He only hummed in response, his hands continuing to run over her skin. She distracted herself by going over the plan she and Evan had been discussing for . . . a week? She thought it’d been about a week, though who really knew? Time was somewhat irrelevant where they were. They spoke in staggered strings of words inserted “incorrectly” into simple jingles, leaving out any that were obvious and therefore unnecessary. The, and, if, or.
“Man tie clip. Reflect,” she’d told Evan, meaning the man in the black suit who escorted them to and from their cages wore a silver tie clip that might reflect the keypad at the top of their cages. As she’d sung, she’d pretended to rub a sore spot on her chest where the man wore the clip. Thank God Evan was quick. Thank God he got almost everything she conveyed the very first time. Of course, a little earlier, when the man had come to escort her to the room she was in now, she’d not only been too far back in her cage but he’d been turned slightly so she couldn’t make out the numbers he pressed on her lock, not even one. The rub was that with each chance they had to read the numbers, it meant one of them was being removed and taken here to be further victimized. And yet, it was an outcome they had to hope for nonetheless.
The man was running his short fingernails up and down the backs of her legs, and without her permission, her mind began to drift again, a moan rising in her throat. She swallowed it down as he went on, blathering on probably just to hear himself speak. “Anyway, this man was well equipped to ensure none of his girls got pregnant, but, well, nature is quite adept at asserting her superiority where she can.” One hand kept stroking her leg while the other parted her thighs. “Children were born. Twins. A boy and a girl,” he said, leaning in close to her ear. “They grew up in the house of gems as well. The king had a court, other men with interests such as himself and their offspring. Generations of gluttons raised with the knowledge that they should take as they wanted from those with less and that every whim be satisfied.” He leaned in closer, exhaling the next line on a murmured breath. “But the boy and the girl? They had only each other.”
She clenched her eyes shut, turning her head to the mattress as his fingers moved delicately along the inside of her thigh. He leaned in close to her, and even though her face was pressed to the mattress and she was barely able to breathe, she could still smell him, and though she was loath to admit it, it was another pleasure she wanted to take comfort in. He smelled expensive, yes, but he also brought to mind dim, secret, wooded places where sunlight streamed in muted beams of light and wild sage grew. She’d smelled only her own funk for so long that the clean scent of him felt like a luxury. How could a scent convey all that? She didn’t know, and yet it did. His scent had . . . layers.
She felt like she was losing her mind. In a sense maybe she was, her brain doing cartwheels as her thoughts merged with the relaxation of her body, as she both enjoyed it and hated it. She tried desperately to suppress her pleasure. She despised this man. Whoever he was, she hated him even more than the others. She hated herself for her body’s betrayal. Hated herself for wanting more of what he was giving her.
He kneaded the backs of her thighs and then dragged the pads of his fingers down them, making her toes curl. He let out a soft chuckle. He’d seen her reaction; the laugh had told her so. “Is this wrong, little rabbit? I suppose it is. But when so much is wrong, sometimes you must find what rightness you can.”
He came over top of her. She felt his heat, and she braced for some sort of invasion, but then he applied both hands to her shoulders, massaging deeply, his thumb moving up the back of her sore neck, releasing the tightness and tension she’d held there for so long. Oh God, yes. Despite her attempt to bite it back, a deep moan came up her throat, breaking free of her mouth as she pressed her face more firmly into the bedding so that her air was all but cut off. No, no, no.
“That’s it,” she heard him say through the fog of pleasure. “Let it make you angry, Noelle. You’re so hot when you’re mad.” After a moment, she turned her face, gulping in a breath, warm tears soaking her blindfold. He’d broken her. That moan meant he’d won.
Somehow, of all the shames she’d endured, this one was the worst. She’d let a monster give her pleasure. She’d all but admitted to him that he had.
“It all ended,” he murmured, continuing on with whatever story he’d decided to tell her for reasons unknown, “the night of the king’s annual ball—his version of one anyway, even if the scheduled merriment was unusual for a ball. That’s when the massacre happened.”
She attempted not to move, not to let him know in any way that, even now, she wanted his hands to start stroking her flesh again. Instead, she focused in on his story to distract herself from her painful desire. Massacre? What was the point of this? “One of the women displeased the king, and he slit her throat right in the middle of the ballroom. The others, fueled by drugs and the sight of blood, went just a little wild, and the killings began. It didn’t stop until the eleven women they’d stolen and three members of the household staff were dead. And still, little rabbit, the music played on.”
He removed his hands from her skin and got off her, and God help her, she suddenly missed his warmth. When he spoke, his voice was casual. “Like the man I told you about, and yet very different, I collect things as well, little rabbit,” he said. “As you have nothing to offer that I might take with me, I should like you to create something. A poem. A note. A drawing, perhaps. Something personal to frame and hang in my gallery. Something to make me smile and remember this interlude.”
Interlude? What a sick joke. What the fuck was he talking about?
The mattress lifted as he stood. “The paper and pencil are on the desk. I paid a king’s ransom for both. Please make it worthwhile. You’ll be asked to leave both behind. The powers that be determined that writing utensils were against the rules once out of view. Secret messages and all. It wouldn’t be fair now, would it? Once I leave, you may remove the blindfold. It’s been a pleasure, little rabbit. I hope you take something of our time together with you as well.”
She waited, her breath hitching as she heard the door open and then softly close. Noelle ripped the silk blindfold from her eyes, simultaneously rolling over and sitting up. She tossed the small piece of silken fabric aside and blinked at the empty space before her, sure she could see the outline of the man in the air before her as though he’d disturbed the atmosphere and it was taking a moment to fill back in the space he’d just occupied. Stupid.
You’re so hot when you’re mad. The words hung in her head similar to the imagined outline of him. Even in her haze, they’d seemed odd. Or maybe it was because he’d said them at the precise moment he had—on the heels of her unbidden and oh-so-telling moan—that they’d imprinted on her brain that way. But also . . . they hadn’t fit the persona she’d assigned to him. They sounded more like some current teen than a sophisticated man who wore cologne that probably cost more than the rinky-dink car she drove.
The man by the door remained still, staring straight ahead, his firearm held by his side. Noelle brought her hands to her naked breasts, jumping off the bed and quickly dressing in her filthy clothes. She took a minute to pull herself together as best as possible, eyeing the singular piece of white paper on the table, a pencil sitting beside it.
She took the few steps to the desk, then picked up the pencil and tapped it lightly as she assessed the sharpness of the point. She considered using it to lunge at the man with the gun behind her, but he’d likely shoot her before she had a chance to turn and make it across the room. Would Evan hear the shot from below? Would he realize right away that he was now completely alone?