by Cindy Dees
“It’s almost over,” he whispered in desperation. “I hate this as much as you. Just a little bit more to make it look real.” He swore under his breath.
“Do what you have to,” she was magnanimous enough to whisper back.
“I’m sorry. A thousand times sorry—”
“No more apologies. Just finish the damned video.”
He reached for his own zipper and shoved his jeans down to the tops of his thighs. Silently, he prayed that his T-shirt was long enough to cover up most of his bare ass hanging out in the breeze for the camera.
Piper’s eyes glazed over with real panic then. She fought like a wildcat, and he was sincerely grateful he’d kept one of her hands chained to that blasted pole. He’d met some strong, fast, fit women in his day, but Piper was in another class of athletes altogether.
Her fist caught him painfully on the side of his jaw, and he forcefully grabbed her wrist, yanking it up over her head. He had to use his height and strength to full effect to even stand a chance at subduing Piper. It took a couple hard-fought minutes, and he was breathing hard before she finally appeared to exhaust herself enough to stop flinging herself around wildly.
He noted a trickle of blood running down her handcuffed forearm. God, he hoped the camera caught that. Because no way was he doing anything else to harm her.
He shoved his crotch against her lower belly over and over, mimicking sex. His jaw clenched against a scream of fury at being forced into this travesty of what should be a beautiful, gentle and respectful sharing of souls.
He ground out, “Scream, Piper. Scream as loud as you can.”
Man, she had a set of lungs on her. His ears rang from the piercing shriek she let out about four inches from his right ear. Grimly, he pumped his hips, bumping and grinding against her belly.
How long did he have to keep this up for it to look like a realistic rape, anyway? He had no idea.
The good news was that Piper dissolved into tears—real tears—just then. He felt physically ill for upsetting her that badly, but dammit, for her own safety it had to look believable. It wasn’t like he had any choice about this, either. They were both victims this time.
He sped up his hip pumps and made grunting noises that disgusted him, hearing them coming from his own throat. He gave a shout and then collapsed against her.
He muttered against her sweaty neck, “May God forgive me. Not that I’ll ever deserve it from Him or from you.”
And then he stepped away from her. Keeping his back to the camera, he pulled up his pants and fastened them. Still blocking the camera, and without looking down at her unclothed body, he tugged up her underwear and jeans and pulled her shirt closed over her bra. The buttons were long gone, of course. But at least he could preserve a bit of her modesty for her.
Last, but not least, he reluctantly lifted his gaze to hers. Her good eye was huge and terrified, brimming with tears and accusation. The other eye was puffy and swollen from yesterday’s video beating, but it still leaked a stream of tears that streaked her cheek.
Swearing at himself in a continuous mental stream of castigation, he stepped behind the camera and zoomed in on her face, catching all the betrayal and hurt in her expression in one last, intensely cinematic shot before he turned off the camera.
“Thanks for your help with that,” he said quietly. “Can I get you anything?”
“Get out of here. I need to be alone. I don’t want to look at you right now.”
Yeah. He deserved that.
Feeling about as crummy as he’d ever felt in his life, he nodded miserably and unscrewed the video camera from the tripod. He turned to leave, then paused and turned back to her one last time.
“I am more sorry than words can convey. From the bottom of my heart. But I swear to you, there was no other way. It was them or me.”
Chapter 7
In her rational mind, Piper knew she’d dodged a horrendous bullet. But in her emotional heart, feeling Goldeneyes’s flaccid man parts thrusting against her belly over and over and over had been invasive, humiliating and degrading. It might not have been rape, but it certainly qualified as sexual assault.
She was intensely grateful to him for not actually raping her. But foremost in her mind, she was appalled that he’d been big enough and strong enough to overpower her like that. She’d deluded herself into believing that, with her specialized training, no man could do that to her ever. But he’d proved her wrong.
It wasn’t his fault, of course, that he’d been picked to attack her. And it wasn’t even particularly his fault that he was the man to puncture her false assumptions about her invincibility.
Granted, she’d been handcuffed to a pole, which gave him a distinct advantage. But still. She prided herself on being as strong as most men and better trained to fight. The fact that she was still that vulnerable to an assault was beyond appalling. It was terrifying.
What if next time one of the other men decided to have a go at her? What if it wasn’t a simulated assault? Her mind shied away from even trying to imagine what that would be like. As it was, a protective fog of shock was lowering around her like a blanket.
She slid down the pole to huddle on the floor beside it. Using her as yet untethered right hand, she reached out and pulled one of the blankets around her shoulders. Then, hugging her legs, she dropped her forehead to her knees and sobbed out her fear and exhaustion.
A completely irrational sense of betrayal filled her that her one champion had put her through that. Rationally, she acknowledged that in some ways, he was also a victim in the scenario. He’d apologized profusely, over and over, clearly horrified by the whole situation, too.
He’d been as considerate as he could possibly be, given what they’d both been forced into pretending to do. But when he’d dropped his pants, all the reasonable explanations for being okay with any of it had fled her mind. It had become too real. Too personal.
