“Quite a ways to the back.” Once the words were out of her mouth she knew she should have lied and said it was close—he would more likely have let her go in that case, although he also might well have wanted to use it himself, in which case he would have realized she’d lied to him.
And she already knew how he would punish her for that.
Her horrified ears could barely begin to process what he said next. “Well, I’m not going to let you outside on your own so you can run away. Find something in here like a pail and use it to pee into.”
“I beg your pardon, sir, but I do not pee into pails!”
She frowned down at him as he grinned. “That sounds just like something my mother would say, and in exactly the same tone.”
“Besides, in case you haven’t noticed, this is a very humble cottage. I only have one pail and another with a hole in it, and I use the good one for milk. I’m not going to relieve myself into a pail I need to use to carry milk.”
“Then pee into the one with the hole.”
“But it’ll leak all over my floor!”
He looked unimpressed at her concerns. “It’s a dirt floor. Pee into the pail with the hole, throw what you can of it out the door, then use a shovel to get the damp dirt and throw it out the door. Or cut out the middleman and pee on the shovel. I don’t care. I’m only going to untie you for a short amount of time, so you need to decide what to do.”
Since the shovel was in the barn, that point was moot, but as he removed the roped from around her wrist, she decided to put something down beneath the pail, since the hole was a bit up the side, she’d probably be all right.
She certainly wouldn’t be happy, but she’d live.
But when she stood up, she remembered her nakedness, especially since he seemed to be enjoying it all too much. She reached for the pile he had made of her clothes next to her nightstand, but found her hand slapped smartly.
“Oh, no. No clothes for you. You’re sneaky and disobedient. I need you at a disadvantage if I’m going to keep myself from getting another hole blown in me.”
Rachel took umbrage at being called sneaky and disobedient when he was the outlaw, but her need to go was overriding the set down she wanted to give him. She found the spare pail and put it as far away from him as she could. There was nowhere to go where he couldn’t see her at all in this tiny space, which was only made tinier by his size, but she was going to do what she could to preserve what little was left of her modesty.
“Turn away, please,” she asked politely as she stood there with her arms crossed over herself, tapping her foot impatiently.
“No.”
She just about snapped. “I won’t go anywhere. I couldn’t lift the bar off the door before you could get to me–”
“No. I don’t trust you any more than you trust me, Missus,” he drawled lazily.
Rachel opened her mouth to argue further, but then she realized that if she didn’t squat soon, it was going to start running down her leg, and she would do pretty much anything to prevent that from happening, so she turned herself around and did what she needed to do, absolutely hating the way the pail itself and the quiet sparseness of the cabin itself made the sounds of what she was doing reverberate in her ears.
And she was sure his, too.
When she rose, she used one of the rags she had for just that purpose for her ablutions, dipping it into some of the water she’d set aside.
To her horror, as her cheeks flamed at what he’d just forced her to do—which was very nearly as humiliating as what he’d done to her last night although not quite as … invasive of her person—and she turned to go somewhere, anywhere, as if she could get away from him somehow, she instead ran directly into him as he was already digging his cock out of his pants, lurching towards the pail without paying much attention to her.
Except to yell over his shoulder at her, “Get back in bed.”
Now she had to go through the searing humiliation of listening to him urinating, waiting until he finished to say, “I thought you might like me to get us something to eat and for me to look at your wound.”
He passed her, saying, “All right. Quickly. I want you back in bed where I can keep an eye on you.”
She frowned. As if he couldn’t see her if he merely opened his eyes and pointed them at her—it wasn’t as if this was the twenty-room mansion in which she’d grown up, with hidey-holes galore.
Cage knew she wasn’t happy with him, and he was doing his best to ignore that fact. He arranged himself on his side again, watching her as she moved about the small space, obviously having learned a comfortable routine. He was intrigued when she pulled open a small square door in the floor that he hadn’t noticed, using ropes to pull up a couple of crocks.
He had to admit, she had a pretty cozy setup here, even if she really did need a man around to do the heavier lifting. One of the reasons it had been so easy to dismiss her claim that she had a husband off hunting was that he had noticed even before he had taken her captive that all of the things that a man would usually get done around a small homestead like this hadn’t been addressed at all, or, if they had, then they showed signs of being “in progress” for quite some time.
The interior of the little cabin, the place she considered her own little domain, was spotless and so was the barn—although the exterior needed work. Even the tiny hearth at which she cooked looked spotless. She had things organized to within an inch of their life, which aided in her efficiency as she pulled together a small repast for them.
He imagined it galled her that she couldn’t do most of the outdoor things that cropped up, not for lack of gumption or desire to do it, but because things like that often required superior strength, which at her tiny height and meager weight, she simply just didn’t have. He’d noticed that the barbed wire fencing for the small pasture needed fixing, and there were obvious signs that she had tried to affect repairs to it, the idea of which had him cringing inwardly. If not handled properly, that barbed wire could do her serious injury, and at the very least she would inevitably end up with nicks and cuts and, eventually, scars on that perfect skin of hers.
