Page 91 of Ruthless Game

Emma

Ishould’ve tried to escape.

Really. That’s what a wiser person would do. I’d been kidnapped, for fuck’s sake, drugged and driven away in the dead of night. And Lawson was a terrible captor. He even let me have my phone, even if my time on it was supervised.

I could’ve texted my parents and told them I’d been kidnapped. Hell, I could’ve called 911. Instead, I stayed, not particularly docile but not threatening Lawson with a kitchen knife, either.

Max.

I’d started calling him Max again. Not casually, but when his fingers or mouth were on my pussy, when he was making me scream, “Max” was what came pouring out of my mouth.

Max, Max, Max.

I’m yours, Max.

You’re mine, Max.

I shouldn’t have said it, but when he humiliated me with my body’s needs and showered me with praise, I didn’t know which way was up, and his name was my only anchor to sanity.

It had been a few days. I’d been unchained, let free to wander around the house, which he’d filled with yellow Starbursts like they were flowers. You have a very particular sweet tooth, he’d said. It’s my job to see to its needs. We were somewhere in the Finger Lakes, surrounded by forest on three sides, butting up to the lake on the other. I was shocked that Max—Lawson—would choose a cabin so close to the water, but when I asked him about it, he shrugged and told me it was for me.

“You like looking at water,” he said. “I can suffer a little—or a lot—if it makes you happy.”

I tried not to show how the admission made me melt. Just like I’d tried not to react to all the times he told me he loved me. I didn’t say it back, because even if it was true, I didn’t trust him enough to give up that part of me. If he wrecked me again, I wouldn’t survive it.

“Want to suffer more and have a swim lesson?” I asked him.

We were on the couch in the living room, me with my back to the couch’s arm, facing the window, Lawson laying back on my lap. I was staring out at the lake, playing with his hair with one hand, which had gotten a little too long. Lawson was playing with the fingers of my free hand, staring up at me.

“Not particularly,” he said.

“It’ll make me happy.”

“Because you love to torture me?”

“No.” I scratched his scalp with my nails, and he sighed contentedly. “Because the idea that you could ever run the risk of drowning again terrifies me.”

He shut his eyes, like he didn’t even want to face that sort of possibility. “Honestly, I want to know how to swim, just so I can pull you to safety if you ever pull some of that bottom of the pool bullshit to ‘think’ ever again.”

“I wasn’t⁠—”

“I know.” He spread his fingers, interlacing our hands and placing them on his belly. “I’ll get in that damn pond and face my fears … if you swim naked.”

I rolled my eyes, but I enjoyed how much he liked my body. It quieted so many of my own insecurities. Society was noisy about judging thick girls. But Max’s—Lawson’s—insistence that I was beautiful was louder, managing to drown out all that fat shaming, and I was grateful to him for it.

I didn’t tell him that. He wouldn’t have cared, anyway. Just probably punched someone.

“Naked it is, then. It’s not like you remembered to pack me a suit,” I said, and with a beleaguered sigh, he got to his feet and pulled me up beside him. Hand in hand, we left the cabin and wandered down to the small, rocky beach that led directly into the water. With each step, Lawson got stiffer, jaw tightening, muscles clenching, hand squeezing tight around mine until my own hand began to go numb from the pressure.

“Is it because it’s not a pool? It’s a pond? Is that too close to where you were when you drowned?” I asked him.

He shook his head. It was more of a jerk than a shake. “Maybe a little,” he said through gritted teeth. “But mostly, all the other times I got in water, it was because of you. I was waterboarding that asshole for talking shit about you, and then I was trying to drag you to safety. Right now, you’re safe, so my adrenaline isn’t blinding me to what’s in front of me.”

“Which is deep, unknown water,” I said.

“Which is deep, unknown water,” he agreed.

“Well, how about this,” I offered, attempting to pull my hand loose from his.