Chapter Twelve

 

Tamara

I actually doze off on the plane. I didn’t sleep last night, and the orgasmic sex with Joshua is followed by a great wave of weariness.

When we land, I wake up with a start, groggily, and realize my head is resting on Joshua’s shoulder. Just like a normal couple. I lie there for a few seconds and relish the feeling, the way I used to do sometimes when Joshua was holding me captive. I used to spin lies in my head, back then, pretending that I was living my dream life with the sexiest man in the world.

I’m sitting here on a private jet with my rich, handsome boyfriend who loves me…

“Home sweet home,” Joshua says, shattering the illusion.

I straighten up and look out the window at the tarmac. “Prison sweet prison.”

He looks down at me fondly and runs his thumb over my lips. “Keep it up. I haven’t delivered a really good ass-beating in far too long, and clearly you’re in need.”

We sit there in silence while the plane taxis to a stop, then wait for the stairs to be rolled up to the plane’s door.

“My tights are ripped,” I say, suddenly self-conscious when the door opens.

“It’ll be our dirty little secret.” He grins at me wickedly.

I look around as I walk down the stairs. We’re on a private airstrip. It’s about thirty degrees warmer than Flat Plains; we’re not in Nebraska anymore. The trees here are lower and scrubbier looking. They’re strangely twisted and look as if they’d be thorny to the touch.

“Those are mesquite. They’re called the devil tree,” Joshua says, following my gaze.

How appropriate.

Near the airstrip, I see high stucco walls with a lacing of razor wire running all along the top.

I squint into the distance, across the plains, at mountains whose tops are swallowed by haze. “Where are we?”

“North Texas. Home sweet home. For now. We can decide where we want to go once my brother’s back in prison. Until then, I like it here. We can see anything that’s coming at us for a hundred miles in any direction.” Joshua walks toward a man who’s approaching us in an open-top jeep, the kind with the roll bars.

“We can decide, can we?” I stand stubbornly still as a man loads my suitcases onto the jeep. Joshua walks back to me and favors me with one of those smiles that hold a hint of menace.

“Yes. Unless you decide to be a stubborn, annoying pain in my ass, in which case I will whip some manners into you and decide for myself where we go.”

I ignore the little thrill that shoots through me when he says that.

“Just because we have amazing sex doesn’t mean I want to live my life as your slave.” I struggle to find the energy to glare at him. “I want the freedom to decide where I live, and what I do with my life.”

Do I, though? I was completely lost at Sarah’s house. Deciding what I wanted to do from one minute to the next drained me of all my energy.

Do I need someone telling me what to do? That can’t be right. Before Joshua kidnapped me, I lived my entire life alone, even when I was in a house full of foster kids. I was forced to be my own parent, to forge my own path, from as early as I can remember. I had dreams, and I fought for those dreams, worked long nights and went without sleep and scraped together my pennies and knew exactly who and what I’d be when my dreams come through. Until Joshua swooped in and snatched me off my clear-cut path.

Has Joshua broken me? The thought of not knowing what I want makes me break out in a cold sweat, because that must mean I don’t want anything. Has Joshua stripped away my life’s purpose?

Joshua grabs me by the arm, breaking into my reverie. His fingers stab into the sides of my elbow. I yelp in pain as he steers me toward the waiting jeep.

“If you still think that way in a few months, and if my brother is in custody again, we can talk about it again,” Joshua says calmly. “Until then, you’re just wasting your breath and my time, telling me the same thing over and over again. I don’t like having my time wasted so there will be consequences.”

I struggle to pull my arm from his grasp, and he pinches harder, forcing tears of pain from my eyes.

“You’re a control freak asshole.”

“Oh, I’m much worse than that.” He grins at me. “And that’s what you love about me.”

I won’t dignify that with an answer. Because I’m afraid it’s true.

He keeps an iron grip on my arm as we climb into the back seat. The man behind the wheel either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. We drive toward a huge wooden gate, which slides open to let us in. As the gate slides shut behind us, he loosens his grip a little but never lets go of me—punishment for my defiance.

Behind the gate is an enormous, sprawling Spanish-style hacienda with dull tan stucco walls and brown barrel tiles on the roof. The landscaping is suitable to the desert location; more of those scrubby mesquite trees, cacti in barrel planters, big round rocks, ground cover of some kind of green succulents.

The front door is at least eight feet tall, made of steel, arch-shaped. Joshua ushers me inside, fingers poking my back.

There are red clay-tiled floors and decorations with a southwestern theme. More cacti in big round barrel planters, woven baskets on the floor, rugs with the geometric southwestern motif in tones of brown and turquoise. There are some beautiful woven tapestries on the walls, and the furniture is wood and leather. Side tables and shelves hold painted clay vases.

It looks like a designer showcase home, but it lacks any personal touches. When I think back on it, Joshua’s house in Maine was the same way. Pretty on the outside, but with an artificial, not quite real feel to it.

Like Joshua, most of the time.

The door slams shut behind us, and I jump.

A feeling of claustrophobia squeezes the breath from my body. It’s the same feeling that drove me mad when I was trapped in Joshua’s house before. Knowing I could never step outside those four walls made me feel as if I were wrapped in a straightjacket and stuffed into a very small closet. It didn’t matter how luxurious my surroundings were; I would rather have lived in a filthy hut with a door that I could actually open.

