Chapter Twenty-Two Sage
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sage
I don’t remember going to the bedroom last night, but I wake up with a hand zip-tied to Travis’s headboard. Travis has been doing that to keep an eye on me, but normally I’m zip-tied to his own wrist. He’s not in bed beside me, and I start feeling like I did something wrong.
With a huff, I close my eyes again. While I wait for Travis to come and get me, I daydream about starting a fashion line for bedazzled zip ties. Maybe there is a market out there. I should find a support group for women who’ve been held hostage by a hot guy.
I try to sit up, and the headboard rattles against the wall as I move. Travis must have ultrasonic hearing, because he storms into the room mere moments later with his arms crossed in front of him and a scowl on his face.
Yep. I should have predicted this would happen, but I didn’t.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Travis asks, standing at the foot of the bed while I wiggle my arm. “You can’t just go around drugging people without their consent.”
My mind is a little foggy because the pot brownies were much stronger than I intended them to be.
I shake my head and try to recall the memory of the night before.
It all comes flooding back to me as I think about Travis sitting on the couch and telling me about his sister’s death. I still feel awful for him.
I did what I did because I needed him to open up to me. Now that he has, we’re closer than we’ve ever been. It was a good thing, but he doesn’t see it that way. I know he might come around in the future, and I can hardly wait for that.
“Come on, you never would have loosened up if it weren’t for the brownie,” I say, arguing my piece.
He just shakes his head with a disgusted look on his face.
“I didn’t want to tell you those things.
They’re my private memories that I chose to keep from you.
You can’t just make a decision like that for me.
I shared that information unwillingly.” Travis raises his voice as he speaks, and I shrink away from him.
He lost control last night when he was telling me about his past while high, and he’s losing control right now.
“I’m sorry,” I say, hoping to placate him. Honestly, I’m not sorry at all. Travis needed that—we needed that for our relationship.
Speaking of . . . My wrist is still zip-tied to the headboard, so I casually ask, “Are we, like . . . in a relationship now, or is this just your weird version of a sleepover?”
He just shakes his head and walks over to me, pulling a pocketknife out of his jeans and opening it. For most people, a serial killer approaching them with a knife might be a bad thing, but believe it or not, I trust Travis.
He cuts through the zip tie and frees my hand from the bedpost. I immediately reach for the waistband of his pants and look up at him with an eager smile.
“Let me make it up to you,” I say, then bite my lower lip. Travis doesn’t hesitate when he pushes my hand aside and walks over to the door.
“Not now. It’s planning time.”
I jump to my feet, and he stops in the doorway, turning around and staring at me with an exasperated sigh. I smile as I walk toward him. “We’ll plan together, then.”
I follow him to his office even though he has forbidden me from going in here before. I confidently move a chair to sit beside him, behind the computer.
“You in my office is a one-time thing,” Travis says before he begins to ignore me as he logs on to all the different databases he needs, plus my Instagram account. I haven’t looked at my phone yet today, but I see I have several messages from Eli.
“I traced some of the messages he sent you yesterday, and it appears he’s moving closer to Lake Lure,” Travis explains. He copies some information into his databases and searches for one of Eli’s recent locations. “Looks like my hunch was right. He’s here already.”
My stomach twists, and I feel a surge of nervous energy that could even be confused with excitement. Travis is focused, with a stoic look on his face. I wish I could crack his skull open and see what’s inside. I want to know what he’s thinking, and he’s almost impossible to read.
“So he’s here. What do we do now?” I ask. Travis points to the computer screen, where he is using some kind of information that Eli has inadvertently given us to pinpoint exactly where he is.
“It looks like he’s staying at the Lodge. He arrived yesterday evening, I think.”
“Is he alone?” I remember his fiancée, and I feel guilty. I know that Eli is a bad guy, but I wonder how she would feel knowing everything he’s getting himself into.
“We have no way to know right now, but if he came here just for the chance of finding you, I would imagine he is,” Travis replies. He grips the mouse tight as he grimaces at the idea of my stalker coming to find me.
I pull out my phone to see what new messages Eli has sent. Surprisingly, he doesn’t say anything about being in Lake Lure.
I’m confused.
I thought the whole point of me sending him the seductive messages was to convince him to come here under the guise of us hooking up.
“If he made all the effort to come here and not even tell me, what was the point?”
Travis looks at me, and a dark expression falls on his face. I feel like there’s something I’m missing, and I stare at him expectantly.
“Trust me, I’ve noticed that too. I don’t think he has any intention of letting you know when he plans on visiting you,” he says.
I feel like I’m going to be sick.
I already knew there was a possibility my stalker was a very bad person.
But somehow, seeing pictures of him with his fiancée made him seem disarming.
If what Travis is insinuating is right, then Eli wants to assault me.
It’s not enough that he knows where I’m staying and that I’ve been seemingly into it.
There’s something much more sinister lying beneath the surface.
Just the idea of that gets rid of any doubt I might have had before. This man is dangerous, and I want him gone. I don’t care about his life back home, his fiancée, or his family. If he’s willing to fly across the country to come here with the intent of raping me—or worse—he can die.
“Where do we start?” I ask.
Travis must see the fury in my eyes, because the corners of his lips turn up as he looks back at the computer.
He delves into everything he knows about Eli. For the first time, I can see how his rigorous schedules and eye for detail are a benefit. He’s able to predict almost exactly where he can find Eli, and he has a plan for what to do.
“Have you ever felt like somebody has been on your trail while you do all of this?” Everything he discusses involves meticulous stalking. To me, it almost seems impossible that somebody wouldn’t catch him.
“Never,” he replies, as confident as ever.
