by Bethany-Kris
He dropped the bag of take-out—a breakfast spread from a diner nearby that opened very early—on the glass coffee table, but even then, Evelyn didn’t react.
“All right, lass,” Connor said, taking a seat beside her on the couch. “We’ve got whatever you want to chow on—pancakes, waffles, eggs, bacon, hash browns, and I’ve got coffee and tea in the kitchen. Or there’s some bottled juice in the bag with the food.”
Evelyn turned, eyeing the bags and the Styrofoam containers as Connor pulled each thing out and set the spread over the top of the coffee table. He expected her to reach out and take whatever she wanted once he had everything opened up, but she did nothing of the sort. Instead, she looked to him, as though she was waiting on his choice for her.
Connor sighed, wary and knackered. He’d managed to grab a shower and a change of clothes before going to get them food, but the lack of sleep was starting to catch up with him. He was hoping to get her fed, then in a bed, and after all of that, he just wanted to sleep.
For hours.
He didn’t know if that was going to be possible.
Get on with it, he told himself.
Picking up the container filled with pancakes, he looked to Evelyn. “These?”
No response, though her gaze did jump down to the food inside. He did the same thing with all the other containers, holding different foods, only to get the same reaction from her each time. Little to no excitement over what he offered, but an acknowledgment that there was food right under her face, waiting to be eaten.
Connor didn’t like what Evelyn’s behavior suggested, but he brushed it off, even if he should have known better than to do so.
“Okay, how about a bit of everything?” he asked.
Her green eyes flicked to him, but she didn’t nod or verbally agree with his question. She was still waiting for him to do what he wanted for her, he realized. He wanted her to make the choice, even if that wee action would say she wasn’t completely lost in her ability to act for herself, but he had the distinct feeling he wasn’t going to get that far with her tonight.
And well, if he wanted her to eat, he might as well just do it her way.
Getting food in her belly was far more important than whatever mind games she had going on inside her head.
Connor took a bit from each container, and put the food into its own dish. A few spoonfuls of eggs, a couple of pieces of bacon, a square of hash browns, a pancake, and a half of a waffle with a wee bowl of syrup. He even cracked open a bottle of orange juice and set it down in front of Evelyn, too, along with the container of her food, and plastic utensils.
Connor pointed at the food. “Eat, love.”
He almost wondered if she was going to make him feed her the damn food when she stared at the container for more than a few seconds, doing nothing that might suggest she wanted or could eat it by herself. Her brow puckered before she finally reached out and picked up the container, hugging it to her chest with a fork in one hand, and the food in her other.
Slowly, she began to eat, stabbing the plastic fork into different bits of the dish and then into her barely-opened mouth. Connor sat there for a hell of a lot longer than he wanted to admit, simply to watch her eat. Like with everything else, she didn’t make a sound. Not when she picked the bites with her fork, not when the food went into her mouth, not when she chewed, and certainly not when she swallowed.
There was nothing.
He was sitting right there, watching her eat, and she didn’t make a single feckin’ sound.
Connor was both fascinated and disturbed.
Soon, he too had to make himself a makeshift dish out of one of the containers, and rested back into the couch to eat alongside his silent, nearly unmoving companion. He wasn’t even hungry, really, he didn’t taste much flavor as he chewed and swallowed like a robot going through the motions, but he did feel calmer as he watched Evelyn.
Then, just as Evelyn took another wee bite of pancake dunked in syrup, her chewing slowed down even more than before. Connor watched her from the corner of his eye as her gaze darted from the food in her hand, to the coffee table in front of her. Her grasp on her fork and container squeezed tight enough to make the plastic and foam crackle from the pressure.
What bit of color was left in her cheeks slowly drained as she tucked her mouth into the crook of her arm, and closed her eyes. He knew what was happening in a feckin’ instant.
It confirmed what he believed, too, sadly.
Evelyn had been starved, and that was why she looked so frail, with her dark circles under her eyes and her bones showing through her skin. Connor had likely given her too much food—more than what her empty stomach could possibly handle in one round—and now it was going to come back up, and fast.
Starvation was a common tactic used on slaves who were a bit more defiant than their keepers might enjoy, especially if the natural inflection to listen when physically hurt was not present like it should be.
Anyone could be beat, but not everyone cared when they were.
Food, though?
Take away a person’s food, make them weak and in pain, and they would do just about anything someone wanted them to do. Sit down where and when they were told to sit, they get a reward—something to eat. Be quiet and stay out of sight, even when someone was standing right next to them, and they got another reward—maybe a quarter of a meal.
“Feck,” Connor mumbled through a mouthful of food.
He shoved his own stuff to the table, tearing the items that Evelyn held out of her grasp, too. Then, he just feckin’ picked her up in a damn bear hug, making sure her back was to his chest, as he bolted for the kitchen.
It was the closest spot he could think of.
There was no bathroom downstairs.
