Chapter 3 #2
I’ve been so caught up in my thoughts that I’ve all but forgotten Damien apparently ordering Logan to kill me. It all comes crashing back as he hides his momentary confusion behind a smooth, cold mask, and prompts Logan. “Well? What are you waiting for?”
I grow tense, but neither Logan nor Igor seem particularly intent on killing me anymore. Logan merely says, “Fine. Igor, give me the bag.”
The man beside me leans down and grabs something from the floor. That would be the perfect moment to escape. But I realize it a beat too late.
I see my old battered backpack pass hands, and Logan snorts as if it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen. I close my eyes, humiliated. How odd to be on the brink of death and to feel embarrassed by my belongings.
But that shame merely goads me on. If I had a knife, I’d kill them all. I know what awaits me, otherwise. They didn’t take me because I shoplifted at their store. They wouldn’t have drugged me or threatened me with a gun if that had been the case.
It’s more likely these are rich perverts who’ve spotted in me a lonely girl no one cares about. And I know what happens to girls no one cares about. Girls no one would miss.
I don’t feel all that much surprise thinking the CEOs of Devil would kidnap a girl. After all, they probably think they’re untouchable. I’ve read rumors about what the most powerful people in the country do for fun. I guess, in this case, it’s true.
I’m ripped from my thoughts by the sound of Logan’s belly laugh. He’s just pulled out my sparkly pink dress.
“What are you, ten?”
I grit my teeth. I hope he’s the one who’ll try to stop me. I’d just love to sink the stapler right into his pretty face.
Then he dips a hand into my backpack again and pulls out the heart necklace. He chuckles as he tosses it next to the dress.
“I wonder what you see in her, Damien,” he comments. “You really chose the weirdest girl to obsess over.”
I’m too perplexed to notice Damien’s glare. Obsessed? He’s obsessed? What the hell?
Then Logan pulls out the perfume.
“Ah, here we are,” he says. He casts aside the bottle and instead examines the box, but he doesn’t find whatever he’s been looking for.
I frown, more confused than ever.
“I guess it must be on her,” he says, looking up uncertainly at Damien. “We should strip her.”
Panic seizes me, and I glue my eyes to the stapler. It’s now or never.
“Absolutely not,” growls Damien, and I relax for a beat. Then he adds, “I’ll take care of it.”
He takes a step toward me. I take a deep breath, count to three, and lunge toward the desk. I was right, it does take him by surprise. It probably takes them all by surprise, but his expression is the only one I notice before my hands wrap themselves around the stapler.
I whirl around, facing the door, but he’s already blocking me. My body humming with adrenaline, I drive the stapler into his arm without a second’s hesitation. I press it down on him, and I hear him inhale sharply.
“What the…”
But I don’t wait. I run toward the door and grab the handle.
I only have time to note how cold it is before I feel two warm arms encircle me, hard as steel. Damien crushes me to him, lifting me up slightly as he brings me back to the center of the room. Well, there goes my big escape plan. I close my eyes, expecting he’ll kill me now.
Hopefully, it’ll be quick. He’ll probably decide I’m not worth the effort. He can obsess just as well over some other girl. That’s the word they used, wasn’t it?
But nothing happens. Well, nothing except a chuckle.
I open one eye, and see that Logan is still sitting on the couch, laughing.
Igor is standing where he was before, and he’s also smiling like he’s just seen the funniest thing in the world.
I clench my fists furiously. They’re laughing at me. How dare they?
I turn my eyes away, and notice Damien’s forearm is bleeding, but he doesn’t make any move to treat himself. He doesn’t even seem fazed by it. One of his arms is still wrapped around me in an iron hold, the other one leaning on the desk.
“She’s a feisty one, isn’t she?” says Logan, still laughing.
I grit my teeth, then cringe back when Damien removes his arm from the desk and brings his hand toward me. He slides it under my shirt, over my stomach.