She’d squeezed her eyes shut and refused to look at him. She couldn’t bear to see him enjoy any part of what they’d done together.
As she forced herself to replay it in her head, something dawned on her. He hadn’t been turned on by the encounter. At all.
His male parts had been completely unaroused against her belly as he’d shoved his pelvis at hers over and over. Thank God for that, at least.
Gradually, the initial shock of the simulated attack wore off, and she registered other small details that she’d failed to notice when the assault was happening. He’d never hurt her once, not the whole time she’d been fighting against him. And she’d landed a few pretty good punches on him.
He’d also carefully used his body to block her from the camera. The most anyone would ever see on that film was her face and maybe some of her legs.
She did note ruefully that he’d done a number on her shirt, though. It was ruined. Still, rather than give her captors the pleasure of taunting her with them, she collected the buttons she could reach off the floor and stuffed them in the back pocket of her jeans.
Her captors probably wouldn’t cough up a needle and thread for her to sew the buttons back on. The garment had effectively become a jacket. Which meant she couldn’t wear her blanket armor anymore, either. Not without a shirt to hide it.
She didn’t relish parading around in her bra in front of these jerks, and she resorted to tying the tails of her shirt together to form a makeshift crop top. It exposed a strip of her stomach—which God knew would be plenty of temptation for a crew of terrorists. But her bra and most of her cleavage were safely covered up now.
Major Torsten would undoubtedly tell her in this situation to learn from it. To focus on taking care of herself and being ready to exploit any openings that came her way. Speaking of which, Goldeneyes had mentioned at the beginning of that awful encounter that he was working on an escape for both of them. Did she dare hope he was telling the truth?
If he indeed ran away with her, she would go with him initially, and then break away and strike out on her own. She didn’t dare trust him, and honestly, her survival skills were probably vastly superior to his. He would be nothing but dead weight to her...
Okay. Fine. She was lying to herself. She mostly didn’t want to be alone with any man right now, especially not the man who’d just convincingly made a video of assaulting her.
Mentally exhausted and emotionally wiped out by the encounter, she rested her head against the pole, closed her eyes in genuine exhaustion and went to sleep.
* * *
Zane handed over the video camera without comment and made sure to give it directly to Mahmoud. It occurred to him yet again to wonder if, now that Mahmoud’s superiors had this video, they might not need Piper alive any longer to act as leverage to force her supposed husband into action.
Ready or not, he was out of time to get her away from these men. The two of them had to disappear before this cell of violent thugs received orders to kill her and hide the body.
Mahmoud had the gall to ask, “Was she any good?”
Bastard. “Of course not,” Zane replied scornfully. “She fought almost until the very end.”
“Excellent,” Mahmoud commented.
“Do you need anything else from me, or can I go cook us a decent supper now?”
“Go.”
Zane mechanically went through the motions of making his grandmother’s world-famous spaghetti sauce. Thankfully, he’d seen her make it a thousand times and he’d made it a hundred times himself because his mind was completely occupied with the woman downstairs.
He had to get her out of here sooner rather than later, identifying Mahmoud’s real target be damned. Now that the taboo of raping the hostage had been broken, he didn’t doubt that Yousef or one of the others would get the bright idea to have a go at Piper for themselves.
That, and he was certain that Mahmoud’s superiors would give the green light to get rid of Piper any minute.
Man. If only he had some Rohypnol. He would totally roofie these bastards’ food and knock them all out. He eyed the bottle of wine he’d bought to flavor the sauce with. Muslims technically weren’t supposed to drink. But he’d found over the years that some of them would indulge from time to time. And this crew had not shown itself to be particularly religious.
Why would they be religious? After all, if they casually killed people without remorse, what was a glass of wine among friends? If nothing else, maybe a glass of wine would relax these guys and get them to sleep a little more deeply tonight.
He set the kitchen table for dinner and made a point of pouring glasses of wine at each place. He also made sure to give himself the smallest wineglass and to put only a splash of wine in it—just enough to make it look like he’d been drinking while he prepared the meal.
He piled big mounds of spaghetti on each plate and slathered them with sauce. What wine couldn’t accomplish, maybe a carbohydrate coma could. He’d toasted a huge basketful of garlic bread as well, and put that in the middle of the table.
Then he called out, “Dinner’s served.”
The other men piled into the kitchen and dug into the meal with gusto. He made a point of refilling their plates over and over, stuffing them as much as he could.
Eventually, the men pushed back from the table, bellies overfull and their moods expansive. Zane got up and started carrying dishes over to the sink. “You guys go chill out and I’ll clean up this mess,” he said casually.
Bijan, the youngest of the bunch, commented, “Having you around is almost like being home with my mother.”
He grinned at the kid. “I’m about to start yelling at you about it being past your bedtime, little boy.”
The other men laughed and jumped in, ribbing Bijan about being a baby as they sauntered out of the kitchen in good humor. It was one of the few times he’d ever seen them let down their hair and relax. Maybe the wine was having the effect he’d hoped for.
