Chapter Seven
I can’t sleep. Maybe it’s the presence of the wolf at the door, literally. I can see Bane lying at the head of the stairs, his huge furry side rising and falling with his breath. Or maybe it’s the presence of the man beside me.
Should I have been surprised that he’d share the bed? It’s his bed, just as I’m his property. I’ve come to the tentative realization that this man isn’t going to leave me in a shallow grave on his mountain. He obviously has a method to his madness, if madness is what this is. But he seems too controlled to be mad.
He stirs beside me. He’s sleeping in just a pair of pajama pants. No shirt. I can feel the heat radiating from his body. I turn over. Even though he removed the plug before ordering me into his bed, my ass still throbs from where it was lodged.
Atticus has moved to lie on his back. His bare upper body is bathed in milky moonlight streaming through the window. Even in sleep, he looks powerful. The mounds of his pectoral muscles slope to well-defined abdominal and oblique muscles. The flexor ridge forms a ‘v’ that seems to teasingly point to what lies just below his waistband. His cock. I say the word silently, and feel an instant frustration.
He’s teased me with his fingers and tongue. He’s pushed a foreign object into my body and left it there. He hints at things he’ll eventually do to me. Dark things. Kinky things. Just the brush of his fingers makes me lose control. And yet he’s not attempted to fuck me, and for some odd reason, I feel cheated. I find myself staring at the front of his pajama pants. Is it possible that he can’t? There must be a reason a man who looks like this would spend nearly a million dollars buying a woman when he could have any one he wanted.
I raise my hand. Why I’m doing this, I don’t know. I just want to see. I just want to know what I’m dealing with. If I touch him, he should have some sort of response. A man’s cock is sensitive, right? Especially a healthy man. Just the brush of my hand should elicit a response, a stirring, a jolt.
I look up at his face. His eyes are closed, his breathing even and steady. My hand hovers over the front of his pants. I begin to lower it. Slowly, slowly.
What happens next occurs so quickly I can hardly process it. There’s a pain in my wrist as it’s grabbed and wrenched away, and I’m on my back, and he’s straddling me in the moonlight. His face is a mask of absolute anger.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” His words are a growl.
“I… I… just…”
“You just what?” He gives me a little shake.
“I thought you couldn’t… I was…” I struggle to find the words, but I can’t.
“You want me to fuck you, is that it?”
“Can you?” I ask the question with genuine curiosity.
His expression doesn’t change. “You’ll find out soon enough,” he replies. “But when and if the time comes, I take the lead, not you. Understand? I always take the lead.” He pauses, looking down at me with a hard stare.
“I think it’s time for your second lesson,” he says. He sits up on the edge of the bed and pulls me across his lap. “Don’t try playing games when you aren’t the one making the rules.”
It takes me a moment to process what he’s going to do, that he’s going to spank me. Even as he pulls up the hem of the nightgown he gave me to wear, there’s something of disbelief in my situation.
“No!” A word that should have come out as a command emerges as a pitiful plea as my hand goes back. He catches it and pushes it into the small of my back. The next sensation I feel is a sharp pain as his huge hand crashes down on my naked ass.
“Owwww!” I cry out. “What…? Don’t! That fucking hurts!”
“Good,” he says. “Then you’ll remember the lesson.”
He raises his hand again, and now it’s not just one blow, but a cascade of them. And I’m wailing and kicking and screaming from the searing heat I feel building in my punished ass. I’ve never been spanked, and while I researched erotic spankings in my studies of sexuality, I know this is not erotic. This is for punishment, and I feel chastened and helpless. I feel childlike.
“Please stop!” He’s focusing his attention on the lower part of my bottom now, and it hurts beyond hurting. He’s ignoring me, too, even when my bawls turn pathetic and infantile. How did I go from being a woman in control of my destiny to being over this man’s knee, in a remote cabin, spanked like a bad, bad little girl?
Soon my throat is hurting nearly as bad as my bottom. I’ve wailed myself hoarse by the time he shifts and pushes me off his lap. The offended part of me wants to leap from the bed and curse him, but the punished little girl in me reflexively curls into a ball on my side and rocks back and forth as I reach back to massage my tortured nates with both hands.
