Yield (19 page)

The courtyard walls were two stories high. Only opposite us was there not house. Above the open area, two stories up, were enormous white louvres that ran across the width. Yes, he had opened them and I could see the blue of sky, some clouds, even a couple of seagulls. This was near the sea. Somewhere on the coast of Queensland. I couldn’t have been unconscious for that long?

Any screams for help would go straight up to the sky, muffled by those louvre blades. I doubted his neighbors would be close enough to hear, unless their property almost abutted this building.

The pool was a twenty yards long, sparkling blue square, surrounded by a generous grassed and gardened area to one side. No way would I be able to climb the walls.

My plan was a little wonky.

He’d not have let me out here if anyone might hear me.

My courage crumpled, a little. I was here alone and how was I getting away? I needed superman. My mouth turned down. I needed Glass. I needed him holding me. Memories of how that had been, his scent, the murmur of his voice...laughter even... Stupid maybe, when on that last day I’d doubted him. Being here made Glass seemed more perfect with every passing day. I missed him so much. A wave of dismal sadness hit me, but I let it do its worse, shook it off then stood taller. I only had me. That would have to do.

The square columns holding up the roof of the patio section we stood beneath had circular metal handles both high and low. A casual observer might think them decorative. Their heights clinched what they were: anchor points for tying up people. He’d probably made people scream out here in the past.

Did he kidnap women regularly? Or take some of those who were destined for his sex slave trafficking? Or...was he into the BDSM lifestyle?

That could be a way to identify him.

“Done? Let’s have breakfast.” With another tug on the leash, he led me to a small sofa beside a rectangular table set with plates of fruit, bacon, sausages, and pancakes, and oddly, a pair of black gloves. Then he tossed a cushion to the terracotta-paved floor and pointed. “Kneel.”

More kneeling? My knees were going to kill him all by themselves. I almost blurted that out but I bit back that unsafe reply and kneeled. My stomach was rumbling at me anyway.

The table was low enough that I could see the perfection in the presentation of the food. Beautiful plates and bowls, silver knives and forks, the fruit pieces were in cute ornamental shapes and the pile of sausages was topped off with garnishes.

I knew both student-level cooking and Michelin level. A chef had produced this.

Where had this come from? Delivered? If so, others came to this house.

He’d already speared a sausage on a fork and was offering it to me. After days of so-so food I might have kneeled for this without a command. “Did you cook this?” At the tilt of his eyebrow I hastily added, “Sir?”

“No. No more talking without permission, Wren.”

I reached for the fork, he didn’t normally feed me for god’s sake, but he rapped my knuckles with a butter knife blade.

I snatched away my hand.

Fuck.
Hurt. I sucked on my hand then took a bite from the sausage he was so insistent about offering.

Damn. So many questions. But I kept silent from then on as he fed both him and me. What was it with the feeding? By the time he was done I’d eaten far more than I should have and probably more than he had.

Ugh.
Which meant begging to visit the toilet, an embarrassment I detested more than most requests.

That done, we returned to the table and I kneeled again on direction.

“Would you like to swim now? You can talk.” He slid the table aside then leaned back on the sofa, eyeing me. “Ask nicely if you want to.”

Where was that butter knife when I needed it? Ask nicely? Manners? Someone like him made manners repulsive. I wrinkled my nose, then rubbed it as if it were itchy.

“Yes. Please. Sir.”
And fuck you again.

I half expected him to read my mind and throw me over his lap to be spanked. Which would’ve had me both grinding my teeth and wet. I knew my stupid body’s reactions well by now.

“Very good. No clothes, though. You’ll swim naked. Stand and strip those off for me, girl.”

I looked down at the cushion, just so I could squeeze my eyes shut with some privacy but then sprang to my feet and began to undress with as much speed as possible without ripping off clasps. Be damned if I’d do this like some striptease.

“Stop! Slowly. Turn as you do so. Show off that body of yours for your master.”

Really?
I took a deep, calming breath then
I reached for the bra clasp and undid it, slow as seemed slow enough to please him.

