Page 54 of His Runaway Mate

Nicky

He didn’t spank me.

He didn’t even fuck me.

He just tried to talk to me, and it was awful. He was trying to get me to tell him about myself, but if there’s one thing I don’t want to talk about, it’s myself. He tried some casual conversation that I rejected, and then he sort of gave up and I thought that it was over.

Next day, he pretended like it was okay, but we both know it’s not okay. Everybody is in trouble, everything is weird, and I am not allowed to escape.

Now I’ve been in this fucking room for three days, and I think I am going to go crazy. The doors are alarmed and there are guards in the hall, and if I try to go out the windows, I know they will be waiting for me there too.

I’m working on a way out. I suspect that if I climb up onto the bathroom counter, I can maybe cut a hole in the ceiling if Rex is gone long enough, and then…

“Nicky?”

I hear him enter the room. Fortunately I am lying on the bed and not executing my crimes against drywall.

“What do you want?”

“We need to talk,” he says.

“We really don’t.”

The bed sinks as he sits down anyway. Whatever. It’s his bed. He can do what he likes. Suffice to say, I am angry with him. It’s fundamental to animal nature that a trapped creature is going to try to escape. So I tried to get my pack to steal me a car. So what. Anybody in my position would do the same.

“I want you to tell me what happened when you were fourteen,” he says.

Every single hair on my body stands on end, as a fear so intense and so nameless I can barely contemplate it runs through me.

“You’ve been stalking me,” I say.

“I’ve been trying to understand why you’re so scared, so angry, and so afraid. Now I know something happened when you were younger. You don’t have to tell me about it, but I’d like you to. I want to know you. I haven’t been doing a good job of that.”

“Really? Pinning me down, fucking me, and keeping me captive isn’t a good way to get to know me?”

He leans over me, putting one long, strong arm by one side of my head, boxing me in with his body as he looks down at me with a gaze so piercing it makes me want to cover my eyes.

“I know I’ve made mistakes with you,” he says. “I’m going to try to not do that as much.”

“Then ask me about something else. Ask me what my favorite food is. Ask me what my favorite color is. Don’t try to force me into disclosing the worst thing that ever happened to me that I can’t even remember.”

His expression softens.

“I have skipped a lot of steps with you,” he murmurs down at me, using his free hand to brush my hair out of my eyes. I liked it there. It gave me some protection from his inexorable inspection.

“What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?”

“My father used to kill people.”

His head jerks back slightly. “Is that one of the limited edition ones, or…”

I laugh. I didn’t mean to tell him that. I didn’t want to tell him anything. But I guess, eventually, the truth wants to be told.

“Do you want to tell me about him?”

“No,” I say. “Chocolate.”

“We are going to go and get some chocolate ice cream and we’re just going to talk like people,” he says, sitting back and pulling me up with him.