No longer. I looked at him sleeping, almost impossibly beautiful in such a masculine way. His bare chest with the tattoos and scars I’d now have the time to learn all about, how and why he got them, what he was like and felt then, how it all added up to Declan now. I wanted to know everything about him, every intimate detail, and spend the rest of our lives taking care of each other the way only we knew how.
I’d start right now, I decided. I’d go up to the house where there was actually food and cook breakfast. A big one with eggs and bacon and biscuits. We’d worked up quite an appetite last night. I’d barely eaten in days, come to think of it. My stomach had been too tied in knots, jealousy, despair, fear all taking up too much space to share with anything as mundane as food.
Now, I didn’t have that problem. As if on cue, my stomach gave a low rumble. I smiled, bringing a hand to it. OK, time to cook.
Quiet, not wanting to wake him, I lightly rolled off of the bed. I used the bathroom with the door closed, then pulled on the clothes I found strewn all over the cabin. My t-shirt was under the couch. I didn’t know how that had happened. But, anyway, mission accomplished, I managed to dress and make my way over to the door without waking him.
I paused in the entry, giving him one last adoring look. Sunlight hit the foot of the bed, but his face still reposed in shadow, his dark, thick eyelashes closed in heavy sleep. Good. He needed to rest. He’d looked so tortured. Everything was going to be OK now. I stepped out and closed the door softly behind me.
Outside, the sun shone and the birds sang and white puffy clouds danced in the bright blue sky. I hugged myself, the widest smile imaginable spreading across my face. He loved me. Declan loved me. My Declan.
And I owned the ranch. Oh what a beautiful morning. Bacon and eggs and biscuits, kisses and more sex, curling up together and loving each other the rest of our days. Life was perfect.
My head was so far up in the clouds, I didn’t even react when an SUV pulled fast into the driveway. I just stood and watched the car come at me. It stopped a foot away. Right as I finally thought to scream, run, fight, large, heavy hands wrapped around my mouth, gripped my waist and forced me into the car. It all happened so fast I had no time to think, no time to yell for help.
Hot panic flooded my senses. A man held me so I couldn’t see him, couldn’t identify my captor. I kicked hard in the car, struggling to free myself and spearing my elbows and feet into the girth of the man holding me down. As the car sped out onto the highway, I broke away and my feet connected right into his groin, right where it hurt.
But then I took a sharp, painful jab to my head and I faded into darkness. My last thought before I passed out was that Declan was still sleeping. He’d have no idea I was gone.
§
The pain in my head split through me like a knife. It hurt like hell. I tried to bring my hand to my head to rub where it hurt most, but I couldn’t move it.
My eyes flew open. I remembered. The grabbing, the car, the fight. Where was I?
Hot panic and cold fear fought within me, sending chills and sweat through my body. I was sitting on a chair and my hands were tied behind my back, tight. My legs were bound, too, to the legs of the chair. I still had my clothes on, the t-shirt and shorts from the night before. My mouth was bound and gagged.
I couldn’t see much. My eyes searched around in the dim light, a wide open room smelling of must and mildew. It looked slightly familiar. Where had I seen it before? I needed to think. Every clue I could piece together could be the one that saved my life.
“Ah, she’s coming to,” a mean, nasty voice spoke from behind me. I recognized it right away. The Toad Man. Lymon Culpepper.
I struggled against my restraints, writhing in the chair and calling out against the gag. He walked in front of me, his beady eyes cold and dark as he watched me flail. I panted and fought, to no avail. He’d tied me tight. Realizing the futility of my actions, I stopped. For now.
“No, go on,” he encouraged me, his voice flat and businesslike. “I enjoy watching you struggle.”
I hated him. I wanted to spit in his face and claw his eyes out.
“Ooh, I like that, too,” he said, appraising me. “All that heat in your eyes. I’m going to enjoy taking it all out of you. Breaking your will. Making you kneel for me. It’s so much more fun when there’s a fight first.”
