Learning to Drown (8 page)

He raised his head and gave a short
whistle. The behemoth, Daisy, came barreling up the hall. Her claws clattering
on the hardwood floor. I’d forgotten all about her as scary as she was. “Lay,”
he said and the horse sized canine dropped in the doorway like a hundred pound
stone.

“She’ll let me know if you try to get
out. And she won’t like it either.”

I believed him. When I looked at Daisy
she bared her teeth. Daisy was not a fan of mine, to say the least.

“Call me if you need something. But
make sure you
really need
it,” he said. His dark eyes almost black
again. “Do you understand? Don’t call me because you’re cold. There are
blankets next to you and you have enough play to get them on.  And don’t call
me because you’re scared. If you call me for something stupid, there will be a
punishment. There will be a price either way, if you happen to call me. But if
it’s not a necessity, it’s a punishment. Do you understand?” He repeated.

I nodded, trying to ignore the little
hairs on my arms that stood on end. I tried to ignore how I had to pee and how
my bowels felt watery from anxiety. All the horrible possibilities flitted
through my head. Appendicitis, stomach virus, vomiting, peeing, dying. God,
what if I died tied to this bed? What a disaster that would be. The blood
drained from my face and I wanted to ask him to help me. To make me feel
better.

“Good thing you’re laying down, you
look like you might faint.”

I barely nodded. Freaking out would do
no good. In the pit of my stomach I know that if I asked he’d let me go. I was
sure of it. Mostly.

He gave me one small kiss on the lips.
It warmed me briefly like a goodnight prayer. He brushed the bangs out of my
eyes. “Remember what I said. Like learning to drown. Like giving up. Total loss
of control. You can do it, September. Be a good little girl and go to sleep.
You’ve had a long day. And tomorrow is going to be longer, but in a very
different way.”

Then he left, whispering something to
Daisy as he passed her. She tossed her giant black and white head and chuffed,
assuring him that she was on duty and ready for anything. I turned to my side
and wrestled the blankets. Getting tangled once, twice, three times in the ties
before finally getting it right.

Tomorrow is going to be longer, but in
a very different way…

What did that mean? It scared me to
think about it so I hoped for sleep to come fast.

Chapter 8

Damien messed with the mask and he
wasn’t supposed to do that. I wanted to tell him to stop, but couldn’t find the
words. Not with his cock in my mouth, half way down my throat. I sucked and
licked, trying to go faster the way he liked. Making myself gag a little so my
makeup would run from my lashes, sad little tracks over the pink blusher on my
cheeks. Damien liked a girl to look broken and used. I liked Damien to act
rough and tough. He rarely did. I went down fast, came up faster. Instead of
fucking my mouth in rough messy bucks, he wrapped his hand in my hair and
twisted. Looped the blonde mess up around his knuckles like a handle and
pulled.

“Easy girl,” he said, his voice a
growl, his hands harsh in my hair. “Slow down. This is not a race. I want to
watch you.”

His voice was different and the pain
that filled the tender skin under my hair was very real. The tears that filled
my eyes and overflowed were very real. When my mascara rolled down my cheeks in
warm rivulets, I had earned it. I slowed my pace, licking the vein along the
back of his cock, listening to his breathing.

My pussy grew flush and swollen. The
thick feeling of desire that made me shift on my knees. “Slow and easy wins the
race, September.”

I looked up for approval. I don’t know
why. I never had before. I simply had focused on the task at hand. Sucking
cock. But now my eyes strayed up to the eyes staring back at me. Not big blue
eyes. No--dark and sleek like some perfect secret. Fear wormed through me but
the insistent wet arousal in my cunt grew larger. I sucked, his hands tethered
in my hair, tugging me the way he liked.

“Good girl,” he breathed and my
fingers worked down into my panties. My arousal so consuming, I was mindless. I
slipped a finger, two fingers deep inside my cunt and flexed, fucking myself. I
had never felt the need for that before and here it was. My need to touch
myself, to come.

