Abduction (44 page)

But then he lied down beside her, his head propped on one hand, his other hand settled lightly on her belly. She froze in fear once more. She wouldn't look at him, stared desperately straight above her, at the ceiling, but she thought she heard him chuckle, low, soft. He moved closer against her, the lengths of their bodies touching through the bedding, his face on the pillow beside her.

"Sweet Devan," he sighed. "Not a virgin any longer."

After everything, how could five words, the simple truth, make her blush so hot?

A blush she felt through her whole body.

Conrad's hand lifted from her belly. His delicate fingers gently brushed her hair back from her face, traced her hairline, her eyebrows, brushed over her lips as she panted, trying to be calm, trying to be still.

"Your Vaughn is quite something. In spite of everything, he did manage to take you very gently. Didn't he?"

The expected manifesto on Vaughn, on her and Vaughn, never came. Conrad kissed her warmly on the cheek, rose, cuffed her wrist to the headboard, and just as she was about to go crazy with revived fear, quietly left the room, closing the door behind him.

Hearing Devan's door close and Conrad's footfalls receding in the direction of the living room, Vaughn's whole body—every strained muscle and sinew, his lungs, his ears—collapsed in sudden, desperate relief. Conrad hadn't…"

But he had. God. Dev. Poor Dev.

Sitting there, cuffed to his headboard, Vaughn felt his façade of stoicism dissolve in a sudden flood of tears. Never in his life had he so longed to be kind, to be tender and gentle with someone as he had with her. Sweet Devan who he'd held, trembling, fighting back tears, and forced onto the bed, who he'd bound, whose virginity he'd just taken By force. He'd terrorized and hurt her, this girl he loved so much.

He did. He loved her.

Silently he cried until he was exhausted, finally sinking down in the bed. What would happen next? Tomorrow? Maybe Conrad would disappear. Go away, now that he'd stripped Devan of her virginity. Not likely, but Vaughn comforted himself with the fantasy. A soft knock on his door in the morning. Devan, a key in her hand. Cuffs unlocked.

"He's gone," she'd say.

"I'm so sorry, Devan," he'd say.

"Shhhh." Devan perched on his thighs as they held each other in hazy morning light, their bodies warm and soft and naked. Her face before him, the only thing in frame, filling his eyes with her strange beauty, smiling, eyes happy and adoring. "You were so gentle. It was good."

And her saying it made it so. All his guilt and fear melted away, and he felt happy and full of love.

"Be with me again," she sang, her voice like a low note on a violin, and he was inside her, their bodies pressed close, their arms wrapped tight. Everything warm and light and gentle and good.

"I love you, Vaughn. I love you. I love you. I love you."

Sometime later he woke, panting, sweating, his body taut and fierce. His hard-on and the images from his dream lingered. Her, outside, running. Like the night he found her. Just out of reach. His want goading him. Her arm frail in his grip, her body light as he dragged her toward the cabin, her screams, her pleas like a siren's song urging him on. The stump in the yard—the chopping block. Her, bending under his force, her body hot and trembling beneath him.

The following morning Conrad rose from the sofa by the fire, where he had slept and where, since waking, he'd lain, thinking. Buzzed, nearly, with a head full of fresh notions and certainties, he went to the room where Devan had spent the night. Quietly he opened the door and peered in. She was awake, sitting up, one hand resting on her lap, the other down at her side, cuffed to an iron bar. Conrad sat down next to her on the bed and freed her wrist. She looked particularly lovely to him at that moment, her black hair tousled, her expression soft with sleep, the covers pulled up high under her arms for warmth. For modesty. He contemplated her with a degree of satisfaction. And with a tinge of regret.

"Sleep all right?"

"Yes." Her voice was soft but terse.

As he drew closer she looked…hard. Like she'd be hard and cold if he should choose to take her now. He could smell her skin, her hair as he leaned in so she'd feel the moist heat of his breath, and now and then the faintest brush of his lips against her pale pink, downed earlobe as he whispered.

"What do you think, sweet Devan—now that you've been…intimate with Vaughn, are you less mine? Or more?"

He leaned back to take in her indignant glare. Adorable.

"Hungry?"

An apathetic shrug.

"Don't be silly, Devan. You must be famished. Come on, I've made breakfast."

