“I’m sorry about that. As I said, momentary lapse in judgment.”
“Did you just apologize to me?”
“No, I said I was sorry about having a momentary lapse in judgment. I didn’t say I was sorry to you.”
“How exactly am I supposed to pay you?” I asked hesitantly. “We’ve been through this. I don’t have anything to give you,” I sighed. “I don’t have anything at all.”
“In whatever way I want, pup.”
“What if I don’t want to be yours?”
King didn’t hesitate. “Then, I’ll let Preppy have his way with you. He may seem nice, but you’ll learn that kid is a sick fuck who will smash your back door in without warning. He likes it when they scream. He likes it when they’re passed out. He likes it even better when they say no. Or maybe, I’ll loan you out to Bear’s crew. I hear Harris and Mono have a fetish for knife play.”
There was no humor in his voice.
“But if you cooperate, you’ll be mine and mine alone. You’ll be under my protection. When I’m tired of you and I feel your debt has been paid, you will be free to go.”
“Protection,” I repeated. The very thing I’d been looking for. “What happens if you don’t get tired of me?”
King chuckled. “Oh, It will happen. Always does. But until then, you’ll do what I say. You’ll live in my house.” His eyes narrowed to the space between my legs. “You’ll sleep in my bed.”
“You’re going to rape me?” My heart hammered in my chest. “Because it’s one thing to sell myself. It’s another thing entirely to have the decision taken from me. If that’s your plan, you can just shove my head under the water and get this over with now.”
“You may be weak in body, but it doesn’t seem that mouth of yours got the message.” Adrenaline sprung to life inside me, coursing through my veins, readying my body for another fight for my life.
I stood up, splashing more water onto the tile floor, my nakedness on full display. I didn’t bother to cover myself.
King surprised me by standing up and stepping into the tub, soaking his jeans up to his shins. I held my clenched fists out in front of me like I was going to box him. He laughed and wrapped both arms around my waist, hauling me into his colorful, bare chest.
“You’ll find out that I’m a lot of things, but I’m no fucking rapist. Before I fuck you—and I will fuck you, pup—you’ll be begging me for it,” he whispered against my neck.
I clenched my thighs together to try and ease the ache he created there. The adrenaline surge I was ready to use for combat changed into something else entirely. I was still ready for him. Only in a completely different way.
Traitorous body.
“But first, you need to heal. Your feet are all sliced up and your ear is bleeding again.” King stepped from the tub and lifted me out with him, setting me onto the cold tile my teeth started to chatter. He opened the cabinet under the sink and wrapped me in a soft towel large enough to double as a blanket. “And there are a few other things I need you to tell me.”
“Like what?”
“Preppy told me what you’d told him, what happened to you. But how is it that someone like you is missing in the world?”
“Someone like me?”
“There has got to be someone out there who misses these beautiful eyes.” He locked his fingers into my wet hair and tilted my head back.
“I tried to find someone who knows me,” I said with my teeth still clacking together. King dried me with the towel, treading carefully over my injuries. “The police tried, too, but there was no missing persons report that matched my description. My fingerprints aren’t on file anywhere. No paper trail.”
King unbuttoned his jeans and stripped them off, hanging the wet fabric off of the shower rod to dry. All that was left of his clothes were his black boxer briefs, his enormous erection straining against the stretchy fabric. He noticed me looking and made no move to make an excuse for his arousal. He didn’t make any move to cover himself. He smiled out of the corner of his mouth, took a few steps toward me. He lifted me up into his arms as if he were cradling a baby and carried me out into his bedroom where he set me on the bed.
The cuffs from the night before still hung from the headboard.
“So that’s it? I’m your prisoner? You’re just going to keep me cuffed to the bed?”
King shook his head. “No, pup. You’re not my prisoner. I don’t think we need these anymore.” He gestured to the cuffs. His well-built, highly-tattooed, muscular physique gleamed under the light of the moon shining through the window. My mouth went dry, and I again had to press my thighs together to quell the building ache that was starting to overshadow my other injuries.
