Chapter 12 #2
“That makes no sense.” My voice shakes. “I don't have anything he wants.”
“Don't you?” His eyes bore into mine. “You sure about that, lass?”
“You're lying. You have to be. You're just trying to manipulate me, trying to make me scared so I'll?—”
“So you'll what?” He stands, towering over me, and despite myself, I shrink back into the couch. “Stay here willingly? Trust me?”
“No. I?—”
“I don't need you to do either of those things, lass.” His voice is low, intense. “I need you here. Alive. That's all.”
“I don't believe you.”
He stares at me for a moment, then pulls his phone from his pocket. “Aye, I know. That much is obvious.” There’s something raw in his eyes, like barely contained frustration. My chest tightens for reasons I don’t understand. “Let me show you.”
“Show me what?” My heart is already hammering against my rib cage.
He swipes through his phone, frowning, then turns it toward me. “Sarah Donnelly. Twenty-one years old.”
The photo on the screen makes my blood run cold. A young woman stares back at me with dark eyes… just like mine. Her hair is long and nearly black, falling in waves ar ound a face that’s pale as porcelain. Red lips, delicate features. She looks like… she looks like me.
“Crowning’s ex.” He swipes to another photo, this time a news article with the headline:
Missing Woman
Emma Walsh disappeared on a run one day. Dated Crowning eight months before she left a suicide note. But sources say she was happy, that she gave no indication of depression, or wanting to end her life…”
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. These women could be… sisters. Or triplets , my triplets.
“No,” I whisper, trembling. “This isn’t him. He told me he always dated blondes in the past, but that I was special. Different.”
“Aye, you’re special, lass. But not because you’re different from his type.”
I look up at him, at his scarred knuckles and the tattoos snaking up his arms.
“But you’ve been following me!” Panic threads through every syllable. “ You’re the one with photos of women who look just like me. Women who disappeared. Who died.”
“Bianca—”
“Oh god. ”
I’m standing now, backing away from him, even though there’s nowhere to go, nowhere to escape. “Maybe Marcus isn’t the one with a type. Maybe it’s you. ”
“That’s not?—”
“Marcus dates tall, skinny blondes! That’s what he told me! And now you’re showing me photos of women who look just like me. I’m next, aren’t I? Your next victim. That’s why I’m here. That’s why you took me.”
My whole body is shaking.
“ No ! God, no. Bianca, that’s not?—”
“Then why do they look like me ?” I’m crying now, tears streaming down my face. “Why do they all have my face if you’re not?—”
“Because they look like you ! Don’t you see?” His voice matches mine. “You’re the pattern. You’re the one he wants. And you’ll end up dead, just like them. ”
I slide to the floor, my knees pulled up to my chest.
“Crowning fuckin’ lied.” He crouches in front of me but doesn’t touch me. “They hid the evidence.”
I don't want to believe him. I want to cling to my certainty that he’s the monster here…
“Look at me, lass.” He doesn’t move any closer, even though he looks like he wants to. “Have I hurt you? Since the moment I took you, have I laid a hand on you in anger? ”
“You’re holding me prisoner.”
“Aye. To keep you safe from him, but not from me. Never from me.”
I drop my head to my knees, my fingers tangling in my hair.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” I whisper.
“Believe that you’re safe,” he whispers back. “Believe that I’ll protect you.”
He reaches down and grabs my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. His thumb brushes along my jaw, a gesture that's somehow both gentle and possessive.
“And believe that running won’t end well for you.”
I blink. “What?”
“You need to understand something.” His voice is quiet now, deadly serious. “You pull a stunt like this again, and the consequences will be far worse than what you’ve already got coming.”
My pulse jumps. “Are you threatening me? You just said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“I'm promising you.” His thumb traces my jaw again, and I hate that my skin tingles where he touches me. “You scared me tonight, Bianca. Scared me badly. And I do not like being scared.” A beat passes. “And you need to learn a lesson about running away. ”
I swallow hard. “Lesson?” My heart beats madly. Is this when I get to see who he really is? What he's truly capable of?
He releases my chin and reaches for something on the side table—a bottle of pain relievers. He opens it in front of me, deliberately showing me the sealed cap before shaking a few pills into his palm. Then he hands me a glass of water.
“You're going to take these,” he says. “I'm going to cook us some dinner. And then, once the pain has settled, I'll deal with you.”
I twist my hair nervously, staring at him. Why does my heartbeat flutter in my chest? “What's that supposed to mean?”
“You'll see.”
I stare at his retreating form as he heads to the kitchen, then look down at the pills in my hand. They were sealed. He took them right out of that bottle…
I take them because I am in pain, and because he showed me they were sealed. He's not trying to drug me, which somehow makes everything more confusing.
In a short while, there's food sizzling in the kitchen, and my stomach growls traitorously. The smell of garlic and butter fills the cabin, and despite everything, my mouth waters.
I sigh .
I feel like a child who's lost every ounce of control, and I hate it.
