by Raven Dark
I refuse to end up in his bed, naked, waiting to be subjected to his twisted desires.
A short time later, I’m helping out in the kitchen when I hear Spider’s voice drifting from the common room.
I freeze with what must be my tenth glass of water to my lips. His meeting is over. Time’s up.
I excuse myself to use the bathroom for the third time. The last two times I went, there’d been men outside that window. All I can do is hope there isn’t anyone out back now.
While the cook’s back is turned, I snag two bottles of water. They’re warm, but those bottles could be the difference between life and death.
Then, while Spider is talking to some of the other men, I slip down the hall to his bedroom.
My plan poses too many dangers to count. Not only might Spider happen to come in and catch me. Not only might someone have somehow realized what I was planning and told him. I might also get lost in the desert, dying of heat exhaustion or dehydration before I find another living soul. Or, I might run into Jacob, or one of Seth’s men, who will waste no time dragging me back to him.
I shudder. I have no choice. I can’t stay here, waiting to be used like a whore. Waiting until Spider decides that my time is up and he ends it all.
Heart hammering, I step into his bedroom and shut the door. It’s roasting in here. The heat provides an unwelcome reminder of the merciless inferno waiting for me outside, but I shove the thought down and scurry to the bathroom. I climb into the tub, say a silent prayer and open the window, looking out.
There’s no one out there. Not a soul.
Hope burns hot in my chest and I let out an almost squeal at my luck.
It’s now or never.
Tossing the water bottles out the window, I draw a deep breath, then hoist myself through, dropping onto the hardened sand below.
The heat hits me in a punishing wave. The flat, dry landscape that stretches in all directions has never looked so desolate.
I snatch up the bottles, remaining low to the ground behind a few bikes parked near the back wall as I take one last look around.
The coast is clear.
One more long breath, then I bolt across the sand for who knows where.
Running as fast as my legs will allow, I head straight for that hill and the tree atop it. The tree will provide a place to hide if I have to stop.
As soon as I reach the gnarled tree, I start around it. I don’t get the chance to touch the bark.
Someone steps out from behind the tree, but I see him too late. Crashing into a leather-clad frame, I go sprawling on the ground.
Standing with his huge arms crossed and his eyes dancing, Spider grins down at me. “Going somewhere, Wildcat?”
10
Head Games
It has to be over a hundred degrees out here, but despite the sweltering heat, every ounce of my blood chills in my veins.
Spider’s eyes gleam, icy blue spheres of triumph. He might be smiling, but it’s a twisted expression. Cruel.
It hits home what he was doing. He let me escape.
He let me make a run for it just so he could catch me.
My mind screams at me to run, but there’s no point. I wouldn’t get far before he caught me.
Spider steps back a pace. “Get up.”
I should be scrambling to my feet now, should be doing anything to placate the animal I can see behind his eyes, but I can’t make myself move.
“Where… How did you…” I can’t even voice the questions I’m trying to ask.
Spider grabs my elbow, hauling me to my feet. “How did I know you were running?” His voice is filled with mockery. He snatches up the two water bottles, which I must have dropped when I fell. Then he marches me back toward the clubhouse. “Next time you’re going to try to escape, don’t make it so obvious.”
Obvious? I wrack my brain for what I could have done while he was in his meeting that tipped him off, but except for taking those water bottles, I don’t remember doing anything that smacked of a captive looking to make a getaway. I’m pretty sure no one saw me take them. Clearly, I hadn’t been careful enough.
His fingers pinch my arm, but when I try to pull free, he only tightens his grip and walks faster, leaving me to stumble in his wake. He puts the water bottles in the inside pockets of his vest.
“What are you going to do to me?” My voice comes out way too high.
At a back door to the clubhouse, I expect him to march me inside. Instead, he spins me around and grabs my throat, slamming me against the wall.
The impact rattles me, and I cry out, but it’s more from fear than pain.
