At least this place had books.
I ran my fingers over the spines lining the bookcase. The selection wasn’t optimal but I’d give any of my vital organs not to go back to the basement.
The variety of books I hadn’t read yet was dwindling, but I had an interesting crop to pick from. Old leather bound histories, yellowed page philosophies–those I mostly ignored–but then there were also romances and adventure stories.
Jane Austen and Emily Bronte. Jack London and Conan Doyle.
I plucked a hardback of Brave New World from the shelf and cracked it open to the copyright page. Its pages were yellowed and fragrant, the edition published in 1933. I slipped the book back into the lineup and kept looking. The collection altogether told me exactly nothing about the people who owned them or lived here. I had a feeling though that the building had not been constructed or lived in by anyone who knew who the Kardashians were.
The books made me think of Tessa. I had no idea what day it was anymore but I was supposed to be traveling with her.
I wondered what tall tale had been concocted to excuse my absence.
Was someone out there with my phone, tapping out replies to my friend, keeping up appearances? Or was my face on a milk carton somewhere?
There wasn’t a goddamned thing I could do about it either way.
My mind wandered to the books she gave me, how much I’d rather be reading one of those right now.
If I told Tess what was happening right now, she’d never believe me.
Whenever I saw Ruarc, I needed to stop, take stock, and blink a couple of times to make sure he was really there. Corporeal. Not a nightmarish fiction made flesh.
But ghosts didn’t have warm skin. Hallucinations couldn’t give you the best orgasm of your life.
My eyes flew to the door. The last time it opened, it was meal time and someone brought me a large plate of spaghetti and chicken parm. The next time it opened, I’d probably be asleep, the used dishes cleared away. The sun set four times through the barred windows since I’d last seen him.
Had I done something wrong? Something to upset him? If he didn’t want to touch me anymore, what would that mean for me?
I could only think of two things. Either he’d return me to my father, unlikely, or he’d kill me to send a message.
My teeth dug into my lip as I flipped the book’s pages, too distracted to read more than a couple lines at a time.
Footsteps padded against the hardwood floor somewhere not far from the door to my luxurious prison and I held my breath, thighs clenching only to deflate as they faded away.
Was that it? Was I just… horny? Was that why I didn’t fight harder to stop him?
Jesus.
If it was true, what did that make me?
Because my hands worked just fine and I’d been using those to get off since I was fifteen.
Was I so starved for human contact that I’d take whatever weird, crazy shit he wanted from me, or was it him?
I had no reason to like, let alone desire him. He fucking kidnapped me.
Ruarc was the reason I had no idea whether my dad was okay. The reason Carlos was dead and Tessa wasn’t safe.
He’d terrorized me and used my body like a toy.
I should have been disgusted by him. I should loathe him.
…and maybe I did.
But I also…
My eyes fluttered back to the door, watching it again as if that would somehow encourage him to appear.
If he escalated every time we saw each other then what would come next? It scared me to wonder what the depths of his depravity were. It was worse to imagine whether I’d meet him at his level or whether he’d finally push me past my limits.
Was the gun he’d fucked me with loaded? Was the safety off?
I gulped, looking around the fairytale room. My padded prison.
Beautifully furnished and comfortable.
With clean clothes in the walk-in and sanitary supplies in the bathroom. Light, medium, and heavy tampons. Like a hotel. Just one you couldn’t leave.
It wasn’t unbearable.
And in the moments I allowed myself to imagine I was here by my own will, I would almost say it was comfortable. Without Ruarc here to turn it back into a nightmare, it felt more like a dream. A vacation from my mundane existence.
Aside from the predictability of it.
That was stifling in its comfort and sameness.
Read, sleep, eat, bathe, rinse and repeat.
I looked back down at my book, the words on the page blurring together as rage filled me with heat. Hating myself for my own thoughts.
How fucking dare he make me feel grateful for being in this room instead of the dungeon?
How dare he make me so starved for human interaction that even the thought of him walking through that door made me feel something akin to relief?
Fuck him.
Righteous indignation rose in my chest and I threw the book across the room, my gaze zeroing in on one of the three cameras in the room. Was he watching me right now?
I’d put on a show for him yesterday, attempting to draw him out. The sooner he got everything he wanted out of me, the sooner this could be over.
One way or another.
“Hey!” I shouted into the camera. “How long are you going to keep me locked up in here?”
No reply. Nothing but the incessant blink of the red light on the base of the lens.
Was this all he wanted from me, now? To watch me on his cameras like some sick personal reality show?
If he wanted a show, fine, I’d give him one.
