Beneath the Burn (8 page)

The temperature in the room soared, and perspiration surfaced on her skin. This wasn’t the first time he’d requested her presence during a live interview on CNN. She could yell, jump in front of the webcam, and announce her captivity, nudity be damned.

But the three second delay afforded him time. He could hit the safety switch and cut the transmission. Then he’d cut her.

“…it’s a security, Mr. Oxford.”

He smirked. “The Second Amendment doesn’t make us safe from outsiders. It makes us dangerous to each other.”

“Then what makes our neighborhoods safe?”

“Home Owner Associations should spend less time and money on their pools and landscaping and focus their resources on perimeter security. Digiford Solutions has a new line of digital neighborhood watch guards. They offer surveillance technologies…”

His voice droned on, but the words were absorbed by the roar in her ears. He smiled into the webcam, lips moving as his index finger stretched along his pant leg. It pointed at her then to the floor beside his leather loafers. Damn him. It was a test. A test she so often failed.

The same finger lowered his zipper and crooked between his thighs.
Come here
.

Inhale. Exhale. She dropped to her knees and crawled, her pulse cresting. Chills raced through her limbs. Silent and mouselike, she moved across the carpet on hands and knees like she’d done so many times before.

“Since Digiford is your latest acquisition, your argument sounds more like a marketing plug.”

He tsked. “Nancy, I hardly need shameless advertising. Digiford stock tripled when we acquired it, and it continues to pressure the competition.” Beneath the desk, he gripped the base of his length and wiggled it, bare and erect.

She swallowed back rising bile and knelt between his legs.
Get it over with. Don’t fuck up
.

The chain at her ankle jerked, snapping her leg straight behind her. At the other end, the Craig fixed her with a warning in his eyes, prepared to extract her at the first sign of infraction.

Roy clenched a hand in her hair and guided her mouth.

Don’t gag. Keep quiet. Oh please, don’t gag
. She inhaled without sound, and he shoved her face to his pubis. She stretched out her tongue to accommodate him, breathing shallowly and silently through her nose.

The grip on her head controlled the up and down motion, and the muscles in his thighs trembled and flexed beneath her clammy hands. He sped up his movements without faltering in his discourse on babies dying in drive-by shootings and marital arguments ending in gun-fire.

Could she yank open the desk drawer inches from her hand, the one housing a revolver, before the chain ripped her back?

At the edge of her periphery, the Craig waited a desk length away, feet braced apart and a double-fisted hold on the chain. His eyes were alert and locked on her hands, ever-loyal to Roy and the wealth she knew Roy shared with his guards to ensure that loyalty.

Her options were nonexistent, and the instinct to survive prevailed. She sheathed her teeth with her lips and sucked in her cheeks.

Without warning, he came. Stream after stream of ejaculate pumped against the back of her throat, and through it, not a hitch in his voice. “I’m not pro-gun control, Nancy. I’m anti-bloodshed.”

“That’s all the time we have today. Thank you for joining us. Roy Oxford, Chairman and CEO of Oxford Industries.”

“Thank you, Nancy.”

“Up next, we—”

The monitors blinked off, and his arm swung. The back of his hand hit her face so violently her body slammed against the desk cabinet. Fire shot through her nose, and the coppery taste of blood washed her tongue.

His lips twisted in a snarl, and his eyes promised more.

She curled into herself, protecting her core. What had she done wrong? “Sir?”

He jerked open the drawer she’d glanced at during the interview. Envelopes and stationary filled the space his gun once occupied.

Aw God, he missed nothing. She scrambled back, cowering.

He followed her, leapt on her, and squeezed her throat. “I meant what I said. I do
not
trust you, Charlee. You’re as slippery as Craig Grosky and ten times as smart.”

White bursts dotted her vision. She opened her mouth in a useless gasp and clawed at his hand, begging with her eyes.

“You will not share your father’s end.” He released her and wrenched her thighs apart, renewing the pain in her ass. “I very much want you alive.” Then he was in her, forcing himself into her dry opening, pounding her into the carpet, his tongue lapping at the blood on her lips.

Her father had been dead to her since the day he delivered her to Roy. The reality of his death meant nothing. The cause, however, was as jarring as the weight hammering her into the floor. “You killed him,” she choked out.

He slapped her and resumed his thrusting. He of anti-bloodshed accepted a sixteen-year-old girl as a collection of debt. Then he destroyed all traces of the transaction, Craig Grosky included.

Something tore inside her, something beyond her vaginal tissues. It was the sensation of an emotion separating from the whole. To fear a man was to give him power. He had enough of that. So she let it go, and the chronic impulse to lock her joints and hold her breath ripped away.

When he climaxed, she felt limp, hollow. She knew, in that moment, the absence of fear was not synonymous with courage. She wasn’t brave. She was numb. Was that how Jay felt when his scars were inflicted? Or had he always been courageous?

He stripped the chain from the Craig’s hands and hauled her to her feet. “Don’t misunderstand why I killed him, Charlee.” He stepped close, and his rasp scraped against her lips. “I was furious. The fucker bet his daughter in a card game. He didn’t deserve to live.” His expression was as warped as his words, twisted way beyond normal. He seemed to catch himself and reached up to pet her hair. “Don’t force me to get that angry with you. I would not live without you again.”

Her head swam. He murdered because of the degeneracy of a father? The notion that he had some kind of paternal moral fiber stirred up all sorts of unsettling reflections, but one thought pushed away all the others. “Roy?”

