by Watson, Meg
All the tenderness fled from him in an instant. I must have carried on the charade of resistance too long, because he was well and truly angry. I shrunk back from him as he jabbed a finger in my direction.
“You're being stubborn. You know very well the situation you're in. It is very simple, Jolie: Obey, or suffer.”
Without giving me a chance to respond, he moved back to the door, throwing it open and stepping through before he slammed it shut behind him. The bolts clicked loudly back into place, and I was left alone with my thoughts again.
I'd provoked my captor, the person who held the key to my freedom. I bit the hand that held the key.
Good fucking going, Jolie.
CHAPTER 5
I don't know why I felt the urge to argue. Every time I thought I knew what I was doing, I did something else entirely, fucking up my own plan before it could even work.
Get him to like me. Get him to feel bad for me.
Nope, can’t do it.
Be obedient. Fake it.
Nope.
Do something, anything… Just to keep safe until you can figure out how to get out.
Instead I seemed to antagonize him purposely. It was like I wanted him to punish me then and there, to see what it was like. I wanted to know definitively what the worst was, because not knowing was terrifying.
With a growl of frustration, I pushed myself up from the bed and headed back to the window, leaning back against the bars, the cool night air blowing over me.
As my eyes settled on the spot where Rafe stood, I remembered the serene smile he wore before I provoked him. Something about that smile seemed so familiar, but I hadn't seen it on him before then—not to my recollection.
But then, maybe I had. Was it the bath? The image of water seemed real enough, but I couldn't pin it down. It was like a wisp of smoke in my peripheral vision, gone by the time I tried to focus in on it and see the whole of it.
I struggled to remember something, anything about what had transpired since I was drugged. The first thing to return was the sound of a half-conscious moan. I could hear it, almost feel it in my throat.
Did he...?
I walked a step toward the door and stopped. The breeze from the window pushed the short nightgown around my thighs and… There was something else. I felt the air on my skin. My hand slipped between my legs, and my eyes widened as my fingers slid over the smooth, naked skin there. I'd been there for a week, maybe more, and I was perfectly smooth. Shaved.
I gasped audibly, taking a quick step back toward the window in shock. Images began flashing through my mind... scenes not even half-recalled, vague impressions and puzzle-piece jumbles. I remembered the feeling of a hand at my inner thigh, the coolness of the cream he carefully and lovingly rubbed into me. I couldn't see his face, but I saw those immaculate hands sliding over me.
No, don’t think about it… No...
Disgust bubbled through me, but I couldn’t let the images go. Now that I had one firm and clear I wanted more. I wanted to know.
I remembered being in his arms, lying back and letting my body float in the water. I remembered his hands behind my knees, opening my legs and setting my ankles on the cold tile. The way I groaned softly as I felt my legs stretch. It was like watching the scene from afar, from someone else. Only it was me. I was there.
And it felt good.
Shame!
The thought of someone shaving me, inspecting me, spreading me apart that way set me on edge, but it turned me on far more than I expected it to. I found my hand drifting a bit lower, middle finger sliding slowly over my folds.
A soft shudder rippled through me, a combination of the feeling of the cool night air drifting through the thin nightgown I wore and the sensation of my own fingers where his had been. My nipples stiffened almost painfully at the combination.
I groped blindly through my mind for more memories. I wasn't so concerned with finding out what happened so much as looking for more excitement, then. Shameful as it was to me, I wanted to know more. My belly quaked at the notion, belying a building tension.
Oh god, could he have made me…
The drugs had well and truly worn off, and every touch sent a jolt of sensation through me unlike any I'd ever felt. I was coming back to life. Buzzing. Sizzling.
My whole body began aching and screaming for release. I hadn't felt pressure like that for a long time, and I began stroking my clit more firmly. My lips parted as a soft moan escaped, though I was trying to keep quiet. I didn't want Rafe to know what he'd done to me. I had a hard enough time admitting to myself that all of this was turning me on, I certainly didn't want to admit it to him.
I rubbed a little more firmly, bucking my hips slowly against my hand. My lips parted again, but the moan I heard wasn't my own. It was further away, and decidedly louder. I stood tall and listened.
When I turned to face the window, I saw that a light had come on across the garden. The sheer curtains fluttered in the breeze, and I tiptoed up to the bars, squinting. A room in the other part of the house was alight, and I could barely make out the shadows of motion inside. A figure dashed back and forth, determined, strong, arms out.
Bronson!
As I squinted to try to see, the sounds became more and more clear. They sounded like sex, rising and falling, moans and whimpers carrying through the dead quiet of the night. Maybe he had some lover in the other wing. Maybe it was another girl like me, someone he'd taken before. For all I knew, it was some poor victim of Bronson's pleading for her life, strapped to the same table I was when I first arrived.
The word “please” carried across the courtyard, and the tone unnerved me immediately. It rang out too long—rising and falling, ending on a hysterical hook. There was nothing sexual about the pleading. It grew more and more fervent and panicked by the moment. I felt completely helpless. Bronson was taking what he'd been deprived of. He was going to do something terrible to that girl—whatever he intended for me.
