Little Bird (Caged #1) (2 page)

"My little bird." Jasper's cold hand swipes across my cheek and I stare into his pale green eyes remembering how I used to love when he'd call me Little Bird.

***

I was sixteen and after my third time meeting him, I was in love. He was dark, secretive, and menacing, but his outer appearance made me blind to everything else. And he could offer me the protection I was desperate for. It was my seventeenth birthday when I saw him for the forth time, and I hung on his every word.

  "I have a problem, Little Bird."

I nervously glanced toward the living room because I didn't know where Rod and Judith were but they didn't know Jasper was in our house. When he appeared from behind me in the kitchen, I almost screamed. But those eyes, and his brush against my cheek instantly calmed me down.

   "Y-y-you need my dad?" I stuttered and watched his eyes flick down to my lips and felt like such an idiot.

Jasper carried himself with a confidence I longed for one day. One look and he turned people to stone until his next command. I wanted that power over people. 

  "No. Not your dad. I need you." His eyes lingered downward past my face for the first time and I felt the tremble start between my thighs where his eyes seemed to focus.

   "For what?" I whispered, letting lust and hope ooze through with my words. 

I'd been sexually assaulted, raped, beaten, violated in the most fucked up ways without my consent. But for Jasper, I'd give myself to him because I was certain his smoky words that swirled around me, and that cold hand that barely touched me could make me feel something I once wanted. Love. I wanted Jasper to make love to me, protect me, and embrace me in the ways I filled my head imagining he did to other women.

  "I have an issue." He pulled a kitchen chair from the table and inspected it before sitting. "With your parents." His eyes looked around the kitchen and at the time I didn't know it, but he was memorizing everything in that room, like he eventually taught me to do when I entered a room. "I don't think they're being very honest with me, Little Bird. How can I help them if they aren't being honest with me?" He wanted an answer and I didn't know what to say because my thoughts were elsewhere.

They were in wonder what was under his suit. They were in wonder what his bedroom looked like. What his bed felt like. What his weight pressed against my body would feel like.

   "Little Bird." It was like a whip crack and my eyes flit to his so quickly I got dizzy from not having eaten in a couple days. "Steady." Before his word even came out he was on his feet and holding me up. "Are you sick?"

   "Hungry," tumbled from my mouth and put immediate shame in me. 

  "Hungry? When'd you eat last?"

I wasn't sure what day it was; I definitely didn't know when I last ate.

  "I'm not sure." I held his bicep and neck, pretending to be weaker than I was actually feeling just so he wouldn't let me go. 

  "Your parents don't feed you?" 

I looked up into that beautiful face and saw an anger that made me tremble. A flitter filled my stomach, and hope that he hated my parents as much as I did sickly brought me satisfaction.  

  "We don't have any money."

A passing car's headlights came through the window at my back and the light reflected in a flash across Jasper's face. The anger that was there was spoke in volumes I wouldn't understand until later in my life. It was a calm rage that I wanted to possess. I had rage but I couldn't keep it calm, and I would normally destroy something beautiful to let it out.

  "I gave your dad a thousand dollar incentive less than a week ago, Little Bird. Your parents have money. They want you to suffer. They want you to beg. They want you weak so they can have a power over you that a rat like Rod shouldn't hold over anyone." With each of his words, his body moved closer to mine until he had me pinned to the counter with his face in mine and our lips brushing with every word he spoke. "You want him to have that over you, Little Bird?"

   "No," I breathed.

   "No." His fingers slid into my hair on both sides of my head. "And Jasper will take care of you as long as you promise to take care of me. No lies, Little Bird."

I began to frantically nod until he firmly held my head still. 

  "When you're eighteen, you're mine." His head tilted downward slightly so he could look down my body until he pressed against me again. "All of you. You want that?"

   "Yes," I breathed again trying to stretch my lips so they'd brush his but he was just out of reach.

  "Do you know how you'll take care of me?"

   "I'll do anything."

   "I know you will." It was such a beautiful smile that filled his face. "Remember when we first met? Remember Rod had to come to me?"

I nodded remembering that first time I met him, I was so scared. Like I should have been then, but there was too much lust in me for the man that I hoped would be my savior.

  "I don't normally come see my employees like I am today. People come to me. But you're special, Little Bird. You'll be more than my employee. You'll be mine. But." He let me go and stepped away, which almost made me fall because in an instant he took away a world full of happiness just by putting distance between us. "You have to prove to me your loyalty. Can you do that?" His eyes hit mine again and I nodded with such franticness it was borderline begging. "On your eighteenth birthday. One year from today. You'll prove your loyalty."

He knew my birthday. The elation that I was swimming in was so pathetic and I had to come across even worse.

   "H-how?"

   "By killing your parents."

The dread that weighted down my gut practically took my face with it. Kill my parents. I hated them but I didn't want them dead. I didn't want to kill anyone, especially not them.

   "They don't have the respect I know you can possess. They're lying to me. And you. My Little Bird." The sadness that morphed his features made me grab his hand and step closer.

   "I'll never lie to you."

   "I know you won't," he said with his eyes locked on my hand trying to hold his. "My good Little Bird," he whispered pushing me against the counter again before letting his lips press to mine.

