When she was done with most of the crying, and her legs seemed ready to give way, I picked Jazmine up to put her on the bed. Her small protests, I ignored.
“I’m not a child.” She wriggled as I lowered her then she glared up at me.
“Shush.” I put a finger to my lips. “You know you need to do this. I bet you got no sleep last night. Hmm?” I looked about, shrugged. “And like you said, no chair.”
Her laugh was dismissive. She propped herself up on her elbow. “It feels wrong lying down when you’re...” She nodded at where I stood.
“Ja. Well there’s only the bed.” I thought about joining her. I was tired too.
Despite my comment about this being a walk in the park for me, it wasn’t. I’d slept very little. I’d never had a woman in this sort of traumatic situation to worry about before. Never been a prisoner. I was used to acting, to fixing things by violence or by negotiation. The more things got planned ahead, the better too, with multiple contingency plans for when things went wrong.
I had a ton of kak to dig up before I could plan ahead here. For starters, why her? Was there a rhyme or reason for this? Or was it random?
I could check out the room first? Her big, frightened eyes decided me. Seeing those did odd things to my insides. No matter how confident she was acting, that hug hadn’t been enough. I wanted to be her knight in shining armor and stick myself between her and anyone who might harm her. Fucked if I knew how I was to do that.
If I could’ve flattened Gregor and his men, I would’ve.
“Gregor said three hours but I’m not sure I’d believe his word on anything. He might come back soon and take me away.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” She looked at my knees as she said it, her mouth twitching, her long legs shifting as if she wanted to be elsewhere right now.
Not surprising. I made a note not to say that man’s name except when I had to. The fucker.
I needed to gain her trust too. After what they’d made me do to her, I figured I’d lost ground.
“You poor sad –” I almost added kitten.
Uh. No.
Calling her by a pet name might raise her hackles.
“I’m not poor, or sad,” she shot back. “I don’t want pity, just...” She frowned. “Don’t pity me. I’m still me. I need to be me, not some horrible lost creature to be pitied.”
Her expression made me halt and think as much as her words. There was strength in this woman. Good.
“I like your attitude, but we have to talk and I don’t want to be loud. Stay where you are.” Without further warning, I climbed over her and lay down.
“What are you doing?” Alarmed, Jazmine looked over her shoulder. I noticed she still wasn’t lying on her back.
“I’m lying down before I fall over too.” I looked over her lower body, that stunning female curve of ass, and tried not to seem like I was perving.
Spooning was tempting me though it’d get me slapped. I guess I was as pitiful as her. I really did crave that physical contact. The hug had been soothing, warming, like a big bowl of soup for my soul.
“How bad is the damage?”
She sucked in a breath that turned quivery, as if my question had made her remember the pain.
The bed was tiny. Even with my back jammed against the wall, I couldn’t help touching her legs with mine and making the mattress sink.
“It hurts. He put ointment on me.”
“And then he whacked you again.” Asshole that he was.
“Yes.” Her lip trembled and she moved to wipe her eyes. “I’m sorry. I can’t stop crying. I hate this. It’s weak.”
“Cry if you want to. There’s no shame.”
I tried not to breathe steam out my nose. Gregor needed a ton of karma to crash down on his head.
With her distracted and wiping her eyes, she overbalanced and rolled into the dip of the mattress. I caught her with my hand on her shoulder. Then I let go. “Sorry.”
Touching her without permission was a big no-no, but my palm tingled where I’d contacted her skin, like she was alive with some strange electricity. Maybe lying down was a bad move. With her this close, my body was reacting in a way I couldn’t control.
To my consternation, after a long pause, she quietly inched backward. “Is it okay if we still hug?”
Fokken hell...
“As long as you’re okay with it.” Her hair was under my nose. A subtle feminine scent. I inhaled quietly.
“Just be careful not to press on my back too much.”
