How did he know who— Of course. Her call log. Yeah, that was exactly what Dr. Michaels had said. She refused to tell him so, and while seeing him clothed from the waist down should've mollified her somewhat, she couldn't relax. He was too unpredictable. He probably let her put the robe on just so he could tear it off and rape her again.
She glanced around the room, stepping backward and tripping over scattered clothes and shoes. Without thinking, she gathered up shirts, pants, and dirty socks and walked them to the hamper in the closet. “Am I your first?” First stalking? Kidnapping? Rape?
“No.” The single word pierced through her back and stabbed her heart. “Your next door neighbor was my first. Her lover was my last. There were seven in between.”
Nine slaves. What happened to them if he was still free to keep taking people? Her neighbors were still alive, obviously, but how?
His footsteps creaked the wood floors behind her, thankfully shifting farther away. She needed room to breathe, to focus. Squatting, she tackled the clothes on the floor. The scent of aftershave and the musk of man billowed around her as she stuffed the hamper, hung the belts, and searched for some order in which to place the pile of boots, sneakers, and sandals. But it wasn't enough to soothe her blooming panic. Her neighbors had survived him? They were alive and free right next door to her house? Had he let them go?
“Stop that.” His strides neared, pausing right behind her. “Don't ever pick up my shit.”
The harshness of his tone jerked her to her feet, and she spun to face him, chin raised. What she really wanted to do was cringe in the corner and hide from the seething brick wall, now wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and an icy glare.
She swallowed hard and found her voice. “My neighbors are your old friends? The reason you were on my porch?” Had there been any truth to his comment about watching them fuck on their table? She didn't know them, had never met them. “But they're free?”
“Liv and Joshua got away.” His eyelids dipped halfway, shuttering his eyes, but his face softened, almost peaceful-like, as did his voice. “They all got away.”
Why was he telling her this? To make sure she understood she was just one in a long line of violated bodies? She felt sick and inconsequential. Put in her place with a smart smack of reality. She was nothing to him but an easy fuck no one would miss.
But the others had escaped? Hope swelled through her insides, bright and full, lifting her nausea. He would grow tired of her neurotic quirks, if he hadn't already. Maybe he'd return her to her house before the mortgage defaulted. Maybe he'd kill her.
“Whatever you're thinking, don't. The circumstances with the others were different.” He reached out and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. “I ran a sex trafficking operation, Amber. Liv was the deliverer with too much damned power. She freed them. Not me.”
“Oh my God.” Her knees buckled, and she stumbled back into a clump of hanging clothes, clattering the hangers. Sex trafficking. Slave. Her lungs squeezed, and her blood drained to her feet. “I can't— Oh God, Van. Please, you can't do this.”
“Goddammit,” he snarled. “I don't do that shit anymore.” He wrenched her out of the closet by her arms and shoved her toward the stairs. “You're not going anywhere. You're mine.”
“What do you mean?” She tried to turn, to see his face, but he kept pushing her. “What do you want?”
His arm snagged her waist, pulling her back to his chest, and he half-carried her down the spiraling staircase. “You said you were ready. We're starting in the bathroom.”
Ready for what? Would he rape her in the shower? Drown her in the bathtub? She twisted, her toes skidding over the steps as he descended. “What starts in the—”
A blast of sunlight hit her face. Floor to ceiling, the two-story wall of glass towered over her. Trees of every size and shade of green spread out as far as she could see. Trails wound through clutches of thick trunks. Any random person could've been out there, gawking at her through the windows.
She flinched away from the exposure and curled against his chest. She wasn't dressed properly. Her hair hung in strands around her face. Full-body tremors arrested her lungs and strangled the shriek in her throat. He hooked an arm beneath her knees, another at her back, and carried her through the room of windows.
She screamed then, clutching his shoulders and hiding her ugly tears in his neck. “The windows...the windows. Please...” She sobbed, desperate, miserable, her skin rippling with terror. “You have to close them.” She clawed at his back, choking.
His arms dropped her, yanking her hands from their grip on his shoulders as she fell. Her back hit cushions on a couch with a full frontal view of the windows.
She scrambled backwards, fighting for air and losing her robe in her hellfire hurry to get away. He watched her, his brows sharpening into a V over narrowed eyes. Fuck him. She kept going, backing up and over the arm of the couch. Her ass crashed into a small table and sent it sprawling to the floor with her. The hard tiles bit into her tailbone, and tears burned her cheeks. Escape. Hide. Where?
