“Tell me, kitten,” I whispered, although she could not hear me, “why did you try to kill yourself?”
Kat
When I woke up again, I was lying on a hard surface. I tried to lift my head, but there was something holding me back. I twisted my head and glanced down. There was a strap holding down my wrist. And my neck. Straps against my bare skin.
I was on the kitchen table. Wearing only a bra and panties. He’d taken off the rest of my clothes.
“Awake?”
I screamed. The man stood up over me, his face looking upside down at mine. I was trapped. Oh Jesus, I was tied down. I screamed again, whimpering sobs of a scream that came out in spasms.
He waited until I was done screaming, and then he bent down lower. The strap around my neck tightened, then went slack. I lifted my head.
He cupped his hand around the back of my neck, holding my head up. His hand was strong around my neck, and the tips of his fingers grazed my throat.
“Your arm was cut badly,” he said. “It needed sutures.”
I looked down to see my arm bandaged up. Red blossoms of blood flowered at the top of the bandage. I tilted my head back, settling back into his palm.
“You stuck me with the syringe again.”
“I didn’t think you’d let me stitch you up if you were conscious. You seemed much too eager to bleed to death while escaping.”
“How did you know how to do the stitches?” I asked. My breaths were quick and shallow. I looked into his eyes. I wanted to see if he would torture me, kill me. I wanted to ask him questions forever to keep him from remembering that I would be better off dead and cut up and burned in the fireplace.
“I used to be a medical student,” he said. “I was going to be a doctor.”
Questions. More questions. Anything to keep him talking, to keep him from getting angry.
“Why’d you stop?”
He smiled and his eyes went blank, as though focusing on something in the far off distance.
“I tried, I really did. I loved working with the human body. They’re such remarkable things, bodies. So perfectly made to survive. I would have loved the academic work, certainly. But that whole thing about first do no harm? Doesn’t quite work with my personality.”
“What is your personality?”
His eyes refocused on mine, and I saw them narrow.
“You know my personality, kitten,” he said. “I have a taste for killing.”
“If that’s all you are, then why’d you save me?”
“You have a lot of questions, little kitten,” he said. His hand began to knead my neck. My lips parted as his fingers dug deep, massaging the tense muscles. “So many questions.”
I gasped as he brought his other hand up to my shoulder and began to rub. The motions were automatic, clinical. But as he worked his fingers into my skin, I could feel my body relaxing. He knelt down at the table behind me so that I couldn’t see his face. All I could sense were his hands on my neck, his strong, possessive grasp so close to my throat that I could hardly breathe.
“I have some questions for you, kitten,” he whispered. His breath was hot on my ear, and I trembled at the low growl of his words. One of his hands left the back of my neck and moved around to the front. His fingers were long and taut, and they slid down my side, rubbing my skin in slow circles.
I couldn’t help it. The touch of a man’s hands all over me made me sigh, and at that sigh he nuzzled the top of my head. A terrifying mixture of desire and disgust swept through me. Then his lips touched my hairline just above my ear, and he spoke again.
“First I would ask you why you kissed me,” he said. His hand slid down under my bra, and I drew a sharp breath as he cupped my breast. “Did you think I was handsome? Your prince charming, come to take you away on horseback?”
I didn’t answer right away. What would I say? But his hand never stopped massaging the back of my neck, even when his other hand squeezed my breast softly. I whimpered as his fingers came up and took hold of my quickly stiffening nipple. Then he pinched me hard, twisting, and I cried out, arching my back against the table.
“Tell me, kitten,” he said. He released my nipple, his fingertips stroking it gently. Then he pinched hard again, so hard that I saw white flashes behind my eyelids.
“Yes!” I said, breathless. “Yes, I did! It was a bet! I’m sorry!”
“A bet?” He came to the side of the table, my nipple twisted in his fingers. His eyes were flat, dull green stones that burned all the more with their indifference.
Then he reached down between my legs. I froze. His fingertips grazed the fabric of my panties and my mouth went dry. He was touching me there, right there, and I could barely feel the sensation. A slight stroke up, then down. Up. Then down. His hand moved as though he was idly feeling the top of a tablecloth and he never looked down, not once.