“Sure.” Or you on me. The effect she was having on my ever-alert cock... I cleared my throat. It was surely the height of bad manners to get an erection with her cuddling against me.
Couldn’t help it. I prayed she couldn’t feel my dick with her back and butt being so sore.
Spooning was body language that screamed fuck me in giant throbbing letters, and I didn’t know where to put my arm. I fiddled with my position until she took my forearm and drew it over her.
Thank god she’d nestled her own arm beneath mine so I didn’t have the mound of her breast there, under my hand.
Okay. I couldn’t check the room yet, but I could find out about her. But I waited and I watched her for a while. She was breathing so gently. Quiet at last. At peace in my arms and so little and sweet.
I barely stopped myself kissing the top of her head.
The last time I’d felt this way, it’d been a stray cat wandering into my yard in Cape Town. There was something about her I couldn’t quite define that roused my protective instincts more than my other partners had, including Elenor.
It must have been half an hour, at least, before I said softly, “You awake?”
“Uh huh.”
“Tell me about yourself. Where you come from.”
Her answer was drowsy. “Sydney.”
“Job?” I’d ask the easy ones first.
Pause. “A librarian.”
“Interesting. And the baby?”
“No. No –” She stiffened.
“You told me you had a sick baby.” Clearly that had been a lie. I thought about it. Whatever she said, I didn’t really blame her for trying.
“I...don’t. I said it to get you on my side.”
“Ja. I figured that. Don’t worry. I’d probably have done the same. So. Not married?”
Another longer pause. “Maybe you can tell me about yourself instead?”
I lifted my head and stared. I was annoyed that she wasn’t willing to tell me more. It screamed lack of trust when here I was trying to save her life. Then again, could I blame her?
She shrugged and looked back at me. Her mouth screwed up. “I’m sorry. But you were with Scrim. I don’t know you, not really. Why you were doing what you were. You were a slaver. You have to give me leeway. I’m not going to instantly give you the address to my house and the key to my grandmother’s chastity belt.”
I chuckled. “I think I’ll skip that last one, and I don’t know you either. That’s what this is for. If you want my help, I need information. Plus, I think we have to learn to trust each other.”
She was getting my help anyway. I wasn’t going to give up on her, no matter what she said. If I didn’t do my very best to get her out of here, I’d feel so wrong. But it wasn’t just that it’d be yet another notch on the big stick that recorded all my failures.
What the hell was it that I meant?
I ran through my thoughts and feelings. If I couldn’t get her out, it’d be like stamping evil worthless bastard on my own existence.
“Okay. I’ll go first. I’m South African. I’ve got family going back to the original Boer settlers hundreds of years ago. My country is still a very conflicted one. High crime rate. I was a policeman.”
“Was?”
Shit, now she was asking me the wrong damn questions, but I felt compelled to tell her my truth, such that it was.
“I was in a special part of the police that got called out to control super-violent situations.”
“I did.” I shut my eyes. “Due to a stupid mistake I made, my brother was killed by officers of my unit during a political demonstration. That’s when I left.” And my wife left me. I deserved it, though. “I joined mercenaries in a neighboring country. Fought for a cause I thought was right, for a while. Then I came here, worked here and there for a year or so then a friend introduced me to someone else. They flew me over to Australia and that’s how I ended up doing what I was when you first saw me. I didn’t know what they wanted of me until I got there. I thought it was to do with people being flown in, not out. Happens all the time.”
“Then why didn’t you leave?”
I sucked in a breath. “I did. With you. I wasn’t with Scrim long. That was my first trip.”
“Seriously?” She looked back at me, those pretty eyes topped by a tiny frown. “You expect me to believe that?”
“I do.” I found my fingers had entangled with hers and I played with one of hers with my finger and thumb. So tiny. “All of that’s true. My brother was called Johann. He died from a bullet shot by a friend.” And I’d never forgiven myself.
“That’s...so sad.”
“Yes. It is. Now. You. I need to know why and how you were taken. It might give me clues as to what they mean to do to you.”
