Chapter 18

The gash on the inside of my thigh is at least five inches long, and I don't even want to think of how deep it is. It had been gushing when I dropped to the ground, but I thought it would quit bleeding when I stopped to apply pressure. It wasn't long before I was so cold I couldn't even apply any pressure at all.

My body and brain work once more, now that the electric blanket has heat and blood rushing through me again. I'm surprised at how he'd flown into action when he found me. It was a whirlwind. Even the way he comforted me had taken me aback.

My kidnapper comes back into the room in a rush, and it's when I register his shirt is off. A thick growth of hair blankets his chest, adding to his masculine aura. Not too much, just the right amount to make my mouth water.

You're literally bleeding out right now. Really?

He drops a bag near my foot, opens it, and lays out tools and thread as he mentally ticks off what he needs. Moving into the bathroom, he comes back with medical-type packs that say sterile on them.

Who the fuck is this man?

He grabs a bottle off the television stand that's covered in all sorts of alcohol. Foregoing the glass, he hands it over to me. "Drink."

"Fucking hell, that burns," I choke, and he feigns a smirk, dropping it when he realizes I'm still looking in his direction.

I eye the bottle. "Is this like in the movies and the alcohol is to numb the pain? Do I need to keep drinking?"

He lets his answering grin shine through the dark clouds that are his usual personality, and I'm speechless as my mouth goes dry.

"No, I'm going to numb it. The drink was to warm your belly." He shoves a needle into a small glass vial, pulling the plunger back as he eyes the measurement. When he pulls it out and drops the vial back into his bag of tricks, he then lifts the needle, the plunger down as he eyes it and flicks its side. He squirts a small amount out of the needle tip, then turns toward me. I fidget on the bed.

He grins again, this one more menacing. "Peut-être que j"arriverai à infliger de la douleur après tout." — "Maybe I'll get to inflict pain after all."

I scoff. "Sadique!" — "Sadist!"

The first prick of the needle isn't nearly as painful as the dull ache the tourniquet is causing. He works around where he needs to clean and close the wound, standing back and giving the medicine time to work.

My body warms, and it's internal. The room spins slightly. "I feel strange."

He nods and grunts, hands on his hip as he eyes my leg as if he's planning his attack. "Lidocaine. It can make you feel a little off for a bit. It won't hurt you, only help you with what's coming."

I nod absently. He dons gloves, opening a pack that says iodine. It looks like a little plastic dish, a small swab that's dark at its tip inside. He cleans my wound around its edges, then uses saline to irrigate debris from inside, cleaning with iodine once more before he sets to the task of stitching.

"How do you know how to do this?" I ask.

He looks up, his eyes far away even as they meet mine. When he looks back down, he sighs. "I've had to close many wounds. Some of my own, some on others. In my line of work, things get a little…bloody."

His line of work?

Deciding not to piss off the Italian brute with the stitching needle, I don't ask what he's involved in. No matter what it is, his line of work is saving my fucking life right now.

"Where were you going to go?" he asks without looking up. "You ran in the wrong direction."

"I don't know. I panicked. It was dark when you brought me here. I thought I could find my way back to camp once I saw some familiar surroundings."

He shakes his head, the needle in his hand stabbing through the right side of the wound as he stitches methodically. "You could've died. Had I decided you weren't worth the chase, you would have."

Something in my chest blooms, like a full field awakening as Persephone walks through and beckons spring with her touch.

I'm worth the chase.

I scold myself because I should be focused on the fucking point right now. It was idiotic to go running off through the wilderness naked.

"I'm sorry I broke the window."

He finishes the last stitch, tying it off as I've seen doctors do on TV before, then uses a pair of medical scissors to snip the thread. He drops the scissors into a metal dish the clanking making me jump. "Are you?"

I deserve that. Wait, no I don't. He stole me! So I keep silent.

He covers my wound, and then slowly releases the tourniquet. Blood rushes through my leg so quickly I hiss from the feel. He eyes me, watching for any signs it's going to ooze again, or that I'm going to pass out.

I close my eyes and take deep breaths as my leg comes back to life. "Thank you," I tell him without opening them. "Even if you kidnapped me, you didn't have to come find me and fix me up. I'm grateful you did."

He grunts as he cleans up the mess, taking the towel from under my leg and grabbing the bin I'd been sick in, moving out of the room.

It's the moment I realize I'm in his room, not mine. Well, what's been deemed as mine since he dragged me out of my shelter. It seems like a lifetime ago, and yet, it's been only days.

Sounds of him moving about and stomping back and forth lull me to sleep, and it's only when I feel him covering me with more of the electric blanket I rouse. He helps me to sit up a little so I can take some pain medicine, and he tells me he's leaving food and drink on the nightstand for me.

I groan something incoherent as I turn on my side, eyes fluttering closed before I hear him move back out of the room.

