Chapter Fourteen

 

Tamara

I’m woken up by a tapping on my door, and for a moment, I’m seized with panic. Sick dizziness swims over me, and I brace myself, thinking, Is this the day I die?

Then I feel my silky comforter and the soft puffy pillow underneath my head, and I remember where I am. My heart is still pounding in my chest and I have to take several deep breaths to calm myself down.

Fuck Micah. Fuck him so hard. Will I ever wake up without those few seconds of utter terror?

I shove the blankets off me and climb out of bed, clutching at the comforter for a minute and swaying where I stand. The knocking gets louder.

“Ma’am? Are you all right?”

“Hold on,” I call out, and I go to answer the door. It’s one of Joshua’s burly security guards, so thick his shoulders seem to merge with his head without much of a neck in between. He’s wearing desert camo pants and shirt, and there are two pistols and several magazines on his belt.

“Breakfast will be served in ten minutes,” he says.

I take a quick shower, missing Joshua’s strong hands on me, then dress in jeans and a white peasant blouse and low-heeled boots.

The guard is waiting for me outside the door, and he leads me through the house until we reach the dining room.

Astrid and her children are already seated, drinking orange juice and coffee. The room has a bay window with a beautiful view of the cactus garden outside. There’s a tablescape running down the center of the table with small red clay vases, dishes of polished stones, and little arrangements of succulents in round terracotta planters.

Another security guard is pouring coffee as Joshua hurries in, looking a little frazzled. I feel a twinge of worry. He never used to be late to anything. I see faint circles under his eyes.

But I’ve already asked him if anything was wrong, and he shut me down quite decisively, so I just murmur a “good morning”.

We work our way through fluffy stacks of pancakes and plump, salty sausages. Life with Joshua is one gourmet experience after another. He seems to revel in delivering exquisite sensations of all kinds.

Conversation is casual but careful. There are so many subjects to be avoided. Astrid and the bodyguards and her kids settle on talking about sports, which leaves me out because I can barely tell a football from a basketball.

When we’re done, Joshua pushes back his seat. “Sparring practice starts today at eleven a.m.,” he says. He looks around the table. “For all of you. My men will take you to the exercise room.”

“Sparring? Like karate?” Paul says, looking interested. “I’m a yellow belt. I can break a board with my hand.”

“I’m going to teach you skills that you can actually use,” Joshua says, a little more sharply than I think is necessary. Paul winces.

Joshua stands up and inclines his head at me. “Tamara, come with me.”

I follow him out of the room. Halfway down a long hallway, I stand in his way and block him. “You know what? You’re lying to yourself, Joshua.”

“Oh?” He folds his arms across his chest, looking disinterested. “Do tell.”

“You actually care about them. You do. You brought them here because you want to keep them safe. It wasn’t just for me.”

“You’re giving me too much credit, Tamara.” His brow creases in annoyance. “Remember what I am.”

I look up at him. “I did a lot of reading when I was in the hospital. There are different kinds of psychopaths, and they’re not all bad or evil. A lot of them take the more useful traits like being hyper-focused and having the ability to make decisions without emotion, and make them work for them. Like you did with your business.”

He rakes me with a scornful look. “Oh, you did research on my condition? Why didn’t I think of that?”

“And now you’re trying to push me away with sarcasm because I’m getting close to an uncomfortable truth.”

The contempt on his face would have melted me into a puddle when I first met him, but I’m made of stronger stuff now.

“Thank you, Dr. Bennett, will you send me a bill afterward?”

I keep pushing past his nastiness and his attempts to be hurtful, because it’s important.

“You’ll never know what you would have been if you’d been raised by normal parents, but seeing the things you do for other people…it makes me think that maybe you’re not a psychopath at all. Maybe you just built up all those walls and convinced yourself that you were something dark and terrible because it was the only way for you to survive. You have compassion. You care about Astrid and her family, not because it benefits you in any way, but because you have some normal human feelings after all.” I shake my head at his scowl. “Having compassion doesn’t make you weak, Joshua.”

“We’re done with this conversation, Tamara.” There’s a snap of impatience in his voice as he pushes me through a doorway.

We’re walking into his bedroom—the one I wasn’t invited to last night.

He leads me through the bedroom, and I scan the room as we’re walking. There’s a four-poster bed with thick poles of round wood, a chifforobe, big framed photographs of desert scenes, a bureau, a desk with papers stacked up haphazardly, and a chair with clothing draped over the back.

Joshua’s obsessed with cleanliness and order. Never in all the time that I was imprisoned at his house in Maine did I see so much as a stray sock or a crumpled piece of paper or a speck of dust.

Should I be worried?

Maybe it’s a good sign. Maybe those rigid walls of his are coming down.

