Winner Takes All (A Full Length Erotic Romance Novel) (25 page)

“It would ruin him if he knew his name was
the last thing you screamed before you die.” The pale moon washed the color
from Barnes’s face as he smiled grimly down at her. So certain in what he was
about to do. Sasha clenched her teeth to prevent a whimper of fear from
escaping. But she trembled and her teeth chattered. The smell of the barn was
seared into her senses. Old hay, the mustiness of time, damp wood, insects
making their lives in the building that had been lain low by the elements,
rain, fire, sun, revenge.

Barnes grabbed at the front of her dress,
ripped it. Reached up and yanked the tape from over her mouth. “Scream his name
for me, you little bitch.” He pinched the tops of her breasts revealed by the
ripped clothing. “Scream it.”

“Fuck off, you psycho piece of shit!” Sasha
yanked her arms against the wood, against the ropes, her desperation and anger
giving her a strength she never knew she had. She reared up, butting him in the
head.

Barnes howled in pain and anger, jerking back
from her. Then just as suddenly, that flare of emotion dampened and he only
knelt over her, staring coldly at her bared breasts, at her eyes staring up at
him in hatred and fear.

“Is that how you want to play it?” He ripped
a piece of her dress and grabbed her face, squeezing the hinge of her jaw to
force her mouth open. Then he stuffed the piece of cloth into her mouth. When
he let her go, she stared up at him with all the hatred she could muster.

“You’re a fighter,” he said with an amused
laugh. “I like that. You can fight me all you want in here. I’m going to enjoy
this way more than you ever will.”

He got to his feet, grabbed the flashlight
and stalked from the burned ruins of the barn. Left shrouded in darkness,
swamped by her own fear, Sasha could only pant in fright. But she wasn’t about
to give up. She had finally found someone in the world who loved her, who
wanted the best for her and was willing to fight for her. She would fight for
their life together. She would fight for Damien’s happiness and for her very
life.

Sasha jerked her arms until it felt like they
would jolt out of their sockets, yanking hard and grunting around the cloth
stuffed in her mouth. Finally, her persistence was rewarded. The wood cracked.
She froze, unable to believe it. But the sound of Barnes returning to the barn
spurred her into action. She pulled her arms back experimentally. She had
broken through the wood and was no longer imprisoned to the stall. Sasha
wriggled to a sitting position, forcing her breath to be quiet.

She heard the sound of splashing, like water.
Then smelled gasoline. She froze.

No! Her eyes widened in realization of what
he was doing. Barnes walked in with a red gas can in one hand, a lamp in the
other. He knelt a few feet from her, plugged in the lamp into one of the walls
that had barely sustained any damage. She stared at him, wondering if he was
crazy enough to think that electricity was still connected to the old building
after all these years. He turned on the lamp and light flooded the barn.
Kneeling over the lamp, the light flared up from under him, creating a monster
out of his face.

Her panicked breath rushed around the cloth
in her mouth. For a moment, spots danced in front of her eyes. A ringing
sounded in her ears.

You will not pass out. You will not!

Sasha blinked. Forced herself to take calming
and slow breaths as best as she could. The ringing faded. She blinked away the spots
in time to see Barnes stand up with the gas can in his hand. With an almost
playful look in her direction, he splashed gasoline on the walls all around
them, on the wood that had escaped the first fire, the resilient hay, and the
unscarred walls. Then he walked toward her.

“You’re going to burn screaming his name.” He
splashed the gas on her.

Sasha gasped, jerking her face away from the
accelerant that stung her flesh. It quickly soaked into the remnants of her
dress, into her bra, her panties, her skin. Behind her gag, she screamed. She
screamed and screamed and screamed. But she never gave the monster the
satisfaction of calling out Damien’s name. He chuckled as he threw the empty
gas can behind him into the darkness.

“You’re screaming now. That’s beautiful to
hear.” He came close to her.

To her horror, she saw his erection shoving
against the front of his jeans.

Fuck that!

She’d rather burn than have him touch her. He
leaned into her, his brown eyes sparkling with hints of gold as if he was truly
enjoying himself. He came closer and closer, pressing into her, not caring that
his own clothes got wet from the gasoline.

“You’re really going to be a hot little piece
tonight after I’m through with you.”

He yanked at her panties, reached down to free
himself at the same time. The sound of his zipper sprung her into desperate
action.

“No!” Sasha screamed from behind her gag. She
flung herself up, her head slamming into Barnes’s throat. He yelped and
stumbled back, put off balance by trying to wrestle with her underwear and his
at the same time. Sasha jumped up, sparing his startled face the barest of
glances before she ran for the burned and gaping door of the barn. She heard
his furious breathing behind her and ran harder, lengthening her strides to get
away. But her foot caught on something. The cord to the lamp. She gasped as she
fell, as the lamp fell too, the bulb shattering with the noise like a gunshot.
A spark. She saw too late the large slat of wood on the ground. Something hard
slammed into her head. And everything went dark.

~~~

Sasha thought she heard someone calling her
name. A ragged and hoarse voice yelling her name over and over. Damien? But her
head throbbed with pain, a starburst of hurt under her forehead. She couldn’t
move. There was smoke everywhere. Bright and hungry flames licking at the roof
above her. Or was it the wall? A cough burst from her throat, doubling her body
on the ground. Her lungs felt like they were on fire. Someone cried out her
name again. Then darkness sucked her in.

When she opened her eyes again, Damien’s face
hovered hers. Blond hair sticking up everywhere. Soot on his cheeks and
forehead, his blue eyes wide and frantic. He called her name, touching her face
with shaking hands. From far off, she heard the sound of a fire truck. Or was
it an ambulance? The stink of burning flesh was heavy in the air, mixing with
the burning already in her lungs and nose. Pain vibrated in her head. Her eyes
burned, tears from the fire dripping down the sides of her face and into her
hair.

“Damien.” Her voice came out in a croak. She
lifted a hand to his face that was streaked with....tears? “Oh, baby. It’s
okay,” she rasped. “Everything is okay.”

He sobbed openly now, grabbed her hand and
pressed it to his lips. “Thank God!”

The sound of the emergency trucks came
closer, loud sirens whose screams echoed in the pounding of her head. Sasha
squeezed her eyes tight.

Damien’s hand tightened on her shoulder.
“Stay with me, baby! Stay with me!”

Her eyes fluttered open she looked up at him
again. “I’m not going anywhere.”

