Vanquish (16 page)

The shackles around Amber's ankles fell away. She yanked her legs together, knocking her knees, and the sudden movement sent stabbing pain through her hips. But it was anger—the sudden violence of helpless fury—that sharpened every nerve-ending in her body.

Van watched her from beneath hooded eyes and reached for her wrists. “You're an unforgettable fuck, Amber.”

She ground her molars, her voice low and harsh. “And you're a fucking rapist.”

His eyebrows pinched together. “You're pissed, but you went over the edge and exploded around my dick.” He freed one arm and murmured, “You needed that.”

The conversation was surreal, as if they weren't discussing an event she would relive and mourn every day for the rest of her life, however short that might be.

The final shackle dropped, and blood tingled through her hands. She scrambled toward the edge of the bed, but he grabbed her ankles, and dragged her back, wrestling her to sit sideways in his lap.

She fought him, slapping and snarling, teeth bared, her muscles screaming with venom. But amidst her struggles slithered the chill of helplessness. If she managed to overpower him, to outsmart him,
to escape
, where would she run? Outside?

Was she seriously trying to convince herself that a naked cuddle with a rapist was less scary than whatever waited beyond the front door?

He took advantage of her hesitation, his nudity slipping around her and his hands controlling her legs until she straddled his lap, sitting chest to chest, his arms locked around her back. Hot skin pressed against hers, slick and hard and entirely too close. She shoved against the twitching muscles on his chest, but his embrace was implacable, a steel cage of limbs.

His lips brushed the sensitive spot beneath her ear, and he breathed deeply, smelling her.

She shivered. She needed clothes, a shower, her routine, and...courage. Her fingernails dug into his back as she scanned the clutter strewn throughout the room. There, her robe, tossed over her duffel bags on the floor in the corner. The rest of the room... Oh my God.

A beer bottle sat on the dresser. Dirty socks piled beside the bed as if he'd just kicked them off and left them there. Two hangers hung on the closet doorknob. The nightstand... Wait. What?

Her aquarium sat against the far wall, filled with the broken fragments of her life. What did he intend to do with it? Would he torture her by destroying them beyond recognition? Would he be so cruel? She sat taller on his lap, her breasts dragging unnervingly against his chest, her voice cracking. “Why is that here?”

The gentle tiptoe of his fingertips along her arms aroused unnerving sensations over her skin. He nuzzled her neck. “It means something to you.”

A lump swelled in her throat. It was just a career, but it signified the beginning and end of a normal life. She stared through blurry eyes at the one possession she would've lamented leaving behind.

As heartless and forceful as he was, nothing cruel lingered in his expression now. He studied her with daunting tenderness and an innocent sort of curiosity, and she felt knocked off balance. And naked, which had nothing to do with her lack of clothing. What if he threw the keepsakes away? Or used them against her? “It's just some broken memorabilia.”

He held her in place as he massaged the soreness from her wrist. “It was the only sentimental belonging in your house, and you had it displayed.” His touch moved over her wrists, gentle and attentive. “You liked to look at it, which tells me someone else destroyed it. Who?”

An angry pulse throbbed behind her eyes. Brent had taken a sledgehammer to everything that mattered to her. Except her career. That was on her. But she wasn't about to tell Van any of that. He didn't know about her ex-husband, and she couldn't afford to expose any more of herself beneath his perceptive eyes. So she decided on stubborn silence.

His hands moved to her calves and ankles, kneading the muscles, coaxing circulation, and easing her stiffness. She didn't trust his tenderness for a second, and her vulnerability escalated with each soothing caress.

He seemed to be distracted with his hands busy on her legs. She could slip off his lap and run.

And run where? The closet? Or she could endure his touch and try to figure him out. “What are you doing?”

“I got carried away. I never checked the cuffs, and they were too tight.” His eyes were fixed on his fingers, but she sensed his attention was singularly focused on her. On her shallow breaths, the prickles bumping up her flesh. On what she might say next.

His profile was so painfully striking as he bowed his head, lips parted, face soft with affection. Any woman would've fallen into his bed at the crook of his finger. Hell, she'd offered the night she'd met him, and didn't that just dig under her skin? “You turned me down; then you returned and took me by force. Are you a serial rapist? A stalker? A murderer?” She trembled to put the space of the room between them but forced her eyes to his and whispered, “What are you?”

Something slipped over his expression, a menacing shield that turned his jaw to stone. He gripped her waist and set her on her feet, pushing her away. His elbows dropped to his knees as he watched her from beneath sharp brows, eyes creased in searing slits, voice quiet. “I'm the heir of torment, Amber.”

She stepped back, hands shielding her groin and breasts.

He rose and held out his arms, unabashedly nude. “I'm the slippery footprints in your carpet. The creaking floor that steals air from your lungs. The hand that holds the gun.” He paced through the room, snagging a pair of jeans from the floor, and met her eyes. “I'm the inescapable curse that caught you when you opened your door.”

A shiver rippled through her and settled into her bones. Not a hint of arrogance in his words. Just the steady monotone of unresisting acceptance. As if he'd rehearsed that creepy speech or had at least given it a lot of thought.

She darted for her robe, shrugged it on, and turned to face him with a semblance of courage now that she was covered. “You don't have to be those things.” She pushed back her shoulders and gave him a practiced response of her own. “You could be the nemesis of torment.”

He pulled on the jeans, regarding her with an unreadable expression. “Is that what Dr. Michaels told you? Some cockamamie horseshit about confronting fear with its adversary, courage?”

How did he know who— Of course. Her call log. Yeah, that was exactly what Dr. Michaels had said. She refused to tell him so, and while seeing him clothed from the waist down should've mollified her somewhat, she couldn't relax. He was too unpredictable. He probably let her put the robe on just so he could tear it off and rape her again.

