Chapter 13
Izzy
After our talk, I slip on the dress then lie down and close my eyes. Which I’ll bet Adelmo is grateful for. Sleeping means frittering away the last hours of my life, but being drugged has nuked my mind with a fatigue that abruptly drags me under.
When I wake, it is late afternoon, according to his laptop clock.
They brought us a meal while I was asleep, and since it is some sort of gourmet burger, cold as it is, I dig in and eat what he has left me. Despite his earlier promises, I’m left alone when using the toilet facility. What he said to me next to the shower must have affected him. The man is not morose, but he is subdued, compared to when I was revived from the sedation.
With the last bite of the burger chewed and swallowed, I wipe my fingers on one of the serviettes they supplied—this fancy food is beyond comprehension. Perhaps the chef hasn’t been told we are nothing special and that I am being readied for slaughter.
“Here.” The laptop arrives before me, slid across by this man I barely know and on whose kindness I’m relying.
A million underhand ideas arrive. A hundred, anyway. A plethora. Plethora is good. Practicing my writing skills in my mind is my way of normalizing this.
I could A. Send a message to the cops. B. To a friend. C. Post my plight on my website.
Basically, it would be lovely to yell that Montez is murdering me to the entire world. I just know this won’t be allowed.
“I suppose you won’t let me use this unsupervised?” I gift him my brightest, most innocent smile.
“Hell, no! So you can tell your mother you’ve been kidnapped?”
“And about to be dismembered and murdered?”
“Stop that. Worrying won’t help.”
“Will anything?”
He might if I can motivate him enough. Do I need to act like a car salesman or an evangelical preacher? Hallelujahs are not in my day-to-day vocab.
The laptop is in my hands and turned on. The cursor blinks at me. I’m so close to a solution. I glare at Adelmo. “If only I knew kung fu or something, I could do it.”
“After beating me up?” He tsks. “Anyway, they’re keeping an eye on anything I upload and send. Emails aren’t working, for one.”
Surely blocking the phone would be impossible? I’m not getting it off him though.
He pokes the side of the laptop. “Play, if you want to. Spend some time being happy, playing a mindless game.”
“Which one?” I scowl at the icons on the screen, barely able to think let alone see straight. It’s evening, and if I sleep again, I’ll wake on the day of my scheduled demise.
Demise sounds better than death, I think? As if it’s showier, less painful.
“Here.” He brushes aside my fingers and moves the cursor, turns on a game I immediately recognize.
“Fallout 4?”
“You mentioned it. I deliver.”
“You want me to play a violent game, which does actually have dismemberment, while I’m worried about torture and death?”
“Why not?”
I huff. Maybe he’s right, and maybe this is the way to this man’s heart, brain, or whichever part of him I need to convince. Cock, probably. Ha. He’s kinda sorta on my side, and I need him one hundred and ten percent here, next to me, cheering me on and killing the other guys.
It mightn’t be possible, but I’m going to try.
“You’re on. Highest score after an hour wins?”
“Wins what?” He sounds super skeptical.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “A kiss the way you want to do it?”
“A kiss. Fine. Let’s do this. One other thing. While you were asleep, I spent an hour checking the room for cameras and listening devices, and there are none.”
“Really?” That lifts some of the tension from the air.
“Yes. I even faked choking and dying, and nobody rushed in. It’s safe to talk.”
That bit of acting I’d pay to see.
I return to the screen. “I’ll start a new game?”
“Sure.”
Playing is relaxing, it takes me back to sitting on my bed or messing about with friends—calmer, fun times. And when he makes observations, offers advice or congratulations, it almost feels as if we are friends. Killing raiders and collecting the myriad stuff in Fallout is like therapy.
“Your turn.” I note my level progress, total caps, and scratch my head over what else to note. “That should do it.”
When he’s out of Vault 11, my curiosity rears its head.
“Tell me about yourself? Why you do what you do?”
“Hmmm.” He’s rifling through a hideout for gear and sends me a glance. “I guess it won’t hurt. You know even if you get out of this alive, I can’t release you into the wild. You’ll know too much. I’ll have to keep you locked in my bedroom, forever.”
Hope kicks my shins, makes my heart pump harder and glow, just a little. Not a bonfire but gods what he said sounds promising. And hot.
“You want to keep me, after?”
He doesn’t pause. “Sure. Chained up, of course, like the sick little kink-kitten you are.”
Now he looks at me.
I’m actually smiling. “Well. Being alive is a start, but how about access to the kitchen so I can make a sandwich?”
“We can work on that—areas I let you into, on a leash.”
“Jesus,” I whisper. I’m definitely blushing, and the room has heated up.
He chuckles. “You wanted to know about me. A quick history. Hmmm.”
“I never said quick.”
“You get what you get.” He’s rummaging in a deserted armored vehicle on an island.
Fuck, though, I’m staring at him. Sitting beside me, shirtless, with his massive shoulder muscles shifting slightly as he uses the keyboard and mouse. The scars that run down over chest and back are scribed deep by the harsh shadows. The light above sucks, but it’s enough for me to see how utterly attracted I am. Fewer than twenty-four hours and I’m getting more and more smitten.
This is not the time or the place.
