Stolen & Fractured

by Cee Smith

  It was Dominic’s hands cradling my face that brought me back down to Earth, down into the forest of trees, away from the cluster of houses, where I stood before him on knees that promised to buckle with the slightest uptake in wind. He tucked the hair framing my face behind my ears and took a step back as if to admire his work. I followed his eyes as they swept from the knots at my wrists to the rope fastened around the trees.

  Between the hopelessness of dangling there and the sight of my arms being strung up, I didn’t know how to feel. I felt like I was being punished for something, and I had no idea what it was. Whatever it was, a simple sorry wasn’t going to cut it. Dominic wasn’t happy until every part of my body was begging for his forgiveness, until I perspired tears of repentance, but being absolved by Dominic was the greatest reward. So instead of shaking like a hammock blowing in the wind, I stood up taller, chin raised with glacial eyes that licked blue flames.

  Was Dominic’s smug smile in response to my newfound strength, or was the sight of me defenseless against him what brought out the quirk of those lips—that held promise of things to come.

  “When I’m nearing the end, sifting through memories of my life, it will be your face that I cling to with my dying breath.”

  Dominic closed his eyes as if to savor the heartfelt words he just shared with me. I wanted to close my eyes and be in that moment of respite with him, to find that bubble again where everything was warm and peaceful. Where Dominic was truly content with being happy. Even as I stood there, I questioned whether that was something that could only be reserved for my fantasies. Could Dominic ever really be happy? I know we’ve shared moments. I’ve bared witness to events in his life that brought him immense joy—times when I wouldn’t have thought to question his happiness, but now I’m starting to think that was the exception, not the rule.

  The faint touch of fingers brushing my neck broke me of my reverie. His hand skimmed over my skin like a leaf on a pond, drifting with the current. Ripples of goosebumps rose in the wake of his touch drifting across my clavicle, over the seam of my bra, and down my stomach. He tapped each rib like a xylophone, and when he met the top of my underwear, his hand swerved right to meet my belly button. His touch was like a current of electricity, shocking my system into submission. I held my breath so I wouldn’t look like the puddle of lust I felt like. I knew I should have been nervous—everything was telling me that he was pushing some invisible boundary that we’d set—but I couldn’t see beyond his hypnotizing stare and worshipful touch.

  That was the thing: Dominic had a way of making me feel like a goddess even when I was the one chained up and at his mercy. It could have been the way he watched me as if I were a mystery to unravel or how every time he touched me it felt like the first time, but it was a heady feeling. Dominic had this magnetic strength that pulled me in, stripped me bare, and left me blissfully numb.

  “Why are we here, Dominic?”

  Even the cicadas quieted upon my question as if they too were curious as to his response. In typical fashion, Dominic looked unmoved by my question as he continued wandering around the trees like we were taking a casual midnight stroll.

  He stepped in front of me again and dropped his forehead to mine. It was a moment of surrender, a silent plea for mercy, a glimpse of a weakness I’d yet to see from the man who’d done so many awful things that there was no way to decipher which one he was thinking of in this moment.

  “I promise I’ll always come back for you.” If the forest were any louder, I wouldn’t have been able to hear the words that were mumbled into my skin, words that I was sure weren’t meant for my ears, words that made me question what beasts Dominic battled that I couldn’t see.

  He tilted his head as if he just now realized the predicament he had put us in, as if he were seeing me for the first time—through the eyes of a hunter that had just found his prey. My fear ratcheted back up, completely obliterating all feelings of need that twinged between my legs only minutes before.

  I had no idea what Dominic had planned, but I was scared for both of us.

  Beyond the vacant expression of his face, I thought back to the words that I wasn’t sure I was meant to hear: “I promise I’ll always come back for you.” Just then the conversation I’d overheard between him and Clema returned to me. Where was he going? When was he planning on telling me? I never thought that he wouldn’t come back, so should I have been worried that that was a possibility?

  I didn’t think Dominic would do anything to truly hurt me, but the fact that he took me out into the forest, away from everyone else, and strung me up like clothes on a clothesline, didn’t make me feel exactly “safe.”

