Beyond Ransom (The Ransom Series) (7 page)

Shame

It’s been an entire week since the day
I was taken, and strangely, an uneventful week.  I haven’t left my cell except
for two short trips to the bathroom each day.

The men who take me there are
almost
always different, and I’m thankful that none of them have
tried to touch me or take advantage of me during their time in the presence of
apparently the only woman within this entire building.  They even let me do my
business with the stall door closed, and I savor every single
second
of those precious moments of privacy that I’m given.

There has to be a shower somewhere in
this building, but if there is, they aren’t letting me use it.  I’m given a wet
washcloth once a day and told to wipe myself down during my time in the
bathroom.  I feel only slightly better afterward, though the stench and grime
of this place seem to stick to me no matter how hard I scrub at my skin.

I’m given one meal and a water bottle
around what I believe to be lunch time each day.  It’s always paper plates,
plastic utensils, and plastic water bottles.  They’re smart enough not to give
me any kind of glass or ceramic dishes or actual silverware.  I keep hoping
that someone will slip up and give me any one of those things.  I’d save it for
a rainy day, hid
ing
it until I need it to fend off the
next person who tries to take advantage of me.

I haven’t been placed on display in the
main room with the other men since the day the skin on my throat
was
sliced
open for my parents to see.  That also means I haven’t
seen
them
or talked to them on Mark’s calls, either. 
I don’t even know if Mark is calling them at this point.  I’m clueless about
what he’s doing and where he is.  It’s not clear to me yet whether I should be
delighted or terrified by that.

Wherever Mark is, Leo must be with him,
because I haven’t seen him since the night he engaged me in the most exhilarating
and explosive kiss of my life.  Being alone in this cell for hours on end each
day has given me a lot of time to think, to process this strange connection
that Leo and I share, and I still don’t know what to make of it.  It doesn’t
make any sense to me why he’d seem to care for me when the rest of the men in
this building only see me as a piece of meat dangling in front of their faces.

The fact that Leo hasn’t stopped to
check on me makes me worried.  I find myself wondering if he’s okay, which is
stupid considering he’s not the one locked in a cell
and
at the mercy of a madman.  The thought has crossed my mind that
maybe he doesn’t care, that he left me here to rot and I shouldn’t expect to
receive his protection or compassion again. 

There’s one other thing about Leo that
I’ve thought
about
a lot during my time alone here. 
That kiss.  That beautiful moment when our bodies connected as one and for a
short time I forgot about the
constant fear
and
worry.  We transcended this place in that moment, and I crave to be there
again.  I crave it almost as much as I
yearn for
open
air and warm sunshine.  I crave it almost as much as seeing my parents again.

We shared a perfect moment together,
and then it shattered.  I feel like Leo has left me, abandoned me.  The only
person
here
who seemed to give a damn about me is
seemingly gone, leaving me to fend for myself.

I’m left alone with my thoughts for too
long, trying to put myself back into that moment to experience it all over
again even if Leo is nowhere to be found.  I’m lying on the cot, my thoughts
lingering
on
his rough lips introducing themselves to
mine and his needy tongue mingling with my own.  I miss the feeling of his
hands in my hair and the touch of his fingers on my cheeks.  What starts as a
gentle warmth deep in my core intensifies to a burning heat just thinking about
him.

Frustrated, I roll around on the cot in
my body’s natural reaction to dealing with the ache inside me.  I’m desperate
for some kind of release, so much so that my hand grazes my breast and squeezes
it.  My other hand lingers down to my shorts, my fingers rubbing at the cause of
my current crazed state and sending a jolt of pleasure to course through me.  I
can feel the increasing heat in my cheeks with each quickening of my breaths.

I hear a key enter the lock.  In an
instant I turn on my side to face the wall and remain completely still.  My
eyes close in a silent prayer that whoever is entering my cell will just check
on me then
walk away
.

Any hope for that outcome dwindles as the
light turns on.  My chest constricts as I hear the door open wide and then close. 
My heart beats faster with each approaching footstep.

“Look at me, Morgan.”

It’s Mark.  He standing over me.  We’re
alone in this cell.

