His Captive, The Unabridged Collection: Billionaire Dark Romance (7 page)

As I slowly came to, I felt a hand sliding up and down my thigh, skin on skin. The touch was warm, comforting, even soothing.

Rafe? Help me, please.

Everything was all red or black. Or no color. Or, probably just the color of me on the inside, in the gooey grave of my flesh. I tried to get out. It felt like I was climbing steps toward the surface, climbing and climbing, getting nowhere.

Rafe? Something has gone so wrong...

The touch was real. I knew it. I clung to the sensation: fingers on my thighs, pressure on my belly and hips. It reminded me of his touch at the bar. The way his fingers encircled the top of my thigh through my skirt, right there in public, just after we had met. So presumptuous, but yet so strangely welcome. It was as though he knew he owned me right away. I needed that certainty now. I needed to have something definite to hold onto.

I stayed exactly as I was, letting him do whatever he would to me. The touch was a rope pulling me back toward consciousness. It was safety. It reminded me of how recently everything had been fine. Before all this darkness.

I don't know if my breathing changed, if I shifted, if I even moaned out softly—somehow or other, he knew that I'd woken up. Shame crowded into me. What was I thinking? His hand slowed, and I opened my eyes.

“Please don't... don't touch me.”

Bronson sneered through his broken teeth, his lips drawn back in a snarl. I jerked away, immediately finding myself still pinned down by my wrists and ankles.

“What are you doing here!”

My hoarse, strained voice surprised me. It came out like a series of barks.

“You
loved
it,” he scoffed, leaning forward. He grabbed the edge of the table and pulled it closer to him on wheels that whirred softly beneath me.  “Want me to give it another go?”

I drew my knees together as far as I could, but my ankles were pinned far apart. Though I was dressed in some kind of shift I felt completely naked. I turned my head away and did my best to curl inward.

His fingers found my cheeks again, turning my head toward him roughly.

“Where is Rachel?” he hissed, so close I could smell his fetid breath.

I shook my head.

“Fucking tell me, you fucking bitch!”

The feeling of breath in my throat was harsh and burning as I stared him down, quaking. I winced as I tried to swallow and found the pain shot all the way down into my chest. My heart began to thunder in my ears again.

Think! What would Rachel do?

I calmed my breath as much as I could, staring him down with a determination I wasn’t sure I actually felt.

“I’m not telling you shit, motherfucker!”

His eyes widened. The grip on my cheeks tightened painfully, boring through the old bruises and grinding in fresh ones. Then he seemed to let up. He smiled a little bit. His tongue poked out, swiping at his cracked lower lip.

“You know what,” he sneered, hovering just inches from me, “I don’t need you to tell me yet. You can drag it out as long as you want. And yeah, do that.
Please
. I got all the time in the world.”

I felt something lift off my hips, and his bony fingers knuckled against my pubic bone.

And I screamed.

Filling my lungs as much as I could, I put my head back and howled a burning, screeching wail until my throat felt like bloody ribbons. Then I inhaled again and…

Crack!

The back of his hand punched hard across my cheekbone. I saw it coming too late to turn, almost fascinated. I had never been hit before, not like that. It felt strange, and definitely real after everything that had felt so unreal.

It felt sort of...
good
. Clear. Unmuddied.

“Shut up!” he growled between his teeth. His fingers plunged between my legs and I threw my head back again, screaming out something that frightened even me. It sounded so raw and tortured that…

CRACK!

Another backhand across the cheek. I knew it was coming that time, practically leaned into it. I turned my head back to him slowly. The pain brightened the whole room, bringing him and me both into terrible, precise focus.

His arm hovered in the air, curled and taut.

“
You shut the fuck up!
” he growled. I could see something in his eyes, some teetering on the edge of control. Some hunger. Some fear, maybe. He didn’t want me screaming, but I didn’t know how much damage he was willing to do to ensure my silence.