  While I worried over what he would do next, what I wasn’t expecting was for him to walk away.

  “Wait! Dominic! Where are you going? You can’t leave me here!” I yelled to his back, but it was like shouting at a wall. Dominic was absorbed by the night as he walked farther and farther, without so much as a backwards glance to remind him of what he left behind. He just left me there while I continued shouting my outrage at his back.

  “Don’t leave me! You can’t leave me here,” I continued mumbling incoherently through the shower of tears that drenched me in all of the anger and hurt. Dominic abandoned me. On purpose. He said he would never leave me and he left. I never even thought it was a possibility, but he did it. He proved that I couldn’t trust him. That every niggling doubt, every sheltered secret I knew he carried, all of it—it wasn’t a figment of my imagination. It wasn’t “Dominic’s way.” It was a part of Dominic. It wasn’t a choice he made, but as inherent as those devastating brown eyes and lickable lips. This was Dominic’s character flaw, among many.

  I didn’t know how long he left me there—five, ten, fifteen minutes. It didn’t matter. Whatever the reason didn’t matter either, whether he could see it or not, something was breaking between us.

  The ropes slid down the tree as my knees gave out. Dangling between those trees I cried for the girl I was, for the girl I’d lost to him, but more for the girl who couldn’t bridge this chasm with all the wood in the world. My face felt puffy and limp, and my body filled with a cold chill that had little to do with being naked in the middle of the forest. The air was balmy with a slight breeze—a perfect night to watch the flicker of new and old stars, to wish on comets bursting across the sky, and contemplate our insignificance in the universe.

  Well I had the insignificance bit down.

  The sound of crumpling leaves alerted me that I was no longer alone. I looked up to see all six foot two of him, his shirt now gone, showing clean lines of muscles rippling his arms and stomach, despite the inverted “Y” down the center of his upper chest and stomach. Dominic’s body was now as scarred as his insides. I found it appropriate, given the situation.

  “Rise.” It wasn’t a question or a statement. This was a command, and it was said as such. I balanced my weight on my right side as I untangled my limbs and hobbled until I was standing upright.

  When I rose to a height he found acceptable, he moved in closer. So close my flesh accepted his body heat as its own. He looked formidable standing before me, rippling with a tension that made the vein by his temple tick. I followed the tense muscles down his arms and found there in his hand a pair of shears, looking like something from my nightmares.

  It was in the reflection of those scissors that I saw him. The man who kidnapped me and deemed me his property with no thought as to my emotions or needs. When I looked from tree to tree, focusing on the rope pulled taut from my struggles, I realized this was what I could come to expect from the monster that Dominic kept contained. This was what he did when he was losing control of his emotions, but how could I help him when I didn’t know what plagued him?

  “D-Dominic?”

  I wanted to rewind time, wanted to go back to the moment when he returned home last night. Maybe I should have spent more time talking with him. Not that it would have changed anything. Dominic only told me what he wa
nted me to know—nothing more—but I could have tried. There was something happening with him, but how do you help someone who doesn’t want help?

  My knees shook like a dying carburetor, sputtering before I collapsed. Bits of loose rock dug into my skin, making me wince at the pressure. The rope pooled on either side of me, snaking loosely around my already limp body. Dominic crouched down until he was almost eye-level with me.

  “Stop. No, Dominic.”

  “Where did my little spitfire go? Do I need to find her again?”

  “I’m not the same girl you took, Dominic.”

  “Prove it,” he said with a smirk that made me want to smother his face in the dirt.

  He dropped the scissors and lifted me in his arms before moving between the trees to adjust the height of the ropes until I was once again dangling with arms spread out wide.

  “No! No! Dominic,” I said while struggling within my confines and fighting back a fresh wave of tears. It was useless. I was perfectly held between his arms. Even if I wasn’t tied to the trees, I still wouldn’t be able to escape his hold. The most I could do was tell him I didn’t want him to touch me and hope that he would be angry enough not to force the issue.