Evelyn didn’t fight him, if anything, she went limp in his arms, and Connor was grateful. He could handle a lot of things. He saw men shite themselves, smelled their old piss that they had sat in for days—after being tied up and beaten. He’d watched as every drop of blood that could be taken from a body was forced out, and even cleaned up the brain matter of a man who’d had his skull torn apart by the backend of a feckin’ hammer.
Vomit, though?
Vomit just pissed Connor off.
He did not want to spend the night cleaning up vomit.
“Here you are, lass,” Connor said.
He just got Evelyn bent over the garbage can as the vomit started to spew. The stench was wretched, another reason Connor despised someone getting sick all over themselves, and he turned his head away to get a clean breath of air. It wasn’t her fault, he knew. She couldn’t help what she couldn’t handle, and he had been the one to hand her a whole container full of food without thinking about what he was doing.
He’d seen the signs.
He recognized an issue.
He’d ignored it.
This was the result.
Every action had consequences, something Connor knew all too well in his life, and unfortunately, Evelyn’s current pain was entirely caused by him. Perhaps, had he told her to eat what she could, and not simply demanded she eat what he had given, this might not have happened.
Guilt chewed through his own gut.
Evelyn’s wee frame shook in his embrace, though she barely made a sound while her vomit spilled into the rubbish bin. He was no longer shocked that she could manage something like vomiting and being silent at the same time—this was clearly how things had been taught to her.
Reward and punishment.
Food was simply a tool for a greater lesson.
She was meant to be seen only when wanted, and even then, never heard. A piece of background art standing in a corner, alive but unmoving. A trophy, perhaps, to show off when needed, to claim the skill of a good trainer.
Connor almost wished he could say his thoughts were assumptions—that truly, he knew nothing of Evelyn and the Russian she had been living with, except for the fact that’s where she had been. Yet, his own experience
with his father, with slaves, and even with others who housed sold souls were staring him in the face and laughing.
“It’s all right,” Connor murmured as Evelyn’s trembling increased. Her hands grasped the edge of the bin so fiercely that her knuckles turned white. “You’re just grand, love. Take a breath and give it a second—we’ll wash your mouth out and see how you feel.”
Out of instinct alone, Connor began smoothing his palm over the red-tinted, blonde curls at the nape of Evelyn’s neck. He didn’t know how else to offer her comfort, and it didn’t seem as though his words were working very well. As he swept more of her hair off her neck, a splash of black ink made his hand freeze.
Carefully, Connor pulled back the neckline of Evelyn’s dress, and found a sickeningly familiar sight tattooed into her skin. Just below the nape of her neck, at the top of her spine where it wouldn’t be seen when covered by a shirt or dress, were two eight-pointed, black stars that Connor would bet his arse on that they matched the stars on the Russian’s chest.
Some slaves were branded, and others were not.
Slaves that were never intended to be resold into a market, for whatever reason, were often given some identifier as to their place and owner, so that should they run and be caught, they could be easily identified and then returned.
Without meaning to, Connor’s hand weaved into the tangled strands of Evelyn’s curls, his fingers tightening into the silky waves much harder than he intended. He thought if he held her closer—tighter—then she would be safe, but he didn’t know that his belief was entirely true.
Evelyn must have taken Connor’s action to mean something different, as suddenly, her shaking stopped and she stiffened before turning to face him. Her wide eyes stared up at him, frightened and remorseful all at once.
Punishment, he knew.
She was looking for it—expecting it.
She’d done something wrong in her mind, and there was no other consequence to her actions except for punishment or rewards. It was that simple.
To her, at least.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, though the words were barely breathed. He thought they sounded more like a gasping plea for mercy, and that broke his feckin’ heart. One he hadn’t realized was even still beating in his chest. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. Please, don’t—”
“Aye, lass,” Connor interrupted calmly. “I’m not going hurt you. Not for this, not for anything.”
She only stared at him, her voice suddenly gone again.
Still, he’d learned something good.
She was there.
Inside, Evelyn was there.
She’d spoken, knowing it might earn her something terribly bad. She’d eaten more food than she could handle, probably not because he had told her to, but because she wanted to feckin’ eat. And she was still staring at him, even if she wasn’t speaking, her gaze a mixture of emotions he couldn’t begin to decipher.
All of that was good.
It meant she was damn fine at pretending to be whatever someone wanted her to be, because that was how she needed to survive.
Connor could work on the rest.
The ache in Connor’s shoulders as he rolled over in bed, was the first sign of his stress. A week since he’d found Evelyn, and things weren’t any better. Although, to be fair, they weren’t exactly worse, either. She was eating without vomiting, though, he wished she would eat more, and she wasn’t constantly attempting to be quiet in every single thing she did.
For the first couple of days, Evelyn had barely moved, even with prompting from Connor. At one point, it took her ten minutes of squirming before Connor asked her if she had to use the bathroom. To which, she then expected him to go with her.
That was a big hell no on his part.
She managed just fine on her own.
Sleeping, however, was a whole other matter. He had spare bedrooms, fully furnished, in the brownstone, but Evelyn went to his bedroom, and sat her pretty arse down in the corner like that was where she was meant to go. Each time, despite wanting to keep her close, Connor directed her to one of the bedrooms—one with warm beige walls and brown bedding on a large king-sized bed.
