37. 37

37

Ember

I never expected him to come back for me, because he’d disappeared since what happened to him, what he went through with me, and I figured he was gone for good. It had been breaking me a little more every day not to see him, but now… well, now I wasn’t sure the man who just kidnapped me was anything like the man I’d fallen in love with.

We’d driven for so long that I thought I was going to die in the boot of the car, even though I could breathe okay, despite the fact that I could almost taste the exhaust fumes at this point. When the car stopped, he didn’t let me out immediately, and then I started to worry about the reason for that.

What if he hadn’t kidnapped me to keep me somewhere at all? What if he’d kidnapped me to dump me somewhere to die. What if he… oh my god, what if he was doing something freaky, like selling me to someone, or trafficking me overseas? Oh god. What if he set the car on fire with me in it? Or dumped it in a river?

Suddenly I couldn’t breathe so well after all. Suddenly I was gasping and sobbing, struggling against the cable tie around my wrists, and struggling to move, although I had no idea how that’d get me out of here.

When the boot suddenly opened, and Ethan stood there, his bearded face and shaggy dark hair shrouded by sunlight, making him look like an angel, I felt like I’d just been saved from hell. He’d come to save me. To rescue me from this fucking coffin of a car boot. He wasn’t my tormentor in this moment, but my saviour . My protector. My hero.

“Aw did my little saboteur have a nasty little panic attack?” He reached in and grabbed me, dragging me up onto his shoulder, the pressure against my mid-section making breathing even harder. He slammed the car boot and started walking, through greenery and bushes that completely hid where we were going, and where we’d be staying, hidden from any prying eyes.

Instead of taking me in through a door, he suddenly hefted me down from his shoulder, and through an open window, shoving me inside firmly enough that I fell back, and landed on my ass and side. He climbed in after me, turning to grab a large sheet of wood, and taking a few moments to hammer it over the window. Why would he do that over a window he could close?

I cast my eyes around as he worked, finding the surroundings strangely familiar, from the neutral tones on the walls, to the thick cream carpet under me. When he returned to me, he used a knife to cut through the tie around my ankles, and dragged me to my feet.

“Don’t try anything stupid, or I’ll just leave you in here with the door boarded up too. You can starve to death in here. To be honest, it might be preferable to what’ll happen to you otherwise.”

He sounded so grim, strangely distant and monotone, like he’d lost everything that animated him, and made him sound like himself.

I let him guide me out of the room, and watched as he pulled the door closed, setting down his tool bag, and lifting out what looked like a tube of something. He took time to apply it around the doorframe, and that’s when I realised he was sealing the door closed with glue. What the fuck?

I glanced around the hallway, realising why I found the other room familiar. It was one of my family’s properties, and with a sinking feeling, I figured out which one. The one he’d almost died in. He’d brought us back here, but why the hell would he do that?

I wanted to ask him so many questions, but I had tape over my… wait… I’m so fucking dumb. My hands were cable tied in front of me! I reached up and pulled the tape off my face, scrunching it in one hand as I took a blessed breath through my mouth.

“Ethan, what the hell are we doing here?” He chuckled as he tucked the glue back in his bag.

“Took you way too fucking long to realise you could do that, Em. You seemed so much smarter when you were my student.” Why did he have to keep talking to me like he wanted every word to hit like a knife?

“I was trying to behave myself like you demanded, asshole.”

He grinned, grabbing a fistful of my hair and dragging me along with him to the stairs, and up to the bedrooms. He paused in the doorway of the room he’d almost died in, drawing in a ragged breath, before he cursed and dragged me to the room beside it; the one I’d stayed in before.

He’d obviously been prepared, because there was rope waiting at the four corners of the bed, and the bedding was missing.

“What… what are you going to do to me?” I started pulling back as he hauled me into that room, gasping as he shoved me forward, and kicked the door closed.

“Whatever I fucking want, Ember. That’s the point, isn’t it? You killed me in this house, and now it’s going to be your fucking tomb.”

Oh god. I turned and ran for the door again, and he lunged at me, slamming me against the door and trapping me with his body.

“You know your mistake? You think you’re still dealing with the man you trapped here with you, but you have no fucking idea who I am now. I mean, I don’t, so how the fuck could you?”

“Please. Ethan, please. I’ve been so worried about you. You know it was never supposed to go like that, right? You were supposed to fall in love with me, and want to stay with me. That was all.”

“Yeah? Well, you got what you wanted, because I’m staying with you now. Until we both fucking die.”

He grabbed the back of my neck and dragged me forcibly away from the door, turning and propelling me toward the bed, while I started to fight and push back against him, to try and prevent him from getting me there.

“Can’t see why you’re so reluctant now, when you wanted me before. Ember, you’re getting on that bed, whether you like it or not. The only question is whether you’re conscious when you do.”

“Why are you being like this?” He heaved a heavy sigh, and picked me up, throwing me onto the bed and pinning my legs down as I landed, getting one rope around one of my ankles before I could even start to struggle. I tried to kick at him with the other leg, but it was pinned too by his entire body, and tied before I could even think of anything else to try.