It’s going to start now. Any minute, it’s going to start. I guess if he’s not killing me, it means he’s after whatever those rich perverts do to lonely girls for fun.
I try to inch away from his hand, but I’m trapped by the wall of stone behind me that’s Damien’s torso. His hand doesn’t move up, though. It merely stays there, on my bare stomach. As if I’m just some object he owns.
“She’s full of surprises,” he agrees.
“But she has the chip,” says Logan. “You’re going to have to search her.”
Damien’s hand is still on my stomach, a weight that makes breathing uncomfortable. But I hear myself blurt out, “I didn’t go to the grocery store at all today.”
Logan’s amusement turns to confusion. “What?” Then his brow clears and he guffaws. “Not that kind of chip. Don’t you know what I’m talking about?”
It’s the first time he’s addressed me directly, and somehow it makes me even more uncomfortable than the hand on my stomach.
“Maybe she doesn’t.” Damien’s voice unexpectedly has a soothing effect on me. “Now leave the room.”
“Huh?” grunts Igor.
The Devil with the bodybuilding vibe is apparently just as stupid as he looks on TV.
“I’m going to strip her. Leave the room.”
Igor looks visibly disappointed, but Logan merely shrugs. “Sure.”
“And turn off the cameras. No one looks at her but me.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
The door clicks shut, leaving me alone with Damien. Fuck. Now it’s coming.
He lets me go as soon as they’ve gone. Hurriedly, I inch backward until I’m standing against the far wall. He doesn’t make any move to try to get closer, only looking at me in an amused sort of way that does nothing to soften the danger in his eyes.
“Where are you going?” he chuckles.
I swallow. It’s true, there’s no place to go. That’s why he doesn’t move or try to restrain me. I’m trapped.
A bead of sweat forms on my forehead and travels down the side of my face. He sees it, and his mouth curves into a smile that seems almost… sympathetic.
“Will you take off your clothes, or do I have to?”
I keep my back pressed against the wall. My body is quaking, my knees have turned to jelly. He begins to walk toward me, and I squeeze my eyes shut. All thought of fight or flight has vanished. I’m panicking, and I can’t do a thing to stop it.
The first thing I feel is the warmth of his body, the faint scent of cedar-scented cologne lingering in the inch of air between us. Then his hands. They’re at the hem of my shirt, before lightly dipping behind me, stroking my lower back in a way that confuses me, half soothing, half possession.
“I’m going to remove your shirt now. It’ll go easier if you don’t try to resist.”
I couldn’t resist if I tried to. I didn’t think I’d turn to mush so easily. Danger doesn’t have that effect on me. It shouldn’t have that effect on me. The fear strangling me at the moment is different from anything I’ve ever known.
But now, his hands are pulling the shirt slowly over my head, and I’m melting. Not from fear. Well, not only.
My face flames when his eyes take in my breasts. He probably thinks it’s because I’m exposed. It’s not.
It’s because no one’s ever looked at me the way he’s looking at me right now. Not leering, not crude. It’s something sharper. My body sparks with something I don’t understand.
So much for the fighting. The only thing that’s keeping me from arching into him is my mind, yelling at me: what the hell is wrong with you, Seraphina Connor?
It’s probably a little weird to address myself by name. But if I didn’t, no one else would, and Mama did give it to me. It’s the only thing I have left of her.
I curse at myself as I glance up at Damien. I always did have a tendency to lose myself in my thoughts. That’s what happens when no one talks to you, you end up talking to yourself.
But Damien’s thoughts seem just as far away as mine, his eyes still glued to my chest.
Or maybe his mind is just busy laughing at me. The next moment, he’s smiling, and I decide that’s what it is.
“Don’t you wear a bra?”
I don’t answer, because there’s no need to. It’s pretty self-explanatory.
He tears his eyes away from my chest, and they travel down to my pants. He shakes his head. “From now on, you’ll wear a dress.”
Uhm, okay.