Pinned to the wall by his powerful frame, I struggle, but it’s useless. His huge hand collars my whole throat so that I can feel his fingers and thumb meeting at the back of my neck. His fingers squeeze until it’s hard to breathe. My chest rises and falls hard.
Lord, this man could snap my neck if he wanted to. He could choke the life out of me, and he wouldn’t care. He’d probably enjoy watching the life leave my eyes. The satisfaction in his gaze frightens me as much as his hold.
My head is starting to feel light.
“Spider…please. Can’t…can’t breathe.”
He watches me with cold eyes. Watches me panic. There’s no way out of this. If he chooses to end it now, it’s over. I squeeze my eyes shut, praying for a quick end. If there is a god, he’s not here with me now.
At last, his fingers loosen, but he keeps them around my throat. Spider runs the tip of his nose along the side of my face and breathes me in as if he likes the scent of my fear. When he speaks, his voice is a low, dark rasp.
“How far did you think you were going to get? How far did you think you’d make it before I found you?”
I force myself not to respond and rise to his bait. It wouldn’t do any good. He planned this. He set me up for a fall, and I walked into his trap. This is all a game to him. A sick, twisted game. There’s nothing to do but let it play out.
My eyes squeeze tighter, my nails digging into the brick wall at my back.
“I’m doing you a fucking favor, keeping you alive, thief. I own you.” When I jerk my head away, his tongue rakes across my cheek, hot, wet, and searing my skin. The feel of it should leave me repulsed. Instead, my sex tightens. “Try to escape again, and I’ll bend you over, punch you up your sweet little ass, and strangle you while I fill you with my come. Do you understand me?”
Why is it that every time this man talks about having sex with me, he has to make it sound so terrifying? And why do his words leave my body blazing?
He’s not bluffing. His hand around my throat tells me everything I need to know. This animal would get off on choking the life out of me while he takes me in a manner that’s so wrong, I can’t even bring myself to form the words in my head.
His fingers tighten again until I can barely get any air in. “Do you understand me?” he snarls. His grip loosens, allowing me to answer.
I give a jerky nod, my breathing ragged.
“Say it. I want to hear that you understand.”
“Yes,” I pant. “I understand.”
“Good girl. Now. When we get inside, you’re going to do exactly what I tell you. You’re going to take off every stitch of clothing. You’re going to wait in my bed, and when I come for you, you’re going to—”
“Spidy.”
Striker’s voice pierces my panic. Out of the corner of my eye, I see he’s poked his head out of the back door of the clubhouse.
“We gotta go,” he adds, and I can hear the amusement in his voice as he sees us.
“Give me a few minutes.” Spider grips my nape and marches me inside. “Guess I’ll have to deal with you later,” he adds in my ear. He pushes past Striker and strides down a long hall.
We pass the double doors that lead to the room where he had his meeting earlier—the room he called the chapel.
Why they call it a chapel, I can’t imagine. There’s no way men like these do anything God
ly in there.
Several men walking by us in the hall smirk, watching Spider forcing me toward his room.
“Someone’s gonna get it good,” a young man around Pip’s age says.
Indignation heats my cheeks, but at least Spider’s not walking me through the main bar where half the club would see.
Spider ignores him and pushes me inside his bedroom. He shuts the door and spins me to face him. “Strip.”
This again? Expecting to end up on my knees like I did last night, I lift my chin, forcing myself to meet his eyes in silent refusal. When I left the Colony, I promised I wouldn’t just let things happen. I’d change them. Wouldn’t be a doormat anymore. I’d take a stand. If he’s going to humiliate me again, I won’t make it easy.
Spider seizes my hair, yanking my head back until I whimper. He angles my head so that I’m thrown off balance. “Don’t make this harder on yourself. You’re in enough trouble as it is. Clothes off and get on the bed, or when I come back, what happens to you will be a lot worse.”
