by Rosette Lex
"You should continue to minimize your movements until you have received proper wound care," he admonished quietly from the driver's seat.
Her heart leapt with hope. "A-are you taking me to a hospital?"
"No. That would compromise me. They ask too many questions. I have more than adequate medical resources at home to see to your needs."
Her eyes teared up. "Oh God, please, this is crazy, just please let me go."
He was quiet for a while, then asked in the same cool, mild tone, "Why was that man selling you if you are not his to sell?"
"Because he's crazy and evil and needed money, and wanted to hurt me. And the other sickos just played along."
"Then you are not a slave." He sounded mildly surprised.
"What the Hell? Of course not! Slavery has been illegal for over a century! Why the Hell would you think otherwise? Who the Hell are you?"
"Corin," he replied quietly. No elaboration. It occurred to May, with a feeling like an icicle sliding down her back, that he might well be crazy.
She took a deep breath, and tried reason anyway. "What he did was a crime. Just like what you are doing now. It's kidnapping."
"A crime? The man who claimed you wears the uniform of a law officer." He actually sounded confused at this.
"That doesn't change a thing. Cops can be criminals too."
“Then he is corrupt, and without honor?” sudden hardness in his tone. Almost disgust. She blinked, and craned her neck to look at his face, but could only see his pale hair, his ear, the curve of a cheekbone.
“That’s an understatement. He’s been bullying me since we were little. We were supposed to be brother and sister. But I’ve had to live with him since Mom died three years ago, and he...he’s always pulling things. Never this bad, but he has always acted like he owns me. Taking my money, controlling who I see and where I go. But it’s garbage. He doesn’t own me. And he didn’t have the right to sell me...and you didn’t have the right to buy me.”
Her vehemence seemed to startle him, and he glanced back at her. “I see.” A long pause. “You are safe from him now. I will not allow him to come near you again.”
She didn’t know whether to feel grateful or to laugh at the absurdity of it all. “What I want is my freedom.”
He seemed to consider this. “I must tend to your wounds before we discuss anything further. If I release you now, you would be ill equipped to fend for yourself.”
She couldn’t argue with that, instead let her head fall back against the seat with a sigh.
“What is your name?” he asked after a moment.
“May.”
“May.” He seemed to test the word. “Tell me of yourself.”
What was there to tell? The mess she had just gone through pushed everything from her head but the misery Tom had caused her, Matty’s cowardly betrayal...she took a deep breath.
“I worked as a waitress in the roadhouse we just left. I had to live with Tom still. It was terrible. A few months ago, I started seeing one of the bartenders. He liked me. He talked about marrying me. But then right when we were leaving last night, he brought me a glass of lemonade, saying we wouldn’t have time to stop for food or drinks for a while on the road. It tasted kind of...bitter.” She swallowed tears.
“I fell unconscious, and when I woke up, Tom was standing there with us, and I had his handcuffs on. And Matty just kept apologizing and apologizing, like saying sorry would somehow make up for betraying me.”
There was a long silence. Finally he said, in a cool frank tone, “These men are unworthy of the name. The one, a coward, the other, a bully. I do not understand why this community has tolerated such a thing. But it seems that I have...misread...the situation.”
“Then you’ll let me go?”
More silence. Finally he said, “In time, yes. There is something that I need from you first.”
She went quiet, a little terrified of what that might be. After a while, she grew too tired to be scared anymore, and lost consciousness again.
Chapter 2: Touch Me More
She woke again when her body was lowered into steaming water, just hot enough to sting her bruised and abraded flesh even as it loosened the pulled muscles and those gone taut and sore from too long in a ball of terror. The water had a strange scent to it; she felt soap bubbles pop on the surface as she was settled into a long tub.
She opened her eyes. Both this time; whatever that packet had been that he had fastened to her punched-shut eye, it had done the trick and the swelling had gone down. She was in a white-tiled bathroom, brushed steel fixtures gleaming, the tub seed-pod shaped and lit from within. Corin bent over her, his shirt off, his sleekly muscled chest as pale as the rest of him. He let her go in the water and sat back, his arms dripping as he reached for a sponge on the tub’s edge.
He started bathing her, pink and brown swirls of blood sliding away from her as the softly scratchy sponge caressed her skin. It was intimate, his hands gentle and almost meditative as he carefully cleaned each wound, each inch of bloody skin. At first, the pain from her wounds and their protest at being cleaned made her wince and whimper as he worked on her. But then, slowly, the pain started to recede.
She felt jets come on against her side, and the bloodstained water circulated away, replaced by fresh one. He set the sponge aside, and tilted his head, looking down at her as she watched him through her eyelashes. His face was as expressionless as ever, but his green eyes were very bright. He slid his hands into the water...and started touching her.