The heavy sound of a pot lid clanging echoes from the kitchen, and then he's back, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his broad chest.
“How's the pain?”
“Better,” I admit truthfully, before I remember he told me he’d deal with me after my pain improved.
“Good.” He studies me for a long moment. “Dinner's almost ready. But we have something to deal with first, don't we?”
Protesting seems fruitless, but… “I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“I'm going to make damn sure you understand that running isn't an option.” He pushes off the doorframe and stalks toward me. “And that you will not hurt yourself again.”
Before I can ask what he means, he's sitting down on the couch and pulling me across his lap.
Across. His. Lap.
“Ashland!” I say, because I'm as terrified of being punished by him as I am mortified by him putting my curvy body over his knee. “Put me down. I'm too big. I don't fit. You can't?—”
“Stop that,” he says sharply. “I told you what would happen if you made self-deprecating comments. You'll be punished for that as well.”
“What? What are you?—”
My words cut off in a gasp as his hand comes down hard across my arse. The sound cracks through the quiet cabin. Heat blooms where he struck—not just pain, but something else. Something that makes my breath catch and my core clench.
“That,” he says, low and stern, “is for breaking my window.”
His hand comes down again on the same spot, and the sting intensifies, spreading through me like wildfire.
“That's for running into the woods without proper clothing.”
Again .
“That's for twisting your ankle and scaring ten years off my fucking life.”
Again .
“For making me chase you just to keep you safe.”
I should be furious. I should be screaming, demanding he stop. But I'm… not.
Each smack sends heat sparking through me. Warmth pools in my core and makes me press my thighs together instinctively.
What the fuck is wrong with me ?
“This is for putting yourself in danger when I'm trying to keep you safe.” His hand comes down harder, and I gasp.
I can't just take this.
“I didn't—” My voice comes out breathless, unfamiliar. “I don't need you to keep me safe.”
“Yes, you do, lass. You do.”
Another smack.
Another.
“And that's for saying another comment about your weight. Did I look like I couldn't handle you?”
No, no, he didn't.
My skin's on fire, hypersensitive, every nerve ending alive and electric.
I'm acutely aware of his hard thighs beneath me, my soft belly pressed over the edge of his knee, the warmth of his large hand against my burning skin.
The way my body responds to something it absolutely should not be responding to.
This is wrong. So fucking wrong.
So why am I arching into the next strike?
His hand stills, resting on my burning arse, as he grips the heated flesh possessively. It's painful and perfect all at once, and I hate him for it.
“Never again,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “Do you understand me, Bianca? Never fucking again. No more shite comments about your size when you're fucking perfect. And no more running.”
I should tell him to go to hell. But when I try to speak, all that comes out is a whimper.
His hand tightens on my arse, possessive and claiming. Then he shifts me, turning me until I'm straddling his lap, and his eyes are so dark, the pupils blown wide with something that looks like hunger.
“You've no goddamn idea”—he exhales—“what you do to me.”
He pushes my hair off my forehead with surprising gentleness, tucks it behind my ear, and cups my jaw with his calloused palm.
“You're so beautiful. Such a bonnie, gorgeous woman.”
Then he leans in, and before I know what's happening, he's kissing me.
It's not gentle or sweet, but claiming. Consuming. His hands tangle in my hair, angling my head exactly where he wants it. His other hand grips my hip, holding me tight against him so I can feel every hard plane of his body.
I should pull away. I should claw at him or fight him.
But I don't.
My hands find his shoulders, his neck. His skin is hot under my fingers, scarred and rough. His pulse races beneath my palm, matching mine, beat for frantic beat .
I've never touched a man like him before. Never been touched by one. He's masculinity made flesh—dangerous and powerful—and somehow knows exactly the way I want to be touched, even when I don't understand it myself.
When his hand cups my jaw, I make a sound I don't recognize. He tastes like danger and whiskey and something dark that makes me want to throw every sane thought I've ever had right out that broken window.
His hand slides from my hip to my sore, burning arse—and squeezes. I gasp into his mouth, and he swallows the sound, deepening the kiss. His tongue tangles with mine, our lips crushed together, pain and pleasure so intertwined I can't tell where one ends and the other begins.
He groans, deep and rough, then pulls away just enough to rest his forehead against mine. We're both panting, breathing each other's air.
His hands grip me as if he's afraid I'll disappear, like I'm something precious he needs to protect.
“Tell me,” he says, his voice raw. “Tell me you'll never fucking run from me again.”
“I won't,” I whisper, unsure why I'm agreeing, but right now I'd give him anything. I'm completely caught in his orbit, and I don't understand why. “I won't run.”
“Fuck,” he breathes out, then closes his eyes like I've given him something sacred .
We stay like that for a long moment, just breathing together in the quiet cabin, the fire crackling softly in the hearth.
Despite everything—the kidnapping, the fear, the confusion—I feel safer in this moment than I have in years.
And that terrifies me more than anything else.
This can't go on. I have to get away.