The bed smells of him, and it's probably the reason he haunts my dreams all night. Images of massive hands on my hips, my leg over his, soft tickles of his beard on my neck…

* * *

My leg hurts.

And when I say hurt, I mean every fucking syllable. Throbbing woke me, and I hobbled the best I could to the bathroom to relieve myself. There's blood everywhere, not to mention dirt. My hair is matted and my face is gaunt. I don't know why he'd let me sleep in his bed last night. I know he hadn't slept in it. I assume he's somewhere in the house still.

After washing my hands, I hobble through the house. I find him repairing the window in the room I'd disheveled in my departure. He eyes me once before returning to his task. My pack is on the bed, along with my crossbow and quiver, and I gasp as I move towards them, gazing at his back.

He doesn't turn. "Someone was in your camp. They knocked your shelter down. Check and make sure all your items are there."

I rustle through my things, finding them all in order. "Did you get the equipment?"

With that, he turns. "Equipment?"

I nod. "I was out there because I'm a part of a show, Stranded, I'm supposed to film my journey of survival. There was a big, black box filled with camera equipment inside the shelter."

He narrows his gaze as if he's trying to decide if he believes my story. But it isn't a story. It's a fact. Not that I could prove it.

He turns back around, his hands busy as he puts the glass back into the window painstakingly. "There was no black box, but I didn't go inside the shelter. It was knocked over. Your pack and crossbow were outside of it."

I look at my things, thinking about the night he ripped me from the shelter and brought me here. "Well, my pack was inside, too. The only thing that should've been outside was my crossbow."

He finishes his task, dropping tools onto the end of the bed as he stands and looks at his work. "If you decide to escape again, use different means. This was the last window I had here on the property. I'd rather not freeze this winter."

I bite my lip, not wanting to be a brat today after he saved my life yesterday. Though, if he wouldn't have brought me here, it wouldn't have been in jeopardy. I keep my mouth shut, despite that.

"So, you said someone was in my camp?" I ask.

He nods. "Boots, sized 12, leading toward the clearing I was traveling to."

Clearing. "That must've been my drop point. So they came and took my equipment back?"

He shrugs. "We'd need to confirm the equipment is, in fact, missing to assume that. I can go back today and look."

I nod absently, toying with the fabric of a spare pair of clothes I'd packed into the bag. They're thick, outdoor clothes. Nothing I want to wear in the cabin. Though, I need to put something on, don't I?

He comes up next to me, dropping his hand onto mine. "You going to cover up, bunny?"

I lick my lips. I've never corrected him or asked him to stop calling me that, and I can't explain why. Even to myself. Something about the way he speaks to me, the sentiment in his voice when he says bunny, always sends shivers through my body.

"I don't think these are appropriate for the inside. Besides, I don't need to put anything on, seeing as how I'm filthy. Can I shower with these stitches?" I look up and meet his eyes.

His hand is still over mine, where mine holds on tightly to all-weather pants. I've stopped rustling them in between my fingers, however. His warmth seeps through my skin, and it's all I can do not to move closer.

"No, you can't, but I can wash you."

I open my mouth to protest, but how else am I going to get clean? I close my lips and nod.

"If it won't be too much of a bother," I answer.

He turns away, taking his tools and his touch with him. "Bunny, you've been a bother since you trespassed on my property."

I watch him move through the living room and then around a corner, likely headed toward that awful basement where he hides all his weapons and murder devices.

I've been trying to figure out his line of work and I've narrowed it down to serial killer or full-on mobster. Both are absurd, but both are logical reasons for that basement.

When he comes back up, he points toward his room, and I follow. Albeit slower than he moves.

His bathroom has a jacuzzi tub that butts up to a massive glass shower. I'm eyeing the room as he lifts me. An unladylike squeal comes out of me as he hefts me into the tub, sitting me on the edge before turning the water on and plugging the drain. He adds some of his famed Italian soap. Bubbles form, covering my feet. He fills the tub and dips a loofa into the water before adding soap to it and then lathers suds onto it.

He's on his knees to my right, and I'm on the corner of the tub. I turn slightly, angling toward him, letting my back and head leaning against the tiled wall.

"I can wash…" I cut off my words when his eyes snap to mine, anger living in them.

He shuts the water off before trailing the loofa up my uninjured leg. It's not until he's mid-thigh that I realize this could get very intimate. And it's the same moment I note the change in his breathing.

"La tua pelle è come la seta più fine," he says gruffly. — "Your skin is like the finest silk."

"English," I breathe as he moves onto my belly. I move over more, so I don't get water outside the tub, and he moves closer to me. Each time he cleans a section of my body, he dips the loofa into the tub, freshening the water and soap on it.

He has me hold a small towel over my dressed wound as he cleans my injured leg as softly as he can. I stand as he washes the back of me, and then he has me sit, keeping my injured leg bent as he leans my head back.