With each of these realizations
,
my breathing quickens further and fear takes hold of me.  I
find it physically impossible to move.  I can’t look at him.  I can’t do
anything.

“Morgan…” he calls out to me in a
singsong tone.

I need to refocus.  I have to comply.  With
a deep breath
,
I open my eyes and slowly roll onto my
back to look up at him.  I’m completely vulnerable and at his mercy.

“There she is,” Mark says with a
sinister
smile.

He kneels down next to me, and I automatically
cringe away from how close he suddenly is to m
y face
. 
He’s right where Leo was making out with me only days ago.

He leans down to whisper in my ear. 
“Someone was getting a little worked up in here a minute ago.”

I shake my head.  “I don’t know what
you’re talking about,” I barely manage to squeak out.

Mark’s smile only widens.  He gazes
upon me in silence for a moment, observing my face and twisting loose strands
of my hair around his fingers.  “I heard you in here.  You were practically
moaning on this cot.  Why don’t you let me help you find what you’re looking
for?”

I think I’m going to be sick.  There’s
nowhere I can go.  No one I can turn to.  I’m fucked.

He’s going to fuck me
.

Tears instantly pool in my eyes.  “Please
don’t,” I beg.  I feel pathetic and weak for resorting to this so early, for
not fighting, but I’m not sure this is a battle I can win.

“Pull up your shirt, girl,” he
instructs.

“Please don’t do this.”

“You will pull up your shirt.  Now.” 
Mark grabs my wrist, squeezing so hard that his fingernails dig into my skin.

I reluctantly lift the bottom of my
shirt with my other hand, exposing my pink
cotton
bra
to him.  He releases my wrist to lean over me and reach under my back.  In his
movement to unclasp my bra, my chest automatically rises up to make space for
his hands, putting my breasts within inches of his face.  In one fluid movement
he pulls the bra away from me and grasps me in his hands.

“So soft,” he whispers before taking my
nipple into his mouth.

I hate the reaction he’s causing in my
body.  The wave of heat that flowed through me just minutes before is back,
except there is a man here only feeding the fire.  The mix of terror and
pleasure I’m feeling all at the same time is so damn confusing.

A gasp escapes my lips as he bites me. 
He’s sucking me harder now, tugging on me relentlessly between licks of his
tongue.

I wish I could tell my body to stop, to
calm the fuck down and realize that the man causing this pleasure is evil.  My
body doesn’t start to listen until Mark’s hands are working the zipper on my
jean shorts.

“No.  No!” I cry out.  “Stop!  Please
don’t.”  I’m screaming at him by the time he has my shorts and underwear down. 
I try to move my lower body away, but he has me pinned down and there’s nothing
I can do to stop him.

“You will let me do this,” he orders. 
“I will make you come.  I won’t stop until you come for me, Morgan.”

I shake my head vehemently.  “Please. 
I don’t want this.  Please stop.”

Tears stream down my face as his
fingers move swiftly down the skin from my belly button to the wetness between
my legs.  I yelp as his fingers violently enter me, violating that sacred space
that no man has ever been allowed to touch.

“You’re so wet, dear,” he whispers as
he forcefully moves his fingers in and out of me.

I hate that it feels good, that I’m
experiencing something I’ve wanted to experience my entire life but with the worst
possible person.  The devil is finger
-
fucking me
,
and it feels so damn incredible.

I’m washed over with shame.  I’m not
sure I’ll ever get the stain of it off me.

My body squeezes tightly a
round
Mark’s fingers as his movements quicken even more.  He’s pulling
me where I want to go but don’t.  I can feel the rise.  The edge of ultimate
pleasure
is
just moments away
,
and I’m about to fly off it.

I close my eyes and imagine for a
moment that it’s Leo touching me and feeling inside me.  It’s the final push I
need, and I completely explode.  The pleasure rolls through me in wave after
wave, but when I come down from the height of it
,
I
realize what’s happened.  My body has betrayed me.  It allowed my enemy to push
me to orgasm.

I’m so fucking ashamed.

“You enjoyed that,” Mark observes with
a proud smile, more than pleased with what he’s just done to me.