  “No? No? Hailey, in all of the time you’ve known me, when has you telling me no ever worked? Did you really think it would work now?” he whispered.

  Never. That was the answer he expected to hear. Never. Because for the longest time my voice was silenced by his needs and wants. I was a victim, a prisoner—my concerns went unnoticed. As long as I was healthy and followed the rules, everything was fine.

  “Things are different now.” I tilted my head over my right shoulder to meet his eyes. All I saw was emptiness. His eyes were shadowed in the darkness of night, leaving two pits of black that made him look soulless.

  “Are they?”

  He picked up the scissors and moved closer. I fell as far back as the ropes allowed in my attempt to escape him, scrambled around until my legs felt pretzled in their contortion. When there was nowhere else for me to go, the edge of the scissors whispered across my breasts. The cold, menacing metal stretched the length of my chest, gleaming with purpose.

  “Look at me.”

  When I made no attempt to move, he grabbed a fistful of my hair—the roots snapping against my scalp with the strain, and yanked me back until the only thing I could focus on was him. Those wild brown eyes, rich with promise of frightening delight, sparkled in the moonlight. The cold of the metal licked my skin as he moved the scissors closer to my right breast. His eyes stayed locked on mine with the first snip. The loud clamp of the scissors cutting, mixed with the ease at which it cut through the strap, startled me.

  “Don’t move, baby.” He groaned. He threw the strap of the bra back over my shoulder and out of the way as his mouth descended. The pathetic excuse of fabric dropped, leaving me exposed to his assault.

  “Stop! Let me go. No. Dominic, no!”

  My refusal of his attention, however adamant, was pointless. My fear always had a way of exciting Dominic, which was obvious in the hard heat prodding against my leg.

  He piled my hair atop my head with the hand still holding the scissors and fondled my nipple with the other. His hot breath fanned across my neck before being smothered by the hot moisture of his mouth. Tender kisses were placed along the back of my neck, making my scalp erupt in tingles of anticipation.

  I jerked my body, trying to buck him off me with the little amount of momentum I could muster.

  “No,” I whispered, though it made about as much of a difference as all of the “no’s” before it. If anything, it seemed to turn him on more. Those soft kisses turned darker. Where I once had suede lips and velvet tongue, I now had sharp teeth with biting pressure.

  The warmth from his mouth was a welcome reprieve from the sudden uptake of sea breeze that whipped through the trees. Dominic laved my nipples. The sound of him sucking ricocheted off the hollow trees. My arms bucked wildly against my restraints, seeking an outlet for the overwhelming energy that coursed through me. The action seemed to spur him on, and my hair fell around my shoulders as he moved to nick the side of my underwear before tossing the shears to the ground. The now-torn underwear flapped uselessly as he jostled my body into surrender.

  His hand moved back to my scalp, fingers fastened tight in my hair, while his other arm wrapped around my waist to extinguish the last bit of space that existed between us—until our bodies were rooted together like the soil and sand beneath us.

  “Fuck, Hailey!” His hand scrambled across my back and over my hip and thrust between my legs, shoving the fabric to the side as he shoved a finger into my depths. I was embarrassingly slick.

  “You’re always so wet. Always wet. Sweetest thing,” he said between rushed nips and licks.

  I knew it was wrong. All of it. But desire swept through me and I decided to go with it, putting in a last ditch effort to save a relationship that felt like it was on its last leg.

  It was always so easy to be swept away by Dominic. That was my weakness. He knew just how to manipulate my mind, body, and, spirit, and sadly my body craved him in every way. Already, with just the brush of his expert fingers and the touch of his lips, my body was readying itself to be taken. The drumming in my chest drowned out all sounds except my panting breaths. He pinched my nipple—a direct line to my sex—which throbbed a pulsing need that felt like Morse code that only his body could decipher.

  Dominic shoved another finger and began manipulating my clit with his thumb. His teeth bit into my skin, across my breasts and down my stomach, as he pumped me with furious jabs that had my body hiccupping with every ascent of his hand. His warm breath blossomed across my skin, betraying his excitement. Dominic worked up a palpitating rhythm that had my hips racing toward the finish line. He broke away from me abruptly as if he just remembered a plan that he had deviated from.