He’d done all he could to ensure they crashed early and slept hard tonight. When the dishes were done, he carried a plate of spaghetti down to Piper. She was asleep, so he set it beside her quietly and retreated without waking her up. She’d earned some rest after her earlier trauma.
God willing, she would need to be rested before the night was out.
He joined the men upstairs and was delighted when Yousef produced the case of beer he’d added to the grocery cart earlier. They all lounged on the furniture and floor, drinking and watching an American preseason football game on the crappy box-style television hooked to an old-fashioned satellite dish.
Zane carried his beer with him when he went to the bathroom, and poured it into the toilet. He passed out fresh beers whenever someone emptied theirs, and just as important, he made sure everyone indulged about equally. He needed them all to pass out.
The game ended, and Mahmoud stood up, asking, “Who’s taking first watch tonight?”
Nobody volunteered, and Zane sighed loudly, “Fine. I’ll do it. Who’s second?”
Mahmoud pointed at Osted, the quietest of the bunch.
Zane nodded at the young man. “I’ll wake you up in, say, two hours?”
“Make it four,” Mahmoud objected. “That way only two of us have to stand watch tonight.”
Osted grinned and Zane flipped the kid off.
As the others headed for their beds, Zane stepped outside into the bracing chill of a mountain evening and took a lap around the cabin. Ideally, he would get the van keys and drive away from here with Piper. But Mahmoud kept the keys on his person at all times, and Zane wasn’t interested in accidentally waking the guy up while trying to steal the stupid things.
He’d checked out the van yesterday, and it wasn’t an ideal vehicle to hot-wire, either. Not to mention hot-wiring could get noisy as an engine tried and failed to ignite a few times before it caught and actually started. He couldn’t afford to risk any sound waking up the other men.
Nope, the best bet was going to be for him and Piper to sneak away on foot. To disappear into the mountains. Thankfully, she was a soldier. Even though she was beaten up, she should be half-decent at hiking over rough terrain.
He made another circuit of the cabin, scouting for patches of loud leaves on the ground and noting logs and other obstacles to a silent departure. He also forayed out into the woods in several different directions, being sure to make obvious tracks each time. No sense making it easy for the bastards to track him and Piper.
Preparations complete, he went back inside the house to wait for the others to get fully to sleep. He noted that the kitchen door, which he used to enter, squeaked a bit.
While he waited, he quietly packed a rucksack with all the survival gear he’d secretly collected over the past few days in anticipation of bugging out with the hostage. He also dabbed a bit of olive oil on the door hinges to quiet them. There. Ready to go. Now he just had to let the others have plenty of time to fall into a deep slumber.
He timed it on his watch, waiting two full hours before he eased into the kitchen. And then he headed down into the basement.
Here went nothing.
* * *
Piper woke abruptly as a hand closed over her mouth. Her eyes flew open, and she stared up at Goldeneyes. Without uncovering her mouth, he leaned close to whisper in her ear, “You and I need to leave now. If you stay here any longer, they’ll kill you. Or worse. Do you understand?”
Oh, she understood, all right. But did she dare trust him?
Frowning, she nodded up at him. If she could get him alone in the woods, away from here, she could at least sneak away or overpower him and make her own escape. But vivid in her mind was the memory of how easily he’d wrestled her into submission earlier.
He gripped her handcuffs to keep them from rattling against the steel pole, then unlatche
d them quietly, easing them off her wrists and tucking them in his back pocket.
She rubbed her left wrist gently, checking to see how bad the abrasions were from when she’d fought against the fake attack earlier. Two thin red rings of raw flesh encircled most of her wrist.
A hand appeared in front of her, palm up in offer, and she took it, letting Goldeneyes help her to her feet. He held out a sweatshirt to her, and she glanced at him, making eye contact for the first time.
“Leave your shirt on and put this on top,” he whispered. “It’s cold outside.”
She nodded and donned the sweatshirt. As it passed over her head, she recognized the scent. It was the smell of him. A little bit spicy, a little bit musky. All man. She’d gotten a good whiff of it when his body had been mashed against hers from neck to knee.
Residual panic flashed through her at the scent trigger.
Swearing silently, she tugged the soft fabric over her face and pulled it down her torso angrily. She was all right. She hadn’t been raped for real. It had all been fake. She was lucky as hell that he’d been willing to merely simulate sexually assaulting her.
He grabbed the two thickest blankets and stuffed them into a rucksack. It wouldn’t zip all the way up with the bulky blankets in it, but he slung it over his shoulder and gestured for her to follow him.
She trailed after him up the stairs, rolling from heel to toe with each step the way she’d been trained to move silently. He pointed at one of the stairs and then stepped over it, and she did the same. She’d already noted from his various trips up and down that it squeaked.
He held up a closed fist at the top, telling her to stop, and she did so. Huh. How did he know that she would know that hand signal? Oh. Right. He’d spotted her West Point class ring. He must presume—correctly—that she was a soldier.
He eased over to the back door and opened it gently.
Unbidden, a rush of adrenaline slammed through her. She was getting out of here. Away from her captors. The nightmare was over.