He puts his hands around my waistband, and this time there’s no prior warning. He pulls down my pants, revealing old cotton underwear and two mismatched socks.
His eyes flit over my body, his smirk wider than ever. My face flames again, and this time it’s straight embarrassment.
I bring my hands over my underwear, partly to cover the gaping hole in it, partly to prevent him from taking the last shred of dignity from me. His hands are rougher than before as he clamps down on them and rips them off.
My eyes widen, but I barely have time to register that I’m fully naked, except for my socks, before he lifts me up and carries me over to the leather chair behind the desk. He sits down, positioning me on his thighs, and holds me there for a moment before bending down and removing my socks.
All resistance has left me now. I’m frozen in his lap, shock, fear and humiliation battling it out in my mind.
He puts his left arm around my waist, and his right hand goes back to my stomach. His touch still feels oddly non-sexual, but then again I’m sitting fully naked on his lap. I’m probably grasping at straws right now.
“You’ve been very naughty, pet.” His voice is warm and low, and his breath lands on my neck, just below my ear, making the goosebumps pebble again on my back.
I should probably be seething in indignation right now. He grabbed my face and examined me like I was cattle, and now he’s speaking to me like I’m a puppy that hasn’t been housetrained yet.
I promised myself when I left my father’s house that night with blood on my hands that I’d never again let anyone treat me like he or my stepfather did. Yell at me, punch me, beat the shit out of me, fine. But anything else…
And now I’m naked in another man’s lap, turning to putty in his hands.
He keeps talking, and though he’s still addressing me, he almost seems to be speaking to himself.
“You shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have gotten involved.
Though I guess you didn’t know. You couldn’t have done it on purpose.
Still…” He removes the arm from my waist and his hand reaches for my hair, his fingers threading through the matted curls.
I find myself arching into his touch, then freeze.
What the hell is wrong with me? I ask myself for what feels like the hundredth time.
But for once, he doesn’t seem amused. He keeps stroking my hair, talking in an absent-minded sort of way. “Everything’s wrong now. Now they’re involved. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to go. They’re going to expect certain things. If I don’t punish you, they will.”
My eyes widen. I try to swallow, but there isn’t enough saliva left in my throat. What does he mean, punish me?
I pretty much assumed I’d get murdered the second I woke up in this room. But since it didn’t happen right away, I guess some part of me untensed. Now, we seem to be circling back to my initial assumption.
“Are you going to kill me?” I ask, trying and failing to keep the tremor out of my voice.
He actually sounds shocked. “Of course not.”
Enough saliva reenters my mouth to allow me to swallow. “Are you going to… are we going to have sex?”
He chuckles. “Do you want to?”
“No!” I say, my voice cracking.
He goes back to stroking my hair in a soothing gesture. “We’ll see about that later.”
Later. The word twists in my stomach. So he’ll rape me later. Even so, a wave of relief washes over me. Later means I’m going to live, for a while, at least.
“I promise you they won’t hurt you,” he adds, his fingers in my hair soothing me in spite of myself.
I don’t care right now about what they’ll do, whoever they are. The other Devils, I suppose. I care about the intentions of the man whose lap I’m currently sitting on, fully naked.
“Are you going to hurt me?” I ask.
His hand leaves my hair to stroke my back, still soothing.
“I think so,” he smiles.
Panic swells in my mind, even as my body relaxes under his touch. I press my eyes shut in confusion.
He pauses a beat then says, “For now, though, I’ll just lock you in the cell.”
My stomach plummets to the floor. The cell. Oh, fuck.
Devil has always presented itself as a respectable company.
But there are cracks under the veneer. Rumors that there’s a secret cell in Devil Tower, some sort of medieval prison in the depths of the earth.
It’s filled with all sorts of torture devices, and if you get locked up in there, you never leave.
You die slowly, either from hunger or from torture, or some combination of both.
And then your body is entombed in the walls, never to be seen again.
So the rumors are true. The cell exists. And that’s where I’m headed.