I dragged the high backed cushioned chair from the corner of the room, its legs scraping over the polished wood floors, leaving deep gouges.
Grabbing it by its wooden arms, I lifted it as high as I could, throwing back to the floor. The heavy piece of furniture landed noisily on its side, sliding along the floor before getting caught on the edge of the carpet and stopping.
I tried again, picking up and driving the chair into the ground as hard as I could. This time I was rewarded with the sharp crack of splintering wood.
One of the arms shook loose. Picking it up by the high back, I slammed it into the floor legs first. Two of the back legs buckled and one of them cracked, a few more blows against the floor and it came free.
Panting, arm straining, burning as I caught my breath, looking to the window. Back at the chair, sizing it up.
It wouldn’t do anything to the bars, but still…
Heaving it into the air, I ran headlong into the window, smashing it. Glass shattered, a shower sprinkling onto the floor by my feet.
I laughed, exhilarated.
The chair lodged in the space, blocked by the bars.
My heart pounded with excitement. Destroying the beautiful room sent thrills of adrenaline coursing through me. Starved of contact, excitement, and stimulation, the juvenile rebellion felt euphoric.
Letting the chair fall to the ground, I flipped it around so I could push it out back first angling the legless seat until I could shove it through the bars.
Leaning through the hole, I watched it crash to the ground below with butterflies in my stomach. It smashed on the verdant lawn, the back breaking off from the cushioned seat.
The wind blew against my skin and through my hair. The air fresh after so much time spent breathing in my stale recycled oxygen.
I closed my eyes, breathing deeply.
I shivered, invigorated, my world seeming to blow up into something bigger than just this room. I curled my hand around one of the iron bars, giving it a shake, judging the space between it and its twin to the left. The gaps were wide. Wider than they’d appeared when the old warped glass was still intact.
Swallowing, I gripped the bars tight, avoiding the broken glass at the base of the frame to lean out the window for a better view.
A forest grew beyond the property in a dense, lush patch of green. I’d stared out at it for hours before but I’d never properly seen it until now.
There didn’t seem to be neighbors close by but they were there, somewhere. The whole world was there, moving along without me like nothing had even happened.
A crash behind me made me jump. I spun around, stopping stiff when I saw him.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Ruarc stood in the doorway, eyes wild, shoulders and chest heaving.
I puffed my chest out, proud, triumphant.
His stance was tentative apprehension, but his eyes were crazed, quivering as he regarded me.
It was fear, I realized with a sinking in my gut, and it had no right to be on the face of a monster.
I lifted my chin, wishing I could take the same gratification at seeing his fear as he did eliciting mine.
Before he could come any closer, I climbed onto the sill, bracing myself between two of the bars.
His heavy steps barreled toward me as I balanced myself on the window frame, a shard of glass slicing along the edge of my right foot.
I barely felt the sting as I looked down, my heart jumping into my throat.
Let go, my own voice shouted in my skull. Let go!
I let my feet slip from the ledge, closed my eyes.
Ruarc’s arm closed around my waist and yanked me violently back into the room. He panted, throwing me to the bed. My head knocked into the ornate headboard and I blinked as blackness and bursts of light flared momentarily across my field of vision.
“What the fuck?” he shouted, bearing down on me, hands gripping my shoulders.
“Let go of me!”
I kicked out at him, hitting him in the stomach, making him grunt as he struggled to maintain his hold on me.
“What the fuck were you doing? You could have killed yourself,” he bellowed.
He panted harsh, short breaths, his arms, and shoulders tense, watching me like he was afraid I’d try to get around him and jump again.
“What the fuck do you care?” I screamed in his face.
His breath hissed through his teeth. His lips sealed, darkness hardening his gaze as he released my shoulders with a shove, sitting back heavily on the mattress.
His shoulders shook in silent laughter as he pinched the bridge of his nose. His expression told me he was wondering the same thing I was.
“You’re the worst idea I’ve ever had.” He shook his head. “Resorting to dangerous games to get my attention…”
“But it worked.”
He snapped his attention back to me, his clear slate eyes burning into my soul. His upper lip curled, seeing my outburst for what it really was. The thing I wouldn’t admit even to myself.
Ruarc curled rough fingers around my ankle, eliciting a yelp from my lips as he dragged me to the floor, jerking me up onto my knees with a bruising grip on my shoulder.
I pushed against his hold, but he shoved down on my shoulder, keeping me there as he used his other to pop the button on his neat black pants, freeing his cock.
My mouth snapped shut, watching it harden before my eyes, growing to a length I thought reserved only for porn stars and horses. A thick vein pulsed, running up one side before it vanished just shy of the perfectly domed tip.
