His words came out quieter. “And she’s always known that. She likes that part of me. Go. Please.”
I was in no way convinced, but what was the use in arguing? Yet I wasn’t handing Chris to the cops.
That day, out in the waves, when all around me had turned pink and red and water bubbled past my ears. I’d screamed then sunk again, flailing my good arm, twisting to see where my surfboard had gone. The shark was out there somewhere, circling to come get me again. My left arm, shredded and raw with pain. He’d saved me. He’d reached me before the shark did and somehow gotten me to shore by heaving me onto his board and paddling like crazy. My eyes watered a little. I blinked myself back to here, to the Daintree.
We’d been through some crappy situations. I’d helped him one night when a gang pounced on him outside the pub. Some of them had ended up in hospital. I mightn’t have done much more than distract a couple while Chris smacked around the others, but we’d been a team.
“Staying.” I nodded slowly. “I’m staying. Someone sane needs to be here.” At least until I could get her away.
“Andreas…” He ran his palm through his hair, from front to back, then massaged his temples. “Shit.”
I ached for him, sorry for the pain I caused him, but not sorry for the reason.
He walked around the table and went to Kat to say something quietly to her. Her answer was too soft for me to understand but he went behind her chair. Her head swung as she followed him. Then he picked up the chair with her in it and brought it over to set it down before me.
This close, with the lantern light above us, I could see twirls of red glinting in the strands of hair, the scatter of freckles on her cheeks, the rise and fall of her breasts as they threatened to spill from the cups of her bra, and the slow blink of her eyelids as she studied me.
If she could think straight, she’d know I was on her side.
“If you stay,” he said reasonably, “You will see me hurt her. You will be seeing me dominate her.”
At that, I swear her eyes went darker.
In a split of a heartbeat he reached down and took a fistful of her hair, twisting it round his fist. She whined as he bent her head back until he could peer down into her eyes. Though her hands were cuffed together at her front, she writhed on her knees and tried to grab his fingers.
“No, Kat,” he said softly. “Let him see this.” Casually, despite her hands clawing at him, he used his free hand to scoop each breast from the cups of the bra. The sight of her areolas shocked me. This was minor violence but so unexpected. I should leap up and defend her.
“My hair! That hurts, you bastard! Stop!”
I think my mouth had fallen open. The lure of this was sudden and undeniable. With her head back, her neck was exposed along with her nipples and the delicious curve of her stomach. Her muscles shifted enticingly as she struggled.
I’d never seen anything like this outside of a porn movie.
“Shh.” Then he plunged his hand into the front of her panties and thrust a finger or two up into her. The guttural noise she made and then her squeals went straight to my cock which shot into lift off mode – painfully erect and bent around in my pants.
I should be telling him to stop but something about the absolute humiliation he was putting her through had hit every definition of lust incarnate in my dictionary. Worse than that, Chris was examining me with his mouth quirked up at the corner.
I guess I had gone stiff in more ways than one. I thought about swallowing but held it back.
“Hot?” He raised an eyebrow. “My only compensation is that I swear she’ll like what I do, most of the time. Want me to get her to lick my fingers?”
“Go fuck yourself.” Kat gasped, and I watched him take another quarter turn of her hair until her curses turned into one long whimper.
“Is that your way of telling me the valium has worn off?”
“You are a bastard,” I muttered. But I dug up some of my missing morality. “No. Hell no. No finger licking.”
Chapter 7
Kat
Shit.
After asking his friend Andreas if he wanted me to lick his fingers, Chris studied me. I couldn’t do a thing, with my legs bent double under me, except look up at him, seething, hoping my eyes could set him on fire. My thighs hurt from the tension. His rigid hold on my hair left me no room to shift at all. I tried though. The man had fucking strength to spare and I hated him with every atom in my body.
I hadn’t let anyone put anything inside me for so long. Fingers, cock, or dildos. For him to casually do it… Hate was too nice a word. I loathed him.
“Let go!” I croaked, feeling even the muscles in my throat struggle to move. Another inch backward and my neck would surely crack.
Panic.
