Chapter 16

A soft hand brushes me awake, caressing my cheek gently. I come around and remember falling asleep on Cain’s lap.

“We’re here, darling.”

My insides do the flippy thing they do when he calls me darling as I push up, sitting in the middle seat on the bench as I look out the front window.

We’ve stopped in front of a house that looks more neglected than the house Cain stole me away to.

“Where are we?” I ask sleepily. My body is much more drained from recent activities than I thought. The drive had lulled me into a stupor.

“Outskirts of Gainesville. We’re north of home,” he tells me, turning slightly to look me over.

His eyes are searching.

I feel the most normal since he ran me off the road. I’m in clothes, and all my piercings are covered. I can’t deny how the fabric brushing against them feels, though, especially since they’re in the stage of healing where they itch something fierce.

“You’re exhausted,” he echoes my inner thoughts perfectly.

I nod. “I am.”

He cups my face, and I can’t help but lean into the warmth of his massive hand. “I need to take better care of you. We go home soon, and everything will change then.”

I nearly shiver as his words pass through my body. It’s an inkling of foreboding I know I shouldn’t ignore.

I’m caught in his gravity when he leans forward, his lips dusting mine back and forth.

He loves this: soaking in how he makes me mindless. The way his presence increases my breathing and pulse. It’s as if he gets high off his effect on me, so he drags it out.

I can’t complain, though. As he toys with me more, licking my bottom lip to beckon me to open for him, a moan escapes me.

“Cain, please,” I whisper against his teasing mouth, and he smirks.

“Always so well-behaved for your master,” he taunts before pressing forward and kissing me with bruising pressure.

It’s because of the way he plays with me beforehand that I devour each kiss he gives, always greedy for more—for harder, for deeper.

My tongue dances against his, and his hand fists the back of my hair, his mouth widening as he turns his face and deepens the kiss to something I’ve never experienced before.

Before I think of the repercussions, my hand slides over his thick hardness beneath his jeans, and he breaks our kiss, panting as his wild eyes take me in.

There’s something addictive in his stare. Something animalistic in nature that calls me to do it again.

Soon, I’m squeezing, tugging on him to hear each groan. Feel each panted breath against my lips as he hovers over my face.

I kiss him, taking the lead and feeling more confident as he responds.

I’ve never felt so powerful and so wanted.

It’s fucked up that a psychopath is the very man who makes me feel as if there’s someone for me. My specific brand of lover.

Maybe it’s how safe I feel with him.

Which is ignorant.

But if he’s the worst thing out in the world, and he covets me, I’m the safest I’ll ever be.

His fist, tight in my hair, works my lips free of his, and he tries to regain control of himself as he looks deep into my eyes, his breathing frantic.

“Hold that thought, darling. We have to get this done. Then, I’m all yours.”

I look down at his jeans, where his cock is still hard, and pre-cum has wet his jeans. “What about that?”

He smirks. “What about it? ”

“You’re going to go in there like that?”

A laugh bubbles out of him, and it sounds like the madness within has leaked out momentarily. “Puppet, I’m a killer. A little cum on my pants doesn’t bother me.” He leans in, hovering and retaking control of my breathing. “Nor do I mind anyone seeing how much you affect me.”

Fuck, that’s hot.

I swallow audibly.

His hand moves down, clamping over my throbbing center, thumb rubbing back and forth over my pants. “Besides, I’m not the only one with wet pants, now am I?”

He’s not wrong.

I wiggle against his hand.

“I don’t know how I’ll ever get enough of you.”

With that, he lets me go and opens his door, hopping out into the windy cold.

I take the moment it takes him to round the truck to open my door to center myself, adjusting my aching, greedy pussy in my pants before turning toward the door as he opens it.

Hand in hand, we enter what looks to be a residential home, but the front is a shop.

Four men are working on computers, and papers and boxes are everywhere. The faint stench of weed permeates the room, tangoing with cigarette smoke and the faint smell of day-old pizza.

“Mr. Moldova, we’ve been expecting you.” One of the men turns in his chair, standing and wiping his plump hand on his pants.

He looks like he’s in his mid-thirties, balding and heavyset. Cain looks down his nose at the hand offered and decides against shaking it.

The man pushes up his glasses, shrugging as he walks to a filing cabinet, opening it with a key.

“Do you have what I asked for?” Cain asks, reaching into his pocket for his phone.

As I watched him unlock the iPhone in his hand, I realized I didn’t miss my connection to the outside world. The thought worried me, so I stowed it.

“I do. Grace Moldova. I have everything in order here for you, and the fee is…”

“Paid,” Cain says as his phone rings right before the stocky man’s phone goes off in his pocket.

“Prompt, per usual. Good doing business with you again, Mr. Moldova.”

Per usual?

I swallow as my heart rate speeds in my chest. Does he do this often? I thought I was the first one he’d kept, but what if I’m not? What if all those girls lived with him until he tired of them? What if this is all a sick game?

He lulls them into complacency by thinking they’re the ones who survived and got a new lease on life by his side; then, he kills them when they get too comfortable.

When he grabs my hand again, turning us to leave, I know he can feel the sweat in mine.

I can’t help it .

