“Ohhhh.”
In my mind I was already making excuses, constructing a story that I would tell the world once I escaped.
I did it to make him trust me, I would say. I wanted to trick him into thinking I was attracted to him. It would be a good story, and maybe I would be able to make myself believe it, later.
If I had to stand before God, though, I would not be able to lie - I wanted him badly, wanted his tongue on more places than just my ear. Wanted him inside of me, this murderer, this kidnapper, this monster. I wanted everything he had to offer me and more.
This, too, I would lie about: when his hand slid down between my thighs, I parted my legs to give him access, I arched my back and groaned again as his fingers found me and slid down, curved, pressing perfectly against the spot where I needed relief.
Tension licked through my nerves as his mouth moved down to my collarbone, licking, sucking, breathing alternately hot and cold on my neck. His two fingers slid into my body and I whimpered as he let his teeth graze my shoulder, his lips soft and delicious and sinful, oh so sinful.
He moaned along with me as his fingers thrust deeper, then out again. His breath matched my own. It had been my choice to kiss this man and I had chosen wrong, and the penalty was the ache that he sent running through my limbs as his fingertips pressed down into me, the ache that rose and rose, never bursting, no, every time I was close he retreated and I twisted in his arms, unable to find release.
He kissed the side of my jaw as his fingers worked into me, the pressure inside of me mounting and mounting, like heat would expand out the air in a balloon. I was stretched thin, my nerves vibrating with pure desire. God, I would never admit this later, but the desire that tore at me cared nothing about the man making me desire him, cared nothing about his innocence or guilt. It wanted only release. So much pressure. So much.
My hips bucked against his hand, water splashing at the sides of the tub. Suddenly, he was gone. I gasped as he pulled his hand back, his fingers one second there and the next second not, and my body felt so empty, so open. I clutched for his arm but he was already drying off.
“What… why…” I stammered. He gazed at me levelly, and my protests died in my throat. Who was I to ask him for satisfaction? Guilt flooded my body, and my cheeks turned hot, hotter than the water in the tub that was already cooling off. We had been in the bathroom for a long time, and the suds from the shampoo had already been absorbed back into the bathwater.
“Why did you do it?” he asked.
“What?”
“Why did you try to kill yourself?”
I bit back a thousand replies. He had already gotten an answer from me, but apparently that wasn’t the one he wanted.
“Why do you care?”
“I’m so used to people begging me to let them live. It’s interesting to see that you swing the other way. You want to die.”
“I don’t,” I said. Tears welled in my eyes - more from the ache still racking my body than from any kind of emotion. I needed release, and I wasn’t going to get it, and damned if I was going to beg him. “Not anymore.”
“What changed, kitten?” His voice was soft, sympathetic, and if I didn’t know what he was I would have loved him then, even as I hated him for bringing me to the edge and leaving me there.
“Death wasn’t going to make things any better for me,” I said bitterly. “I decided to stay alive. I was going to leave my family. I was going to go to college. Get a good job. Get a good life. Of course, that was before a serial killer locked me in his basement and tortured me.”
“Hardly torture. You flatter me.”
I stared at him, mouth agape.
“You tied me up—”
“And what? Brought you close to the best orgasm you’ll ever have? Such torture. I didn’t let you finish? Come, now, kitten. Don’t tempt me to show you what real torture is.”
I clamped my mouth shut. I had no doubt that he knew how to torture. He had tortured that professor for days before killing him. My mind saw again the body on the table, the slashes, and bile rose in my throat. How could I have let this monster touch me like that?
“You wouldn’t try to kill yourself again, would you?”
“Maybe,” I shot back. “How long are you going to keep me prisoner here?”
“You’re not a prisoner, you’re a trespasser on my property. You’ve fallen into a hole in the forest. You probably won’t ever get out. It’s not bad. It’s just life.”
“Life in a cage is not a life.”
“You’re mixing your metaphors, kitten.”
“I’m not your kitten,” I spat. “You can dress me up and feed me and give me baths like I’m your pet, but I’ll never be your pet.”