He stared down into my eyes with that small knowing smile.
I couldn’t help my other, sexual, response. It was nerves, anatomy, instincts…plus that thing I had for violent dominance. Not my fault. I’d never let a Dom do this, or bind me, for this very reason. Control. I wanted it. Didn’t want to give it.
Tears gathered from the spiking pain in my scalp. I dug my fingernails into his forearm. “Fuck you!”
He screwed his fist in a little more. “Careful, girl.”
Between my legs, he thrust his fingers higher. Moisture spilled from me. Mortified, I dug my nails in, deep as I could, raking them down his arm.
“Stop.” Hard voice. Hard, straight-lined mouth. Meanness in every syllable. His blue eyes were glasslike.
The fear this invoked…Chris was not a kind sadist. I’d always liked taunting him with my list of limits.
Bad mistake. I slowed the scoring of my nails but kept them pressing in.
“Kat,” he growled.
Fuck. I lifted my fingers, released his arm. My legs trembling, my heart accelerating, I closed my eyes to shut him out the only way I could. I wasn’t ready for this showdown. So tired. Hungry.
His fingers stayed inside me. I felt them shift, and go in past the knuckles, widening me. The man knew too much about women’s responses. He stroked forward with his fingertips, hitting the exact right place. I shuddered. I wouldn’t come. I wouldn’t. But the instant he’d entered me, I’d jellified. With his fingers jammed in and stretching my entrance, lust struck me like an electric tide. Now it spread, building and rippling outward until my nipples beaded and my breaths came faster.
He worked at me, coaxing to life my sexuality right when I wanted it to go far, far away. That other man, Andreas, must be watching. I’d thought he might be my chance. A friend maybe. But he said nothing.
I wanted to arch myself onto Chris’s hand. Not happening. I suppressed a groan, my eyes rolling back.
Under the massage of the ball of his thumb, my clit stirred. Small lustful spasms shuddered through me.
At last, he let me go – extracted his fingers from my pussy, released my hair, and tossed me to my hands and knees. Locked in the echoes, I could still feel the drag of his fingers as they pulled out, and I clenched down there.
“This is almost too easy,” he murmured from inches away.
I glared through the curtain of my damp hair. He was crouching and looking at me.
This time I made my words drip with nastiness. “Fuck you.”
“I’m tired of those words. Say them again and I start punishment here and now, in front of Andreas.”
“Let her be.”
At last the friend spoke. I searched through hazy memories. He’d cradled me in the bath, gently. The man was good-looking, in a shaggy, laidback way. More importantly, he was saying no to Chris. I ran my tongue over my strangely numb lips, feeling the pains in my scalp receding. Maybe I could use him after all.
I contemplated Chris. Mr. Super-sleazy. Mr. Fake Dom who needed to kidnap women. For a second, my reply jammed in my throat. But I needed, so needed, to challenge him.
“I can think of new insults for you.” My arms shook. Propping myself up on them wasn’t a great idea. I sat back
and went to pull my bra back into place so my breasts weren’t exposed. “Rot in hell? Go masturbate a poodle? Eat hot shit mother…screwer?” I grinned even as my stomach rumbled.
Everything around me fuzzed in and out. Inside my head went white. A wave of weakness hit me and I swayed, aching and flushing cold. My fingers, so cold. While I was dealing with that, Chris anchored his hand in my hair again.
There was laughter in his voice. “Couldn’t resist, could you?”
“Wait. Chris.” Andreas’s voice this time. I swallowed down nausea. “She doesn’t look so good.”
Warm breath on my face. I strained to see them, to raise my heavy eyelids.
“She doesn’t, does she?” A palm touched my forehead, my arm. “She’s pale and clammy. Maybe she needs food?”
Someone fumbled at my wrists and my hands were drawn behind my back. I was hauled onto someone’s lap, and I slumped against them. Water, then food, pressed to my lips. I swallowed automatically. Head spinning, I fought to keep whatever went into my mouth inside me instead of spewing.
They wouldn’t like me if I threw up on them. Serve them right.
