Luckily for me, dealing with Lucy had put me in a lot of emergency rooms, where there was nothing much to do but watch. So I knew I could pull the IV drip out without too much hassle.
On second thought, I pulled out the whole thing. It hurt like a fucker, but if this crazy psycho, whoever he was, wanted to get more drugs in me, he’d have to start a new IV.
I felt like crap, I noticed, as soon as I stood up and wrapped the sheet around me. By then, there was a nice brightness in the room, so I had a good clear view of the fact that there was... nothing. Just a door to what was obviously a bathroom, which I scurried over to, because I had to pee.
Crisis or not, serial killer or no, one thing I couldn’t put up with is having to pee. So if this stop ended up being the difference between life and death, I probably wouldn’t totally regret it.
The bathroom was huge, and I couldn’t find the light, so I just hurried in. The light activated for me, to reveal a huge room with a huge tub and another orchid in a small window and not much else besides spotless white and brown granite. It looked like a spa.
The toilet was in a small room off to the side, again with the automatic lights, and as I peed, my sanity started returning.
Okay. I had to get out of here.
I didn’t flush, thinking this obviously high-class room was like my own apartment, where you were alerted to everyone waking up every time someone flushed the toilet anywhere in the building. I gave the small window with the orchid a look: the glass was frosted, and it was too small to bail out of, even if I broke the glass. An option, if all else failed—I could always hope that someone would see me waving.
And decide to call the cops.
Before Serial Killer did me in.
Yeah. Right.
I tried the door in the bedroom area next.
Of course it was locked. I tried again anyway, but it was as locked as locked could get. And the cold feel of it in my hands let me know it wasn’t some wood door I could kick at and get anywhere. I sat back down on the bed.
There was a large frosted window, which seemed to have changed from just opaque white to frosted as I had been sitting there, behind the orchid. It was big enough to climb out of, and it seemed like outdoor light was behind it.
I took a look around again.
There was nothing to use to break it except, possibly, the blue orb on the desk. Or the chair... or the IV stand?
What kind of idiot serial killer leaves you with all that ammunition?
Didn’t matter. The knot in my stomach got tighter, and I started to panic again. I closed my eyes, calmed my breathing, and made a decision: I had to at least try to get out. Even if I was acting out the final scenes of a really B-grade thriller in which I was one of the first girls to die.
It all happened pretty fast: I tied the sheet around me and bunched up the nice, down-filled covers in one hand, thinking ahead to the broken glass and how I would cover it to get out of the window after I broke it. I’d learned that in elementary school from a firefighter. I lifted the IV stand: too light. I walked over to the desk and picked up the orb. Heavy. Heavy enough to break glass, but not too heavy to launch if I used two hands. Perfect.
I acted quickly from there, the plan slowly unfolding in my mind: throw the orb, line the window with the blanket, start climbing out.
What if it’s the third floor?
Whatever, have to try.
The orb was in my hands, over my head, already swinging, when I heard the door click. It gave off an eerie, futuristic computer sound and then unbolted.
It was too late to stop throwing; the orb was moving on its own momentum.
Shit.
Well, once you’re in that far, there’s nothing for it but to keep going. I put all my force behind the orb and chucked it at the window.
Something hooked me violently around the waist, and I was flying through the air, waiting for the crash of glass, expecting something terrible, thinking about how to scramble toward the window once I landed wherever I was headed...
I was hurled onto the bed, into its softness, and immediately covered by the weight of solid muscle. A dull, loud thump followed, and then I felt an impact—the pressure of it, and the body on top of me made an equally dull thumping sound, and hissed in my ear.
Another dull thump.
The weight rose off of me, but I lay there, feeling a little bit like what a captured rabbit must feel like. Maybe, I thought, if I just lie there, this would all go away.
“That glass is shatterproof.”
The voice licked at my insides and made a shiver run down my spine, and I’d be lying if I said it was not somewhat pleasurable.
It was him.
The memory of Mystery Man, and his ice-cold stare, his fluttering fingers, his hard cock, and his hands clamped powerfully around my wrist, flooded my body and brought my tender skin back into the forefront of my mind. It was at that moment, as my bottom flared up with the ghostlike imprint of his hand, that I realized I was lying with my whole backside completely exposed.
I scrambled to turn around and pull the sheet over me.
I was yelling before I had time to think about it. The way you yell at mice or spiders or muggers on the subway.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I screamed.
The guy didn’t smile, and I could tell he was not a smiley kind of guy, but his face registered some amusement. It was, after all, a ridiculous question.
At the same time, I sneaked a glance at the door. Locked again.
But... he would eventually have to go out the door. So there was a chance...
If he didn’t kill me first.
“What you’re doing here,” he said calmly, answering the question I should have asked, “is recovering from a drug overdose.” He walked over to the IV stand and looked at my handiwork. Then he seemed to decide it was unimportant and started putting the IV away.
There was an uncomfortable silence as he did this, while I tried to figure out what tack to take.
“You a doctor or something?” I said, because the silence was freaking me out.
“Are you a habitual drug user or something?” he asked, ignoring my question and turning his cold, hard, disarmingly sexy stare on me.
