10. CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER NINE

Marcus

" M arcus." Leighton's soft, agonized whisper permeates through the walls of our bedroom. Reaching to my ears. Drawing me from my restless sleep. "Are you there? Please be there."

I check the watch on my hand.

One in the morning. It's been two hours since I closed the door behind me.

Two hours since I went to my office and took a quick look at the CCTV cameras back home, those that Rylan has no idea I put there. My daughter was there. Sitting on a stool in the kitchen, talking on the phone. Hunting us from Santa Barbara instead of out there, chasing Leighton and me.

We were safe for the time being.

Once I had that covered, I came back here. Outside our bedroom .

Next to my Leighton. Leaning against the wall with my legs stretched in front of me. Here, waiting for her to come around, instead of going to a separate bedroom. That's where I've been for the last two hours.

And I don't give a fuck.

Don't give a fuck about having my obsessions out in the open. Don't give a damn about anyone—Ry, in particular—seeing the depths of my love for Leighton.

Leigh and I are the only two people here. She's safe. Well, from Ry, anyway.

I can't put down the monster inside me. Not after I've made her mine.

Leighton has my cum inside her. I have her blood covering my dick. We're connected.

I've been waiting for her to call my name. Admit she needs me.

It'll take a while, but it'll happen.

"Marcus." She's louder now, more desperate.

Maybe it already has.

"I have to use the bathroom." Her voice is choked. "Please, I don't want to wet the bed. Please."

I'm up on my feet in an instant.

Any other plea along the lines of Let me go would've gotten her more silence on my end. It would've meant Leighton didn't delve deep enough. Didn't see just how much she loved me.

This, humiliating her by leaving her to pee where she sleeps, doesn't fit into my plans .

Until she comes to, my words would degrade her. My depravity and hers would be torture.

Me. I'd do those things to her.

Mother nature has no place in our relationship.

Only me.

"I'm here," I say, pushing open the door.

The moonlight bathes Leighton's face in silver light. Her eyebrows are furled. Her lips twisted. She wasn't trying to trick me. She really needs to go.

"Please." Leighton sucks in her lips, her thighs clenching.

I should rush to untie her. Sweep her in my arms, take her to the bathroom. Let her pee.

But she wears her distress so beautifully.

"Marcus," she groans. Not crying. She won't give me her tears that easily. "What are you doing there?"

"Breathe, Leighton." Step by step, I move forward.

When she doesn't, I place my hands on the rope of her left ankle. That's it.

"Breathe?" she grits out. "What for? Free me. I have to go."

"Before I do, let's get one thing straight. There's no use in running, if that's what you have in mind." My gaze steels, tone hardening. "For the small chance I won't catch you and you'll get far from here, someone else might grab you. A naked girl out in the middle of the night. Can you imagine what they might do to you?"

A vein pulses in my neck. This isn't an empty threat. These things could happen. Someone else could dare touch what's mine .

"I won't run. Just, please." Her thighs squeeze again, desperately holding in her pee. "Help me."

Help me. I like the sound of that.

I nod, untangling the knots binding her ankles. Next, I untie the ropes around her red and scraped wrists. She doesn't move other than twisting her hands this way and the other, getting used to the freedom I've granted her.

Me. The man who loves her.

"You're sick, you know that, right?" she says when I pull her up by her waist.

Sick?

I'm being kind to her. I haven't really left her here, bound and helpless. I've been here, right outside the room. Ready to come for her when she needed me. And I did. I rushed in here the second she called out my name.

Even ended up confessing my feelings to her, for fuck's sake.

Yet here we are.

You're sick.

Soothing her some more, being kind to her, all those things will have to wait.

Just until she realizes that no matter what, we'll always be together.

No. Matter. What.

"I'm not sick." I slip my arms beneath her, carrying her exhausted body bridal style to the bathroom. Despite the hours she's spent in bed without a shower, Leighton still smells of daisies. Of sunshine. "I'm more aggressive than usual. That's all. But you can't fucking blame me when I'm like this because of you. You, Leighton, have turned me into this possessive"— and protective as hell —"man. Only you."

