by Pam Godwin
With slack in the chain, he descended to the floor, his exhales a hot caress on her chest. She knew he was in self-preservation mode, but the way he leaned toward her, as if trying to enfold her in the limited cage of his restraints, breathed an irrational warmth through the hole inside her.
All of the slaves had become protective of her at some point during their captivity. The captor-captive bond was just one of the many ways the mind dealt with trauma. But this boy hadn’t been under duress long enough to develop that kind of psychological response.
His calm focus and rugged linebacker build was so unlike the mold of previous slaves. He looked at her like he thought he could save her. Maybe he could.
Except he was supposed to despise her. The hammering in her head increased. What a hopeful, romantic idiot she was.
When she shifted to meet the eyes burning into her back, Van flung a sleeveless sheath dress at her face, the most demure outfit from her costume closet. She kept her casual wear in a trunk in her room, but her frayed jeans and printed t-shirts endowed her with human qualities and expressions she couldn’t possess in that house.
She stepped into the black nylon sheath and rolled it over her hips and ribs, tucking her breasts in the top. It wrapped her from nipples to upper-thighs and clung to every dip and bend of her body, revealing more than it covered.
Van crossed his arms over his chest, his lips in a flat line. His unusual reticence meant he was holding in something particularly unsavory. The sharpness of his eyes matched his razored tone. “Let’s get started.”
The knot in her belly intensified with the pressure in her head. To soothe it, she hummed the woeful melody of “Pretender” by Sarah Jeffe, the lyrics reinforcing the roles they were playing. Van was supposed to be a passive bystander, but his foul mood tainted the already unbreathable air. So she left the boy on his knees with his wrists padlocked to the chains in the ceiling and paced to the outer door. “I’m hungry.”
Van’s footfalls chased her down the stairs. She did her best to outrun them, which was stupid. She’d left the room to confront him, but she wasn’t ready. Was she ever ready for him?
He caught her in the kitchen, an arm around her waist, a hand around her throat, and lips pressed against her ear. “Why are you running?”
The beat of her heart drummed against the collar of his hand. He wasn’t choking her, but the promise was there. Thankfully, years of practice had taught her how to manage him, and keeping her cool was a vital response. She relaxed her stance and leaned her back against the granite surface of his chest. “Why are you chasing me?”
“Because you’re mine.”
His hand cinched tighter with that heated oath. She coaxed her pulse to match a gentle tune in her head and waited. Finally, he released her and strode to the kitchen sink.
The turbulence rolling off him clotted the small room as he stared out the window. She rushed through sandwich preparations and blamed the lump in her throat on Van’s pending tantrum, not on the fact that she’d returned the fourth plate to the cabinet because the boy wouldn’t be eating with them.
Unable to meet Van’s eyes, she kept her back to him under the guise of arranging potato chips on three plates. She cleared her throat. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t like him.”
Her hand flexed, crinkling the foil bag in her grip. Apparently, his jealousy had reached a new degree of crazy. He never liked the male slaves, but this was the first time he’d vocalized it.
“I want him gone.” His sharp tone punched her in the back.
Objections amassed in her throat. They wouldn’t find a replacement slave in time. And they couldn’t just send the boy back. He knew where they lived, had seen their faces. Van’s gone meant one thing, an unthinkable alternative he’d never suggested before. Somehow, she mustered an exasperated sigh and a bored tone. “Why?”
“His parents are all over the fucking news.” His voice grew louder, more guttural. “Their whole goddamned town is searching for him.”
This wasn’t about jealousy? She shivered as he paced behind her, the air frosting with each pass, sending ice through her lungs. “He’s not like the others, Van. We knew he’d be missed.”
She didn’t have to turn on the news to know what love and desperation looked like. Haunting images stabbed the backs of her eyes. She squeezed them shut to trap the remembered videos of Mom grieving alone and the god-awful need to reach through the screen and hug her.
