Indulgence

by K. A. Berg

  “Shh.”

  My fears ratcheted up about a hundred notches. My heart hammered so hard in my chest I was terrified I’d have a heart attack. Gerard’s other hand reached down to turn the handle, and he forced me through the door to my room. The contents of my purse scattered across the floor as he kicked my bag in with us.

  Tears trickled from my eyes thanks to smashing my nose, my forehead burned with agony, and a deep-seated fear rose up as the latch clicked shut behind me.

  “Help!” I yelled as loud as I could the second he released his hand from my mouth. “Help!”

  I ran to the side of the room as far from him as I could. He charged forward, and the sound of him backhanding me vibrated off the walls. The right side of my face pulsated, and I felt it start to swell, but I didn’t have a second to focus on it before Gerard yanked me to him and covered my mouth again. His other arm curled around my throat as he put me in a headlock. “I am here to help you,” he snarled as if I were an ungrateful hag. In the distance, I thought I heard my phone ringing.

  His hold tightened around my neck, squeezing until I was barely hanging on to consciousness. He released my mouth. It wasn’t like I could yell as he choked me. My fingernails clawed at his arm, trying to get him to let go, but he wasn’t deterred. He stepped forward, pulling me with him.

  Panic gripped me tight as he grabbed one of the thigh-highs hanging from the side of my suitcase and jammed it into my mouth. His dirty fingernails scraped the roof of my mouth in his haste to push the nylon between my lips, and then his palm was, once again, pressing over my lips. I retched and did my best not to vomit around the gag.

  “We have a special connection, Natalie,” he whispered into my ear before he licked the side of my face.

  Don’t throw up! Don’t throw up! If you throw up, you will choke on it and die!

  Genuine fear for my life spread through my veins like wildfire. I couldn’t breathe through my nose, making me think he broke it when he shoved me into the door. His hold around my throat hadn’t loosened. I wasn’t sure if he was aware that he was strangling me, which was scariest of all. He was in some kind of state of delusion.

  “I felt it that first night I watched you fall apart in front of me. He might have been the one inside you, but I was the one you sought out with your eyes as you climaxed. It was such a beautiful thing to watch, love.”

  The way he used Matteo’s pet name terrified me. It meant he paid closer attention to us than I thought. Only, I had always been so engrossed in whatever Matteo was doing to my body that there was no way in hell I was ever connecting with him. He just happened to be there when it all exploded.

  He let go of my neck and yanked me up by my hair. My scalp was on fire as he gripped a handful of it by the roots. He glared at me with hard eyes as his voice grew angrier. “But then you closed me off. You teased me.”

  He leaned in and ran his nose down my cheek not the least bit deterred by the blood no-doubt now covering the side of my face thanks to the burning gash on my forehead. My body revolted in repulsion. “You allowed me in and then cut me off. He told me all his plans and painted an erotic picture that I wanted to see. Then he went and closed the door.”

  His hot breath skated across my jaw and down my neck. He was starting to breathe a bit heavier. The idea that he was getting revved up for something big, something I definitely wasn’t going to like, sent terror barreling through me.

  He jerked my head back and smirked with sleazy confidence. “Was I too much competition for him? Could your husband feel me lulling you away from him?”

  His grin was absolutely sinister as the next words passed his lips. “Is that why you stopped coming to the club? Is that why you two separated?”

  My stomach tightened. How could he know that?

  My gut knew this wasn’t a coincidence. I wasn’t imagining things or being dramatic.

  A tremor ran down my body, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to control my emotions.

  He was stalking me

  Had been for weeks at least. Black spots hung on the outskirts of my vision as dizziness started to take over when I thought about him following me all summer. Did he know where I lived? Had he followed me to Penelope’s? Is he following Matteo too? What if he’d killed Matteo and was here to drag me away?

  Was it possible to actually be scared to death? Because everything inside me turned off. My vision blurred. My ears rang. My whole body felt as if it were missing feeling.