He steers me through the bedroom and into the bathroom. There’s a giant white tub in the middle of the room. And he’s made some modifications to the tub. He’s screwed in chains with cuffs at the ends to all four sides.

“Take off your clothes,” he says to me, shutting the door behind him. We’re in our own little world.

Instantly I’m under his spell. “Yes,” I say, as if in a trance. The sentence feels incomplete. It needs another word. And he knows it.

He bends toward me. He’s unbuttoning his slacks. “Say ‘Yes, Sir’,” he whispers into my ear as I peel my shirt off. “Just in here.”

“Yes, Sir.” A sense of rightness settles over me. Our clothes are falling off us, dropping onto the cool marble floor. I’m naked so fast I barely have time to notice, and so is he.

I consume him greedily with my eyes. Those broad shoulders, that six-pack carved into his flesh, the narrow hips, the dusting of dark hair on his chest, the treasure trail leading from his navel down to a thick cock that’s rock-hard for me, only for me.

His ocean-blue eyes meet mine and capture me. “Do you want me to bathe you, Tamara?”

“Yes. Please. Sir.”

And oh, the joy of settling back into warm, fragrant water. The restfulness of letting him cuff me, of surrendering all decisions to him. The ecstasy of his strong hands moving over my body.

With every caress of the soapy washcloth, he’s washing Micah’s filthiness off me, that faint film of horror that I could never quite slough off no matter how hard I scrubbed.

I close my eyes and drift away into a place of warmth and pure sensation.

Finally, he sets down the washcloth and pulls the plug, letting the water drain. Then he straddles me, legs on either side of my waist, his cock and balls resting on my stomach. He trails his fingers along my neck, then down. When he touches the scars on my chest, I flinch.

“We’ll get those taken care of with skin grafts,” he says to me. “I’d like to wait, though. I want to bring your self-defense skills up to par, and if we do any surgery, you’re going to have to wait for a few weeks. Unless you want them off immediately. That’s fine too.”

He looks at me, searchingly, and there’s no denying the worry and compassion shining from his eyes. He probably doesn’t even know it’s there, but I do.

“It’s okay. If…if it doesn’t bother you to look at them.”

“Every inch of your body is beautiful to me.”

He cups my breasts and strokes them with his thumbs until the tension melts from my body. Then he moves, sliding back, and bends down to gently tease my left nipple with his teeth. His warm mouth engulfs the swollen pink peak, sucking it until it aches with pleasure.

“Mine,” he says.

“Yes,” I breathe. “Yes, Sir.”

Then he uncuffs me and helps me climb out of the bath. He lays me down on my back on an enormous fluffy white bath rug, and kneels between my legs. We’re still slippery-wet from the bath, and everything smells like honeysuckle. He places his big, strong hands on my thighs and spreads them open wide. My knees are bent, and even though I’m completely exposed to him, I feel safe and strong and in control of what will happen to my body.

“Ask me,” he says.

I’m floating in a dream. “I want you to kiss my pussy, Sir.”

“That’s not good enough. Beg me.”

“Please, Sir. Please. Kiss me. Lick me. Fuck me, Sir,” I moan.

He kisses his way down my stomach, pausing to swirl his tongue in circles. I beg shamelessly. “Please, Sir. Please don’t stop.”

He spreads my wet lips open with his fingers and draws his tongue across the seam of my pussy.

“Remember this?” His hot breath on my exposed sex makes me want to cry and scream my need for him.

“Yes,” I whimper. “I loved it. I missed it. I missed your mouth on me, Sir. Please don’t stop. Sir.”

He keeps my lips spread open and slowly, reverently, he traces the line from front to back, from my pussy to my wrinkled, rosy hole again and again, as if he’s lapping up the most delicious cream. I surrender myself to the sensation. He can do anything that he wants to me. I am powerless to stop him, and I love it.

When he thrusts his tongue into me, fucking me with short, wet thrusts, I can’t take it anymore.

“Please, Sir!” I wail. “Please let me come, please, please…”

“You’re a greedy little slut, aren’t you?” He blows on me, the warm air fanning my heated sex.

“Yes. I’m a greedy little slut. I’m your little slut. Only yours. Sir! Please!” I’d say anything to make him give me what I need.

He reaches over to a shelf next to the tub and grabs a condom from a round ceramic bowl. I watch as he peels it open and slowly rolls it onto his thick cock. It has little nubs all up and down it.

“Studded, for her pleasure.”

“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.” Hurry the hell up, Sir.

My knees are still bent. He settles between my legs, sitting up, and grasps my hips. I am panting, helpless, pinned to the floor with the heavy weight of my sexual hunger.

