Chapter Eleven

 

Tamara

I toss and turn all night, and when dawn breaks, I give up on sleep.

I pull on an ankle-length black-and-gray plaid wool skirt, thick black tights, and a black turtleneck sweater, with chunky flat boots. My boots have steel toes; I’m also wearing a ring that could put a man’s eye out, and I have my pepper spray and Taser close at hand. I cover myself in weapons these days.

Then I pack. It doesn’t take long. With shaking hands, I scribble a note for Sarah. I tell her how grateful I am for everything she’s done for me and promise that I will be in touch soon. I tell her that I just need some time alone.

I call a taxi to take me to the bus station, then I sneak out so I won’t have to go through the pain of saying goodbye, to say nothing of answering any awkward questions.

How could I explain my life to her?

“My former lover-slash-kidnapper sent a squad to spy on me and beat up any man who even talks to me, so I don’t feel comfortable staying here anymore.” She’d freak out. She’d insist I call the police.

I walk to the front of the gated subdivision, and I get there just as a taxi is pulling up. The guard opens the gate for me.

“Laura Jones?” The taxi driver calls out the fake name I gave him. Yes, I’m paranoid these days. I think that’s a normal reaction after what I’ve been through.

“Yes, that’s right.” With a regretful glance behind me, I climb in.

Everything is fine until, a few miles down the road, he makes a turn that’s so sudden it throws me against the door. At first I think he’s dodging a pothole, but then I see he’s pulling into a parking lot. “Joshua wants a word,” he informs me.

Fucking Joshua.

A small nuclear explosion of rage detonates inside me. Yes, I miss Joshua. Yes, I want to see him, but not by being kidnapped. Again.

I grab my pepper spray.

The taxi door opens, and Joshua is standing there, looming over me, blotting out the sun. That handsome face is staring down at me, those cool blue eyes capturing my gaze. My treacherous heart starts thudding in my chest, and for just a moment, I want to leap into his arms and pull him to me, before I remember that he’s about to drag me off somewhere against my will and steal all my choices. With the help of the fucking cab driver.

Furious, I stick my pepper spray into the front seat and press the button before I lunge out of the car. My eyes sting and water a little bit, but the taxi driver got the full blast. He lets out a shrill scream, throwing open his door and staggering out onto the pavement.

Joshua grabs my arm tightly as he marches me over to a limo that’s idling a few feet away. I swing the pepper spray toward him, and he snatches it from my hand.

“If you could stop injuring my employees, that would be nice,” he says coolly, maneuvering me into the back seat of the limo with more force than is strictly necessary. He reaches over and pulls the door shut, and the lock clicks into place.

Is he kidding me?

“If you could stop stalking me and kidnapping me, I wouldn’t have to!” I yell at him. “What the hell was that back at the restaurant, by the way?”

“You were being harassed. My employee took appropriate measures.” A big man in a dark suit is taking my suitcases from the trunk of the cab and carrying them toward the limo.

“Harassed?” I say angrily. “Bullshit! A man came up and tried to flirt with me because he saw me sitting with a bunch of women and assumed I was single, and I politely declined because I told him I had just gotten out of a really bad relationship, and he immediately backed off. And your employee beat the hell out of him. He had no right.”

“He had every right!” Joshua’s face twists into something truly frightening, and his anger burns the air like heat from a radiator. “If I’d been there, I would have killed him!”

Joshua’s employee puts my suitcases in the front seat, and climbs in. The limo starts moving, pulling out of the parking lot. I just stare at him, blank-faced, and he takes several deep breaths before he finally calms down.

He looks a little different. A hint of something haunted in his eyes, a faint air of weariness. He turns away from me, his brows drawing together.

“I’ve never been jealous before. It’s an unpleasant feeling. Messy, ineffective.” He’s staring out the window as he says that, and it’s more like he’s speaking to himself than me. Chastising himself for his weakness. He turns to face me again. “I’m not lying when I say that if you so much as flirted with another man, I’d have to kill him. I couldn’t stop myself. So be warned.”

I shake my head. “No. Just no. I can’t live like this, Joshua. You need to let me out of this car, now. You need to let me live my life.” I grab at the door handle, but of course it’s locked.

“I can’t. It’s not safe. My brother escaped from the prison hospital yesterday evening. Seduced a doctor this time. You’d think they’d learn not to let any women near him. Her body was found by the side of the road an hour ago.”

A wave of ice crashes over me. Horrible images crowd into my brain. Phantom agony stabs up my rectum, and I hear the sounds of Micah’s grunts in my ear as he violated me there. I scrabble for my purse and pull out my phone. He puts his hand over mine.

“Who were you planning on calling?”

“Astrid. Her children.”

“They already know.”

“Are they safe?’