“Stop that. Did I say you could
do
that?” he said. He tugged my hair again and slipped free of my mouth. I chased
him forward with my lips until he yanked and deep red pain filled my head. I
cried out, waiting. My fingers stilled, lips moving against nothing but air.
“You need a ride,” he said. Ducking down like a footballer about to tackle, he
lifted me up, up, up and carried me out.

Cold air bit my skin. Dark all around
but for pricks of white light in the sky. Little punctures in the blackness 
that were stars. “Please,” I managed.

His hand cupped my inner thigh so
close to my pussy. It would only be a matter of inches for him to touch me and
it was all I could think about. Just a rolling perfect image in my mind of his
fingers slipping inside of me and stroking me. Tossing me over the nearest
object, spreading my thighs, driving his cock deep. And then when I begged,
deeper still. “You need a little ride,” he said.

“Yes.” I thought he meant sex. I
thought he meant fucking. Instead he meant the truck. And he tossed me in the
back when all I really wanted was to be back on my knees, his cock in my mouth.
I cried, waited. But the truck didn’t start.

It was so dark in the box. I panicked.
I really couldn’t help it. I tried to suppress the anxious part of my nature
when it reared up. I always tried to remember to breathe and stay in control.
Even when I was scared. This time I wasn’t successful.

Where had he gone? Why had he left me
that way? I kicked out and my feet went further than expected. But something
held me tangled in the dark like a fly in a spider web. I struggled, my hands
flying out into the pitch black. But then the stopped dead in the act of
reaching. I was tethered. 

In the blackest parts of the darkness,
something snorted. Something looming and possibly malicious. I sobbed before I
could stop myself. Tugged against something I couldn’t see. I swallowed a
scream but some of it still managed to escape between my lips.

Was I still in the box?  Shouldn’t I
be? Hadn’t the man put me in the tool box? I searched with blind eyes for any
sign of my surroundings. Any sliver of light I could find. I found none. The
thing in the dark snorted again. A wheezing sound. A click of maybe a nail or a
talon on something hard. I curled into a ball, squeezed my eyes shut. Surely
this was the world’s worst nightmare.

I was never in the box long. I would
wait. I would not panic.

Snort
went the monster. My heart pounded. I
held my breath. I would just wait…

Somewhere a siren sounded. Loud and
long, a plaintive, nerve wracking sound . Were they coming for me? To get me or
save me?

The siren kicked up. Doubled. Trebled.
More than one unit? Or a police car, fire truck and ambulance? The trifecta
from hell of emergency vehicles. What was that sound? Where was I? My anxiety
climbed higher in my throat. My ears roared with white noise. The dark, a
crushed velvet presence. The slobbering beast crouched, unseen but so close.
Waiting.

A terrifying thought occurred to me.
Maybe I couldn’t see because I’d gone blind. Was I now blind? Tied up, blind,
hidden from the world with the snorting, growling thing?

That’s when I finally screamed.

* * * *

Lights blinded me and I shouted
louder. Slowly it started to come back to me
-
where I was. I
remembered that the snuffling, grunting
thing
was Daisy. The ties that
bound me to the bed were why I couldn’t move.

I cracked. Fuck stoic and strong. I
tilted back my head and simply sobbed. Every dark and secret thing I’d held in
for so long welled up and out of me. I cried from relief that I was safe.
Grateful that the sounds had only been a
dog
, that Lucas had come to me
when I called. He sat on the bead, my head in his lap. He watched me cry. A
quiet but copious flood that I couldn’t get to stop. “You okay?”

I nodded and turned to my side,
remembering that I was in nothing but the panties and bra. The blankets tangled
around me revealing a nearly bare breast here, a hipbone there. The mole on the
top of my thigh. The scar on my ribcage. I was thoroughly exposed to him. I
felt more naked in the trunk ensemble than when I was truly bare. “Bad dream?”
he asked, stroking the top of my hand.

