Vanquish

by Pam Godwin

  He knew the effect he had on women. Whether it was their fascination with big, scary men with scars or their complete dismissal of danger, he only needed to flash a smile to lure them in. Amber was no different, despite the self-berating that was likely occurring in her flustered mind.

  Short breaths rattled her lips. Her knees squeezed together, and her fingers entwined beneath her perky tits, pressing against the knuckles of the opposite hand.

  Watching her battle her distress felt a little like foreplay. For every tremble across her skin, his mouth moistened, his pulse purred, and the nerve-endings in his fingers stirred and tingled. His body fed from the energy clashing between them, rushing blood below his waist and hardening him for a fight between her uptight thighs.

  She glanced down, and her breath caught.

  He followed her gaze, past the discomfort straining his jeans, to his socked feet. He flexed his toes. “What?”

  “Where are your shoes?”

  Her disregard for his arousal was a shocker. No matter. He'd prepared for this line of questioning. “By the front door.”

  Her nose scrunched in a naively erotic way. “Why are you wearing gloves?”

  “Same reason my shoes are by the door.” He lifted a shoulder, deliberately vague, letting her squirm.

  Her lips pressed together, and her chest heaved. “I don't understand.”

  “Your house is obscenely clean.” Which had fuck-all to do with covering his fingerprints and softening his footsteps. He caught her eyes and winked. “So I put on my driving gloves and left my shoes.”

  “Driving gloves haven't been fashionable since the sixties.”

  “My '65 Mustang might be dated, too, but it's bad-ass.

  He savored the little nuances of her floundering expression. The skin tightening over arches of her cheekbones. The vertical lines between her eyebrows. The bounce in her gaze, ping-ponging everywhere but in his direction. And finally, her wavering sigh.

  Got her. Earlier, when his arms were locked around her, she might've sensed his cruelty. But now that she'd let him in, she would be fighting that intuition, convincing herself he wouldn't bother with conversation if he intended to harm her. Lucky for him, she didn't know how he operated.

  He held up his gloved fingers, wiggling them. “You should thank me. You don't know where my hands have been.”

  Her nose twitched again, her eyes fixed on the packages beneath his arm. “Um...thanks?” She squared her shoulders and dragged her gaze to his, the display of courage ten times more forced than her voice. “My mail?”

  As he crossed the room, she rose like an animated mannequin, a vision of posed glamour, an artist's illusion. He stopped a few feet away, mesmerized by the unnatural yet graceful way she held herself, until she raised a stiff arm and gestured for the packages.

  He handed them over and nodded at the sheaths behind her. “Should I worry about where the knives are?”

  “Probably.” She turned toward the bench and removed the bottles of dye, arranging them in a neat little line with the labels facing her.

  “Your vagueness isn't very friendly.”

  She sighed. “I don't forge blades. I make things from leather and sell them online.”

  Her only source of income? That would explain her financial problems and her urgency to ship this project.

  She unscrewed the first bottle, and the plasticky smell of chemicals singed the air. “You can sit on the stool while I finish and tell me the real reason you were on my porch.”

  Perceptive little thing. Bossy, too. He let it go and sat, facing her backside as she worked. “When was the last time you left the house?”

  Her shoulders bunched. “Thirty minutes ago.”

  “Before that.”

  “None—”

  “Of my business?” He stretched his legs out in front of him and angled his head to watch the glorious flex of her ass. “Do you know your neighbors?”

  Her hands paused; then she blotted a rag with brown stain. “No, so I won't be able to answer questions about your old friends.”

  The six months he'd spent watching her house, he hadn't seen a twitch in the shades. “Gonna go out on a limb here and say you've never even seen your neighbors.”

  Her hip cocked out as if she'd lost her balance, but her hands continued to work the dye into the carved designs.

  The flourish of knotted swirls in the leather appeared impressively intricate, even if the details weren't clear from where he sat. “You always work in a dress and heels?”

  “You always chatter like a fourth grade girl?”

