Chapter 6 #3
“Get this cleaned up. Then leave us,” he tells the other man, dropping his hand and drawing further away.
I manage to breathe again, forgetting that I was barely doing it at all.
The other guy gets Smitty off the chair, throwing him over the plastic draped on the floor and rolling him in it before throwing him into a body bag.
It’s not my first time seeing a bag like that. Lots of girls have been tossed in them, never to be seen again. My eyes stay glued past Michael, watching Smitty get dragged out the door.
“I’ll send someone to clean the room later. Text me,” the guy says before shutting the door.
Then we’re alone. Michael continues to stare arrogantly at me, unnerving every part of me, while I focus on the wall ahead, not wanting to face him.
I can feel his hot gaze scorching up my skin, melting into my flesh. I swallow past the roll of anxiety building within. With a huff, I fling my gaze back to him, and instantly regret it.
Why does he look at me like I’m a riddle he’s attempting to solve?
“I’m sorry, okay?” I tell him. “I’m sorry I broke in. Just…just let me go.”
Silently, with his brows pinching, he drifts his knuckles down my face, causing my throat to close, a knot of something building in my gut.
Affection—this need to feel a connection with another person. That’s another thing I miss, and I hate that he’s the one who gives it to me. A man who’d toss me away like I mean nothing.
I don’t even remember how it feels to like a guy. It’s been too long. The last person I allowed to kiss me was this boy I dated senior year in high school, the one who took my virginity. That was my one true sexual experience. And the thought only makes me sad.
I try not to think about everything I’ve missed in my life. Boyfriends and heartbreaks and the finding of love when you least expect it. Buying my first place, a job, kids…I want them.
Better not to think about things I’ll never have. I stuff the thoughts far away where I don’t have to look at them anymore. All they do is hurt me—the reminders of what could’ve been.
“Weren’t you just begging me to die?” he asks, eyes pinning me in place, his hand sinking lower until the large span of his palm is back around my throat.
But it’s gentle this time, his thumb feathering against my thundering pulse like all he wants to do is to touch me. Tingles spread across my skin, prickling over every inch the more I feel his strong hands on me, the more he looks at me that way.
I fight it. Whatever this is, I don’t want to feel it. His touch is like all the rest.
Painful. Greedy. Unrestrained.
But somewhere inside me, I like this too. I crave it on some deeper level I can’t yet make sense of. It's as though my body is coming alive for the very first time.
“I can’t die,” I whisper, blinking past the emotions slamming into the center of my chest.
I have people to save first.
His mouth slants nearer, barely anything separating us. And when he falls a breath away, his lips almost brushing mine, I let out a pant.
“Should’ve thought of that before you broke into my car and entered my home uninvited,” he breathes, and in the tendrils of his tone, I sense the danger lurking.
He pulls in a sharp inhale, that mouth hovering, and my lids grow heavy, needing another taste of whatever that was. Like a hit of a drug, like poison that I should run from. But instead, I slant my face tighter to his, our mouths whispering over one another’s. Almost a kiss.
This is wrong. So wrong.
My panting grows louder in the silence of the room, my nipples chafing against my shirt, pressing into his chest. And it sickens me that I could even be attracted to him, but maybe it’s the fear, his strength, the way he overpowers me…
I don’t know, and I won’t be here long enough to find out.
If he doesn’t let me go, I’ll find my own way out or die trying. He won’t be able to stop me.
I once dreamed of reuniting with my parents, seeing the looks on their faces when they finally found me. I won’t stop trying for them. For Kayla. I’ll fight my way out of this prison, just like I fought my way out of the last one.
“What’s your name?” he asks, pitching his face back. “And don’t lie to me.”
His thumb strokes my lips, and my breaths quiver.
“Elsie,” I admit. “I have no reason to lie.”
“Well, Elsie, do I seem like the type of man who’d let you get away for trespassing without being punished for it?”
I shake my head, because I know him already. At least everything I need to know. He’s not a decent man. There’s nothing human about him. He hurts people, and he will hurt me.
“Good girl. Because you’re right.”
He leans his mouth to the corner of my lips, and the harshness of his breaths slips past me in a soft caress. A contradiction—just like he appears to be, because the man he was with his daughter is someone else.
“Is there anything I can do or say to convince you otherwise?” But I know the answer before it even comes.
His lips snake up, curling like a serpent ready for attack. “Not a damn thing.”
I know if he wanted to, he could kill me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Because I’m his now.