His (A Dark Erotic Romance Novel)

by Dark, Aubrey

  So much more than I could ever deserve.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Kat

  The hours blended into each other. It had been two days since I had gotten kidnapped. Two? Or three? I could feel the effects of my meds beginning to ebb. Anxiety was creeping back into my body.

  In the darkness of the basement my fingers twitched as I huddled against the wall. Blind as I was, I could almost conjure up the vision of the pill bottle in my mind. The feeling of twisting the hard plastic lid off, digging through the cotton balls for the tiny small pills that would calm me down.

  There was no calm here, and I breathed slowly, trying to keep myself from having a panic attack. As much as most people mind the dark, I didn’t particularly care whether or not I had a light on in the basement. When I was a kid, I never had to have a nightlight. I loved building fortresses under my bed and hiding there.

  Kat, you can keep calm. Breathe in. Breathe out. The darkness was actually quite soothing.

  The door opened with a sharp crack, light pouring in. I started back, my breaths catching in my throat. The anxiety I’d been trying so hard to suppress flooded my system, and my heart pumped harder. My limbs wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go.

  His silhouette filled the doorway, and when he stepped forward I saw that he had brought food - bread, cheese, and a package of dry salami.

  “Good afternoon, Kat,” he said.

  “Is it afternoon?” I couldn’t tell the difference between dawn and dusk, trapped as I was below the house with not even a single window to look out of. Why had I tried to escape? I could have had a window, at least, down here. Now I had nothing.

  “It’s getting late,” he said. “Getting closer to your birthday, actually. I thought we might have a trade.”

  “I don’t have anything to trade,” I said mechanically.

  “You have a lot to trade,” he said. “Your obedience, for one. Do what I want you to do.”

  “Why?”

  “It will make me happy.”

  I glared daggers at him. If he wasn’t joking, he was an idiot.

  “Do you really think I care at all about making you happy?” I asked.

  He tilted his head.

  “You’re a strange creature, kitten,” he said. “Let’s try this again.”

  He strode forward and dropped the food on the blanket in front of me. The smell of the salami wafted through the dim room. It made my mouth water. I reached out for it and he slapped my hand away.

  “Not yet, kitten,” he said. “Not until I say you can eat. You must be obedient, you understand?”

  I trembled, my nerves shot through from not being able to take my medication. Another game, that’s all this was for him.

  Well, I wasn’t going to play his game. Not anymore.

  “Can I eat?” I asked flatly. He wasn’t going to hurt me without some trouble.

  “No,” he said.

  I leaned back against the wall, crossing my arms. Breathe in, breathe out. You can stand up to him, Kat.

  “Awful waste of steps to come all the way down here with food to not feed me. Were you just getting your exercise for the day?”

  “Saucy girl.”

  “How about you go back up to the kitchen and bring down some chocolate cake so I can not eat that, too? Your quads will thank you.”

  He frowned and began to gather the food back up in his arms. My stomach growled, the ache shooting up through my body. I reached out and touched his arm, and he froze.

  “I’m sorry,” I said softly. “It’s my meds. I don’t have my meds. I get nervous.”

  Under my fingertips, his muscles were hard.

  “Please,” I said, my stomach growling again, even louder.

  “Ask me to feed you,” he said.

  What? I blinked at him. What was he doing down here? The smell of the salami was seriously making my stomach churn, though, and I was definitely rethinking my earlier stance on his game. If all he wanted was to feed me… it was weird, sure, but it wasn’t what I thought he was going to ask for in exchange for food.

  “I—will you feed me?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he responded, and sat in front of me on the basement floor, cross-legged. “What do you want to eat first?”

  “The—the salami?”

  “With cheese as well?”

  “Um, yes.”

  I watched as his long fingers broke off a piece of cheese and then wrapped a piece of salami around it. He leaned forward and offered it to me. I opened my mouth and he slid the food inside.