“Tamara. Oh God.” The words breath out on a sigh as he uses his cock like a battering ram, sliding into my slick tunnel with one brutal thrust. The condom’s nubs rub against my sensitive inner walls as he pushes inside me. They drag against my tortured, needy flesh with each thrust. He controls the pace, pushing me to the brink of orgasm and then holding still while I writhe underneath him. Tears of frustration run down my cheeks as he hovers there, fingers sinking into the flesh of my hips, holding me perfectly still. Buried to the hilt, stretching me out… And then finally he starts moving again.

The sensations are so intense that I drift away, leaving my body and moving to a plane of pure sensation. When he picks up the pace, ramming hard, I clench my fists and arch my back, meeting his thrusts with my own until the two of us are swept away together. We fall over the edge, and I hear his cries as my muscles convulse and squeeze him. His fingers dig into my hips, his breath panting out eagerly.

“Fuck, Tamara…yes…so fucking tight… Oh God…”

Wave after wave rocks me, and I hear my voice crying out, making sounds without words. The orgasm rides up along my nerves, sending sparkles of pleasure to the tips of my fingers and toes.

He stays inside me even after the waves calm and recede, sitting with his eyes closed, as if in some faraway land. My body is limp and spent when he finally slides out of me.

My muscles are so loose and rubbery that I just lie there without moving as he fetches a towel.

Through slitted eyes, I watch him drying himself off. It’s like my own personal porn movie playing out in front of me. The towel moves over his flat stomach, over his broad sculpted chest…His body is perfectly proportioned, and his cock is already hardening again as he towers over me.

Slowly, I climb to my feet, just as he’s tossing the towel into a hamper and grabbing a fresh one from a shelf.

Without a word, he spins me around and pushes me against the wall and begins drying me off. I whimper when he drags the towel between my legs. I’m so sensitive from my orgasm that it hurts when he rubs me, and I try to push his hand away.

Instantly, he wraps his muscular arm around me, pinning my arms to my side. I’m trapped and squirming against him.

“Mine,” he growls, rubbing even harder, making me cry out in protest. “I touch you where I want, and how I want.”

“Please, Sir. I’m really tender after I come. You’re hurting me… Please…”

“Then why are you squirming like a little bitch in heat?” he taunts.

“Because it hurts.” So why am I panting in pleasure as he torments my sensitive tissues?

“Liar.” The more I fight, the harder he rubs. Sensation explodes inside me, and I can’t stop the hot streams of pleasure that flood my body.

I’m screaming “No! Please, no!” as I come, bucking against him, orgasming uncontrollably.

“If you want me to stop, then you address me with respect.”

“Sir! Please, Sir!” I wail, and he finally stops, stepping away from me. I brace my hands on the wall, whimpering as the climax finally starts to fade. My quivering knees can barely hold me up.

He’s already getting dressed, and I’m still gasping for breath.

Bastard.

“I’m going to my office to work on finding my brother,” he says briskly, buttoning up his shirt. Calm, in control, emotionless. As if he didn’t just make me come and cry with his dick and his tongue and his fingers. “I’ll fetch you at eleven for sparring.”

“Yes, Sir.” My voice wavers, but I make sure that the word “sir” comes across loud and clear, because I can’t handle any more punishments. Or any more pleasure, for that matter.

He starts to walk out of the bathroom, then stops and looks back at me. His voice softens. “I’m sorry about being an asshole after breakfast. You’re wrong, but it was kind of you to say those things, and I shouldn’t have insulted you for it. And I like that you think better of me than I deserve.”

“I’m the last person to give you credit that you don’t deserve. Listen, Sarah is going to worry. Can I call her?”

He pulls out his cell phone. “With me standing here and listening, yes. You should be careful what you say to her, though.” There’s a hint of threat in his voice that really pisses me off, but I let it go.

I call her, and of course she’s completely freaked out, but I manage to calm her down when I tell her that I’m lying low until Micah-slash-Charlemagne is captured. Like everyone else on the planet, she’s heard about it on the news. I promise to check in regularly, and she settles down once I convince her I haven’t been kidnapped.

Back in my bedroom, there are bookshelves stocked with paperback bestsellers in every genre, so I settle down to read.

At five minutes after eleven, Joshua shows up in my doorway. Unfortunately, he’s got nothing to report. There’s no sighting of his brother, and nobody’s been able to track down Dr. Barnard either.

He takes me to the exercise room. Astrid and her kids are standing on the blue plastic mats waiting for us, with Garrett. Garrett has his massive arms folded across his chest and looks stern and menacing. Joshua has us go behind screens at the end of the room to change into loose workout clothes.

We warm up, then I practice with Joshua while Garrett teaches Astrid and her kids the basics. They really get into it, slamming into the plastic dummies with gusto, if not with finesse. Sometimes they miss the dummies entirely, or trip and fall over, but they all spring right back up and dive in, fists flying.