I remain speechless as a fresh wave of
tears spill down my cheeks.

“Tell me you enjoyed it,” he demands.

I remain silent.

“Tell me, Morgan.”

A sob escapes me.  I will not verbalize
my shame.

He slaps me
hard
across the face, the sting remaining long after his hand has left
my skin.  “You will tell me!”

“I did!” I scream, unable to control
the emotion exploding from me.  “I enjoyed every fucking second of it, you
sadistic asshole!”

Mark only smiles at me.  “Good.”

He gets up without another word and
leaves me alone with my guilt and shame.

Power

My eyes open cautiously at the sound of
footsteps
outside
the door.  I pray it isn’t morning
already.  There’s no sense of time in here.  With the lack of natural light in
this cell
,
it could be the middle of the night or
mid-morning and I wouldn’t have a clue either way.

Given the exhaustion still weighing
heavily on my body, I would guess I’ve only been asleep for a few hours.  Getting
over the events of Mark’s last visit took a lot out of me, not only because of
what he did to me, but because I allowed it to happen.

I should have fought harder against him
and the desires of my body.  I may not have been able to stop him, but I could
have resisted more.  It was careless for me to let myself get worked up and
show it with the movements and sounds of my body when I didn’t know if someone
was watching or listening outside my door.

Keys jingle in the lock to my cell. 
The door opens with a slight creaking sound but the light remains off.  I’ve
tried to become stronger about this, learning to control some of my fear and
panic.  I focus on the wall I’m facing and breathe steadily, inhaling and
exhaling through the rising pace of my pulse as the footsteps approach me.

The slight wind through the back of my
hair tells me someone’s directly behind me now.  I’m just waiting for Mark’s
voice to break through
before he
torture
s
me again.  He’s probably come back to
continue what he
started
earlier.

“Morgan?”  It’s Leo’s voice that finds
me, and while I should be grateful and relieved to hear it, I almost wish it
was Mark’s instead.  Leo has to know what happened.  Fuck, every man on Mark’s
crew probably knows what Mark did to me and how much I enjoyed it.

“You left me,” I say selfishly, sick of
shouldering all the guilt myself.  “You weren’t here.”

Leo takes a seat on the cot and leans
forward with his hand on my back to gauge my face.  I’m still turned away from
him toward the wall with no intention of moving.

“Tell me,” he implores.  “What did he
do?”

Tell me, Morgan
.  Mark’s words creep back into my head when Leo says this, and my
whole body shivers.

“Fuck.  Morgan, talk to me.”

“That’s what he did,” I say quietly.  “He
fucked me with his fingers.  And he sucked me.  Here.”  I nod downward toward
my chest before
turning and
pushing myself up some to
meet Leo’s gaze more directly.  “And I let him do it.  I’m a horrible, fucked
-
up person who let him pleasure me.”

I don’t notice the tears falling from
my eyes until Leo’s hand is there on my cheek to wipe them away.  I see the
compassion in his face and something else.  Maybe regret?

He pulls me up to him so that my head
is resting against his shoulder.  We sit for a long moment like this, silent
tears working themselves out of me as I cry away my shame.

“I thought about you,” I admit to him. 
“Every day, and even while it was happening.”

I don’t know why I’m saying this.  Maybe
it’s to move even more of the guilt off my shoulders.  Maybe it’s to let Leo
know that every day I wished he would make an appearance, that it was him I was
thinking about when I got so worked up that Mark heard me, that I imagined it
was his fingers and mouth pleasuring me instead of Mark’s.

“I’m sorry.  I should have been here,
but I
’ve had
to stay away.  When I saw Mark went from
pissed off to pleased in the ten minutes I hadn’t seen him
,
I knew I had to check on you.”  He pauses, seeming to consider his
next words carefully.  “Nothing has changed, though.  We still can’t do this.”

Leo’s hand
is
in my hair now, working through the tangled strands.  His
touch
move
s
to my arm
,
and he rub
s
the skin lightly.  I can tell by the way
he’s doing it and holding me that he doesn’t believe a word he’s saying.

“Bullshit.”

Leo stops moving and looks at me,
surprised.  “You have a bit of a mouth on you, don’t you?”

