I turned and again felt the brush of his skin on mine. Surprisingly, he was gentle. When he rested one hand on my hip while the other hand journeyed, palm down, over my ass, one cheek then the other, my breathing deepened – my body reacting without my damn permission.
It was...nice, having him do this. I was a project he oversaw, a test bunny, but more personal than that, much more personal. I held my breath when he slid that palm between my legs and left it there, cupped over my pussy. The world drifted.
“I don’t remember everything I did to you last night. It wasn’t moral or legal, but I’m not sorry.”
Was this surprising? No.
I swallowed as he continued in that low, deliberate tone. There were reactions I should be having. Tears to shed. Indignant, angry words. But, as it was, with him holding me, nothing was worth doing because it would interrupt the intense sensation he’d conjured. In that moment, I belonged to him and everything else could wait.
In the blurred distance, the turkeys kept doing what turkeys did. The sun shone through the trees and, as leaves and branches shook in a breeze, the light flickered, shifted, bright as the purest gemstones.
“Not because you deserved it,” he continued in that soothing monotone. “Because I liked doing it – making you like something you’d never ask for in a million years. Would you?”
His thumb delved along my slit then he casually popped it inside. My toes curled the instant he entered me and I couldn’t help sighing.
It was equally immoral to like this. Had he asked a question? I wasn’t facing him so I would just refuse to answer.
“That was a real question.”
Crap.
“Would I?”
“Ask for it.”
“No.”
“No? I’ll have to change that.” After working his thumb in and out enough times that my pussy was making embarrassing wet sounds and I was biting my lip to stop myself squeaking, he pulled it out.
His wet thumb made a cooling trail up my backbone to end at my neck, where he drew a line across the base. Something scratched me there. “What’s this, Kiara?”
His voice seemed to come from the bottom of a deep well. I summoned my mind, blinking and trying to figure out what he meant. I put my hand to my neck. There was something circling my neck.
“Grass?” I frowned.
“Yes. Did I put it there?” He used his hands to turn me to face him.
It felt like the lightest of necklets, a twined chain of grass leaves and seed heads. Had he? If so, I’d been asleep.
I shrugged.
The corner of his mouth sneaked upward. Amusement lines surrounded his blue eyes. “Guess I did. Keep it there. Until it falls off.”
Huh. I shrugged again.
“Say yes.” He pinched my clit between finger and thumb.
Startled, blitzed into arousal, I stared open-mouthed. He increased the pressure and I blurted, “Yes!”
“Good girl. Go get dressed. We’re leaving in ten.”
What? I hadn’t had time to eat. We had to pack...and what was this? Was I organizing a family picnic? Who gave a flying fuck if we were late leaving? I slouched toward the sleeping bag area and began slowly dressing.
“Ten,” he repeated. “Or else.”
I looked at him. The or else had made my nipples perk up and a chill chase through my body.
Wait, he could have just made this a true order. Or was that too easy? He had preferences, as he’d said about last night, such as the application of sticks and other things I hadn’t even seen –
“I could’ve made everything hurt more, much more, if I’d wanted to.”
Mind reader.
I hurried to dress.
* * * * *
We wound our way through the forest then out the other side, heading west, from the direction of the dawn.
I stared out the window, at the vehicles passing, at my toenails, and I wondered if I should paint them...if I survived.
“Where are we going?”
“The Iron Range area, Minnesota. I have a friend there.”
“Ahh.” Trees and farmland flowed past my window. The day was overcast but bright enough to make the swathes of dandelions by the roadside seem yellow enough to pop. “You did say that.”
I snuggled into the angle of door and seat and eyed him, dubiously. Every bounce of the car made me ache. Lucky it was a BMW with good suspension.
Staying quiet and ignorant might’ve been wise, but look at me – agreeing to be a spy in the USA just so I could get back here. Clearly, wise wasn’t a big part of my make-up.