"Blaming me for being kidnapped?" Her hands curl around my neck, though her next words aren't loving. "That's some narcissistic shit if I've ever heard it. Who the hell are you?"

I could tell her I took —not kidnapped—her for her own good. I could lay out the evidence of my daughter's crimes. Go back to my home in Santa Barbara and show Leighton what kind of fertilizer Rylan has been using to grow the flowers in her garden. Explain that she won't hesitate to put her best friend in the ground too.

Except doing so would defeat the purpose of this exercise. I need her to love me for me. To be willing to give up everything for our relationship because she wants me, not because she's scared.

That's the only way she'll be mine for life. That way, she'll trust me to handle Rylan and make her see reason.

It'll have Leighton begging for me instead of begging for my help.

At the present moment, she's not ready.

"Keep testing me, little doll." I enter the bathroom, placing her on the slate gray tiles. I grab her chin, bringing my lips close to hers. "Know this, I won't hesitate to be very, very creative with my punishments. We have a long road ahead of us. You can spend our time together by accepting your situation, or you can try me. The choice is yours."

A hint of fight flickers behind her eyes. "You can't force me to love you. "

"I don't have to. You do. I just have to make you accept it." I release her, jerking my chin to the toilet. "Go."

Leighton straightens her spine, ambling on weak feet to the toilet. She turns around to face me with a pout. "You're still here."

"I am." Crossing my arms over my chest, I perch against the white tile wall.

"Leave."

"No."

"Please?" She tries hard to restrain her anger. While naked and vulnerable before me. It's fucking adorable.

She has my heart when she's compliant and frozen for me. But her fight gets me just as hot.

"No."

"I won't run."

All I give her is a shrug. Then I flick the lights on.

"Why do you want to watch?" she challenges with her thighs squeezed. "What's in it for you?"

She's studying me while shifting from one foot to the other. She has to go, but I interest her more than satisfying her basic needs.

And she says she doesn't love me. Right .

For showing me her affection, I'll offer her a truth. One truth. A glimpse into my obsession. Another peeled layer that'll scare her.

Another piece of me she'll have to get used to.

"We've been kept apart by…circumstances for too long. Then those four years you went to college. The fucking agony." I stop mid-explanation, nodding toward the toilet again. "Go. Don't make me repeat myself."

The hesitation and intrigue in her eyes are innocent. Pure.

"Go and I'll continue." I lick the top row of my teeth, satisfied to see her obeying me. "I've missed so much of you , Leighton. Too much. I'm making up for lost time."

"By watching me go?" Her pee runs, knees pressed together.

"By watching everything you do." My gaze flits from her knees to her eyes. In the soft lights of the bathroom, I see the dark rims around her irises. Another obsession of mine. "We've been kept apart for years. No more of that. Our lives will be forever intertwined. First here, then in the outside world. We'll have the happily ever after we deserve."

"Hmph." Bottom lip jutting out. Nose scrunching. She says nothing, though, reaching for the toilet paper and wipes her swollen pussy lips.

I frown back at her. Her pussy might be sore, and she'll need a bath.

She'll need to talk for me to allow any of that.

That's how relationships work. Give and take.

"Say what's on your mind."

She doesn't. After flushing, Leighton treads carefully to the basin, washing her hands and drying them with the washcloth hanging on the wall.

"Talk, or you're sleeping here."

"I don't deserve to be caged." With her hands balled on her hips, she looks nothing like a prisoner. She looks like a lioness. A naked one .

Sure, I've fantasized about turning her into my doll. But I've fallen for her character way before I ever dreamed of hypnotizing her or dollifying her.

It's in her laughter. The way she scolds Milo and hisses at him to leave her alone when Rylan's out of earshot. How she orders Rylan and me to go to the living room after dinner so she can clear the table.