Strength returned then awareness. I shut my mouth at the intruding fingers. Fingers? They were putting fingers in my mouth, not a fork.
I stared. Whose lap was I on? I swiveled my head to find Chris looking down at me.
“Back in the world? You’ve got more color.” He slowly swiped a finger along my lips. “You had me worried. Andreas too.”
Sticky. I could smell the gooey meat of an over-spiced canned meal and clamped my lips tighter.
“Not going to lick them?”
I injected determination into my gaze.
His chuckle made me jiggle on his lap. With my hands clipped behind me, the cloth of his shorts slid against my loosely clasped fingers. From the hard bump under my ass, he had an erection.
My memory of what he’d done to me returned. How dare he. I thought about cursing but swearing at him when I felt fragile as a twig seemed stupid.
Would it annoy him if I wriggled on his cock?
Maybe. Maybe too much. Being fucked out here on the table was also a possibility. Or spanked, or worse. If I riled him enough, Chris might do it. And this guy, Andreas, seemed likely to simply watch. Struck by the precariousness of my situation, I tried to recall the things Chris had pushed me to do in the past that I’d said no to. Anal sex, for starters. I hated the very concept. But there were far worse things than being ass fucked.
My courage sank. Without my carefully written-out hard limits, I didn’t know how Chris would react. What were his kinks and fetishes? Especially the ones no one would do? Whatever they were, I might be his next experiment.
I’d be safer doing a naked chicken dance in front of a lion than annoying him right now.
I had to find my feet, get stronger, cleverer. Exhaustion wasn’t helping. And I had to do more than taunt him. I had to escape.
Pick your battles. That saying came from somewhere. So when he nudged my chin and made me look at him, I merely blinked and tried to look placid.
The puzzled expression and corrugation of his forehead said I’d made him wonder.
“Are you going to behave now, Kat, while Andreas and I talk?”
My stomach tensed. This seemed like selling out to the Devil. “I’ll behave,” I said softly.
“Hmm.” His eyebrow kinked upward. “Suspicious. Andreas…” He looked over. “This is when I know she’s scheming.”
“Really?” Andreas sounded surprised.
But I snuggled into Chris’s shoulder even if it made my mind shudder. My skin didn’t crawl though. Under the fresh shirt, he smelled…nice. Dangerous, exciting, yet nice.
God, I was losing my mind.
I’d always been attracted to danger.
They began to talk and with the side of my head buried against Chris, I half-listened with one ear and examined Andreas with one eye while I thought.
Chris said, “You understand now? If you stay you keep out of what I do. Plus it’s one week, maximum. After that I guarantee I will bodily remove you. That should give you time to see I’m not going to permanently damage her. Agreed?”
The matter-of-fact way he assumed I would be his prisoner for as long as he wanted me to be…chilling.
Silence.
Chris spoke, “I promise you I intend to take care of her. I know she’s a person not a thing.”
“Okay. I guess if that’s the best deal. Agreed.”
“You won’t be missed?” Chris asked.
“I quit the oil rig. I’m between jobs. I figured I’d make a go at making money from only the stock market for a while.”
He agreed? What man would do that? Clearly Andreas wasn’t in on this. He’d stumbled in somehow. How could he just agree to leave me? I wanted to sink my teeth into Chris in frustration. I wanted to scream at this Andreas.
You damn coward. Where are your guts? Where’s your sense of what’s right? I’m kidnapped. Not off on some forest holiday!
Chris offered me a nacho with cold melted cheese on it and I grimaced. “Eat.”
I pulled a face. Yuck.
Reluctantly I bit off a piece, chewed, and swallowed. From then on, as he talked, he offered me food or sips of water and, once or twice, sips from a bottle of beer, until he suddenly decided beer and valium might be a bad combo. Again, I reminded myself that now was a rotten time to mess around. I ate, slowly filling up on this disgusting diet of nachos.
At least this Andreas seemed a little concerned about me. Deep down, he had a conscience, though I didn’t understand what possible reason he had for allowing what Chris aimed to do, what he had done. Abduction, drugging me, sexual assault.