“What?” I said hoarsely. I was thirsty now.
But forget about telling him that. He’d probably drug my water.
“Whatever you took last night, Natalia, was a narcotic. You’re fortunate to be alive. I want you to tell me about your drug habit so that I can get you on the proper rehabilitation—”
Why did this guy insist on getting my name wrong?
“I don’t fucking do drugs,” I spat.
And I didn’t. That was Lucy’s mistake, and I was paying for it, but not like Lucy was.
His body went still, and he cocked his head that same way he had did back in the strip club. “The evidence,” he said coldly, “suggests quite strongly that you do.”
I made a derisive noise and snorted at him. “Well. Asshole. Whoever you are. I don’t.”
“I think you and I have a misunderstanding here, Natalia—”
“And that’s another thing, my name is Natalie. Eee. Natalie.”
Another cold silence, during which I had just enough time to contemplate that I both wished I hadn’t said that, but couldn’t help feeling the clutch of anticipatory excitement because I had, and now Mystery Man had the same wolf-like look on his face that he’d had just before he’d spanked me raw.
My bottom burned while he stared at me. He didn’t get flustered. Not in the least.
“Your name is Natalia, Natalia,” he said calmly. “And I think you are in need of a bit of clarification.”
I don’t know why. I jutted my chin out. This guy was obviously bonkers, and I was obviously going to be his lunch, or stuffed human doll, or whatever perverse thing he had in mind, but he could go fuck himself if he thought I was going to make it easy for him. “Oh, yeah?” I challenged him. “Maybe you need some fucking c
larification—”
Well.
I didn’t really know where I was going with that anyway, so it didn’t matter too much for my sentence that I didn’t get to finish it. The wind was knocked right out of me by either surprise or centrifugal forces as he moved like a panther, whirled me around like a rag doll, and had me strewn across his lap in one quick motion.
I started to throw my hands around, but he caught them pretty quickly, and in a series of rough motions, none of which actually hurt, he had my arms pinned at my back in one hand, which he pressed down on so that I was pinned over his lap.
This left my feet free to kick, so I did, and I gave it my best shot writhing and squirming, but all this really did was make me tired.
Also, it didn’t stop him from smacking my bottom again, a rain of smacks that echoed in the room and bit hard into my already tender flesh. My eyes were stinging from the first slap, and I struggled to free myself, but he kept spanking me. Every slap seemed harsher than the last.
“Ow! Jesus! Stop it! Fuck you!” I was yelling.
All the while, he was speaking calmly, and I began to realize that for all the sharp pain it was causing me, he was spanking me calmly as well.
I started to wilt, and as I did, the pain didn’t go away, but he slowed his spanking or eased up on it. His voice came through between the slaps.
“You are in need of some clarification about our relationship, young lady. You are disobedient, reckless, and prone to doing some very naughty things. I am going to discipline you, and you are going to clean up your act, and you are going to behave like a proper young lady and not a druggy whore.”
I let my body relax into his lap, giving up—temporarily—on fighting him. My ass burned, and that same humiliating wetness was welling up between my thighs. My cheeks burned with shame, but I bit my tongue and relented.
For now, I thought.
“Now,” he said, moving his hand in a gentle caress over my bottom, which burned in two distinct ways: one painful, the other making me even wetter than I was. I hoped he somehow didn’t notice.
“The first thing I need you to do is tell me what you’re using.”
His words came back to me, and my anger flared up again. Druggy? Whore? Not me, you fucker.
“I don’t fucking use drugs,” I spat. “And I’m not a fucking whore.”
The spanking started again, and it was vicious this time. I started to cry, and as his firm hand sliced into my skin again and again, I fought back, but finally relented, and then finally, because the pain was too intense to bear and the heat felt like a serious burn, I sobbed, “Okay, okay, okay. Please. Stop. Please, I can’t take any more.”
His hand ceased its sharp punishment of my bottom, and the wave of heat that rose off my skin was almost as bad as the spanking.
“Good, Natalia. That’s more like it. Submit to me, and tell me what I want to know, and you won’t need any more discipline.”
I was exhausted from so much kicking. Even if I wanted to resist him, I couldn’t. The only thing I didn’t want was to get spanked more, because of two things. One, I didn’t think I could handle it, and two, my body was betraying me in the worst of all way: by getting more turned on than I had ever been in my life.
“Okay,” I breathed. “Please. Please listen to me, please don’t spank me again. I swear I’m telling you the truth.” I had to catch my breath.
His hand rubbed my bottom. I didn’t know if it was a promise or a threat. My skin stung and my heart felt strangely crushed, and my pussy was throbbing with the kind of wild lust I swear I’d never felt in my life before. Fat tears dripped out my eyes. What a fine way to go.
“I’m ready for the truth, Natalia,” he said calmly, still rubbing my bottom.
I pondered for a second what to say, but I knew I didn’t have much time to ponder. This guy was not Mr. Patience.
Drugs. What kind of drugs would I use, if I used drugs? They called me Shirley Temple at work because that was the only drink name I could think of when I first ordered one, and I’d thought it had alcohol in it.