His face slacked, his hand in her hair stopped mid-stroke, and she realized her mistake.

“Say it again.”

Lack of fear was apparently equated to stupidity. To hell with it. She steeled her backbone, determined to challenge him, and looked him in the eyes. “Roy.”

His mouth collided with hers, his tongue swiping in long strokes. “I love my name on your lips.”

That would be the last time he heard it there. “My birth control shot will expire soon.”

His eyes moved slowly, down, down, to her belly and his palm followed.

God, no. No, he wouldn’t want that.

He yanked his hand away, and the skin around his mouth tightened. “I’ll call the doctor.” He glared at her midriff and walked backward, hand curling around the leash. “I won’t share you with…a fucking kid.”

He turned toward the door and dragged her down the corridor. “You didn’t eat the oatmeal squares. There was a time when you never turned those down.”

“People change.” She plodded slowly behind him, spinning from his change of topics and navigating the untrodden territory of casual conversation with Roy Oxford.

“A challenge.” He winked over his shoulder. “You’ll teach me what you like now. You’ll show me every new and fascinating fiber you possess.”

“I’d rather not.” Her pulse accelerated. Had she stepped too far?

He paused, waited for her to catch up. “I’ll take that under consideration. You see? I’m not the tyrant you think I am.” He yanked the chain and made her stumble. “But I do hold the reins.”

Fucking dickhead
. If he didn’t want to be a tyrant, he could show her a little tenderness once in a while. She hungered for a connection to someone and if her only hope of ever receiving affection came from Roy, maybe it would’ve been better than none at all.

As they entered the last door on the left and walked to the center of the stockroom, she came to a realization. No matter what happened in the next few hours, her scars wouldn’t be a fraction as gruesome as Jay’s. If he were in her position, what would he have done to survive it emotionally?

He would’ve taken control the only way he could. She planted her feet.

The chain went taut and halted Roy’s forward motion. He looked over his shoulder wearing a thunderous expression.

With a wipe of her nose, she pointed a bloodstained finger at the most confining implement in the room. “I want that one.” She cleared her throat. “Sir.”

His gaze snapped in the direction of her intent then narrowed on her. “The inverse chair?”

They stared at one another, a breath away. He could throw a fist, sweep a leg, or yank the leash and smash her head into the floor. She waited.

A muscle twitched in his cheek. His eyes darted between hers. Then the debate on his face settled. “Lead the way.”

Thirty minutes later, he circled her, jacket and tie discarded. His shirt draped open, exposing a white expanse of torso that never saw daylight.

She hung upside down, doubled over at the waist, and arms and thighs squeezed to her chest by ratchet style straps. Her ankles were bound together and dangled below her face.

Choosing the punishment was not the same as choosing to be punished. The beating would’ve happened with or without her consent. There was no power exchange. No safe word. Choosing the method gave her an illusion of control, and in the monster’s lair, illusion was better than reality.

The whip of the flogger caught her labium. She loosened her muscles, held her expression sedate, and embraced it.

Another strike. Upper thigh. A burn flared her sinuses. She breathed through it, and for better or worse, said in her toughest voice, “Again.”

He stumbled mid-lunge, and the lashing fell short. His expression was so openly bewildered, it drew his brows inward over dark eyes searching hers. Here he was, Master of the Dungeon, and he seemed unsure of how to proceed.

Then he smiled, and it chilled the air. “Whatever you’re up to”—he raised his arm—”it’s making me hard as hell.”

The flogger swung down. She held his eyes and adapted to the pain, in all its twisted faces.

9

The van pulled off the interstate and parked at a rest area in Alabama…Mississippi…hell, Jay didn’t know where. He hadn’t looked up from his acoustic and notepad since they left Georgia that morning.

The heat of the summer sun baked the windows, and the A/C cranked on high. With his guitar cradled in his lap and his socked feet on the dash, he was too comfortable to move. Laz and Wil were out of the van before Rio killed the motor. The tight quarters and endless driving must have been wearing on them.

Rio lingered, as did his stare.

Jay didn’t look up from his scrawled lyrics. “Don’t you need to hit the head?”

A huff. Rio wadded up his envelope of flavored candy sugar he’d been licking out of for the past hour and threw it at the windshield. The crumpled ball bounced off the dash and fell amongst the litter on the floorboard.

A smile pulled at Jay’s lips. “Who took the fun out of your Fun Dip?”

“You did, Jay. That’s who.”

Rio’s glare eclipsed Jay’s periphery. Was the big guy seriously pouting? Jay twisted in the seat to face him. “How did I do that exactly?”

“You’ve been strumming funeral hymns for five-hundred miles. I’m about to off myself emo-style.”

Friggin’ drama queen. And it wasn’t a funeral hymn. “Just don’t do it while you’re driving”.

“Which song are you working on?” Rio arched his neck to look at Jay’s notes, his tanned bald head catching the glare of the sun.

Jay angled his lyrics out of view just to be a dick. “Whichever one I want.”

“You can work on whatever you want…as long as it’s
Cuntapus
.”

How could Rio say that ridiculous word without busting a smile? Yet he maintained his unflinching glare.

Jay tucked his pencil behind his ear and dug his phone out of the console. “I will never write a song about cunt, pussy, or any other term for the female anatomy.” He wanted to be taken seriously as a musician. Not sell out with shocking song titles.