That's why I forgive her for talking back. Why I give her this tiny bit of rope.

"I deserve a man who respects me." She edges closer to me. I'm not sure whether I should choke her or fuck her. Or both. "Who hears rejection and asks, Can we discuss this? Not this." Leighton points an accusatory finger at me. "Not turning all psycho on me. Not telling me my rejection made you go all crazy and kidnap me."

My blood boils. The pounding in my ears is deafening.

Rejection and the fear for her motherfucking life were what brought us here. That and my love for her.

This girl pushes my buttons like no other. She's crawled into my heart, made her fucking home in there. Her name is a whisper that runs through my veins.

Her accusations hurt.

Leighton gasps when my hands grip her shoulders. The color drains from her face when I spin her and pin her to the wall.

"I didn't take you on a whim, little doll." My lips brush over her cheek.

Her teeth clench. "Sure looks like it."

Building this home for us wasn't done on a whim .

Filling a closet with clothes and shoes for her wasn't. Done. On. A. Whim. They fit her taste, her size. There are clothes there for every season of the year.

The money and devotion I've poured into making this house a home were deliberate. A well-crafted plot I executed behind everyone's back.

For her.

A whim? Fuck no.

"This has been years in the making. You've been driving me out of my mind for years , Leighton." I slide my hand up to her throat, my thumb running across her plump bottom lip. "I've loved you for five years, Leighton."

Her eyes dart between mine, her mind calculating.

"That's right, since you were seventeen." I grind my hard length into her belly, then whirl both of us and take her into the shower. "You were funny and sweet. Giving me those eyes and blushing whenever you were around me. You were about to let me teach you to swim, pretty girl. The forbidden fucking fruit. It started out this way, at least. The girl I can't get out of my goddamn head."

The pulse in her neck does me in. I slam her against the tile wall and put my mouth to her pulse point. My lips part, tasting the fear and desire on her. Her breath flutters on the nape of my neck, yet she doesn't lift her hands to touch me.

She will.

She. Will.

"My feelings for you have evolved over the years." Lowering my hand to the space between her ass and the wall, I grab her flesh, squeezing until she yelps. "Wanting you this young, that was fucking wrong. The only thing wrong about us, I'll admit to that. That didn't matter to me, though. I couldn't help what I felt. Couldn't do anything other than keep my distance."

"Until the day in the bathroom four years ago."

"Yes." My head snaps up to meet her eyes. "Until that day. You were eighteen. Touching you wasn't wrong."

"Why didn't you say something?" Her voice cracks. "After?"

I glare at her. "You were off to college. What kind of man would I be if I ruined that experience for you?"

What kind of man would I be if I let you stay alone with Rylan in Texas? When she knows we're together? Where I couldn't save you from her?

"I see waiting worked out so well for you." Leighton seethes.

A growl reverberates in my throat. Leighton backs off into the wall. With nowhere to run, all she can do is glare daggers at me.

"I've done everything I could for you ." My fingers squeeze her jaw in a punishing grip. "Day after day, I've been swallowing down this burning, painful need to have you. For you."

Her challenging eyebrow pisses me off. She's being a brat. Thinking I'm lying to her. Questioning my love.

I won't have it.

"I've had you within arm's reach." I spin her to face the wall. She's hardly settled when my large palm smacks her round ass .

Leighton screams. Her hair dangles in long, pink locks. Red blooms in the spot where I spanked her.

I feel marginally better.

Smack. Smack. Smack.

"Why…?" she part-groans, part-screams. "Why are you hitting me?"

"This isn't hitting you." An idea forms. A sadistic one. I snatch the shower handle off the wall, clutching onto Leighton's hip while I flick open the water stream. "This is punishing you."

"You showering me is your idea of a—"

Jesus fucking Christ. I have the world's most unruly captive.

The most alluring one.

She doesn't get to finish her taunting remark before I'm on her. Pinning the harsh, unforgiving stream to her pussy.