I breathed in and out through my nose, hearing the hoarse rattle in my throat. He backed away a half step and stared at me, his fists lowering to his hips now, trembling with restraint.

“Fucking bitch!”

“I want to see Rafe,” I said, slow and loud.

“Fuck you! You ain’t seeing nobody.”

“I. Want. To. See.
Rafe
.”

For a second he glared at me, then suddenly he scoffed and cocked his head to the side.

“Oh I see,” he said, sneering, his voice a cruel sing-song. “You think Rafe is gonna save you, right. This is just all some big misunderstanding.”

I said nothing. He nodded like he knew anyway.

“You think that’s how this will go down?” he mocked. “You think he’s gonna just apologize and drop you off at the Ritz?”

Breathing calmly, I glared at him until he flinched and looked away, a hand unconsciously reaching up to twist at the curdled-looking skin under his jaw.

“Yeah, well, he ain’t even here.”

My expression must have flickered with disappointment. I could see the triumph in his eyes as he crossed his arms.

“Yeah that’s right. You’re
all mine
. He said I could do whatever I wanted to you... And that’s a lot. Hey what’s your real name anyway?”

I squinted, my lips pressed tight together.

He took a fast, frustrated step toward me, twisting a nipple painfully between his fingers and coming down close to my face. I felt his thick tongue thrust into my ear, leaving it covered in wetness.

“What’s your real name, you fucking bitch?”

“Jolie!” I answered, then immediately cursed my weakness.

Don’t tell him anything!

“Pfft.” He stood back up again, walking behind my head to another part of the room we were in. I heard his footsteps receding on something that sounded like tile, maybe stone.

“You know Jolie means ‘pretty?’ In French?” he drawled as he walked back to me. I said nothing but when he dove toward my ear again I nodded stubbornly.

“Which is like some kind of joke, right?” he hissed, so close the words all ran together. Then he backed up and pivoted around the end of the table, arms on either side of my shoulders, hovering above me like a lover.

I just stared at him. His bared teeth looked like saloon doors after a brawl.

“Your mama likes jokes? Is that how she named you?”

“I want to talk to Rafe!”

I expected him to raise his hand again, but he didn’t. He held one hand over his heart instead, twirling the syringe lightly between his stained fingertips.

“What about?” he asked innocently.

Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!

“It’s none of your business.”

He shrugged noncommittally. “Yeah well maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. Rafe told me to take care of you while he’s gone.”

“While he’s… where has he gone?”

“Oh yeah, sweetie,” he said with a cruel chuckle. “Your little hat trick has changed everything. It’s all fucked up now. You’ll see.”

I shook my head violently. My wrists and ankles knocked against the edges of the table where I was pinned.

“I didn’t do anything! This is all a big mistake!”

He wrinkled his nose, grinning like I’d fallen in a rabbit trap. I wanted to hold still and act like I had control but I couldn’t do it anymore. My body wanted out. I had to get out.

“Please, come on!” I said, my words coming out too fast to stop. “I don’t know what’s happened! I don’t know anything! Just let me go and I’ll—”

“—Where’s Rachel?” he said, diving close, holding the syringe carefully away.

Rachel? Always Rachel? Is he fucking serious?

“I don’t know, please… She could be anywhere okay? But I know where to get the pills, I do,” I babbled. Did his eyes just brighten? “I can get you anything you want! Even… like heavier stuff! Crazy stuff, you don’t even know—”

“—Oh really?” he whispered. I wasn’t sure if that was desire or sarcasm.

“Yeah, yes!” I barked, desperation plain in my voice. “Anything you want! She told me all her connections and I can get you anything… As much as you want… You and Rafe and Gretchen can be as high as anything for—”

Crack!

I didn’t see it coming. He hit me in the same place, driving my face against the table. My words ended in a garbled choke and I gasped against the cold metal, tasting a mouth full of wet pennies.

“
Don’t you fucking say her name, you piece of shit!
”

I shook my head, No, I won’t.

