This stage. Pain. Pleasure. Deprivation.
What the fuck was he going to deprive her of in this room? His delightful company? Yes, please.
Camille rolled her eyes and lay back on the bed, but he quickly repositioned her, drawing her arms straight overhead and putting her legs side by side so she was straight as a board. A moment later he walked to a small closet and returned with more of the nylon straps he’d used before. This time he threaded them through the holes in the footboard and slipped the loops over her ankles before tightening them down. As he came back towards her face she lifted her hand up to him, offering it, and he arched an eyebrow. “Why aren’t you fighting me?”
“You think this is going to break me, and instead of debating it with you I think it’s a much more effective lesson if I let you do whatever you have in mind and see for yourself that it’s not going to work. Nothing is going to work.”
The tick in his jaw was the only outward display that she was pissing him off, but as he tied her wrists down he may have tightened them just a little sharper than necessary, and her already aching wrists protested. Crouching down next to the bed she heard him slide something out and her attention zeroed in, trying to figure it out. Turning her head all she could see was his dark hair bent to whatever task had him on the floor beside the bed. There was no way for her to see it though, which made knots form in her stomach.
“Mateo?” She prompted, trying to keep her voice light.
He stood slowly, and she saw a thick blindfold in his hands. Without a word he leaned forward and slipped it over her head, adjusting it until there wasn’t a squeak of light making it past the edges. Camille swallowed as her world narrowed to the soft rustling sounds of him moving beside her, and then she felt his hands on her head again – but this time a heavy pair of headphones closed over her ears and snagged at her hair.
Silence.
Well, not silence exactly, but she couldn’t hear Mateo anymore. The increased rate of her breathing and the spike in her pulse became the sole focus of her ears as panic flirted with her nervous system. Her hands wrapped around the nylon straps, gripping them absent-mindedly as if holding onto them would somehow center her inside the sudden black silence.
She jerked as his hands brushed her, sending hyper-sensitive chills over her skin and raising bumps that rushed down her arms. For a moment his touch was delicate, barely touching her belly, between her breasts, down her waist to her thighs and her calves, but he continued. Tracing the path over and over until her body felt like it was humming, his touch the only connection to the world around her. Just as it all began to build, to somehow urge her towards wanting him to slip his fingers inside her, he stopped and she was left hanging in space.
Her lips parted to beg when the headphone on her right ear was suddenly pulled back and the rush of white noise from the room and Mateo’s breathing filled her. He leaned close, his lips brushing the shell of her ear like a lover’s. “I hope you’re not afraid of small spaces, C, because I’m not coming back until I’ve slept, and I’m very tired.”
He let the headphone snap back over her ear, sealing her back in the silence but every nerve ending was firing with a full on red alert. Or at least she thought it was a red alert, until her body went into DEFCON-1 as she felt some kind of box laid over her. There were gaps in the top and bottom for her arms and legs to go through but if she shifted she could feel the wooden edges. When she breathed out she felt the air rebound back towards her face and knew the space above her couldn’t be more than a few inches.
Trapped.
It was as small as a coffin, and her mind instantly tormented her with horrible images of being buried alive. In the soundless dark. Her lungs tried to clench in her chest, and she wanted to beg him not to leave her here, but that was weakness. She could not let him know that of everything he had done – this was the worst.
If he knew he’d just use and abuse the information until she did break. Until she told him everything, and then she would end up buried somewhere cold and alone.
A quiet whimper stuck in her throat as she fought herself towards silence, and she ground her teeth together until the sound of her jaw straining rebounded in her ears.
Was he still there? Standing just to her side? Or had he already left, gone to wash up, clean her juices from his skin so he could lounge and watch TV or do whatever assholes like him did while women were slowly suffocating inside tiny boxes in fancy bedrooms?
Once again time was lost to her, an old but effective torture technique, and one that wreaked a particular havoc on her because the meter of her breaths was erratic and tortured since the oxygen was being depleted with every panicked, gasping breath she dragged into her burning lungs.
How much air did she have? Was she killing herself with each hot exhalation against the wood above her?
Camille held her breath.
There was no relief. Her lungs burned, her body bowed as much as it could beneath the box, and as her breasts and knees brushed the roof of this devious personal hell-scape she released the air in a rush, choking on the sob as the sound finally tore from her lips.
No. No. No. No.
In a flicker of memory she was back inside the closet at the group home, heavy furniture being pressed up against it as a barricade so that no matter how hard she hit the door it wouldn’t budge. A long dead voice echoed inside the silence in her head, ‘You know better, Camille. If you’re nice to us, we’re nice to you. I’ll let you think about whether or not you want to behave.’
She screamed and tried to kick, an ineffective move since the nylon straps were too tight. The closet had been too much like this. Too small, too cramped. Dark and hidden. There had been too many nights locked away in there until she’d started to play nice, started to do what they told her.
That is until the night she’d sliced his throat open as she’d straddled his lap, holding his arms down as he bled out and soaked her clothes. The others had been more complicated, they had taken longer, but she’d got to them too – and none of it had broken her.