How long ago had this friend of Wolfe’s lived there? I thought of asking, but he likely wouldn’t know. Besides, being his captive didn’t mean helping him by encouraging him to remember. A nurse, yes, but not now.
Unless he ordered me too.
Yeah, that.
Don’t run away again. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t like. That one was so vague I could maybe dodge it, if I thought it through? Or was it just some bone-deep understanding of the meaning of his words? In which case, I was up creek minus paddle.
I had this horrible urge to ask him very pointed questions, though. He’d made me feel things last night... I had to know.
I should hold my tongue.
“Why’d you hit me last night?” There. Asked it anyway.
In trepidation, I waited.
He kept his concentration on the highway.
“I like it.”
“So you said.”
“That’s not enough?”
The bastard was smiling and here I was squirming over asking a question and I couldn’t even figure out why I’d had to ask it.
“No.”
“I like it. I think...I’ve always liked it. But only if the lady also wants it.”
What? Well, that ruled out –
“Did you like it?”
This being new...
Did I like it?
I blinked, thinking furiously. “You know this doesn’t make for a sensible answer. I guess I did...but only because you made me.”
“You liked it.” Finally, he glanced at me. “And do you want more?”
Now I knew why I should never ever have touched this topic. My throat felt filled with glue, yet I knew that in a few damning seconds I’d be answering.
He just waited and the pressure of that question built.
If I said yes, what did it mean? Still, he could compel me to do anything. So my feelings meant nothing.
Really.
I swallowed down that gluey chunk of squeamishness, and despite the nausea saying these next words brought on, I uttered a “Yes.”
The car purred onward and neither of us spoke. Was he letting me stew on my answer, or had he lost interest? I wouldn’t look his way and find out.
The roadside flowers got bucket loads of attention.
We stopped that night at a motel, after Wolfe reconnoitered and found out the receptionist was susceptible to his control. No sign-ins, no payment exchanged hands, nothing. When we left, they’d clean our room and it would be as if we’d never been here at all. How was anyone going to find me? I’d tried not to fret but I wasn’t superwoman.
I could end up dead. Wolfe wasn’t entirely sane. Okay, worse, at times he was barely human.
The TV had showed a short, news story of a missing patient, Wolfe, and the nurse who seemed to have kidnapped him – me. If I could’ve simply walked into the local restaurant attached to this motel, I could’ve been free of Wolfe.
He’d forbidden me to run and that was it.
Stuck here, with him, for one more night.
With two single beds. I rolled onto my stomach and bunched the pillow under my chin and chest, shut my eyes. I’d managed to get a partial dose into him with the take-out he’d had brought to us, so I wasn’t concerned about him going nuts, not tonight.
What if I managed a heavy dose and made him sink into an Andy-type status? Would that give me leave to escape? He’d
implied some orders would last and last. I should try it.
I didn’t owe him. With all the evidence on my body, the bruises and scratches, they’d prosecute him not me.
The bed sank at the edge and I realized Wolfe was here and he’d put his knee on the bed, plus most of his body weight. When he pulled the sheet off my lower back then rolled my panties down to the top of my thighs, dread and anticipation arrived, in equal proportions.
Equal. Fuck.
“Want this?” His hand rested on my ass – such a large, male hand, weighty with the promise of sex, and I swear I could smell his presence.
I stayed with my eyes buried in the pillow and my arms. Maybe I was crazy too.
A yes would set off the avalanche. Saying no would be a lie and I could already feel the resistance of speaking a falsehood waiting in my throat.
I couldn’t lie, but would my answer be mine, or one he’d subtly arranged?
I didn’t know.
And I didn’t really care. How easily I betrayed myself. There was a halfway answer that I could use.
“Maybe,” I said softly, kind of hoping he’d not hear me.
“Maybe?”
He leaned in and sank his teeth into my ass then two fingers into my pussy.
“Fuck!” I gripped the pillow tighter.
The unrelenting pain blasted away my doubts, leaving me stuck in the now, where a man called Wolfe was appropriating my body to use how he wanted to. He hooked his fingers deeper and used them to lift my lower body then drop me again to the bed.
