Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
Although Van was thrusting into her mouth, he wasn't hurting her.
In fact, Makayla was more positive than not that he wasn't even enjoying this.
He was doing it because it was expected of him, and to protect her from the others.
It seemed like there was some sort of hierarchy here, and because he was the one to find her, he had first choice at punishing her.
If he abdicated that place, she knew one of the others wouldn't hesitate to jump in and take over.
If that happened, she wouldn't just be on her knees sucking him off.
Images of what Josh wanted to do to her flooded her mind. Tie her to a spanking bench, hit her until she bled while simultaneously using a toy to make her orgasm, trying to twist her body’s natural response to pain and tie it to pleasure.
Obviously sensing her spiraling thoughts, a small growl fell from Van’s lips, nudging her out of her head. To the others, it probably sounded like a groan, and they likely thought it was mounting pleasure hitting his system, but she saw the truth.
There was anger in those pitch-black eyes, but she knew it wasn't directed at her.
It was directed at the men she thought at first he worked with and was one of. Now she knew the truth, it seemed so obvious, and she wondered why it had taken her a couple of days to see it. He hated them. Possibly more than she did, and that was saying something.
The long fingers in her hair began to stroke her scalp, and she read in his eyes that he was about to pretend to get himself off.
How she could read him so easily, she had no idea.
She was good at reading people, had learned to do it young to protect herself as best she could, and used the skill in her job, but it was different with this man.
There was some weird sort of soul-deep ability to sense what he was thinking.
Remaining pliant, she let him thrust into her again, then groan and tip his head back as though he’d just come, though she knew he absolutely had not.
Still, she faked swallowing, and when he pulled out of her, she wiped at her mouth, even though there was only her own drool to wipe away and nothing else.
“My turn,” Hank announced, already stepping forward, but before the other man could grab her, Van was already acting.
“Who said I was done with her?” he asked as he maneuvered her slightly so she was positioned just behind him.
“You don’t usually do much training,” Marvin piped up.
“Well, we don’t usually have one as fun as this.
Besides, if it wasn't for me, you guys would have let her run out of here right under your noses. What do you think Griffin would have had to say about that? I think I'm the only one who can be trusted with this particular one. Don’t you think so, darlin’?
” he asked her as he bent, dug his shoulder into her stomach, then stood with her front dangling down his back, her legs at his front, and her bare backside pointing to the sky for all to see.
His hand came down on her backside, still tender from the caning, and she yelped in surprise, since from this position she hadn't seen it coming. The others laughed, and she knew without being able to see that Van was doing that obnoxious smirk of his.
“See? I'm the only one that can keep her in line, so if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, the lady and I are going to enjoy a little one-on-one time,” Van announced as he started walking with her over his shoulder.
“Nice to see you away from a screen for a change,” Hank said.
“You should definitely do this more often,” Henry added.
Van said nothing else. Just walked back down the stairs with her, and she hated that she’d been so close to freedom only to be caught and dragged right back all over again.
Depressing as it was, she guessed she should at least be happy it was Van who had found her. He hadn't given her much of a punishment, and she was sure he wouldn't actually do anything to her once he got her into one of the rooms.
As he walked through the hall, they passed the room where she’d attacked Josh and knocked him out.
Surprised to see him still lying in a pool of his own blood, she didn't say anything about it as Van entered one of the other rooms. There was a bed in this one, and he carried her to it, adjusting his hold on her until she was cradled in his arms.
“You okay for me to set you down?”
“Why wouldn't I be?” she asked, although she actually was quite comfortable where she was.
“Your, uh … bottom might be sore,” he said, his cheeks going the most adorable shade of red.
“Are you blushing?” she asked with a grin, that had to be the cutest thing. This man worked undercover as part of a sex trafficking ring, and yet he blushed when mentioning her butt.
“No,” he muttered, but it was clear he was uncomfortable.
“It’s okay to feel, Van. You know that, right?
” How many kids had she asked that same question to over the years?
