Chapter 6
It’s been a few days since I asked questions that I really didn’t like the answers to. When he let me out the next day—he’s been letting me out for a few hours every day, which still surprises me—I changed tactics.
If the answers about my fate were going to be vague and terrifying, then I’d stop asking about my future.
I started asking about him instead.
At first, it was purely strategic. Information is power. People give things away when they don’t realize they’re being studied.
Where did you grow up?
Do you have siblings?
Did you always want to be a kidnapper, or was that a career pivot?
He reserved his right to not answer many of my questions, or he gave me answers that were technically answers but told me nothing.
The kind of responses that could apply to a hundred different lives.
Which, if he’s some kind of hired mercenary, might mean he has a stockpile of generic answers from different identities.
“Everywhere,” he answered once when I asked where he was from.
“That sounds exhausting. Did your childhood also include vague, ominous piano music?”
He didn’t even blink, just went back to work for the next hour.
Another time, I asked if he had family.
“Yes.”
“Alive?”
A pause. “Irrelevant.”
Which, frankly, was rude. I bared my trauma in the shower, and he couldn’t even give me a fun tragic backstory.
Still, every now and then, I got something. A slip, a reaction, a muscle ticking in his jaw. A shadow in his eyes that didn’t match the words coming out of his mouth.
Yesterday was the most progress we’ve made so far. We had an actual conversation.
I was sitting on the floor again, handcuffed to the same pipe like I’m just some particularly annoying houseplant.
Honestly, though? I’ll take it. It’s fucking boring in that room all by myself. Being out there with Reese is at least less boring.
He was at his desk, working on something I wish I could see.
I was staring at the ceiling—there are only so many times you can count the exposed beams before you start naming them.
He called time without even a pause in his typing, and that’s when I realized the tapping of my fingers had started to match his on the keys.
“What’s your favorite food?”
That got his attention, his fingers falling still.
“That’s your question?”
“I’m expanding the range of our conversations. Soon we’ll be discussing hopes, dreams, and whether you cried during Titanic.”
He blinked several times, but he actually answered. “Steak. Medium rare.”
“That is…aggressively on brand. Do you also listen to podcasts about investing and emotional repression?”
He ignored that. “What’s yours?”
“Pizza.”
He nodded once, like that was acceptable.
“Hawaiian,” I added.
His head snapped up, and he glared at me like I was an affront to nature. “That’s not pizza.”
“It absolutely is.”
“It’s a crime.”
“Well, you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” I shot back. “It’s a delicacy. Sweet, salty, controversial. Just like me.”
“Fruit doesn’t belong on pizza.”
“Tomatoes are fruit.”
“That’s different.” His eyes were still narrowed at me like I had finally become an enigma he couldn’t figure out. “Your taste is a red flag.”
“Your personality is a red flag.”
We glared at each other for a full ten seconds before I dropped the act and grinned.
“You’re judging me for pineapple while you literally abduct people for money.”
He turned back to his computer. “Priorities.”
I laughed a genuine laugh for the first time in days.
I’m still replaying that conversation from yesterday in my head when the door to my cell opens close to dinnertime.
Reese jerks his head. “Let’s go.”
I stretch on the bed before swinging my legs over the side and standing. As I approach him waiting in the doorway, I say, “One of these days, you’re going to string more than five words together and I might pass out from shock.”
No response.
Shocking.
But the moment I step into the open part of the basement, I stop.
Because I smell it.
Warm. Savory. Familiar.
My eyes land on his desk, and there’s a pizza box sitting there.
My heart does something weird and stupid and completely inappropriate for a hostage situation.
“Is that—”
I don’t even finish the sentence before I’m already moving. He lets me get all the way to his desk and open the box. I’d wonder if maybe we were developing some kind of trust if I wasn’t distracted by my mouth already watering.
Half pepperoni. Half Hawaiian.
I turn slowly to look at him. His arms are crossed, his expression flat. Controlled. Completely unreadable.
“Why?” I ask, my voice softer now, surprised in a way I don’t let myself be about anything anymore.
“Don’t read into it. You need the calories.”
“Uh huh. Sure.” I can’t stop the grin that stretches across my face as something warm and soft blooms in my chest. “I told you you like me.”
“You’re insufferable when you’re hungry.”
“I’m insufferable all the time.”
“That’s true.”
My grin grows.
His jaw tightens. “Sit down, Cason.”
For the first time since my dad died, the name doesn’t remind me of all the times I convinced myself he hated me.
I take a seat in my usual spot, but I don’t take my eyes off him as he puts two slices on a plate, hands it to me, and cuffs my left wrist to the pipe.
This, this small, stupid, ridiculous thing, feels more dangerous than the gun ever did.
I’ve always been a pretty easygoing guy. It’s one of my better qualities. Okay, maybe my only good quality. But it makes me likable. Makes me adaptable to wildly unfortunate situations.
Like being kidnapped.
By a man with cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass and my self-esteem at the same time…
So when I realized at some point in the past couple weeks—somewhere between sandwiches and awkward silences and learning the tiniest crumbs of information that he gives me—that I’m getting attached to my captor, I mostly just…rolled with it.
Stockholm syndrome? Probably.
Trauma response? Definitely.
Embarrassing? Oh, absolutely.
But I’ve had worse coping mechanisms. I once emotionally bonded with a broken espresso machine at work for three weeks before it was finally replaced. At least Reese occasionally talks back.
It’s been twenty-five days since he took me.
Twenty-five days.
It’s a number I try not to think about too much because when you’re counting the days, you count everything else. The meals. The conversations. The moments you forget you’re trapped and the ones when it hits you so hard it feels like your lungs collapse.
I’ve had plenty of both.
