—Shelly—
Coming to, I go to rub my eyes but can’t. Panic seizes me as I gasp for air, feeling like I can’t breathe. Fluttering my eyes open I can’t see. My eyelashes rub against fabric and I remember I’ve been taken.
Slow deep breaths.
Ten of them calm me.
Moving my head side to side I realize I must be on a couch or bed. I recognize the softness of a pillow beneath my head.
“Hello,” I croak.
I hear movement and the scraping of a chair scooting on the floor.
“You’re awake,” Boogeyman’s gruff voice grits in my ear. The heat of his breath sends goosebumps down my arms. “You cold?” His thick fingers rub down my arm.
“Wi—” my tongue sticks to the roof of my dry mouth. “Will you remove the blindfold, Boogeyman?” I manage to get out.
A low grunt is his response, but I let out an inner sigh of relief when his large hand cradles the back of my head and lifts it.
The fabric falls away and I blink a few times as black dots float in my vision. The light in the room is dim and my eyes easily adjust.
“Thirsty?” He questions, helping me shift into a sitting position on the couch I am on.
I want to tell him no, that I don’t want a damn thing from him, but my throat is dry and the water bottle in his hand is too appealing. I bob my head up and down and he twists the cap off breaking the seal.
Hopefully this is a sign he doesn’t plan to drug me again. Not that I trust him in the slightest.
Holding the bottle to my lips he tilts it upward with care.
How can someone so cruel…so monstrous be so gentle?
The room temperature water soothes me, and I feel more alert.
When I pull back he sets the bottle on the coffee table behind him.
As the water settles on my stomach I take him in as he seems to be doing the same as his eyes study mine.
His smoky eyes are lighter than they were before. Softer. Warm even.
Tattoos cover his hands and travel up his arms, disappearing underneath the sleeves of his black t-shirt. The name on his patch is scrolled over his left hand in a cursive font. A closer look at his ink reveals an eerie scene. His name is shaded onto a tombstone and the graveyard scene plays out on his forearm complete with a grim reaper and his scythe. It’s mesmerizing and scary. Whoever did the artwork is talented.
There is a light scar over his top lip matching another on his right temple which is hidden slightly beneath the unruly mane that needs a good trim. His unkept beard could use a shave as well.
Glancing around the room, I realize this must be his place. The room resembles what should be a living room but this a room of mismatched furniture and garbage.
It smells too. Like rotting food.
Raising my brow at him I ask, “So, what are you going to do with me?”
“Haven’t decided yet.” He grins and strokes his beard.
“You ever think about shaving that thing off?”
He looks at me stunned. “Shave my beard?”
“Yeah. It is kinda gross.”
He rocks back, resting on his calves. “My beard’s not gross.”
“It totally is. I can’t tell what you look like under that scruff.”
He swallows and lets out a breath. “Chicks dig the beard.” He beams with pride, rubbing his fingers through the wirey whiskers.
“Maybe the desperate ones,” I say with a grin and rub my wrists together, wincing when the pain registers from the rope burning my skin. “Could you?” I hold my hands up.
“I could but I won’t.” He chuckles with a shake of his head and gets up from the floor that I can’t tell what it looks like there is so much trash.
“If it’s money you want I have it. My dad will pay…”
His eyes darken. “Money. I don’t need your rich daddy’s fuckin’ money,” he says with an offended snort.
“If not money then what do you want with me?”
He shrugs. “Trying to figure you out.”
“Thought you already did that. Said I was spoiled and what was it I needed…my pussy spanked. I believe those were your words. But you aren’t the man for the job or did you change your mind?” I smirk.
A low growl vibrates from his chest before he glowers at me and stalks off down the hall of what I realize now is a trailer and slams a door shut.
“Someone has a temper,” I mutter to myself and begin searching the room for anything I can use to free myself.
I go to get up from the couch and immediately fall to the floor. He fucking zip tied my ankles. At least he did it on the outside of my pants. My face is stuck to something on the floor. I roll from side to side trying to work it loose but there is no luck.
A figure shadows over me and when I look up he bursts out laughing.
“What?” I snap.
“You um seem to have gotten yourself in quite the predicament, sugar tits.”
He squats down and puts a hand to my face, turning me so that I am on my back and staring straight up at him. His fingers brush under my eye. “Shits gonna hurt, but least it didn’t get in your hair.”
“What’s going to hurt?” As soon as I say the words he rips the sticky paper away. Tears sting my eyes as the pain of him ripping off the peach fuzz hair on my cheek nearly blinds me.
“Holy hell!” I cry out, wanting to hold my palm to my cheek protectively but unable to. Feels like someone just waxed my jaw.
“Mouse trap.” He chuckles under his breath and holds up the glue trap.
My eyes bulge. “You have mice?”
Rolling his left shoulder, he offers a soft, “Don’t know. Don’t live here.”
Grabbing my bound wrists, he hooks my arms over his head and around his neck before scooping me up from the floor. My body slides down his as he stands upright, keeping me against him.
His minty breath tickles my forehead as he gazes down at me, looking deep into my eyes.
“Why haven’t you screamed or begged me to let you go?”
“Would it do me any good?”
“Nope.”
I give him a pointed look. “Didn’t think so.”
“You’re different, princess.”
“Don’t call me that. I have a name.”
“Okay, Shelly. You’re different.”
“I told you my name is Michelle.”
His tongue darts out and licks my bottom lip and I chomp my teeth like I am going to bite the damn thing off.
He laughs, and his smile stretches wide.
“You got spirit, Shelly. Shit turns me on.” Tilting my chin up he holds my gaze. “Why aren’t you afraid of me? I could kill you and no one would ever find you.”
“I think you’re kind of sad. You live alone in a nasty ass trailer with your scuzzy beard and you kidnap and torture women.”
“You left out the part where I kill them.”
I roll my eyes at him.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me.”
Him saying this only makes me do it again to which he holds my face still and presses his mouth to mine. This time he doesn’t demand entrance into my mouth, he simply presses his lips softly against mine before releasing me. I’m just glad his lips aren’t furry like his beard. He’s wild looking but I can tell he takes care of himself apart from his hair and his beard.
“Why did you do that?”
“I can read every single person I have ever met but you…I can’t read you. You’re a challenge. A complication.”
“You don’t want to kill me. You don’t want money. What do you want, Boogeyman? You know what I think…I think you do want to spank my pussy.” I say the word pussy in a barely there whisper against his lips, taunting him.
I know he should scare me. In a way he does, but I think if he really wanted to kill me he would have already.