For some reason, that idea didn’t set well with him at all, but he refused to allow himself to explore it any further.
When she set their morning repast in front of him on a tray they would share, he had to admit he was impressed. There was a small hunk of ham, some hard cheese, two small rolls, butter and milk. He divided the bounty between the two of them, allotting two thirds to himself and a third to her, owing to the differences in their sizes, besides the fact that he was recovering from a serious wound.
She didn’t object. In fact, she surprised him by giving him back nearly half of what he’d given her.
“You should eat some more.”
Rachel shrugged. “This is the amount I would normally eat.”
“And that’s why you’re so skinny.” He pushed the food back at her. “Finish it.”
“No. Either you eat it or I’ll put it back.”
He reached a hand out and tipped her face to his. “What did I just say?”
“You just said something stupid, is what you just said! You might be an outlaw but you’re an idiot of one—I’m not thin because I want to be. I’m thin because my crops were damaged this past summer. I’m not eating much because I need to save as much as I can for the winter, you dolt. So either eat what I gave you or I’ll save it so we’ll both eat for another day.”
The raw truth of what she was saying slapped him square in the face, and he pushed the excess of her food back to her. “Put it back.”
She did as he said without arguing, for once, coming to stand by the bed. “I need to milk Cleo and feed Sissy, and gather the eggs.” She also needed to weed the garden, work on mending the fence in the small corral, churn the butter; the list of chores he was preempting in her life was innumerable.
“No.”
Somehow she dared to sigh exasperatedly, probably because he wasn’t
pointing the gun at her. “I have to get at least those chores done. Cleo will be in agony, and the eggs will go to waste, and Sissy didn’t get fed last night, either.”
“No. I can’t keep track of you. I don’t think I could make it to the barn.”
“So stand in the doorway and keep the gun on me the entire time. With the barn door open you can see all the way through it.”
He looked as if he was vacillating a bit.
“Please let me.” She’d noticed how he’d reacted to the idea that she was short of food, and played on what little there was of his sympathies. “I’ll–we’ll be in even more dire straights if the cow dies or the chickens–”
Cage looked up at her from where he was sitting—damned uncomfortably—on the edge of the bed. “All right, but if you do something I don’t like, I will find you and I will beat your bottom good.”
Pleased at having managed to get her way, Rachel reached for her clothes for the second time that morning, not at all expecting his firm, “No.”
She met his eyes with her own wide, round ones. “What do you mean, no? I have to wear clothes to go out to the barn.”
That smile of his was not at all comforting. “No, you don’t. And I think that being naked with make you much less likely to run.”
She looked truly horrified at the prospect. “You can’t honestly mean to make me go out in public–”
“What public? The animals aren’t going to care,” his eyes roamed boldly over her from head to toe, “and I’ve already seen you.”
“But —”
“Make up your mind. Either you go naked or you don’t go. I’m getting mighty uncomfortable sitting here like this, so decide quickly or I’ll remove the choice all together.”
Rachel balled her fists as if she would punch him out, then executed an about face that he frankly thought was better than most of the ones he’d seen while he was in the military and walked to the door.
“Hold on there a minute.”
He stood, slowly, and then shambled over to stand behind her.
Rachel lifted the bar and put it to one side, then stepped outside.
Cage just couldn’t resist swatting her on a bottom that was still sporting the evidence of the relatively harsh punishment he’d given her last night while his heart was still in his throat at the thought of what she had been trying to do to herself. Rachel hopped along quite briskly afterwards, clutching at her behind compulsively, wanting to rub it but not wanting to at the same time.
And definitely not wanting him to see her do it, at any rate.
He well remembered that feeling. His father had never been one to spare the rod.
Chapter Four
He watched her the entire time while she was doing her chores; she could feel his eyes on her and she had never felt quite so exposed as she did then, even if he hadn’t been staring at her. She didn’t think she’d ever in her life spent this much time without clothes on. It was at once very freeing and very nerve-wracking at the same time, especially around him. Not even Hemmingway had demanded that she be naked this much.
Or, now that she thought about it, much at all.
Although he certainly appreciated the view, Cage found part of him—the more civilized part that he thought he had pretty well buried—was chafing at the idea of all the hard work she had to do. If he were well, he would have done all of that toting and lifting for her.
But, hell, he acknowledged, if he were well he wouldn’t be here—in the boonies—at all.
When she had returned to the cabin with milk, eggs, water and wood, and having done a few extra things he hadn’t even thought about including she removing all of the splotches of blood that he had dripped to and from the barn and the cabin, he barred the door again behind her, and stumbled to the bed. Rachel heard him almost fall onto it, heard the wood protesting against his sudden weight, but she was busy putting things away so that they wouldn’t spoil, and then she made a fire in the fireplace as it was already getting a bit chilly out there.
By the time she looked up at him, after realizing that she hadn’t felt his intense gaze on her in a while, she saw that he was either asleep or unconscious—probably the latter. He had been looking grayer and grayer the longer he had stood up to keep track of her while she was doing her chores.
