Chapter 3
SERAPHINA
His body hits mine like a freight train.
The impact drives the air from my lungs in a sharp gasp as we collide, his momentum carrying us both forward. I try to twist away, to keep running, but his arms are already around me—one banding across my waist, the other clamping over my mouth before I can scream.
We slam into a wooden trellis post, and the rough bark bites into my cheek as he pins me face-first against it. His body is a wall of heat at my back, solid and immovable, pressing me into the wood until I can barely breathe.
"Caught you."
His voice is low and dark, spoken directly into my ear. The warmth of his breath against my cold skin makes me shiver violently—from fear, I tell myself. Only fear.
I struggle against his grip, but it's useless. He's so much bigger than me, so much stronger. Every time I try to move, he just presses harder, using his weight to keep me trapped. My bare feet scrabble against the frozen ground, finding no purchase.
"Shh." His hand tightens over my mouth when I try to bite him. "None of that. You ran beautifully, but the chase is over now."
I shake my head frantically, still fighting even though I know it's pointless. My heart is slamming against my ribs so hard I'm sure he can feel it through my back. Tears prick at my eyes—tears of frustration, of fear.
"I'm going to take my hand away," he says, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. "And you're not going to scream. Do you know why?"
I don't respond. Can't respond with his palm sealed over my mouth.
"Because there's no one to hear you." He lets that sink in for a moment. "We're alone out here. Just you and me and endless acres of vineyard. You could waste your energy screaming as loud as you want, but the only one who'll hear is me."
He removes his hand slowly, and I suck in a ragged breath but don't scream. He's right—there's no point. No one is coming to save me.
"Good girl."
The praise sends a jolt through me that I desperately want to ignore. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to think, trying to find a way out of this.
"What do you want?" My voice comes out shakier than I'd like. "Money? I can—"
His laugh cuts me off. Low and dark and genuinely amused. "I don't want your money."
"Then what—"
"I think you know what I want."
His free hand—the one not pinning my wrists to the post above my head—trails down my side. The touch is light, almost gentle, tracing the curve of my waist through the thin silk. It's such a contrast to the violence of the capture that my brain short-circuits trying to process it.
"Please." I hate how breathless I sound. "Please, I don't—"
"Don't what?" His hand pauses at my hip. "Don't want this?"
I should say yes. I should say I don't want this, that he needs to let me go, that this is wrong and terrifying and I want it to stop.
But the words won't come.
Because my traitorous body is telling a different story. My nipples are hard points against the rough wood. My thighs are pressed together, trying to ease an ache that's been building since I first heard his voice over those speakers. And between my legs...
I'm wet. Embarrassingly, undeniably wet.
He seems to sense my hesitation. "That's what I thought."
Before I can respond, he's moving. His hand leaves my hip and reaches up, grabbing something from the trellis above us. I hear a snapping sound, and then rough fibers are wrapping around my wrists.
Vines. He's tying me with the grape vines.
"What are you doing—" I try to pull away, but he's already secured one wrist to the post, and he's working on the other with practiced efficiency. The vines are rough and unyielding, the dormant wood scraping against my skin as he winds them tight. "We can’t, please—"
"You don't really want me to stop." He finishes the knot and steps back slightly, admiring his work. "Do you?"
I tug at the restraints. They don't budge. If anything, the movement just tightens them, the vines biting into my wrists with every struggle.
I'm trapped. Tied to a post in the middle of a vineyard, completely at the mercy of a masked stranger.
The thought should terrify me.
It does terrify me.
But it also makes me clench around nothing, desperate for something to fill the aching emptiness between my thighs.
"Look at you." His voice is thick with satisfaction as he moves behind me again. "Trembling and tied and trying so hard to pretend you don't want this."
"I don't—"
"Liar,” he cuts me off, his voice deep and convicting.
His hands grip the hem of my dress and yank it up over my hips, exposing me to the cold night air. I gasp, trying to press my thighs together, but he's already there—one knee wedging between my legs, forcing them apart.
"Let's see how much of a liar you are."
His fingers find the edge of my underwear—a scrap of black lace that matches the dress I woke up in—and he doesn't bother pulling them aside. He just grips and tears, the fabric giving way like tissue paper.
I cry out at the sudden exposure, the cold air hitting my bare pussy like a slap. But I barely have time to process it before his hand is there, cupping me possessively.
"Fuck." The word is almost reverent. "You're soaked."
Shame burns through me, hot and immediate. I am. I'm dripping wet, my arousal coating his fingers before he's even done anything. My body has betrayed me completely, showing him exactly how much I want this even as my mind screams that I shouldn't.
"Please." I don't know what I'm begging for anymore.
"Please what, love?" He strokes through my folds, spreading my wetness, circling my clit with a touch that's too light to satisfy. "Use your words."
"I can't—I don't—"
"You can." He presses harder, and my hips jerk involuntarily, chasing the sensation. "Tell me what you want."
What I want is to understand what's happening to me. What I want is for my body to stop responding to a stranger's touch like it's been waiting for this all my life. What I want is for this to make sense.
What I want is for him to stop teasing and just fucking touch me already.
"More." The word escapes before I can stop it. "Please, I need more."
He makes a sound of approval low in his throat, and then his fingers are pushing inside me—two at once, stretching me open with no preamble. I cry out, my back arching away from the post, my wrists straining against the vine restraints.
"That's it." He fucks me with his fingers, hard and fast, not giving me time to adjust. "Take what I give you."