  I was off kilter when he shoved me onto the bed and snatched the sash from my robe lying on my pillow. I felt as though I had no control over myself. I was seized by terror.

  He approached me with the sash and some adrenaline finally kicked in. Blood smeared across the bedspread as I tried to roll away from him. No way was he going to tie any part of me to something. Not happening.

  He snagged my ankle and pulled me back toward him. I attempted to grab on to the bedspread, but I couldn’t get purchase. My head throbbed as Gerard flipped me over and yanked me. His eyes appeared feral as he dragged me to him and looped the sash from the robe around my ankle. “No fret, dear Natalie. I’ve watched you enough to know just what you like. Even if you did dangle that juicy plan with the sex swing in front of me in the sauna and then shut me out, I still know how you like to be touched.”

  His hand trailed up the inside my thigh, inches away from my core, and it was as if his touch rendered me immobile. I froze. He was going to rape me. I wanted to kick him in the face. Then punch him in the throat. And the balls. But I couldn’t move. All I could focus on was this unwanted touch.

  Disgust washed over me as he slipped his hand into my shorts. A wave of nausea crashed down on me as he flicked my clit. Another tear leaked from my eye down my cheek.

  I heard the sound of my phone ringing again. Then it all hit me.

  Snapshots of the kids and Matteo shuttered through my mind.

  The kids on their last birthday.

  Their faces when they showed me all their hard work at camp.

  Matteo the day we got married.

  Matteo’s smile the day we bought our home.

  The children giggling on Saturday mornings when they made breakfast with Matteo.

  My last image of Matteo would not be the look on his face when I told him I couldn’t come home yet. That wasn’t how our story ended. This wasn’t how I ended.

  Over my dead body would I allow this man to touch me. I’d fight him to my very last breath.

  He was not going to take that or anything else from me. A wave of courage and strength pulsed through my veins as I jerked my foot back and put all the power I could muster into shoving it into Gerard midsection. I couldn’t allow him to tie me up. If that happened—I didn’t want to think about it. The kick was hard enough to knock him off his balance. He tripped over the luggage rack and fell.

  Quickly, I yanked the stocking from my mouth, but before I could belt out a cry for help, a fist smashed into my sternum. The breath was ripped from my lungs. A dull buzz filled my ears as I dropped to the ground. My head thudded against the floor as pure fire burned through my chest. I couldn’t get air into my lungs. I gasped and gasped, not feeling any relief.

  Gerard loomed over me, rage oozing from his body. He swung his leg back and kicked me in the side. A sharp stab ricocheted in my chest cavity. “That wasn’t very nice.”

  I rolled to my side trying to cope with the assault of agony raining down on me. He shoved me onto my back with his foot and straddled my torso. He dropped down, kneeling over me. He covered my mouth with one hand, making searing pain blast through my face and my vision flicker to black, and pinned my hands over my head with the other. He leaned down until we were nose to nose, and when my vision started to focus, all I saw was the unhinged look in his eyes.

  One way or another, my life may never be the same for me after this.

  My phone was on a continuous ring out in the hall. It was like a sign from above telling me to hold on because someone
was looking for me. Hang on as long as I can. Survive however I needed to.

  “That fucking hurt, Natalie.” Spittle flew from his mouth as he snapped at me. “I can see why he ties you up. You’re a wild one. You’re going to be so much fun.”

  He leaned down and bit the swell of my breast as I cried in agony behind his hand.

  Using everything I had, I jerked my hips, attempting to dislodge him from me. Nothing mattered other than getting him off me. All my efforts got me was a hard tweak of my nipple. Another wave of sobs tore from my chest with each nonconsensual assault of my body.

  I heard a deep voice in the hall, but my phone had stopped ringing.

  It could be the only chance I got for help. I couldn’t waste it.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Matteo

  The three-hour trip was actually a blast from the past.

  It was something I needed. A few hours on the open road, with my best bud, heading to get my girl back was food for the soul.