He may have been the devil, but his body was sculpted like a god.
I scrambled to form my question. “Then, what am I?” I whispered. My exhaustion beginning to take hold.
“I told you before.” King leaned in close stripped the towel away, letting his gaze linger on my body before covering me with the bed sheets. With one knee on the mattress, King leaned over and sucked my bottom lip into his mouth. A tingling sensation started in my belly. He released my lip with a pop. “You’re not my prisoner. You’re mine.”
Chapter Eleven
King
Against my better judgment, I’d brought her back to my house. I fed her. I bathed her. I put her to bed, and she didn’t bother to fight me off when I climbed in beside her and held her close while she cried herself to sleep. She was here against her will and I was one fucked up motherfucker.
Because I’d never been happier.
It was the kiss that fucked everything up. I hadn’t meant to kiss her in the woods, but I couldn’t ignore the overwhelming urge to take her mouth. At first, I thought it was just a sick part of me that needed to kiss a girl who was struggling underneath me. But then, she opened her mouth to me, and all the sense I’d ever had was lost in that kiss.
Her taste, her tongue, the pull I’d felt toward her when she was first in my bed had exploded into something I couldn’t reign in. I lost myself in her for a good minute before I came to my senses. Stopping was the hardest thing I’d ever done even though the idea of taking my revenge out on her body made every part of me turn rock hard.
I wasn’t going to go after her. But the entire night I lay awake and stared at the ceiling fan. I didn’t even fucking know the girl and I was worried about her. What was she doing? Did she make it out of the woods? Then, I spent hours hoping she went in the right direction, because if she went toward Coral Pines, she wouldn’t find any sort of civilization for over ten miles.
I wrestled with the idea of going after her all day. Then, Preppy had filled me in on what she’d told him about not having a memory.
So I did something. Something that made the decision to go after her an easy one. A decision that would forever change the lives of everyone around me.
Some for the good.
Some for the bad.
Some for the dead.
I found out who Doe really was.
Chapter Twelve
Doe
Although my eyes are open, there is a darkness surrounding me that is about to open the flood gates of my panic. A pair of heavily-lidded chestnut brown eyes loom over me and remind me I’m not alone, and my fear is momentarily surpressed. The look of raw desire reflected in his gaze sends a flush of wetness between my legs. The heat of his naked chest radiates against mine, and I am lost in sensations of skin against skin.
Slowly, he drags his fingers up my thigh, touching every part of my body except the one place burning for his touch, aching and pulsing with a need I’d never known. His touch is soft but nervous, like he doesn’t know where to place his hands next. I shift in an effort to send him where I crave his touch the most.
“Ssshhhh,” a deep voice whispers into my neck, causing the hair on my arms to stand on end and my stomach to flip flop with anticipation. “Is this where you need me to touch you?”
His hand comes to rest on my breast, rolling my already sensitive nipple between his fingers. I arch my back and groan from deep within my throat.
“No,” I say. It comes out as barely a breath. I need him lower. Much lower.
He releases my nipple and a soft hand cups my breast and squeezes lightly. “Is this where you need me?” the voice asks, teasing me with his words as well as his touch.
“No,” I moan again, the agonizing torture of waiting for him to make contact is too much to bear.
I kick out my legs impatiently.
“Ssssshhhhh. Behave, and you’ll get what you want,” the voice whispers, trailing his tongue down the side of my neck at the same time working his hands between my legs. Slowly, two fingers brush over my clit, lingering there without any movement. An almost touch.
His body stills.
I writhe beneath him, seeking the release he is denying me. “Please,” I beg.
No answer.
“Please,” I say again.
Still no answer.
I look up into the eyes that held the promise of pleasure just a moment before, but they are slowly fading away. I reach for him, but I grasp only the night air. Even though I can still feel the places where he touched me as if he’d burned my skin, I can no longer feel him on me.