“Stop again,” he said softly, just as the cups were about to fall from my breasts. I held them on. “Wren, answer me. Am I your master?” He tucked the leash between his knees, picked up the leather gloves from the table, and drew them on. Then he waited.

No, you are not.

I shifted my weight from foot to foot.

Those eyes in the goggles, watching me – like being examined by some bug with lustful desires. It made me want to squirm in an uncomfortable way and smack him at the same time.

I swallowed. “Yes. Sir.” That would do it, right?

“More, Wren.”

He knew that I knew what he meant. I’d been over this sort of questioning before.

While staring at his boots, I added, “Yes, you are my master.” My toes scrunched on the terracotta. My pussy cringed, as I uttered those words.

Could pussies cringe? I considered that, frowning, still looking floorward. Cringed, definitely. I was not turned on by him making me say that. My head was an unraveled mess today.

More sleep, less hitting things. Just for one night.

The leash tinkled and pulled at my neck. He’d tugged it. “I can almost see those thoughts of yours, little slut.”

I fumed. I said
nothing
in return. I seethed without showing a single twitch of mouth or twitch
any
bloody where.

The man stood, unfolding in my vision so deliberately, so slowly, that it made him seem bigger. I shrank and he dwarfed me in his boots, his black gloves, and his clothes, and by his presence. It wasn’t just height anymore. My lips parted and an invisible shiver ran up to my nipples.

“When you are silent like this, that talks to me too. You’re being punished after you swim.”

Oh.
Mind reader? Or was he tuned into signals I didn’t know I was giving? This confused me and...overwhelmed me. I needed to be able to hide how I felt about him. I needed that badly.

I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry, Sir.”

“Not enough. Keep stripping, slut. Show off your tits, and when you’re naked turn and bend over so I can see your cunt.”

So dead. He was dead, but I was done resisting.

I did it all, including the last, bending for him to see everything, feeling as if I was two inches tall. Women did this in strip clubs all the time. It wasn’t so bad.

They did it for pay. Because they chose to. Big difference.

Before, if he made me do humiliating things, he at least seemed to show appreciation. He’d touch me or say complimentary things. That had in some weird, mindfuckery way, made me feel less awful. How that added up, I had no clue. Stupid but true. This time, it was as if I was an object to be leered at, reduced to a fuckable body that meant little to him. I was shaking when I rose.

If he made me do one more horrible thing, I would hit him, no matter the consequences.

Being naked before him was nothing in comparison.

The worst of it was that when he undid the leash, he gave me no opportunities. He remained vigilant. To run, I needed to get to the door through which we’d come. He was squarely in the way and didn’t take his eyes off me as I paced to the pool’s edge. Poised there, I swung my arms back and leapt. That moment of awesome flight took me away, in that moment of no gravity, before my outstretched arms tore into the water.

Peace.

Water, slipping along my body. Bubbles rippling past.
Beneath the water was another world.

I swam, aware of him pacing me as I did laps. After fifty, I went to the end to climb out and he squatted before me.

Water dribbled from my hair and dripped to the curved stone edging. Under my forearms the stone was a pleasant warmth, reminding me of all my past days of freedom, of swimming without having a man crouching over me and eyeing me like a possession.

“Keep going, Wren. I want you fit and healthy. Those lovely curves of yours show the marks so well.

I panted, disconcerted, wondering if he had some strange reason for this, but I turned and slid under the water again. I wasn’t that tired and swimming laps took me far, far away from here to my land of meditation.

When I did finally get out though, he’d best be on alert. I was hyped up by all this activity and by his latest humiliations. I counted the laps by going
fuckhim one
,
fuckhim two
. It was fun and satisfying, and not at all meditative. My cursing was a small victory that only I understood. Better than none.

When he let me leave the pool, he threw me a towel, watched me dry myself then walked onto the grassed area where he’d left the leash. He’d turned his back.

The towel slipped from my fingers. A small breeze curled over my wet skin and my nipples crinkled in.

This. Was it. I hesitated for all of a second, feeling a surprise tinge of sadness and regret that I had to do this, hurt him. I obliterated the thought and took that chance.