I heard those guys talk about drugs, so I knew the names of them and basically what they did. And I knew that Lucy had an opioid addiction, and half a dozen names of things she sometimes took. But they all scrambled in my head.
I didn’t use drugs, I wanted to scream.
But... that hand was going to start spanking me again if I gave the wrong answer, so...
“I’m waiting,” he said menacingly. “The truth should be easy to remember.”
I took a deep breath. “I can’t remember—”
He swatted me hard. “Don’t give me that.”
“I can’t... because... I am telling you the truth! I don’t do drugs!”
A final slap landed on my bottom, and tears erupted from my eyes, but he left his hand there, making the heat throb mercilessly on my skin. I was too tired to wriggle away from him.
I sobbed. “I don’t want to lie to you,” I blubbered. “Please don’t spank me again. I don’t know how... I don’t...”
Suddenly, it came to me.
“The cigarette,” I said. “That has to be it. It was someone else’s pack, I don’t even smoke, I just...”
I trailed off, waiting for another barrage of spankings, the torture of expecting them both cruel and delicious, my stomach twisting in the kind of knots I’d only ever gotten from racy late-night soft porn movies.
What the hell?
He patted my bottom.
There was a long pause, while I squinted my eyes shut, my bottom throbbing in expectation of more spanking.
Then he sucked in his breath. “The windows in this room are shatterproof, Natalia. The door is locked from the outside and there is no way for you to leave. Please do not engage in further... destructive activities attempting to do so.”
He lifted me up, so I was sitting on the bed, sniffling, trying to pull the sheet around me. His eyes took a long, hungry walk over me, but his face stayed immeasurably still, revealing nothing of what that hunger was about.
A chill traveled through me.
“I will bring you some clothing and some food, but if you attempt to destroy my property again, you will be quite soundly punished. Am I clear?”
I had a desire to tell him to fuck off, I really did, but I decided to play it smart. I was already calculating my next move, for one, and my bottom hurt so badly I didn’t dare say that to his face. Not right then.
“Okay,” I sniffled.
He put a finger under my chin and lifted it to meet his terrible, smoldering gaze. His eyes alone were entangling me, claiming me, looking at me like I was something he definitively owned.
“When I ask something of you, Natalia, I want you to say ‘yes.’”
I stared at him.
“Is that clear?”
I swallowed. Partly my pride, partly my fear. “Yes,” I said bitterly.
“And one more thing,” he growled, putting just enough pressure under my chin to highlight the vast difference in our strengths.
Message received, right through the center of my being.
“Call me sir when you talk to me.”
I hesitated.
His eyes went dark again and burrowed through my core.
“Yes, sir,” I said quickly. “I understand.”
I should have left it at that. But I have an attitude problem.
“Sir,” I added, as he rose from the bed.
The unknowable flicker of dark amusement I had seen in him before flashed in his eyes, and his mouth actually turned up in a smile that—well, you could interpret a lot of different ways. And I didn’t have a lot of room to maneuver.
And then... he left.
Chapter Six
Alaric
I didn’t have time for this.
The feel of Natalia’s skin beneath my palm burned, but it wasn’t just that.
I didn’t need things to get complicated. I’m a man of no complications, which means I’m a man wh
o uses women only for what I need, no more, no less. When you have as much money as I do, that’s a transactional matter.
I locked Natalia back up in her room and walked down the hallway in the dimming light. My back hurt where the orb she had chucked at the window had bounced back and struck me. I had no idea why I’d had the impulse to protect her, but I had. I had that impulse even now, twisting inside of me, making me feel uncomfortable feelings that were very dangerous in my profession.
In the kitchen—never used—her ratty purse was set on the counter. I opened it and dug through the contents. One slightly crumpled pack of cigarettes, which I set on the counter. A tube of lipstick, looking like it hadn’t been opened in years. Keys, presumably to her rattrap apartment. The money I’d left her, still wrapped, the wrapper slightly torn where she’d pulled a bill or two out.
Her own wallet was also ratty—nothing more than a satchel full of change, a five-dollar bill, and a handful of business cards.
I dumped the contents on my table and rifled through the trash. Some gum wrappers—Bubblicious bubble gum, for fuck’s sake. Melon-flavored lip gloss. A Hello Kitty keychain with no keys on it.
No needles.
No drugs.
I pushed the cigarettes, keys, and wallet aside and swept the rest of the purse and contents into the trash. I locked the wallet and keys in a drawer for safekeeping, and then I took the cigarettes to my workroom to see if Natalia’s claim was true.
It would make my life a lot simpler if it were, I thought. Taking care of a drug addict was outside of the promises I’d made, and I could dump her in rehab and wash my hands of this whole ordeal.
If she wasn’t doing drugs, then I had problems on my hands. The kind of problems that lurk around less in your mind than your body, the kind of emotional entanglements that lead to making stupid decisions. I needed to get Natalia straightened out, on the right track, and out of my hair as fast as possible.
Out of my mind.
I needed to get the feeling—not that I’d admit to myself I was feeling anything—that Natalia gave me out of my body.
The idea with Natalia had been to scare her away from here and out of sight of Viktor Piotrivich’s associates.
His for the Taking Page 4