When he helped me in the tow truck this time, he pushed me over to the middle of the bench seat and set my papers beside me.

I look at the folder hard and long as he heads for his door. I’d gone along with it.

I’d fallen for each part of his game.

So much so that I can’t discern whether my feelings are real or contrived by the need to survive.

“Now, puppet, let’s go home, shall we?”

It’s not until much later, however, that I realize he’s not taking me back to the fucked up little Christmas farmhouse he had me holed up in.

We pull into the underground storage container lot, driving to the back as he parks the tow truck and takes a deep breath.

For a moment, all is still.

I’m still reeling to understand what’s going on with Cain and me and if he’s going to kill me in the end.

I feel as though I’ve been played, and I don’t know how to go forward.

On one hand, I can’t alert him that I know I’m not the first girl he’s kept. He’d surely kill me immediately and move on with his life as if it never happened. On the other hand, it’s going to be hard to go forward with the idea I’m being fucked with.

Or so I think.

His hand unbuttons my pants before sliding inside them beneath my panties. His cold fingers graze my clit, pressing in enough to make me open further and lean back against the seat.

“Now, I know this next bit will be a lot for you, Grace. I want you to remember your place and mine, though. Remember how you’re my good little puppet.”

His fingers work at an ungodly pace, and my belly burns as I grind against them.

“Remember how much you want to please me. How good it is when you’re behaved,” he whispers against my ear, and I turn my face into his.

Maybe it won’t be so hard after all, not with this blazing attraction between us.

“Cain, please,” I plead, forgetting every worry I had only two minutes ago.

“Please what, darling?” he teases, kissing me and stealing my train of thought.

“Please, I need to come.”

It’s like my body will never get enough of him. Like I could feed from him for hours and still be starving afterward.

“Say you’ll be my good girl, darling. Tell me you’ll be my perfect girl, and I’ll give you the fucking world.”

From the lips of a psychopath to the ear of the depraved puppet, he makes his promise, and I’m too weak to say no.

“Yes! Yes, I’ll be your good girl, Cain. Please!” He knows what he’s doing.

Only he can give me this. He commands every nerve-ending moment of pleasure I’ve ever had. He’s efficiently erased every man that came before him. So he knows I’ll comply.

It’s all a sick, psychological game to him.

One I’m dying to keep playing.

When I come, I lift off the seat into his hand, riding out every drop of the high as he nibbles my ear.

“Good girl, puppet. Good fucking girl.”

A whimper escapes as the last visages of orgasm throb through my body. He tugs his fingers out and cleans them thoroughly, and I’m in a trance as I watch him.

“Come, darling. Let’s go home.”

Home is a penthouse apartment in the city next to Dunhaven, the town I’d gotten off the interstate in to make my way to my mom’s house.

My heart wavers as I realize I’ll never see her again. Eventually, they’ll pronounce me dead, all while I’m living a few hours from her upstate.

Cain had left his tow truck at the storage yard, then led me to his Audi parked not far from the tow truck.

The penthouse is pristine, with marble floors, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city below, and granite decorating every inch of the kitchen and bathrooms.

The shower looks like something you’d find in a mansion. The house’s theme is black, and it’s splashed against tans and creams, making the vibe a bit clinical.

It doesn’t fit the Cain that I know one bit.

“Come, I’ll show you to your room.”

My room?

My footsteps make so much noise against the floors, clacking annoyingly. This isn’t how a home should feel. Even the farmhouse felt more homey than this penthouse does.

“I’ll have my own room?” I ask, thinking it’s confusing when I thought I was more to him than a live-in plaything.

Or maybe that’s all he can handle romantically.

Romantically? He kidnapped you!

I shiver at the thoughts still warring in my head. When I think I’ve worked everything out, I get more confused.

“I figured you’d like to acclimate to your new life before we move forward. You’ll need space to process, I’m sure.”

The tone of his voice and the way he’s behaving is different. He feels… off. I can’t put my finger on why, but something’s wrong.

“I thought you’d want to keep an eye on me, is all…” I trail off as he turns and looks down at me, something like shame in his eyes.

“You’ve said you’ll be my good girl. I don’t think there’s a need for that.”

We stare at one another momentarily, and then he sighs, cupping my face. I forget all the bullshit in my head again and close my eyes.

His touch silences everything, even the things he’s caused.

“This is going to be an adventure for us both, Grace. I want you to be comfortable. I’ll leave you to get settled. I’ve already arranged for your closet and bathroom to be stocked. I hope you’ll get used to living here soon.”

He walks away, and I’m stunned.

The way he spoke was elegant and kind, even warm. But it almost made me uneasy and uncomfortable. It was like he was play-acting.

He’s donning an acceptable role now that we’re in the outside world.

The most fucked up thing about it all is I didn’t like it.

He acted like the man I should want— an average, sweet man—and I wouldn’t say I liked it.

As I hear him move through the penthouse, I turn and look at the beautiful room he gave me.

But my stomach sours and turns over as I curl my lip in disgust.

A sick part of me wants the Cain I’ve come to know, and I know I need to get the fuck away from him before I do something I regret.

Like falling in love with the psychopath currently playing the piano in the living room.