“
Don’t you fucking say it!
”

I closed my eyes hard, curling up protectively as far as I could. I’d gone too far.

His footsteps receded, then came back. Then again. He was apparently pacing the length of the room. Finally I felt him leaning in again close and prepared myself for anything.

“You know what,” he snarled into my scalp, his face burrowing through my hair in a grossly affectionate gesture. “I think I like you better when you’re unconscious.”

“No….
No
,” I mumbled weakly, fear flooding me. Then he yanked my fingers through the cuff, exposing the back of my hand. I felt the needle punch through and the bright, cold spread of the medicine. In seconds I was tumbling back down all those stairs, falling back into the red and black, into the nothingness of my body.

I bobbed like a doll, washed down a river of consciousness, half-drowned and unable to care. Sometimes I faced the sun and the world was bright and clear. I could take a breath. I could see the sky rushing past me.

Then I would fall beneath, into the blank and the murk, suffocating. Everything was shadow. Unseen things slid against my limp form, tangling with me for long seconds and then releasing me. I twisted against the darkness, spinning and spinning, then just let it take me. I was drowned a thousand times.

I had a dream.

Aunt Rinna was in the kitchen, and I was anywhere else. She just sat at the round oak table while I made busy vacuuming and dusting the living room, the small parlor with the floral, peeling wallpaper, the hallway with its framed photos of people I didn’t know or remember.

Though I didn’t look through the doorway, I could feel her eyes on me all the time. I was being so good, doing just what she would want and she hadn’t even asked.

As I worked industriously, her silence loomed. It took the shape of a shadow in the room. I polished the wobbly coffee table with a torn strip of old towel until it got too dark to see. I could feel the shadow in my mouth.

Finally I turned to her. I had to get to her before the blackness was everything. Feeling my way blindly with my fingertips on the clammy plaster hallway walls, I inched into the kitchen, finally to where she sat.

I lowered myself onto the wooden chair, already so sorry. The shadow was lighter there, and I huddled forward as though the light around her was the last flicker in the whole world.

Her eyes were pale, like river stones. Like boiled eggs. Her lips trembled in a frown, her chin wrinkling and quivering.

Speak to me!

I watched her quake with effort, leaning forward. Whatever she would say, I was ready to hear it. I welcomed it. I would take anything, if she would just say something.

Please!

With a shudder, she belched out a consonant, then turned to marble. Her shoulders slumped forward and she leaned to one side, useless as a beetle husk.

No don’t go!

I reached out with thick, clumsy hands but couldn’t get to her. Struggling, a cry twisted thick and painful in my throat as I realized my hands were pinned. I was stuck in place as she slowly teetered and fell, sliding from her chair and falling to the floor in a pile that turned to powder and caved in on itself.

My hands jerked and jerked but I couldn’t move them. Twisting, I fractured the room with my motions. It fell away in pieces as I woke up, the images warping and dissolving as I struggled.

“You were dreaming,” Rafe said softly. His voice was to one side of me and I turned to it automatically, blind as a newborn kitten. I felt a cry in my throat, so lonesome I didn’t even want to hear it. I opened my eyes slowly, trying to keep them from rolling back.

“No,” I whispered, desolate.

His head pivoted slightly, one eyebrow arching.

“Then… what.”

I shook my head, releasing the ribbons of the vision one by one like streamers through my fingers.

“I was... remembering.”

He leaned his shoulders back against the blank wall and crossed his legs, a gesture I found oddly casual. He was dressed in dark trousers and a fine gauge sweater that bulged over his arms. No one dressed that nice could mean to harm me. He looked like he was ready for a nice day, just hanging out. Playing cards. Cooking a meal.

Nonsensically, I wanted him to touch me. I didn’t want to feel the loneliness of the dream, and I knew how strong his touch could be. I knew I could reach him. He was a person, after all. Hadn’t we touched before? I knew what he wanted: he wanted obedience, and I would give him that. I promised myself.

