8
Mia’s eyes fluttered open, but the world remained blurry. She blinked against the dull haze that greeted her. Sleep crust dislodging itself from her eyelashes as the world swelled back into focus. She craned her jaw in an attempt to pop her ears because they’d taken up a dull hum, rendering the world around her utterly soundless. The silence carried on, however. When her vision finally cleared, she tried to sit up.
But she couldn’t move.
Consciousness swept in on her like a deadly twister, along with a deep ache in her shoulders since her arms were hoisted high over her head, both wrists bound together with a black tie that had been wound in a constrictors knot. One of the tightest knots in the world, it was completely impossible to free oneself from and had been secured so firmly it was cutting off circulation to the rest of her arms.
Her heartbeat picked up speed until it felt seconds from tearing through the gold mesh of her gown and a full body tremor ebbed over her bones when she realized the black fabric around her wrists was connected to the black bars of the steel headboard overhead. A whimper parted her lips, and she lifted her head from the pillow it was propped up on. Her stiff neck complained the moment she did, wide eyes zooming to her feet where her ankles were bound as well. Her red toenails gleamed under the single light glowing overhead, along with the gold sequins of her dress. A cold chill raced through her body and made her toes curl.
Her eyes flew to the right, making the crook that had taken up residence in her neck scream out in agony once more, but she couldn’t focus on the pain, too busy fighting back a primal scream when she was met with nothing but a bare white wall with no windows or doors. Her breathing went raspy as she pulled at her bound wrists and ankles, making her body writhe atop the perfectly made white sheets and pillows on the bed.
She threw her head to the left and locked eyes with a green-eyed man. The sight made the hair on the back of her neck stand tall, stole another gasp from her bone-dry throat, and moved her to yank at the binds on her ankles and wrists so violently it lifted her entire body off of the mattress.
The man raised his eyebrows and blinked lazily from his seat in the folding chair beside the bed, leaning forward on his knees—arms so big they appeared seconds from exploding through the fabric of his gray hoodie. He didn’t flinch when their eyes met, nor when she attempted to bend her body into pretzel shapes at the very sight of him, He appeared completely unconcerned that she’d break free from her binds. She never would.
Not until he decided.
This time, Mia didn’t fight back the scream that rose up her throat, realizing only then—when her scream was muffled—that a long strip of duct tape was tied across her mouth.
He gave a tight-lipped smile. As if he had nothing but time. As if he had all day to wait for her to pull herself together and to calm the fuck down.
That phony smile was what brought Mia’s body, previously flailing and thrashing in fear, to a sudden and complete halt. Coming to a slow, bouncing stop atop the bed, a lock of her unruly hair fell over one of her eyes. She tried to shake it out, but it wouldn’t budge. Giving up, she gaped at him, ample breasts heaving under the low cut halter of her dress.
The hood of his sweatshirt was pulled low on his head, leaving most of his face deeply shadowed, but she didn’t miss the way his fiery green eyes fell to her heaving neckline. The way the patronizing smile on his full pink lips vanished in an instant. The way the already deeply hooded brow bone over his heated eyes seemed to grow even more cavernous until they appeared seconds from swallowing his entire face whole.
Still gasping, albeit softer, Mia followed his gaze and found one of her areolas peeking out from the bust-line of her dress, probably having broken free during her flailing seconds earlier. It wasn’t even an eyeful. Just a hint of the areola’s dark brown perimeter. So subtle it could almost be mistaken for the rest of her skin.
Her eyes shot back up to him, and she found his gaze still locked to her chest. The muscle in his shadowed jaw rolled under the deep silhouette of his hoodie, his own chest taking up the soft heave. The boulders under his sweatshirt pulsed and tightened right along with his jaw, making the lines of his broad collarbones and the outline of his pecs ebb deeper than they already did on their own, leaving no secret to the valley of strength and power that lingered beneath the thin fabric. His slim, upturned nostrils flared, making him look mean. Angry. Dangerous.
Mia spoke, but words were muffled once more.
He drew in a sharp breath as his eyes flew back up to hers. In a flash, the blackness that had taken up residence in his orbs a moment earlier wafted away, making his irises look green once more. The dark circles around their perimeters made them look even brighter, and so did his thick black eyelashes—the kind of eyelashes most women were forced to buy by the pack or have surgically enhanced.
Mia’s stifled voice came against the tape once more.
The top corner of his lip curled up.
Then, he leaned forward and snatched at the duct tape, freeing her mouth.
The pain of the sticky fabric being ripped away—along with what felt like every piece of skin on her lips—made her want to cry out, but she didn’t.
“Just kill me,” she begged, her voice still barely discernible since her throat, dry as the Sahara desert, had stolen most of it.
His eyebrows tightened.
The action pulled Mia’s desperate gaze to his left brow, where a scar slashed right through the middle, splitting it in half. Long wisps of dark brown, runaway hair strands fell across his untamed brows, hinting at the full head of hair surely hidden beneath that hoodie. Perhaps a bun, or even a ponytail.
“If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.”
His voice, so deep and dark it seemed to fill the room to the hilt, leaving no room for anything else to exist, not even her, caused her to hold her breath. She noted his lack of British accent. The slight edge that laced his every word. His diction reminded her of the American hip hop artists Malik secretly loved to listen to, whose albums and music videos he often played at the house. The package before her was somewhat different than the ones that usually appeared in those videos, but regardless, the way he spoke still somehow fit him perfectly.
He was about Malik’s age—late twenties, early thirties—and was probably a fan of rap music as well, inherently picking up their vernacular. He didn't come from money, that was for sure. Had he taken her for ransom? She hoped not. That would require him keeping her alive.
