Chapter 24 Frogs and Cages
FROGS AND CAGES
He didn’t release my hand as he led me from the bedroom, nor did he rush me to the front door. In fact, there was something almost maddening about the steadiness of him. The way he moved as though this outcome had been decided long before I ever started stuffing clothes into a suitcase.
We crossed the living room together, my apartment suddenly feeling smaller than it ever had before, as though the walls themselves were shrinking inward.
The sofa, the scattered cushions and throw blankets, the familiar clutter that once felt comforting, now seemed fragile and temporary.
It struck me, with a strange ache, that I had never really looked at this place as something I might ever lose.
At the front door, he opened it for me, and his hand settled at the small of my back in a gesture that would have appeared gentlemanly to anyone watching. It wasn’t forceful, but it wasn’t optional either, reminding me of his earlier threat.
The warmth of his palm pressed through the thin fabric of my top, guiding rather than pushing, yet the weight of it carried something heavier than simple direction.
It felt like inevitability dressed as courtesy.
Then the door shut behind us with a firm click that made me flinch despite myself.
The sound echoed in the narrow hallway, and I found myself glancing back at it as though committing it to memory.
A ridiculous thought surfaced, uninvited.
When would I see it again? Would I ever?
The last traces of pretense between us had dissolved in my bedroom, and whatever thin shield I had clung to about “employment” and “contracts” now lay in pieces.
This was no longer a professional arrangement.
It was imprisonment, no matter how elegantly he framed it.
He guided me down to the street in silence, the city greeting us with its usual indifference.
Cars passed. People laughed somewhere near the corner.
A woman maneuvered a stroller around the sidewalk while speaking animatedly into her phone.
The normalcy of it all felt almost cruel.
Life was continuing exactly as it always had, while mine had tilted sharply into something unrecognizable.
His expensive car waited at the curb with the driver standing beside it.
The moment he saw us, he stepped forward immediately, and my captor handed over my suitcase without a word.
It disappeared into the trunk once the rear door was opened for us, but I couldn’t help staring at the back seat with a growing sense of dread, knowing exactly what getting inside would mean.
It was also a reluctance he must have felt as once again; he stepped close, close enough that I could feel the heat of him at my back.
His hand came to rest lightly on my shoulder this time, not gripping, not a bruising hold.
Yet it was present enough to remind me that choice was an illusion I was currently fooling myself with.
Still, I hesitated. My gaze drifted over the sidewalk, over the people moving past. If I screamed now, if I bolted into the crowd…
He leaned closer, his voice low enough that only I could hear.
“Remember, little mortal, they will see what I want them to see,” he murmured softly, and the certainty in that statement coiled through me.
This was not an empty threat. It was simply fact, spoken without arrogance, because arrogance was unnecessary when one possessed that level of control. That terrifying amount of power.
So, with no other choice, I sealed my fate and ducked into the car.
He followed, the door sealing us inside a cocoon of leather and tinted glass.
The outside noise dulled immediately, replaced by the quiet hum of the engine as we pulled away from the curb.
For several moments, neither of us spoke, and the silence felt different now than it had in the café.
Less playful. No gentle niceties, as clearly, there was no need for them anymore.
Not when we both knew what this was at its core…
A kidnapping.
But then he surprised me once again by cutting through the silence,
“So… Lily-pad?” he asked at last, his tone almost conversational despite the tension still lingering between us. I stared at the passing buildings rather than at him.
“The frogs,” he added, the faintest trace of curiosity threading through his voice. I let my head rest back against the seat and exhaled slowly, bracing myself for embarrassment. Of course, I could have just ignored him. But then that age-old saying of ‘better the devil you know’ came back to me.
“It’s a childhood thing,” I said, attempting to dismiss it as trivial, but he wasn’t about to let me off with that vague answer.
“Tell me,” he replied.
I turned my head then, studying him carefully.
“Is that an order?” I tested, as if needing him to spell out the rules to me on how this relationship between us was going to go.
His expression did not harden but, instead, he held my gaze with quiet steadiness and replied,
“No. That is me asking.”
