Oh God. I’m probably going to die here, I thought frantically. And that’s when my inner heroine surfaced. I knew that if I calmed down there was a slim chance I could talk myself out of this situation.
“What’s your first name?” I asked taking a steadying breath.
“Jaxton. I’ve already told you that you can call me Jax, Ms. Riley,” he replied, not loosening his grip.
“Why do you call me Ms. Riley instead of Riley?” I asked in genuine curiosity.
“Because I believe in manners. Until you give me permission to call you by your first name, then I’ll refer to you as Ms. Riley,” he said matter-of-factly.
“You officially have my permission to call me Riley,” I replied carefully.
“Thank you,” he said with a pleasant smile.
I nodded, “How long do you plan on keeping me here, Jax?”
“I was thinking of forever, of course.” My vision blurred at his words. I felt the tears threatening to spill over but I blinked a few times, refusing to let them. “But I also have a trial period. I think that you’re just what I need to feel enough and I’m sure that once you become acclimated to how I like things to be, you’ll find that I’m quite good for you as well.”
Keep talking, Riley. Whatever you do, don’t give up.
“What arrangement did we come to?” I asked my voice barely above a whisper.
“Oh, Riley,” he said softly brushing the hair off of my forehead. “Your grandmother died. In exchange for fare to the funeral, you agreed to let me accompany you and spend time together when we got back.”
I furrowed my brow trying to remember and letting the tears finally fall. My grandmother was dead? I turned my face away from him for a moment and took a small steadying breath. Okay. I would accept that. For now.
“What do I have to do to get you to trust me?” I asked.
He chuckled and tightened his grip around my wrists. It wasn’t particularly painful, but I was worried that if he gripped any tighter, he might leave bruises on me.
“You can’t talk your way out of my home, out of our arrangement, and out of being obedient, Riley. You have to earn certain privileges with me and trust is the last one you’ll be rewarded with. But I think that for the rest of the day I’ll let you walk around the house. Most of the doors won’t open without a code as you know, and the ones that do aren’t a way to escape. As a matter of fact, some of the doors that do open might frighten you. Some of them might thrill you. You’ll have to let me know which does which when I come to collect you. And tonight, you and I will start your lessons. Much like the doors, some you will enjoy and some will scare you. But it will be up to me, not you Riley, to decide which ones are the most tolerable and intolerable for you,” he said in a low, serious tone.
“Agreed,” I whispered in a shaky voice.
He nodded and let go of my wrists. I began to rub them as I wondered what the hell I was going to have to endure to gain my freedom.
“The sun goes down in four hours. You have until then,” Jax said before he turned and walked away.
Nine
I spent the first hour of my “freedom” exploring the second floor. By exploring, I meant punching in every combination of numbers I could think to open the damn windows, but I always managed to lock the pads after the third try. I knew he would be most likely be angry when he realized what I had spent this time doing, but he would also be dense to not assume that I wouldn’t try.
After I had sufficiently tripped the safety backup on all of the code pads, I made my way down the stairs. Jax had gone back to the living room and I could hear him watching something again. From the sounds of the screams, I assumed it to be a horror movie of some sort. Figures, I thought rolling my eyes.
I tiptoed past the living room and followed the wide hallway into the kitchen. I looked around curious at how immaculate it was. It looks like it’s never even been used. Okay; he’s a neat freak. Check.
Behind me, I heard his footsteps as he made his way to the kitchen. He walked past me without so much as a glance and reached into the large restaurant sized refrigerator for ... what is that?
He set the slab of meat on the counter and reached up into one of the beautiful oak cabinets to pull out a loaf of bread. I watched as he sat down on one of the stools and put at least six slices of the meat onto the two slices of bread, before going back to the refrigerator to replace the meat and pull out a bag of lettuce and some mayonnaise. After putting three pieces of lettuce on his growing sandwich, he opened a drawer under the counter he was sitting at, pulled out a knife and applied a thin layer of mayo to it. I had never found the making of a sandwich to be as intriguing as the way Jax did it because he actually held it up eye level, put it down, and cut the excess lettuce that was peeking out of the sides off, before he was satisfied enough to return the bag and the mayo back to the refrigerator.