A knock on the driver's side window kicked the air from his lungs, and he jumped.
Joshua stood beside the car, bent at the waist with his hands on his knees. “Roll down the window.”
He rubbed the ache in his chest and turned the window crank, offering the man a bored expression.
“You had a look about you in there,” Joshua said, “when you talked about your girlfriend. A peaceful look.”
Joshua was a charging protector as much as a touchy-feeler, a reminder he was going to be a preacher before Liv took him. He was hardwired to see the good in people.
And Van wasn’t in the mood for it. “Get to the point.”
“Get your shit together, man. You've got a month. Meet us at this restaurant. I jotted down the date and time.” Joshua shook the napkin. “Liv will feel less threatened if your girl is with you. So don't show up without her.”
He didn't like this numbnut dictating his schedule, but he buried his arrogance. “Liv won't agree to this.”
“She's scared, Van. But she'll be there. I'll make sure of it.” Joshua’s mouth tilted in a half-smile.
Well damn. Their relationship dynamic was baffling. Clearly, Joshua was a sexual submissive, but maybe he wore the pants when he didn't have a dildo in his ass.
He reached for the napkin, and Joshua snatched it back, eyes hard and assertive. “And stop stalking my girlfriend.”
“I don’t need to.” Nor did he want to. He grabbed the napkin and rolled up the window on the fucker's gloomy face.
Hope. It was just a tiny twitch in his chest, but it was there.
As he drove back to the cabin in Cedar Creek, that hope dwindled by the mile. He had a month to slay Amber's beast. His ears pounded. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to slay it literally.
He turned off the exit and drove to the suburban house in Austin he'd visited a few times in the last three weeks. She might've been predisposed to the disorders, but they hadn't taken over her life until her stupid motherfuckering ex brutalized her from the inside out.
He parked in front of the two-story house and shut off the car. Residence of Brent and Tawny Piselli, insurance salesman and aspiring model. Proud owners of two yappy dogs and a sprinkler system. Only thing missing was the white picket fence.
He cracked his neck from side to side and tried to shake the tension from his hands. He wanted to kill both of them, but he'd promised he wouldn't harm her sister.
The picture window glowed with light from the sitting room, flickering with movement inside. Tawny's Audi wasn't in the driveway, and Brent always parked in the garage.
His pulse elevated, driven with a desire for vengeance. He burned for a fight.
My enemy isn't out there, Van. It's here. Right here.
Maybe Brent's death wouldn't help her, but it sure as fuck would release the burning misery built up behind his eyes. He wanted to dominate, to hurt. He wanted to fucking see blood. Fuck the consequences.
He flipped open the glove box, reaching inside for the pistol. His hand brushed the paper bag, crinkling it.
You would be a great father. Fierce and protective and attentive.
He would be a great inmate. A kidnapper, a rapist, a sex trafficker...a murderer.
His head hurt, and his damned body felt like a thousand pounds, every tense inch of it sinking into his stomach. He tore the bag off the doll and bent the legs to sit it on the passenger seat beside him.
You're trying to make a doll that doesn't break?
I've tried. They all break eventually.
Except the one Amber built.
The image of her soft smile and bright eyes shining through the railing invigorated him with a warmth that could only be connected to life.
Not death.
He didn't have to be a kidnapper, rapist, sex trafficker, or murderer. Not anymore.
He slapped the door on the glove box, closing away the gun, and started the car. He had a promise to keep and a sexy ass to beat.
The front door closed with a heart-jolting thunk. He made it home! Amber rolled off her back and scrambled on her knees to the railing. Clutching the wood spindles, her fingers ached with the physical and emotional strain of the last few hours.
The steady fall of leather soles on tile swished through her ears, centering her. Liv hadn't turned him over to the police. Huge exhale. Maybe he hadn't gone home with her. Deeper inhale. His beautiful, naked body wasn't in a bed right now, wrapped around the woman who'd given him a seven-year fever. He was home, safe. Hers.
