“What recourse do I have?”
“None.”
Jillian stared off into space while the bounty hunter patiently watched her think. Then her eyes returned to his and they stared at each other as if time stopped and they were suspended forever in that one single second.
There were other questions to ask, but her mind drew a blank, and there was no time left..
Suddenly, with a move so swift Jill didn’t see it coming, Logan whisked the pictures back into the envelope and rose to his feet. He then took her by the arm, his fingers crushing into her flesh, and led her from the library. Her beating heart seemed to leap into her throat and her guts turned inside out with fear, while the constant stream of liquid between her thighs turned her panties as ‘squishy’ as Logan Dunn believed them to be.
On the street, the pair walked two blocks to Logan’s truck, a huge late model vehicle with dark windows and an extra seat behind the front bench. The bounty hunter pushed Jillian into the extra seat, and followed her into the truck, leaning over the front as he quickly cuffed her hands behind her and locked them into a specially installed eyebolt in the side panel of the truck. She could sit up at an angle, or put her feet up on the small vinyl-covered bench. Either way, she was forced to lean back awkwardly on her hands as the truck drove off.
She hardly fought his swift moves, as if she were drugged or in a trance. Only when the bounty hunter was finally finished, sitting in the driver’s seat, ready to pull away from the curb did it dawn on her what had just happened. Until then, she thought of Logan Dunn as little more than an invention of her fears. He couldn’t be real. There were no bounty hunters aimed at capturing runaway sex slaves because there were no slaves. Slavery didn’t exist in the 21st century , not in the eyes of decent people, or the law—where it really counted.
So, why was she so suddenly, so easily under his control? What happened to the dumpy apartment three blocks away, and Johnny Gold waiting for her to cook his dinner? What happened to liberty and freedom, the lawyer, justice, reality… reality? What happened to the real world while she was staring at those damned pictures in the library… while she listened to the man, with incredible skill at disarming her defenses, lay out his silly case against her. How could he possibly claim the authority he did? And what had happened to her that she let him actually take her, force her into his truck and handcuff her without so much as raising her voice?
“What are you going to do?” she finally asked him.
“We’re heading toward Maine,” he replied.
“You don’t really mean that.”
“I haven’t lied. You may not buy this, Jillian Ingalls, but you’d best get used to the way I think. In my eyes, you’re recovered property now. Nothing more. I’m taking you back to the man who owns you, and from there, you’ll have to settle things yourself. As far as I can see, he has a moral and legal claim on you. I’m not going to argue the point anymore. Point’s been made and we’re heading out.”
“Damn you! NO!” She blasted him with so much emotion that he felt it hitting the back of his neck.
He laughed, then his voice lowered. “You yell like that again, the window goes up all the way.” To make his point, he hit the power window button and a glass panel between the front and back seats started to rise. He stopped the thing just short of the top, looked in the mirror and smiled at the flustered young woman.
“You bastard! Let me out!” she screamed.
“Okay, if that’s the way you want it,” he said, as if he expected it. The truck sat idling at a stoplight, giving him enough time to turn her way. “But you listen hard, little bitch, you try that again, you really piss me off, I’ll blister your ass. Trust me, sitting back there all the way to Maine is gonna get pretty damned uncomfortable.”
Logan hit the power button again, and the window between the two seats closed tight.
Chapter Nine - Rebellion
Jillian and her bounty hunter stopped outside Phoenix, at a hovel in the desert, reminiscent of the dozen places she’d crashed in with Johnny Gold on her trip West. It was hard to believe that she was making the trek in reverse just two months later with another stranger—a man just as appealing as the brash Johnny Gold, but with a good deal more couth and a darkness about him that Johnny would never have.
The fire in her belly ignited the instant she laid eyes on Logan Dunn, something she was used to when she met a man who fanned the flames of her darkest desires. Normally, those moments came and went as the men that caused them slipped out of her life as easily as passersby on the street. When she’d awakened that morning, dressed for work and left Johnny to fend for himself in their apartment, she never expected that she wouldn’t be returning. There had been no warning. It never crossed her mind that capture was possible, that Christopher would even care to have her back, let alone pay money to have the deed done, or that some mysterious stranger would have the power to pluck her away from the café and send her life into a twisted tailspin.
“So, what’s my boyfriend going to think? He’ll be worried,” she finally asked, as Logan Dunn pulled her from the truck and pushed her to the motel room later that day. She remained handcuffed. Spending a day alone on the hard rear seat of the truck, she had plenty of time to ponder her fate.
“He’ll have a letter from me with the brief details of your capture, including the legitimacy of your arrest, outlining the charges. He can complain to Christopher Hurst, although I doubt he will. I’m not sure your boyfriend was cut out for a woman like you.”
Logan shoved her into the room, bolted the door behind them and finally removed the cuffs that had been painfully cutting Jillian’s wrists the last hundred miles. She rubbed the tender skin, noting the red marks with a degree of exhilaration she tried to censor.
“You can use the head, if you need to.”
“Gee, thanks.” She was about to pee her panties, and almost wished she had soiled the backseat of the truck. But she was smart enough to figure that Logan Dunn would only make her sit in the stinky mess if she did.