The absence of command unsettled me more than if he had demanded it outright.
My fingers drifted unconsciously to the bandage wrapped around my palm, my thumb catching the edge of it in a nervous habit I had developed without realizing.
I watched the city blur past through the window before answering.
“I killed a frog,” I said finally, the words sounding small even to me. There was a brief pause in which I almost regretted admitting it at all. Then he laughed, the sound low and genuinely surprised rather than mocking.
He turned slightly toward me, disbelief evident in his expression as he repeated,
“You killed a frog?”
“Not on purpose,” I said quickly, heat creeping up my neck. He lifted his hands in mock surrender, the amusement still lingering in his eyes.
“I wasn’t suggesting you were conducting amphibian executions,” he offered, and despite everything, a reluctant flicker of a smile tugged at my mouth. I dropped my gaze again and shook my head faintly.
“I was little, and I was outside in the garden…” I said quietly before I continued, my voice softening despite myself as the memory pulled me backward.
“I had one of those little plastic toy mowers. Bright yellow. It blew bubbles when you pushed it along. I was obsessed with it. I’d march up and down the grass like I was doing very important landscaping,” I told him, before glancing sideways at him and catching the unmistakable twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t,” I warned lightly, surprised that I would dare demand he do anything. As usual, he didn’t get angry but just lifted his brows in innocent denial, though the spark of amusement was there and easy to see.
“I will behave… please continue,” he said, and I scoffed at that before giving in to his request.
“I didn’t realize I’d gone over something,” I went on, looking back out of the window as the buildings slid past.
“I just remember the bubbles stopping and looking down with horror.” I swallowed faintly at the innocent memory.
“Oh dear,” he hummed softly, as if he could picture it for himself.
“It was a frog. I’d… well, I’d squashed it. Not properly, not…” I grimaced.
“But enough.”
His composure wavered, and I accused,
“You’re trying not to laugh!”
“I’m attempting composure,” he corrected smoothly, though the warmth in his voice betrayed him. Without thinking, without calculating the consequence, I reached across the small space between us and smacked the back of my hand lightly against his shoulder.
“Oi,” I scolded like he was the child, my tone faintly teasing at the end.
“This was a traumatic childhood event. Show some respect,” but then the second I realized what I’d done, my breath caught. Because I had… I had just hit him!
It hadn’t been hard, but still, it was enough that he went very still, and my eyes widened slightly because of it.
“Uh… sorry about that,” I muttered quickly, and in an awkward attempt to smooth it over, I gave his shoulder an almost absurd little pat as though that would undo it.
But then, as I began to pull my hand back, his fingers closed gently around it, preventing my retreat.
It wasn’t a hard grip or done in annoyance.
But more like he had just captured a fluttering bird in his grasp.
Then he gave my hand a gentle squeeze, his gaze steady on mine as he said quietly,
“Never apologize for touching me.”
The air shifted.
I arched a brow, trying to recover ground.
“So let me get this straight,” I replied, sliding back into teasing because it felt safer than whatever that tone had been.
“I have full permission to punch you in the face when you’re irritating me?”
A low chuckle left him, and it was yet another sound I could shamelessly grow addicted to.
“You may try, but I cannot guarantee where you would end up.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and crossed my arms over my chest.
“Meaning?”
His gaze darkened slightly, as though the scene had already played out in his mind before he decided to share it with me.
“Meaning, that I might catch your wrist before it lands. Perhaps I then pull you off balance…” he replied smoothly, pausing so he could lean closer, taking my wrist in his hand like he was about to play out the scenario for me.
Which meant I shouldn’t have been surprised when he suddenly yanked me closer to him so he could finish painting this particular picture for me.
“…Perhaps you would then find yourself halfway to the floor before realizing it or…” His thumb, once again, brushed against the back of my hand, before he then whispered seductively,
“…Or pinned beneath me.”
My mouth dropped open.
But my reaction didn’t affect him in the slightest as he reached forward and tapped my chin lightly with two fingers, nudging it closed in a gesture that was almost playful.