It had made her who she was. One of the best free-agents on the East Coast. What had started out of desperation and street smarts had evolved into a fucking career that she had run ruthlessly until Callahan had tied her down to him.
She was better than this. Better than this sniveling, whimpering bag of pathetic nerves.
While she couldn’t stop shaking, and she felt light-headed from the constant rebreathing of her rapid exhales, it was the memory of the shocked look on his face that she clung to. The first time she’d pressed a knife through skin and taken a life, and it reminded her no matter how close she was to a full-on breakdown that she could do it again.
At some point sleep took her, pulling her deep into the darkness where her memories bit at her like tiny, sharp teethed fish. Trying to tear her apart while she held herself together with willpower and rage.
Chapter Five
Mateo jerked awake and found himself still wrapped in a towel draped diagonally across his bed where he had collapsed after his shower. The monitor he had left in the room had let him hear her panicked breaths, her whimpers, her cries – and he’d almost felt guilt as he had slowly stroked himself and listened. He had gradually grown rock hard again, stroking until the strain on his balls was bordering painful, and then he had stopped.
She had started the kind of guttural sobbing that wasn’t just about frustration at being tied down, or being deprived of sight or sound, or being trapped in a small space – no, it had been the kind of crying that only came when someone was breaking.
He had instantly wanted to rush to the room and let her up, to comfort her in his arms and push the blonde hair off her cheeks, but that wasn’t the deal. If this was what it took to break her down, to get the info so that Scarpa would stop leaving him nasty messages, then that’s what needed to happen. Instead he had ground his teeth until his jaw ached and stared at the little lights at the top of the monitor as they ebbed and flowe
d like the tide. Sometimes filling all five dots with red as her voice grew so loud that he covered his ears to try and block it out, and then it receded until one light flickered occasionally with her shuddered breaths. Finally, mercifully, the sounds evened out and he heard no more sobs, just the even breaths of someone asleep.
That was when he had thrown himself in the shower, and now he was awake – he raised his head to stare blearily at the clock – six hours later.
Fuck.
He hadn’t meant to sleep so long. That meant she’d been tied up under that fucking box for much longer than he planned. Of course, she wouldn’t suffocate. There were plenty of air holes. The point was that being so confined, so deprived of sensation, her own mind worked against her. Sitting up Mateo grabbed for the monitor and realized it was off. Battery dead.
Double fuck.
Getting dressed was a whirlwind operation that happened as he was hopping across the foyer and tearing his way up the stairs. When he got to her door he put the combination in wrong, twice. By the time it was open he was panicked that she’d be irrevocably damaged, and the still state of her hands made him swallow hard as he raced over to lift off the box from her. It was a simple thing, like the top half of a magician’s trick box, except all this did was sit over a girl on the bed, and he usually never threatened to saw them in half. It was normal for them to freak out though, it was the whole damn purpose of the thing.
Once the box was on the floor he immediately pulled off the headphones and then the blindfold. Her blue eyes were gazing upward, unfocused while she blinked slowly. A tiny wrinkle appeared between her brows, and her lips pursed a bit but then her face returned to a blankness that scared him.
Triple fuck.
C hadn’t just freaked out, she was almost catatonic. Her hands were relaxed and open, her feet angled outwards like she was posing in shivasna. Mateo made quick work of the bindings at her ankles and wrists, but she didn’t move. Her breathing was slow and even, and although he could see the tear tracks on her cheeks, she hadn’t been crying in hours. There was no color in her nose or cheeks, she was just… blank.
What did I do?
Slipping his arms under her was too easy, and without her fighting like some kind of hellcat he became even more aware of just how much smaller she was than him. He practically engulfed her as he pulled her off the bed and into his lap – the fact that not even being pressed against him snapped her out of it had an eerie, icy feeling trickling down his spine.
“C, I need you to talk to me.” He shuffled them until his back was against the headboard and she rested half on his thighs and half on the bed, her petite limbs still. “Answer me.”
Her breath shuddered and he knew she had heard him, now it was just figuring out a way to bait her out of the wall she’d built around herself.
No one had ever reacted this badly to the box. Most of them broke in his private room, from the pain, or the teasing, or the cold. The small group who made it to this stage were usually just infuriated by the box, or they screamed and begged to be released. She’d never begged – not once. Not even when she’d sobbed like something was eating her alive from the inside out.
Wherever C had gone inside herself, she was far from the surface. She had found a small place deep down and built up her defenses with that iron will to protect herself from whatever the box had called up.
Mateo cursed under his breath. He wasn’t good at this kind of shit. He wasn’t someone built for comforting others. He’d spent his entire life hurting people, usually in new and devious ways for whomever paid him the most. Yet as C curled against his chest he found that what he wanted more than anything was for her to look him in the eye and tell him to fuck off, or maybe try to hit him in the face. Anything that was a flicker of the woman he’d dragged out of the warehouse at knifepoint.
