Deadly Captive (5 page)

When it ended, I stayed where he left me, without the will to move. I watched as he and the woman approached Joe. Cyrus unchained Joe and threw him to the ground, keeping him there with a boot on his neck. The woman pulled down Joe's pants and took his dick in her hand. She jerked him off until he got hard, then bunched her skirts and straddled him. Groaning, she lifted her hips, then dropped them, over and over, faster and faster. Joe tried to turn my way, tried to ignore her.

Cyrus kicked him in the face. "Don't draw this out needlessly, Joe. Now that I've had my pleasure, you'll find my patience wears thin."

Joe closed his eyes, bent his knees, and began thrusting up. A little mewling sound left the woman's lips as she put her hands into her dress and freed her breasts.

Playing with her nipples, she began to moan, the sound rising with every thrust.

Suddenly, she dropped down hard, grinding against Joe.

Lying on top of him, she let out a contented purr and grabbed the back of his neck, pulling his mouth roughly against hers. Joe made a little sound in the back of his throat, bucking up. Blood seeped past their locked lips. After what seemed like a very long time, Joe relaxed against the ground, very still.

The woman rose, stepped over him, and took Cyrus's arm. Using her fingers to clean the thick coat of blood from her chin, she smiled. "That was lovely. I think I'll try this one again sometime." She fluttered her eyelashes. "Can we try the young ones now?"

Cyrus laughed and hugged her. "You, my love, are utterly insatiable." He turned with her toward the door. "Let's go try them out. I have to warn you, though. Things get quite . . . noisy."

The door shut behind them. For a long while, I didn't move, didn't breathe.

When I'd finally convinced myself they weren't coming back, I drew on what strength I had left and rolled off the bed. Hitting the floor hard, I lay there, stunned. When the feeling of paralysis left, I pushed myself onto my side, then to my stomach. Dragging myself along the floor, I moved to Joe's side.

Joe turned his head and reached his arm toward me. I lifted my head, so very heavy now, and rested it on his shoulder.

"This. This is what you were trying to warn me about." My voice was as drained and weak as I was.

Joe managed a slight nod. "Yes." His voice was even fainter than mine was.

I closed my eyes, almost ready to let sleep take me. But, first, I needed to ask one last thing. "How did you know?"

Exhaling roughly, Joe struggled to turn toward me. Finally, when his body wouldn't cooperate, he gave up. "The food. It's usually steak. But they save the good stuff for when they're about to feed."

There were more questions, dozens more, but I didn't have the strength left to ask them. One thought clung to my mind as nothingness took over.

Cyrus had called us pets. That was a lie. We were fodder.

I didn't know how much time had passed. Days, weeks, it was impossible to tell.

Our cell had no windows through which to watch the sun rise and fall, no clocks to tell us whether a minute had passed, or an hour. I asked Joe once how long he'd been there.

He shrugged and asked why he'd want to know.

It was a very good question.

Our time awake together fell into a comfortable rhythm. We'd rise, we'd eat—

silently grateful for the gruel—and then we'd exercise. At first, I'd felt silly jogging in place and doing jumping jacks in front of Joe, but it didn't take long for me to figure out that he took the ritual very seriously and could spare no time to mock me. Then it was pushups, sit-ups, leg exercises, and finally stretching. It kept us fit and passed the time.

Some days we sparred, and Joe commented a few times, with embarrassing enthusiasm, on how well I did. My blocks were effortless, my punches solid, and I could break out of any hold. Joe carefully evaded my kicks after the first time I bloodied his nose and joked that he wouldn't want to meet me in a dark alley. I was proud that, even though my mind was blank, my body had retained something. I was especially pleased that Joe seemed proud of me, too.

I never knew how much his praise meant until the day he stopped treating me like a student and started treating me like . . . more.

Hair filled my mouth and I spit it out, panting as Joe straddled my hips, arm on my throat. He swiped a hand over his bloody bottom lip and grinned.

"You're ruthless, you know that?" He moved his arm and braced his hands on the floor at either side of my head. "Every time I think I've got you beat, you take the game to another level, tip the odds. I don't want to do any permanent damage."

Chest heaving, I licked my lips. "Well, that sucks, 'cause I don't feel the same."