Stunned, I sobbed, almost, almost ready to spread my legs and beg.
“Answer properly.” This time his tone was dead mean.
I panted into the pillow then threw myself into his path by blurting, “Yes!” I prayed he’d not hurt me too much. “Yes.”
Not trust, just prayer. I didn’t know if I could ever trust him.
“Good.”
By the time I came, I had several new, throbbing teeth marks all over my ass and back. Some, I feared might be bleeding. But when he sank his cock into me, I merely held onto the sheets and suffered, and enjoyed the ride.
He dragged the beds together afterward and wrapped me in his body, while I stayed sprawled in limbo, across most of my own bed. Breathing, just breathing. How bizarre this was.
If only this was real. If only he was a lover and not...whatever he was. I had to remember not to trust him.
“Your grass necklace is gone.”
“Mmm.”
I felt the bed rock as he climbed out.
“Guess I’ll have to make do with this.” A moment later, his belt was cinched around my neck – not tight though. Then he settled behind me again and grunted in satisfaction. Drowsily, I put my hand up to feel the leather. I could tell his hand held the loose end, between us and partway down my back.
“Sleep.”
I snorted softly and heaved in a breath with my nose in the fresh scent of the pillow. Already, I was going...my eyelids became heavier and I exhaled...
There...
Chapter 14
Wolfe
The drive had wearied both of us. I’d made her drive while I napped and vice versa, but two days of being in the car for over twelve hours each day had been sapping. Avoiding being seen by surveillance cameras, or anyone I couldn’t control, had made my mind slowly turn to mush.
It wasn’t easy, though I never let on to Kiara.
I’d stolen gas, food, motel rooms, and most of all, people’s sanity. Some of them would have explaining to do with their spouses, though I’d tried to minimize the splash impact of my manipulations. Best to stay close to invisible.
Just using the BMW for several days made me uncomfortable.
Could I make that woman be quiet and never tell she’d gifted away a vehicle like this? I prayed so, but I wasn’t certain.
We’d gone near the lift bridge at Duluth a few hours back. A massive ship had passed beneath after the whole damn bridge lifted above it. It’d impressed on me how petty my life was, how much I owed due to simply being alive.
Once upon a time, everyone had seemed to want me dead.
The bullets had left me shattered and the pieces were still coming together. One bullet had gone into my brain. Yet I was here. I wasn’t normal, like Kiara said, and I wasn’t sure I wanted all those pieces back.
People screamed and turned into blood in some.
Details were elusive, but feelings ate their way through into my head: the awful loneliness, the hunger, the desperate need to survive. How long had I been in that pit? Memories gave hints but the worst scenes were in darkness. Maybe it was all imagination, scoured from some place in me that brought nightmares not truth?
Maybe I just thought I’d been in Hell because half my brain had been turned to mush.
A man just didn’t grow that back. What the fuck was I?
I shook my head, gripping the wheel with white-knuckled hands, then I realized my hair had stayed in place. I smiled grimly. Kiara had helped tie it together.
Currently, she snored gently with her head in a pillow wedged to the door.
She wanted me to let her go.
The faintest smile formed on her lips despite the unladylike snore. Every time I saw her, I yearned to sketch her again, in a million different poses – in some she’d be the most precious and fragile girl ever, sprawled in a sea of flowers or washed by a stream. In others...she’d be tied up and at my mercy...or at the mercy of a vile-toothed monster with a blood-streaked body, and a blood-streaked whip in his hand, and spikes, and all manner of shiny evil instruments. And she writhed before that monster, chained and leashed to a pole.
I shifted to relieve the pressure on my cock. Letting her go was definitely not a priority.
I slowed and pulled over to the side of the road to take a break. The mountain soared to the heavens from the earth ahead. Even through the windshield, I could feel the drop in temperature. Never was there anywhere that felt so clean and pure as being high on a mountain with a cold wind in your face and nature abounding.
