Chapter Sixteen

 

Tamara

Days and days go by, and now he’s barely speaking to me at all. He skips breakfast. He comes to my room to fetch me after I’ve eaten, then takes me into his room to bathe me and fuck me. Our couplings are frantic and wordless.

It’s mid-November, and the weather is a little cooler, but not much. I throw myself into sparring, spending hours and hours on the mats, pounding into the punching bag. I’m getting stronger, to the point where I can pull myself up on the ropes outside now. That happened much faster than I thought. When I’m not sparring with Garrett or one of the other guards, I’m on the internet studying survivalist techniques, learning how to lay traps and escape from car trunks and break out of handcuffs and improvise weapons from rope.

Astrid and her children are getting better with their techniques too. Like most crime victims, they relish the chance to learn how to protect themselves, and they’re really throwing themselves into their training. “I wish Joshua could see me now,” Fletcher says to me one afternoon. “Do you think we should invite him to watch us?” He’s so polite, so formal, so hopeful, that I want to find Joshua and pound his face in for hurting this vulnerable little boy’s feelings.

More days drag by. I email Sarah, lying and telling her everything is fine, and I get angrier and angrier.

One morning when Joshua heads to my room after breakfast, I stand against the wall by the side of my doorway and scream for help. I’m howling as if I’m being murdered when he races through the door and trips and falls over the tripwire I’ve strung up. He sprawls on the tiled floor with a heavy thud and rolls over, shouting and swearing. While he’s down, I swing a vase at his skull as hard as I can, and he doesn’t bother to get up, he just kicks it out of my hand. It hits the wall and shatters.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he yells at me, leaping to his feet with catlike grace.

In response, I lash out with my foot and kick him in the shin, hard. I’m wearing my steel-toed boots, and his grunt of pain tells me I hit my target.

“What am I doing? I’m getting sick of you being a moody, temper-tantrum-throwing asshole!” I snarl.

He grabs me by the throat and shoves me against the wall, his fingers tightening. I blade my hands and slam them on the inside of his elbows, and he releases me. His hands slide down, grabbing my arms and pinning them to my sides.

“You’re the one throwing a tantrum. What did you think you were doing, you moron? I could have snapped your damn neck! Do not fuck with me, Tamara.”

I’ve been growing my nails out and I’ve filed them so they’re sharp. I sink them into his hands, piercing his flesh. He doesn’t seem to notice, just holds me pinned against the wall, his eyes blazing with anger.

“We haven’t had so much as a conversation in the last week,” I spit at him. “If you think I’m going to just sit back and let you treat me like this, you’re dumber than I thought. Talk to me, tell me what the hell is wrong with you, or let me go.”

“Or?” he sneers.

All the rage and hurt I’ve been stuffing down inside swells up. “Or next time I’ll hurt you in ways that don’t heal.” I spit the words out, wrenching my arms and trying to pull free of his grip.

He tightens his hands until the bones of my arms creak, and I hiss in pain. “Don’t write checks with your mouth that your ass can’t cash,” he sneers. “You couldn’t beat a toddler in a pillow fight.”

“Knocked you on your butt, didn’t I?” I taunt him. “Weak little me. What does that say about you?”

His eyes snap with rage. “That’s it.”

He picks me up, throws me over his shoulder, and carries me out of the room and down the hall.

I fight him the whole way. I claw at his back and draw blood. I swing my legs around and almost make him trip and fall.

When we get to his room, he drags me over to his bed and throws me face down so hard I bite my tongue. He straddles my back, and I squirm underneath him while he strips my skirt off. I fight him, panting for breath as he hauls me up. There are handcuffs dangling from the bed frame, and he cuffs me, then pulls his belt from its loops.

The first stripe across my butt makes me shriek. He keeps going, slashing his way from top to bottom, and I shout curses at him. My back is on fire, and I writhe, bruising my wrists against the cuffs. I kick behind me, landing a couple of good, solid blows, but he just keeps smacking my ass and thighs until tears pour down my cheeks and my gasps sound more like sobs.

Finally he stops, and I hear the belt fall to the ground. “Nice job ambushing me. How’d that work out for you?” He punctuates his words by spanking my left butt cheek with a vicious slap across my stinging flesh.

“Are you kidding?” I taunt him, panting for breath. “It worked out great. This is the least boring you’ve been in weeks.”

He grabs me by the neck and squeezes hard with his hands. I gasp for breath, and everything goes black with red sparks flying.

Then I realize he’s released my cuffs and I’m sagging to my knees. He tangles his fingers in my hair and yanks my head back as my vision clears.

