HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1)

by Lexie Ray

  By the time Andrew was supposed to get back from work, both Cream and I were jumpy.

  “Did this morning actually happen?” she asked.

  “We both saw it—and you felt it,” I reminded her.

  “It seems like a strange dream,” she said, shaking her head. “Should we maybe just pretend it never happened?”

  “We have to remember what he’s capable of,” I said.

  When he got home and opened the door, we were both working on stir fry for dinner.

  “Smells great,” he said as he walked back to his bedroom.

  “It’ll be ready in about ten minutes,” Cream called.

  I glanced at the door. Maybe now was the time to escape. Maybe we had to seize it now.

  I tapped Cream on the shoulder and pointed at the door. She shook her head frantically, her eyes wide.

  Would I leave her behind? Would I have to? I darted across the floor, my bare feet silent against the black marble. I pushed against the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Did the security code activate automatically when he came in, too?

  I sagged with disappointment, then I was grabbed by my shoulders and whirled around.

  “What are you doing?” Andrew asked, his voice pleasant despite the fury with which he grabbed me.

  “I—I thought you left the door ajar,” I said. “I think it was just a trick of the light. It’s closed, obviously.”

  “I always close the door,” Andrew said. “Always.”

  “It was silly of me,” I said, smiling. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Me neither,” Andrew said, pressing something cold and sharp underneath my throat. “I can’t seem to think of what to make of this, either. I found a knife in your pillowcase.”

  I tried to stay calm, but it was hard with a sharp edge biting into my skin. I felt warm moisture running down my neck, and realized he’d cut me.

  “What was that doing in there?” I wondered, trying to smile, trying not to panic.

  “You want to fuck around with me?” Andrew growled, pushing his face close to mine. His expression was terrifying—his brows drawn together, his black eyes lifeless. “We can fuck around, Pumpkin. It’s whatever you want to do.”

  “I don’t want to do that,” I said quickly. “The knife was a mistake. I must have made the bed while I was doing the dishes.”

  The knife bit deeper and I squeezed my eyes shut while biting back a whimper. What could I say to get him to stop? Nothing seemed to be working.

  “Please stop,” Cream begged from behind him. “It was a mistake, like Pumpkin said.”

  Andrew jerked the knife away from my neck and pointed it at Cream.

  “I’m just joking,” he said, letting the knife fall to the marble floor with a clatter. He started laughing. “It’s just a joke, see?”

  My hand flew up to my neck and came away red. I was fucking bleeding. Some joke.

  “You got us,” Cream said, her eyes darting back and forth between Andrew and me. “We thought you were super angry. You’re a good actor.”

  “That’s what I have to do in my job, you know,” Andrew said. “Never let them see you sweat.”

  “Dinner’s ready,” Cream said, smiling even as she trembled.

  “I’m going to go wash my hands,” I said softly, edging away from the door.

  Andrew whirled around, startling me enough that I pressed back up against the wall.

  “Geez, Pumpkin,” he said, laughing. “You’re so jumpy. I don’t think you can take a joke.”

  “I can take a joke,” I said. The blood was still flowing from my neck, staining my shirt. I pressed my hand up against it again. “I like funny things.” This was not funny.

  “Let’s eat, then,” Andrew said, walking toward the kitchen.

  “I’ll be right there,” I said, moving toward the bathroom.

  “You’ll sit down at the goddamn table immediately, Pumpkin,” Andrew said.

  Cream looked paler than usual as we eyed each other. What was this? What was going on?

  I gave up on trying to staunch my neck wound or clean up the blood and went to the kitchen. Cream and I served Andrew, me making no effort to keep my blood away from his plate. If he didn’t want me to clean up, he could experience the consequences of his little “joke.”

  We ate in relative silence, Andrew talking a little bit about his day at work. I tuned him out. If he wasn’t going to tell us why he was acting so strangely, I simply wasn’t interested.

  “I think I’d like to try something new tonight,” Andrew said. “I got the idea this morning.”