His broad back came into view, and she trembled with anticipation. He'd lost the jacket, the black dress shirt stretching across his shoulders. He must've known she was watching him, but he didn't look up. Please, look up.
His casual gait veered through the great room, the tips of his fingers sliding across the sofa back and tapping along the edge of a desk, his powerful legs moving slowly yet systemically. He stopped at the center of the window wall with his back to her and stared at the drapes. His head tilted to the side.
Every muscle in her body turned to ice. “Van?” Her throat convulsed. “Van? How'd it go?” Oh, God, turn around, turn around. Please stop looking at those drapes.
He slid his hands into the pockets of his gray suit pants, the fabric hugging his tight, narrow ass. His feet spaced shoulder-width apart, his posture terrifyingly relaxed. “Tell me the worst thoughts you entertained while I was gone.”
His vibrating timbre was so low, so commanding, she melted into the floor. “I imagined you hauled off in handcuffs and how I wouldn't be able to come to you.”
“What else?” His baritone echoed off the two-story ceiling.
She swallowed. “I thought about...” She swallowed again, aching for him to turn around. “You and her...together.”
A twitch rippled across his back. “Say it, Amber.”
Her stomach twisted with shame. “I pictured you...making love to her.”
“Thank you.” His head lowered a millimeter. “Now tell me why you think I would do that.”
She closed her eyes and tightened her fists around the spindles. “You shared seven years with her. You collected her hair...your matching scars.” Her voice quivered, her eyes opening and clinging to the back of his muscular frame. “You have a child together.”
“I haven’t touched her in over a year, and tonight I felt no desire to.” His back rose with his inhale. “I enslaved her for seven years because I was selfish. The hair, the scars, Livana...all examples of my selfishness. That's not love, Amber, which was why I never thought to free her.”
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He reached up, tore open the drapes, and wrenched them off the wall. Wheezing, she jerked away from the railing, caught by two feet of rope.
Fabric and metal poles tumbled to the floor as he moved from window to window, ripping and tossing. She curled into a ball, chest heaving, her face buried in her bound arms.
Every clatter of metal and rip of sheet rock made her heart jump in terror. Her breathing reached an all-too-familiar velocity, burning her lungs and beading sweat along her scalp.
Eventually, her breaths were all she heard as silence settled through the cabin, thickening, waiting. No footsteps on the stairs. No commanding voice. Was he waiting for her to pull herself together?
Her limbs shook, and her pulse ripped through her veins, but breath by painful breath, she reined it in. He'd opened the windows because he wanted to free her. He waited patiently because he believed in her.
She gathered all her courage to accept that knowledge and crawled back to the railing on wobbly knees.
He stood at the bottom of the stairs, pinching the button on the shirt cuff at his wrist. As he loosened it and moved to the other wrist, he lifted his eyes, locking them on her. Intense eyes. Dangerously beautiful eyes. She didn't need to look at the windows behind him because she held those eyes, because they told her he loved her.
He didn't look away as he climbed the stairs and rolled up his sleeves. He held her gaze as he reached the loft and removed his belt, dropping it on the wood floor before her. He didn't break eye contact until he knelt at her side and ripped the straps of her tank top.
The openness of the windows crawled on her skin. So she sat on her hip, leaning toward him, and let his touch, his eyes, and his spicy scent swallow her senses. The nylon rope bit into her arms, rubbing against her clammy skin, but she welcomed it, gloried in the restraints he'd given her.
Sliding the shirt to her waist, his fingers stroked a trail of fire down her breastbone, over the lacy bra cups, and across her belly. “Lift your gorgeous ass.”
His whisper pulled that fire inward, heating her blood and curling tendrils of warmth through her pussy. She raised her hips, lost in the potency of his hands on her body. There was something unequivocal about pleasing a man as controlling and calculating and adoring as Van Quiso. No need to think. She simply obeyed, placing all her pleasure, and her pain, in his strong and capable hands.