“Open your mouth,” he growls, and forces his cock between my lips. I drag in air through my nostrils as his cock slides down my throat. Gurgling, flailing, I suck as hard as I can. I suck as if my life depends on it, and he fucks my mouth as I fight to breathe.

His tortured pants of pleasure turn me on. Fierce joy sizzles through me. I’m proud that I can make him feel like this. Only me.

When he finally explodes, his hot cum runs down my throat, and I greedily drink every drop of it. He slides out of me, and I like to think that the sounds he’s making are groans of surrender.

“Turn around. Hands and knees,” he snaps. I scramble to obey. He grabs a condom out of his drawer, and it feels like only seconds have gone by before he’s inside me. I close my eyes and lose myself in the sensation as he rams so hard that my knees drag across the carpet. I’ll have vicious rug burn later. The thought makes me even hotter, and I hold my hips still so that he can tear into me.

The heat inside me rises with each brutal thrust, and I come within a minute, crying out with pleasure as my inner sheath squeezes his cock. Joshua’s answering shout tells me I made him come a second time.

“Fuck,” Joshua screams out loud, tormented, enraged, as he slides out of me. “Fucking hell, Tamara!”

I smile to myself, relaxing and resting my cheek on the carpet. My pussy is pulsing and I’m glowing inside. “Joshua, I knew your inner psychopath was hiding in there somewhere. Too bad I had to kick your ass to get him to come out to play.”

“I could have killed you, you idiot,” he growls at me. “You can’t ever do that again.” He bends down and scoops me up in his arms like a child and carries me out of the door and back to my own room.

He sets me down on my bed and sits there with his arms around me, burying his face in my hair. My knees and my ass are throbbing, but it was worth it, so worth it, because he holds me and rocks me like a lover, and it’s been so long since he held me that way, and I never want him to let me go.

* * *

Joshua

We’re in the cabin again. Night after fucking night, I’m back here. I’ll never be free of the cabin. Tamara’s tied down to a table and my father is slicing into the skin of her stomach with a carving knife, and she screams and cries and begs me for help, but my feet are sunk into the floor up to my ankles and I can’t move. I’m flooded with despair. Blood runs down her torso and splashes onto the floor.

Weak, helpless, stupid.

“See how it’s done, boy?” My father twists around to make sure that I’m watching. “Next I’m going to shove that knife right up her pussy. Fuck her with it real good.”

“No!” Tamara screams. “Please, no! Stop, Joshua—it’s me, Tamara! Please stop!”

I come to with a start. I’m in my bedroom, and the echoes of a scream are bouncing off my bedroom walls.

It’s Tamara.

She’s sprawled on the floor at my feet. She flings her hands up in fear when I bend down to reach for her. Her nose is bleeding and there’s a mark on her cheek

“Stop!” she cries out.

“Who hurt you?” I shout, furious. “Who did this to you?”

She scoots back away from me, hugging herself. “You did! Are you back now? I was yelling your name and you didn’t answer me.”

I look around wildly, struggling to orient myself. “How did you get in here?”

“I came in here to sleep with you. When I lay down, you were having a nightmare, and I tried to wake you up. You went crazy.”

Oh God. I could have killed her. “Fuck! I’m sorry, Tamara—I’m really sorry. I was having a nightmare. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

The fear in her eyes fades a little. “I know you didn’t. It was like you couldn’t even see me.”

“Why did you come in here?”

“I get scared at night, being alone.” Her face puckers in misery. “Remember how I never used to remember my dreams? Ever since your brother took me, I remember them. I just wanted to sleep with you. I thought I’d feel safer.”

Self-hatred roils up inside me. I am such a useless failure. She needs me, and I can’t be there for her. I swore I’d protect her, and I almost killed her.

I’ve never felt self-doubt before, but now it consumes me.

I reach down and hold my hand out to help her up. She winces as she slowly climbs to her feet. “Careful. I think my ribs are broken.”

“Fuck. I am so sorry, Tamara.” I gather her in my arms very, very gently and slowly, and carry her over to my desk chair, which has wheels.

I make a quick call on my intercom. “Meet me in the clinic.”

Then I roll her in the chair through the house until we reach a mini-clinic that I have set up. She looks around in surprise. “This is like a surgical suite.”

“Yes. I’m taking absolutely no chances, and I don’t want anyone to have to leave the property for any reason until my brother’s either dead or in prison.”

One of my bodyguards comes running in. Dr. Miller. He was a trauma surgeon in the army. I pay a fuck-ton of money to have him on my payroll, standing by.

First he palpates her ribs, making her suck in painful breaths. I resist the urge to kill him for hurting her. I don’t have the time; it would take me at least a couple of days to hire somebody new. Then I carry her over to my portable X-ray machine, and he snaps pictures of her.