Her frown deepened and she pulled her fingers from mine. “I don’t think it will. I don’t see how it would do that, but I was kidnapped outside a pub, down an alley. I was a bit drunk, I guess. I haven’t a clue as to why. Random. I guess.”
One of the things I hadn’t mentioned to her was that I’d been good at getting the truth from people. What she’d said seemed as if it was skirting the truth. I wasn’t sure, though. There was no way to check, unless she contradicted herself. I wasn’t keen on liars. Once, sure, but repeatedly? And I couldn’t see why she would do it now, of all times. I’d told her my past. Was there something wrong with hers?
“You’re not in trouble with the law, are you?”
“Nooo.” She edged away and winced. “No.”
I let it pass. She was right, anyway. It probably had no bearing on what was happening to her here at all. If it did, I’d just kill her. I half-smiled at my morbid joke.
“I’m going to look at the room. See if I can find anything of use. If they let me back in here regularly, I’ll have a better chance at helping you escape.” Then I carefully climbed back over her and off the bed. I studied her one more time.
“Why are you looking at me?” She tugged at the hem of her dress.
I smiled. Hell there was so much bleakness here, why not? “I’m looking at a beautiful woman.” Then I winked, ignored the way her eyebrows shot up and she seemed to have lost the ability to speak, and I went to check the room.
“Just telling the truth again,” I added, peering up at the barred window.
I didn’t discover anything of use, apart from a potential to rip up part of the bed to make into a knife. They’d escape-proofed it.
The toilet, sink, and shower were made of parts that weren’t accessible, or removable. The window was so tiny only a baby could get through, even if I could get up there and somehow remove the bars. The door was solid metal, solid hinges. The locks looked complex and I certainly had no skills in that department. Maybe a locksmith could undo them, or one of my ex-customers, but not me. Though I’d try, if I could. I needed something to use as a lockpick. The walls seemed solid concrete or brick behind plaster. Give me a year of imprisonment and a secret spot to dig at and I’d dismantle or dig through it. I figured we had weeks, at most.
“Find anything?”
“No. We aren’t getting out of here tomorrow, but it was worth it to see your face when I said you were beautiful.”
She was rolling her eyes at me when the screaming started. They shut him up fast, used a gag maybe, but we knew. And we could still hear him. Somewhere they were torturing a man.
Jazmine put her hands over her ears. “That wrecked the mood.” She sent me a strained look and I could see her hands were shaking.
I strode to her. “Next I get to check your back. Lie on your stomach.”
“I will not!”
“Why?” I cocked my head a little.
Her blush was cute too. “I don’t have any underwear.”
“Ahh. I still need to check the marks from the cane. You need someone to look who is on your side. These things can get infected. I have seen all of you already. Please. It would make me less worried about you.”
“Oh.” Her hesitation lasted all of ten seconds before she sucked in her lip and moved onto her belly.
I was gentle as I pulled up her dress, careful not to look at her form in anything but a doctorly way. Well, close to it. I was a man not a fokken physician, and she was gorgeous.
Jesus. He’d used a lot of force. Her skin was split in a few places and the bruises from some of the strikes had spread inches, but they looked clean, so far. “They’re okay. But you need to watch for discharge and growing redness.”
“Okay,” she said quietly. “Can you pull my dress down now? It’s hard for me to twist around.”
“Sure.”
“How do you know so much about cane marks and what to do with bad ones?”
This time I wasn’t sure if the truth was the right thing to say.
“Pieter?”
“My wife liked pain. She was a masochist. I used to cane her, flog her, spank her. I did what she liked. Do you understand?”
Her great green eyes seemed rounder than ever. “Maybe.”
I could see she hadn’t a clue as to what to think. Footsteps were approaching outside the room.
“She gave me permission. That means everything in the kink world.”
I neglected to mention that I was a sadist. No point really. It would only freak her out to know I enjoyed making a woman hurt.