It wasn't like she’d walked away from her hellish childhood unscathed.
It had taken her years of therapy while in college to get herself together.
But she’d been determined. Her parents, her foster parents, had already taken so much from her, she hadn't been willing to give them her future.
Her childhood was already gone, that innocence she was supposed to have enjoyed shattered, but she still had a chance of living the rest of her life on her own terms, and she wasn't giving that up for anyone.
“I don’t feel,” he said simply, like it was a fact, but it was anything but.
“Everyone feels,” she reminded him. It was true.
Even sociopaths felt things, they just weren't the same things the rest of the population experienced.
But anger was a feeling, self-preservation was a feeling, and fulfilling the things that brought you joy—even if those things were violent and harmful to others—was a feeling.
“No, they don’t,” he muttered as he set her very gently down on the bed. She did wince slightly as her abused bottom contacted the mattress, but it wasn't so bad.
When he went to move away from her, she grabbed his hand, keeping him close. Maybe she shouldn’t, but she seemed to feel better, safer, when he was nearby. “You grew up in the system, too, didn't you?”
Cocking his head to the side, he examined her for a moment, like he was trying to decide whether to open up to her. Of course, he didn't. He wasn't here to play babysitter, and he’d already done more for her than he had to.
But then he nodded. “Yeah.”
“It sucks, doesn’t it? Losing your childhood.”
“Yeah, it sucks,” he agreed with a weariness Makayla wished she could shoulder for him. It was in her nature to help, to save, to give of herself. Some days, she wondered if she had enough in her to keep giving pieces of herself away, but she couldn’t imagine living her life any other way.
Van needed a piece of her. He needed someone to see him, to remind him that he still had humanity left even if he didn't see it.
“At least you took all the bad they put you through and turned it into something good,” she told him.
That was something she admired and tried to help all her kids see and recognize.
No one could undo the horrors they’d suffered, but they had gotten an up close and personal look at darkness.
They had to do everything they could to only put light out into the world.
It didn’t matter how they did it, whether volunteering at a soup kitchen, giving a few dollars to a homeless person, offering a smile to someone who looked like they were having a bad day, helping the kid at school who was bullied, giving your children the life you were deprived of, or being the best version of you it was possible to be.
“There’s nothing good in me, Makayla.”
“You say that, yet I'm sitting right here.”
“Exactly,” he said, like she’d just proved his point. “Sitting here, in this room, still a prisoner, instead of running down the street with a chance at escape.”
“They found Josh. I wouldn't have made it,” she reminded him. She wasn't stupid, she’d known when she heard the shouts that she wasn't getting out. “You stepped in and protected me.”
“I used you.” His dark gaze dropped to her lips, and she knew he felt remorse for using her the way he had.
“You did what you had to do. And now, instead of being with one of them, I'm sitting here, safe, on a bed, with a bit of time to pull myself together again. Because of you, Van. Even if you don’t want to admit it, even if you think you're empty inside, incapable of empathy, you're taking care of me the best you can under the circumstances.”
“You're seeing things that aren't there.”
“Actually, I think you're the one who’s only seeing what they want to. I'm not saying there isn’t darkness in you, Van. Living through the kinds of things we did changes you in ways you can never completely recover from, but you are a good person.”
“I'm not, Makayla. I’m here. I see women like you abused every day, and I never lift a finger to help them.”
“The entire reason you're here is to help them. Just because you had to shut down your emotions to survive, doesn’t mean—”
“Stop,” he roared. “I'm not the man you think I am, Makayla. I'm darkness, I'm empty inside, I don’t care about others. Stop trying to convince yourself that I'm your knight in shining armor, because I’ll never be that guy.”
August 28th
1:12 P.M.
Makayla blinked up at him, obviously surprised by his sudden outburst.
She shouldn’t be. Okay, she’d never seen him lose it before, something he rarely did because he had such tight control over his emotions to the point where they were virtually extinct.
Van lived in a world where control was important, but never more so than in his need to eradicate his feelings so he could function with a calm head.