Chapter 28
28
I nara
A scream builds in my gut, only to die in my throat. My captor and I fly through the air, zooming over the cases and platforms. My robe flutters around my bare legs, and my limbs dangle, small and frail compared to the heavily armored figure holding me.
My captor lands with a thud that jars me. He lets me go, and I try to run, only to flail to a stop. My options are to leap off the platform or stand and face him. I turn and face the shadows.
He’s gone.
“Hello,” I call in a quavering whisper. He’s so quickly become one with the shadows. If I couldn’t sense Rex’s aura, his darkness, I’d think no one was there.
The suited figure reappears, his form coalescing out of nothing. I startle. He’s much closer to me, only a foot away. I lock my knees so I don’t collapse at his feet.
The figure facing me is familiar, if only because I’ve seen him on the grainy video from outside the Martin Building. The suit matches the one in the case, from the black, protective carapace covering his chest to the heavy combat boots. The suit adds bulk to his frame but is sleeker than military armor. Sleek and black—meant to blend in the shadows. His eyes are covered with a protective helmet that leaves the lower half of his face bare. As I stare up at him, the matte black glass retracts, leaving me facing the man I know.
Except the past few minutes have proven I don’t know him. At all.
His body armor is even more intimidating up close. His arms are lined with gauntlets. Around his waist is a thick metal utility belt lined with slim canisters and pouches for weapons, and his hands are protected by thick Kevlar gloves.
I swallow, imagining the night he wore gloves to touch me. I wondered then how he had them handy, and now I know.
He lets me look my fill. “You found the center of my operations.” His voice is the barest murmur.
“Is that what this is?” My panic-laced retort echoes throughout the cave.
He tilts his head. “Hamish calls it my lair. What would you call it?”
“Evidence.”
He raises his brows. “Evidence of what?”
“Your madness. Your obsession.” I gesture to the suit, the platform, the screens. “Take your pick.”
“Oh, it’s not my obsession. My compulsion, perhaps. No.” He glances up at the screens reflecting our faces back to us. “You already found my obsession.”
It takes me a second to realize what he’s talking about. “The journals.”
“Yes.” He stalks forward, and I back away without thinking. “You were snooping, weren’t you? Trying to spy on me?”
I shake my head, but he’s inside my thoughts.
“Trying to find evidence of my crimes?” He keeps advancing, his gloved fists clenching.
It’s too much. Something in me snaps, a primal instinct to flee. I scramble backward, everything in me screaming Get away!
“Stop,” he commands, but my legs don’t listen. I slam into a console and duck behind it, dashing away before I realize there’s no more platform. I screech to a stop, but I’m overbalanced.
“No!” he shouts, too late. I’m falling into the abyss.
* * *
Rex
She teeters on the edge and drops. The moment seems to last hours but only takes half a second.
Fortunately, I’ve trained for this. My reflexes snap into play. I shoot a cable out of my forearm gauntlets and dive after her.
Inara’s eyes are wide and unseeing. The white robe flutters around her naked body. I clamp my free arm around her and feel the cable catch with the other as I swing us to a free platform.
The second I touch down, I scoop her up in my arms and carry her to an offshoot of Command Center and a table-like surface I use to lay analog maps and other ancient documents on the city Hamish digs up.
Inara’s limp in my arms, playing dead, but as I lay her down, she thrashes in a feeble attempt to fight me.
I wrap a gloved hand around her throat. “Stop fighting.” Her neck is fragile in my grip.
Her prey response kicks in, and she stills.
I lean over her. “You want to run from me so I chase you? I’m happy to oblige. But not here. You’re overwrought.” I’ve pushed her too far, and she’s panicked. I have to be careful to bend but not break her.
I stroke her jaw until the fire lights her eyes.
“You’re insane,” she spits at me.
“Perhaps.” I cup her face, so delicate, between my heavily armored hands. “But you share the same insanity, don’t you? The need to hunt. To make the world safe for innocent children. They sleep well at night because we are who we are.”
“I don’t want to be crazy,” she whispers.
“I know. But we didn’t choose this life.” I pull her close, needing her in my arms. Shielding her even as I expose her to all I am.
She shivers against me, her head bowed. She has to be freezing with her bare feet. The air around the platforms is warm from the electronics, but in a cavern like this, there’s always a draft.
“Are you going to kill me?”
I tip her face up so I can see her eyes. “Why would I kill you when I can make you mine?”
* * *
Inara
I stare at Rex. I still can’t reconcile the suave billionaire with this armored defender.
But my body knows it’s him. I scoot to the edge of the platform and let my hands trace the suit encasing his powerful form.
“If you wear this, how did you get the scars?”
“Earlier prototypes.” He takes my hand, kisses the palm, and replaces it on the firm plate covering his chest. “I was the main test subject. Wherever R the colors fade and flow away, replaced by Rex’s warmth and solid presence.
This is everything I’ve longed for. Everything I haven’t allowed myself to want.
It’s wrong of me to lie here with him and allow it. “I shouldn’t be here.” I make a half-hearted attempt at rolling away.
Rex responds as I knew he would by trapping me half underneath him. “Wrong. This is the only place you should be.” His dark eyes glitter as they move over me, taking in my nakedness and the collar. He runs a finger along the metal circle and covers it with a possessive palm. “Inara, don’t be afraid. You can tell me anything.” His thumb tips my chin up, forcing me to meet his eyes. I expect to see dominance or madness, but he’s giving me a soft look that’s devastating in its gentleness.