~~~

The sounds of the hospital leaked into
Sasha’s consciousness. The beeping of the monitors. The intercom paging
different doctors and nurses. Footsteps walking past her room. She opened her
eyes and saw the length of her body under a white sheet, her feet making small
hills at the bottom of the bed, a chair nearby with an overnight bag sitting in
its depths.

Then the sound of another person breathing
came to her. Slowly, she turned her head. And caught her breath. Damien sat in
the chair next to the bed, his knees sprawled wide as he slept.

His hair was disheveled and there were
circles under his eyes. Several days’ worth of blond beard prickled his cheeks.
The clothes he wore, a pale pink button-up shirt and faded jeans, were rumpled
and twisted as if he’d slept in them. Her hand twitched at her side with the
need to touch him. Instantly, his eyes flew open.

“Sasha.”

He was instantly at her side and sinking into
the bed, his hands quickly grabbing hers.

“I’m tired of passing out,” she said, her
voice a hoarse tremor.

A painful smile moved across his mouth. “I’m
tired of it too.” He drew a deep breath, squeezed her hands. “I’m so glad
you’re awake. You had me worried. You had all of us worried.”

He pointed to the small table under the
window that was just about completely covered with flowers, baskets of candy,
teddy bears, and balloons with “get well soon” written on them. Sasha felt
warmed by sight.

“Nothing to worry about.” She smiled weakly.
“I was just taking a little nap.” A cough shook her frame, curled her up in the
bed. When the fit was over, she lay back against the pillows, gratefully
accepting the glass of water Damien held out to her. She sipped from the glass,
swallowing past a throat that felt raw and bruised from the fire. The fire.
Anthony Barnes. Damien.

The last few moments of her time in the barn
flashed through her mind. Anthony Barnes ripping at her clothes. The smell of
gasoline soaked into her skin. Running through the barn and falling, hitting
her head. Then Damien appearing like an angel to her rescue. Sasha swallowed
hard. Hands grasping at Damien’s.

“Thank you for coming for me,” she said. “I
didn’t know what was going to happen. I was so worried.”

“I had to find you,” he said.

She turned her head on the pillow, breathing
easier now. “Tell me what happened.”

Damien looked at her. “Are you sure you want
to know?”

“Please. Tell me.”

He took a deep breath, and then began to
speak.

Damien had been waiting for Sasha to come
over to his place for dinner when he got the call from Barnes. The phone call
had been short but had changed everything in his life in those short minutes.
After that call, he realized just what was important in his life, and how
important it was that he protect the people he loved. No matter what the cost,
even if it was to his pride.

After Barnes disconnected the call, Damien
immediately contacted the police. He was frantic on the phone with them,
telling them what a dangerous man Anthony Barnes was and that they had to track
him down right away.

Their calm acceptance of the situation had
infuriated him. The 911 operator, a man with a rough voice like an old soldier,
had seemed to read Damien’s mind.

“Don’t do anything foolish, son. We’ll take
care of this, we’re the professionals here.”

But he hadn’t been able to turn off his
instincts, his worry, and his desperation to solve the urgent mystery of where
his woman was being kept. From everything Barnes had said over the phone, his
constant references to the past and to burning, Damien thought he had a pretty
good idea where the man had taken Sasha.

He jumped in his car and drove the short
distance to the stables, leapt from his car without turning off the engine and
sprinted for the old barn. But by the time he got the barn, it was already on
fire. Again. For a moment, seeing the old barn in flames had frozen him on the
spot. All he could see in his mind’s eye was the first fire, the one that had
claimed his father’s life and ruined his own life in so many ways. Damien
grabbed his phone to call 911. He was in the middle of telling them what was
going on when he thought he heard a shout, Barnes’s voice inside the burning
building.

Damien dropped the phone and ran into the
barn, splintering apart the brittle doors with a kick of his booted foot. There
was smoke everywhere. Inside the barn was like a vision from his own personal
hell. Fire climbing the walls and shooting up through the roof. He remembered
his father’s body when they had pulled it from the fire over ten years ago.

No. He wouldn’t go through that again. He
couldn’t take these losses from Anthony Barnes and keep his sanity. Damien
rushed deeper into the barn calling out Sasha’s name.

Not too far from the doors, he almost tripped
over her. She was passed out. Her dress ripped nearly down the middle, her face
sooty with smoke. The fire was dangerously close to her, its hungry tongue
licking the bottom of one of her shoes. His heart thudded like a warrior drum
in his chest.

Damien grabbed her and lifted her into his
arms, preparing to run out of the barn with her protectively shielded against
his chest. But Anthony Barnes appeared, screaming at him; running toward him
from the other side of the barn, a human fireball. The smell of his burning
flesh was terrifying. Galvanized by his fear for Sasha, Damien dove out of the
way, his body curled protectively around the unconscious Sasha.