Despite himself, Dallas chuckled. “And there’s problem number 7536 we have to get past.”
Liam laughed. “You already told me that part will be a piece of cake.” He stood. “And one last thing. I’m going to give you the same advice about Jane that I’ll give you about me. Stop keeping shit from us.”
“You’re saying I should tell her about Colin?”
“Hell no. That shit you hide. At least until we’re certain. One way or the other.”
Dallas met Liam’s eyes. “Let’s hope for the other.”
“No kidding, man.”
They were walking out together when Dallas’s phone pinged to signal an incoming text. “Jane,” he said, glancing at the screen. “She says, ‘Look.’ ”
Liam glanced at him. “What the fuck?”
Dallas frowned. “There’s a picture attached. Hang on.” He opened it, then froze.
“Holy shit,” Liam said, obviously looking over his shoulder and seeing exactly what Dallas saw. Jane, and she was chained spread-eagled to a bed with a blindfold covering her eyes and clamps tight on her nipples.
Fear—cold and icy—cut through Dallas.
“Is there another message?” Liam asked. “A ransom demand? Someone sent this from her phone, but who the fuck would have—”
“Wait.” Dallas held up a hand, trying to think. Something about this was familiar. Something that eased his fear even though it didn’t quell it. “Wait,” he repeated. “This room. This room, it’s—oh, fuck,” he said, turning back to Liam. “This is the room she had built in her house.”
“The playroom you just told me about?”
Dallas nodded.
“So someone’s holding her in the townhouse?”
“I don’t think so,” Dallas said slowly. “I think she’s baiting me.”
Liam met his eyes. “You think she’d go that far?”
“Don’t you?”
Liam hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah, I think she would. So what are you going to do?”
Dallas didn’t even hesitate. “I’m taking the bait. I can’t risk the possibility that we’re wrong. And more than that, like you said, she and I need to talk.”
“And right now,” Liam said with a smirk, “at least she’s a captive audience.”
Fight Me, Fuck Me
I know that Brody is just upstairs, but it doesn’t matter. I’m alone in here. In the dark.
The room isn’t soundproofed, but it might as well be. I can hear nothing except my own breathing, which is growing more and more rapid the longer I lay here, tied down on this bed, unable to move, unable to do anything except remember—and hope beyond hope that Dallas is coming.
I’d thought this was a good idea. That by laying myself out like this he might finally, hopefully, understand that’s what I truly am to him. An offering. I’m offering myself up to him. My hopes, my dreams, my body, my life. I’m his, and he’s mine, and I just want him to finally get that. To embrace it. To love me so fully and completely that we go with each other as far as we can and need, no barriers, no qualms, no fears.
That’s my dream—and I want it so badly it’s palpable. But right now, that dream is shifting and moving. It’s twisting. Knotting up inside me.
It’s becoming a goddamn nightmare, and that is something that I didn’t expect when I’d committed to this crazy plan.
Mentally, I know that I only have to scream and Brody will come release me. But emotionally I’m sliding back through the years. I’m in a dark room. I’m tied down.
I’m fifteen again, and I’m terrified.
Terrified that I will never get out of this place. That she will leave me here to starve. That she will never take me back to Dallas.
That Dallas will never find me here in the dark. That he is gone from me for good.
That he won’t come for me.
That he won’t forgive me for pushing him.
That I’ll be bound here forever. Trapped here forever. Lost in this place between then and now.
This was a mistake, I think, as the tempo of my heart increases. I should never have let Brody tie me up. I should never have surrendered control. This was supposed to be about Dallas, but right now—like this—I don’t know if I can take it anymore. The fears. The memories.
I feel like ants are crawling on me. Like the dark is turning red. And though I struggle against the bonds, I can’t loosen them. On the contrary, everything is tightening. My wrists, my ankles. And I finally can’t take any more of it and I open my mouth to shout for Brody—only it’s Dallas’s name that comes off my lips when I hear the door crash open. And it’s Dallas’s face that I see when the blindfold is ripped off my face.
Dallas, looking scared to death and pissed as hell.
Dallas froze in the doorway, tossed back seventeen years as he saw the terror reflected on her beautiful face. Then he rushed to her and ripped off that damn blindfold.
“Jane,” he cried. “Jesus, Jane, who did this to you?”