  Like a pet, I thought. I was an obedient little pet. That’s what he wanted. The taste of cheddar and meat made me even hungrier, though, and I swallowed fast, opening my mouth again for the next bite.

  Slowly, bite by bite, he fed me the whole pack of salami. At the end he produced a bottle of water and held it to my lips. I drank, water spilling from my lips and dribbling down my cheeks, my neck. He paused and wiped off the trickle of moisture with the back of his fingers.

  “Good, kitten?”

  I nodded.

  “Excellent. You’re learning. This is a good trade. You do one thing for me, I do one thing for you. Thank you for obeying so well. Is there anything you want, now?”

  I looked up at him. That? That had been me doing him a favor? How weird.

  “I won’t let you go,” he said quickly. “Don’t ask for that. You know I can’t do that.”

  “I want you to answer a question for me,” I said, licking my lips. The traces of fatty meat and cheese lingered on my tongue.

  “Yes?”

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  He paused, and I thought he might be angry, but when he spoke again, there was only confusion in his voice.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “You—you haven’t thought it out?”

  “I never had this problem before, kitten. For now, I’m going to keep you here.” He didn’t look irritated with me. More amused, if anything. I didn’t understand it.

  “But they’ll be looking for me.”

  “Not here,” he said, chucking me under the chin. “We’re safe.”

  Safe. That was one way to describe it. Anger bubbled through me. He hadn’t even thought of what he was going to do with me. For some reason, that indifference upset me more than if he had told me any of his terrible plans.

  “So you don’t know.”

  “Sorry, kitten,” he said, standing up to go.

  “Wait,” I said. “That’s not a fair trade.”

  He looked back at me.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I insisted. “Can I have something else?”

  “What?”

  He hadn’t agreed, but I blustered ahead anyway. If this was a game of fair trade, I was going to get my share of the bargain.

  “Something to wear,” I said. “It’s cold down here in my underwear.”

  He didn’t even pause for a second at my request. Immediately, he stripped his t-shirt off and threw it down at me. I saw his broad shoulders in silhouette, his bare chest gleaming in the dim light. Blood rushed to my cheeks and I looked down at his shirt quickly, grasping the soft fabric in my fingers.

  “You won’t fit into my pants,” he said. “We’ll find you something else to wear later. For now, will that do?”

  I nodded and pulled the shirt over my head. It smelled like him—a faint scent of deodorant and musk. The shirt was tight across my chest, but I was grateful to be covered up at all.

  “Good trade, kitten,” he said, and left me sitting in his shirt on the basement floor.

  Gav

  A good pet. She was learning to be obedient. Maybe soon she would learn to obey more, to be mine fully and truly. Maybe I would convince her that staying inside was for the best.

  Later that evening, I brought her up to the bedroom again for her to use the bathroom. I would have to convince her to stay of her own accord, or else I would forever be distracted by her needs. As of now, she
was like a pet that needed constant looking after.

  Cats, at least, were independent creatures, but I had to watch over her for every one of her physical needs. And tonight… I needed to find something for her to wear. Not just a shirt. The soft curves of her backside peeking out from under the bottom hem made me stir inside in a way that even her bare undergarments hadn’t.

  And she would have to wash soon.

  The shadow hadn’t come around yet. It normally stayed away for a few days after a kill, but I hadn’t even thought about it since she had come to the house.

  Caring about her was starting to distract me.

  Kat

  He let me up into the bathroom again, and I made sure to lock the door behind me. In the bathroom, I scrounged around and found what I had been searching for earlier. There was a spare razor blade at the back of a cabinet drawer, hiding in the pine board gap. It was old and rusted, but it would serve its purpose.

  He could think that I was an obedient little pet, but I wasn’t going to let his game get between me and freedom. As stupid as I’d been before, I wasn’t going to be stupid now that I was in real trouble.