Okay, so, fighting not a good idea. The idea of this man taking my body terrifies me, but there’s nothing else I can do. Whatever he’s got planned for me when he returns is probably already going to make me wish I had never been born. No need to make it worse.
“Okay, okay,” I rasp.
He releases me and crosses his arms, waiting while I yank off my clothes.
Hands shaking, I let every stitch fall to the floor. Spider’s eyes burn into me with every move I make. His face is cold and unfeeling, except for the hunger that flashes in his gaze.
I’m not going to receive any mercy from him.
Unwilling to turn my away to him, I crawl backwards onto his bed.
What I expect him to do once I’m lying there, I don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s not what he does.
Spider goes to his dresser and pulls out four twines of rope. In an instant, he’s climbed on the bed, straddling my waist.
The weight of him pressing me into the mattress startles me, heightening my panic. “Wait, what are you—”
“Shut up.” He grabs my wrist, wrapping one of the ropes around it, then lifts it toward the headboard.
Oh, no.
I’ve never been tied up before, but I don’t have to have been there to understand his intentions.
The memory of Sarah being tied to that whipping tree for stealing food flashes across my mind. That’s the only time I’ve ever seen a woman bound, right before she got five lashes across the back. Spider obviously isn’t going to whip me. I’m facing the wrong way for that. But he could do any number of other sick things to me, and if my wrists are tied to his headboard, I won’t be able to stop him. The idea of being rendered so vulnerable to him, and all while naked as the day I was born, is more than I can bear.
Survival mode kicks in, stripping away all sense.
“What are you doing?” I snap, yanking my arm while he ties my wrist to the bed knob. “Let me go!”
Saying nothing, Spider pulls the rope until there’s no room for me to wriggle free. Not enough to pinch the skin, but enough that my wrist is held tight with my arm stretched out. He works quickly, doing the same with the other wrist, tying it to the bed knob on my other side.
I twist violently on the mattress. He climbs off of me without a word, strides over to the left side of the footboard and grabs my ankle.
“You can’t do this!” I kick at him, aiming for any part of him I can reach. I miss entirely, and he swats my foot away. “Get off me!”
“Scream and cry all you want. You’re not getting out of this.”
I thrash again, and he twists my hips so that I’m half rolled onto my side. His palm crashes into my butt, a single hard slap. Fire spreads across my butt cheek. I cry out, half anger, half pain.
It hurts like a mother, but the pain also does something else. It reaches into me, way down deep, calling to that same twisted part of me that seems to crave his touch, to lap his pleasure and his pain up like a cat with a saucer of cream. The sting strokes between my legs, making my sex ache.
Before I know it, he has me lying flat to the mattress again and he’s tying my ankle to the footboard.
“I’ll be gone a while, which means you’ll have plenty of time to think about what’s going to happen to you when I get back.” He winds the last rope around my right ankle, securing it to the other bed knob.
“Oh, you have to be kidding me! You’re just going to leave me here like this?”
“Yes.” He leans on the footboard, his eyes drinking in the sight of me spread eagle across his bed, naked and helpless. His eyelids drop to half-mast, giving him that hungry, sleepy, sexy look.
My nipples bunch under that lustful gaze, the ache in my core intensifying.
As though he’s aware of his affect on me, he reaches out one hand and his fingers stroke my exposed sex as if it’s his right to touch me however and whenever he likes.
I jolt, that single caress making my core feel as if it’s on fire. When I twist and buck in attempt to escape his touch, he smirks and pulls his hand back.
“Little Wildcat.” His voice is low and throaty and carnal. “You’re so fucking perfect. If I didn’t have to leave, I’d be all over you with your pussy milking my cock.”
“Let me go!”
Coming around the bed to my side, he puts his fingers in his mouth and sucks away my juices. Then he gathers up the clothes I was wearing, tosses them in his closet and locks it.
Locking away any hope that I could dress if I could get out of these ropes.
Last, he puts the two bottles of water from his vest on the nightstand beside me. Where I can see them, but where they’re also hopelessly out of reach.