I'm making sounds I don't recognize—gasps and moans and broken pleas that fall from my lips without permission.
His palm grinds against my clit with every thrust, sending sparks shooting up my spine.
The combination of his fingers inside me and the rough wood against my front creates a friction that borders on painful.
It's too much. Not enough. Everything and nothing all at once.
"You're close already, aren't you?" His thumb finds my clit and presses hard. "I can feel you squeezing my fingers. Your greedy little cunt wants to come."
I whimper, hating him for being right. The orgasm is building fast, coiling tight in my belly, tension ratcheting higher with every thrust of his hand. My legs are shaking, barely able to hold me up. If not for the vines binding my wrists, I think I'd collapse.
"Come for me." His voice is a command, leaving no room for argument. "Now."
And I do.
The orgasm crashes through me like a wave, obliterating thought, drowning out everything except the pleasure pulsing through my body.
I scream into the cold night air—a raw, animal sound I've never heard myself make before.
My pussy clenches around his fingers in rhythmic spasms, my hips grinding against his palm, desperate to wring every last drop of sensation from this moment.
He doesn't stop. Doesn't let me come down. He keeps fucking me through it, extending the orgasm until it peaks again, until I'm sobbing from overstimulation, until my vision blurs and I genuinely think I might pass out.
When he finally withdraws his hand, I sag against the restraints, gasping for breath. My entire body is trembling, aftershocks still rippling through me. I've never come that hard in my life. Not alone, not with anyone else.
Never.
"Beautiful." His voice sounds strained now, rough around the edges. "Absolutely fucking beautiful."
I hear a soft sound—metal on leather—and then something cold presses against my wrist. A knife. He's cutting the vines, freeing me from the post.
The restraints fall away, and I stumble, my legs refusing to cooperate. He catches me before I hit the ground, his arms wrapping around me from behind and holding me upright.
"Easy." His voice is almost gentle now. "Breathe."
I drag air into my lungs, trying to make my brain work again. What just happened? I came harder than I've ever come in my life, at the hands of a stranger who tied me up in a vineyard. I should be horrified. I should be screaming, fighting, running.
Instead, I'm leaning into his warmth like it's the only thing keeping me alive.
"What..." I have to swallow twice before I can get words out. "What do you want from me?"
"Everything." He says it simply, like it's obvious. "I want everything, love. And before this night is over, you're going to give it to me."
He releases me, stepping back, and I nearly fall again without his support. I catch myself on the post I was just tied to, clinging to the rough wood as I try to make my legs work.
"But that was just the warm-up."
I turn to look at him for the first time since he caught me.
The red lights cast him in crimson shadows—tall, broad-shouldered, dressed entirely in black.
The mask covers the upper half of his face, leaving only a strong jaw and full lips visible.
His eyes glitter through the mask's openings, dark and hungry.
He's terrifying.
He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
"Run again, my love." He takes another step back, giving me room. "This time, I won't be so gentle when I catch you."
I stare at him, uncomprehending. "You want me to run…again?"
"I want you to try." His smile is sharp, predatory. "Give me a good chase. Make me work for it."
My legs are still shaking. My pussy is still throbbing from the orgasm he just ripped out of me. The silk dress is bunched around my hips, leaving me exposed from the waist down. I'm in no condition to run.
But the alternative is staying here, surrendering to whatever else he has planned.
And despite what just happened—or maybe because of it—I'm not ready to surrender. Not yet.
I yank my dress down and push off the post.
I run.
My legs are unsteady, my feet numb from the frozen ground, but I force them to move anyway. I stumble through the vines in a direction I haven't tried yet, deeper into the vineyard, away from the monster who just made me come so hard I saw stars.
Behind me, I hear him laugh. Low and satisfied and darkly amused.
"That's my girl."
I don't look back. I just run, weaving between rows, ducking under branches, following the pulsing red lights without any idea where they might lead. My heart is pounding again, but it feels different now. The fear is still there, but it's tangled up with something else. Anticipation. Excitement.
Hunger.
I think I want him to catch me again.
The thought surfaces unbidden, and I nearly trip over my own feet. What the fuck is happening to me? What kind of person wants to be hunted and caught, tied up and used by a stranger in the dark?
The kind of person I apparently am.
I shake the thought away and focus on moving, on putting distance between us. The vineyard seems different now—darker, more menacing. The black balloons that had seemed ominous before now feel like markers, like signposts pointing toward something I can't yet see.
And then I do see it.
A building emerges from the darkness ahead. Stone walls covered in ivy, barely visible in the dim glow of the lights. A heavy wooden door set into an archway. It looks old, solid, like something that's been here for decades.
The wine cellar.
Hope flares in my chest. Maybe there's a phone inside. Maybe there's another exit, a way out of this vineyard that doesn't involve running until my captor decides to catch me again.
I change direction, heading for the building.
Behind me, the footsteps have started again. Unhurried. Patient. Once more, he's not chasing—he's stalking, like a predator who knows exactly where his prey is going to end up.
I don't care. I need shelter. I need walls between us, even if only for a moment.
I need to think.
The cellar door is closer now, maybe fifty feet ahead. I push myself harder, ignoring the pain in my feet, the trembling in my legs, the way my body still hums with the aftereffects of what he did to me against that post.
Forty feet. Thirty. Twenty.
I reach the door and grab the iron handle, half-expecting it to be locked. But it turns easily, the heavy wood swinging inward to reveal darkness beyond.
I slip inside and pull the door shut behind me.