“Do you want to go for a walk? I can show you the house, get you something to eat? I promise we aren’t going to start the next stage.” Yet. “Come on, let’s get up.” He brushed his hand over her back again, and then as he propped her up he pulled his t-shirt off and slid it over her head. Dressing her was like dressing a kid. Over the head, one arm, the other, and then he tugged it down. It was so long on her that when he gently pulled her to standing the edge fell just at the bottom of her ass.
Damn if she didn’t look good in his clothes.
He thought she might rip her hand from his, but she held on obediently in such a way that had his cock stirring in his pants. Stupid thing never knew when it was a welcome addition to a conversation or not. Mateo walked backwards at first, keeping his eyes on her, but her gaze was downcast, her blonde hair limp against her cheeks. What she really needed was a shower, and some solid food, but getting her to eat could be difficult. However, he doubted she’d turn down the whiskey in his living room.
Making up his mind to head that way he guided her down the stairs, and when she didn’t even glance at the front door the pit of concern in his stomach grew a little further. His living room was off to the left behind a set of sliding, oak doors. At one time it had probably been a fancy parlor, but he had stocked it with plush leather couches and chairs, a big screen television, a nice sound system – and a full bar.
C took barely a nudge to fall into the couch and she sank into it with a small frown on her face, and for a brief instant her eyes flicked up towards him before returning to the floor.
Oh yes, you’re in there. Come out, come out, wherever you are.
“You asked me how I got this house before. I didn’t take it from some job. I bought it.” He glanced over at her, but she hadn’t moved, and he sighed and started to make them a few glasses of bourbon. “I used to do a lot of… odd jobs, and it banked me quite a bit of cash. I’ve wanted a house like this since I saw one on TV as a kid. Suddenly I realized I had the money to buy it. Outright. So, I did.”
As he stood in front of her with the glasses she raised her eyes to the level of the amber liquid, but no higher. He waited for her to reach out and take it, but she stayed still for so long that he’d almost given up when her delicate fingers lifted and wrapped around the crystal.
He breathed out a sigh of relief and forced himself to sit down on the couch opposite her. Space. Give her space, and lure her out. The first drink was a welcome burn down his throat. He’d never eaten the night before, and it was mid-day now. They both needed food, and he still needed answers. Mateo hadn’t checked his phone but Scarpa, or one of his partners, had probably left another few messages asking for updates.
Screw it. He’d handle that later.
“When I got here the place was empty and I had no idea what to do with this kind of space. I’d spent so many years living wherever my latest job was that I was more used to sleeping on a dirty floor than a king-size bed in a house with central heating.” He took another drink, watching as the glass started to sweat, a single drop of water trailing along her inner thigh. The urge to lick that droplet from her skin, and then spread her thighs wide to taste her and bring her back to him screaming from an orgasm was … tempting, but probably not the best bet.
No, she had to do this on her own.
“Most of the rooms I didn’t decorate. I hired an interior designer, gave her a fuckton of money and told her to fill up the house. I didn’t want to walk into any empty rooms, but I didn’t want it overdone.” Looking around him he admitted to being proud of this space, because he had picked it all. It may not be stylish, but it at least felt like him unlike most of the bedrooms. His private room was also his own, and the few things he hadn’t been able to build himself he had made sure to buy to his exacting specifications. “Any other questions about the house?”
He took another drink and swallowed hard, watching her closely, and then she slowly raised the glass to her lips and took a sip. Then another drink, and then she tilted the whole fucking glass up and finished it with a hiss of breath between her teeth. Her eyes were locked onto the empty crystal and Mateo had to close his mouth to hide
his surprise.
“How many?” She whispered, and he leaned forward, straining to hear.
“What?”
Her eyes rose to meet his, and he could see the steel in them, but there was something else. Something fragile, brittle, that hadn’t been there before the box. “How many have you done this to?”
It felt like there should have been accusation in her voice, but there wasn’t. She was flat, completely void of emotion, and it sent a chill through him for more reasons than just the number of people he’d brought here, or taken out before this house even existed. Mateo shrugged. “I honestly can’t tell you.”
The edge of her mouth lifted as she tilted the glass in her hands, back and forth in the light. “I don’t know my numbers either.”
“What numbers?”
“The number I’ve killed, or based on the information I’ve provided somehow caused their death.” The words rolled off her tongue sweetly, her soft voice caressing them as if they weren’t discussing all of their lethal sins. All of the ideas he’d only guessed at since he first met her were aligning. She wasn’t just some random girl that Callahan had put on the payroll. She was like him. A veritable mercenary for hire that the bastard had somehow convinced to join him.
Suddenly the memory of her firing her gun at him made him upend his own glass and finish his whiskey. She actually would have killed him.
He stood and walked over to her, reaching for her glass. Her blue eyes rose up to meet his slowly and she seemed even smaller swallowed by his shirt, and sitting so far back on the couch that her feet dangled. “We both deserve another drink.”
C nodded and let him take it and he made them both another, much fuller this time, and then he returned to tuck it into her hand before he resumed his place opposite her. This time her gaze was more confident, the whiskey working its magic inside her like the revitalizing agent it had long been believed to be in medicine.
“Want to tell me what happened last night?”
Lethal Sin (Dangerous Games Book 1) Page 6