I didn't move, I'd never willingly kissed anyone and didn't know how. His tongue slid over my lip and I opened my mouth but he was already pulling away, wiping his lips.

   "In one week I will text you instructions. You'll follow those instructions without letting your parents know. Clear?" He was no longer seducing me, but he didn't have to. I was under his spell.

   "Yes."

   "You will meet with someone at the specific time and place I tell you and they'll take you to the dentist." His hand wiped his mouth again before he looked at it and the color drained from my face, making me dizzy enough I had to grab the counter.

He was disgusted by me. I was so stupid. And humiliated. And when he looked at me, I turned to hide my shame.

   "By the time you're mine, I'll have you fixed," he told me as his pointer finger pushed up on my chin and turned my head to look at him. "You'll be a beautiful bird." Those cold fingers tucked my hair behind my ear. "Fail me, and lose everything you've ever dreamed of."

   "I won't," I promised with a louder voice than I had ever possessed.  

  "I know you won't. That's why you're my Little Bird. You'll like your new cage." He winked at me. "One year. Not a day sooner." 

I watched his retreating back as he exited the house and I practically melted to the floor. 

In that year, I did everything he told me. Met with strangers and allowed them to take me to the dentist. To the gynecologist. To do anything Jasper told them. He kept me fed. He kept me clothed in items that didn't have holes, but wouldn't draw too many suspicions that Rod or Judith would notice. And, well, you know what happened. 

I became a caged bird.

***

"How long are you in town for?" I look away from Jasper.

"Just the night. I had to see you." His hand on my knee pushes, spreading my thighs and I turn my head farther.

He is no longer an object of lust for me. He has betrayed my trust too many times. But I'm his caged bird and will never get away.

  "Look at me," he demands in a tone that would have weaker people pissing themselves.

To avoid pain, I look at him. His thumb presses to my bottom lip and pulls downward, spreading my lipstick down my chin. I have a meeting with a potential tenant and just spent an hour perfecting my makeup to hide the scar, that's from him, across my face.

  "Tweet," he demands shoving his hand between my legs.

He hasn't made me tweet in years. I almost roll my eyes but that'd bring on unwanted pain so I lean into him so I don't have to see the most beautiful face on the ugliest man while I fake an orgasm. 

  "I have a meeting in an hour." I force out a moan following my words so we can speed things along.

  "I need longer than that." His hand stops before he shoves me away from him. "Why didn't you mention that prior?"

   "I didn't expect you to move so fast." I untwist my thong.

  "We move at my pace," he bellows and it echoes around my sparse house.

   "It's always your pace." My mouth always gets me in the most trouble with him. I have great control over my body, making it do things it doesn't want to, fake things with accuracy, but my mouth slips too many times and I feel the wrath.

By the throat, he slams me to the ground and kneels on my abdomen.

  "I am the master and you are the bird," he snarls in my face while I try not to make a noise that shows my struggle as I ease air back into my lungs.

  "I know," I wheeze and softly caress his cheek so he eases up on his knee. 

  "Your defiance always makes me question your motives." He gets to his feet and straightens his suit.

   "I'm not defying you." I take his waiting hand and he pulls me up against him. "I love you," I lie so well he never sees the proof of deception dangling in his face. 

  "I know you do." He sighs and kisses my forehead. "You'll hurry with the meeting. I won't scar you tonight, but you'll feel it."

I pause before going to the bathroom to fix my lipstick. Avoiding another scar is good, but his promise that I'll feel it is just as bothersome as the threat of a new scar. 

***

He delivers on his words while he fucks me hard enough to make me bleed. The knifepoint spins in the same spot at the back of my shoulder while he pounds, grunting with every thrust that slaps our flesh together with an echo. 

  "Please stop!" I beg over and over because if I don't, he gets more creative with ways to break me. 

There is will and defiance inside me and I cannot admit to being weak until it's more than I can take. Something in me still wants to prove to him I can take an extent of his torture and this is why I never start out begging. 

The knife drags a line down my shoulder as he slips because he's at the brink of his orgasm, and the scar he promised not to deliver is currently pouring blood from my flesh. I always know when they'll scar. If the blood only seeps, there will be no evidence, but I felt the rush of heat the second the knife slipped, promising another mark amongst the collection he's made across my back.

After his grunting release, he tosses the knife to the side and grabs my hips flipping me to my back and sliding me to the edge of the bed where he forces my thighs open. Kneeling between my thighs, he drinks himself from me as if his cum is the fountain of youth. It's not until he pulls his face away that I see the blood surrounding his lips and realize how badly he tore me this time. 

  "My two favorite delicacies," he says as he slides up my body. "My seed and your blood." The tongue that used to bring me to a euphoric state of orgasmic bliss slides across his lips before he kisses me. 

All I can think about right now is the fact I'm going to have to buy new sheets.

***

The unexpected knock at my door makes me clutch the knife in hand a little tighter while I stare toward my living room. It's a gated community, there are no solicitors and if a tenant needs me, they know to call, not show up. When a second knock sounds I place the knife next to the onion I'm chopping and I turn down Angelica Negron's Bubblegum Grass Peppermint Field; her music always relaxes me while I cook.