I raise my eyebrows, but he doesn’t budge. I happen to remember him telling me about somebody possibly being on his tail right now. He doesn’t seem concerned about that, though.
“So tell me about what you have planned for Eli,” I say with a smirk. Excitement swells in my chest as he scans my face and probably sees the eagerness in my eyes.
Travis and I recognize something in each other. I’ve never felt this with anyone else before.
“Well, we’re going to start with you luring him somewhere quiet.
” Travis’s voice is low as he talks, and he leans back in his chair as if this is relaxing to him.
“Then I’ll come out of hiding with a needle and incapacitate him entirely.
He’ll wake up in a damp basement, not understanding why he’s restrained to a table. ”
“Basement? You’re not using one of the factories like the others?”
“That’s not my only mode of operating.” He leans forward with a smile, grabbing his pocketknife.
He opens it and twirls it around his fingers like it’s a fidget spinner.
“Not only do I have factories, but I own a crematorium. It’s closed down and situated on a plot of land you can’t even see from the street.
It used to be a pet cemetery. We’ll bring him there, and while he’s in the basement, we’ll make him realize the error of his ways.
I’ll take my time killing him before loading him into the oven and turning him to ash. ”
An excited glint shows in his eyes. He holds the knife in his hands as I watch him. He scans my face, lowering on my body as he bites the inside of his cheek. Staring at him, I see something switch in his eyes. It’s like he can taste the kill already.
Without warning, he moves swiftly and stands up, wrapping an arm around my neck and holding the blade of the knife to my throat. My breath catches as I feel the cold metal press against my skin.
“It’s easy, you know,” Travis whispers in my ear.
A chill runs through my body, and I’m not so sure it’s a bad thing.
My heartbeat quickens, and I bite my lower lip as I strain my eyes to look at him.
“I could kill you right now. All I have to do is swipe this knife along your pretty little throat, severing your carotid artery. You would die within a matter of minutes. I know how to clean up blood too.”
His voice is cold, and despite everything telling me I should be afraid of this, I’m not. I shiver as warmth rushes through me, flooding between my legs. I stare at him, savoring how this makes my entire body tingle.
“You wouldn’t hurt me,” I say, knowing it’s going to get a rise out of him. And that’s exactly what I want.
He moves around me and presses the knife harder against me. He kneels in front of me as he stares me in the eyes. “I don’t know if that’s true.”
Before I can say anything, he gets up and pulls me to my feet, slamming the knife down on his desk. His hands are around my waist as he pushes off my pajama bottoms. Fuck. Yes.
My hands immediately find the buckle of his jeans, and I undo them, shoving them aside. I feel frenzied as he pushes me back on the desk and spreads my legs wide. His fingers trace my slit as he feels just how wet I already am for him.
Travis is as hard as a rock, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s entirely from holding the blade to my throat. “I knew you were into knife play,” I tease.
He doesn’t say anything as he shoves himself into me. I arch my back on the desk and cry out from the pleasure shooting through my body. My breath quickens, and it takes me a moment to adjust to the feeling of him inside me again. It’s incredible, and I almost wish he would never leave this spot.
His hand wraps around my throat and he squeezes, forcing me to stare up at him as my body starts to tremble.
“I could snap your neck,” he says in a cold, murderous voice as he pumps himself inside me. I see the truth in his eyes, and I trust that he won’t, but the desire is still there.
His words echo in my mind, telling me he was in Ryan’s cabin to kill me. Something changed, and I know he’s not going to hurt me now. That doesn’t take away the little bit of fear I feel as his hand squeezes my neck harder.
Something about that danger excites me. I’m dancing on the cusp of death every single day with him, and I’m beating it. It’s intoxicating.
My heart rate quickens as I struggle to breathe under his grasp. Every sensation in my body is heightened as he grips my thigh with his other hand and his cock fills me entirely.
I moan, the sound coming out ragged. He seems to notice this, and the devilish look in his eyes only grows. “Do you want me to stop? To let you go?”
His grip tightens while he waits for my answer. Instinctually, I nod. Though I don’t know if that’s what I really want. I’m starting to feel the rush of adrenaline swimming through my head as every nerve in my body is on high alert. It feels like heaven.
Travis smirks at me and shakes his head, looking down at my body before him. I grab hold of his arm, attempting to push it off me. Maybe Travis likes having a bit of a fight, so I’ll give him one. My grip is weak, which I sense is even more of a turn-on for him as he holds his arm steady.
“I’ll let go of you when I’m good and ready,” he says as he pumps into me harder and harder.
I can’t take it much longer, and within moments, my entire body is spasming on his desk.
My legs spread wider, and he pushes them even farther apart with the hand that was on my thigh a minute ago.
He relaxes his grip on my throat only slightly before tightening it again.
Ecstasy rushes through my veins as my head spins from the choking.
I try to moan and whimper, but every noise I make is stifled.
Travis sees this and loses control completely. He doesn’t hold back as he comes and fills me with every drop. As he thrusts inside me, he pounds his hips against me. The desk rattles and shakes below us, and I’m afraid it’s going to break.
When the pleasure fades, he releases me from his grip, and I fall back on the desk, pushing papers and utensils aside inadvertently. I gasp for breath, and my chest heaves as I will myself to recover. Travis sits down in his desk chair, his pants pulled back up and buttoned.
Eventually I sit up and look at him. “I want to go with you when you kill him.”
He nods and gestures for me to get off his desk so he can put everything back together.
He spends the rest of the day stalking Eli on his computer. I watch from time to time, but I have my own work to do for my channel.
When bedtime rolls around, I climb into bed and hold my wrist out for him to zip-tie, but he doesn’t. I smile at him, knowing this means that he trusts me. At least more than he did previously. Finally, we’re making progress.