I swallowed, finding a rough but
watery bit of my voice. “Yes, very bad. Kind of. It’s hard to explain. It
didn’t feel like a dream at all. More like a twilight sleep. I forgot where I
was. I’m sorry, really sorry, I was half asleep and I could hear the dog.” I
twisted to face Daisy and she promptly bared her teeth in a humorless grin.
“And then sirens. I dreamt I was in the box and with my hands tied I didn’t
know if they were coming to get me or save me. If I was good or bad. And you
were Damien. Or really, Damien was you…” I petered off. My tongue a traitor who
refused to explain my actions.

He put his finger over my lips and I
stopped. I expected him to offer to untie me but he didn’t. He simply stroked
my hair and my cheek. His fingers on me tracked the pulse beating at my throat.
When it slowed and he was satisfied, he said, “I live near the fire and police
stations. They’re side by side about a mile up. After all this time, I guess I
don’t hear them anymore.”

“There was no light. No. Light.” I
said, and shivered all over again.

“Black-out curtains. My brother stays
here sometimes. He works a lot of overnight shifts as an EMT. They really work.
The black everything out. It’s like a tomb in here at night. Which I’m sure you
know better than anyone right about now.” He smiled.

His fingers tickled through my hair
and chills raced along the curve of my ear, down my neck. Goosebumps peppered
my skin, my nipples grew hard, sensitive to the cool air in the room. He
kneaded around my shoulders until I relaxed some. Peace came over me. He was
here.

“Better?”

“Yes. Better. I’m really sorry.”

Lower still went Lucas’s hand. Along
the ridge of my spine, fanning over my lower back. One finger traced the top of
the crack of my bottom, warm and intrusive. I’d heard there was a bundle of
nerves there and my skin tingled with sensation as he stroked me. “Ready for
your payment, then?”

“Payment?” It was only when I said it
that I recalled what he’d said.
There will be a price either way, if you
happen to call me.
Part of me sprang to life with a sharp and colorful excitement.
Part of me wanted to give in to another long and frustrated crying jag. Maybe
then Lucas would just give me what I wanted. I just wanted him. Wanted him to
fuck me. And that was exactly how it was in my head. Fucking. Not romance or
wooing or any of that romance novel shit. Primal, fast, hard and no nonsense
fucking. Simple and dangerous, just like Lucas. It would be all lips and tongue
and teeth. Hands hard on my skin holding me down. Taken and fucked. Cock in
cunt, in and out, harsh coupling. A roar would echo when we came together. Like
a storm raging at sea. That is what it would be like to fuck Lucas Crow.

“I told you there would be a price.”
He smiled, his eyes still sleepy. He looked as if he could read my every secret
just by looking at my face. I didn’t doubt it for a moment.

“I know but it was a dream. An
accident. I didn’t do it
¾
”

“There are no real accidents and the
reasoning doesn’t matter anyway. You’re mine now, I’ve taken you. So I can do
what I please with you, September. I was simply trying to be kind.”

“Oh, I…” What could I say to that? I
knew what my body said. It said yes, I am yours, fuck me, tie me, gag me, take
me. My body answered with a sudden pooling moisture in my pussy. By making my
belly buzz and my breath hitch in my throat like I was about to come. “Yes. I
can pay you. What would you like? What do I do?” That is what I said. In my
head it was,
What can I do to get you to fuck me? What can I do to be taken?

“Flip over on your belly,” he said.

I waited for him to untie me. He
didn‘t. He simply stared, waiting. Patient and handsome and looking like he
could be heaven or hell in a man shaped package. My guess was a bit of both and
it made her even wetter to think there was real and true danger in him.

“I can’t.” I waited for help or
instruction. Nothing. I’d never met a man who would seem so warm one moment and
so removed the next.

“Sure you can. In your head you think logically
that you can’t. But you can. Trust me.”

I did trust him. As insane as that
made me. “How?

“Tuck your right arm under your belly,
right ankle over left and just…roll,” he flipped me as I obeyed. Now,
crisscrossed with purple X’s of bonds, I faced the mattress. He got right up in
my space. Right above my ear. Lucas liked to invade my personal space. Hell,
not invade it, pillage and plunder it. Leave it in smoking rubble at my feet.
“Did he ever spank you? That douche bag who left you in the truck. Did you ever
let him?”