“If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.” She shifted on the sheets, wincing when the ties continued digging into her skin. Of course he wasn’t going to kill her. Not yet, anyway. Not until he’d gotten everything he wanted. Everything that every man wanted. It didn’t matter that his eyes looked upon her with disdain—that his face was pulled so tight he looked meaner than a pit bull, or that his hands were pulled into solid fists she worried might soon find themselves becoming well acquainted with her face. It didn’t matter that the only time the disgust in his eyes had receded was when he’d been entranced by her exposed nipple. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t killed her yet.
He would.
“Then just fuck me,” Mia begged. “Just fuck me and get it over with.”
His eyes glimmered like a match had been lit behind the irises, confirming Mia’s suspicions. That the thought of fucking her was the only thing stopping him from killing her. The hatred in his eyes was too deep for anything else to make sense. Mia knew that, unlike most of their female counterparts, men didn’t need to like a woman to go balls deep inside her. Hell, they could downright loathe a woman and still get it on with no hesitation whatsoever.
She’d seen it too many times to count. The savage nature of the collective male race. Their breathtaking ability to screw a complete stranger with no rubber and then return home to their wife and kids like it was nothing. Exposing their partners to a plethora of incurable diseases against their will, without a single wisp of guilt or culpability to the people they were hurting with their actions.
This one was no different. He could sleep with her and kill her in the same breath, then go and make himself a roast beef sandwich. She’d seen what one slip of her nipple had done to him. How quickly it had shaken his equilibrium, leaving him completely off balance. If her body was what he needed to get amped up enough to kill her—to finally free her—then it was a small price to pay.
Freedom.
She drew in a deep breath as the word floated through her mind. Just the thought of it slowed her pounding heart. Being tied to that bed was certainly no picnic, but she’d stay tied to it forever if it meant never going back to Malik. She’d be happier to breathe her last breath. If this seething behemoth would be the one to hand-deliver her last breath, so be it. She’d simply gone from one prison to another, after all. At least in this prison, she could see a way out.
“Just do it,” she pleaded, her dry throat making her voice hoarse. The rest of her body was surely just as withered and arid as her bone-dry mouth and windpipe. She doubted she was capable of getting wet for him. Not that a dehydrated pussy had ever stopped any man. She doubted it’d sway him either.
Even as she begged for him to climb into that bed and take what he needed, when he shifted in his chair, she couldn’t help but stiffen, tugging at the binds at her hands and wrists again, her body moving against her will. A natural, instinctive response to what looked to be a six-foot-five, two-hundred-pound man making a sudden move.
He froze when she flinched.
She stilled as well, swallowing the lump in her throat while tightening her hands into fists.
He held her gaze for a moment longer before shaking his head softly and looking to his right.
As he turned his head, Mia noted the bright red gash across the side of his neck, peeking out from behind the dark shadows of his hood.
As he reached for something on the bedside table, the only other piece of furniture in the room besides the bed and the chair he sat in, her desperate eyes tried to follow his hand, but the pillows her head was propped up on blocked it from her view.
It wasn’t until his outstandingly long, muscular arm came back into view that she saw a glass of water on his hand.
Her parched throat constricted at the sight, so taut it actually caused a sharp hint of pain to spread across her mouth and throughout her entire body. She’d been convinced she didn’t have an inch of liquid left inside her, but her mouth somehow managed to water with need.
He leaned forward and pressed the glass to her lips.
Mia snatched her head away.
He cringed at her.
She glared back.
She didn’t want anything to drink, damn it.
She just wanted to be free.
“Just do it,” she begged.
He winced, making his cheeks and eyes shrink up as he pressed the glass back to her lips. “Drink.”
She yanked her head away again.
He shot out of his seat, standing so tall she felt like Mt. Everest had relocated from Nepal just to loom above her like a deadly jagged sierra in that room.
The man above her was jagged all right, maybe even deadly, but she didn’t hold that against him. She wanted him to be who he was. She didn’t want him to fight it.
Instead, he seized her jaw, and she flailed once more, whimpering, complaining as he dug his fingers into her cheeks, forcing her lips apart like a fish. Even as she kicked and fought, he still managed to force a heavy dollop of water past her lips and into her mouth.
Her mouth, as withered and shriveled as cardboard, begged for her to swallow, so desperate for h20 that her cheeks seemed to be doing everything they could to soak up the liquid she refused to swill. Mia spat the water back out before they could, however, heaving as the spray got him square in the face, droplets soaking into the fibers of his sweatshirt and dripping down his skin.
His taut jaw shifted as if an expletive was on the tip of his tongue. He looked like he might scream. Instead, eyes alight and teeth bared, he stood tall, reared back, and sent the glass soaring across the room. It crashed into the white walls and shattered into pieces, making music on the woods floor as the thousands of broken shards trickled down one by one.
Mia gasped, her big eyes flying up to him just as he reared back again, this time with his eyes on her and the palm of his hand open wide.
Sensing the back of that hand coming down across her cheek at any moment—along with the memories of the breathtaking burn that would surely follow the strike—Mia recoiled, curling her body into as much of a ball as she could with her hands and wrists bound, before turning her face into the pillow and shutting her eyes tight.
She waited for the hit. For the fire on her cheek when his palm connected with the strength of a thousand-pound gorilla. She waited for the pain of the strike to reverberate from the point of impact and throughout her skull, making her eyes throb so viciously she worried they might come rolling right out of her skull.
When several moments passed with none of those things happening, however, Mia lifted her head from the pillow and popped her eyes open, her gaze flying to the door just in time to see him step out of the room and slam it closed behind him.