by Kyle Autumn
Shaking all of that off, I take the first step toward the top and follow behind him.
He doesn’t move until I meet him halfway up. He stays paused for a moment, but then he takes my duffel bag from me and offers to carry my other bag the rest of the way. I clutch it to my torso instead though. I’m the only one who’ll handle this one. Then he shrugs and heads up the rest of the way in a huff.
Attitude. Anger. Frustration. That’s all this man is about.
I can’t deny that I’m curious why, but honestly, that shouldn’t be high on my priority list, either. He may say he can help me, but the last man who tried to help me fucked my entire life up. I have to learn my lesson somehow.
At the top of the stairs, he leads me to the bedroom next to his. “The bathroom’s over there.” He points to the door on the other side.
“I used it this morning,” I tell him. “Though I should probably take a shower. If that’s okay.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose, briefly closing his eyes and sighing. “You don’t have to ask.”
I feel like I do though. Even when I’m by myself, I find myself searching for permission. Adam ran so much of my life that I don’t know how to live one on my own. Of course, this is what I’m after, but it’s still hard to break deep-seated habits. So hard.
His exasperation over those habits doesn’t help. Or maybe it does. I don’t want to anger this man. His wrath is more than I can handle, so I better get used to doing things without asking before he takes it out on me.
“Okay.” I extend my hand so he’ll give me my bag. “I’ll go do that, then.”
When he hands it to me, I spin toward the bathroom. His voice stops me before I’m all the way through the door though.
“The sheets in here are clean,” he says. That low growl never leaves his voice. It’s like he’s irritated that he has to speak at all, but it never seems to stop him from doing so anyway. Then he starts to walk down the hall. “I’m going to make something to eat.”
When he disappears around the corner for the stairs, I release a breath. Does that mean he’s making something for both of us? I don’t dare ask. But that one slice of toast is burning off quickly with all of that adrenaline from the motel scene. I’m going to need more than that if it’s available. Especially when I’ve been living off gas station potato chips and random granola bars. An actual meal sounds amazing.
So amazing that my stomach makes noises. In protest? In excitement? I’m not sure. I just know that the shower is calling my name.
Under the hot spray, I relax for the first time in ages. Maybe I shouldn’t, but a part of me does feel safe with this man. I may not know his name, but that murder in his eyes will do me good if Adam comes knocking.
I didn’t bother with packing shampoo, soap, or conditioner when I ran from my husband. Motels have that stuff, and it wasn’t like I was afforded a shower every day with him anyway. When I was lucky enough to wash my hair, large chunks fell out each time, so I put it off more and more as the weeks would go by. Now, it could all fall out and I wouldn’t even care. My freedom is more important than that. So I settle on this generic bottle of men’s body wash and lather my head up.
It’s luxurious compared to my past—like a spa day.
And it smells just like the man downstairs. That clean, woodsy scent wraps me up in its tentacles and holds me close, like a security blanket made only for me.
As the shampoo rinses out, the rest of the black dye I splurged on to disguise myself the best I could runs down the drain. Once it’s all out of my hair, I wash my body. Carefully, I clean the skin I’ve grown into. All of the shiny rivers and gashes flow to one place: me. I’ve accepted it. But something about them flipped this man’s switch. He’d been punishing and bruising in the way he fucked me, but stripping me naked downstairs this morning had a totally different effect on him. One I’m not sure about.
Why didn’t he see them last night? I still don’t know, but I’m not sure I want to.
He’s mysterious. Dark. A little crazed.
I should find out. I should feel unsafe. I should want to bolt.
But I don’t.
When I get out of the shower, I notice a towel on the sink. It wasn’t there when I got in, so he must have come back and put it there for me. It’s those kinds of touches that break my walls down. No one’s put me first or thought of me and my comfort in years. I almost don’t know what to do with it. But I wrap the towel around me anyway and squeeze the excess water in my hair out in the tub.
It feels so strange to be clean. Good, but strange.
Once I’ve dried myself enough, I hang the towel to dry. Then I unzip my duffel to find any of the other clothes I brought. I didn’t grab much. I managed to stuff away only a few items Adam wouldn’t notice missing over the last few weeks. I couldn’t let him figure my plan out, so I had to be strategic the cuts between my toes healed enough for me to leave. And by the time I was ready to go, I didn’t think he’d noticed. But he’s figured it all out by now. Obviously, he knows I’m gone.
But does he know what else I took?
As I’m sifting through the few possessions I have, the bathroom door flies open. It’d shock me if I weren’t used to not having privacy. I’m naked though, crouched on the floor, and this man doesn’t like my scars.
Standing with fresh clothes in my hands, I don’t bother to hide myself. There’s something freeing about being stripped bare in front of him, even if he doesn’t like what he sees.
I can tell because the anger in his eyes flares as bright as the sun. It burns just like it too. It’s almost enough to make me squirm, but I won’t do it.
He clears his throat and avoids my gaze. “Will you tell me what happened to you yet?”
I counter with, “Will you tell me why you’re in here?”
That makes him look at me, but the fury only builds. “Our food is ready,” he growls.