I will do whatever he says. I will play nice, I swear.

“Please let me go,” I whimpered. It was barely more than a whisper.

He shook his head. His expression was shadowed, obscure. I wanted him to lift his face so I could get a sense of what he was thinking.

“Remembering what?”

“You’re here,” I said.

He held up one hand. “Don’t change the subject. What were you remembering?”

I cautioned myself to be calm.

Don’t antagonize him. Find a way to answer.

“Home,” I said finally, my eyes rising to fix on the ceiling. It was criss-crossed with wood moulding like a checkerboard. “I was remembering home.”

“Would you like to go there?”

My heart leapt. Would I like to go there? To roll back time and take another path? To never leave Aunt Rinna’s shabby farm, the school friends I’d grown up with, the cracked sidewalks of the half-vacant Main Street? To never know any of this?

“Yes,” I admitted. Tears sprang hot to my eyes and I felt them pool there, making everything blurry again.

He leaned forward. My eyes found his, but I couldn’t see anything in there.

“Where’s Rachel?”

I tugged gently at the bonds, finding out quickly that they were far different from the ones I'd initially been held in. They were soft, loosely tied. I gave a slightly harder pull, struggling to train my eyes on his without looking away. I wanted to cry.

“Can you please untie me?”

My voice still sounded calm when it reached my ears, but I could feel the buzzing panic rise in my bones. The promise I had made to myself was crumbling. I just wanted to cry.

He hesitated, his mouth working back and forth. Was he softening? After a moment, he seemed to decide. He leaned over me and untied the furthest hand before taking care of the one closest to him. His thick fingers worked fast and efficient on the heavy buckles.

My legs were left tied, and as I slowly sat up, I saw that my ankles were restrained to the end of the platform with the same sort of cuffs I'd been in when I awoke the first time. The rough edges of the leather dug into my skin as I pulled softly before giving up.

I squinted down, biting my lips together as I saw myself. My shins and thighs were shadowed with bruises that overlapped like water stains on a ceiling. Where one puddled all purple and splotchy, another seeped out from under it, yellow and turning toward brown.

“You’re bruised,” he said, a plain statement of fact.

“Bronson—”

“—Is gone,” he interrupted.

“He was… Horrid—” I stammered and came up short. I watched his jaw clench and he raised one hand in their air like he was telling me stop. He didn’t want to talk about it. His eyes flickered over the bruises on my skin. Was that remorse? Possibly, but no.  Possessiveness, it seemed more like.

“Where’s Rachel?” he said again. In any other situation, his tone would have sounded like normal conversation.

“How long have I been here?”

He spoke, his voice as passive and composed as it had been in the limo. “Several days.”

A bolt of fear shot through me, but I felt emboldened as it subsided.

“They're going to be looking for me, you know,” I said, cautiously insolent.  “Rachel is going to be looking for me. Everyone will.”

The look in his eyes was pure pity.

“Oh, dear. No, no. You know that no one is looking for you, nor will they.”

Several days. And no one’s looking for me.

I could hear the truth in his voice. Who would look for me anyway, besides Rachel? If she even knew I was gone? It wasn’t like we had a formal arrangement or anything. She probably just figured I was following in her footsteps, finding some guy to shack up with for a few days of fun...

He leaned in then, pressing one palm to his knee. “Where is Rachel?”

I shook my head. He walked over and placed his hands on the table on either side of my thighs. His lips pressed together in a line and I got a flash of him in the bar that first time, the way he talked to me like he was mainlined right into my nervous system…

“I have asked you the same question three times. I’ve given you greater leeway than I normally would, given our… situation.”

His eyes glittered darkly like onyx. I could see a muscle in his jaw knotting and unknotting. He seemed to be waiting for me to respond, so I nodded my understanding.

“That’s good,” he said in a low, slightly angry voice. “I will not be repeating myself again.
Where is Rachel?
”

My head began to swim. What could I tell him?

“I don't know,” I stammered. “You know where I live, and I lived with her.”

