Bind and Keep Me, Book 2

by Cari Silverwood

  Get over it. My mind didn’t listen too well to its own instructions. The hurt stayed even if I managed to push it to the back.

  I caressed her side before I drew back to look into her eyes. “I won’t give you up to the police. I’ll manage somehow. I’ll lie. I’ll make up stuff. I will.”

  “Thank you.” I could see the vague upturn of her mouth that said she smiled.

  “There’s just one thing. Can you ask Klaus to double-check what happens after I go? Follow the news or something? Chris scares me even more than he does.”

  “I will. Promise. Though, girl, he’s trustworthy. He might be a little kinky and crazy like Klaus, but I trust him. Whatever Klaus tells him to do, he will. Be happy. Don’t worry.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t convinced, but I nodded. No point in concerning her over something that might be nothing and that I couldn’t alter.

  “Now,” she whispered. “Kiss me like you said. We got moonlight and a deserted tropical island and we really shouldn’t waste this night.”

  “Sure.” I leaned in and met her lips chastely, with feather-light kisses that roved over her mouth, her chin, her nose, and then the slender curve of her eyebrows.

  When she growled and dragged me up hard against her, I melted into her embrace. That was my Jodie.

  Chapter 25

  Steph

  In the morning, after an awkward breakfast on the beach sitting on the driftwood logs we’d been using for days, Chris rose to his feet and looked across at me. “Time to go. We have a boat ride then a fairly long car drive. Klaus.” He put out his hand and they shook.

  I didn’t move. The bowl of breakfast cereal hadn’t been to my taste anyway with the strange milk we used. Trying to stay calm, I placed it in the sand. “You haven’t told me anything. What is happening?” Jodie’s comforting words seemed to lose their effect in the sunlight. “I don’t know that I want to go with him.”

  “Stay there, Jodie.” Though she hesitated, she stayed. Klaus came over, the sand squeaking underfoot. He squatted in front of me. “Steph, what’s happening is what I said would weeks ago. You’re being set free. Except not overseas, because there’s no way I can guarantee your safety there. And I see no point in releasing you far away somewhere else in Australia because you’re very likely going to be found out for who you are. Chris will let you contact the police on the island after we have time to fly out. With Kat adding to the chances of this going wrong, I’ve decided this is the best answer. He was going to tell you all this.” Klaus lowered his head for a second before continuing. “But that’s it in a nutshell. We no longer need you to lie, except about one thing.”

  “One thing?” I stared over his shoulder at Chris. “But you trust him.”

  His hand came up under my chin. “Look at me.” Those gray eyes. I quivered. I needed to grow a fucking backbone. “Yes, I do trust Chris. He’s been honorable in this except that he’s helped me. The one thing is that you need to help protect him. Otherwise he may be charged with being an accessory. Okay? So say what he tells you to when you’re asked questions.”

  “I guess I can do that.”

  His explanation was so reasonable that the knot of anxiety low in my chest lessened.

  “What about me though? You told me I would get charged. How has that suddenly vanished?”

  “What Chris said to you is most likely correct. You’ll get an exemption providing the cops think you’re co-operating, because of what we did to you.” In his smile and his eyes was a hint of the sadistic man I feared, and I blinked and forced myself not to look away.

  “Okay,” I croaked out. “I see.” Most likely. Shit. Better be. I was the one who had to go do this.

  He gripped my jaw firmly enough that it was close to pain, in the V of his fingers and thumb and his next question was said in a dead-level tone. “Stephanie, what if I said we’d get you out too? We’re going out on regular flights, but…if I put my mind to it, I can get you out anonymously. Would you stay with us? Would you like to continue to be our pet and our toy?”

  Dead serious. Oh god. He meant it and just him asking this aroused me, I could feel my body responding, feel myself dampening, my nipples peaking. Insane. I shut my eyes. “No. Please no.”

  “Please?” he murmured, laughing a little. “That you say please tells me a lot. I wish I could force you to stay with us, little fucktoy. But I can’t.”

  I willed him to let me go but he didn’t for several traumatizing minutes. He was looking at me but I simply could not open my eyes.