“Yes. Sweet little Tamara, always worrying and putting other people’s needs before her own.” There’s a hint of gentle mockery in his voice.

I drop the phone back into my purse and look away from him, struggling to pull air into my lungs. Micah’s free… He’s looking for me. I’m sure of it. I wouldn’t survive another round with him. I wouldn’t survive another hour with him.

“I was going to go off the grid anyway.” Is my voice trembling? I clear my throat. “I’ll ditch my phone, work under the table. I’ll…stay hidden. I’ll be careful.”

“Yeah, you’re doing a great job so far,” he scoffs. “If I could trick you into getting into a fake cab, so could my brother. That money he stole from me? I haven’t been able to track it down. He has a hundred million dollars of mine. That kind of money means he can find just about anyone, anywhere, given enough time.”

I cross my arms over my chest like a sullen kindergartener. “So, what? You plan to lock me away forever to save me?”

He shakes his head, and now there’s a spark of humor in his eyes. “I won’t have to. You’re going to come around. You’re going to decide to stay with me on your own. And in the meantime, we’re going to work on those self-defense skills.”

“I kicked your thug’s ass back at the restaurant,” I remind him with a smirk.

He smiles coldly. “That’s because I told him that if he hurt you in any way, I’d peel the skin from his body and make him into a leather jacket.”

Oh. I feel a little deflated. I thought I was seriously badass back there. Guess not.

As if he can read my mind, he pats my knee. “You still did pretty well. You were prepared, you had a weapon, and your kick has some real power to it. But it wouldn’t have been enough to stop my brother.”

The feeling of his hand on my leg weakens me, so I try to push it away. “I’m still choosing freedom over safety. And it’s my choice, not yours. Pull over.”

His hand tightens on my knee, and he looks at me with challenge in his eyes.

I still own your body, and I’ll touch it where and how I want to, for as long as I want to.

That’s the message he’s telegraphing with his eyes. Shamefully, I’m wet for him in an instant. I squirm uncomfortably and hug myself to hide the fact that my nipples are swollen little nubs rubbing against my shirt.

Too late. A triumphant smile curves those sensual lips as his gaze wanders over my breasts. “You’re going to be begging for it by the end of the day.”

“Pass, thanks.”

“I can’t decide what part of you I’m going to lick first.”

My face flames red. He settles back in his seat, and I squirm. I’m uncomfortably aroused, and from the smile on his face, he knows it.

A little while later, we arrive at a private airport.

He hustles me on to a plane that could easily seat twenty, and one of his men loads my suitcases into a baggage compartment. Then the man climbs off the plane. The door to the pilot’s cabin is locked.

I’m alone with Joshua.

Arousal burns the fight right out of me. I struggle to find my anger, my hatred. I try to call up images of being chained up in that dark cell, but instead I think of our baths every morning, Joshua’s tongue dancing on my clit.

We settle into our seats. He waits until we’re airborne before he says to me, “I’m going to need your cell phone. You can give it to me voluntarily or not.” I see the gleam in his eyes. “You know what will happen if you say no.”

He’s hoping I’ll fight him on this.

I should just hand it to him. I know what will happen to me if I don’t.

But I want that.

I’ve been craving it ever since I was taken from him.

I shoot out of my seat, my purse firmly clutched in my hand. It’s ridiculous. We’re on a freaking plane; where would I go? I head toward the restrooms in the back.

He chases after me and catches me halfway down the aisle. My purse falls to the ground, and I give a strangled cry. He captures my wrists in one hand and easily ties them together with his necktie. Then he fishes my cell phone out of my pocket and drops it on the floor and stomps on it several times, shattering it.

“You bastard! Sarah gave me that!” I howl.

“Aw, you poor baby. Are you going to cry now?”

Why do his cruel words turn me on so fucking much?

There’s a small love seat at the back of the plane. He bends my arms painfully and steers me down the aisle, then sits down, pulling me across his lap at the same time.

“Miss me, baby?” With one hand, he holds my arm, trapping me there. He pushes my skirt up, leaving my tights on, and his other hand descends on my ass in a stinging slap. The jolt of ecstasy that shoots through me makes me scream.

“No,” I choke out, fighting for my last little scrap of self-respect.

“Liar.” His hand descends in a series of very hard smacks. They’re painful and shockingly erotic at the same time. I thrash and scream, twisting on his lap, but even as my butt grows hot and painfully sore, the juices of my arousal soak my panties.

“Let’s try that again,” he taunts me. “Did you miss me?”

“Yes,” I sob shamefully. Tears drip onto the love seat, and I writhe on his lap, almost sliding off. He grabs me by the hip and hauls me back on. As I squirm, he seizes the waistband of my tights and does something with his hand, and I hear the ripping of cloth. Cool air wafts across my rear, and his fingers gently graze the curve of my cheek, tracing it from top to bottom.