The great room extended into an open kitchen and more windows. The stairs went to the loft and no escape. A door below the railing opened to...the bathroom?
Gasping, she jumped to her feet, staggered, and righted herself in a clumsy spin of naked limbs and jiggling tits. She was so fucking humiliated. Her chest contracted painfully, and her shoulders ached with tension.
The path to the door stretched out in an eternal walk through windowy hell. Eight running steps. Two sets of four. Focus on that. Her knees wobbled as she lurched forward, her body growing heavier with each step. Goddammit, she could do this.
His arm caught her waist and dragged her to the couch, flipping her to her back. She kicked and spit as he landed atop her, pinning her arms above her head and kneeling on her thrashing legs.
“Jesus.” His Adam's apple bobbed, and his beautiful face contorted into a blur. “Calm the fuck down.”
She roared and bucked beneath his crushing weight. “Let me go!”
“Are you possessed?” He leaned in, nose-to-nose, stealing her oxygen. “Are you going to start spitting Latin and tell me to lick you?”
His amused tone heightened her embarrassment and fueled the panic. The windows closed in, compressing her chest. She grabbed at the cushions and dug deep, for air, for strength, determined to have the last word. In one rage-filled burst of breath, she shouted, “Shove it up your ass, you cunting dick!”
He jerked back, and faster than the hammer of her heart, his fist slammed into her face. Fire burst through her cheek. Then the sun burned out.
A fuckstorm of conflicting emotions pounded in Van's chest. He sat back on the couch and stared at the gorgeous, complicated woman beneath him. All it had taken was a swift punch to the cluster of nerves below her ear, and the panic attack went poof. Lights out. But every time he hit her, it cut open a squishy, remorseful spot inside him, one he didn't know existed.
This wasn't discipline training. It wasn't kinksual pain play. He wasn't experiencing any of the violent, fist-swinging rage Liv used to bring out in him. This was Amber, and hurting her when she was scared felt so goddamned unforgivable.
He rubbed a hand through his hair and jerked at the strands. Fuck, he needed to tread more delicately. Just like the others, the abduction and the sex had pissed her off, but the windows? He shifted to take in the peaceful landscape of wilderness, a view that soothed him on his worst days but terrified the fucking sense out of her.
If she were just dealing with the trauma of captivity, he wouldn't have been second-guessing himself. But the agoraphobic and OCD triggers added layers of complexity. Once upon a time, it might've been an interesting experiment to play with—tormenting her with sex and pain then forcing her outside—just to see which would break her first. But the appeal wasn't there. In its place coiled something else. He wanted her whole.
He climbed off the couch and yanked the drapes shut, buttoning up all the windows
on the first story. He glanced at the top row of glass and sighed. Nothing he could do about those.
The open-plan cabin included a kitchen, sitting room, bathroom, and loft. The bathroom was the only windowless space. Except the garage... No, he wasn't ready for her to see his little hobby.
He returned to the couch where she lay exquisitely nude and lost in her dreams. The point of her stubborn chin softened in sleep. Her lips parted seductively, sloping into a small, slender nose. Collarbones pressed against delicate skin, and the fullness of her tits rose and fell with even breaths.
Her ribs were too sharply visible, but he'd fix that with a heartier diet. Despite being underweight, her sleek curves would've filled any man's spank bank. And other than her implants, there were no scars, no abnormalities, which made her poor self-image completely unfathomable. Time to reconcile that.
He gathered her in his arms and carried her to the bathroom. With her limp body perched on the counter, he slapped her face. “Wake up, sweetheart.”
Her eyes fluttered, and a scowl bent her lips.
God, how he ached for her to smile at him with those captivating eyes all lit up and dimples denting her pretty cheeks. But why?
His chest tightened. He knew why, and it surfaced a childhood pang, the old starving need to see his mother gaze upon him with the same kind of smile, just once. Just a hint that she might've loved him. But all that memory offered was a boy's squashed hope and a dead mother.
He grunted deep in his chest just to hear the masculine sound of his very adult voice. He wasn't that needy boy anymore. He didn't have to depend on his mother or look to Liv for happiness. He could take what he needed from whomever he wanted.