His nostrils flared. I could feel his hands rolling to fists against the table.

“Where else would she go?”

“I don’t know!” I blurted suddenly. “How am I supposed to know where she is when I've been tied up here for days?”

I winced at the sound of my voice as I spoke. It was broken, crackling, dry. I felt myself growing more indignant by the moment. Not only was I being asked questions I had no answer for, Rachel was still the focus of everyone's attention. It didn't seem to matter to him in the slightest that he'd basically imprisoned the wrong girl, and he was in no hurry to turn me loose.

“Let me go,” I whimpered meekly. His mouth twisted in disdain. “Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!”

I threw my head back and howled, my voice spiralling upwards.

“Let me go!”

“Let me go!”

“
Let me go!
”

The cry faded on its own, melting into the remote darkness of the ceiling. Tears sprang again to my eyes but wouldn’t fall. They just receded into my sinuses and burned there as I whimpered and choked helplessly. Crying out had drained my energy in a flash. I panted as though I’d just sprinted a mile as he simply turned away, his arms crossed in front of him.

Defeat.

“I... I need water, please,” I whispered meekly. My head fell forward and I fought the urge to lie down again. But I had been lying down for so long, I was numb. At least sitting, I knew I was alive because everything hurt.

He turned back to me after a few more long seconds, his arms still folded. When I tried to pick my arm up to point to my throat, I found it laying still and largely useless at my side. Like it wasn’t even mine. Like it was meat.

Rafe slipped through the doorway without a word and returned a few moments later with a large glass of water. It was startlingly clear and glittering in the glass. My mouth ached to taste it.

He held it out to me, and I shook my head softly. I tried to move my arm again, showing him how futile it was.

“I can't hold it. I can't even pick my arms up. I need help.”

He came close and sat on the edge, gently tipping the glass to my lips. I took slow sips at first like I knew I should, then took much more, letting the water spill from the corners of my mouth. I slumped back against his strong arm and let the liquid take me over. Vaguely I thought I felt his thumb stroking my arm affectionately, encouragingly.

“There now, slowly,” he cautioned.

I tried to slow but couldn’t. When the glass had been drained, I managed to rattle out a request for more. It was if I'd been without food or drink for years, my neglected stomach springing to life in a confusing combination of elation and stabbing cramps as I took down another glass.

By the time I finished the second glass, I'd begun to feel a bit stronger. He moved as though he was done supporting me and I shifted slightly, looking up at him with pleading in my eyes, hiding nothing.

“Please, Rafe. Let me go. I didn't... I didn't do anything.”

I thought I saw something then, flashing through him. His voice and face betrayed nothing. “You know I can't do that, Jolie. I do apologize for bringing you into the chapel.”

Chapel
. I had heard the word before.

“That’s where I was? Where I woke up?”

He nodded slowly then took a deep breath and sighed.

“You were never meant to be here. Not like this. You must understand that.”

I shook my head.

If it’s a mistake, then let me go!

“Why are you doing this?” I pleaded in a whisper. His closeness was encouraging. If he was close, then couldn’t I make him understand?  “I have to go. I want to go home. I... I need to go home.”

“That would be a shame, wouldn't it?” The first hint of a reaction—a slight smile tugging at one corner of his lips. “We were just getting to know one another. I'm quite enjoying you being here.”

Enjoying?

I could feel the anger bubbling up inside me again. I shook my head slowly. “I don't want to be here. I don't c—care.”

“Where is Rachel?” he said yet again.

I shook my head in defeat. He didn't want me. He wanted the drugs. Or Bronson did. I wasn't sure anymore. Did it matter? She'd burned a few people, it'd make sense if someone wanted to beat her up or rob her or something, but this was too much.

“I’m not herrr,” I mumbled, the words going thick on my tongue.

“I know, and it doesn't matter, Jolie. It's...” He checked his watched. “Mm, yes. Just about time for you to head back to sleep, don't you think?”