoot as I pounded the ground with each lunge forward, the cold air stinging my lungs, the blood drumming in my ears in the quiet. It was just what I needed.