  Chickenshit. Boring. I was not that person. Not anymore. I wasn’t going to wait here for a Prince Charming to come save me from this monster. I was going to save myself. That’s what Jules would do. That’s what I needed to do.

  If he didn’t know what he was going to do with me, I’d have to figure out how to escape before he decided to use me as a torture experiment.

  I used the rusty edge of the razor to slit open the side of my bra and tucked it through the slit carefully, between the padding and the wire. I pulled his shirt back over my head and looked in the mirror. You couldn’t see the outline of the razor; the padding of the bra hid it well.

  If I had to use it, I would. On him or on me.

  Preferably on him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Kat

  I opened my eyes, lying on the basement floor. The blanket was bunched under my neck and my arm was still handcuffed to the pipe. My ankle twinged slightly with pain, and the only rays of light that came into the room were from under the basement door.

  It was my birthday.

  The meds had worn off, and I didn’t know how long I’d been out. Anxiety surged through me, and as I sat up my arm twisted and hurt. He’d said he was going out, and that’s why he had to cuff me. My wrist screamed in pain, and as much as I tried to do my deep breathing, nothing was working to stop my nerves from shooting panic signals across my brain.

  I raised my head as Gav opened the door, half relieved to see him, half terrified. He had a bowl of something in his hands, and I smelled the oatmeal as he crossed the room. I lifted my arm weakly.

  “My wrist hurts,” I said. “Take off the handcuffs.”

  “You must obey first,” he said. “We’ll eat breakfast now.”

  He spooned up a bite of oatmeal and held it out in front of my face. Panic gripped me in a vise. I didn’t want this to be the rest of my life. I didn’t want to be his pet.

  “Please,” I said. “It hurts—”

  His hand whipped across my cheek so quickly that the sting of the slap came before I could realize he was lifting a hand to me. The spoon clattered in the bowl. My cheek stung hot, and a wave of panicked anger rose up, closing off my throat.

  “Obey first, kitten,” he said, lifting the spoon again. “Then we will trade.”

  I stared baldly at the spoon, hate boiling inside of me so hot that I couldn’t think straight. All I knew was pain and hunger, and I didn’t want to be here and I didn’t want him to feed me.

  “No,” I said.

  He grabbed my chin and lifted it, gripping my mouth so that my lips pursed.

  “Eat, kitten,” he said, bringing the spoon to my lips.

  “No!”

  Not today. I wouldn’t be his pet today. I whipped my head sideways and kicked out. The bowl of oatmeal overturned, spilling everywhere.

  Before I could be pleased about the results of my rebellion, his arm was under my armpit, dragging me up the side of the wall. I yelped as he shoved me back and pressed the spoon against my lips.

  “Stop,” I whispered. Panic was making my legs shiver and shake.

  “Obey,” he said, through gritted teeth.

  “Stop,” I cried. “Let me go!”

  “You know I can’t do that, kitten,” he said. His thumb scooped the oatmeal out of the spoon, and then he shoved it into my mouth. His thumb ground against my teeth and oatmeal dripped out of the sides of my lips.

  “Stop!” I sobbed. “Please, stop!”

  He didn’t, though. Throwing the spoon aside, he tilted my head up. At first I thought he was going to force feed me more, but then his lips crashed down on mine.

  The kiss stole my breath, his body pressing the air out of my lungs. My body burned with pain, and I twisted under him, but he held me fast. The feelings that my meds would have cut off sprung into high alert, and at the same time so too did my body.

  Traitor body, to respond to his kiss that way. The same way as it had responded the first time I had pressed my lips to him. The burn in my body was no longer just pain, but an aching lust. As he deepened the kiss, his tongue tracing the outline of my lips, I arched back against the wall, trying desperately to convince myself that I didn’t want any part of this.

  I didn’t, of course. I couldn’t help the sharp ache that began to press against me from the inside as he pressed against me from the outside. His hands held my arms back at the wrists, and I was only grateful that he didn’t slide them up my bra to where the razor was hiding.