  But I watched him walk away. My emotions were a fragile mess—a mess of joy, despair, loss. How in the world did saying goodbye to him mean loss? I rubbed the ache from my forehead. Just having him do that, talk to me like that, had drained me.

  But it made me wonder if Jodie had mentioned my idea of visiting to him.

  I said my farewell to her without crying though I could see a hint of them in her eyes. We simply held each other tightly but said no words apart from a whispered goodbye.

  As the boat pulled out into the open sea, she wiped at her face. I waved for a few seconds before letting my hand flop to my lap. The lush red seat of the speedboat was padded but my teeth rattled as we hit waves.

  Klaus hadn’t even said goodbye. My last sight of him was of a man with sternness carved in the lines of his face like he’d turned to rock.

  But…I hadn’t wanted a hug or anything. I just wanted something.

  From my kidnapper. Yeah. I shook my head.

  “Not far to the mainland!” Chris yelled back. He smiled. “Cheer up. You’ll be free to do what you want soon.”

  I nodded. True, except I felt numb. Emotionless. As if someone had died, only I couldn’t figure out who to mourn for.

  Chris acted like a human guide dog, he didn’t put a foot wrong, telling me what would happen next and why, asking me to hide under a baseball cap and scarf inside the car as we crossed via vehicular ferry back to the island. I wasn’t sure why we had to go back there, but then he explained his house was there. Of course, how else could he hide me while Klaus and Jodie caught their plane to wherever in the world they’d headed?

  I wondered how long they would remember me. A year? A month? A day?

  His house was a neat modern rendered-brick, two-story thing perched on a hillside on Horseshoe Bay. Ironic really, considering where this all began.

  I barely glanced at the outside as we pulled into his garage. My borrowed sunglasses, cap and scarf came off—how un-suspicious wearing a fucking scarf in this climate. My collar and cuffs were still on. Chris didn’t have the key to the little padlocks and, besides, I was meant to have escaped, so I’d still be wearing them. Made sense, though it also made me uneasy.

  In a blurred state of emotional exhaustion, things happened, and a room was found for me. I flopped back on the single bed and stared at the white ceiling wondering what the hell I was doing.

  Late afternoon, from the sun on the wall. I drifted into sleep curled up at the bottom of the bed.

  Someone’s hand shook me and I burst into reality, gasping, scrambling backward across the bed.

  “Hey. Hey.” It was Chris. He held up his hands. “It’s okay. I don’t bite. If you’re hungry, I came in to tell you dinner will be ready soon. Toilet’s down the hallway.” He backed up. “Look, the door’s open and you can come and go.”

  My heart slowed to less than jet plane speed. I gulped and let go of my hold on the quilt. “Thanks.”

  “Why not come out and watch me cook?”

  “Sure.”

  I waited for him to go. The door might be open but the man had steel grates on his windows.

  Ah. Course. Stupid. They were burglar proofing or something. Even though I’d been a total zombie on the trip back he’d done absolutely nothing bad. Chris had a corner on the being a gentlemen thing.

  In the kitchen, I found him preparing to cook a Moreton Bay bug. Yum. I realized I was starving. Nothing was better than these lobster-like critters o
n a plate. My cooking antennae refused to let me stay back. “Need a hand?”

  He peered over his shoulder at me. “You can cook one of these? I buy them sometimes but they turn out tough.”

  I heaved out a sigh. This I could do. Cooking calmed me. “How you can make one of these tough, I do not know. Like to have it with garlic butter?”

  “Sure.” He stepped aside. “I may have garlic somewhere. Butter is for certain.”

  Bugs were sweeter than lobster if done right. “All you need is a frying pan at the right temp and that garlic and butter.” I frowned. “Seriously, this is the easiest thing.”

  “Go. I’m at your mercy. Cook it how you want to.”

  My frown faded. What had I been afraid of? Chris was, if I subtracted his initial odd behavior in the room, sexy and big and one of the squarest-looking men in build, but he was plain nice. He’d been gorgeous. Just, yeah, I wouldn’t want to be a fly he swatted. Maybe that’s what set me against him from the start? Big equaled scary.

