by Kitty Thomas
She remembered that first night, the look of triumph on his face after he'd overpowered her and changed their positions. Did he prefer that to her obedience?
“You've never known the first thing about what I want,” he said.
Holly reached out and grabbed Ari's cock through his jeans. Claire's mouth fell open. Ari pushed her away.
“Get. The fuck. Out.” he said. “And if you ever ring my doorbell like that again, I will file a restraining order.”
But Holly wasn't done. She spun to face the others in the kitchen, giving Claire a long, slow look.
“Another blonde, Ari? Really, that's so predictable. Has he been putting you in schoolgirl outfits, too? He has this thing for naughty schoolgirls. So, how serious is it? How long have you been his little rebound slut?”
Ari grabbed Holly's arm and started dragging her down the hall.
“Fucking let go of me! If you leave a bruise I'll report you to the police.”
“Fine,” he growled. “Either way we'll get a restraining order, and neither of us gets to be within five hundred yards of the other. Works for me.”
She continued to struggle.
“How many drinks have you had?” Saskia asked. She'd practically stolen the question out of Claire's head. The woman did seem a bit drunk.
But Holly ignored the question. “Wait,” she said.
Ari loosened his grip, and she wrenched free, taking a few steps back. They'd all made it out into the hallway by this point.
Holly held up her hands.
“Are you going to be calm and behave like a rational human being?” Ari asked.
The blonde took in the four other people in the hallway and smiled. “Okay, fine. You want this other slut. For now. I can wait. And Kane has Saskia. But what about the bald guy? He's the odd man out. I could take him and then we could be a sixsome. Is that even a thing?”
“Fuck no,” Marcus said.
This time it was Marcus who grabbed her around the arm and hauled her to the door. Ari pressed his thumb against the keypad, the door opened, and Marcus shoved her outside.
“Don't come back,” Ari said. “I'm not kidding about the restraining order. Sober up, and stay out of my life.”
They all watched out the window as she screamed, her hands balled into fists, looking as though she were going to make a run at the door. But after a few minutes of this, she stalked off, got into a yellow sports car, and zoomed away, narrowly missing backing into one of the gates.
“And that is why you never got a painting of Holly,” Kane said as if it needed to be said. There was a long pause and he sighed. “We need to go. I'll call you in a few weeks when our girls are healed.”
After Holly, the mood of everything was broken. Kane, Marcus, and Saskia got their things together and left. Then it was just Ari and Claire standing in the front hallway.
“You should probably get some rest,” Ari said quietly.
37
Ari bolted from bed.
“Please... please... no... NO!” Claire shrieked.
He heard her writhing and fighting with the blankets in her sleep. Ari grabbed the key and raced up the stairs, his heart pounding in his ears. By the time he reached her, she'd woken. She huddled against the wall, tears streaming down her cheeks, a terrified expression on her face as she tried to sort out what was real and what wasn't. It seemed to take her a minute to relax when she realized it was Ari standing over her in the darkness, not the man of her nightmares.
He unlocked the cuff and picked her up. She trembled in his arms, her cheek resting against his neck as he carried her down the stairs. She hadn't had the nightmares since her first night with him. He'd thought they were past them. It had been a naïve hope. Had he thought he could erase that man and those nightmares with a brand? Had that been what he was trying to do?
Ari put her in his bed and climbed in with her. He held her and stroked her hair as she tried to stop shaking in his arms.
“Claire,” he said softly after a few minutes when her body had finally settled into his embrace. He carefully interlocked his fingers with hers.
“Yes, Master?”
“Do you know what triggered it?” He had his suspicions. He'd created a secure environment for her, and he knew she felt safe inside it. Maybe even happy. But Holly's dramatic scene earlier... he knew it had unnerved her.
She was quiet for a long time.
“Tell me,” Ari said.
“I think it was because of what happened tonight.”
Ari knew she didn't mean the brand.
He sighed, his thumb stroking the back of her hand. “You don't have to worry about Holly.”
“You don't want her back?”
He felt her cringe as she asked the question.
He kissed the top of her head. “Never. I've never branded anyone before you. I would never permanently mark someone like that if I wasn't sure we were forever.”
“But you branded me before she came back.”
“It doesn't matter. She never meant to me what you mean to me.”
He shifted her weight carefully so that she lay on her stomach on the bed. He checked her bandage to make sure it hadn't come off and that she hadn't irritated the healing brand in her panic. Amazingly her bandage was still in place. He sighed and stroked her hair.
Neither of them could say I love you. It was too strange for their situation. How could you honestly say you loved someone whose freedom you'd taken away? If you love something, set it free. And Ari just couldn't do that. Besides, they existed well beyond the prosaic parameters of normal coupledom.
He'd told Holly he loved her. Had he meant it? He wasn't sure, but he knew now that he couldn't have possibly loved her because what he felt for Claire was far beyond anything he'd thought he'd felt for his previous pet.
“Try to get some sleep,” he said. Ari held her until her breathing evened out into the patterns of sleep. Then he got up and tucked her in.