I had no more time. The hatch slid open.
“Come here, Pieter. Time to go home.”
Fucking Gregor. It hadn’t been anything near three hours.
Chapter 7
The sound of footsteps outside faded. I strained my ears to hear. Nothing. No cries either. Had that man died? Or had they stopped hurting him?
The room was horribly empty without Pieter in it. I despised women who couldn’t fend for themselves and make their own way in life, but in a miniscule amount of time, I’d been reduced to wondering if the next person through my door would be coming to hurt me or kill me. And I couldn’t do a single thing that stood a chance of stopping them.
The bruises on my back reminded me of that.
I was defenseless.
With him here, I’d felt, not exactly safe, but comforted – like I was more than just a thing, like I mattered.
Normally, I hated touching strangers. I stared at my hand where I could still recall the feel of his fingers on mine. People touching you when you didn’t want it was creepy and it made me feel all surrounded, closed in. Liking it was weird and not me.
I sighed. I’d get over it. Fear was messing with me.
The man himself was big and scary with all his hard muscles, shaggy hair, and that black glower of his. I shivered, remembering a moment when he’d lowered his head and looked at me like I was maybe an enemy. Pieter had some nasty history but I didn’t think he’d meant to scare me, because a second later he’d smiled.
If he’d sat next to me at the movies, I’d have moved away a few seats and checked for the exit.
A scene flashed into my thoughts. I was naked with a man advancing on me, scowling that same way. I shook my head.
Hah. I’d run.
And if he’d grabbed my hair like Pieter had done? Made me look at him?
“Damn,” I whispered and pressed my hand between my legs. Crazy. The tiny climax he’d made me have was also messing with my mind.
I’d thought men just didn’t have it in them to stir me that much.
“Picked a great way to find out that,” I muttered. Then
I shut my eyes to relish the spreading warmth from my clit.
They left me alone the rest of that day. The next morning a cleaning lady came in, escorted by a guard. When the unknown man started screaming again, she flinched and swore under her breath. I took a chance and asked her a question when she swept near where I sat on the bed. The guard was bored as could be, watching a fly buzzing against my one window.
“Who is that?”
Fear laced her eyes, but after a second she said quietly, “Polisman.” Then she moved away.
The guard twitched his gaze on me.
Shit. The floor at my feet got my attention, fast.
That had sounded like policeman but was it? Surely they wouldn’t dare?
Around noon, I couldn’t be sure of the time as they fed me only breakfast and dinner, Gregor returned.
He was the one person who could send my mind into mouse space. I went blank when he stepped in, his shaved blond scalp had come round the edge of the door about when his boot did, but his fingers had wrapped round the door first. I recognized him even then, I think, just by his fingertips.
My heart thumped erratic beats. My whole body seemed to squeeze down tight – like one of my worst times when someone touched me uninvited.
The excessive reaction was explainable. Gregor didn’t just touch.
“Here.” He clicked his fingers.
As I stepped quickly over and bent to go to my knees his lips parted and his tongue flicked out. So fast, but I saw it. Did seeing me kneel give him pleasure?
I wanted to hide under the bed.
“Very good, little Jazmine, and how is your back?”
Little. Again that condescension.
My throat didn’t work. Answer. I had to answer. His gray eyes dissected me. I forced the word out. “Sir. It’s fine.” I didn’t want him looking.
“Really? Show me, please. Turn.” He did a circle with his hand.
I shuffled about on my knees, and faced away, lowered my head before he could think to make me.
“Hmm. I need your dress out of the way. Pull it up then press your forehead to the floor.”
Blushing, I did so. I waited with my bottom up higher than my head. A moment later his bug-like hand crept its way down my back, slow and meandering, as if it were tasting me. Spider hands, I should call him, or maybe tarantula, considering the hair on the back of them.
Seize me From Darkness (Pierced Hearts Book 4) Page 4