  I smiled. “Let me at that fry pan. But…” Go for it, like he says. “Can you tell me everything, please? Like, what and where am I going to the police?” I shut my eyes a second. “All that.”

  “I can. Sure.” He leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed his ankles.

  And he did, while I made a light stir-fry of vegetable to go with the bugs. It was simple. I only had to stay with him a while, then I’d be gone. Like he’d shown me, the doors were open. But to walk out now would betray him. I needed only to wait.

  I checked him out, whistling as he set the table. I was such a dork. Not everyone was Jack the Ripper.

  The bugs turned out wonderful. As we ate at the dining table, me sitting on a chair at a proper table for the first time in almost a month, I felt a split in reality. The floor beckoned me.

  I shivered, remembering being at His feet, under his body, Jodie holding me while he did things to me. Lust. Sex. Pain. I breathed in some oxygen only to find Chris looking at me strangely. Shit. I was going to need a shrink after this.

  For some reason the expression on Chris’s face reminded me of how he’d looked at me in the room—like I was something special, as if letting myself be trapped in a room had bestowed me with some unique quality. He’d said he was in awe of Klaus. If he was in awe of the man who’d abducted me, what did that make him?

  I checked him out as I took another forkful of my meal. He was as normal as ever here. In the room had been surreal. I couldn’t count that against him, could I?

  Yes. Yes, I could. Trust had become a precious commodity to me.

  In the dark, later, I reassessed what he’d told me. Two days with him, then he’d let me go near the house Klaus owned so I could make my way to the police station and say I’d escaped. All I had to do was pretend I’d never met Chris before. I’d checked his front door and it was unlocked. That had been so amazing I’d smiled. A few days more, that was all. Easy.

  I stared at the ceiling.

  So alone.

  No one else warm and solid to hold me.

  No one to tell me what to do. I was free. For a second I panicked. Get a fucking grip. It’s just Stockholm or lost puppy syndrome or some such crap.

  When I awoke with the sun in my eyes and slanting across the wall, I found myself curled at the bottom of the bed where I used to sleep when I was with them.

  Damn.

  The next day passed, slowly and agonizingly, as I angsted over how things would play out when I walked into that police station. After harassing myself for ages, I discussed it with Chris.

  His reply buoyed me. “You can only do your best. I don’t expect miracles but if you do your best, I’m happy. But, just to help you. We’ll practice.” Then he pretended to be a police officer interrogating me.

  If it wasn’t so serious, I would have laughed. He was right, though, rehearsing my story over and over gave me confidence. We varied the precise words too. Real stories rarely used the same words while made-up ones tended to be learned by rote.

  It helped, until the night brought back to me the past few weeks. I woke up frantic, sobbing, and had to sit clutching my pillow to get my breathing back to normal. I stared at the shadows of trees washing across the walls. For an adult, I was pitiful.

  Shrink, remember. Afterward, after I spilled everything to the cops, I’d get a shrink and fix this problem.

  At five in the morning I gave up on sleep, and sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed, with my head stuck in my pillow. I wept silently as the dawn light crept in.

  I hoped Chris didn’t notice the soggy patch in the middle of his pillow.

  What distressed me the most wasn’t the crying, or the sleeplessness, but that when I had awoken it was often in the middle of them making love to me. Awake, I recalled the pain he had made me take. Asleep, I recalled the love. Then I was stuck in the middle of nowhere, longing for something I could never have. I wanted to be able to hold and kiss Jodie again. I even, in some damn weird way, flip-flopped between wanting him and hating him. Was there some psychological clue there? I had no idea. I just wanted someone to tell me where the hell to go from here.

  On the third day, early in the morning, Chris drove me up to the house and let me out. I looked up at the swaying trees and the fine blue sky. This here had been my prison. I’d never seen the front of the house. It appeared so serene, so normal: a garage, a gravel driveway, trees, and a pretty garden. Butterflies floated about from one flower blossom to another.