"Obviously." Warmth stole into his flint-colored eyes. He brought a hand to my cheek and brushed away the last clinging strands of hair. "So strong, but there's something soft and vulnerable in there. I wish we were in a place where I could get to know that part of you."

I bent my elbows and brought my head up until our noses almost touched. I whispered because, even though we were alone, there was no telling who might be listening. "I'm not soft. What you've seen in this cell is all I am. Literally."

"You're more." He lowered his mouth and smiled against my lips. "I feel it, just beneath that hard shell." The tip of his tongue traced my bottom lip. "So sweet."

My heart skipped a few beats. I wrapped my arms around his neck and let him lower me to the floor. "Really? And what else do you feel?"

He teased my tongue with his, angling his head to reach deeper. I made a muffled sound of frustration when he caught my tongue between his lips and sucked at it. I brought my hands to his shoulders and shoved.

"What else?"

Rolling off me to lay on his side, he put his hand on my stomach. "Passion, smothered by fear."

I gave him a hooded look. "I'm not afraid right now. Actually, I've never felt safer."

With his hand on my hip, he turned me to face him. His cocky half-smile told me I'd stroked his ego. "Because of me?"

My laugh wiped the smile right off his lips. "No, because I proved I could kick some arrogant male ass."

"Who's on their back, at the mercy of this 'arrogant male'?" He eased up the skirt of my makeshift dress and slid his hand over my ass. "I think I won this round."

"I let you win." I shivered when he moved his hand, and the cold of the room swept in to take the place of his warmth. I closed my eyes and inhaled. "I like being at your mercy. I know I won't get hurt."

"Lydia, you don't have to . . . ."

I opened my eyes, and he shut his mouth. "Yes, I do." I held out my hand, and he took it, twining our fingers as I sat, facing him. "You know what really scares me? Not all this, not the worst of what those bastards can do to me, it's . . . . "My throat constricted, as though trying to hold in the revelation. I swallowed and spoke in a rush.

"It's that I might die this empty, useless thing—"

"Enough." He squeezed my fingers. I pressed my lips together and dropped my eyes. His hand smacked the floor by my hip as he leaned forward and his brow touched mine. "You are not useless. Or empty. Now get up."

The room swayed a little when I wrenched away from him and shot to my feet.

He hovered near my side for a moment, then turned his back on me. I watched him tear the sheets off the bed and pile them on the floor.

I'd read him wrong. He'd seen how pathetic gentleness could make me. He was going to cut himself off from me completely.

He pointed at the sheets. "Get comfortable."

The tips of my ears burned with anger and humiliation. I snatched up the sheets and carried them to the corner. Spine stiff, I knelt and spread them out, folding them for extra cushioning from the hard, gritty floor.

"Forget everything I said." I curled up on the blanket with my back to him. "Lack of oxygen to the brain. Gotta practice breathing properly when I'm working out."

At the harsh sound of ripping fabric near my head, I frowned and glanced over my shoulder. Joe covered my eyes with a length of shredded sheet and trapped my face with his forearms so he could tie it.

"Stop it." He held my arms at my sides when I tried to remove the blindfold. "I won't make love to you in this dirty cell. Just relax and listen."

I grumbled and strained against his iron grip, then sighed and did as he asked—

relaxed and listened.

The darkness brought back the first of my memories, the time he'd taken me wrapped in chains for the amusement of an unseen crowd. His hands on my body, positioning me at an incline with one leg extended and one knee bent, conveyed me to the present. I'd said I trusted him. I meant it.

Finding my arms slack, he placed one across my ribs and the other stretched over my head. Then, he began to speak.

"There's a place I go when I want some peace, deep in the Sahara. I want to take you there." The deep timbre of his voice took on the soft, lulling quality of a hypnotist, matching his cadences to the sway of an invisible pendant. "The heat of the desert is deadly, rife with centuries' worth of unmarked graves where the victims of the sun and sandstorms lie. There's incredible beauty to be found, but the desert guards it jealously.