  He snapped his molars together. Fuck, she was frustrating. “If you'd answer my questions—”

  “You didn't answer mine.” She bent over to inspect her work, and sweet Jesus, the short dress rose a good two inches up her thighs. Much more of that and those hard cheeks would be gripping his dick.

  He swiped a gloved hand over his face. What was her question? Oh. “Why was I on your porch?” He smirked at her back. “Your bench has a great view of your kinky neighbors. Did you know they fuck on their kitchen table?”

  She spun, her wide bright eyes colliding with his.

  His smile stretched, giving her a good show of teeth.

  She studied him, nibbling the corner of her lip, and her face relaxed. “You're fucking with me.”

  He hadn't even begun. “If that's what you think.”

  Her eyebrows pulled together as she returned to her dye. “I'm almost done,” she mumbled. “Then it'll need a few hours to dry.”

  And he needed to poke around, unsupervised. “Got anything to drink?”

  “Juice and beer in the fridge. Tequila under the sink.”

  He moved toward the door. “Want anything?”

  She glanced over her shoulder, eyes on his gloved hands. “No, thanks.”

  Smart girl, but not smart enough.

  In the kitchen, he opened every cabinet and drawer and found the same diabolical order as the rest of the house. Condiments and plastic containers grouped in fours, organized by size, labels facing out. Same thing in the fridge.

  He poured two fingers of gold tequila. Cheap stuff, but even a watered-down mixto pretending to be tequila was better than domestic beer.

  Drink in hand, he slipped into the sitting room and made a beeline to the books. When he'd sought out his victims as a human trafficker, he'd been bound by the contract of the slave buyers. Gender, hair color, body type, temperament, everything had a requirement. Now, he was free to choose whom he wanted for his pleasure, and tracking, watching, and studying a quarry was the most exhilarating part of a capture.

  He had no reason to enslave another person again, but he couldn't fight his nature forever. Would Amber be an adaptable slave? Would she be missed? Did she have any nasty secrets he wouldn't be able to work with? Who was Amber Rosenfeld?

  His investigation began with the top shelves of her bookcases, which held hundreds of hardbacks. Stacked in a repeating pattern of vertical and horizontal groups of four, the covers featured moonlit mansions, bloody handprints, shadowed doorways, and demonic eyes. While the horror collection was unexpected, the alphabetized order wasn't. His fingers twitched, and his smile built.

  It took him less than a minute to fuck up her program, swapping out books and rotating some upside down. As he switched the final books, one of the flaps opened, revealing a signature and a personalized message. For Paul, with best wishes.

  Something pinched in his chest. Who the fuck was Paul?

  He opened another. To Teresa. He released a breath. The next five he checked were also autographed and personalized to random somebodies.

  He gnawed on the toothpick, his mind racing. Did she steal from people's autographed collections? Why would she do that?

  Crouching, he inspected the spines on the lower shelf, which was hidden behind a leather ottoman. He shoved it aside, and the font on the spines told him these texts didn't contain stories of ax murderers and ghosts. He leaned in close
r to read the titles, and oh baby, there she was, all laid out in a dozen manuals.

  Break Out Guide for Shut-ins. Face Your Phobia. Imperfect OCD. Living With Agoraphobia.

  OCD was a term he knew, and one that had been scraping at the back of his mind since he'd walked in. But what the fuck was agoraphobia? He cracked open the text Out Without Fear and flipped to the first page.

  Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder in which a person has a fear of being in open places where it is hard to escape. The individual might feel embarrassed, helpless, or trapped, and the intense fear can manifest into a panic attack. Agoraphobics avoid attacks by restricting or completely eliminating activities outside the home.

  No shit? That solved the mystery behind her meltdown outside, and maybe why she'd run from the door when she unlocked it. He skimmed a few chapters as a weird mix of emotions clumped in his stomach. Part of him felt bad for the girl, a quaint feeling to be sure. If he were a fucking pansy, maybe he'd explore that. Instead, he focused on the sharper, more familiar sentiment that clung to his gut.

  He wanted her vulnerability. To use her body. To bleed off the pent-up shit inside of him. To fill the emptiness. To get his fucking mind off Liv Reed.