  After he went in and made the room door stick open with a small bit of scuffed tape that he’d showed me, as if it had fallen from somewhere and been kicked along the floor, Chris came back outside. He shook my hand.

  “Good luck, Steph.” He bent and kissed my forehead. “You’ll be okay. Just remember the story. Stick to that, please. For my sake.”

  I nodded. “I will. Thank you for all you’ve done.”

  “No worries.” His gentle grin and thumbs-up lifted my heart. “Take care out there. There’re some crazies on the road.”

  His car passed me as I set off down the winding road.

  My legs felt odd taking these long strides and I had to check myself a few times when I almost skidded on the loose gravel. Somewhere, deeper in the trees, a kookaburra laughed in its lunatic bird voice, as if mocking my lack of hill descending skills.

  I’d been inside for a long time and even on Rat Island the world was small. Here, under the shade of the trees, I was truly free. I smiled. I could do this. Fuck all that had happened. It wasn’t my fault that things had gone down the gurgler for these last weeks. I’d do as Chris asked and tell my white lies. I’d even try to show Klaus and Jodie in a good light if I somehow could.

  Walking as exercise had never been my favorite. I had to walk all the way to the cops? All the way down this hill? It was hot and already sweat was rolling down my back. Maybe I could get a lift? Or maybe not. Hitchhiking after all that had happened to me? Not wise, girl. Not at all.

  A small rock that ended up in my Croc shoes made me hop about and grimace and rethink that vow. Who invented damn rocks anyway? If only I had gym shoes, but there hadn’t been much use for those in the room.

  I continued but the farther I went, the more something pulled on me, and the more I slowed. I stopped and looked up at the sky with my eyes shut. Yes, that was it. I was between two worlds. Behind me was the strange fantasy world of Klaus and Jodie where I was their sexual toy to be cherished, and made to perform and, at times, to scream. I shuddered at the thought of the latter. Even Jodie had relished that. My cruel girlfriend who even now made me ache. My girlfriend who’d gone somewhere far away without me. I wrapped my arms around myself imagining she was here with me and grieving that she wasn’t mine anymore…and that I wasn’t hers.

  Ahead of me, down this road, was the normal world where I would have to explain where I’d been for these past weeks. How I’d gotten myself into the situation in the first place. Damn, that was going to be difficult. Then, once
that was done, I had to go back to work. To the gray world. Money, clients, rent, filling out papers, driving cars, arguing, forever and ever.

  I opened my eyes and stared down the slope of the black asphalt. But also movies, parties, talking to friends, achieving things and, best of all, being me, for myself and with no one to order me about, except for my bosses at work. The pluses were definitely on that side of the scale.

  Then why was I miserable?

  Because, I told myself. Just because. I’d come out of the maelstrom back there, unscathed, sane, and with the most amazing sexual memories ever. Be happy, girl.

  I kept going.

  My chest tightened as I went past a house—the first one since Klaus’s. The silver-gray SUV in the driveway looked safe. Yet again, I hesitated as I wondered if someone in there could give me a lift. What exactly were the odds of encountering a serial killer in the average posh car? A thousand to one…surely? I sighed and continued.

  But when I heard the engine approaching from behind me, I stuck out my thumb. Bugger walking. I turned. It was the silver-gray vehicle. I glimpsed a man with a baseball cap as it rolled past. A man. The vehicle slowed and stopped in front of me and I walked toward the SUV as the passenger door opened.

  A lady would be safe, not a man. My stupid instincts nagged at me. Do not get in. I swallowed and stepped up, ready to brush him off with a lame-ass explanation.

  Klaus. Lunging at me. Halfway across the seat, with his hand already reaching. My mouth gaped, I started to backpedal.

  His fingers clawed onto me.

  “No!” I squeaked, as he hauled me in by the front of my shirt and my armpit. My knees banged on metal, and a split second later, my mouth had his hand across it. I bit down.

  “Shit.” He slapped me and shoved my face into the seat. “Behave.”

  The fight left me. Three weeks before I would have screamed more, struggled more, but not now. I knew him and what he might do. Ashamed at myself, I realised I’d also snapped back into that submissive mode he’d trained in me.