Chained (Caged Book 2) (15 page)

Kloe, hearing the door close, pointed in any vague direction. “And she hates me! Did you vet her? Are you sure she’s not got some ulterior motive for being here?”

Paranoia was a bitch, and I clicked my tongue. On top of everything else, Kloe now had to deal with her jealousy.

Taking a step into her and pinning her between my body and the wall, I lowered my voice. “I haven’t touched you because I want you healed and happy. I want to see pleasure in your eyes, not fright, not pain, and definitely not this bitter submission. I want you back, feisty, strong and full of fight.” Lifting my hand, I palmed the side of her face, hating the bubble of tears that coated her dead eyes. “I miss you, little wolf. I need you.”

She blinked, and for a moment, the way her face softened, I thought I’d gotten through to her.

“You didn’t answer my question, Anderson. Have you been screwing Sarah?”

Closing my eyes, I sighed. “No, Kloe. No. I haven’t seen Sarah.”

She pushed me away and stepped towards the bed. Red, who was sitting close, didn’t have a chance to move out of the way. Kloe stumbled into her and tripped, her hands luckily hitting the floor before her head did. I turned quickly, but not quickly enough to stop her falling.

Red, righting herself, moved straight to Kloe, checking she was okay.

I stood, horrified, when Kloe’s arm swung to the side and she belted Red across the head so hard she flew sideways. “You stupid cunt!” Kloe yelled vehemently, spit flying from her mouth as Red cowered and backed away.

Rage hit me. My chest split with pure anger and my veins burned with violence.

Kloe cried out when I grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her upright. “ENOUGH!” I screamed as I slammed her back against the wall.

Her head flung backwards and bounced off the wall. Fear drained the blood from her face as she tried to shrink away from me. “You think you’re the only one who is hurting! But you’re not! This doesn’t just affect you, it affects us all, including Red. She has done nothing but encourage you. Love you.”

I was so angry that my fingers dug deep into her shoulders as I shook her. Her head bobbed back and forth as I gave into the unrestrained need to punish her. “It’s over! It’s done! Terry may have started this but there’s only you that can finish it! Stop letting him fucking win!”

She blinked at me, her mouth opening and closing. She was trying to find words but struggled with the ability to form any. She stared up at me, her wild blue eyes sweeping over my face as she fixated on my rage.

“I can’t do this with you if you won’t allow me to help you!” I yelled, closing in on her face.

Her eyes widened as they dropped to my mouth and then back up to my eyes. Once again she tried to talk, however, nothing but a puff of air managed to find its way out.

“You’re alienating everyone who can help you. Me included!”

“Anderson.” My name from her was full of shock, a quiet whisper that seemed all too loud in my ears. Her hand lifted and came to rest on my cheek. “You’re so beautiful,” she breathed, her gaze moving over me like she was eating me up with her eyes.

It finally clicked and all the fury overpowering me left my body in a rush of breath. “Kloe?”

A single laugh left her. The tears that had gathered in her eyes spilled over. Her fear transformed into sheer, undiluted happiness. Her eyes moved back to my mouth as her thumb swept across my bottom lip. “I can see you,” she whispered, as though saying it out loud would take everything away from her again.

I framed her face with my hands, staring into the crystal clear irises than owned my heart. Life shone back at me, hope and surprise making her pupils large and greedy. My smile outdid hers. She laughed louder as I pulled her to my body, my arms sliding around her and holding her to me in case she shot for freedom now her sight had returned.

I didn’t need to worry. She lifted her face and reached up on her tiptoes to kiss me. The soft feel of her lips on mine, the taste of her happy tears on my tongue, and the press of her frail body against mine, consumed me.

She moaned in desire and sobbed in joy, both piercing my gut and making me squeeze her tighter.

“I’m sorry,” she said against my mouth. “I’m so sorry, Anderson.”

“Shut up and kiss me again,” I groaned. “I missed you.”

Her hands slid up my back and into my hair. Pressing the back of my head, she guided my mouth back to hers, and she kissed me like she had missed me just as much.

Her little body climbed mine and her legs came around me.

Shaking my head, I lifted her back down. “Not yet.” I could see the need in her eyes, the greed for me exposed so openly on her beautiful face. “Slowly, Kloe. We do this slowly.”

She frowned, her bottom lip disappearing behind her teeth. “But I need you.”

I smiled softly, stroking my knuckles over her cheek. “You think you need me. You’ve been through too much. Terry hurt you so much.”

She knew I was referring to him raping her. She gulped, her large eyes shimmering with both horror and adoration. “But you’re not Terry. The pain you inflict lights me up. It comes with love and devotion, not hatred and cruelty.”

She sighed against me when I scooped her into my arms and carried her into the bathroom attached to my bedroom. Seating her onto the toilet, I started to run a bath. She watched me silently, her eyes moving over everything as she hungrily devoured reality.

Filling the tub with a mass of bubbles, I stripped her naked, biting my lip at each scar that covered her pale skin, and lowered her into the warm water.

We didn’t speak, we just allowed the calm to heal us as I washed her hair and bathed her broken body.

The tears that rolled down her cheeks seized my heart and fractured it little by little. But I didn’t disturb her grieving as I continued to care for her; she needed to let it take her. It was the only way.

“You need to know something.” She spoke quietly but turned to look at me.

I frowned and nodded, urging her to go on.

She appeared to struggle for a while but forced the words out. “Terry said something that didn’t make sense at first.”