Tears gather in my eyes. I inhale then let it out, shyly wiping beneath both eyes.
I point out he’s taking radiation. “Shhh. Let me play.”
In Fallout the dying is actually fun.
“I…was brought up poor with my brother. Orphaned after my mother died of some sickness. Never found out what. We ran with the street gangs, learned how to be hard, uncaring. We had to, to survive.”
“Understandable.”
“I killed a man when I was thirteen. I starved off and on, until then. I was good at killing, efficient, and it made people see me as an asset. So, long story short, we took over a gang and made money doing bad things. I got religion at one stage. Not my brother. He was smarter. By the time I first saw you at that bar, I had killed over fifty men. Your man that night was my assigned hit.”
“Oh. I figured it was so.” I shrugged. “It was a long time ago. I didn’t know him well.” Callous but true.
“Yeah. So he was no innocent, but someone else horned in and burned the place, tried to kill me too. With the help of my brother, I hid my identity and went under the radar after that. Tomorrow is the finale of what happened back then.”
“Montez?” Shit. Even knowing this room should be devoid of listening devices, I can’t help but look about and wonder. If he’s wrong, he just fried himself.
“It is clean of bugs.” My skittish study of the ceiling and walls was noticed.
“Oh. Okay.”
Trusting him is still hard, but what he has told me is a lot, a lot of information. Sensitive information.
Watching him play, I mull it over. I could use that, if I was so inclined, and get him sent to prison.
I could try to, and I would most likely fail. He has friends high up, so the chances of success are low. Montez would have him killed on the spot if he knew.
Opening my mouth and saying all of that in front of Montez would be a death sentence for both of us.
“You told me more than is healthy for you.”
“Yes. Like I said.” He pauses, pushes the laptop to the side. “I’m not behaving like a sane man, but you’re not going to betray me, are you?” He seems puzzled by his own assertion.
I’m shaking my head slowly and am equally puzzled. “No. I won’t.”
“Good. I won that round.” He spins the laptop. His score is higher in cash and level.
“Damn. Why am I competing against a hitman at killing things?” And that is what he is—an assassin, a hitman. “You want a kiss? I might allow a peck on the cheek.” Like the smartass I am, I offer the side of my face.
He sighs. “Done the way we want to do it, that was the deal. This.” He pats his outstretched legs. “Lie over my lap, facedown.”
Should I? Of course I should lie over the lap of this man. A man with an evil twist to his mouth and the devil in his eyes. I get onto my hands and knees and start to hand-walk over him.
“Adelmo…” I begin. “It is Adelmo?”
“Down.” He shoves me lower, and I bend and subside onto my legs and forearms. At the urging of his hands I collapse the last distance.
“How is this a kiss?” I venture, resting my head on my arms and squinting up at him.
He twists my head further, with his hand binding my hair, as is usual for him. It’s a controlling method I am totally down for. My breath halts, my thoughts stutter, and I close my eyes—it’s the quiet rush of the wind across a plain in my mind. My clit contacts his hard thigh, though his pants prevent this from being skin on skin. The dress has gathered under me, and now he hauls the rest of it to my waist, baring my ass.
A kiss arrives on one ass cheek. “There.”
“Hmmm.” I shift on him, ultra-aware of all he does—the hand in the middle of my back that presses me close to him, his fingers pinching me then separating my thighs. The blade of that hand is wedged into my slit. “We’re done?” I ask, smirking at him from beneath my brow.
“Oh we are so not done.” His hand is raised high, and he smacks it onto my rear. The loud slap of flesh on flesh echoes in this small metal room.
I jerk and gasp, moaning into my forearm, turned on by this switching up of his agenda.
His laugh says he heard my reaction. When he tests my pussy by sliding a finger along between my legs, I automatically spread myself to allow him access.
He hums approval, plays down there, toys with my entrance. “A happy cunt is a wet cunt.”
Then he spanks me, thoroughly. I cave onto him and become a gasping, squirmy noodle, with all my weight slumped over him. His erection is hard against my hip as more and more smacks slam onto me. The vibrations, the pain, they ripple into me, become an echoing pleasure.
This is a heaven I’ve barely had enough experience of…and how I crave this.
All his words before only stitched my needs deeper into my flesh…
Lock you in my bedroom, forever.
Leash you.
Chain you up like a sick little kink-kitten.
“Now.” He’s stopped spanking me, but the edge of his hand is resting half inside me again. “How about some Red Dead Redemption? Same deal?”
Fuck. I want to come.
I croak out a confession while wriggling into his hand, “If you do that again, I’m going to come, I think.”
He whispers, next to my ear. “And if you come before I say to, I will ass-fuck you with something you’ll regret.”
Even that is stupidly riveting. I’m tempted to say please but don’t quite dare.
“Maybe not Red Dead? I was never into that one.”
“No?” He pushes a finger inside me then his thumb circles my asshole. “Then I’ll read you one of your stories and you can play with yourself. First, though, you tell me about you. I gave you some of my history.”
He spits on my asshole and worms the thumb into me.
“Go.”
I’m lying over him, gaping, stunned by the sensations from those rude invading fingers and thumb, and he wants history?
“I guess…” I clear my throat.