I came here to entrap him. But he’s trapped me. Not with chains or rope but with his compassion.
I want so badly to tell him about my visions. To share the secret I’ve carried for so long.
The night the Bondage Killer came for my family, I had a vision of my family’s impending death. But I lay there in my bed, knowing the horror was coming, and did nothing to stop it.
My dreams aren’t just dreams. They’re visions. I dream of people’s deaths, and it happens. It’s happened over and over. My parents, my brothers, and then my grandmother and aunt. All of them dead after I had a vision of their demise.
And now I’m afraid it’s happening again.
“My dream. . .” I start and stall. It might not have been just a dream. It might have been a vision. I see people’s deaths before they happen. And I’m afraid. . . they die because of me.
That’s why I can’t allow anyone to be close to me. Why I’ve kept everyone at arm’s length. Until you broke down all my walls.
“Inara?” Rex prompts.
He wants everything. But if I give in, he’ll own every part of me.
I cannot allow that.
“It was just a dream. A bad one.”
He tilts his head. He senses I’m not being fully honest. I cross my arms over my chest, shivering, and he leans into me.
“Do you dream of the past?”
He’s asking if I dream of my family. Flashbacks to the murders.
My voice comes in a whisper. “Sometimes.”
He rubs my back slowly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” The words stick in my throat. It’s not okay! A little voice inside me screams. I’m not okay! But I can’t share this with him. I have to be strong. Because I’m not here to give him all of me. I’m only pretending to surrender.
Right?
“It’s okay,” I repeat as if that will make it true. “I’m okay.” But the sense of dread fills me.
What if tonight’s dream wasn’t just a dream. What if it wasn’t a flashback to the past horror?
What if it was a premonition of the future?
* * *
Rex
She stares up at me. I cup her heart-shaped face, wanting to lift this burden from her.
“You’re still afraid.” She’s still holding something back, but I won’t pry it from her. Not tonight when she’s given me so much.
One day, I will know everything, and she will be fully mine. She’s in my bed, in my arms, and wearing my collar. I’ve won so much already, and if she needs to hold a little part of herself away from me? It’s fine. I can coax it from her in time. For her, I’ll be a patient hunter.
“Please,” she whispers. “I don’t want to think about this anymore.”
“Allow me to ease your mind.” I lower my head and kiss her sweet lips, still holding her face to control her movements. A little sigh escapes her, and when I break the kiss, her eyes are closed, and her shoulders have softened. She’s beautiful like this, relaxed and waiting.
A voice command activates the lights in the wall sconces and around the base of the bed. They fill the room with an amber glow. Inara’s mesmerizing in any light, but now she’s a sleepy-eyed goddess, so perfect she might as well be divine.
I run a hand down her front, marveling that I get to touch her. And I’m the only one. I’d kill for the privilege and have. “Lie back and let me tend to you.” I help her move to the position I want—on her back and stretched out on the bed. At first, I only stroke her perfect skin, noting the redness where I marked her. Her labia is pink and puffy from my earlier brutality in the cave. She’s strong enough to face the monster that lurks in the dark, but I can be gentle. I want to worship her.
There’s a secret compartment in the bed frame that holds everything I need. I draw out some lube and rope and add a larger O-ring to her collar.
I wind the rope around her left wrist, encircling her forearms up to her elbow. I do the same with her right, looping the rope around a single column and securing the ends to the O-ring that rests above her breasts.
“You wanted to touch me.” I lift her arms one by one, showing how she can move them while feeling safe and secure with the weight of the rope. I kiss her fingertips and check them for capillary fill. “Touch me all you like.”
She runs a hand down my side, tracing the grooves and swells of my abs. My groin tightens. The blood rushes from my head, and I have to pause to remember to breathe.
I loop the rope around the double column of her ankles and shins, tying her legs together so there’s a tight crevice between them.
Then I stroke her all over again. Telling her she’s my good girl, the most beautiful and best girl, the only one in the world for me. My lovely little bird. I wait until her eyes are heavy and her chest rises and falls slowly as if she’s in a trance, before slipping my hand between her legs. With the way I’ve tied her, it’s a tight fit, but my thumb finds her clit. I watch her breathing quicken.
“You will come for me,” I tell her. Her legs strain in the bindings. She can’t escape my hand. I alternate stroking her lower lips and circling her clit. I was rough with her poor pussy earlier, claiming her with toys, fingers, my cock. And then forcing my gloved fingers inside her. I’ll give her a break.
She quivers, getting close to coming but not going over the edge.
“What do you need?” I tease her nipples. “My mouth?”
Her lips part. She whispers something.
“What’s that?” I lean close.
“Tug my collar,” she says, and my blood roars in my ears.
I gather the ropes in my hand and draw her up to kiss me.
“With pleasure,” I murmur against her lips. I’m so hard that the merest touch will make me come. But she comes first.
I slip my fingers under the white gold circle and pull, making her feel my ownership.
She comes with a cry, gushing against my fingers. I spread lube in the valley between her thighs and maneuver myself over her. I sink my dick into the heated crevice and thrust.
Making her mine.
* * *
MY Swallow
You thought I wouldn’t FIND YOU? After all this time, the connection we shared, you thought you could ESCAPE me?
I tried to be patient. I tried to wait. But you’ve forced my hand.
Now I’m coming for you. You won’t know the day or the hour, but even now, the noose is tightening around your neck.
We will be together as we were meant to be.
I WILL CONSUME YOU. We will burn in the fire together.
There will be nothing left.
Forever yours,
BK