A couple of hours pass by, and we’re all covered in sweat and gasping with exhaustion.

“I’m going to learn how to kill your brother if I ever see him again,” Fletcher says to Joshua with a gleam in his eye. Paul looks at his big brother with pride, and nods.

Fletcher is skinny as a beanpole. The kind of kid you’d be afraid to let stand on a subway grate because he might fall through. I love his spirit.

Joshua dismisses him with a cutting glance. “Not if today’s any indication.”

Astrid flashes a startled look at Joshua. Fletcher’s face falls. Fortunately, the other kids are already walking over to the changing area, and they don’t hear it.

I grab Joshua by the arm and pull him aside as Fletcher heads over to the changing area, shoulders slumping.

“How dare you treat him like that?” I snap. “He looks at you like you’re a god. You have the power to crush him just using your words. So don’t.”

Joshua’s toweling the sweat from his hair as I speak. “If my words alone can crush him, then he needs to toughen up a little.”

I lower my voice so nobody else can hear. “You are not your father, and you don’t have to act like him!”

He drops the towel on the floor and walks out of the room without a word.

I change my clothes, and hurry after Astrid and the kids as they’re leaving.

“Fletcher, you did great. Way better than I did on my first day sparring. Joshua just has a hard time relating to people. It’s nothing personal,” I say to him. Fletcher nods, but he doesn’t look convinced.

Since sparring is done, we eat lunch, but Joshua doesn’t join us. We all go outside afterward. The weather is mild and balmy, in the sixties. I join them in a few games of basketball, then we stroll through the gardens. Fletcher’s quiet and subdued all afternoon long, which puts Paul in a bad mood too, and Astrid watches them with worried eyes. I’m furious with Joshua.

When they go back inside, I head over to the obstacle course, but I can’t haul myself up the ropes. I need to build up my upper body strength if I want to make any headway, and that’s probably going to take me months.

Then again, I don’t have anywhere else to be, do I?

The thought fills me with gloom. I sit down cross-legged on the ground next to the wooden tower I just failed to climb.

I’m staring into the distance at the mountains a few minutes later when I feel a tingling that sweeps throughout my whole body. I don’t have to look up to see that Joshua’s coming; there’s this connection between us that makes me exquisitely sensitive to his presence.

He walks up to me and stops, waiting. I twist around to scowl up at him.

Silently, he holds out a bottle of Gatorade, and I climb to my feet and take it without a word. I drink half the bottle before I turn to meet his gaze.

“Come to tell me what a lousy job I’m doing with the rope course?” I snap.

He frowns. “No. Why would I do that?”

I keep forgetting that his brain doesn’t make connections like other people’s do.

“Because you’re being very critical today. You were way too hard on Fletcher.” He looks as if he’s about to argue, so I say “What do you want to achieve? Do you want to crush his self-confidence so he gives up? Is that your goal?”

“Of course not. Why would I want that? It would be wasteful and serve no useful purpose.” He’s genuinely confused.

“The way that you snapped at him will not help motivate him to improve. It will have the opposite effect. Please trust me on that, Joshua.”

He sighs, staring off into the distance. “You know I don’t have good interpersonal skills,” he tells me. “For most of my life, I only interacted with people until they gave me what I wanted, then I left as quickly as I could. I excel at a lot of things, but socializing isn’t one of them. Being around people for more than half an hour feels like rolling on a bed of nails.”

“You spend tons of time with me,” I point out.

He smiles with a deep weariness and caresses my mouth with his finger. “I never get tired of you.”

I find myself softening, but I struggle not to. “Are you sure? You just about bit my head off earlier.”

“People in relationships get angry with each other sometimes, don’t they?” He looks at me questioningly. It’s like he really wants the answer to that question.

“Yes,” I say. “But I meant what I said back there. You have to realize that the way your father treated you is influencing how you’re treating Fletcher.”

It’s true, but it’s also the wrong thing to say. He goes rigid with anger and suddenly he’s a million miles away from me. He takes a couple of steps back, and his eyes have gone stormy again. “Don’t mention my father to me again.” His voice snaps like a whip, stinging me.

I swallow my frustration. Joshua’s father is like a lead anchor dragging him down, and he won’t acknowledge it or try to deal with it. But the more I push, the more he’ll close himself off to me. “All right. Please just go easier on Fletcher tomorrow, and don’t hold a twelve-year-old boy from the suburbs to your standards. Or stop having him spar.”

His forehead creases, and he looks away. “I should go back inside now.” And he turns and walks off without another word, shoulders hunched, and I sit down in the bright, warm sun, feeling cold and lonely.