I felt like yelling at him, there is no excuse good enough!
Man up. Help me you stupid sodding asshole. I fumed while I nibbled and listened. Why had Chris done this? The answer loomed in my mind. I think my subconscious had worked it out already. Stephanie was another missing woman. I’d thought for weeks that Chris’s partner in the Magnetic Island accounting firm might have been involved in her disappearance.
Oh you very thick person, I scolded myself. This must be what had made him take me. I’d gotten too close to the truth.
Where was Stephanie? Dead? Or someone’s captive, like I was? I shivered. No one had seen her for weeks.
Chris wasn’t a man who made many mistakes in life. Most likely he meant to keep me chained up somewhere, if not within range of his hands. My best chance seemed to be Andreas. The man with the piss-weak conscience.
He reminded me of half, no all, the Doms I’d met over the years – useless until you prodded them.
I did like the latent danger in BDSM. I even, theoretically, liked the idea of giving up control. But I didn’t trust most of them. The way they all skipped around hard limits annoyed the shit out of me. If they wanted me to submit they needed to do a damn sight better job at dominating than I could. None had.
Not even this asshole whose lap I sat in. I’d never even let him tie me up properly. Never trusted him that much. If he thought kidnapping me would impress me, he was well mistaken. Now I despised him even more. Stupid fucker. The law would catch up to him.
The only Dom who’d done rope bondage on me was Damien and that was more a rope fetish act than dominance and submission. He’d ended up leaving me for a Domme. I sighed. Another wuss.
“So you’re going to sit and watch while I flog her and make her beg. While I hurt her?” At that, I froze. He pulled me in closer and stroked my shoulder. “Andreas? You seemed intrigued, before.”
“I’ll watch. Don’t start thinking I’m going to turn kinky like you. I may not hand you over to the law…but I’m not sure you’re firing on all cylinders right now. This Scrim, is he safe? Can we trust him?” Andreas sat back in his chair and crossed one leg over to rest his ankle on his knee. Then he stared at me – watching me, watching him. Like I was something so unusual I needed a whole new catalogue name. A few b
lack locks of hair curled over his forehead.
I poked out my tongue, amused at the waggle then rise of his eyebrows. If he had a sense of humor, I had a chance.
“I think so but I want you to stay away from him. Don’t talk to him.”
They drank their beers and discussed how surprisingly cool it was here, beside the beach at the Daintree. They talked things I didn’t care about. I had other worries. The beer, the pleasant scent of the insect-warding citronella candles, and the soft murmur of Chris’s voice next to my ear soothed me into the drowsiness of almost sleep.
Until I found my face grasped and turned upward.
“Cute. I never knew you snored.” Then Chris kissed me lightly on the lips. “In the morning, I’ll begin your training.”
I merely grunted, too tired to do more than curse him silently.
His friend would help me. I’d tell him all about Chris.
“You’ll be such a pretty slave.” He stood with me in his arms.
That woke me more. I blinked sleepily then scowled.
Slave? I’ll smother you in your sleep. He’d been an okay Dom. Better than some. As a kidnapper he sucked.
Chapter 8
Chris
Kat wasn’t the lightest of bundles but I’d spoken the truth – she was a pretty one. The bedroom I’d chosen to use was one of three, all with king-size beds and private bathrooms. The metal restraint rings I’d noticed in the kitchen were here too. Walls, furniture…this house seemed determined to hammer home what had happened here in the past.
This was different. I had to remember that.
In my arms Kat seemed as innocuous as a kitten. Her hair had dried and gone that cherry red that screamed artificial. By the time I reached the bedroom door, her lips had parted, her eyes closed again, and her breathing was regular.
“Turn down the quilt,” I murmured to Andreas.
“I don’t think that’s normal sleep.” He squeezed past us on his way to the bed. “Can’t be. Not with you carrying her.”
“Me?” I held back until I deposited her in the middle of the white sheets. With my knee on the bed, I watched her while I answered. “You’re a sleep expert now, are you? She’s had a long, hard day.”
Make me Yours Evermore Page 4