His fingers bit into her bicep, spinning her so violently her hip slammed into the counter’s edge. “Why did you choose him?” He shook her shoulder, his grip punishing. “Answer me,” he shouted, his fury a hot mist in her face.
She blinked rapidly, grasping at the most logical answer. “He fit what the buyer wanted.” She dragged her gaze to his and flinched at the feral expression twisting his features.
“Bullshit.” He captured her jaw in a steel grip, lifting her chin until she stretched on tiptoes. “A hundred other fuckers would’ve met the requirements. This one fit what you wanted.”
The truth of his words paralyzed her, shriveling all of her justifications for choosing Joshua Carter. The real reason made her throat tighten. He represented purity, beauty, family, all of the things that had been taken from her. He was a glimmer of goodness in her dark fucking world, a warm spark she could hold, if only for a fleeting span of time.
Her fingernails stabbed her palms. She was such a selfish, vile bitch.
Van shoved her away, turned her over the counter, and pressed her face against the laminate. “And the way he was looking at you really pisses me the fuck off.”
When his hand tunneled between her thighs, her heart sputtered. “No.” She jerked beneath the prison of his immovable body. “No, Van. I have a job to do. I need to be in the right frame of mind.”
The intrusion of his fingers speared between her labia, pinching dry flesh. “What frame of mind is that?” His tone, as cold and penetrating as his touch, froze her to her bones.
“I am a Mistress, not your sex slave.” She tried to match his iciness, but it came out desperate and high-pitched.
He yanked her from the counter and slammed his knuckles into her face. She managed to stay on her feet as jolts of pain fired through her skull. A warm trickle wet her lashes and smudged her vision. The ache in her heart was worse, but she would not give him the perception he’d hurt her beyond the cut of his fist. She kept her hands to her sides and met his biting silver gaze head-on.
Angry red splotches stained his neck and cheek, and she imagined his blood simmering beneath the skin. He clutched the counter’s edge on either side of her hips, his face level with hers. “When I dispose of your body, no one will ever find it.” His voice dropped to a chilling rasp. “You know why?”
Her heart sped up, increasing the throb above her eye. She held her muscles as motionless as her glare.
“Because no one will care enough to search for it.” He angled over the plates and hocked a foaming bubble of spit on one of the sandwiches. “Clean up your face.” His smirk flared the bruise around her heart. “You look more like a slave than your little cunt boy.” He grabbed an unsoiled sandwich, sat at the table, and dug into the roast beef.
What they were, what they’d become together, wasn’t sane or healthy. It was in his blood to spew nasty things in a fit of rage, including threats on her life, and she’d conditioned herself over the years to bury it. His temper would eventually ebb, and the hurt from his words would, too. Because she didn’t love him, he didn’t have the power to leave a permanent scar on her heart. But that reminder didn’t help the rawness of the moment as she moved to the sink and turned the tap to warm.
Ducking her head, the spray showered her face, renewing the pain around her eye. The water ran red, but no amount of cleaning would remove the evidence that she was just as much a prisoner as the ones in chains. And somehow, she would have to stand before the boy with a black eye as his Mistress.
Van finished
his meal and reclined in the chair, studying her. No hint of civility, but the tension in his jaw loosened. “If you spent your allowance on makeup instead of your skydiving bullshit, you’d be able to cover that before you went upstairs.”
She dried her face, blotting the hurt over her eye. Her fingers recoiled from the bubbled scar on her cheek, the cut that makeup could never cover. Not that she would waste a dime on meaningless luxuries. Their monthly funds from Mr. E paid for basic expenses, groceries, gas, and tools for training. She and Van split whatever was leftover, and she used her allotment on freefalling. Her only freedom.
As she replaced the ruined sandwich top with a new slice of bread, Van tossed a bag of frozen peas on the counter beside her. It wasn’t an apology, but an offer to move on.
She held the icy bag to her eye. Too bad it couldn’t numb the emotions swelling her throat.