Cold, deliberate, he dragged a chair over near me. He placed it down and sat in it, squat and nasty, watching me bound and gagged. I couldn’t reach him, couldn’t get to him. But I’d figure out a way. He had me helpless right now, but I’d find an out. I just needed to keep calm and focused and bide my time.
A large figure stepped out from the shadows. In an instant, I knew he’d been the man who’d grabbed me, held me with his meaty fists in the car. The goon, the 300 pound monster I’d met the other day. Fuck. It would be harder to get out of this with two of them.
Panic swept through me again. I was completely helpless, tied tight to the chair. No one knew I was there. No one even knew about this warehouse. I couldn’t help it, I screamed and struggled, knowing he was watching me and getting off on it. But the survival instinct was strong and I screamed and writhed in my restraints.
“I like your screams, too, Kara,” Lymon said, sitting in the chair, his stumpy legs spread wide apart. He rested his hand on his inner thigh. Next to it I could see a bulge, pressing against his pants. He was hard, watching me. My helplessness and fear was turning him on.
I didn’t want to give him that pleasure. Trying to control myself, I took as deep a breath as I could through my nose. The gag let in some air, but it almost panicked me more to try to breathe through it, reminding me how helpless I was. These monsters controlled my airflow. They meant business. I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing.
“You can close your eyes, Kara. But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re here, trapped. I’ve got you right where I want you.”
My eyes flew open and fixed on him again with hatred.
“There’s that fire,” he nodded, pleased. Oh, how I hated him. “I’m going to take your gag off soon, Kara. I’m going to enjoy listening to all your screams. The screams no one else can hear.”
My eyes widened again in panic and I could feel my throat constricting, needing more air. I balled my hands into fists, struggling against the ropes that bound them together in back of the chair.
“I like watching your tits while you struggle,” Lymon said, now stroking the base of the bulge in his pants. “The way you’re tied up, they’re forced out for me to see. But I don’t like that t-shirt.” He glanced over at his goon, hulking by his side. The other man was younger, maybe around my age, and his eyes fixed on me, hungry. My stomach turned with revulsion.
“Cut it off of her.” Lymon’s voice issued the order, cold and hard. The goon smiled, lecherous and leering, and approached me with lumbering steps. In his hand he held a knife, a sharp one. The metal glinted in the dim warehouse.
“No!” I couldn’t help but struggle and protest, flinching and helplessly trying to move away. But I couldn’t move. I was bound there, sitting under his hulking form as he stood over me with his knife.
“Hold still,” Lymon instructed. “We don’t want that pretty skin marked up. Yet.” After the yet, he chuckled like he’d made a funny joke. I gave an involuntary shudder in fear.
The beefy, thick face of his henchman loomed over me. He balled up my t-shirt in his sweaty, hairy fist, then took his knife to the thin cotton. With great satisfaction in his eyes, he split my t-shirt open right down the middle, leaving me completely naked and exposed. I hadn’t found my bra that morning in the post-lovemaking tumble of my clothing. I now had nothing between me and my captors.
Moaning in protest, I tossed my head to the side, not wanting to see my nudity, or the looks in their eyes as they now took me in. I could sense the goon step away, giving Lymon precedence. First dibs.
“Yes, Kara,” Lymon coaxed me, his voice chilling and cruel.
“Feel how helpless you are. I like that.” I whimpered and hated myself for it. I could hear the sickening sound of a zipper. Oh God, was he undoing his pants? Hating to look, compelled to do it, I glanced at him and saw he now had his penis in his hands. He held it, erect, and slowly stroked it as he watched me struggling, naked, bound to the chair.
“This could have been better for you, you know,” he continued, his voice oddly soft, almost crooning. “We were going to have fun, you and me. This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. You were going to come to me for protection. I was going to give you time to do it, let you turn yourself over to me.”
I couldn’t help but watch him now, listening to his horrible, hideous words, his hand working his cock.
“I had it all worked out. I’ve waited for this for some time now. I can be a patient man. You were going to come to me.”