“Open your filthy mouth,” he barked.
I pressed my lips together, turning away petulantly.
He gripped my jaw, forcing my face forward.
I protested in angry moans against my sealed lips as he pried my mouth open, pushing his cock between my lips, thrusting his length into my mouth.
He hardened further, lengthening, overwhelming the already filled space. I choked, my mouth struggling around his size.
Devious satisfaction pulled his mouth into a smirk watching me struggle. He was bigger than any cock I’d put into my mouth. His head touched the back of my throat and my eyes stung as he began to move. Every punishing thrust making me gag.
He fisted a handful of my hair, forcing me to take him deeper, pressing past my limits, having his way with me.
I pressed my thighs together, feeling a powerful throb in my cunt, denying its existence.
His raw power fell over me like a spell.
This was what no man in the past had been able to give me.
Potent, undeniable domination.
His presence was so strong I buckled underneath it.
Ruarc cupped either side of my face with his hands, pistoning in and out of my mouth, fucking my tight little throat until I saw stars.
I moaned around him, feeling my own wetness soaking through layers of fabric between my legs.
“You like that,” I heard him say, his voice light, almost amused as he pulled my head forward, pressing himself past the dam of my throat, making it burn.
“I’ve watched you in here,” he said in a low voice that was almost lost to the rush of blood in my ears. “You touch yourself when you’re alone. I know you’re thinking of me. I know you wish your hand was my cock, making you come.”
I choked and spluttered as he pulled out, catching my breath for only an instant before he began his assault again, the salty taste of his precum awakening my taste buds.
I fisted my hands in the luxe fabric of his tailored pants, pushing him back, pulling him close, holding on for dear fucking life as he fucked my mouth, the staccato sounds of his breaths edged in the husky groans of his own pleasure sent liquid fire through my veins.
Ruarc held my head in place, his hands on either side of my face pressing tighter as he drew nearer his release. He let out a feral roar, arching his spine as he poured himself into my mouth.
He withdrew and I gasped, ready to spit him out when he fell into a crouch, pressing a hot palm over my lips, sealing them shut as his other hand wrapped around the back of my skull. “You’ll take what I give you and you’ll like it. Now swallow.”
I gagged, a muffled burst of air against his palm as his fingers dug into my cheeks, his eyes never leaving me. My gaze narrowed on him, and I hoped he could see the depth of my hatred for him, even as I worked my throat, pretending to swallow down his bounty.
“Good girl,” he praised, his hand slipping from my mouth as he rose to his feet. I spat his load on his polished leather shoes, swiping the back of my palm over my lips.
He clucked his tongue and I didn’t dare raise my eyes to his level, keeping them trained on the floor as my nails dug deep half-moons in my palms.
The fabric of his pants whispered as he stuffed his cock back in, adjusting the zipper.
“As you wish,” he said curtly. “If you can’t respect the furniture, then you’ll have none.”
Without another word, he turned and walked toward the door.
Hot rage seared through me. That bastard. That fucking son of a bitch. I jumped to my feet, racing to the scattered glass on the floor to lift a loose shard the size of a dagger.
It bit into my skin as I rushed at him, a savage cry tearing from my throat as I swung at him wildly.
Ducking back as if he’d already anticipated the attack, Ruarc grabbed my arms, knocking the glass from my hand, immobilizing me with my back pressed against the floor.
“Get in here,” he roared.
Two men appeared in the doorway.
“Chain her up.” He hissed the command to his men but his attention remained focused on me. “And then take every scrap of furniture, every book out of this room. Leave nothing.”
I screamed in his face as the men took me from his grasp, dragging me toward the wall. I thrashed against them, fighting with every ounce of energy I had left as they shoved my bed out of the way to reveal an iron bolt in the wall, a chain hanging down to the floor with a manacle on one end.
“No!”
I knew what downstairs meant. The dungeon. My throat stung, becoming hoarse as I screamed, thrashing uselessly against them as they manacled my ankle. I ran at them, jerked back by the restraint, only making it across half the floor. It would be enough slack to reach the toilet in the bathroom, but not enough to get back to the window. Or to the door.
“You bastard!”
The two men began dragging my bed to the other side of the room, out of reach, along with absolutely everything else. I seethed, anger rippling over my flesh like a thousand tiny ants were milling just under the surface, and all the while Ruarc watched, emotionless. Withdrawn.
“I hate you,” I shouted at him, my voice cracking trying to maintain the volume.
His jaw ticked and he nodded. “This time, I believe you.”