  Amber was the one he’d been waiting for, and considering the irony that she lived right next door to Liv, maybe Amber had been waiting for him.

  Van knew the risks in kidnapping all too well, but taking an agoraphobic outside her door? Christ, that was a new one. Were there medical considerations? Would Amber keel the fuck over and die from an aneurysm?

  Wait, why did he care if she had seizures and shit? Because he didn't want to kill her. If he managed to successfully move her, she probably wouldn't even try to escape. His muscles swelled with heat just thinking about her locked in his house. Locks optional?

  The swoosh of the bathroom faucet interrupted his romantic thoughts, followed by the approaching click of her heels.

  “What are you doing?” Her horrified whisper sent a quiver of pleasure down his spine.

  Just to rile her a bit more, he didn't stand, didn't turn to acknowledge her. Instead, he pocketed the toothpick, lifted the glass of mixto tequila from the shelf, and drained half. He took his time, drawing out the tension that wafted from her, savoring it. Unlike the piss burning his throat. Lighter fluid would've gone down smoother.

  Eventually, he returned the book, out of order, and rose with his back to her. “How long have you been shut in, Amber?”

  “You need to leave.” Her voice was so strangled it sounded like she'd lost the ability to breathe.

  He shifted to face her, his expression relaxed, his tone more so. “Are you medicated?” An inventory of her medicine cabinet was on his list of to-dos. He needed a better understanding of the disorders.

  “Leave right this minute, and I won't call the cops.” She clutched her knuckles and raised her chin, the sinews in her neck pressing against delicate skin.

  Was she telling him to leave because he'd discovered her phobia? A smile crooked one corner of his mouth. “Go ahead. Call in the pigs.” He waved a hand at the door. “If you don't mind them tracking the outside world all over your nice floors.” The self-help text had said, The individual might feel embarrassed. “Maybe they won't jump to conclusions about someone with a mental disorder going ape-shit on her house-guest.”

  A noise squeaked in her throat, and her eyes darted from him, to the front door, and back again. Then they lowered, as did her chin. “What do you want from me?”

  Ah, fuck, he was screwed. The only thing missing from her response was Master. He drew a deep breath through his nose and tried to calm the fuck-her-take-her-break-her rap against his ribs.

  “I'm going to finish my drink” —he raised the glass, his voice soft and casual— “while we wait for your projects to dry. Then I'll drop them in the mailbox when I leave. Isn't that why you invited me in?”

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her hands twitching at her sides. So damned beautiful, all dolled up with nowhere to go. “Yes.” She swallowed. “Of course.”

  He leaned against the bookshelf and hooked a thumb in his pocket. “A shallow bastard might've bolted after discovering your disorder, blabbering some excuse as he ran far, far away.” He watched her sharp inhale and suppressed the satisfaction tugging at his lips. “So you have issues. Don't we all?” Fucking understatement.

  “I don't want to talk about this.” Even as she said it, her eyes fell on the coffee table, and a tremor overtook her body. She charged toward the source of her horror, sucking air as she realigned the coasters with trembling fingers.

  He hid his grin behind the lip of his raised glass.

  A gasp followed, and she tackled the pillow on the couch, straightening and fluffing with asthmatic breaths. Then she stood, brushed down the hem of her dress, and leveled a hard stare in his direction. “Stop fucking with my things.”

  He stared right back, but what he really wanted to do was yank up that dress and sink his teeth into her twisted panties. With the casual swipe of a hand, he shifted the swollen head of his cock.

  She didn't seem to notice, her eyes too busy shooting fire at his face. “And no more personal questions.”

  For a little thing, she sure had a big voice when she was angry. It was really quite cute, and he suddenly wanted to know if she was ticklish. What a fucked up thought, and probably not the time to explore it. She appeared to be seconds from self-destructing.

  Her heels echoed through the room as she paced, seething through her teeth and wiping fingers beneath her dry eyes. Then she stopped and glanced at the clocks, at the door, back to the clocks. Was she weighing her options? Go to the mailbox herself? Or let him stay to do it for her?

