Dirty Hands (After Dark Taboo)

Chapter 3

3

MELANIE

T he truck rumbled beneath me as I sat in the dimly lit cab, my pulse thudding so loudly I could almost hear it over the engine’s roar.

I was terrified, and that froze me to the seat. Hands shaking and held in my lap, I glanced to the side to look at my captor. He was at least three times my twenty-years, built like a tank, and probably having been on the road so long he had no civility left.

Now, with the cold glow of the dashboard painting everything in dimly lit hues, I couldn’t stop glancing at him.

Ivan—big, rough, and undeniably dominant—hadn’t spoken since I’d been forced into this nightmare. But that silence was short-lived as his voice cut through like the cruel edge of a blade.

“I’m gonna have fun with you, little girl,” he snarled, a dark smirk curling his lips. I had nothing to say but choked, terrified with silence.

Even as his massive hands gripped the wheel, each shift of gear punctuating my dread, I felt the weight of every choice I’d made. Ivan steered us onto a dark, empty road that seemed to swallow any hope of rescue. The only light was the harsh gleam of the instrument panel, and beyond the glass, the night was an endless expanse of foreboding shadows.

He shifted again, his thick fingers wrapping around the gearshift with an unsettling power. God, his hands were massive. I slowly looked up at his profile once more, and his gaze flicked toward me.

“You’re scared?” he asked, but I could tell in his tone he wasn't really asking. His tone was laced with a cruel satisfaction.

I said, “No,” in a forced whisper as fear clawed at my throat. His lips twisted into an expression that wasn’t a smile but something far darker.

A silent promise of what was to come.

Without warning, his hand reached across the narrow space between us and gripped my thigh with a force that left no room for protest. He used force to jerk me closer to him. I tensed, his big fingers digging into my leg a second before he slowly trailed those digits until his hand was so close to my pussy I knew he could feel the wet heat.

His touch wasn’t tentative. It was an assertion, a reminder that I wasn’t in control. And when he twisted his hand and dug it further between my legs, now cupping my pussy, his thumb pressing to my slit and stroking up and down, I sucked in a sharp breath of shock.

“Sweet little thing. Pretty little girl. You’re mine now,” he growled, his voice thick with possession and finality.

In that moment, every instinct in me screamed to fight back, to escape the claustrophobic terror that was closing in. My mind raced frantically—each thought a desperate calculation of how I might break free, how I might claw my way out of this nightmare.

As Ivan drove the truck deeper into the night, the road ahead blurred into uncertainty. I sat frozen between the oppressive darkness outside and the even darker future Ivan seemed determined to impose.

Every second stretched into an eternity, and then he pulled off to the side, cut the engine, and we were thrown into the dark pits of hell.

This was it… this was how the next chapter of my life would play out.