Using a cup he'd brought with him; he wets my hair through before cleaning it. A whimper almost escapes my lips as he massages the shampoo into my scalp. Once he rinses it clean, he pauses.

"What?" I ask, meeting his eyes. Mine are heavy as hell and hard to keep open. I'm so relaxed, it's unreal. The most I think I've ever felt, bar that one time Alyssa talked me into smoking pot with her and a man she brought home from the bar.

But once that faded, I'd eaten all the Doritos we owned. I don't think this is the same.

"I have one more place to wash," he says, and I mentally check through the list of places he could've missed before I realize where he's not cleaned yet.

I clear my throat. "I can…" I trail off, and it's not because of the look in his eye. It's because I realize I want him to touch me there. I want him to do it under the guise that he's cleaning me. It's a lie I can tell myself when it feels good. Because I know it's going to feel good.

I shift, moving back in the water to where the tub curves for lounging. And I do just that. Pulling my other knee up, I spread my legs open. He's seen me naked for days on end, but this feels more personal. More raw.

A heavy breath leaves him, and I realize he's white-knuckling the loofa.

"Of course, if you don't want?—"

He moves quickly, shutting me up before I can finish my statement. His loofa is under the water, edges tickling my sanity as he bites his bottom lip.

He's unraveling before my very eyes.

"I don't make bodies feel good," he admits. When his dark eyes lift to mine, he says, "I make them hurt."

"Well," I start, trying to find the words to give him amidst his admission, "you don't have to make me feel good. You just have to clean me."

"Clean the filth," he repeats, looking down where his hand is under the water, bubbles encircling his wrist.

If my heart wasn't racing through my fucking chest, I'd laugh. But nothing about the tension between us right now is amusing. It's as if time has stopped, and it won't begin again until the touch finally comes.

I'm almost ready to beg when he moves against my spread folds with the sponge.

A strangled whimper comes out, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

His eyes leave his task, finding mine as he does it again.

I almost stop him. Tell him that's enough. I'm clean. But I can't find the words. The throbbing in my leg is long forgotten because endorphins and hormones are racing through me like wildfire.

"Tell me to stop," he begs, and my hand grips his other arm, holding onto the flannel button-up he's wearing for dear life.

"Never stop," I say despite myself.

"I'm not good for you. This isn't—We shouldn't…" His eyes watch me like a hawk, how I grind against the feel of the loofa, unashamed and relentless.

I can't remember the last time I'd come. From the feel of the lunacy surging inside me, it's been too long.

I don't register when he lets the sponge drop away, but I register when his fingers find my aching clit, circling it like it's the Holy Grail. Something to be worshiped.

"You're clean. We should stop," he says, but his fingers continue to drive me higher.

"Please. God, please!" I beg, still gripping his flannel tightly in my fist. My body is quivering with the need to come, but guilt fills me as I realize he might not want this.

Confusion lives on his face like he's at war with what's happening. I don't want it to be that way. It's like being doused in ice.

Gathering a semblance of wits, I reach under the water, removing his hand and placing it on the tub's edge.

His brows furrow.

"No one should do what they don't want to do," I tell him simply.

I'm too far gone now to stop, though. "Leave," I grit out when my hand finds my ache, fingers slipping inside as I arch off the back of the tub.

"Un homme meilleur le ferait," he answers. — "A better man would."

But he's not a better man, is he? He's got the eyes of a killer, and surely the hands he'd just touched me with are covered in more blood than he's willing to admit. But those hands are something I'll think of each time I make myself come from this day forward. The feel of the callouses swirling evil circles around my clit will haunt me for the rest of my life.

"Mes mains ne sont pas faites pour toucher une telle beauté, mais mes yeux ne peuvent pas détourner le regard." — "My hands aren't meant to touch such beauty, but my eyes can't look away."

"Oh, God!" I cry, belly tightening and my spine tingling as my toes curl.

He leans over the edge of the tub. "If you're going to shout a name in this house, bunny. Let it be mine. Call my name as you come or nothing else," he whispers against the shell of my ear, and my eyes roll back.

"What is your name, brute?" I manage.

"Slate." He nibbles my ear, and I untether from reality as I come, pussy clamping down on my fingers that still fight to move inside, to ride the wave as long as possible.

"Slate!" I shout as my body keeps pulsing with release, shivering as I crest through the waves of madness with a killer latched onto my ear.

"Tu es magnifique quand tu viens," he whispers, and I shudder as I slip my fingers out of my pussy. — "You're beautiful when you come."

As reality crashes through the moment, he moves away and gives me time to come down before he lifts me from the now cold water and begins toweling me off.

I watch him intently, wondering what the hell I'd just let happen.

Man, Stockholm syndrome is a bitch.