  Adam made a playlist on his phone just like we did for road trips back in college.

  We stopped at a diner just outside Seattle for breakfast.

  It felt more like heading to an out-of-town baseball game with my buddy.

  We didn’t discuss my marital issues. It was understood that this was it. I was winning my wife back tonight. Instead, we talked about Adam; about his possible promotion to lieutenant, how the Seahawks were going to do this season, whether he should trade his truck in for something new.

  We drove inside the city limits of Portland just after lunchtime, which was when Adam finally broached the subject.

  “What’s the plan?”

  “I was thinking we could start with all of us having lunch.”

  Adam glanced over at me. “You don’t have to include me in your plans, man. I’m here for moral support and to be a road partner. I’m okay with spending the afternoon on my own.”

  “I was kind of hoping you could maybe be a buffer. Ease a bit of the tension and discomfort.”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Sure, but if lunch goes all right, you should ask her out on a date tonight. Not one of your date nights of late, either.” He gave me a pointed look as he followed the GPS’s directions downtown. “You’ll be dressed up and it would be romantic to take her out. Remind her that she is the only lady in your life. Always will be.”

  My phone rang and Natalie’s face popped up on my screen. My lips stretched into a smile. Seeing her face on my screen took away some of the anxiety that was starting to stir in my stomach. Adam lowered the music, but I shook my head. “I’ll call her when we get to the hotel. I don’t want the GPS to giveaway the surprise.”

  Even though I wanted to hear her voice, we didn’t know where we were going and there was a ton of traffic. I’d call her back in five minutes.

  Natalie was staying at the Nines which was on the same block as the gallery. It was also booked when I tried to make a last-minute reservation for a room. Instead, Adam and I grabbed a one at a hotel a few blocks over.

  Ten minutes later, we were checked in, but something felt wrong. I’d listened to Natalie’s voice mail and she sounded unsettled or concerned. She said she’d see me later. She had no idea I was coming down here. I tried calling her back several times, but her phone kept going to voice mail.

  That was fifteen minutes ago. I kept calling as Adam and I decided to walk over to her hotel since that was where she said she was headed.

  “Maybe she was tired and fell asleep,” Adam offered as we crossed the street, one block closer to Natalie.

  “Maybe.” I sighed as I got her voice mail again. “But the ringing would’ve woken her up. She isn’t that heavy of a sleeper.”

  I had to have called at least twenty to twenty-five times already. She wouldn’t have slept through that.

  “Shower?” Adam suggested instead trying to ease the growing alarm in my chest.

  Shaking my head, I pressed call again. “She said she was going to lunch. And that she would see me later. She doesn’t know we’re coming, but it was the way she said it, Adam. It was in the shake of her voice. Something was upsetting her. Now, she isn’t answering. That isn’t a good sign.”

  As the Nines came into view, the ringing in my ear stopped and a male voice replaced it. “Hello?”

  My heart was in my throat. “Who is this?”

  “I’m one of the security guards at the Nines,” he replied not doing a damn thing to ease my worry.

  I picked up my pace, running down the street toward the entrance of the hotel. “Where’s my wife?”

  “I’m not sure, sir. This phone was laying in the hallway,” he said. “Someone complained about the constant ringing.”

  My insides twisted into a painful knot. Something was very wrong. “I’m in the lobby,” I rushed out as I sprinted in. “Which floor did you find it on? Something is wrong. You need to find my wife.”

  “Third floor,” he answered. A second later he was calling out, “Is everything okay in there? This is hotel security.”

  “What’s going on?” I yelled into the phone.

  My legs weren’t moving fast enough to keep pace with the fear in my gut. I ran past the elevators and straight to the stairs.

  “Matt, what’s going on?” Adam asked, right behind me.

  I was taking two steps at a time, but it still didn’t seem to be moving me anywhere. “I don’t know. Nat’s phone was found in the hallway by security.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Natalie

  Despite Gerard’s hand covering my mouth, I yelled. I projected my voice as loudly as my lungs would carry it. Someone was on the other side of that door and knew that something was wrong inside the room.