Another wail, this one little more than an animal howl. The wind kicked up hard, twisting the curtains across my vision. I yanked them out of the way, desperate to see more.
Across the courtyard, the curtains also billowed into the other room, then flowed aside. Just before the screaming stopped, I saw… not Bronson.
Rafe.
Rafe, his arms over his head and clasped. The gleam of the metal table stretched out before him and on it, a dark-haired woman with her head thrown back. The white gag I remembered so well lay knotted across her throat.
I heard his voice mingle with her cries. I couldn't make out what he said, and his tone gave little away. His hands came down hard. The screaming stopped so abruptly that my heart seemed to follow suit. I brought a hand to my chest, stepping back from the window.
The light remained on in the room across from mine, and I stared in shock as my pulse raced in my ears like a freight train, waiting to see anything that might explain what happened. The curtain blew horizontal once more like a flag, then settled back, obscuring the horrible vision.
I don't know how long I stared in confused terror, but I was roused by the sound of loud, clicking footsteps headed straight for my door.
Oh God, he's going to do whatever he did to me.
I shrunk back quickly into the bed, having nowhere else to go. I considered hiding under the covers like a scared child, absolutely terrified of what punishment I was going to be made to endure.
The bolts were pushed quickly from their place, and I clasped a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.
CHAPTER 1
I wanted to know what “the worst” was. I asked for it. And then I knew.
Maybe if I don't act afraid, he'll think I didn't see anything. Maybe he won't do anything.
Sucking in a few gasping breaths, I tried not to hear myself choking. My vision clouded red around the edges as the room seemed to collapse into a blind tunnel. I crawled backward on the bed until I was jammed against the carved headboard and watched the gl
eaming deadbolts as they turned, one by one.
The door swung inward on silent hinges. He stood with his weight on one side, his head tilted slightly to the right. He looked like was waiting, listening. I didn’t move a muscle.
When Rafe walked through the door, he seemed like an entirely different man. He was... smiling? His posture had noticeably changed. As he walked there was an easiness, a casual grace that I hadn’t really seen before.
He let the door swing shut behind him, but didn't bother locking it. He came to stand at the edge of the bed near the foot, nodding slightly as he stared me up and down.
“I owe you an apology,” he murmured. His voice was deep, resonant.
I shook my head. The words would not compute. An apology? Yes, okay… maybe he did, and yet that also sounded like an absurd understatement. It seemed like a cut and paste from a different life.
He flexed his hands in front of him and then let them fall, clasping them loosely in front of his waist. He cleared his throat as though preparing a speech.
“Jolie, I want to apologize for the way I behaved. I shouldn't have lost my temper with you. I'm sure this is a very difficult, confusing time for you, and I should be more understanding of your misgivings.”
My head shook rapidly back and forth like I was trying to rattle my thoughts into logical sense like dice in a cup.
This is insane. This is insane.
“Can you forgive me?”
I gave a nod, perhaps a bit too quickly. I saw his eyes darken. He didn’t believe me. Again I nodded but I could almost see myself, like I had left my body and was somewhere near the ceiling, staring down. I looked like a marionette whose puppeteer was having a seizure.
But I think it encouraged him, because he only smiled wider. I stayed as silent as I could, afraid that if a sound escaped my lips I wouldn’t be able to control what happened next.
Just go. Just leave. I’ll forget what I saw!
Rafe reached out, giving a soft, thoughtful pat to my leg. It was all I could do to not jerk away from his touch. I couldn't stop thinking about what those hands had done, and what they might do if I wasn't obedient as he asked.
“I'm glad to hear that, Jolie. I was positively monstrous. You are… a guest. This is my home and you are my guest, and there are rules about guests and hosts, yes?”
He stared at me, waiting for my answer. I nodded nervously. My toes flexed against the thick, warm bed sheets.
I’m his guest now? What the fuck?
“Let me make it up to you, hm?” From his pocket, he produced a length of soft-looking black cloth. “Hands above your head, Jolie. Can't have you thrashing about too much, can we?”
I shook my head slightly. He must have interpreted the shake as an affirmation of his question as though I was agreeing: yes, I shouldn’t be thrashing about so much. But I didn't want to be tied. Not again. I watched his hands coming for mine in slow motion and to my amazement I curled my fingers in, joining my hands at the heels and waiting.
His eyes flickered up to mine. A look of surprise and dawning wonder flashed through the deep black wells as he searched my face.
“Thank you,” he said in a low, grumbling whisper. I nodded, eerily calm.
His fingers were warm as they slid deftly over my skin, looping the fabric in a complicated figure eight. I focused all my attention on that action. It was graceful, like a dance, almost like he was playing an instrument he knew very well.
As he pulled the length of the fabric through his fingers I remembered Aunt Rinna taking Edith from my hands when she was barely more than a piglet and binding her feet in much the same motion. Aunt Rinna had been sorry, but mostly for me. Edith didn’t even seem to mind. She just looked at me with her white-lashed eyes, blinking in a sympathetic way as though I was the one to be pitied.