“You have your own X-ray machine?” she says in amazement as he leaves to develop the film. “Aren’t they like a million bucks?”

“Nah, you can get the smaller portable ones brand-new for like sixteen grand. I built this one myself. It’s not hard.”

She manages a smile. “You think of everything.”

I grab her hand and wrap it in mine. “I’m sorry.”

“You said that like six times already.” She brushes her hair out of her eyes, wincing in pain. “I don’t want your apologies. I just want you to be honest with me. Let me in. If you had told me that I couldn’t sleep with you because you were having nightmares and you were afraid you’d attack me, it would have spared a lot of hurt feelings these last few weeks.” I can see the reproach in her chocolate-brown eyes, and it stabs into me and twists. “And I wouldn’t have tried to come into your room if I’d known.”

I’m going to lose her if I’m not careful. Or hurt her really badly. I won’t let that happen.

“You’re right. I’ll talk to you. I’ll tell you anything that you want to know.” Will talking be enough to make her stay?

I feel a new kind of fear chewing at me.

The doctor comes back in, holding the X-rays. He shows them to us.

“She has a hairline fracture,” he tells me, pointing at the dark line on her rib. “We don’t tape up the ribs in cases like this. It increases the risk of pneumonia. Bedrest for the next few days, painkillers as necessary, and she’s going to need to take it easy for the next six weeks. No more sparring.”

I put her back in the chair and wheel her back to her room. It’s five a.m. I put her into the bed very slowly and carefully, as if she’s made of fine china, then I slide into bed next to her.

“I’ll tell Astrid and the kids that I can’t work out because I pulled a muscle,” she tells me.

“Instead of telling them that I’m crazy?”

She manages a little smile and rests her head on my shoulder. “I don’t want people to think badly of you.”

My heart melts, and I stroke her hair with the lightest of touches. We lie for a few minutes, and I think she’s fallen asleep, but then she rolls over and looks at me.

“Please tell me what’s been going on with you.” Her voice is soft and pleading.

I stay silent.

“What did you dream?”

Sweat plasters my hair to my scalp.

“Sometimes talking about it helps.”

I don’t believe that talking things out helps, but I promised her I’d answer her questions.

“I was back in the cabin where I grew up. I dreamed that my father was hurting you, and I was stuck to the floor and couldn’t help. Sometimes my brother is there too.”

She shudders. “I’m sorry. Have you always had bad dreams?”

“Never before. Not until my brother took you.” I’m staring at the ceiling, and something inside me is coiling tighter and tighter. “That broke something in me.”

“Please be all right, Joshua.” Her soft voice tears my heart to shreds. “I need you to be all right. You don’t have to punish yourself. I survived your brother. I’m fine now. Really. And none of it was your fault.”

I close my eyes, and the videos of her torture unspool behind my eyelids, so I open them again.

“My brother’s not the only one who hurt you.” A sick feeling curdles in my belly as I think about the things that I’ve done to her.

“Would it help if told you I forgive you for everything? I know why you are the way you are.” She snuggles into my arms and presses her face into my shoulder. “I don’t condone it, but I forgive you for it. You’re different now. You’re really trying. I’m willing to try too now, but I wonder if you’re willing to meet me halfway.”

She looks up at me questioningly, and I think I feel my heart breaking.

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness. But I thank you for it.” I remember her in that basement cell, chained up in the dark and crying out to me…and a wave of self-loathing rolls through me.

What the fuck is wrong with me? I cared about her even then. Even before she became Toy for me, then reclaimed herself as Tamara. How could I have done that to someone I cared about? I want to punish myself for torturing her. Hurt myself, scar my skin, burn the flesh from my own bones. But I can’t. I have to stay strong if I’m going to protect her.

“You can talk to me any time, you know. It’ll help. Really. When something’s bothering you, will you please tell me?”

How did this angel fly into my life? Does she even belong here? I need her goodness, but what do I bring to the table? Rot and ruin. Shouldn’t she be with someone decent and kind, someone who deserves her? “I’ll try. I’m not much of a talker when it comes to my personal feelings. It’s only since I met you that I even became aware I had feelings.”

She sighs, her breath warming my neck. “Remember when you forced me to talk to you, to tell you what was bothering me? It was hard, and I hated you for it at the time, but in the end, it lifted an enormous weight from my shoulders. You helped me back then. I wish you’d let me do the same for you.”

“I’ll try,” I say, but I wonder if it’s too late. I wonder if I’m beyond redemption, beyond sanity, beyond the ability to keep the woman I love safe from all the nightmares in the world.