  “Okay,” Cream said, managing to sound bright. “What do you have in mind?”

  “I want to watch you two have sex.”

  I slowly lifted my eyes to meet Cream’s, who was standing very still, in the middle of taking her plate to the sink.

  “Are—are you sure?” she asked. “Don’t you want us to both take care of you at the same time instead?”

  “Some other time,” Andrew said, waving his hand dismissively. “And I want a good show tonight, ladies. Real orgasms. I’ll know if you’re faking.”

  How could he? I had to wonder. But if he had become so violent just for me rattling the door, I didn’t want to imagine what he’d do if he thought we were lying to him.

  “We’re going to go get our teddies on for you, Andrew,” Cream said flirtatiously after we’d carted all the dishes to the sink.

  “No, you’re not,” he said. “You’re going to go to my room and fuck each other. Now.”

  I didn’t understand why he was pressing us, but I thought he might want to keep from giving us a chance to talk to each other, to formulate a plan. He wanted genuine orgasms. Fine. We’d give him genuine orgasms.

  Andrew followed us down the hall and I laced my fingers through Cream’s, squeezing her hand to let her know that it was going to be all right. There might have been customers that we didn’t want to sleep with at Mama’s nightclub, but there was never a nonconsensual coupling. This was far too close to it. Neither of us wanted to put on a show for Andrew, but we were going to. He’d given us no choice. I was too afraid to oppose him.

  Both of us were shaking as we slowly undressed each other, Andrew watching from a chair across the room.

  “Take your time, ladies,” he said, unzipping his pants and pulling out his cock. “We have all night.”

  We moved together fluidly, neither of us speaking. We kissed each other, but we were somewhere far away. I palmed Cream’s breast, but I was in East Harlem, tickling one of the babies and laughing at its chortle. I ate her out, but it wasn’t me. It was some other Pumpkin, the one who apparently came out when the real me had to go away. She protected me from the situation, doing all the dirty work.

  It was that Pumpkin who pushed her fingers inside of Cream’s hairless pussy, finding the magical spot inside of her that made her feel so good. It was that Pumpkin who dragged her tongue over Cream’s hard, pink nipples, making it as good for her as possible. And it was that Pumpkin who swallowed Cream’s completion, kissing her lips as she cried out helplessly, unable to deny herself an orgasm.

  That Pumpkin stayed when it was Cream’s turn to pleasure her. That Pumpkin caressed Cream’s dark hair when she moved between that Pumpkin’s legs. That Pumpkin tweaked her own nipples, so much darker than Cream’s that she wanted to press their bodies together, and did. It was that Pumpkin who kissed Cream on the mouth, tasting herself on her friend’s tongue. And the orgasm belonged to that Pumpkin, moaning and pushing her body against Cream’s fingers.

  I came back to myself in a tangled heap of limbs, breathing hard. Cream rubbed my back, and I realized I was on the verge of tears. I couldn’t let Andrew see. I couldn’t.

  He grunted and I looked over at him, the image of him coming shimmery from unshed tears.

  My eyes were dry by the time he’d spilled his last drop of semen into his own lap.

  “Perfect,” he pronounced. “Perfect.”

&n
bsp; That night, in bed together, Cream and I were silent for a long time. I wondered if Andrew was asleep, if he’d try to listen to what we might talk about. I thought perhaps it wasn’t safe at all to try to talk to Cream, but then she broke the silence.

  “I wish I was with my brother,” she whispered. “He always protected me.”

  I realized she was crying and hugged her to me. She clutched at me, sobbing soundlessly.

  “I wish I had never become Cream,” she continued. “I wish I was still Belle Nocton.”

  I smiled through my own tears. Belle Nocton. It was a pretty name for a pretty girl, and I told her so.

  “Thanks,” she murmured. “But I’m not that girl anymore. I became Cream, instead. And now I have to face my consequences. I don’t think I get to be Belle Nocton anymore.”