She glanced around the room, stepping backward and tripping over scattered clothes and shoes. Without thinking, she gathered up shirts, pants, and dirty socks and walked them to the hamper in the closet. “Am I your first?” First stalking? Kidnapping? Rape?

“No.” The single word pierced through her back and stabbed her heart. “Your next door neighbor was my first. Her lover was my last. There were seven in between.”

Nine slaves. What happened to them if he was still free to keep taking people? Her neighbors were still alive, obviously, but how?

His footsteps creaked the wood floors behind her, thankfully shifting farther away. She needed room to breathe, to focus. Squatting, she tackled the clothes on the floor. The scent of aftershave and the musk of man billowed around her as she stuffed the hamper, hung the belts, and searched for some order in which to place the pile of boots, sneakers, and sandals. But it wasn't enough to soothe her blooming panic. Her neighbors had survived him? They were alive and free right next door to her house? Had he let them go?

“Stop that.” His strides neared, pausing right behind her. “Don't ever pick up my shit.”

The harshness of his tone jerked her to her feet, and she spun to face him, chin raised. What she really wanted to do was cringe in the corner and hide from the seething brick wall, now wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and an icy glare.

She swallowed hard and found her voice. “My neighbors are your
old friends
? The reason you were on my porch?” Had there been any truth to his comment about watching them fuck on their table? She didn't know them, had never met them. “But they're free?”

“Liv and Joshua got away.” His eyelids dipped halfway, shuttering his eyes, but his face softened, almost peaceful-like, as did his voice. “They all got away.”

Why was he telling her this? To make sure she understood she was just one in a long line of violated bodies? She felt sick and inconsequential. Put in her place with a smart smack of reality. She was nothing to him but an easy fuck no one would miss.

But the others had escaped? Hope swelled through her insides, bright and full, lifting her nausea. He would grow tired of her neurotic quirks, if he hadn't already. Maybe he'd return her to her house before the mortgage defaulted. Maybe he'd kill her.

“Whatever you're thinking,
don't
. The circumstances with the others were different.” He reached out and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. “I ran a sex trafficking operation, Amber. Liv was the deliverer with too much damned power.
She
freed them. Not me.”

“Oh my God.” Her knees buckled, and she stumbled back into a clump of hanging clothes, clattering the hangers.
Sex trafficking. Slave.
Her lungs squeezed, and her blood drained to her feet. “I can't— Oh God, Van. Please, you can't do this.”

“Goddammit,” he snarled. “I don't do that shit anymore.” He wrenched her out of the closet by her arms and shoved her toward the stairs. “You're not going anywhere. You're
mine
.”

“What do you mean?” She tried to turn, to see his face, but he kept pushing her. “What do you want?”

His arm snagged her waist, pulling her back to his chest, and he half-carried her down the spiraling staircase. “You said you were ready. We're starting in the bathroom.”

Ready for what? Would he rape her in the shower? Drown her in the bathtub? She twisted, her toes skidding over the steps as he descended. “What starts in the—”

A blast of sunlight hit her face. Floor to ceiling, the two-story wall of glass towered over her. Trees of every size and shade of green spread out as far as she could see. Trails wound through clutches of thick trunks. Any random person could've been out there, gawking at her through the windows.

She flinched away from the exposure and curled against his chest. She wasn't dressed properly. Her hair hung in strands around her face. Full-body tremors arrested her lungs and strangled the shriek in her throat. He hooked an arm beneath her knees, another at her back, and carried her through the room of windows.

She screamed then, clutching his shoulders and hiding her ugly tears in his neck. “The windows...the windows. Please...” She sobbed, desperate, miserable, her skin rippling with terror. “You have to close them.” She clawed at his back, choking.

His arms dropped her, yanking her hands from their grip on his shoulders as she fell. Her back hit cushions on a couch with a full frontal view of the windows.

She scrambled backwards, fighting for air and losing her robe in her hellfire hurry to get away. He watched her, his brows sharpening into a
V
over narrowed eyes. Fuck him. She kept going, backing up and over the arm of the couch. Her ass crashed into a small table and sent it sprawling to the floor with her. The hard tiles bit into her tailbone, and tears burned her cheeks.
Escape. Hide.
Where?

The great room extended into an open kitchen and more windows. The stairs went to the loft and no escape. A door below the railing opened to...the bathroom?

Gasping, she jumped to her feet, staggered, and righted herself in a clumsy spin of naked limbs and jiggling tits. She was so fucking humiliated. Her chest contracted painfully, and her shoulders ached with tension.

The path to the door stretched out in an eternal walk through windowy hell. Eight running steps. Two sets of four.
Focus on that.
Her knees wobbled as she lurched forward, her body growing heavier with each step. Goddammit, she could do this.

His arm caught her waist and dragged her to the couch, flipping her to her back. She kicked and spit as he landed atop her, pinning her arms above her head and kneeling on her thrashing legs.

“Jesus.” His Adam's apple bobbed, and his beautiful face contorted into a blur. “Calm the fuck down.”

She roared and bucked beneath his crushing weight. “Let me go!”

“Are you possessed?” He leaned in, nose-to-nose, stealing her oxygen. “Are you going to start spitting Latin and tell me to lick you?”

His amused tone heightened her embarrassment and fueled the panic. The windows closed in, compressing her chest. She grabbed at the cushions and dug deep, for air, for strength, determined to have the last word. In one rage-filled burst of breath, she shouted, “Shove it up your ass, you cunting dick!”

He jerked back, and faster than the hammer of her heart, his fist slammed into her face. Fire burst through her cheek. Then the sun burned out.