One stride, then a flying kick. An uncompromising, totally unsafe kick that I couldn’t pull back from once committed to. I took that stride, felt the grass give, soft under my feet, and I launched, feet first. Full body weight. All of me, aimed at the base of his neck.

I could
feel
the strike before I even contacted.

And he sidestepped.
No
was all I had time to think before a side blow slammed me off course to hit the grass rolling. He’d reacted fast. He’d known.

My ribs hurting, I flipped to my feet, turning, and aware of him closing in...those shadows, the flicker of movement as I spun. My hands were up but too slow, as blows from those gloves thumped into my tensed stomach.

I staggered and folded to the grass, angry and still ready to fuck him up if I could, coughing out the last of my air.
Don’t stop now. Not now!

Kicks were best. Vision blurring, and wracked by painful gasps, I planted my palm and forearm to the ground and snapped a kick to his legs. If I could get him down...

Missed. He’d moved behind me. Rolling frantically to keep him in view, I was yanked short by his hand ripping into my hair and his other hand anchoring on the back of my collar. He hauled the front of the leather tight against my larynx.

I kicked at nothing, tried to turn.

My face was squashed into the grass, and again I struggled to get a kick back at him, any part of him, while my throat closed in from the steady pressure. I retched, and tried to claw at his hand.

“Stay.” His knee thumped on my spine, grinding me down.

The strength fell away as I wheezed in tiny fragments of oxygen. Grass, dirt, and blood filled my mouth. Pain called to me from so many places. I wasn’t sure where anything was anymore as the ground swayed. Out of instinct, I heaved back with my body and got nowhere. All his weight was on me.

I’d failed.

The words wandered in and I didn’t care. Breathing was more urgent. The greenness before my eyes wavered, blood pumped like mud through my head, the greenness darkened. No part of my body worked as it should, and I gave up and slumped under him.

“Good.” I heard that word grunted from close to my ear, then felt my hands wrenched behind me and fastened.

He shifted on me and the weight lifted. The tautness on my neck went away. I coughed and sucked in luxurious lungfuls of air. Oh god, breathing.

With that hair-roots-tight grip on my head and other hand wrapped about my wrists, he pulled me to my feet. I spat out grass as I was pushed and brought staggering to the edge of the pool, then left teetering there, flatfooted, and only just remembering how to stand without faceplanting.

“Go.”

He shoved me. Aghast, I fell, unable to do more than plummet into the water. It closed over me, cold, blanketing sound, and I wrestled with the cuffs, wrenching at them while I scrabbled for purchase with my feet.

I heard him jump in after me. Without my arms for balance, I was lost. The tiles under me slipped sideways whenever my feet found them. Rolling, I saw the surface above. Was he drowning me? Was this it? I’d done something so wrong I was being killed.

Even underwater, I think I cried.

Life should be more than this.

The black, wavering thing hovering above the surface closed in and I was hauled out, dripping and gasping. I was held there, with the back of my head just above the line between life and death. I imagined him letting me fall again, watching me sink, then planting his foot on me and pressing me down, watching me as I wriggled on the bottom of the pool. I’d never been afraid of water. Now I was.

Spluttering, I stared upward. The goggles were gone, just the mask now. His eyes were an intense brown, his mouth a straight, cruel line, emphasizing how close I’d come to the limits of what he could tolerate. Only his arms kept me safe.

The abrupt rise and fall of his chest said I’d made him work for this.

“What do you want, Wren? Are you going to stop fighting me? Beg me to keep you. Now. Decide.” How quiet his voice was, and here I was torn by dread and sorrow.

I moved my lips, fumbling for words. I was wet and battered, half woman, half drowned thing. “Please?”

“Please what?”

Even now, in this most vital of times, I hesitated. “Please, I won’t fight. I’m begging you.”

It wasn’t in me to give in, but because my hesitation was so small, so infinitesimal, he missed it for once. Or perhaps he chose to not see. Perhaps, even he had his hopes sometimes blind him.

“You’re begging for me to keep you, Wren? You need to accept that you’re mine.”