We brave the journey together, and I leave you for a time to travel just a little further to a small village for supplies. You're too proud to admit it, but you're happy to stay. You know I won't be long." I could hear him settling down nearby, but my mind fixed on the imagined setting. He continued to paint the scene with words. "The oasis, surrounded by monstrous golden dunes, is impossible to happen upon by chance. You find shade by the lagoon, under an outcropping of stones smoothed by centuries of sand storms.

The rock you lay on is warm and soft as your own flesh. To cool your body, you stretch your legs and dip your toes into water that feels like liquid velvet."

My legs moved of their own accord, and I could almost feel the water on my wiggling toes.

"When I return, laden with huge canvas sacks full of treats I know you'll enjoy, I have to stop for a moment and stare. You look like a desert goddess, wrapped up in a sarong that a native taught you how to tie at one shoulder like a dress. The rich, white fabric covers you like a cloud, and my palms are itching to undo the knots." The heat of his fingers drifted over my shoulder and then receded. "But I don't, because what I want doesn't matter. This is for you." He touched my lips, anticipating my objections. "So I set down my load and fish out all the ingredients I need for a fruity cocktail."

Quiet footsteps padded across the room. Cloth rustled. Liquid sloshed. He came back, lifted my hand, and helped me curl my fingers around a glass. He propped me up and scooted close. The bare flesh of his chest warmed my back. The rim of a glass tipped to my lips. Peach-flavored liquor filled my mouth. Then he took the glass, and it clinked on the floor.

"You savor the drink and smile at me. Tell me you've missed me. There's a sweetness in your smile that cuts through the steel of my heart like a diamond blade."

Tears gathered in my eyes and soaked into the blindfold. I was grateful that he couldn't see them. They didn't belong in his fantasy.

Joe cleared his throat. "A hot breeze rises from the water and your hair, turned red and gold in the sun, spills over my hands, and I'm tempted to cover myself in it. I can't help touching it."

With a little tug, he freed all my hair. His fingers combed through the mass, and loose strands fluttered over my shoulders. I shivered.

"The sun sets, and the air cools. The abrupt change in temperature is a shock to your sun-soaked body. I ask if you want a wrap. You say I am all you need."

I had to tell him. "You are."

"And I know your words come from the depths of your soul. For the first time in my life, I am humbled. I kneel at your feet." His hands wrapped around my feet. His thumbs massaged the soles. "I can tell by the way you're squirming that you want me to cover you with my body." And I was squirming. I could feel the cold. "But I want to take it slow, worship each and every inch of you."

"Damn it, Joe." I tugged at my feet as he locked his hands around my ankles.

His lips closed over my big toe. He sucked and blew at the moisture to send a shiver of sensation up my thighs. "You whisper my name."

"Joe!" I laughed when he lapped a long, wet line up the sole of my foot and groaned when his teeth grazed up one calf. Nerves twitched, absorbing the sweet, placid contact. Taut muscles jumped when he kissed his way down the other calf and went back to lavishing my toes with his tongue. "You're taking this too far."

"You beg for satisfaction, but I hold back." With his hands still shackled to my ankles, Joe rose up on his knees and towered over me, even as he pried my legs apart.

"A little."

The core of me opened, hot and wet as the water in his desert. I felt his tongue, thick and hard, dip inside, catching every drop of moisture like a gourde. Throbbing tissues clenched spastically every time he withdrew. Balanced on the razor's edge between rapture and torment, I made a pitiful sound deep in my throat.

"Shh." Joe whispered and laid a gentle kiss on the crease between my pussy and my thigh. "Let me draw it out. Remember, we're in paradise. We have all the time in the world."

Bottom lip trapped between my teeth, I let my head fall back with a
thunk
, then moaned and writhed as his tongue circled my slit. "Right there."

"Here?" His hands pressed down on my hips even as his tongue flicked my clit.

A blaze of white fire spiraled deep, and I whimpered. The tip of his tongue snaked over the flesh between my slit and anus. "Or here?"

I couldn't answer, because my body felt like it was bound to a rack, forced open to be tortured in the most exquisite ways.

Something cool drizzled over the sweltering kiln of my core, and the fragrance of peaches joined the musky scent of my arousal. Joe licked it up with delicate strokes.

"You're overheating." He whispered against my mound. "I want your first climax to be gentle. Save the explosion for when I'm inside you."