  When her eyes landed on him, they had cooled by several degrees. “No more snooping. Don't touch my stuff. Don't even look at it.”

  Terrible choice, little girl. He tipped her a crooked smile, made of sugar and shit. “Right on.”

  She nodded, her bottom lip caught between polished white teeth. “Then the offer to stay four hours stands. Follow me.” With that, she turned and clickety-clacked down the hall.

  He watched her ass until it disappeared within her unlit bedroom. For all his smugness in manipulating her, he knew better than to pursue this. She had some serious dysfunction—perhaps worse than his—and he'd only scratched the surface. He glanced at the front door. He should be the shallow bastard and leave, but the challenge invigorated him. God help him, but he wanted to lose his mind with this crazy woman.

  He threw back the remainder of the mixto and set it on the coffee table. Flicking a coaster to the floor, he strolled down the hall, a hand in his pocket and dark dreams in his head.

  At the doorway of her bedroom, he took in her most personal space. A dim lamp now glowing on the nightstand, a single blacked-out window, a small TV that should've been thrown out two decades ago. And a stunning woman sitting on the edge of the bed.

  She watched him from beneath her lashes, her slender legs dangling off the side, the toes of her shoes flexed above the carpet. Not a single footprint indented the threads between her and the door. Had she hurdled the ten-foot distance? Impossible. How did she erase her tracks so fast?

  Her silence pushed against him, scattering into the hallway and pulsing with the faint rasp of her inhales. She sat motionless, eyes lowering, as if held by an innate need to please. As if waiting for her Master to speak.

  A warm current ran the length of his body, prickling his skin. Subservient Amber did not help his obsessive thoughts. His cock ached, but the greedy bastard didn't run things. He wouldn't take her impulsively. Not without planning. Maybe not ever.

  He pushed off the doorframe and crossed the room, subtly scuffing his heels to smudge the vacuumed stripes in his path.

  She glared at his tracks, and her jaw clenched. Yeah, her OCD harbored some affection for clean lines.

  He paused before her, brushing his knees against hers and coaxing an exhale f
rom her sweet lips. A discreet scan of the room revealed the same rigid order as the rest of the house. But what the fuck was the bizarre display in the corner?

  A glass aquarium sat on a stand, brimming with twisted bits of filigree metalwork, broken bronze statues, and beveled gems—some attached to strips of metal, others loose and chipped.

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “Are those—?”

  “Those are nothing,” she snapped, meeting his gaze.

  Either she designed metal art, or she'd unleashed a pissed-off hammer on a trophy collection. Her locked jaw suggested the latter. Strange she hadn't covered it the way she'd concealed the self-help books, but he let it go for now.

  “Why are we here?” He nodded at the bed.

  “Why not?”

  Because phobic girls didn't invite strangers where they slept. He gave her a human smile. “It wasn't a personal question.” But he hoped it would incite a personal answer.

  “Right.” She looked at the bed and smoothed the white quilt beside her hip. “This is part of the offer.”

  His head jerked back. What the—

  “Sex in exchange for dropping off my shipments.” Her tone was unshakably and incautiously determined. She'd done this before.

  The cold splash of realization doused his brain. And his libido. Christ, why hadn't he seen this coming? Of course, her mental condition would force her to depend on people. People with hard dicks weeping to accept her non-cash payments. People like Zachary Fucking Kaufman.

  Goddammit, her offer stung. He wasn't some delivery bitch boy, earning pussy for a walk to the mailbox. He was there for his own purpose, not hers, and he'd damned well fuck her on his terms. “No.”

  Her face fell. “Oh. I thought—”

  “I was so hard-up I had to run errands to get my dick wet?” His tone was harsh, though his anger had nothing to do with being hard-up.

  Hell, eight years ago, he had been the whore, exchanging blowjobs for crack. No doubt, he would've been bent under some rutting drug-dealer at that very moment if Mr. E hadn't returned for him. Twenty-five years late, and still, he'd been overjoyed to meet long lost Dad.