  The razor. I couldn’t let him know.

  He broke away from the kiss, his eyes burning with an emotion I hadn’t seen in him before. It lasted only a split second before the curtain fell again and his eyes turned on me flatly, expressionless. His arms hung limply at his sides.

  “You wasted a trade, kitten,” he said. “Wasted food, too.”

  I gulped. A tear had found its way to the corner of my eye and began its slow journey down my cheek. I wiped it away. I did not want him to see me cry.

  The anxiety was gone, replaced by hatred and rage. At least I could do that. I might have been able to attack him with the razor, but it was better to wait until he uncuffed me. I would have a better chance, then.

  “I had hoped that we would have a better day today, kitten,” he said. “Yesterday was so promising.”

  He waited for me to say something, but there was nothing else to say. He gathered the upturned bowl and the spoon from the floor, and went to leave without uncuffing me.

  “It’s your birthday,” he said, and I was surprised that there was no hint of anger in his voice. “I’ll be back later with your present. It would be better for you if you obeyed me then.”

  Gav

  Of course, her birthday. She would respond better once she saw that I was going to treat her well on her birthday. I should have started with that, maybe. Now I had to find a present that would suit her.

  I dug through my closet upstairs. There had been something I’d found a while back, a box of jewelry from my mother. I’d stolen it and hidden it away after she’d died. My fingers touched something hard in the back of the shelf, and I pulled out the rosewood box. It gleamed a dark red where I brushed the dust off of it.

  Opening the box, I took out the necklace. A silver necklace, two hearts intertwined. I remember my mother wearing it, the silver chain sparkling around her throat. Her throat…

  Her throat was cut. My father held the knife. Blood, blood everywhere.

  The box clattered to the ground, spilling the other jewelry across the floor. The shadow swirled up, the darkness invading the bedroom. No. I did not want the shadow here. Not again. It was too soon.

  The silver chain in my hands dug into my skin, but I clutched it all the tighter. I closed my eyes but I could still feel the shadow there, waiting patiently at the periphery of my eyes. Waiting for me to find it again. In
my hand, the thin metal hearts seemed to beat. Mother. Mother. My mother…

  I howled, and the sound echoed through the empty, empty house.

  Kat

  The razor had cut through the bottom of my bra, and I was adjusting it so that it wouldn’t poke out when the light on the stairs came on. Hastily shoving it back underneath the padding, I leaned back against the wall, my arm twisted up and hanging limply from the pipe.

  Gav pushed open the door slowly. Still topless. He hadn’t put another shirt on. I didn’t know whether or not he was trying to show off his muscled chest, or if he actually didn’t care. From what I knew about him, I’d have to guess the latter.

  Now, he was holding something in his hands. A present, he’d said. He came to me and held it out. It was a necklace. A silver chain, dangling from his fingers. The heart charms hanging off the end gleamed brightly in the thin light.

  “Here,” he said. “Your present.”

  “You didn’t wrap it,” I said. I wasn’t going to play this particular game, not after he had chained me back up to the pipe.

  He paused, and as his face turned halfway to the light I could see that his eyes were rimmed red under his dark lashes. Had he been crying?

  “Do you want me to wrap it?” he asked. His voice was small, confused. In his fingers, the necklace turned, the hearts spinning at the end of the chain.

  “I don’t want it,” I said. I tried to sound confident, but for some reason I couldn’t make my voice raise any higher.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I want to leave.”

  “You can’t leave. You can have this, though. It’s a gift.” He sounded pleading.

  “I don’t want any gifts from you. I hate you.”

  I pushed his hand away, and the necklace swung like a pendulum. Before I could say anything else, he’d taken my hand and twisted it down and behind my back. I could feel the chain cutting into my skin between our hands, even through the bandages that covered my cuts. In my bra, the razor turned and pushed against the fabric. I hoped that it wouldn’t cut through to my skin.