Returning to the room, she watched the man make quick work, rearranging the furniture to suit his needs. He put the double bed by the door and the couch against the far wall. “That’s where you’ll sleep, unless you want the floor,” he said, pointing to the sagging couch that probably made up into an even more saggy hideabed.
“The floor?”
“Your choice.”
“I suppose you get the bed.”
“Forgetting yourself?”
“Forgetting what?” She asked, truly confused.
“You’re recovered property,” he said. A perfect wake-up call. “You have no rights. Certainly, you didn’t think I was a gentleman and would let you have the bed?”
“Yes, I remember now,” she answered softly, as she slunk down on the couch, pouting.
“Don’t look so glum. With any luck, you’ll just continue your old life the way it was. Your master might leash you a little closer to home, but he doesn’t look like the type to heap on long term revenge.”
“Who? Christopher? If you think that, you don’t know him very well.”
“Then I guess you’ll suffer,” he said offhandedly, as if he really didn’t care—which he didn’t. “Right now, you might want to get some sleep. We have a long road tomorrow.”
Not bothering to change his clothes, Logan lay back on the bed and turned out the overhead light from the wall switch, which left the room bathed in an eerie half darkness. In erratic spurts, the light from the motel marquee flickered on and off, making its way through the ragged drapes and brightening the room with an effervescent glow. If Jill lay on the couch, the light shined right in her eyes, but she refused to turn around on the lumpy couch. If she lay the other way, she’d have her back to Logan Dunn and would be unable to see him sleeping. As soon as he was sound asleep, she planned to make a break for freedom. Though unlikely to succeed, she owed herself the slim chance of slipping through his net.
While waiting
, Jillian closed her eyes and pretended to sleep, giving Logan every opportunity to relax and sleep himself, thinking his ‘recovered property’ was settled for the night. The hours ticked away as Jillian clocked the time opening her eyes at intervals, hoping the bounty hunter would turn away from the door and make her escape easier. She actually dozed for a while between two and three-thirty a.m., when her eyes popped open with alarming suddenness, hearing the squealing brakes of a car outside.
Although exhausted, she couldn’t let the entire night pass without attempting an escape. She stared at the bounty hunter. He hadn’t moved an inch or a muscle, but lay like a sleeping statue on his back, his head on the pillow, his hands on his chest and his boots crossed at the ankles, eyes closed, his breathing steady as a metronome ticking off the seconds in perfect cadence.
By four o’clock, she started to panic, thinking that she was already seeing daylight peeking out of the nighttime sky. A getaway couldn’t be accomplished in the daylight. She had to act, now!
Sliding silently from the couch, Jillian crept carefully toward the bed, toward the door and Logan Dunn. Luckily, her stealthy movements did nothing to alter the bounty hunter’s even sleep. And by the time she reached the door, her confidence was buoyed. She was sure she’d foiled the man with her furtive, careful trek.
The door was another concern, however. The air around her seemed to vibrate with silence and any noise might startle the man from his sleep. Taking a deep nervous breath, she slowly, soundlessly drew the door bolt from its hasp. Then she turned the knob with just a simple click. On the brink of freedom, she could hardly mute her elation, as a feeling of pure joy invaded her weary body. The chances of making this escape were slim; even her instincts warned her that she had far to go to gain her freedom, but for just this one moment of pleasure, whatever the consequences, it was worth the try. Squashing her doubts, Jillian opened the motel door to make her exit and the cool night air rushed in, hitting her squarely in the face.
With the instincts of an animal poised to strike, the bounty hunter suddenly awakened and rose like an angry tiger towering over his cowering prey. With one hand, he hauled the runaway back inside, while he slammed the door shut with his boot. He turned, pushing Jillian backwards into the room with small efficient shoves until she stumbled back and fell to the couch behind her. The entire time, her eyes were locked on his unwavering ones, unable to look elsewhere.
“That was really stupid,” he said, as he began to unbuckle the leather belt at his waist. “I’m amazed you thought you could get away.”
“I had to try,” she said meekly.
“But it wasn’t very smart. You only pissed me off.”
Pissed off? Exactly what he’d warned her about. What more could she expect? She baited him, knowing as she did so that she’d eventually lose, but she had to try. Yes, she had to try, she earnestly repeated to herself as consolation.
With his belt doubled ominously in his fist, Logan Dunn pulled her with him to the bed where he sat down and jerked her over his lap like a rag doll, for the moment too stunned to fight back. In seconds, her skirt was raised up over her hips and her stinky panties were ripped from her behind, torn in shreds and tossed triumphantly on the floor, directly in her line of vision. Holding her steady with a firm arm gripped her about the waist, he raised his belt in his other hand and began pelting her bobbing white bottom with blows that stung from the outset all the way to the miserable end.
Between the first and last strike, Logan laid the leather on Jillian’s pretty ass with an efficiency that could only come with practice. Powered by his anger and the unique determination of a man with a specific mission, the blows produced welts across her once untainted flesh in less than a minute. By the time she started to feel the pain and began to kick, Logan had begun his second round of brutal punishment, etching her skin with yet another layer of angry-hot welts. Purple bruises we were already rising from underneath the surface of her skin.
