“Protect me?” I snort. “You must be joking, right?”
“Of course, if you’re not in here with me, you’re out there with them and they won’t care about your little monthly visitor.”
“You can stop threatening me now, it’s getting old,” I mutter.
“It’s not a threat,” he says, his eyes hardening just a touch. “If you don’t believe me, just push and see what happens.”
Sometimes in life you’re faced with a choice, and sometimes both sides of that choice are awful, but you have to pull it apart and pick with the one you can live with and which one you cannot. I have a choice, and I know which one I can get myself through, but the thought of doing it sickens me to my very core. I glance around the room, desperate for a way out. I don’t want to have to do a single thing with Mick, but if the choice is him or them, I know which one I’d rather.
“Even if you managed to get out of here, you’d never get off this island, so don’t bother looking.”
It’s as if he’s reading my mind.
I meet his gaze and stiffen as he takes my hand and pulls me towards the bed. I’m praying, for the first time in a very, very long time - I’m praying. I’m praying for freedom, for release, for anything. I’m even praying a huge explosion will hit the island and kill us all, just so I don’t have to do this. When Mick forces me onto the bed, with his hand tangled tightly in my hair, I don’t resist.
I have made the choice that I can live with, and it’s Mick. While the idea of touching him is so revolting, it makes me feel ill, it has to be better than letting a bunch of violent strangers take their turns with my body. Mick slides onto the bed beside me and only now do I realize just how big he is compared to me. He towers over me, his thick black hair falls over his shoulders, and those shoulders are wider than my entire body.
For a moment, I wonder how many women have laid beneath Mick and thought all their dreams had come true. An extremely attractive, well-muscled man, making all their wildest desires come alive. For me though, I feel nothing...I’m completely numb. I’ve turned off every thought and feeling, knowing there is no way out of this for me, not right now anyway. But one day, oh, one day I’ll make him pay.
I’ll make them all pay.
“You’re so beautiful, Willow. I know why he wants you, I wanted you the minute I laid my eyes on you. You’re one of those women with that exceptional beauty that’s so different and unlike any other...”
I clamp my eyes shut, fighting back a shudder. Take yourself away, Willow. Take yourself away and think of anything else but the smell of his breath, while pleasant, is making your stomach turn. Make yourself stronger than him. Find your strength. Turn off. Mick moves closer and I want to scream, but I keep my eyes closed. When his lips touch mine, I inhale sharply. I wish for anything in this moment but what he’s doing. God, I wish he was beating me, hurting me, doing something other than this.
“Kiss me back, Willow, or I’ll send you out right now,” he warns, his voice rough.
I can’t. I can’t kiss him. I can’t make my mouth move with his when all I want to do is stab him until he’s a bloody pile on the floor. When he grips my arm harshly, my eyes flicker open. His face is steely and hard, and his expression promises that he’ll do awful things if I don’t comply. The worst part of it is, I know he will. I know he’ll take me out there and he’ll make sure I am slowly broken down until I’m nothing more than a shell of myself.
“Last chance. I’ll send you out and teach you one hell of a lesson. Do you think that I play nicely, Willow?”
“No,” I grind out.
“Then kiss me back or I’ll drag you out there naked and throw you to the wolves, because what they’ll do to you, will make you wish you’d never been born.”
When his mouth closes over mine again, I clamp my eyes closed and try to soften my lips enough that he thinks I’m playing along. They’re numb, I can’t feel anything but the pounding of my heart. I take myself to a place that isn’t here. I take myself to Jagger, to the way he holds me, and touches me, and makes me feel alive. I act as though none of this is happening and I’m alone with the man I love.
Anything to make this go quickly.
“Very good, you’re a fast learner,” he murmurs when he pulls away.