CHAPTER 17
Josh chewed the hell out of his cheek. Fifteen minutes alone with the naked girl and she wouldn’t answer any of his questions. She was probably thinking, Fifteen minutes with the naked man, and he wouldn’t shut up. Too bad. The need to hear about her experience coiled him into a restless chatterbox. He didn’t just want to make sure she was okay. He needed to hear everything she knew.
He tried to draw her in with highlights from his family farm, his coursework, and football achievements while shifting his weight from one knee to the other to transfer his discomfort on the hard floor. When she said nothing, he switched back to questioning. “Do you know what they have planned next or why Van was ticked off?”
She remained statuesque in her folded pose on the cot.
He pressed his lips together and tried to rein in his frustration. “Does anyone ever visit?”
Her hands and arms were limp, her silence ominous, indicative of psychological trauma.
He drew in a deep breath and released it slowly. “Have you ever left this room?”
She stared at her lap.
“Who is Mr. E?” His stomach growled. What he wouldn’t do for Mom’s biscuits and gravy right now. He winced, thinking about her safety. “Have you ever met him?”
A big empty nothing.
He sighed but refused to admit defeat. “You seem like a nice girl. Pretty, too, though I’ve yet to see beyond the top of your head.” Okay, that last part wasn’t entirely true. “I’m not looking at the rest, I promise.”
Funny how quickly he’d become unconcerned with his own nudity. He yanked his wrists, clattering the chains, and her head didn’t move from its downward position.
“We’re in this together, right? I just need your help understanding what this is.”
Was she even breathing? The threat that compelled her to ignore him could walk through the door any moment, which only fueled his impatience. “Look at me,” he shouted.
Her head snapped up. Finally! The deep set blue of her eyes widened, flitted to the door, and back to him.
“Hi.” He kept his smile soft and unassuming. “I’m Josh.”
“Your name is boy.” A whisper. “Please, stop talking.” From the thready plea, the tensing of her body, and the heave of her chest, she seemed to be crawling in her skin with fear.
Pressure swelled behind his ribs. “Hey, it’s okay.” He stretched his arms to reach for her. Impossible. He let them drop, his elbows bent on either side of his head. “We’re just chatting. What’s your name?”
“Girl.”
He had to strain his hearing to make out her heartbreaking whisper. Commands were clearly more effective than questions. He hardened his voice. “Give me your birth name.”
She glanced at the door, and the nervous twitches in her cheeks tightened his chest. At least she wasn’t peeking around the room at hidden cameras. Perhaps Liv had been honest about no recording devices. Or maybe the girl was as in the dark as he was.
Her attention dropped to the floor between them. “Kate.”
Kate. The excited race of his heart redoubled as he considered what to ask, or demand, next. How much time did he have? Something had been tightly stretched between their captors when they left. Perhaps they were just eating lunch. Or planning the next training session. Maybe they were having sex.
He slammed his teeth together. Good grief. Where the hell did that thought come from? “Tell me about the relationship between Van and Liv.”
With another peek at the door, she shook her head.
Did the huddle of her shoulders mean this subject terrified her? “Does he force you or Liv to have sex with him?”
Her chin lowered, her body returning to its earlier frozen state.
Dammit, now he was glancing at the door, the hairs on his nape standing on end. What bothered him wasn’t the hostility vibrating from Van so much as the song humming from Liv’s throat when she ran out.
She’d sung in his truck as she’d led him into this nightmare. She’d sung when he was in the box, right before she closed the lid. Singing seemed to be a mechanism she employed when something bad was about to happen. So what was going to happen? What made her bolt from the room? All of his questions liquefied to one conclusion. “Van’s in charge, not Liv. She puts on a good show, but the fact is he’s a rapist—”
“Master is not a rapist.” Her eyes flashed to his, lit with fire, her words heated and rushed. “He doesn’t touch me like that, because he loves Mistress, and she loves him.”
What? No way in unholy hell did Liv love that man. His insides twisted and turned at the idea, and it pained him to see Kate’s perception so emotionally distorted by what she’d been through. And what did she mean, he didn’t touch her like that? Forcibly or not all? “You’ve been here a month? Two months?”