I couldn’t help it, my eyes widened. I shook my head no. That would never have happened. I never would have thrown myself at this man’s feet. I never would have given him control over me. He disgusted me to the core.
His empty hand balled into a fist. “But then someone got in the way and gave you back your ranch. Someone changed the plans. But I don’t let people do that to me. I don’t let people take what’s mine.”
He leaned toward me and I could smell his rank breath. “It’s much better now, Kara. This way, I get to force you. I’m going to like it so much more. This way, it’s going to hurt.” His eyes glittered with excitement and arousal.
My head shook no again, my breath coming faster, fear thrilling through every limb. He took it all in, breathing in my fear and getting harder, wanting me to fight it, hate it, struggle against him.
“This could have gone the easy way. I was so close. You had no family. No home. Desperate. Just how I like it.”
The goon still held the knife in his hand. He breathed heavy, open mouthed, eyes feasting on my breasts while he held the weapon. I watched it in terror.
Lymon followed my gaze. “Give that to me.” The goon handed it over and Lymon grasped it. One pale hand on his erect penis, the other on the handle of the knife, he appraised me.
“You’re a little slut. I can see it in your eyes. I know what you want.”
Sweat broke out on my brow as real panic hit. This man wanted to hurt me. He wanted to terrify and torture me and I couldn’t stop him.
“You’re a little whore, aren’t you, Kara?” Now he stroked the flat side of the knife as he stroked his swollen, fleshy cock. The man was insane. I could see it in the cold, emotionless way he watched me. Completely unhinged. “I have big plans for you,” he assured me. “I know what whores like.”
I whimpered and twisted in my seat. I needed to get away. He terrified me.
“I’m going to fuck you so hard, Kara. You’re going to bleed. But first you’re going to suck some cock.”
No, my struggles grew more urgent. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t do it. I wasn’t capable of taking him in my mouth.
“Yes, you’ll suck me like a good little whore,” he calmly answered my physical protests. “But I also like to watch. I want to watch you struggle until you give up. See you get humiliated. He’s first.”
The goon took a heavy step forward as if he’d been waiting for this, dying for the command. With beefy hands he unbuttoned his pants and dropped them to his ankles. His meaty dick sprang out hard and he palmed it as he walked toward me.
I gagged and twisted my face away. I couldn’t do this. I wouldn’t do it.
“Untie her mouth and make her suck you,” Lymon commanded, moving his chair closer and to the side so he’d be at just the right angle to watch. “And come all over her tits,” he ordered. “I want to see that.”
The monster came toward me and stood close, nearly suffocating me with his bulk as he leaned over to unfasten my gag. The second he did, I had plans. I’d sink my teeth so hard into his penis he’d never be able to use it again.
“Wait.” Lymon spoke just as he was about to undo the knot. “This one’s a biter,” he observed. Suddenly, I felt the cold jolt of metal against the soft flesh of my breast. I looked down and saw the flat side of Lymon’s knife pressed against me. “If you bite him,” he hissed. “I’ll cut you.”
He grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled my head to look at him. “Do you understand?”
It all hurt so much, his tight grip in my hair, my wrists and ankles bound, the fear of what they were doing to me. I whimpered and nodded.
“Good.” He gave me a cruel, tobacco-stained smile. “Now show me what a good little slut you are and suck his cock.”
CHAPTER 7
Declan
I didn’t know how long she’d been gone by the time I woke up. One minute I was lying there, dead asleep. The next I jolted up, balancing on my feet ready to fight. I knew something was wrong. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.
I’d heard a car leave the property, I realized. That was the noise that woke me up. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad had happened to Kara. It was more than just waking up with her not by my side. Rationally, I knew she could have simply gone up to the big house for a change of clothes or some coffee. But my gut told me otherwise. I pulled on my jeans and bolted outside.