"Oh…" Leighton sighs.

I spank her again while forcing pleasure on her pretty cunt.

Again. And again.

Her words become a jumble of whys, groans, and pleasured moans as I torture and pleasure her. The pressure I have on the shower handle keeps it in place. The way Leighton takes my spankings like the good little girl she is gets me off.

Her legs shake and it's then that I stop.

"No." Her scream is so desperate. So beautiful. "No!"

"You know why I held back for years, Leighton? Why didn't I come for you?"

The quaking in her body settles. "Why? "

She's confused. I use the reprieve to have the water back on her. Stealing her breath away.

I run the shower head up and down her clit, hitting every fucking spot. "I held back so you could have a better life."

A life, period.

A secret I'll confess to her only once she admits she loves me. When she realizes that witnessing this side of me changes nothing between us. Only then will I tell her I've been her savior, as well as the man who's obsessed with her.

"Exactly," Leighton wheezes as I change an angle. As I grip her ass where I've spanked her. "I've had a better life before this. Or I would've had one if the old Marcus came for me. This isn't it. A delusional man who took my virginity isn't it. Said man claiming I gave it to him willingly isn't it. Lying. All you do is lie."

She doesn't mean it. She can't.

With what little clarity I have left, I pull back from her. Shouting at Leighton won't make her listen. Won't make her understand that I didn't just take. That I gave her every piece of me in return.

"Make me come, you monster," she shrieks, stomping her foot. "It's the least you owe me."

"You're forgetting this is a punishment." Enraged, I spin her to me. "I owe you nothing, brat."

That, in fact, is a lie. I do owe her. I owe her everything.

I'll give her everything.

Just not now.

"About that other thing. You don't want to give yourself to me?" I tweak and tug on her taut nipple to prove a point. " Your nipples are pulled tight. And I bet you're wet." I toss the shower handle to the floor and my fingertip nudges at her sex. "No, not wet. Soaking. For me."

"I'm biologically programmed to react like this." Her voice is far from the confidence she tries to exude. "My heart doesn't love you. I couldn't and wouldn't love you after what you've done to me."

I level my eyes with hers. My black and her blue blend together, our connection undeniable.

Her heart that doesn't love me beats furiously beneath my flattened palm.

"Is that so?"

"Yeah."

The word moon will silence her disobedient mouth. The one word will end this argument.

I'm tempted to say it. Painfully so.

I don't go there. At this very moment, she needs to feel . I need her to remember she loves me.

If she doesn't admit it soon, I'll have other methods to coax it out of her. To force it out of her.

"Your mouth isn't biologically programmed to do anything. And yet, when I shove my fingers in it, you'll suck." Coated with her arousal, I drag my fingers on her lips. "If I fuck you again, you'll scream my name."

"Please." Leighton's voice turns pleading once again. Attempting to manipulate me. "You have to let me go."

Removing my hand from her chest, I slam it on the wall beside her. "Why are you fighting me?"

"I— "

Desperate and furious, I push my fingers into her mouth. She can't answer me when she's full of them, but her eyes keep talking. Her pupils are dilated, her eyelids heavy.

And she does exactly as I thought she would. Her lips close on my fingers. Every time I drag them down her throat, she sucks harder.

Her lust is overwhelming.

Her stubbornness is maddening.

She closes her slender fingers around my wrist, holding my hand so my fingertips remain on her bottom lip.

"You need me to respect you before I can love you," she groans. "I'll never be able to respect you."

"You do respect me." I haul her into my arms, cradling her. Ignoring her screams to put her down. "You do love me. You will need me. You'll call for me to love you and save you. Just a matter of time."

"Never," she howls in defiance.

"Wrong answer," I grunt when she bites into my shoulder through my shirt. The warm summer air welcomes us as soon as I step out of the backyard. "Don't worry, little doll. You'll get the right one soon enough. After all, that's what I'm here for." I smirk through my annoyance. "Daddy's home."