Each morning, he found her in the same exact spot. Awake before him, and waiting outside his room. It bothered him, but a part of him found a strange enjoyment in how she waited for him, expected him, and then followed along behind him until he told her to go find something to do.
Usually, she just wandered the halls, staring at the art on the walls. Other times, she took her sketchbook—something she hadn’t offered for him to look inside—and disappeared into his workshop upstairs, not coming back out until he called her for lunch or supper.
But today was Tuesday, and whether he wanted to or not, he needed to make the nearly two-hour trip to New Jersey for a meet with his father. Sean had made a point to call not once, but twice, just to check in on his son.
Connor was suspicious for a whole range of reasons, and he had every damn right to be. Now, he just needed to confirm some things before he decided what exactly he was going to do about it all.
Still, he worried about Evelyn.
He’d left her alone a few times since he’d taken her. Quick trips to the store, once when he’d gone to the bank to withdraw money, and for a slightly longer period when he had to go into The Ink Shoppe for a client he had booked a good month or more ago. Each time, he came back to find Evelyn had barely moved from the spot where he had left her.
Connor wondered, if he left the doors opened, and told her she could go, would she even leave?
He didn’t know the answer to that.
He also wasn’t willing to find out.
Not yet, anyway.
Connor pulled open his bedroom door, fully expecting to find Evelyn standing there like she had every morning, and damn near fell over his own two feet. She was there, but instead of standing, she was lying on the floor against his door, with a pillow under her head, curled into a ball.
Sometimes, he noticed her bed was barely disturbed in her room, with no sheets or blankets out of place, as though she hadn’t slept in it at all. Finding her like she was, dead to the world at his bedroom door, only made him believe that she wasn’t sleeping at all—or barely.
He didn’t know what to do.
Connor cursed under his breath as he squatted down, getting a closer look at Evelyn’s lax features. “What are you doing out here, love?”
She didn’t react to his voice, and her breaths came out in steady, even pulses. Connor knew that somehow, the only way he would be able to get Evelyn out of whatever routine she thought she needed to live by, he was going to have to force her to take care of herself on some level.
This morning, however, was not that morning.
Connor didn’t even think about it before he had picked her up, taking note that she still felt far too light in his embrace. Cradling her, her head rested against his bare arm as he took careful steps toward his bed. She didn’t wake up once he had her in his bed, and actually, rolled over into his pillow and grasped for whatever was close, which happened to be his blanket.
For a long while, Connor simply stared at the sight in front of him.
Even asleep and so unbothered by the world around her, Evelyn was a classy, sweet lass in his sheets. The sight of her there was a harsh reminder for him that he was nothing more than a man with desires, regardless of the current situation. Her curls spilled over his bed, and his fingers itched to run through them before taking in a handful to grab and pull. It was easier not to react to the beautiful, lost creature in his home when he was focusing on the problems she presented, but right then …
Right then, there was no problem.
Except that he thought she would look feckin’ grand, if he were in the bed with her.
All right, that’s enough of that, you gobshite.
His mental berating did nothing to quell the goddamned erection straining against his boxer-briefs. Evelyn certainly wasn’t a child anymore, and net
her was Connor. He blew out a harsh breath, determined to get his mind on the tasks he had to do for the day. With that new train of thought, he headed for the attached bath, not bothering to close the door that separated the bathroom from the bedroom.
Guessing by the way Evelyn was already down for the count, he didn’t think she would be waking up anytime soon.
Connor made quick work of stripping down, still making every feckin’ effort to ignore his hard cock jutting outward as he stepped into the cool spray of the shower. He preferred the water as hot as he could get it, but given his issue, cold water was the way to go.
It didn’t help.
Even after he washed up, the hard-on was still present, and feckin’ with his head. He opted to just glare at his prick, willing it to go down so he could go on with his day and be done with it. That didn’t work either, not that he thought it would.
The world was clearly laughing at his foolish arse again.
Connor decided the only way to get rid of his erection was to take care of the problem and that would be the end of it. With his hand fist-tight at the base of his cock, a heady sense of relief was already started to sweep through his nerves, promising calm was soon to follow.
He certainly had more than enough images to bring to mind as he stroked his length—women he’d been with, random encounters that had ended without even learning his partner’s name. He tended to have a rough hand in bed, he liked the control, and he enjoyed the feeling of a woman’s body when her pleasure mixed with her pain. The sounds he could elicit from a classy mouth before he filled it with his cock could play on repeat in his mind for days.
Except … none of those things came to mind like they usually would. Instead, he was stuck on the woman in his bed, her quiet demeanor and pretty lips set in neither a frown, nor a smile. Doe-eyes and silky hair—freckles and hints of red in her curls.
He wished he could say he thought of nice things, but his mind didn’t work that way when it came to sex. He preferred to be brutal, he liked seeing skin pink from his roughness, and he needed his woman to want more.
Never to find her limit, no.