  I followed him with my eyes, watching his every move until he moved beyond a point where my eyes could see or head could follow. Rustling behind me let me know where he stood. I felt the touch of his hands fold around my ankles. He gripped my ankles hard, before running his hands up the back of my legs. His hands held a patience I didn’t think he was capable of as he moved up the back of my calves, until he reached the hollow at the back of my knees. The air evaporated between my legs as he huddled in close between the empty space. I realized too late what he intended to do and made a move to close my legs. His hands shot up and cranked my knees apart like a carjack. It was amazing, the amount of arm strength he had—my legs shook as I fought against his determination, but it wasn’t long before I expended what little energy I had and slumped down in my bonds.

  Dominic’s hands were firm against the top of my calves, resting just beneath the tendons in the back of my knees. He nuzzled the back of my left knee and I could feel the warm air escape his nostrils, the fullness of his lips and the light tickle of his unshaven jaw as he circled the sensitive skin. I was starting to see why it was considered an erogenous zone. Just the scraping of his hair against that spot left my whole body weakened. I felt like a blob of JELL-O being pushed and prodded at, completely at Dominic’s mercy.

  “Ssss!” I sucked in air at the feel of Dominic’s teeth nicking the skin. His tongue laved the pain away and he returned to nuzzle the area like a cat. A stream of cool air whipped against the wet spot he just licked, before he went back to nuzzling. I wondered what he was thinking as he rubbed his face against my skin. Was he thinking of all the times he’d taken me? Was he thinking that this was one spot that had been an oversight? Perhaps he was thinking he should have done this sooner.

  He moved to my right, like he was completing the cycle of some elaborate dance: nuzzle, nick, lick, blow, nuzzle. It was a dance of seduction, and I was swept away in the movements. His hands crept up my legs, outlining the seam of my panties. I half expected him to rip them off, but it seemed he delighted in teasing me, drawing out the moment so I was dripping with need at the f
irst rush of air that blew between my folds.

  I don’t know at what point my body betrayed me, but when I started to squirm my hips to brush my sex against his fingers, I knew that “no” didn’t really mean “no” anymore. Dominic was right. It never really stopped him before. Yes, I was still emotionally and psychologically hurt at not only what he had done that night, but also the wall that was drawing up between us. Perhaps more hurt that he didn’t even see it happening, but instead focused on the one thing we never had a problem with.

  Our chemistry was undeniable—two flames that licked together to create a maelstrom of heat that would wipe out anything in its path. Sometimes I wondered if it was destroying us, slowly burning until all we were, were embers of a once-raging inferno. Perhaps this was the end.

  That thought speared my chest and left an ache in my heart that I wanted to soothe with the heel of my palm. Tears pricked at my eyes and I sniffed them back just as Dominic slid my panties down—touching every bit of skin on their way to the ground.

  “Step.” Dominic pulled my panties off my feet. The absence of his touch wasn’t lost on me. I missed him, like I would if he was an appendage. It was simple; my body needed Dominic.

  The distinct sound of an intake of breath brought me back to the house in South Dakota, when Dominic took off my panties and licked the seam of it. It was the hottest and dirtiest thing I’d ever seen. Even still, that memory made my face flush and body heat. I couldn’t see him, so I wasn’t sure if he reenacted the whole scene, but even the thought had my toes curling.

  “Do you know just the smell of you makes my dick hard? That it’s sheer torture to take my time with you? You have no idea what you do to me.”

  “Dominic.” I didn’t know what prompted me to say his name. Was I asking for more? Did I need him to show me? Or was it the sincerity in his words that struck a chord? I didn’t know how to decipher the truth from empty words when it came to him. It’s not that I didn’t believe that he felt I had some kind of pull over him, but was it enough? Maybe Dominic didn’t know how to be someone’s husband, maybe he only knew obsession and how to take things he wanted but not how to cultivate a relationship.