He rose and held out his arms, unabashedly nude. “I'm the slippery footprints in your carpet. The creaking floor that steals air from your lungs. The hand that holds the gun.” He paced through the room, snagging a pair of jeans from the floor, and met her eyes. “I'm the inescapable curse that caught you when you opened your door.”
A shiver rippled through her and settled into her bones. Not a hint of arrogance in his words. Just the steady monotone of unresisting acceptance. As if he'd rehearsed that creepy speech or had at least given it a lot of thought.
She darted for her robe, shrugged it on, and turned to face him with a semblance of courage now that she was covered. “You don't have to be those things.” She pushed back her shoulders and gave him a practiced response of her own. “You could be the nemesis of torment.”
He pulled on the jeans, regarding her with an unreadable expression. “Is that what Dr. Michaels told you? Some cockamamie horseshit about confronting fear with its adversary, courage?”
How did he know who— Of course. Her call log. Yeah, that was exactly what Dr. Michaels had said. She refused to tell him so, and while seeing him clothed from the waist down should've mollified her somewhat, she couldn't relax. He was too unpredictable. He probably let her put the robe on just so he could tear it off and rape her again.
She glanced around the room, stepping backward and tripping over scattered clothes and shoes. Without thinking, she gathered up shirts, pants, and dirty socks and walked them to the hamper in the closet. “Am I your first?” First stalking? Kidnapping? Rape?
“No.” The single word pierced through her back and stabbed her heart. “Your next door neighbor was my first. Her lover was my last. There were seven in between.”
Nine slaves. What happened to them if he was still free to keep taking people? Her neighbors were still alive, obviously, but how?
His footsteps creaked the wood floors behind her, thankfully shifting farther away. She needed room to breathe, to focus. Squatting, she tackled the clothes on the floor. The scent of aftershave and the musk of man billowed around her as she stuffed the hamper, hung the belts, and searched for some order in which to place the pile of boots, sneakers, and sandals. But it wasn't enough to soothe her blooming panic. Her neighbors had survived him? They were alive and free right next door to her house? Had he let them go?
“Stop that.” His strides neared, pausing right behind her. “Don't ever pick up my shit.”
The harshness of his tone jerked her to her feet, and she spun to face him, chin raised. What she really wanted to do was cringe in the corner and hide from the seething brick wall, now wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and an icy glare.
She swallowed hard and found her voice. “My neighbors are your old friends? The reason you were on my porch?” Had there been any truth to his comment about watching them fuck on their table? She didn't know them, had never met them. “But they're free?”
“Liv and Joshua got away.” His eyelids dipped halfway, shuttering his eyes, but his face softened, almost peaceful-like, as did his voice. “They all got away.”
Why was he telling her this? To make sure she understood she was just one in a long line of violated bodies? She felt sick and inconsequential. Put in her place with a smart smack of reality. She was nothing to him but an easy fuck no one would miss.
But the others had escaped? Hope swelled through her insides, bright and full, lifting her nausea. He would grow tired of her neurotic quirks, if he hadn't already. Maybe he'd return her to her house before the mortgage defaulted. Maybe he'd kill her.
“Whatever you're thinking, don't. The circumstances with the others were different.” He reached out and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. “I ran a sex trafficking operation, Amber. Liv was the deliverer with too much damned power. She freed them. Not me.”
“Oh my God.” Her knees buckled, and she stumbled back into a clump of hanging clothes, clattering the hangers. Sex trafficking. Slave. Her lungs squeezed, and her blood drained to her feet. “I can't— Oh God, Van. Please, you can't do this.”
“Goddammit,” he snarled. “I don't do that shit anymore.” He wrenched her out of the closet by her arms and shoved her toward the stairs. “You're not going anywhere. You're mine.”
“What do you mean?” She tried to turn, to see his face, but he kept pushing her. “What do you want?”
His arm snagged her waist, pulling her back to his chest, and he half-carried her down the spiraling staircase. “You said you were ready. We're starting in the bathroom.”
Ready for what? Would he rape her in the shower? Drown her in the bathtub? She twisted, her toes skidding over the steps as he descended. “What starts in the—”