“I hate you,” I grit out.
His eyes twinkle. “Don’t go anywhere now.” He taps my nose.
Rage wells up, white hot. I toss my head, bucking so hard I bounce on the mattress. “You can’t do this! Let me out of here, or I swear I’ll kill you!”
Grunting a laugh, he strolls to the door and opens it, turning to me. “I’d love to see you try. Be seeing you soon.”
Then, just like that, he’s gone, locking the door behind him.
As soon as the door to Spider’s bedroom closes and the lock clicks—as soon as I’m left alone in the silent room—familiar fears and doubts settle deep in my chest.
These fears and doubts I’ve felt before—once. Once, when I was in the isolation shed in the Colony. Alone, in the dark, without any human contact for hours. For days.
True, here, I’m not in the dark, but I’m still locked in. Bound to his bed, I’m still trapped, unable to get out. Powerless.
I shut those thoughts down, squashing them flat. If I break now, it’s over. If I let my fear consume me, I’ll lose myself, becoming the helpless automaton I worked so hard to avoid becoming. Someone without purpose, without a reason to keep fighting.
Drawing a deep breath, I glance up at the ropes on my wrists, then down at the ones on my ankles. Trying to twist my limbs, to wriggle them free. The ropes chafe, cutting into the skin, and none of them move an inch. Spider’s tied them tight enough to restrain without cutting off the circulation.
Hatred for him seeps in, and I grunt and huff, yanking my arms, twisting on the bed. If I can just get one hand free, I can untie the other, and then my legs, and then…
And then what?
It’s not like I can escape again.
Even if I could get to the window, I won’t be able to crawl out of it again. Men’s voices drift from outside the back of the clubhouse. They’d see me if I tried to escape that way, and since I already tried once, Spider would probably make sure someone stays out there at all times until he returns, keeping an eye out. And even if I could crawl out that window, it wouldn’t do any good.
Spider’s locked the closest, so I can’t dress, not even in his clothes. If I got out, I’d be running in the desert, not only naked, but without shoes. Escaping in the nude might be better than l
ying here waiting for whatever sick things he might do to me when he gets back, but the sand would burn my feet. It would be too hot to walk on.
I wouldn’t be able to get out the other way, either. Even if I could get the door to the room open, which I couldn’t, there’s who knows how many men in this clubhouse, walking the halls or sitting in that barroom. Worse, Pip’s right outside the door now. Once in a while, someone stops in the hall and I hear him talking or laughing with them.
I won’t be going anywhere for the moment. Maybe not for a long, long time.
The gravity of the situation sinks in, settling in my gut like a stone. I have no idea how long Spider intends to leave me here, or when he’ll return.
Or, what he’ll do to me when he does come back.
He’s made it clear I’d pay for trying to escape. Will he torture me? Will he finally kill me, deciding that I’m too much trouble to keep around?
No. If he was going to kill me, he’d have done it already. But that doesn’t mean he won’t do things to me that will leave me wishing he would kill me.
No one is going to help me. The men in this place obviously have no problem with him holding me prisoner. As I lie there listening to the sounds of this place around me, the truth of that seeps in.
A TV plays in the near distance, probably from one of the other bedrooms, and men and women’s voices filter through the walls, conversations muffled and unintelligible. Glasses clink in the barroom, and someone laughs. Signs of life, carrying on as normal, as if there isn’t a girl trapped in Spider’s room, tied to his bed, waiting for him to subject her to who knows what demented desires.
I’m not stupid enough to think that I’ll get any sympathy from the women here, either. None of them batted an eye when Dee let loose on me. Heck, Monica and Dee both seem to revel in the idea of Spider hurting me. They think I’m getting what I deserve. Based on the way Tequila deferred to Dee and the way everyone had turned their backs when she’d hit me, the other women respect her. As long as Dee turns a blind eye to Spider’s actions, so will the other women here.