Reese has brought pizza down four times now, like some kind of emotionally stunted delivery service. Half pepperoni, half Hawaiian. Every time. He still looks personally offended when I eat my slices.
But at least it’s a break from sandwiches.
He’s also started letting me shower twice a week instead of the once we started with, probably because I stopped teasing him and trying to tempt him while I’m naked.
He still stands guard, but he doesn’t react.
Either he’s still holding onto that stoic, unaffected mask he does with everything else, or…
He really is straight.
Color me disappointed.
And perpetually sexually frustrated.
I jerked off one day when I was alone in my room, maybe hoping he was watching. But the next time he let me out, there was no sign he had seen anything.
When I’m in the shower, I may never see his eyes wander, but I swear I can feel them when I turn my back.
Or maybe that’s just my desperation showing.
I lean my forehead against the cool tile, letting the hot water beat down on my shoulders, loosening muscles that have been tight for weeks. Steam fills the shower and fogs the glass, turning everything on the other side into soft shapes and shadows. Like Reese.
Tilting my head back, I let the water run over my face. For a few seconds, I pretend this is just a bad vacation, that when I open my eyes, I’ll be in some overpriced hotel with terrible art and a minibar I can’t afford.
Instead, I open them and see Reese’s silhouette through the glass. He stands there like always. Guarding, watching. Arms crossed, jaw tight.
God, he’s consistent.
“You know,” I say, loud enough to carry over the water, “most kidnappers don’t provide this level of hygiene provision. Yelp would love you.”
No answer.
“Five stars. Would be abducted again.”
Silence.
I turn slightly, rinsing soap from my shoulders, but my attention is locked on him through the blur of steam and glass. He’s been…different lately. More restless. Distracted. Like something is chewing on the inside of his brain.
I know that look. It’s the same one I imagine I’d see if I could look in a mirror.
The one that means something is wrong.
“You know what I’ve been thinking about?” I ask.
He exhales sharply. “That’s never good.”
I grin to myself. “Ouch. Hurtful.”
“Cason.”
“This whole situation.”
His posture stiffens, almost imperceptibly.
“I mean,” I continue, “statistically speaking, this is a terrible ransom operation. No proof-of-life video. No deadline. I haven’t heard you make a single phone call with demands or pressure tactics.
Sure, some cheesy thriller movies might be my only frame of reference, but kidnappers always seem more showboaty on TV. ”
His voice is as stiff as he is when he says, “Drop it.”
“See, but I can’t,” I say lightly. “Because the more I think about it, the less it makes sense. What’s even going on while I’m locked away in that room? Why are we still here, Reese? Why am I not free or dead?”
My gaze locks on his through the fog, and his jaw tightens.
There it is again, that flicker of doubt and anger. Something unsure and unsettled. He’s been thinking along the same lines, asking the same questions. And, for some reason, that terrifies me more than if this felt like some normal kidnapping.
But something is wrong.
I’ve been here too long.
When even your abductor thinks there may be some higher power at work, that’s a bit concerning.
I step closer to the glass, water dripping down my chest. His brow is furrowed so deep I almost feel bad for him. I’d distract us both if he’d just let me.
Honestly, I need the distraction badly enough that I’m willing to try.
“You want to know what I think?” I ask, not waiting for an actual answer. “Either you’re very bad at your job, which seems unlikely, or—”
“Or what?” he snaps.
“Or this isn’t about a ransom at all.” I tilt my head and drag my teeth over my bottom lip. “Maybe you just have some kind of sick obsession with me.”
His eyes flash.
A beat of tense silence.
“Shut up, Cason.”
“Maybe you like watching me,” I continue, ignoring him completely now.
I step back beneath the spray to finish rinsing off, turning my body to give him a view from every angle.
“But kidnapping, Reese? That’s a little extreme, don’t you think?
You could’ve just asked me out on a date.
Saved us both a lot of time and felonies. ”
I swear I can hear his breathing change over the sound of the water as it rains over me.
That alone is intoxicating.
The air becomes suffused with something hot and volatile and dangerous.
There are no suds left, but I continue running my hands over my body, periodically stopping to massage a pec or knead an ass cheek or grab my thickening cock.
“Or maybe this is just your thing,” I continue. “Control. Power. Watching someone who can’t stop you.”
My dick throbs in my hand.
I peer over my shoulder just in time to see his gaze drop.
I smirk. “I knew you were watching.”
“Stop,” he says, his voice rougher now and, dare I say, a little breathless.
Mine is too when I say, “I’d beg you to stop if you wanted me to.”
I turn back around and place one hand on the wall as I thrust into my fist. My cock is as hard as a fucking rock now, and I really want to come.
Fuck, I’m getting myself all worked up when I know Reese won’t even come close to touching me.
“I think the real question now is…” My words are interrupted by a moan that rips its way up my throat. “Are you still doing this because you have to? Or because you want to?”
There’s a sudden, sharp metallic sound that fills the basement.
The water beating down on me turns to ice.
My hand falls to my side, and I turn slowly. On the other side of the glass, Reese stands there, his gun in his hand. And he’s pointing it straight at me. His hand is steady, but his eyes…
His eyes are anything but.
The silver in them wavers, shifting and unstable, like mercury trembling in a glass vial, never quite still no matter how tightly he holds himself together.
For the first time in twenty-five days, real fear hits me. Cold and sharp and absolute. My pulse slams against my ribs. My lungs forget how to work.
This is it.
This is how it ends.
Naked and wet and…still a little hard.
I swallow.
And then, because I am apparently incapable of shutting up even in the face of death…
“If this is your idea of foreplay, I’m into it.”
For a second, I see it—the crack in his control, the thing beneath all that discipline. Something dark and hungry. And suddenly I don’t know if I should be afraid of the gun.
Or of what happens if he lowers it.