She flailed for all she was worth, knowing in her gut that her protest would have no effect on Logan. But moments like these aren’t rational—at least not for the one getting spanked. An end to the miserable battle was the only thought in her mind.
“I’m sorry, pleeeeeeeeeeese, yeooooouch!” she cried. “Oh, please!”
“Of course, you’re sorry. You brats always are when you’re getting your ass blistered.” He did pause long enough to say that much. But he resumed the punishment as soon as he made his point, rapidly scorching her behind with another dozen searing smacks.
When he finally stopped, he pushed her off his lap and to the floor. “Just be glad I was too pissed to find my wooden paddle. It would have been a whole lot worse.”
“I should thank you?” she said cautiously, while wiping tears and snot on her sleeve.
“Good god, use a Kleenex,” he said, reaching to table beside them and tossing her the box.
“Thanks,” she mumbled.
“Well, at least we got that over with. Maybe we can get some sleep now.”
“Over with? Like it was inevitable?” She tried not to sass, although it came out that way anyway.
“Wasn’t it inevitable? A woman like you, a guy like me, a situation like this one; it’s bound to happen. I’m just surprised that you were so unbelievably transparent. I’d thought as smart as you are, big college education and all, you’d find a more creative way to rebel. I suppose you don’t have the street smarts for anything really cunning.”
“I can be cunning,” she said, as petulant as a ten-year-old. “And you’d better watch your back, because I’m not finished. If all I have to look forward to is Christopher Hurst, then getting away from you becomes an aim I will not give up.”
“Oh. I see. A lot of runaways give up after the first battle, and you should, too. Perhaps you think you can make me suffer.”
“I don’t care if you suffer or not; I just plan to get away.”
He scowled mirthfully. “You know, it’s not very smart telling your plan to the enemy. You lose the element of surprise.”
“Don’t mock me!” she snapped.
“Why not? You’re so pretty when you’re pissed off. So sincere.”
She pulled up quickly, her hand drawn back in an attempt to slap his face.
He caught her hand, and slowly lowered it to her side, crushing her fingers with his.
“Any other bitch, I would have slapped to the side of the room by now. But I’m gonna show you that I can be a very reasonable guy. Just hear me clearly. You try that again, I’ll slap you and then start on your ass with the wood until it hurts so bad you thought you’d just landed in hell.
“If you want to get mad, Jillian Ingalls, go ahead and be mad. If you want to rebel and make another attempt to get away, go ahead and try. But I have a gazillion ways to bring you back, to punish you and make you suffer. It’s what I do with my hours on the road, think of ways to torture pretty slave girls like you. I’ve got a dozen nasty moves I’m just itching to try. Sometimes the more rebellious you little sluts are, the happier I am. It makes my job much more interesting.” His narrowed brows, his dark piercing eyes, his hand, still silently crushing the bones in her hand transmitted a vibration of strength that fed her soul with a lust she’d never felt. It was never like this with Christopher. Logan’s changeable face, altered again like a sideshow comic’s, looking oddly amused. “Here I thought you’d be the classic bore, the poor little subbie ready to mend her ways and be the perfect recovered property—like that’s going make it easier for them when I give them back to their masters. And what do I have? A mutinous tramp who’s ready to fight. What fun we’re going to have.”
He jumped up from the couch and went for his bag, which was lying on the bed.
Jillian prayed that he wouldn’t withdraw the paddle he’d mentioned. No, not wood, not on her ass now! Her prayer was answered in part, although the result was almost as miserable as another spanking on her ass.
“Take off your clothes,” Logan ordere
d
Her whole being shuddered, feeling wanting and at the same time, very scared. The way her body responded to the command, she couldn’t help but think of sexual things. Sex. If only he wanted sex. But she knew that wasn’t was he was after.
She should have ripped her clothes from her body the second her ordered her to remove them. But she hesitated too long.
Once Logan fished a hefty length of rope from his bag, he turned back and looked intently in her direction, which made undressing more humiliating than it had to be. She was stuck, powerless, forced to obey a command she couldn’t refuse; forced to strip off her clothes one piece at a time while he watched. Her shirt, her bra, her skirt—the panties had already been ripped off when he spanked her. With every article of clothing that landed on the floor, more of her became available for the bounty hunter to inspect. A blush crept up her neck until it covered her cheeks with ragged red splotches. Thankfully, Logan said nothing as he attentively appraised her, no humiliating comments about the way he reduced her to the status of naked slave. But that hardly mattered. She had been humbled, feeling just inches tall under his imperious gaze.
Once she was naked, he tossed the rope over her head, and began binding her around the neck, under her arms, over her tits and through her crotch.
“On the floor,” he ordered. “Since you don’t like the couch, you can lie there instead.”
“No, the couch is fine.”
“Sorry. You lost that fine opportunity,” he said, pushing her to the threadbare carpet.
Her knees hit so hard that they were sure to bruise. But those bruises would be nothing compared to the horrible rash of purple and red welts that colored her ass. On her way down, she’d glanced in the mirror across the room, practically crying in despair as she realized how hard she’d been punished.
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