I stare at the huge, solid door in front of me. “Am I confined to the house?” My voice rises in hysteria, despite myself. I can’t live like that again. I can’t, I won’t.

“No, but we’re a long, long way from anywhere. If you managed to escape, you’d die of starvation and dehydration long before you were found.”

I spin around to face Joshua, burning with desperation. “So I can walk out that front door if I want to?”

He shrugs. “Go ahead.”

I walk over to the door and grab the knob…and the handle turns. I pull it open. When I look out the front door, I see the dry landscape in front of me, then the high walls beyond the broad stretch of xeriscaping, but at least I have the freedom to open the damn door. I step outside and walk down the front steps to see what Joshua will do.

I stand there for a minute, with the mild breeze flowing over my face, then walk back inside, shutting the door behind me.

“Happy?” Joshua arches an eyebrow

“That’s not how I would describe my current emotional state.” I tilt my head back and stare up into his ice-blue eyes. I refuse to blink. “I told you what I want, and you’re not respecting it.”

“Let’s see. You want me to leave you out there unprotected, so my brother can very easily snatch you up and kidnap you again and slowly roast you to death on a spit over an open fire. You want to pretend you don’t crave me every second of the day. You want to throw tantrums and act like a spoiled little brat who doesn’t appreciate the things I do for you.” His voice is knife-edge sharp. “Have I just about covered it?”

My face grows hot with anger. “I’d like you to take me to my room,” I say tightly.

“When I’m ready,” he says with maddening calm.

“You may be underestimating me, Joshua. How do you know I won’t kill you in your sleep?” I snap at him.

He smiles. “I’d love it if you tried.”

Will he ever take me seriously? I turn to storm away, and he grabs me from behind, spins me to face him, and wraps his arms around me.

“I’m not done with you yet. I haven’t seen you in a long time, and we’re going to spend some time together.”

I wriggle in his arms, but he’s caged me in. He’s rock-hard, the thickness of his cock pressing into my stomach.

“Why are you fighting this?” His eyes meet mine and hold me captive.

Frustration surges through me. It’s so hard trying to have a normal conversation with a man who had all semblance of humanity beaten out of him as a child. “How could you possibly ask me that?”

All of a sudden, he lets go of me and shoves me up against the wall. “Is there someone else you want instead?” His hands are on my shoulders, pinning me in place.

This again? Is the arrogant, supremely confident Joshua Smith suddenly insecure?

“No!” I snap at him. Frankly, that’s insulting. “Why would you even think that? Will you chill the hell out? What’s wrong with you?”

“That man who flirted with you in the restaurant.” His blue eyes are the color of a stormy sea. “Would you rather be with him?”

“We already talked about this!” I yell at him. “Today! Do you have freaking dementia? Did you forget what we talked about like four hours ago? I had no interest in him! He was a wimpy little dweeb!” He wasn’t. Cassius seemed like a great guy for any woman other than me, but if I tell Joshua that, Cassius will probably turn up in a back alley with his throat slit.

“Have you wanted any other man since you’ve been with me?” He’s shouting now.

Tears run down my cheeks. “No! Damn it, no! I can’t even look at another man ever since I’ve been with you! Why are you doing this to me?”

His eyes are wild, and he’s breathing hard. “Because you won’t admit that you belong to me. And I belong to you.”

I go still, staring at him in shock. He belongs to me? I’m not just a thing he owns?

He nods at my look of astonishment. “Oh, yes. I’m all yours. You crawled inside me and took up residence from the minute I first saw you. When other women flirt with me now, I want to slit their throats.”

Wait, what? Fury billows through me. “What other women flirt with you? When did this happen?”

He rolls his eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me,” I spit out before I can stop myself. “You’re asking me to completely surrender to you, and you’re flirting with other women?”

He didn’t say that at all, but the idea of him being with other women after he met me…it hadn’t even occurred to me. It calls up a killing rage inside me.

“You’re with other women?” I scream, and I start raining blows on his hard chest. “You fucking asshole! Did you make them come? Did you call them baby? Sweetheart? Who are they?”

He cups my face in his hands. I’m sobbing now, crazed with pain at the thought of him running his hands over the bodies of all these phantom women who are prettier than me and smarter than me and sexier than me. “Why would you do that?” I shout, and rivers of tears run down my face.

He pats the side of my cheek hard, just short of a slap, then tips my head up so I’m forced to look at him. “Tamara. I love that you’re jealous, but there’s no reason for it. Did you hear what I just said? Were you listening at all? Other women have tried to flirt with me, not me flirting with them, and I literally, no exaggeration, wanted to stab them in the throat. I have not so much as glanced at another woman with interest since the day I took you. You are my everything.”

“Do you mean it?” I stare up at him miserably.

“You know I do.” He kisses my cheeks, drags his tongue through my tears. He smiles with grim humor. I blink hard and just stare at him, drinking in his beauty, but I can’t help but see something new in his face. A weariness that was never there before. “Damn. You’re as fucked up and crazy as I am, Tamara. Can’t you see how perfect you are for me?”