  Life didn’t get any better after that night, even as the days stretched into weeks, and the weeks stretched into months. We walked on pins and needles, speaking in whispers to each other even if Andrew was at work. We cleaned and cooked, as he required of us, and tried mightily to stay out of his way or please him, whichever mood he happened to be in.

  He took us and used our bodies whenever the mood struck him, whether we invited him between our legs or not.

  Cream had protested once, and he’d backhanded her. All protests ceased after that.

  “Don’t give him the satisfaction of thinking he’s taking you against your will,” I hissed to her as we cleaned the floor together. “Even if you have to lie to yourself, tell yourself you want it, don’t let him know he’s hurting you.”

  “I’m not as strong as you, Pumpkin,” she said, a tear streaking down her cheek. “I hate him.”

  “I hate him, too,” I said. “But we’re going to find our ways out of this. I promise you. We’re not going to let him win.”

  At times, Andrew seemed reasonable, friendly, and charismatic—just as he’d been in the beginning, when I was trying to figure him out. Other times, he was cruel, yelling at us to laugh at us jumping or cringing, enjoying commanding us when we were in bed with him, inventing new things to torture us both physically and emotionally.

  When I broke a glass by dropping it as I tried to put it away, he ripped my jeans off of me and told me that he was going to break me as punishment.

  That was the first time we had anal sex, he taking me on the kitchen table, just like our first time together. He’d told Cream to watch, screaming at her not to look away as he plunged into my body with zero preparation.

  I hadn’t made a sound, and he only grunted, but I took some satisfaction in the knowledge that he’d probably hurt himself just as much as he’d hurt me. Friction worked both ways.

  When deliveries were made to the apartment, like food or new toiletries or clothes, Andrew was always there. He never had a delivery made unless he knew he was going to be there, no matter what we were out of.

  One time, Cream had tried to slip the grocery deliveryman a note that she’d quickly scrawled on a napkin. I had brightened at her fast thinking and ingenuity, then pitied her as Andrew caught her.

  “You silly, lazy thing,” he’d laughed, crumbling the napkin up. “The trash can’s over there. This hardworking man doesn’t clean up after you.”

  When the deliveryman left, Andrew started beating her. Rather than let me comfort her, he locked her in our bedroom and fucked me all night long. I had trouble walking in the morning, and hadn’t been able to keep from screaming throughout the ordeal.

  “I’m sorry,” Cream said, hugging me as soon as Andrew left. “I’m sorry. It was all my fault.”

  He’d blackened one of her eyes, and her jaw was swollen. I was afraid to see the rest of her.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered. “The note was a really good idea. I’m sorry it didn’t work.”

  Andrew didn’t have a landline. We combed the home looking for one to try to call for help. And he always had his cell phone on him, even when he was sleeping.

  One day, as Andrew was showering after a bruising round of sex with me, I noticed the other door in the bedroom. It had been locked since that very first day, when I’d tried to go in to clean it. Andrew had explained it away as storage, and I’d never thought anything else about it.

  Until now. Until now, when I saw it just a little bit ajar.

  I could still hear Andrew in the shower. He would be getting ready for work, never willing to leave a minute later than his precious eight o’clock. I could do this. Maybe there was something in that room that would help us, like a phone.

  I slid off the bed, trying to keep the springs from squeaking, and tip toed toward the room. There was a faint, bluish glow in the darkened space, I noticed, sidling closer and keeping an ear out for the shower. I pushed the door open, pleased that it didn’t squeak, and my eyes widened. My first thought was one of wonderment—why did a person need so many televisions in such a small room? Then, I realized that the televisions were really monitors, and each of them featured a different room in the house. I could see that Cream was still asleep in our bedroom, but stirring. I could hear the rustle of the bed sheets.

  All the little, niggling things that had been bothering me finally made sense. Cream hadn’t told him that I was from East Harlem. He’d heard it himself. He’d known I slipped the knife in my pillowcase because he saw it, right there on the monitor. And he knew that Cream and I were plotting against him, trying to save ourselves, because he could listen in and watch, even if he was at work.