My skin prickled with a sense of foreboding. “What?”

“He kept referring to ‘him’. How
he
would be so happy, so pleased with Terry. That soon, when
he
arrived, things would change. For all of us.”

The beat of my heart stilled and my eyes widened on her. “That doesn’t make sense.”

She swallowed, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them as her body heaved with a sudden chill. “There’s another player, Anderson. Someone else is involved in all this.”

T
WO DAYS LATER,
A
NDERSON AND
Robbie had been down in the basement for over three hours. He had promised me he wouldn’t kill Terry, and in his exact words he would only ‘tease the truth out of him but leave the rest to me.’

I wasn’t sure I wanted him to ‘leave it to me’. I never wanted to lay eyes on Terry Asher ever again, but Anderson insisted it would be the only way for me to move on. I don’t think he got that I wasn’t like him, that violence and retribution didn’t fuel the calm in me.

Caroline came in and smiled. She was quite pretty, her full figure and bright twinkling eyes a true replica to how I had pictured her in my head.

Everything seemed so clear, each inane object sharp and vivid, each colour ten times more vibrant than how I used to see them. It wasn’t that my eyesight had improved, just that I now appreciated every single thing in my vision.

My eyes were still sensitive to light, but Anderson had drawn the curtains before he had descended down the rickety steps into hell.

“It’s so good to see you up and about, Kloe.” Caroline beamed as she stood a safe distance from me.

Shame made my cheeks heat. I lowered my eyes to my lap where Red’s head stayed completely still under the stroke of my fingers, my apology to her already accepted. “I’m sorry, Caroline. I…”

Instantly she waved off my apology. “Don’t you worry. I’ve dealt with worse. Much worse.”

I doubted that very much but I appreciated her kindness.

“How is your pain level?” she asked, already delving into her box of tricks before I could give her an answer.

“I’m okay. It’s bearable.”

“Are you sure? It’s better to deal with little niggles before they become big problems.”

I smiled and nodded. “I’d rather not drown my baby in drugs, but thank you.”

“Your baby is completely fine. The painkillers won’t affect him in the slightest. But what will affect him is an unhappy mum.”

Giving in, I shifted in the chair, wincing at the pull on my sore skin. “Well, if it’s safe.”

Her smile answered my question. She placed two tiny pills into a small pot and handed them to me with a glass of water. She was still wary around me, and watching the caution in her made me hate myself even more than I already did.

Red nudged me, sensing the dip in my mood, and licked my hand. She had been beside me ever since I had come back here, and her love and infinite loyalty would never be taken for granted again.

The change in Anderson was astonishing. Gone was the cruel, angry man that had taunted me and made me cry. The first side of him that I’d encountered at Seven Oaks was dominant, his tenderness consuming me in adoration and attentiveness. The way he looked at me with both devotion and sadness alerted me to the fact that he was holding something back from me. I’d asked him many times since my sight had come back what was bothering him but he’d brushed me off every time. Yet I saw it, and it scared me.

“Are you hungry?” Caroline asked as she hesitantly slipped the thermometer into my ear.

Food. I hadn’t had an ‘attack’ for weeks, but the shift in my heart rate told me that I needed to settle the quickening of anxiety before it became a problem. “Actually, I thought I’d fix myself something today.”

Caroline’s eyebrows elevated but she smiled. “I think that’s an excellent idea.”

I nodded, agreeing with her, and already shifting off the bed.

I was still in my pyjamas, still with paper and pen in hand, still desperately counting the contents of Anderson’s pantry when his dark voice made me jump.

“Do we have enough food for the apocalypse, or not?”

My mouth dried and I blinked, recounting the packets of noodles I’d just finished tallying up.

Anderson’s fingers curled around my wrist, halting my rabid scribbling. “Kloe! Stop.”

“I won’t be long,” I muttered as I narrowed my eyes on the wheat crackers, trying to determine the number of packets lined up next to the bags of rice.

Strangely, his hold on me withdrew. “I made sure we were stocked, Kloe. You don’t need to do this.”

Vaguely giving him a shake of my head, I shifted aside some tins of fruit and tutted at the out-of-place packet of biscuits that had been hiding.

“WILL YOU FUCKING STOP!”

I jerked with Anderson’s sharp, loud yell but didn’t cease my endless counting; there were too many things to document.

I gasped, crying out when his hand snatched the top of my arm and I was yanked out of the pantry and across the kitchen. My cheek hit the wooden top of the table and Anderson’s hand held the back of my head, forcing me down. His body totally eclipsed mine, the fullness of his strong chest and stomach pressing against my back.

“I – told – you - to – stop,” he hissed in my ear. His breath rushed over my face causing a shiver to journey around my body. My skin prickled with awareness, the violence that flowed from every one of his pores lighting the parts deep down inside me that craved what I knew he could give me.

His hard cock pushed between the crack of my arse, my thin silk pyjama bottoms providing no barrier, and slowly, he started to rub up and down, his angry breathing turning into a warmth of desire.

His fingers curled, twisting my hair around his hand to use as leverage to pull my head back. “You think I would allow you to go hungry?”

I shook my head as much as possible in his hold, feeling his anger ride over me. “No.”

“No,” he echoed. “You will never go hungry again, Kloe. Never.”

His cock pressed into my bottom, the feel of the silk pressing into my backside making my heart throb hard. I pushed back against him, begging, pleading with him to help me. “Anderson, please.”