Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Twenty minutes.
The taxi company claimed they could have someone out this afternoon to pick me up. I’ve already packed my things and have them waiting at the front door.
I’m in the foyer as the snow drifts and flutters through the air outside before it occurs to me they might not be able to see me. If they’re pulling up to the front of the estate, they’ll be greeted by the giant locked gate.
I’ll need to unlock the gates and leave them open at the very least. With a heavy sigh, I leave my suitcase in the foyer and venture outside for the first time since yesterday’s… encounter.
The cold is worse today, weighing down my coat as soon as snowflakes touch it and soak it through. I follow the curve of the drive toward the front gate.
Snow piles high further down the slope, each step I take sinking me deeper. Even with gloves, my fingers have gone numb. The air stings when I breathe it in, sharp enough that I have to press my scarf tighter over my mouth, mostly to keep my teeth from rattling.
According to any weather report I could find online, it’ll be snowing on and off all day. The sky seems to warn as much with its heavy and gray overcast, every bit as dreary as I feel on the inside.
It certainly doesn’t help my nerves. I cast glances over my shoulder, scanning the tree line.
Nothing stirs.
The only sound comes from the wind scraping through the branches, whistling far across the snowy landscape.
I focus on making it to the front of the curving, sloped drive.
The wrought-iron gate appears ahead, standing tall and sturdy against the stark white landscape. I step up close and peer through the bars, searching the long stretch of road ahead.
There aren’t any headlights in the distance. No sound of tires on packed snow.
My hand fumbles in my coat pocket for my phone. No bars show up on the screen. Not even a flicker of signal, and the battery reads thirty-four percent.
I let out a shallow breath and rattle the bars, testing if I can slide them to the side to open the gate. But to no surprise, it refuses to budge even a little bit.
It’s locked.
Mr. Taylor gave me a ring of keys that he claimed unlocked almost every door on the estate. Surely one of these keys would have to work on the front gate. My numbed fingers fumble with the ring of keys, trying each one to no avail.
Not a single key even fits inside the lock, let alone opens the gate. The remote doesn’t work either.
“Great,” I mutter, scowling. “If he thinks that’ll stop me… he’s wrong. I’ll… I’ll just wait ’til the taxi comes, then try climbing over the gate… somehow.”
But the twenty minutes come and go. I try to dial the number again only to confirm I have no signal out here.
“Even better,” I grumble under my breath.
A new gust of wind rushes up, drawing a deep shudder out of me. I hug myself tighter, edging in closer to the gate and giving it a harder rattle than before. The metal doesn’t budge.
A scream works its way up my throat, but I swallow it down with gritted teeth. I refuse to give in to these conditions; I refuse to surrender to the obvious sabotage.
I’m reformulating a game plan when the air changes. A thick, heavy pause settles in, carried by the bitter-cold winds.
Then I feel the sudden, instinctual awareness I’m being watched. Eyes are on me and I’m no longer alone.
Slowly, my heart flipping inside my chest, I turn my head. I gasp and stumble back, pressing against the tall iron bars.
He’s returned.
He steps from the tree line, moving slowly and silently as ever. The mask looks menacing in the snowdrift, the body of a strapping man and the head of a horned monster.
He’s straight from my nightmares. He’s everything I’ve dreaded about even setting foot outside.
I stand where I am, frozen against the fence, my brain suddenly refusing to work. What do I even do in a situation like this? He’s once again between me and the house. My options are remain where I am, try (and probably fail) to climb the ten-foot high gate, or run for the trees that surround us.
I don’t run so much as bolt. I lunge off the drive and head straight for the trees.
The snow is deeper off the drive—way deeper than I expected. Each step forward feels like several back, my coat so heavy and wet from snow it’s as if I’m making no real progress at all.
But I push on, boots sinking and snow to my shins. I’m panting desperately for air, my lungs burning and aching all at once.
The trees close in fast, their branches reaching out like skeletal fingers. One catches my sleeve and nearly yanks me backward. Another scrapes across my cheek, needles stinging my skin. I duck and weave half-blind, vision tunneling to only the next few feet in front of me.
I don’t know where I’m going or how long I run. Time stretches and warps—it could be two minutes or it could be twenty. I’m possibly running for two miles or maybe it’s five.
My thoughts are fractured; the panic consuming me whole and making it impossible to think clearly.
But not once does he ever let up. He makes it clear he’s right behind me.