My stomach rumbles at the possibility of eating something more than a single slice of bread.
The man takes a step closer to me though, as if he’s drawn to me like a magnet. He should be leaving the bathroom. He should go back downstairs and wait for me. But it’s like he’s being pulled to me. With his gaze on me, I feel heavy, weighed down, frozen in this spot. Naked and vulnerable but strong—yet unable to move. The closer he gets, the more my skin tingles in all the places Adam’s ever cut me, sliced me open, or tormented me.
Even in all the places he didn’t.
My face flushes. My hands itch to reach out to him. My neck flares with heat.
And when he’s a step away, I dare to lift my head and gaze him directly in the eye. I thought I’d be scared to see what’s in them, but the curiosity I find in them—the strange feeling that looks like care and a touch of sadness—leaves me incapable of looking away.
My heart flutters with the possibilities: freedom, no more pain, no more new scars.
My rational brain—the one I’ve built up over the years—pushes that down as utterly ridiculous. But something about the way this brute of a man gazes at me makes me think deep down that those things exist in this world. In his world. Even if he doesn’t want to admit it.
It’s crazy. I know that. And I have no right to trust my gut instincts when I’ve been brainwashed and kept captive for years. I can’t help it though. I want to trust, and I picked this man for a reason. I had to have done that. So I’m going with it.
Even though the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.
I just don’t believe that this man can be worse than the devil I lived with for three years.
Especially not when he takes that single step left between us.
And kisses me.
9
Zane
My brain doesn’t catch up to what I’m doing for a few moments—until it’s too late. It’s like she’s wrapped me up in that fucking spell again and I don’t know who I am anymore. What I’ve been through. How I’ve let my past fuck me up so I can�
��t get hurt again.
But when it does catch up, I shove her back.
She hits the edge of the tub and almost tumbles into it, but she stops herself with one arm. It’s too bad for her that it’s the arm she’s been favoring since I met her. When the pain hits, she falls to the floor and clutches it, tears springing into her eyes.
This is when I should feel like an asshole. I should extend a hand and help her up. I should apologize for being such a dickhead to her when she doesn’t deserve it.
But maybe she does, a small voice in my head says. Maybe she does for what she did to Adam.
What did she do though? Did she really do something to deserve the way he mutilated her?
If he’s the one who really did that, that voice chimes in.
I don’t trust her to tell me the truth. But I know Adam. I’ve known him for a long time. I didn’t know he had a wife, but clearly he didn’t want many people to know about her. And it makes me wonder if there are more. Does he have others he does this to?
Fuck. The thought makes me sick.
Her groan brings me back though. Brings me right back to the present, where she’s hurt in my bathroom from something I did to her.
I reach for her good arm and haul her back up. I can’t bring myself to apologize. Not with words. But her vulnerable eyes penetrate something deep within me, and it makes me want to say I’m sorry to her. I’m fucking sorry that this world is such trash. That someone felt the right to put their hands on her that way. That I was going to do whatever it would have fucking taken to get her back to that piece of shit.
All she is is a wake-up call for me right now. A reassurance that I made the right decision when I decided to get the fuck out of this business.
But now, I don’t think Adam will let me walk away that easily.
The one thing I do have that he’s not counting on is the woman standing in front of me. The woman who’s flipped my fucking life upside down in twelve hours. The one I fucked last night with no regard for her satisfaction—because that’s just who I’ve become as a man.
Fuck. That.
Yeah, I’m gonna use this woman to get me out of this shit. But I’m gonna do it so she gets out of this shit too. And if that means saying I’m sorry in ways other than with words, I guess that’s what I’ll do.
I fucking owe her anyway.
A tear slips down her cheek, but I don’t think it’s from pain. This woman is used to pain. She barely put up a fight when I pounded into her and pushed her face into the bed last night. She must have gotten through what looks like years of abuse and mutilation. She knows pain well.
Maybe it’s from embarrassment. Maybe it’s frustration. Maybe she’s just as angry deep down as I am. Perhaps it’s a combination of all three.
All I know is that, for some reason, this woman came straight to me. This woman picked me out of the crowd in that bar, and maybe that’s because I was about to snatch her from the bathroom. Either way, we were meant to run into each other.
And I don’t give a fuck why at the moment.
With all of these scars, souvenirs of her time with that piece of shit, staring me in the face, all I want to do is give her one fucking day where she isn’t terrified of another human being. It could only be to prove that I’m not a piece of shit like he is. I can’t be associated with that walking trash dump of a dead man. I won’t treat her the way he did.
Just one fucking day.
It might be all we have left before the fight knocks on my door.
So I take the clothes from her hands and toss them onto her duffel bag. Then I pick her bag up and have her follow me into the bedroom—my bedroom. “You’ll stay in here. It’ll be safer.”
Sure. Whatever we have to tell ourselves.
I go to leave, but a soft hand around my wrist renders me frozen. It’s not like she could have stopped me if she’d tried. She’s not that strong. But her fingers on me, her skin on mine… It’s gentle. It’s careful. It’s not the rough treatment I’ve become trained to expect.