No sign of Kara. I ran up to the main house to make sure, knocking and calling her name like a maniac. No answer. Her truck sat parked where it always had been. Racing back to the cabin for my boots and shirt, I grabbed my cell phone and called her number. No answer. I stepped outside and could hear her phone ringing through an open window in the house. She’d left it behind. That’s when I knew with every bone of my body, something bad had happened.
I found old Bill in the barn and scared the daylights out of the man. He hadn’t seen me in six years and now here I was, my shirt unbuttoned and hanging out over my jeans, unshaven and crazy-eyed back at the ranch yelling about Kara.
“I haven’t seen her this morning,” he apologized. “What’s the matter?”
“I heard a car leave,” I insisted.
“Maybe a friend came to pick her up?” Bill scratched his chin, then looked at me like he was sorry to say it. “You don’t think Lymon…?”
My fists balled up in rage. “You mean the rat who was trying to buy this place?”
“Never thought much of the man,” Bill admitted. “Never did like the way he kept sniffing around here. Maybe he didn’t want to take no for an answer.”
I didn’t say a word. I didn’t need to, I was already off and running. I don’t know how I drove my truck without getting into an accident, rage and adrenaline pumping through me so fast I think I could have plowed straight through a brick building. I didn’t know exactly where I was headed when I started out. Then, suddenly, I did. I knew where I’d look for her first. I just hoped I’d find her. And that I wasn’t too late.
I’d had a bad feeling about that old, abandoned warehouse right from the start. I hadn’t liked watching her go in there. At the time, I hadn’t known what she was up to but I’d put it together. That was where Lymon had her sign papers. That was where he liked to conduct business. In that remote, anonymous, fall-down building, who knew what kind of transactions went down? I couldn’t let him drag Kara into any part of it.
Dust flying, I don’t even remember parking the car before I leapt out. I’d never done speed, but I imagine it would feel something like that, fueled, powered, unstoppable. I didn’t knock, just slammed the door open and raced in like a madman.
The goon went down easy. The big guys usually did, especially when they were standing around stupid with their pants down. Motherfucker. Slow and dumb, he didn’t even have time to duck my jab to his throat. He sank down to his knees and I took him out with a vicious sideswipe to his jaw. I’d learned a lot in life about how to make a man go down hard and quick.
But I hadn’t expected a knife fight. The squat little fuck in the tan suit behind me got a poke at me while I was dealing with the big guy. I figured the little guy was Lymon. He
looked like a Lymon, all greasy and mean. He knifed me in the back and it hurt like a bitch but pain didn’t matter to me. All that mattered was tied up on the chair next to me with her shirt split down the middle. I’d kill the bastards.
I spun around at Lymon and lunged for his throat. Like the coward he was, he tried to turn and run but somehow managed to trip on his own pants, then fall onto his own goddamned knife. No wonder he needed a bodyguard, the guy was a goddamned idiot. The knife got him near the groin and that seemed fitting, him doubled over and squealing like a stuck pig while he bled on the floor.
I was on Kara in less than a heartbeat, rushing to untie her, gathering her up in my arms. I didn’t think I’d ever forget the chilling sight of her on that chair. She was shivering and shaking, crying and incoherent.
“Are you all right?” I kept repeating, over and over. I don’t think I would have been able to understand her even if she had been able to answer me straight and clear. Rage and fear and relief all raced through my body and mind.
I called the cops and we waited for them in my truck, inside with the doors closed where I could help her into one of my sweatshirts and hold her tight. Blood oozed from the wound on my back, but I could tell it wasn’t too bad. I’d need a couple of stitches, that was all. All the while I smoothed her hair back and held her safe, I kept my eye on those murderous, vile motherfuckers. I could see them both through the open door of the warehouse, slumped on the floor.
Kara didn’t say much at the police station. She didn’t have to. Her statement was brief and cut me to the quick. They’d grabbed her at the ranch while I’d slept. I didn’t know how I’d ever close my eyes again. They’d taken her and tied her up and had been about to violate her before I showed up.
Unleashed: Declan & Kara (Unleashed #1-4; Beg for It #1) Page 48