Poor Vaughn was there already, bound to his chair, watching her intently as Conrad led her to the table, seated her directly across from her fellow prisoner. Devan gave him a lingering, soft smile, promising him she was all right, and he seemed to return it. In a strange way she felt they were connected in that moment, holding each other warm and safe.

"Go ahead, Devan. Help yourself."

"What about Vaughn?"

There was a plate in front of him, but both his hands were bound to the chair.

"I'll see to him."

Conrad pulled a chair up next to Vaughn, spread a napkin over his captive's thigh, and picked up the fork that lay beside his plate.

"What do you fancy? A bit of cantaloupe to start?"

Conrad speared a piece of fruit and held the fork by Vaughn's lips.

"Conrad…"

Her voice came out low and it wavered with a new angry feeling. Conrad turned to her attentively.

"Can't you just untie one of his hands?"

"I would, Devan, but I just don't think it's prudent. I'm not keen on the thought of getting a fork the eye, and I'm afraid that, although your Vaughn performed admirably last night, we're still working through some trust issues."

She was livid. Shaking. The idea of Conrad spoon feeding Vaughn like an infant…

"It's all right, Devan." Vaughn's voice was unfathomably mellow. "If he wants to tie me up and pretend I'm helpless so he can play nursemaid, let him."

He took the piece of fruit from the fork in Conrad's hand, calmly chewed, and swallowed. When he'd had a few bites of cantaloupe Vaughn evenly said, "May I have some eggs, please?" and Conrad replied, "Certainly," and fed him eggs and a few bites of toast until Vaughn was full, then sat down and ate his own meal.

"Would you mind clearing the table, Devan?" Conrad asked when they'd all eaten. She stood, gathered up the dishes and went slowly to the kitchen. Slowly, because she was trying to decide if she could possibly get hold of a knife, somehow get Vaughn untied…

"Just put them on the counter and come back, Devan. "I'll do the washing up later."

He'd stood, and was watching her intently. Of course. She set the dishes down and returned to the table. Conrad had taken her seat.

"Come here."

She stepped up to his outstretched hand, let him guide her down, in front of him, on the seat of the chair opposite Vaughn. She felt the weight of his chin on her shoulder, felt his cheek against hers, and knew he was staring at Vaughn, watching his reaction, the fear bubbling through his stoic facade.

"Tell us, Devan." Conrad's lips faintly tickled her ear. "Do you feel different this morning? After Vaughn's fucked you?"

Vaughn's jaw twitched.

"Yes."

"How so, darling?"

She held Vaughn's gaze.

"I'm less afraid now."

"Less afraid of what, darling?"

"Of you, Conrad." She'd meant to sound brave, but wasn't sure she'd pulled it off.

"And why is that?"

"If you rape me now, it won't mean as much."

"Are you sure, darling?"

She was sure. But now she doubted, suddenly, with a sickening, miserable doubt. She wasn't a virgin anymore. But she'd been with Vaughn. Now that was what she didn't want taken. Bruised. Dirtied.

"Hmmm?"

Fucker. Did he ever let a question go unanswered?

"Yes." Damn, why did her voice sound so weak? So broken?

"No. I didn't think so." Then, the seductive lilt suddenly gone from his voice, he said, "Tell me, Vaughn. Which is your favorite of Devan's features?"

Conrad's touch tickled over her ear, her jaw, her throat, then played along the low scoop of the fabric between her shoulder blades, raising goose flesh all over her body.

Then he was kissing her neck with the faintest, most stirring little kisses just by her hairline, sending a cascade of tingles down, down, down.

"Hmmm? And for pity's sake, don't say 'her soul' or any of that sort of drivel."

"I don't know," Vaughn answered softly, with no detectable note of bitten-back resentment.

She could hardly take looking at him when Conrad was touching and kissing her, but when she braved a glance at him, Vaughn calmly caught and held her gaze. She couldn't guess what he was thinking, but somehow his look always comforted.

"I know what you mean," Conrad let his lips lift from her skin. "Everything is so pretty, and so, so sensitive. Her delicate little ears, her graceful neck, her lovely, pale breasts…"

Over the loose, sheer fabric of her gown Conrad lightly traced the contours of her breasts with his fingertips.