From there, he pushed me down on my back, and reached for one of the ropes at the headboard, tying it around one of my wrists, while they were still cable tied together.

“Ethan, please, please don’t do this. I’ll do whatever you want, but… not like this, please!”

He only cut the cable tie from my wrist once three of my limbs were tied, and I was already helpless, chuckling when I slapped at his face with my one free hand.

“Is that your way of telling me you want it rough? That’s okay, little saboteur, I like it rough too.”

Ethan

IT WAS AS GOOD as I’d imagined, better than I’d dreamed, as perfect as it could have been. She was tied, and struggling, but she’d never get free without me choosing to release her.

The beauty of taking her to her parents’ place was that they’d never think to look here, because who the fuck would be dumb enough to go back to a place owned by them? It was inconceivable that a person would do that, when they were trying to escape the people who owned it.

I’d figured they’d be hard to outsmart, but that they’d put their efforts into searching unfamiliar places for us. I only needed a few days though. Just long enough to break her as much as she’d broken me, and then I’d kill us both.

Before I tried to end my life, I never would have considered something like this, not even when I thought I was losing my mind. It turned out, taking such extreme action had broken the last part of my sanity, and even after several weeks of intense therapy sessions, some of it practically enforced, I’d learned some amazing skills in how to hide it.

I could appear normal. I could pretend to be the man I once was, but he just wasn’t in here anymore. What was left was a man driven by his base needs, and willing to give in to any of those desires, no matter how fucking unhinged they were.

I took that knife and sliced through Ember’s clothing, leaving her naked on the bed, watching as she shivered in the cool air, her nipples puckering into tight little buds.

“Look at you, laid out for me like a fucking sacrifice. The only question is what to do to you first, Ember.”

“Stop calling me that!”

I shook my head. “Nope. No more doing what you want, no more bowing to your demands, and letting you get the upper hand. You’re literally at my mercy, and I can do whatever I want to you, and you won’t be able to stop me. No crying, begging, or pleading will stop me. You wanted a monster, Ember. I’m what you created.”

“This isn’t what I wanted!” She started to cry again, but her tears weren’t affecting me in the slightest. How could something that she could so easily fake, or use as a weapon against me, possibly reach me now?

“It’s okay if you cry, Ember. In fact, you’ll probably do it a fair bit, but eventually you’ll get used to this. Your new fucking life.”

“My dads will find you here, you dick! You probably have a few hours at most!”

It was adorable, how she thought I hadn’t planned for that.

“I kinda hope they do find out I’m here, Ember. See, firstly I figured there’s no way they’d come here, because why would I go back to the place where I nearly died, right? But here’s the thing… if they do… I’ve boobytrapped the main door to the place, so they’ll get a bit of a uh… shock.”

“WHAT?” She started savagely fighting against her bonds, thrashing about on the bed like she was the one being electrocuted. What I’d rigged up probably wouldn’t kill whoever tried to let themselves in, but it’d definitely knock them out for a while. Long enough for me to barricade us in here, and put a knife to her throat. It had all played out in my head a thousand times.

They’d be threatening me, or begging me to release her, and I’d slice her throat open right in front of them, watching her warm crimson blood pouring down her body as she bled out. The old Ethan would be horrified at the mere thought of it, but not me. Nope. I glanced down at the boner poking at the front of my jeans. I found it a fucking turn on.

“What happened to you, Ethan? Why are you like this?!” She sobbed, starting to struggle again as I started shedding clothes on my approach to her.

“What happened to me, Ember? You . You happened to me.”

I kicked away my trousers and underwear, stroking my hard dick as I stared down at her prone, trembling body. Her skin was so pale, well, except for the pink flush of her face and neck. Not from arousal this time, but from her despair and overheated panic. Seeing her like this was doing things to me that it really shouldn’t.

It felt amazing to be free of the shackles of old Ethan. Guilt, concern, morality… life is so much easier when you don’t suffer from any of those afflictions.

I reached down and ran my hand from her knee up to her hip, enjoying the softness of her skin against mine. I trailed a finger over that wriggling stomach of hers, as she kept trying to dodge my touch, dipping it briefly into her dainty navel, and dragging it up between those jiggling breasts of hers. I grabbed her face when I reached it, and held it in place, letting her feel how helpless she was, staring down at her as she blinked frantically at me.

“Ethan, please.”

I smiled, wondering if she thought I was about to soften on her, but her panic didn’t disappear. Smart girl. As much as she did really dumb things at times, unthinking things, unfeeling things, she was still smarter than many her age. If not for her traumas at school, she could have really made something of herself. Pity.

“I was going to gag you again, but I quite like the sound of you begging me like that. Like somehow you think it’ll make a difference, or win me over. Are you trying to remind me of the man I once was? He’s dead, Ember. Because of you. You did that . With your selfish games, and your twisted obsession. Taunting him, forcing him, tattooing him. Maybe one day I’ll let you finish this one though. I’ve grown to love it.” I reached down to stroke my finger over the naked portrayal of her on my abdomen, sliding it down between her legs, and pressing it over the depiction of her sweet pussy.

“Almost as pretty as the real thing, huh? Still, I can’t fuck this one, but I can fuck you.”