Both cupped hands covered the bruises Tom had left on her belly, and she felt them warm, then heat past what the water could explain. Warm, hot, stinging hot, tingling hot, his hands gently slid over the bruised flesh as the pain from the wound receded out of her head. The heat of his hands spread through her flesh, taking pain with it as it went. Then his hands moved on, up to her ribcage, where the cracked ribs sent jolts through her whenever she breathed too deeply. She was watching him the whole time...and realized, as his hands moved on, that the bruises on her belly had vanished.
He laid his hands over the cracked ribs on her right side and poured heat into her bones this time. The tingling warmth radiated outward, settling in her belly, her nipples...and then into her womb. She sucked air, as much from the sudden stimulation as the relief while the pain faded. Seeming oblivious, he moved on.
His hands touched her everywhere, erasing bruises and scrapes, easing her muscles and sinking heat into her bones. And the more he touched her, the warmer and more sensual her body felt. She was going from pain and terror to something she hadn’t ever expected to feel again: the bizarre warmth of his hands, the way he was somehow (impossibly) healing her, filled her with sudden, sharp desire.
Maybe the drugs in her system were causing hallucinations. Maybe he was simply cleaning and tending her wounds normally and she was half in a daze, imagining the way his fingertips channeled warmth into her flesh. But the pain was going, thank God, it was all going, every bruise and pinch and scrape and fracture of it. Going away. As if Tom had never touched her. And still, Corin kept caressing her, without seeming to realize that that was what he was doing.
The scrapes vanished, skin knit together at the passage of his smooth palms. The aches and pains were a memory. He passed his hands over her again...and only then did she see it. That faint flicker of heat in the back of his impossibly cool eyes, like a candle flame behind ice. It flickered up as his fingers brushed over her breasts, the soft curve of her belly, her thighs. Meanwhile, she was starting to arch against his hand slightly, tremors going through her. When his palm brushed her tightening nipple, she gasped and her eyes opened wide despite her best efforts.
He snatched his hand away, blinking down at her rapidly. “Did that hurt?”
“H-hurt…?” she mumbled, staring at him incredulously while her whole body hummed with sensation and desire. “No. No, it didn’t hurt.”
What did he just do to me? Deep tissue massage doesn’t heal
cracked ribs. She tried to get up, only to find herself limp and weak still. Looking down, she saw her skin pristine, not a single bruise or scratch on it...but she was still so weak, so tired. The drugs?
He blinked at her again, owlishly, and his head tilted. “What, then?”
She managed to slide up a little, propping her back against the rear curve of the tub. “Haven’t you ever touched a woman before?”
He glanced away awkwardly, the expression chipping away at some of his stoic demeanor--disarming her. And intriguing her, when combined with his answer. “...no.”
Somehow that made it easier. His slight touch of awkwardness, his admission, the fact that he’d just had her helpless and naked and had worked on tending her wounds instead of taking advantage, made her feel a little less at risk. Whatever was going on with him (autism maybe?), it was weird, but not...threatening. “Never?”
“No. The opportunity...the appropriate opportunity...has never arisen.”
She blinked at him, not understanding the emphasis on propriety...but it comforted her a little more. “Tell me why you paid for me back there, if you didn’t plan to...use me?”
He looked down at her, his mouth working slightly. “Those men were violent as well as ignorant, and lacking in control. In order to avoid a combat wherein you might have been injured further, I chose to play along. Your stepbrother may be somewhat upset when the currency I gave him ends up sublimating within a few days.”
“Subli--wait, what are you talking about?”
He seemed to catch himself. “It is not relevant. Suffice it to say that I did not in fact buy you. I removed you from an untenable situation.” He got up and crossed the room, retrieving a robe made from some silky pale green material.
As he walked away she saw an elaborate, swirling tattoo across his upper back, shimmering in metallic, iridescent colors that reminded her of titanium wire. The markings had a strange order to them, but she had no idea what they were supposed to represent. He turned and came back to her, setting the robe on a low table by the tub, atop a stack of towels.
“You will be weak for some days after such intense treatments, and very hungry. The process robs the body of the nutrients needed to complete healing, and they must be restored. I will see to your recovery.”
He grabbed a slim gray turtleneck of some silky material from the sink counter and pulled it back on, tucking it in all the way around with small, meticulous gestures.
“Who are--” No, that question wouldn’t work, he always answered it with his name.
“What are you doing in town? We don’t get many visitors. Otherwise Tom wouldn’t get away with the things he does.”
He looked up at her mildly, his mouth still set in a soft line. “I’m afraid that that is privileged information that I cannot share with civilians.”
She blinked at him. “You’re a soldier of some kind?” She tried to get up from the tub and found herself too loose-muscled yet to do so.
“Yes. Covert operations. I am stationed outside your town for the next month. For this reason, I cannot have you giving away my position by leaving this place, until I am done. It is ill advised for you to move too much for part of that time, but as for the rest, I will simply have to trust you.”
“A month?” Thirty days. Thirty days cooped up with this strange (hot), eccentric (amazing with his hands), mysterious (intriguingly virginal) man. Who was here on some kind of military surveillance mission. She tried to figure out what the military would want way out here in the sticks, and the only things she could think of were the preppers and survivalists whose compounds dotted the forest. Some of them drew rumors like flies, rumors of religious or political extremism. Domestic terrorists, here? Is that what he’s keeping an eye out for?