"…with their dark, eager nipples, so quick to swell, to stiffen."

Rubbing the hardening peaks through her garment, circling them, then cradling and faintly squeezing her breasts, in short seconds Conrad had her panting, quivering.

"And then, of course, her sweet little cunt."

His hand slipped down to her lap.

"Spread your legs a little for me, Devan."

His hand slipped between her thighs the moment a gap permitted. Over her panties he teased her, sliding a finger or two slowly down and slowly up again. Then, very softly, very sweetly, as if he really cared, he murmured,

"I'll be very gentle, darling, in case you're a bit tender after last night."

Back and forth, slow and taunting, his fingers teased her, first gliding lightly over the silky fabric of her panties, then slowly rubbing the slippery silk over her slippery slit.

His other hand cupped and caressed her breast, only now and then teasing her hard nipple, letting her feel just a hint of his finger brushing over the very tip, or the faintest little squeeze. She clenched her jaw, resentful of this familiar feeling.

"I wonder what you wish right now, Devan love," he whispered. Could Vaughn hear? "Do you wish I'd stop?"

His fingers went still, then abandoned her. She felt a throbbing ache where his touch had been a moment ago, and she caught herself hoping he'd touch her again.

When his fingers brushed against her again, still agonizingly lightly, it was hard not to groan out loud.

"Or do you wish I'd slip my hand inside your knickers, slip my finger inside of you and make you come?"

His fingers kept working on her, making her cunt and her nipples ache for a firmer touch.

"Or do you wish I'd make him fuck you again?"

Vaughn's face twitched slightly, and a humiliated blush burned her face.

"Or have him go down on his knees, under the table, and lick you?"

The sound of Conrad's voice, his words, his teasing touch, the heat of his body, and, worst of all, the sight of Vaughn looking on, watching it all, had her warming and softening like butter in sunshine. Why couldn't she be hard? Cold? Why did the revolting things Conrad did always make her so…so…how could she be so close already?

"Oh, darling, you're quite something. I'm hardly even touching you, and you're almost ready to come, aren't you?"

That heavy, aching pleasure was swelling, swelling, ready to burst in her.

Vaughn was watching, now, it seemed, with a look of anticipation that said he knew, saw from her face that she was going to, and a fresh flush of embarrassment burned over her flush of pleasure. But just when she thought the next subtle stroke of Conrad's 403

finger would release her, undo all those tense cords of anticipation binding and suspending her, he stopped, lifted his finger from her swollen, throbbing clit, and she bit her lip because she'd almost groaned out loud in frustration. She forced herself to relax the brow she realized had been furrowed in needful anticipation, tried to deepen and smooth her breathing.

But then he started again, as soft and teasing as before, his touch only at the edge of perception, instantly driving her right back to the edge. She fought not to whimper, not to writhe against his teasing finger that held back, held her back. Fuck.

Fuck, she needed to come. Almost past caring that Vaughn would see. There was just want. Need.

"What do you think?" Conrad purred, "Shall I go on? Or shall I stop?"

She opened her mouth and his hand—the hand that had been toying with her swollen, tingling nipple—clamped down on her answer.

"Sorry, darling," he said, still teasing her cunt with his finger, his hand still keeping a firm grip on her silence, "I was speaking to Vaughn."

Poor Vaughn. He looked horrified. Terrified. Again. Fucking Conrad. Why couldn't he leave Vaughn alone? Bad enough, making him watch this…spectacle. The look of horror softened.

"I don't speak for her." His voice was low. Calm.

"Of course not. What would you like, Vaughn? Shall I let the dear girl finish? Or no?"

"Get your fucking hands off her!" Vaughn wanted to scream. "Let her go! Get the fuck away from her! Get out!" But as he opened his mouth, his certainty slipped away.

Did he want that for her sake? Or his own?

"Well, Vaughn?"

"Ask her," he finally managed without losing all control.

"I'm asking you Vaughn."

He couldn't. It seemed so easy, obvious, as the question had left Conrad's mouth. Devan didn't want this. Stop it. But a moment later he didn't know anymore. He hated Conrad touching her like that, forcing her. But did she? Really? He couldn't believe his doubt. Hated it. But her journal. The things she'd said to him. Something in her look when Conrad took hold of her, touched her…