Rinna said the animals knew their purpose and chose not to struggle. She was honest with them from the start and gave them the choice to suffer or not suffer. Most animals chose a sort of languid peace, a tacit acceptance.
But I don’t want to die.
Rafe cupped my hands in his before pulling my body upward on the bed until I laid flat on my back. He looped the ends of the cloth through a carved out section of the headboard, and I laced my fingers through the wooden vines.
I was surprised to find him crawling up into the sheets the moment he had me tied. I tried to jerk my legs back away from him as he crawled between him, only to find his hands slipping beneath them and pushing them to my chest. I gasped out loudly at the sudden exposure, shifting as he settled in between my open knees.
“Hmmmmm,” I heard him sighing, his breath warm and ticklish against my inner thighs. I stared hard at the ceiling as my brain was flooded with white noise.
“You have been a far better guest than I have been a host,” he mused. I heard his voice from far away and wondered what he could mean. Everything seemed to be slipping down a long tunnel, away from me. I couldn’t move. I had lost the will to struggle.
The first touch was his warm, thick lips at the seam between my thigh and sex. I sucked my breath in so fast it caught in my throat.
“You’ve shown me strength… more trust than I deserved…” he murmured. I twisted my hands against the bindings and felt his tongue, hot and soft as it traced the tense, stretched skin there. I could see it in my mind as a series of tiny white fireworks. The white noise in my head became a roar, plunging my senses into deafness.
What is happening?
“You’ve been extremely patient,” he whispered, then pushed my knees farther apart. His voice seemed to cut through the panicked noise in my head. My belly warmed, as much from his touch as his praise.
I really have been patient. I’ve tried to understand...
Picking my head up, I watched the top of his shiny, black hair as he nodded against my open legs. I tried to focus, to hone in on the sensation like a liferaft. In all the blaring confusion in my mind, I knew this was real. It was happening. If only I could understand.
Forcing my body to relax a little, I watched him as he teased me with kisses up and down my thighs. It was undeniable; even if my mind and heart were stunned into incoherence, my body understood him better. My thighs tremored beneath every gentle kiss. I found my flesh willing, pliant, unfolding before him like a waiting flower. There was something about being so completely and utterly exposed to him that had me absolutely soaked in anticipation.
He brought his lips to my clit gently, suckling and lapping at me with a loving care that seemed entirely uncharacteristic. Even if he'd bathed and shaved me, I hadn't imagined him to be any sort of gentle lover. Not with the way he'd so thoroughly commanded me so far. But it seemed to be true: my obedience exposed a new side of him.
I began to buck my hips slowly against him as he lavished me. He didn't seem interested in teasing me in the slightest. His tongue swirled in circles over my swollen lips and I heard the roar fading in my mind as I gradually relaxed into his grip. Closing my eyes, I slipped into a warm sea of sensation, submitting fully to every wave of pleasure that pulsed through my body and letting my wrists dangle limply from the bindings.
I moaned out loudly as he slipped two thick fingers into me, expertly pumping and curling in time with the attention he was giving at my clit. It was the same as it was in the limo: calculated, purposeful, as though he knew exactly what I needed. He was bringing me closer and closer to orgasm with every second, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to slow or stop it.
I heard the moan slipping from my lips, spiraling upward in a crescendo of want. My cry cut through me and I remembered the woman across the garden suddenly, her black hair cascading over the edge of the table, her throat full and swollen with her scream. His hands that were clasped and over his head were now the hands that gripped the backs of my thighs, drawing me firmly against his hot, working mouth. His voice that was raised in anger was now a hungry growl that vibrated through my bones.
Just feel it. Don’t think!
The moment my hips returned to the bed, Rafe sat up and passed his tongue quickly over his lips. As I panted, shuddering, he rose to the head of the bed and pressed his mouth and chin firmly against my dampened brow.
“Sleep well, Jolie,” he said in a voice that verged on tender.
“No…”
He quirked an eyebrow, amused. “No?”
I shook my head, willing the words to form. “No drugs,” I begged him meekly. “Please…”
He nodded, his dark eyes heavy-lidded and eerily close. I felt like I could see deep into them, to the man who dwelt far behind.
“I told you: no more of that. I keep my word, Jolie. You should know that.”
With another lingering kiss, he swept the hair off my brow and then pulled the cool sheets over me. Silently, he walked away and I could feel the air going empty.
As suddenly as it all began, it was over. He'd brought me to orgasm so easily, so casually, that I could hardly believe it had happened at all. My mind was a blurred haze of obliterating bliss as I watched him slip quietly from the room, the sound of the deadbolts sliding into place seeming far off and muted.
The intensity of the release sent me spiraling toward sweet sleep, and I embraced it.
CHAPTER 2
My shoulders were throbbing when I awoke. I probably tried to toss and turn in my sleep as I usually did, but couldn't with my hands tied above my head. As the soft, cool breeze came in through the curtains, I tentatively rolled my neck, trying to work the stiffness out.
Flexing my fingers, I squinted up at the bindings. They didn't seem so strong, and I could probably twist out of them. Would he mind? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to invite more punishment. After last night, I had gotten the first glimmer of a connection and I knew that would be my only hope. Now that I knew...