He went to the closet and put on a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and some shoes and went to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. It was five a.m. and he knew he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. He wouldn't be able to get the sound of Claire's screams out of his mind.
The more he thought about it, the more enraged it made him. He had her locked out here in his fucking fortress where no one could possibly find her. And even if they could, they couldn't get in. And that monster still haunted her dreams. He still owned her. Still controlled her.
Ari couldn't be sure if he was more angry at the man who'd done this to her or at her for still not belonging completely to him even after he'd permanently marked her. Or was his anger at Holly for blowing in like a chaos tornado and ruining what should have been a special night?
He slammed a coffee mug on the counter. When the coffee was done, he poured a cup, put a handful of dog treats in his pocket, and went outside. The air was brisk still, but winter had begun to thaw into spring. Trees had already started to bud, and a few colorful blooms appeared here and there on ornamental trees nearby.
He walked along the perimeter of the property, sipping from the steaming cup. Instead of hyping him up, the caffeine somehow seemed to soothe his jangled nerves. It wasn't long until the fox was trotting along beside him. Ari stopped and dropped a dog treat on the ground.
Arnold poked at it with his nose as if he were exploring some new and arcane thing.
“It's the bacon flavor. You like these. Stop being a prima donna.”
The fox let out a shrill whine as if offended and gobbled up the treat. Suddenly remembering just how much he did like bacon, he began to jump up on Ari, sniffing and licking ardently at the side pocket of his jeans.
“Down,” Ari said.
But the fox didn't listen. Foxes never listened to anything. Ari pushed Arnold off him, dug the treats out of his pocket, and sat on the ground next to the fox who was now doing a reasonable impersonation of a sugar-hyped toddler.
Ari put the bacon-flavor
ed morsels on the ground, not bothering to dole them out one at a time. He drank his coffee while he watched Arnold making gleeful sounds and practically pouncing on each dog treat as if it were live prey he'd tackled to the ground himself.
When he was finished, he glared at Ari, a betrayed expression on his face.
“That's all. You can't have any more. You'll get sick and fat. Do you want to be a roly poly fox, barely able to run down your own dinner?”
Arnold just blinked at him.
Ari stroked the fox's ears, but Arnold was in no mood for cuddling. He put up with it for about two seconds before turning and darting off down the hill to the nearest gate.
“Just wait,” Ari called out after him, “I'll fatten you up, and then you'll never squeeze out.”
Arnold seemed unconcerned about this.
Ari sighed and finished his coffee. He wanted to punish Holly for showing up at his house the night before even as he knew he couldn't.
Holly wasn't even the real problem. Somewhere deep down he'd known since the first night he'd heard Claire's screams that he'd have to do what he was determined to do now.
A couple of weeks passed. Holly hadn't returned. But Claire felt a tension now with Ari. She'd been right. Something had come along to break everything and destroy the fantasy. Had it been Holly? Or the nightmare that night? Had he finally realized how irrevocably damaged she was? He'd moved her to sleep in his bed and had kept her there.
She should be happy sleeping with him every night. But he didn't touch her as much as he had before. But maybe it was the brand. Logic said he was just taking care of her so she healed properly. For the first few days he'd changed the bandages twice a day. He'd put a salve on them. He'd gently cleaned the healing injury.
She felt a growing distance from him. A kind of anger. And she didn't know what she'd done wrong. All the while she berated herself for wanting this man to want her.
Claire watched warily as he prepared their breakfast. There was something different about him this morning. A scary sort of menace seemed to roll off him. Before, he'd had such a steadying energy. It was only now in its absence that she could appreciate just how calm she usually felt just being near him.
“Master, are you mad at me?”
He looked up from the frying sausage in the skillet. “Why would I be mad at you?”
She shrugged. “You seem different.”
He laughed, but it wasn't the laugh you heard after a joke.
He put the sausages and eggs on two plates with forks and carried them to the table, then he poured two glasses of milk and brought them over as well.
“Sit and eat,” he said.
Claire sat. Usually he fed her. Sure she could feed herself, but there was an intimacy in that shared act between them. He was mad at her. She felt the tears start to slip down her cheeks.
Ari sighed. “I'm not mad at you. This isn't about you. It's about him. I've been thinking about it for a while, and I've decided to kill him.” The deadly look in Ari's eyes left no doubt that he was serious. He intended to take a life. This wasn't a bluff.
“Him?” she asked. But she knew. She felt both elated and terrified by this idea. What if Ari wasn't the one who walked away from the confrontation? What if that man did? What if...?
“Do you remember where he kept you?”
She considered lying. It had been nearly four years, after all. It would be reasonable to forget the way.
“Claire?”
“Yes, Master. I remember.”
“Good. You will write down the directions.”
“I-I don't know it that way. I know it if I go. I have to see things to remember how to get places I've only been to once or twice.” She'd never been good at mentally retracing her steps to find things. She had to physically retrace them.
“You're not fucking going,” he growled.
She jumped at his tone, but pressed on. “Anyway, he's long gone by now.”
“I know that. But he probably didn't put the house up for sale, being a killer and all. He may have left behind evidence or some identifying information that might help me hunt the motherfucker down.”