She shrugged, and it was wooden and completely absent of hope. “I don’t know.”
Was he staring at the harbinger of his own future mental state? How would his judgment fare after ten weeks of captivity? His head ached, and his impatience with her and the chains that held him set his skin on fire. He rolled his arms in a useless attempt to escape the shackles. “I want to help you, Kate. Please, talk—”
The door clicked open. Rage cinched his throat and accelerated his pulse. He lowered his head with a frustrated jerk and glared at the floor.
CHAPTER 18
Josh’s breathing grew heavier, louder. His body temperature boiled from his blood to his skin.
Liv’s bare feet skimmed over the floor and passed by his knees. Van’s sneakers trailed close behind. They stopped at the cot, and the mattress creaked under Van’s weight, a plate of food balancing on his lap. Josh’s stomach gave a miserable groan.
“Tell me what I missed, girl.” The cool clip of Liv’s voice sliced the air, but there was a strained edge to it. “I want to hear every word that was uttered.”
Surely her other slaves talked and even befriended each other when they were alone. Did she punish them for it? Locking his eyes on her feet was pure torture. He wanted to read her face, observe what wasn’t being vocalized. In the outer edge of his vision, Van raised a sandwich toward Kate’s mouth.
“He said his parents are cotton farmers. He plays football at Baylor…” Between meager bites and swallows, she repeated the conversation verbatim with much better recollection than his own. When every morsel was consumed, and all of his words betrayed, she finished with, “I told him Master wasn’t a…rapist, that you love each other.”
The heels of Liv’s feet twitched outward so slightly the movement would’ve gone unnoticed if he’d been staring a couple inches higher. Her knees bent even more subtly as if she were pressing her feet to the floor to mute the reaction. A sign of objection.
He was so distracted by the dichotomy between her genuine responses and her facade that he hadn’t considered the consequences of Kate’s tattling until Van stood.
“Roll to your stomach, girl.” He moved out of Josh’s field of vision, his voice pitching through the room. “Face pressed against the mattress. Ass and pussy in the air and spread for your Mistress�
�s punishment.”
Punishment? The biting claw of dread shivered down Josh’s spine. No, it hadn’t been nice of Kate to tattle on him, but she didn’t deserve a punishment for answering his questions.
Van returned with a thin rod that resembled the riding crop Josh had used in his horse riding lessons as a boy. His brain twisted into knots trying to piece together what was happening and what he could do to stop it. And with his eyes on the floor, his field of vision was limited to below their waists.
When Van pressed the handle into Liv’s hand, she didn’t close her fingers around it. The exchange was swift, but Josh was certain Van bent her pinkie at an awkward angle to persuade her to take the crop.
She traced Kate’s raised backside with the leather-tipped end. “Boy, you violated requirement number nine.”
Requirement nine? He didn’t know them by number. Hell, he wasn’t sure he could recite them all. But nine was the last requirement she’d taught him, right? The one about not talking—
Whack.
The crack of the crop left a red mark on Kate’s upper thigh. Her legs trembled, and her cry muffled against the mattress.
Josh drew a lungful of air and swallowed the protests springing forward. Kate would suffer even more for his outbursts.
Van crouched beside Josh, his scar pulling at his lips, intensifying the threat of his proximity. “Hey, buddy. The Mistress is a real stickler about rules, but don’t worry. The girl will accept your punishment.”
A roar pummeled through Josh’s throat, and he slammed his jaw shut, trapping it. This horsecrap wasn’t directed by Liv, and Van knew that punishing Kate would hurt Josh the most.
Van stood, sidled up to Liv, and circled a finger on the back of her thigh, just below the hem of the minidress. “Twenty strokes. Right, Mistress?”
A battle of emotions coursed through him, heating his blood and rushing his breaths. He clutched the chains with white-knuckled fists and braced for the most messed up moment of his life.