I tense. Micah branded his initials onto my right cheek, and the scar is still there. Joshua, as ever, is attuned to what I’m feeling, and he knows just what to say.

“I own every inch of your perfect skin.” His voice is so strong and commanding, he’s like a warlock casting a spell, leaving me no choice but to believe. “I always have, and I always will.”

“I have scars,” I moan.

“No. You have badges of survival.”

How incredible of him. He took what was shameful and transformed it into a symbol of strength.

And with that, I feel the tension flowing from my body. He strokes me again. My freshly spanked skin is exquisitely sensitive, and I moan aloud at his touch. “Oh. Oh.”

“Are you wet for me?”

I buck against his grip. I don’t want to admit it.

“Shall I just see for myself then?”

With one hand on my wrists, he pushes down and holds me still as he slides a finger inside me, through the hole he made in my tights. “You’re soaking,” he says smugly, and begins to stroke me, his finger curving against the sensitive inner wall.

“Ahh!” I cry.

My legs part of their own accord and I feel the fabric rip in more places.

“You want me?”

“Yes!” I sob. “Damn it! You know I do! You always know.”

“Yes, I do. If you want me, tell me. I need to hear it. What do you want me to do to you?”

I press my face into the love seat and mumble the shameful words. “I want you to fuck me.”

I’m afraid he’ll make me say it again, louder, but apparently he’s equally hot for me. In one swift motion, he sets me down on the floor.

“Face in the carpet, ass in the air,” he barks, and I hurry to obey. As I spread my legs apart, the tights rip all the way, down the back and up the crotch, and I’m completely exposed.

For a brief moment, my vulnerable position sends a shaft of fear through my heart. Micah’s leering face swims in front of me, but I use the creative visualization techniques they taught me at the yoga studio. I toss a grenade at him, and he explodes, shattering, flying into a million pieces, and fades from my mind.

I’m back in the plane with Joshua, and I’m hungry for the feel of his thick, hard cock.

I hear the crinkle of a condom wrapper and clench my fists impatiently. Then he’s back, kneeling behind me. He strokes between my legs, sliding two fingers in and pumping them inside me.

Weeks and weeks of pent-up desire burn painfully inside me. The wanting is agony.

“Please,” I grit between my teeth. “Please, Joshua! I want you inside me, please, now!”

“Yes. I know.” His rich, warm voice drips like chocolate. “But I decide when. Not you.” He presses against my swollen clit with the pad of his thumb, wrenching a cry from me.

“Bastard!” I pant with desire and open my legs even wider as he rubs back and forth.

“I missed this, Tamara. I love how much you want me. I love hurting you. I love making you beg for it. Cry for it. I’m a sick motherfucker, aren’t I?” He presses my clit harder and moves faster, and I’m close, so close. Hot pleasure swells inside me.

“Yes, yes, yes…no!” I scream with rage as he suddenly pulls his hand away.

Then the fat head of his cock presses against my entrance. I wriggle like a cat in heat, pushing back. He forces his way in slowly, drawing it out. I feel as if eons are passing as he slides in bit by bit until he’s plunged in to the hilt and his pubic hair tickles my butt. I groan with pleasure. I love how his thick cock fills me and stretches me.

Holding my hips, he rocks in and out of me. My face presses painfully into the carpet and my wrists strain against the silken neck-tie.

That tidal wave of ecstasy rises inside me again, higher and higher, hotter and hotter, and he pumps so hard that my cheek is rubbed raw against the carpet with each thrust. The whole universe shrinks down to the heat between my legs.

“Come for me,” he snaps, his tone vicious. “Come for me right now or I’ll beat you until you fucking pass out.”

As if his words are magic, I finally crest and fall over, the explosion rippling through my body and sending showers of sparks behind my clenched eyelids. I cry into the carpet as wave after wave slams against me, shattering me.

“Oh, yes, yes, yes…” I moan, and I can hear his groans from high above me as the convulsing of my inner walls milks him and forces him over the edge too. His body shudders with release, and when he’s done, he lets out a long, contented sigh.

As he slowly slides out, mini tremors rock my body and I pant shamelessly, dazed with the aftermath. He unties me, and I roll onto my side, lying on the carpet, feeling limp and boneless. He lies down behind me and hugs me to him. I feel completely safe in the fortress of his arms, caged in but loved and cherished and protected. His shirt is soaked with sweat. I press back against him, drinking in his scent—perspiration and woodsy cologne and the musk of his arousal.

He presses his lips against my ear, and his hot breath sears my flesh. “You see, Tamara? Your body belongs to me. Your orgasms belong to me. My name is branded onto every cell on your body. Deeper than that, even. I own you on a subatomic level. How could you ever escape me? I’m part of you now.”