I finally sleep. I don’t know for how long, but when I next open my eyes, it’s light and I hear a noise. It’s the sound of a helicopter.
I leap from the bed and rush to the window.
“No…”
Is he going to leave without me? Is he going to leave me stranded here? I don’t want to throw myself at the mercy of the man who’s treated me so harshly, but I’m scared. I fly down the stairs and am heading to the door when Atticus comes in. I stop inches from where he’s standing.
“You’re leaving,” I say.
“No. We’re leaving.” He looks me up and down. “You thought I was going without you?” He laughs. “I’d have thought you’d have wanted that. Get me out of the way, take one of the vehicles down the mountain…”
I hadn’t even thought of that. I feel stupid.
“Don’t worry that you missed a chance,” he says. “I wouldn’t leave without you. I was just doing a little pre-flight check on the chopper.”
I start to ask him where he learned to fly, but stop when I remember the night before, the touching, the orgasm, the plug, the spanking, how he’d answer my questions when he was good and ready. I swallow my inquiry. What does it matter to me where he learned to fly. We’re leaving, and I need to focus on getting back to civilization, on sticking this out without another spanking, getting paid, and getting home to Elliot, who hopefully will not have let my houseplants die.
Atticus tells me to get dressed. He’s put my panties and bra in the bathroom along with the dress he gave me. There’s a pair of boots, too, but not the kind I wore in the woods. These are black and hug my calves. They look good with the dress.
I come out of the bathroom to find Atticus stroking and scratching Bane on either side of the neck. The wolf has his head tucked down and presses his massive forehead against his master’s shoulder. I stop, feeling like an intruder on a private moment.
“Go on now,” he says, opening the door. The wolf pads outside.
“You’re going to leave him?” I break my own rule on questions because I’m worried about the wolf.
“He can take care of himself,” he says. “Besides, he wouldn’t like it where we’re going.” He inclines his head toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Atticus tells me to keep my head down as we head to the chopper. He helps me in. I know which seat is mine. It’s the one with a pillow discreetly placed in the center. I flush, knowing he hasn’t forgotten giving me the spanking any more than I have.
I don’t ask him where we’re going. As the chopper lifts off, I’m afforded a view of his mountain, which is part of a chain of others we are soon flying over. We aren’t in the air long. Within a half an hour, Atticus brings the chopper down on a private airfield where I see the plane I boarded after the auction.
There’s no catered meal this time, but Atticus has packed us a brunch and hastily consumes his portion before ordering me to buckle myself in. This flight takes longer. The clouds are broken today, and I watch as the rural landscapes give way to suburbs and eventually cityscape. I see the Space Needle and realize where we are.
I listen as he communicates with the tower at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. We circle several times before we’re given clearance to land. It’s a flawless touchdown, and Atticus guides the aircraft to a private hangar some distance from the main terminal.
He orders me out. I’m almost getting used to it, being ordered. Sit here. Eat this. Bend over. Don’t run. There’s a car waiting, and the driver at least is not as dour as the one who picked me up after the auction. This is an older man with a neatly trimmed white moustache. He nods as we approach.
“Welcome back, Mr. Noble,” he says.
“Thank you, Roger.”
I don’t ask where we’re going. Wherever it is, it’s in a civilized part of the world free of fog and wolves. It’s still hard to square the display of wealth I’ve already glimpsed with the man sitting across from me in the limo. He’s wearing a tight black t-shirt, blue jeans, and boots. Most wealthy men I know wear their hair coifed in the latest metrosexual style. His is high and tight. Flight experience, survival skills. Everything about him screams ex-military. I think back to the lean-to. The gun I found was his. Were the other things his, too? What significance did the shoe and the photo hold? Why did he have someone else’s dog tags?
I have so many questions, but the biggest one is why. Not just why me, but why the shroud of mystery. This was supposed to be my plan; instead, I feel like I’m part of one.
I’ve never been to Seattle. Elliot and I always talked about traveling, and this was one of the cities on our bucket list when we could afford to go. “When you can afford to go,” Elliot would correct me, and I’d just laugh and tell him that where I went, he’d go. I’d not have it any other way.