His footsteps pound the snow, his grunting distinct and primal. He wants me to know he’s chasing after me; he’s closing in as I zip through the confusing forest and try desperately to escape.
Run. Hide. Faster. Don’t fall. Don’t stop. Don’t—
Then silence.
Not the peaceful kind. It’s the kind that’s oppressive and foreboding. It sets off alarm bells inside me, ringing in warning that I’m still very much in danger.
I duck behind a thick pine tree, my chest heaving so hard I’m distantly surprised my ribs don’t crack.
Snow clings to my thighs, my hair, even my eyelashes.
My breath comes out in huge foggy clouds, and I’m drenched in sweat.
I slap a trembling hand over my mouth, forcing myself to breathe slower. Quieter.
Too late.
My boot sinks deeper into the snow and a twig cracks under my weight. I squeeze my eyes shut and start counting in my head, aware I have to run or else he’ll be drawn to the noise.
The twig sounds louder than an avalanche so deep in the snowy woods. He has to be onto me.
I shove away from the tree, but I’m too slow. I’ve only made it a couple steps when he’s already coming. He’s barreling toward me.
I throw a quick look over my shoulder and my stomach pits.
There’s nowhere to run. No way to escape him when—
All thought is wiped out as he hits me. His body collides with mine hard enough to whip me off my feet and make me feel temporarily airborne.
I scream, the sound more of a sharp and startled yelp, arms and legs limper than a ragdoll.
We crash into the snow in a tangled heap.
Me on the bottom. Him on top. I’m squashed flat into the snow, pinned between him and the icy ground. But as his body traps me, heat floods over me.
His heat.
His raw, animalistic warmth envelops me as I blink through snowflakes and find myself looking up into the face of a monster.
Eyes dark and grotesque face expressionless, he stares down at me, heaving ragged breaths.
His hands catch my wrists, pressing them above my head. His thick, sculpted thighs hold mine down. I twist against him, panic flaring and pushing me into flight mode all over again.
But there’s no way to escape him. I’m as trapped as a person can be.
The mystery man doesn’t say a word. He merely hovers and holds me in place as if studying me.
Then he bows his head, coming in closer than I’m ready for, and he takes a long, greedy inhale at my pulse point. I flinch, struggling some more as he presses his masked face into my neck as if he can smell every chemical note on my skin.
As if he really is some kind of untamed beast with superhuman scenting.
I go even more still, unsure how to even respond. I’m being… sniffed.
I’m being nuzzled like I’m some animal’s plaything.
For a second, I almost calm down. My pulse stutters, still frantic and beating hard, but all the terror hollows out.
The epiphany hits me as a wave of shame, leaving my icy slick skin suddenly flushed hot. Underneath the fear and panic, another emotion emerges.
It’s the same shameful reaction I’d had when he’d grabbed me from behind and sank his fingers inside my pussy.
It’s… a deep, carnal, twisted craving.
Desire.
I want this unhinged, predatory, masked stranger as much as he wants me. As he’s hunted me and terrorized me, I’ve become more and more turned on by the idea of him.
By him lurking in the woods. By him watching me from a distance.
…by the idea of him in the house, unbeknownst to me, leaving gifts like it’s part of some sick game.
And as he pins me to the ground and explores me in a way no man ever has—basking in the natural scent of me, nuzzling and nipping at my throat like an uncivilized brute, I realize a small part of me wanted him to catch me.
I wanted to continue what we started yesterday; I wanted to experience more of his untamed bestial energy and masculine heat.
No you don’t! You don’t want this!
You’re just confused!
The other half of me screams in protest, pulling me from the lusty haze that’s started to emerge. I blink against the snowflakes falling onto us as we lay in the snow, then a jolt of energy rushes me.
Nonononono!
I grunt and jerk my knee up and ram it into his abdomen with as much strength as possible. It catches the masked predator off guard and he loosens his grip long enough for me to slip out from under him.
I scramble to my feet, already panting and frantic to get the hell away.
But I’ve lost all sense of direction. I have no clue where we are. When you’re this deep in the forest, everything starts to look the same.
I dash to my left, praying it’ll take me back toward the front of the Taylor estate. I’ll come out around the area I went in, somewhere by the tall iron gates.
The snow-packed earth is so deep, running becomes an exercise in patience. Not only am I weighed down by my soggy, snow-damp clothes, but my boots sink into the white frost ith every step I take.