The first thing she did was to poke him—hard—to try to determine whether he was just sleeping; he didn’t move a muscle. She wished she thought that she could get to the gun, but as far as she could determine, he was sleeping on it. Since she couldn’t satisfy her first wish, she went for her second and retrieved her clothing, donning it with a strange sense of loss, somehow, as if she was giving up some sort of freedom she’d never known she’d craved.
Gathering the last of the rope that hadn’t been cut by her, she did what she knew she had to do and bound his wrists to the bed, wishing she had enough rope to do his ankles, also.
Then she set about assessing his wound and cleaning it again. At this rate, she was going to need to go down to the river and do a wash; she was going through what little extra materials she had in order to form makeshift bandages for him. The deep insult to his flesh wasn’t looking infected, thank God, but it certainly was red and still seeping blood. She cleaned it out again and got a fresh bandage pressed to it and held there by the same strips of cloth, only moved to cleaner spots because she had nothing else that she could replace them with.
He remained frighteningly still for a very long time, the rest of the day and into the night. Instead of climbing into the bed to sleep where she had beside him, she remained in the one and only chair she owned, a relatively comfy rocker she had designed and built herself. The fire kept her warm and she nibbled on a bit of the cheese she’d kept in the cooling hole.
“Let me the fuck up!”
He wasn’t just yelling; he was spitting with rage.
“C’mon, let me up! I have to take a piss! I bet you didn’t think about that when you tied me up, did you, Mrs. Hemmingway,” he taunted, saying her name in a way that let her know he highly doubted she deserved the title.
How could he have been so nice to her last night—relatively, anyway—and be such a bully now?
A bully that was, unfortunately, all too correct. She hadn’t thought about contingencies like that.
Rachel brought the pail over to him and he looked at her as if she had three heads. “How the hell am I supposed to pee into a pail when I can’t lean over to do so? If I pee now, I’m going to end up swimming in it.”
And she did not want urine on her bedspread any more than she wanted the manure that he had already left.
But that would mean she would have to untie him.
“You could do the aiming for me,” he suggested. “You’re a married woman. Surely it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve handled a man’s cock.”
He watched her reaction to what he was saying very carefully, and it was quite revealing. She was practically squirming with revulsion at the idea. She either had never even seen a cock up close or at all—or, remembering how scared she had been last night, perhaps someone had somehow scared her about them, if not her vaunted Mr. H. then maybe her mother . . .
Rachel couldn’t believe that she was considering either possibility, and she really couldn’t decide which was worse.
Cage sighed, barely able to believe that he was going to say what he was going to say. “Why don’t you undo one of my hands? Then I can roll towards the edge of the bed and pee, and then you can tie me up again.”
She might have been young and fairly inexperienced in the ways of the world, but she tried not too be too naïve, although she wasn’t always successful at it. “Right. Like you’re going to docilely allow me to bind you again.”
His eyes narrowed as if he’d just noticed something and he didn’t answer her directly. “You put your clothes back on.”
She blushed prettily, and he felt his dick rising against the buttons of his pants.
“It seems that I need
to recover enough to sleep rather than become unconscious. You’ve developed the bad habit of tying me up whenever I’m too out to notice—and then you add insult to injury and rob me of the sight of your beautiful body.”
“You mustn’t say things like that to me, Mr.–Mr.–” It surprised her to realize that she had no idea what his name was.
“Call me Cage.” At her puzzled look, he explained, “An old family nickname.”
“My name is–”
“Mrs. Hemmingway. I remember,” he rumbled, almost teasingly, his eyes softening on her.
“Rachel,” she supplied, wondering exactly why she felt compelled to do so.
“A beautiful name for a beautiful woman. So, Rachel, what have you decided to do— and please do whatever it is before my bladder explodes.”
He seemed to slip so easily between being a horrible bastard and borderline flirting with her. It had her completely off kilter, because she had been so cloistered by her father that she wasn’t used to anyone flirting with her, much less a big, potent man such as himself.
A big, potent outlaw, such as himself, she corrected.
“I–I will untie one of your hands so that you can use the pail yourself.”
She wished he wouldn’t smile at her like that, all self-satisfied like the cat, which ate the canary—and she was definitely the canary. “I’m mighty obliged to you, Ma’am. Mighty obliged.” The hand that was closer was the most strategic, thankfully, so that at least she didn’t have to lean her bosom into his face—which she bet he would thoroughly enjoy and tease—if not berate—her about afterwards.
The pail and its little drip pad was already on the floor, so she simply loosened his bonds and walked away, trying to give him some privacy, although she certainly could hear everything that went on and it only served to make her cheeks flame a brighter red than they already were.
When he was done, she heard him lean back and came to claim the pail from him, rushing it outside to dump the contents—most of which were intact—into the outhouse.
Upon returning, she came to stand by the bed, hands on her hips, trying to look no-nonsense, expecting him to hold to his word.
Caged Page 4