I close my eyes and imagine what he’s doing. It’s nine o’clock here, so it’s six there. Elliot’s an early riser. He’ll just be getting up to take his breakfast—black coffee and a plain English muffin—into the room we’ve dubbed the Cyber Lair. Maybe my absence will make it easier to concentrate. Elliot loathes distractions, and can be fractious when disturbed. He’s been trying very hard to build his computer consulting business, and I know he works long hours at it, although I’m not sure exactly what he does. It makes me happy to know that when this is all over I’ll have enough money to help him get started. I know he’ll demur at first; it makes him uncomfortable when people do things for him. But he deserves it after all that he’s done for me.
When it’s all over, I’ll help him start a business, and I’ll take him here, too. I’ll take him here, and I’ll tell him all about what’s happened—and, I’m sure, what’s going to happen. I’ll walk these streets with my friend as a free and financially comfortable woman. But first I must get through the rest of the month.
Atticus Noble has taken me from dirty paths to a canyon of steel and glass. The limo turns into a drive and stops under an awning in front of a towering stone edifice of a building. He reaches for my hand and guides me out. A doorman nods deferentially as we enter. Atticus whisks me to a private elevator and we go up and up and up. The door opens to a quiet, dark oak-paneled hallway lit by modern-looking square black sconces.
“This way.” It’s the first thing he’s said to me since we left the airport. He stops at a door and opens it, stepping back so I can enter first.
I’m not expecting what awaits. While the front of the building was stone, the back is obviously all glass judging from the view of the city and the mountains beyond. I walk in slowly, taking in the penthouse apartment. It’s massive, with warm oak floors. There’s not a log beam in sight; everything here is angles and lines. A sectional sofa faces a wall panel that Atticus opens with the click of a button. The flat screen television it reveals is the biggest I’ve ever seen. Atticus clicks on the Weather Channel, and the picture is so clear that I feel as if I could touch the woman giving the forecast.
Wow. I know I’m staring like a rube, but I’m in awe of my surroundings, from the gourmet kitchen I can see on the other side of the massive room to huge dining room table decorated with a fresh spray of flowers to the staircase lit by recessed lighting.
“Is this yours, too?” I ask.
Atticus walks over. He stands just inches from me, forcing me to look up.
“Does it impress you?” he asks.
I feel flattered by the question. I cross my arms and grin flirtatiously. “Are you trying to impress me, Mr. Noble?”
“No,” he says. “Not at all. Come with me.”
“Where?” My face heats with embarrassment at how easily he’s rejected my flirtation.
“Upstairs,” he says. “To your room.”
That doesn’t sound so bad, so I head up the stairs after him. There’s a beautiful landing at the top. I can see a massive master bedroom through one door, and entertainment room through another, and a large bathroom. Two other doors are closed. He walks to the one on the left and opens it, standing back so I can walk through.
It feels like my plan is finally back on track. These are the kind of accommodations I was expecting as the acquisition of a rich man. A large bed with a snow-white cover sits in front of a window with the same amazing views as the living room. Across from it is a long, low dresser under the same kind of panel in the living room, so I know there’s a television behind it, too. Through a small door I can see a luxurious bathroom complete with built-in sauna. There’s even a gas log fireplace with a chaise lounge in front of it.
“Is this what you had in mind?” He’s watching me walk around the room.
“It’s beautiful,” I say.
“You should find it adequate,” he says. “There’s a walk-in closet filled with clothes. This dresser here,” he walks over and pulls open a narrow drawer, “is filled with baubles.” My eyes widen at what’s inside—necklaces, earrings, bracelets. They must be worth a fortune.
“It’s all yours,” he says, “when you leave. This, too.” He opens another drawer and pulls out a silver money clip. I have no idea how much money is in it, but it’s a lot.
He walks to the door. “It’s everything you wanted,” he says. “Fancy clothes, jewelry, money.” In the doorway, he turns. “I hope it’s worth it.” He steps back then, and reaches to the side of the frame. It happens before I can react. The iron bars are hidden in the frame, like a pocket door. He pulls the bars closed and they lock into place. This isn’t a room. It’s a cell.
I run over. “What is this?” I ask. “What are you doing?”
“Enjoy your gifts, Maeve,” he says.
I run to the bars. “Where are you going?”
But he doesn’t answer. He’s soon out of sight and down the hall, leaving me alone in my luxurious prison.