It’s more than I can bear.
And it nearly brings me to my knees.
No one’s touched me like that in years. And it makes me realize she and I have more in common than I thought. Which makes me want to do things I’ve never done before. Things I can’t even think, let alone say out loud. It’s fucking ridiculous, but I can’t deny that the thought is there. Just out of reach, like a wild dream I shouldn’t have dared to concoct. It’ll never be that between us, so I won’t try.
But I do turn back to her to see what she wants.
“I’m taking now,” she says. So sure. So confident. Even in a quiet voice.
It gives me chills.
And it makes me submit.
She steps toward me, her hands going for the buttons on my shirt. Slowly, button by button, she inches her way down until it falls open. Then she slips it off my shoulders and lets it float to the floor. I go to grip her hips to stop her, shove her back again—this shouldn’t happen.
But it’s what she wants. And this woman hasn’t gotten what she wants in far too long, it seems.
Instead of heading straight for my belt again, she slides her hand over me, cupping me in her palm. After her small squeeze, I’m hard as a rock, wondering what the fuck she’s trying to accomplish. But her words replay in my head and I stand still, letting her take—until I can’t take it anymore.
I scoop her up and storm over to the bed. As her wet hair drips water onto my skin, her breasts press against me, her nipples rubbing over my chest. They bob as I take the three strides and set her onto the bed. I’m careful not to hurt her sore arm this time, and her gratitude shines in her eyes. It makes me want to balance it out with something rough and painful, but I grit my teeth and groan to hold it back. She wants to take—I’m not supposed to give.
That is until she pushes my head down, down, down toward that pussy that felt so good last night. I may not have a recollection of her under me, but there’s no way I’ll ever forget what it felt like to have her wrapped around me.
Which is probably why Adam wants her back so badly.
He has other reasons too, obviously. Like he could go the fuck to jail for what he’s done to her. But fuck. She’s like molten gold around a cock. It’s part of why I lost so much control with her. Why I have to be careful now.
Or not. She doesn’t want my dick.
She wants my tongue.
And to get this woman back to fighting speed when her husband comes to get her, I’ll do it. She’s gonna have to be able to take her revenge, not wait for it to come to her. Which means I’ll show her what taking what she wants is like.
One swipe of her clit at a time.
10
Willow
Pleasure like I’ve never felt it before whips through me like a frenzy. Each time his tongue passes over me, new nerve endings fire—ones I didn’t even know I had. Adam never once did this for me, and now, I know why: If I’d known how much better life could be without him, I would have left a long time ago. Instead, he kept me from knowing real pleasure as a means to keep me under his thumb.
It worked, but no longer would it.
Now, taking what I want feels good.
This man sucks and nibbles and hits all the right spots. My thighs quiver as I get closer and closer to the edge. When I peek down at him, panting so hard that I’m afraid I might pass out, I think I’ll see him with his eyes closed. He’s giving me what I want and letting me take it, but I’m sure he doesn’t want to look at it. His anger earlier made that very, very clear.
But what I find shocks me to my core.
His eyes are wide open, blazing at me. Watching me as I take this pleasure and let it wash over me.
The sight is enough to make me come on the spot.
I shake, trembling all over, as I breathe though my climax. Long, heavy breaths leave my mouth and my nose as I try to come back down to Earth. But I’ve never felt anything like that before. The intimacy of it. The b
uildup and the final release of it. The fluttery, light-as-air feeling from the end of it.
I’m so dizzy, and I can’t catch my breath.
Fear starts as a small worry niggling at my brain. Dizzy, unable to breathe—those mean danger. If I don’t have my senses, I’m a dead woman walking. If I’m not able to think one step ahead of Adam’s predictable torture, then I’ll lose the only thing I have left: my life. My brain won’t even let me recognize that Adam’s not here to hurt me. I’m with this brute of a man who wants to give me pleasure and lets me take it.
It’s not enough.
Violently, I shoot up from the bed and sprint over to my duffel. Without stopping to make sure I have it securely, I drag it into the bathroom and slam the door shut. With my back pressed to it, I slide down and hold a hand over my eyes.
What the fuck am I doing?
Terrified, I stay in that position for…I don’t know how long. Minutes? Hours? Eventually, he knocks on the door, and I startle, forgetting that it’s probably not Adam.
“Come out of there,” he demands. It’s not in his usual gruff tone. There’s a little exasperation in there this time. But it still wasn’t a question. He’s still telling me what to do.
In my usual manner, I begin to get up. I respond to the demand up until the point where I reach for the door handle. Then I realize what’s happening and I drop my hand. No. No, I won’t let him do that. I’ll take my peace and quiet in this bathroom for as long as I need it. So I start to get dressed, but I can tell he hasn’t moved.
He stays there, his shadow playing under the opening at the bottom of the door, until I finally open it. I’m back in another sweatshirt, no matter how warm it’ll get this afternoon, and yoga pants—all to hide my brutal skin. The questions, the stares… I can’t take it. I don’t want to explain. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to be reminded. I just want to be.