  Gerard pinched my nose closed, and a pain so intense exploded from his touch. A thick evil laugh filled the air around us as he let go and did it a second time taking sick pleasure in the way my terror and agony leaked from my eyes down into my hair.

  Foregoing a third squeeze to my nose, he shimmied his body closer to my face as he worked his belt undone with the hand not covering my mouth. The sound of the metal clinking had the blood in my veins turning to ice. “I’ve got something that will keep your mouth occupied for a bit.”

  Absolute, undiluted, panic surged through me. I knew what his intentions were, and I couldn’t let that happen I just couldn’t. A burst of adrenaline hit at the exact moment I needed it to. With as much force as I could gather, I tossed my hips from side to side, trying to get Gerard off me. I could feel his erection against my chest as I thrashed. Deranged bastard was enjoying this. His eyes sparkled as he grinned down at me.

  Rising up on his knees, he worked the button of his pants. Those few inches seemed to give me just enough room to get him where I knew it would hurt most. His yelling would still alert the person in the hallway.

  Trying to ignore the immense pain that assailed my head and face as well as the fear rapidly bubbling from my gut, I raised a knee up, aimed at his balls, and drove my knee into them. I must’ve hit some part of them because Gerard fell over. Half his weight landed on me and the other half on the floor.

  I was able to slip out from under him and scramble to my feet. “Help!” I screamed as loudly as I could to the person on the other side of the door. My voice was rough and raw. I opened my mouth to yell, but I didn’t get to before he grabbed my ankle. I reached the table and clutched the leg to try to pull my foot free, but I couldn’t. There was a sickening pop and then a blazing pain from my ankle as Gerard yanked hard enough for me to lose my grip. “He—”

  I grabbed the phone cord, pulling it with me as Gerard tugged me across the floor using my injured foot. My fingers scrambled for the receiver, and I grabbed it, turned, and slammed it into his head as hard as I could.

  “You fucking bitch,” he bellowed, releasing my foot, which felt hot as it pulsed and swelled, and gripping the side of his head. A maniacal smirk curled on his lips as he pinned me with a malicious stare. “We could have be
en great together, Natalie. You just had to go and be an ungrateful bitch, though. While I’m still going to have fun with you, I don’t think it’s going to be so much fun for you now.”

  I scrambled back, trying to pull myself up using the desk, as Gerard rose to his feet. Pure malevolence radiated from him.

  There was a commotion and some yelling on the other side of the door, but I didn’t turn toward it. Gerard was a beat too slow finding his footing, and before he was steady on his feet, I went for it and grabbed the iron I’d left on the desk this morning just as he straightened and swung.

  The sound of metal hitting skin had my stomach turning and bile rising in my throat, but I hit him again and again . . . and again. By the time the door to the room slammed open, my arms were ablaze from the exertion and my lungs raged with a fire that echoed the ones in my ankle and face. I struggled to drag in air as a scorching burn consumed me with each gasp.

  I spun, blinded by rage, and raised the iron as I tried to blink clarity back into my foggy brain.

  The man was in a uniform.

  His hands were extended, his voice calming as he said, “Ma’am”—he stepped forward—“I’m with hotel security, are you all right?”

  The iron was still clutched in my fingers. My hair was disheveled, and my face was sticky with blood. Oh, and there was a man unconscious and bleeding at my feet. I was fucking peachy!

  The adrenaline drained away as fast as it had crashed into me. My body deflated, the iron dropped with a hallow thud, and my hands shook as hard as my lower lip trembled. There was more noise in the hallway. More people.

  The reality of what just happened smashed into me harder than all the physical damage Gerard had inflicted. My body trembled with the force of at all as I sank to the ground

  He stalked me. Followed me here from Seattle.

  He attacked me. He wanted to rape me.