I can’t help smiling in confirmation of
his observation.  It feels good to smile.  The muscles in my face feel out of
practice at it, like they haven’t smiled in ages.

The smile is euphoric but also has a
secondary effect as I look up at Leo holding me in the limited light coming
through the small barred window in the door.  I feel a reemergence of
everything I’ve felt in thinking about Leo since our heated kiss.  My body’s
selfish desire is back and building to a raging force within me the longer I’m
in his strong arms.

At this moment I’m grateful there isn’t
more light coming into the room from the hallway.  I like that he can’t see the
blush in my cheeks.  It’s exciting to know that he’s not going to expect what
I’m about to say.

“I want you to erase what he did,” I
suggest as Leo stills behind me.  “Replace it with your own version
, t
he way it should have been.”

“Morgan…”

“Don’t say it.”  I take his hand from
my arm and place it directly on my breast, compressing it slightly.  “Tell me
you don’t want this.”

A deep groan emanates from Leo’s
throat, and I love the sound.  This is no boyish reaction to my advance.  This
is a sound from a man’s primal core.  It’s natural and raw, and it only makes
me want this more.

I reach behind me and unclasp my bra
before lying back down on the cot and pulling my shirt up as I go.  My breasts
are exposed to him in the direct path of the subtle glow of light coming from
the hallway.  My nipples are perked and ready, and Leo seems
eager
to receive them.

“God, you’re fucking perfect.”

He gently holds each side of my bruised
torso while engaging my breast with his mouth, pulling, sucking, and licking me
until I’m about ready to become undone.  There’s a subtle intensity in his
movements, something that almost amounts to admiration.  He keeps me just on
the edge of pleasure and pain, careful not to cross that line.

I guide his hand down my waist to the
hem of my shorts.  That’s all the encouragement he needs to get to work on the
button and zipper.  His fingers slip inside my underwear and immediately find
me where I’m swollen and wet for him.  He teases me, rubbing me in soft circles,
increasing the pressure then bringing me back down again.

By the time his fingers enter me
,
I’m holding on
to
the sides of the cot for dear life.  I love that he takes his time with it,
that he’s not violent and quick about it as Mark was.  It’s now that I realize,
stupidly, that Mark hadn’t pleasured me.  I see his actions as the violation
s
of my body that
they were now
that I know
what it’s
truly
like to be
pleasured by a man.

“More,” I gasp.  “I need more, Leo. 
Please.”

“I thought you’d never fucking ask.”

The primal side of Leo is out in full
force.  I hardly recognize him as he’s ripping my shorts and underwear off me. 
His head is between my legs, and the moment his tongue touches me I feel like
I’m floating with pleasure.  Searing heat tears through my body as he licks me
and sucks on me, and I can’t help the moans that escape me now.

I grasp the sheet of the cot beneath me
with both hands as his fingers enter me again while he licks me, and I can’t
hold back a moment longer.  A muffled gasp erupts from me as I come hard, my
hips writhing against his continued touch.  I ride it out all the way until the
tremors in my body finally subside.

Leo sits up on the cot.  We’re both quiet
and breathing hard for a few moments, trying to catch our breath, before he finally
speaks.  “Something better to remember, I hope.”

“Fuck.”  I throw my hand to my forehead
and look to the ceiling as I take another couple deep breaths.  “So much
better.”

I don’t feel guilty.  I don’t feel
shame this time.  Instead I feel power.  This is something I wanted, my one
moment of control, and I got it.

Fuck you, Mark
.

“I should go,” Leo says reluctantly. 
“This was…” he searches for the right word, “fun.”

I give him a knowing smile.  This was
more than fun.  This was fucking amazing.

“Please don’t stay away,” I call out to
him as he turns toward the cell door.  “Make this a regular thing, this
stopping by, and not just for this.”  I nod to where he was attacking me with
his tongue and mouth just moments before, a slight smile curving up my lips.

Leo considers my request for a moment
before opening the door completely and turning back around to me.  The shadowed
look on his face is intoxicating.

“I’ll try.”

I breathe a sigh of relief as he
disappears and
closes the door
behind him.