“If you're going, I'm going,” Claire said. Her breath stuck in her throat. She hadn't openly defied him in... well not ever. And she definitely didn't want to start acting like Holly. But she couldn't stand the idea of being locked in this house and him out there hunting that man. What if Ari never came back? She might die in this house. Or what if he took Ari's wallet, found the house, and somehow got in? She chanced a glance up to find Ari staring at her. She couldn't read his expression.
“Fine,” he said.
They were silent the rest of the way through breakfast. After breakfast, while Ari cleaned the kitchen, Claire went to their now-shared walk-in closet and put on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, a lightweight jacket, and boots. Her brand was still sore, but the jeans weren't painful.
As soon as the brand had healed enough she'd spent half an hour staring at it in the full-length mirror of the walk-in closet, trying to decide how she felt about this thing that marked her as belonging to Ari forever. She wasn't supposed to want that mark on her flesh. It wasn't as though he'd asked her if she wanted it. He'd merely explained—as gently as possible—what he'd planned to do. He'd never even pretended she had a choice. And yet, she did want it.
“Are you ready?” Ari asked, standing in the doorway, the agitated energy still rolling off him. She glanced down to find a gun holstered at his hip. Her gaze rose quickly to his.
“Just in case,” he said.
She followed him out to the garage. They passed her silver Lexus on the way to one of his cars. He unlocked the door on a nondescript black sedan which somehow looked more conspicuous than if they'd just taken the red sports car. She got in and they pulled out of the driveway.
The drive was long. Neither of them spoke except for her giving him directions as each turn and stretch of road jogged her memory. The journey took them through the city, then out to the other side, through suburban neighborhoods, and out into a somewhat more rural area where the houses were farther apart and many were abandoned, as if people had just forgotten this area existed—or no longer cared that it did.
Finally they pulled up to a dilapidated green farmhouse. Ari put on some black gloves and got out of the car. Claire was right on his heels, her breathing going shallow from anxiety even before they reached the door.
Stones were falling out of the columns, and the rotting wood of the porch creaked when they walked over it. A raccoon scurried out from under the planks and darted across the field. There was an old rusted orange truck off to the side of the house.
Was that his truck? Claire couldn't remember. She'd been unconscious for the trip to his house. She shuddered trying to block out the memories as they slithered to the surface of her mind.
“I-I think he might still be here,” Claire said, backing away. “L-let's go.”
“Are you kidding? This place is deserted and falling apart. I know a house that hasn't been lived in.” Ari stepped off the porch and moved around to the truck. “Come here,” he said, motioning her to him.
Claire followed him to the truck, keeping a wary eye on the house, waiting for that man to burst out the front door with a gun. She'd feel a lot safer if Ari's gun wasn't in the holster.
“The bastard left the keys in the ignition,” Ari said.
Claire watched as he tried to start the truck up. Nothing. It didn't even click over.
“Battery's dead. This truck hasn't moved from this spot in years. Do you believe me now that nobody's living here?”
Claire nodded slowly, but she still wasn't sure. It was true that there were no other cars here and this wasn't a place you could easily live without transportation.
Ari went out to the mailbox and opened it to reveal a stack of unopened mail including very old warnings of impending electricity shut off.
“See? Place is abandoned,” he said, pulling out the mail. He rifled thr
ough it, then put a few pieces in his back pocket. Claire glimpsed an envelope that said Edward Fuller on the front. It felt so strange after so long to have her captor's name.
She followed Ari back onto the porch.
“Stay outside,” he ordered.
If she stayed outside, she could run. He had to know that. Could he know he'd broken her will to leave him so completely that he could trust her out here in the open air unfettered while he searched the house?
“I-I can't. I want to be with you.” That sentence was about so much more than just this moment. And they both knew it.
“Then stay close behind me. And don't touch anything.”
For the moment Ari didn't seem worried about the rules between them. His single-minded focus appeared to be on finding something that would help him track down the man who'd hurt her. She wanted to tell him that killing a man wasn't as easy as it seemed. She'd been so sure she could do it only to learn the hard way that she couldn't.
The front door of the farmhouse wasn't even locked. The power was out. The air was stale. Whatever had been in the fridge when the power had been shut off was putting out such a stench of decay, she almost vomited from it.
Ari searched the entire upper level, Claire close behind him. They found no clues of where her captor might have gone. It looked like he'd just... left. It didn't even look like he'd packed a bunch of things or even bothered to clean up his dishes. Claire gripped the edge of the counter and doubled over as a full-on technicolor flashback hit her. It knocked the wind out of her as the vivid memories assaulted her senses.
It was those ugly yellow plates in the sink that brought everything back, so real it was as though it were happening in that moment. Those ugly yellow plates. The food he barely fed her down in that dirty awful basement. She could hear the snap and crack of his belt moments before he beat her with it. She flinched and cringed away as if she could stop the blow that was coming.
“Claire?” Ari rushed to her side and pried her fingers off the counter, causing the present to come back in a rush. She clung to him, burying her head in his shoulder as she cried.