  I yelped as he dragged me out of the little control room by my hair.

  “That room is off limits,” he said kindly, before punching me in my face.

  Everything went black.

  “Pumpkin? Pumpkin?”

  I opened my eyes to a pounding headache and aching muscles. There were parts of me—the private ones, especially—that hurt terribly, but I didn’t want to think about what that meant. I couldn’t.

  Cream was leaning over me worriedly, dabbing my head with a washcloth.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I don’t think either of us are.”

  I told her what I’d found and she blanched.

  “But that means that he knows we’ve been trying to get out of here,” she said, her eyes getting bigger and bigger. “That means he knows we hate him.”

  “And now he knows that we know,” I said. “Which means that we have to get the fuck out of here.”

  Cream bit her lip. “You’re cuffed to the bed,” she said. “He told me he had plans for us later, and to keep you comfortable.”

  I looked up and rattled the metal cuffs. They were on securely, but not too tight. I yanked on them, gauging the amount of pain I could take.

  “He also said that he’d be back at four,” Cream added. “He only has a meeting to go to.”

  My breathing quickened. “What time is it now?”

  “One,” she said. “He hit you really hard. You were out for a long time.”

  “Go get some oil, or butter,” I said. “Whatever you can find that’s slippery. Lotion, even. Lube. We don’t have time. Go as quickly as possible.”

  Cream came back with a small arsenal, rubbing each ingredient on my wrists.

  “Have you ever tried this before?” she asked, watching as I twisted and pulled at my wrists.

  “No,” I said. “But this is going to happen. I’m getting out of these.”

  “But what if —”

  “No,” I repeated. “There is no what if. I’m getting out of these because I have to. We’re going to find a way out today, Cream. I think he’s going to kill us.”

  She helped me pull, yanking my arm as I twisted my hand furiously, helped by all the lubricant. We spent agonizing, worried minutes. I cried as I pulled it free, blood pouring from my wrist. Cream moved to try to staunch it, but I shook my head.

  “All that matters is this other cuff,” I said.

  Now that I had my other hand, I could turn around and push aga
inst the bed frame with my feet. Cream helped, wiggling the metal cuff until it finally slid off. I felt some popping, my hand burning, but it didn’t matter.

  “How are we going to get out of here?” Cream asked, wringing her hands. “We’ve looked everywhere.”

  “There has to be something,” I said. “There has to be something here to help. We’ll look everywhere. Don’t leave anything unturned.”

  We started ripping through the house, pulling pillows apart, overturning mattresses and the contents of dresser drawers, looking for keys, phones, weapons, anything. We spent our precious, precious minutes taking the house apart. With every picture frame that I broke, each vase that I shattered, I wondered what would happen if we were still here when Andrew got home and saw his life decimated.

  If there was a minute chance he wasn’t going to kill us, I was afraid he’d definitely kill us then.

  Frustrated, I pounded my forehead against the window in the sitting room. I was dizzy already from my injuries, so it didn’t seem so bad to look straight down to the ground, so far away. Why did it have to be so far away?

  With a sudden jerk, I realized that there was a pair of window washers working their way up the building. They were directly below us. If we could signal them somehow, they could call for help.

  I looked at the clock. It was too close to four. I looked back out the window. It was too close to four and the window washers were still too far away. We couldn’t wait for them to get to us. We had to get to them.

  “Here,” I said, shoving at the latch against the window. “Help me with this, Cream.”

  “Can the windows even open?” she asked.

  “They have to!” I shouted. “There are window washers! They can help us!”

  That catapulted Cream into action. We both grunted as we threw our entire weights behind moving the windowpane, but it was stuck. Perhaps it had never been opened before.

  I thought quickly. We were losing precious time.

  “What’s the heaviest thing in this place?” I asked Cream. “We’re going to break this window.”

  We both thought for a few moments, looking around.

  “The cast iron skillet,” she said. “I’ll get it.”