“It may seem excessive,” he conceded. “But mission secrecy is paramount. I have already risked everything by involving you.”
She licked her lips, looking at him. His close cropped hair, clean-shaven face, his body (except for the anomalous tattoo), the way he dressed and moved, they all screamed military. So did his coldly businesslike demeanor. She wondered if he ever smiled. Or God forbid, laughed. He had an always-on-duty look to him that...thinking of the way his hands poured warmth into her body...had her wondering what it would be like to get him to slip protocol a little. If he had never touched a woman...what would a kiss do to him?
“If I hide out here, it makes it harder for Tom to find me again,” she finally said. It wasn’t exactly an agreement, wasn’t exactly a promise. But apparently, it was good enough to satisfy him, for he nodded, and reached down to help her out of the tub.
“My quarters are somewhat...Spartan, but sufficient. I shall deploy a second bunk room.”
“What?”
“Quarters will be prepared for you.”
“...Oh.” She grabbed a towel and weakly started rubbing herself dry, feeling like she could fall asleep at any moment. He stood close to her, probably to make sure she didn’t lose her balance in her weakness. Or...was it for another reason? Despite his expressionlessness, he seemed unable to take his eyes off her.
She stopped, deliberately leaving her breasts uncovered as she turned to him. His eyes flicked around, settled on them for a split second, then rose to her face and...tried to stay there. She fought a smile. Gotcha. “I guess I should thank you, for getting me out of there and getting me patched up.”
“I...may have misread the situation, but I did not misread your injuries. Or how...how frightened you were.” His mouth worked, and a troubled line settled between his brows. “I did not like seeing that. I am a soldier, not a thug.”
“And Tom and his people are definitely thugs.” She sighed and finally grabbed the robe, pulling it on with a little fumbling. He relaxed slightly when her body was concealed beneath it. “I only ever wanted to get away from them.”
“And now that you are away?” he asked softly, with that little head-tilt again. “What will you do?”
“I…” She trailed off, realizing she was stumped. She had never gotten past the idea of getting out. Even with Matty, anything beyond getting the hell out of the woods and past state lines just hadn’t entered her head. They had talked of getting married, but what would that have even looked like? Housewife chores while he tended bar? Kids? Something else entirely? She had no image of what a good future should look like. She had no basis for comparison. And somehow, realizing that hurt worse than Matty’s betrayal, and shocked her worse than Corin’s “purchase” of her.
Her eyes teared up, and she stared at him, and then her cheeks were wet and she let out a little sob. “I never really expected to get away! So...so I never let myself think about it….”
He reached out a hand, and gently thumbed the tears off one of her cheeks, his face still near-expressionless but that warmth in the backs of his eyes again. “Then you know how to spend your month here, do you not?” he asked, his voice uncharacteristically soft.
She pressed her lips together, her weeping slowly coming under control, and then nodded.
Chapter 3: Cabin in the Woods
He led her out into the great room of his cabin, which was strangely modern-looking inside, just like the bathroom. More white with touches of brushed steel, lots of curves--including the walls and ceiling, giving them a look of being inside a bubble of milk. The floor was some kind of linoleum. But the windows leading outside, shades always drawn, looked dead ordinary for the area: doubled windows of four-paned glass, with drop-down screens. The door looked equally rustic and ordinary.
She settled onto the couch, a pale, fuzzy affair with four firm cushions in different shades of blue, and crossed her legs primly. But her body still felt mostly made from over-boiled noodles, and she soon found herself nestling back against the cushions, eyelids growing heavy. The last thing she felt before drifting off again was him lifting her gently, and a rumbling whir that shook the floor slightly.
She woke in a small room, with curving white walls just like the great
room's, nestled into an oval sleeping niche dug straight into the wall. The mattress was another pale blue, fuzzy pad, with no blankets, though it radiated warmth from below like some kind of furry animal. She pushed herself up on her arms, feeling marginally stronger than she was before, and looked around. Bed, small chest of drawers, and an oval closet niche with no doors. A few outfits hung in that closet, and she blinked, brow furrowing with curiosity as she gingerly stood up. Two steps to that closet, but her legs were wobbly and she hung onto the wall, reaching out to investigate the clothes with her free hand.
Gowns. Every one of them was a dress of some filmy material, mostly in pale colors: mint green, powder blue, soft rose. They looked Grecian in style, sleeveless and flowing and slit to the knee on both sides. She grabbed the rose one and put it on, and checked her image in the oval mirror beside the closet. Even with her tangled hair, she liked the look: it was elegant, a little sexy, a little old-fashioned. She found a plastic(?) comb in one of the drawers, and combed out her hair, which took ten minutes of tugging, teary eyes and swearing. Thanks Tom, you bastard. But finally it was done, and she braided the results loosely, glad to finally be clean, dry and clothed.