I’d loved this when I’d come here in the past. This freedom to think away from pressure and people must be why I’d felt the urge to come. Why the memories had surfaced. The cabin owned by Magnus was half fallout shelter, half ode to nature. Solid. It’d be up here still, even if he wasn’t home. I couldn’t recall much about the man but he’d been a close friend, and his main abode was in New York.
That memory had come back. Others would too, given time, peace, a safe place where no one could disturb me.
The little town of Ely wasn’t too far – down a road on the other side of the cabin. I’d go there after I’d found how the cabin had weathered the years – leave Kiara behind with instructions and go get some supplies. I’d be careful and not take too much from whoever I chose.
I closed the door of the BMW carefully, trying not to wake Kiara. Bees flitted past. The scent of the flowers and the tang of leaves and dirt was strong. Something big floundered through the bushes on the opposite side of the road, where the slope dropped away. Bear or moose, perhaps.
Peeing on flowers seemed wrong, so I aimed at the tufts of grass instead.
I’d get well here. I knew it.
This small road was narrow and flanked by scrub and scattered cascades of wildflowers. I’d parked the BMW so as to leave room for others to pass, which made it surprising when a white sedan pulled up behind us. I zipped up and turned, wondering if they thought us broken down.
Only to face a gun pointed at my face. The bearded, red-eyed man, in faded jeans and hunter’s jacket, had a wobble to his gun-aiming arm.
“Don’t say a fucking word!” he rattled off, spit flying.
I halted, raised my hands.
His girlfriend sauntered along behind, long blond hair wisping in the breeze. Her swagger gave the impression she enjoyed this. One hand was hooked in her waistband and the other was wrapped around a second pistol that she dangled at her side. A Glock.
; Her fidgety boyfriend had a Beretta.
I had nothing except me. It’d do.
“Hmm?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Keys. Hand them over. And get her out!” He pointed through the window then whacked the glass. “Tell her if she grabs anything she gets shot. Then you.”
And he’d just said don’t speak.
The keys were in the car but he seemed too jittery to notice.
Girlfriend grinned and raised her gun. Her red-edged eyes matched those of her boyfriend’s. As did the track marks on her arm. Her pink T-shirt had F##ck me, do I care? emblazoned across the front. “Yeah. Money, keys, your girl, your car, if you wanna live.”
Her sneer was a work of art as deep as her T-shirt words.
Kiara must’ve heard, plus the guy tapped the glass again with his gun and aimed it at her, at me, at her, at me again. Indecisive bastard.
I pulled open the door to let her climb out and backed away as she did so, going right and a little closer to the guy, to widen the area he’d need to cover. His aim wibble-wobbled between us.
“On yer knees!” He spat. “Both of you. Woooo. What a preeetty girl you got.”
All the while, I grappled for the right signs in his girl’s mind, or lack of mind. I needed her. I could kick the shit out of her boyfriend but someone would get shot. Maybe Kiara.
Kneeling would make it hard to move fast enough.
Kiara was shuffling to her knees, with her hands up.
“Now!” His Beretta muzzle grafted to me.
Girlfriend raised her gun too, but she left that other hand on hip in a casual, we-can-both-fuck-you-up way. If she fired, she’d likely hurt her teensy wrist.
“Now!” he screamed again. “Do it now!”
“Ooo, Greebo. Love it when you’re mad.”
I bent one knee as if about to obey.
He twitched a grin in her direction. “You ain’t seen nothing, yet, baby. This slow-as-fuck cocksucker just made me decide to get her to suck my cock.” He nodded at Kiara, his grin widening. I’d paused in movement. “Still slow! Do it, you fucker!”
I pretended I was confused, though at most it would give me a few seconds. Then I didn’t care anymore.
Things clicked.
I had her sidestep nearer to the car, kink the gun around to aim at him with a slight upward angle. I didn’t want blood on the car or us. She fired. Boom and brains blew out spray-splattering the shrubs and the road surface with liquid gobbets. Color – red.
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