Page 12 of Penny
The amber liquid sloshed in my stomach as I flung the sheets away from her. She screamed and rolled to the side, almost falling off the bed. I jumped on top of her, pinned her wrists, and straddled her waist. Her hair moved from her face with my heavy breathing. She raised her chin, jaw firm, trying to hide her fear. Our pulses danced together as I pushed harder into her wrists, reminding me of what I called her earlier.Mo Cuishle.
My growl vibrated my chest, and I blinked rapidly. I ripped the collar of her shirt down, never breaking our eye-contact. Her forehead furrowed for a split second, but her light-colored eyes slowly darkened. I gripped her breast, squeezing it until her face turned red.
“Unbutton my jeans,” I growled, releasing one of her wrists to wrap my hand around her throat.
She lifted her chest, not fighting my tightening grip on her. Her gaze pierced through me as she unclasped my button with one hand, preemptively shimmying my waistband down to pull my cock from its confinement.
“Didn’t say you could do that.” I slapped her face hard enough to jolt her to stare away from me but not leave a lasting mark. I shouldn’t mark up the merchandise.
“I wanted to,” she retorted, turning her face back to me.
I needed to take back control, and having my cock splayed across her stomach wasn’t scaring her. If anything, she wanted this, wanted me to take her, and I couldn’t see why. My heart was a deadweight, dragging me to the deepest pit of hell, consuming me. How could she want someone like me?
I pushed away from her, getting off the bed to look down at her again. Her cheeks were flushed and tears pooled in her eyes. Wrenching her up by her wrist, I dragged her across the room and pulled the door to the hall open. The tile was cool on my feet as she stumbled from my grasp. My heart pounded in my ears so loudly that I couldn’t hear her. If she was even saying anything at all, I didn’t know.
I threw the guest room door open, tossing her inside. She spun around, her curly hair covering her face and heaving chest. Her mouth fell open, but I didn’t let her speak, slamming the door in her face. I strode down the hall, pulling my phone from my pocket and hitting the button to lock her in. The glare she had levelled at me in bed was filled with games and lies. I’d received enough of those to know the way cunning gleamed in a person’s eyes. It was served up on a platter by my “loving” father.
Chapter 9
Emily
My breaths were rapid, and my heart pounded against my rib cage with a bruising rhythm. Being locked in a room should have comforted me, but I was standing at the door, yearning for him to set me free to sleep with him. Bile stung my throat and tickled my tongue with my desires.
The only logical reason I longed to be with my kidnapper was how he played that damn guitar. His eyes had relaxed, and the features on his face melted to a boyish innocence. Those few acoustic strokes had stripped away what made him cruel, reminding me that he may be the tormented and not the tormentor in every aspect of his life. The snarling wolf was transforming and showing me his true self.
My eyes squeezed shut, making sparks of light dance behind my eyelids. I needed to get it together. This feeling had to be Stockholm syndrome. Could you get that in one day? Probably not. The universe wanted to remind me that my bad luck was coupled with idiocy by seeing him as kind. Bad luck was supposed to come in sets of threes, but for me, it came in clusters of a hundred, overpowering anything good. All of this must have been my punishment for not putting up with what it gave me, for giving up too soon. The weight of the world pushing down on me was too much. The world was suffocating me, and I couldn't keep up with it.
The rain wouldn't let up, saturating the back of my jacket and leaving me chilled to the bone. I lay over my backpack, blocking the downpour from ruining the only possessions I had left. Every part of me shook, and I was afraid to look at my fingers, unable to handle seeing them turning blue. I could lose them and my toes from the coldness of this world and couldn't imagine a hospital being welcoming in my state.
The homeless shelter was full, and I couldn't attempt to go where the others took refuge from the rain again. No, I couldn't. The thought of them sneaking up on me as I slept made the rain seem comforting in comparison. The vagrant crowd tended to go to the overpass, where a laundromat was. The heat of the dryers helped keep them warm, and the freeway overpass blocked the rain. It was the perfect place, secured from the hardness of our lives with the small hope of warmth trickling into their camp. I searched all day for a laundromat with dryer vents like it, but they were overcrowded with wanderers like me.
Blisters had formed on my heels, and my feet ached like needles were jabbing into me. It was a pain I'd never felt, and it was all for nothing. Thunder shook the concrete floor, and hail started pounding my back. My heartbeat drifted away, luring my mind to a world where the warmth of the moon tenderly caressed my darkened thoughts.
"Get out of here, you parasite! I don't pay taxes for low lives to stay behind my restaurant," someone yelled from down the narrow back alley.
My wet ringlets covered my face, and my teeth chattered as I forced myself to look over my shoulder. A dark figure stood at the end, holding a large umbrella to block the downpour. The strands of my hair dripped water into my eyes, making them sting and cloud my vision. I weakly nodded, trying to move my frozen muscles. Pricking needles stabbed at my joints as I forced myself to move. Come on, please, body, just do something, I repeated to myself.
"Did you hear me, vermin?" He sneered.
Small groans of agony slipped through my lips, and I lifted my bag, hunching my back to keep it safe.
“I am down on my luck, but not used trash you can throw aside,” I whispered to myself as I stumbled away.
Where I was now was warm and lavish, but I was no more than vermin that the man in the alley called me. The need to trade this all in for hard pavement nagged my desires. You know you were between a rock and a hard place when that happened. The room steadily spun around me as I sat down on the edge of the firm bed. I had to come up with a new plan—one that would get under his skin and allow me to escape.
The bed shook from the weight of me falling back, and the ceiling became a blank canvas to imagine my future. Green trees filled my vision, and a small camper van sat in a small clearing. Sunlight shone down on the old painted vehicle, and a sweet little face peered at me. Bubbles, my beloved dog who’d already crossed the rainbow bridge, stood in the doorway with her tongue hanging from her large smile. Her ears were perked up and head tilted to the side as she looked out at me, making butterflies of excitement stir within my belly.
I wanted this to be my reality, not my mind conjuring a safe place to cope with my present. Her passing was the hardest thing I’d gone through to this day. No matter what Connor had done to me or the coldness of living on the streets, nothing compared to saying goodbye to her.
Cancer was a bitch, and as tears ran down my face, all I wanted to do was give up again. It would be easy to surrender my hopes in defeat and let him take every last drop of me. My imagination made my beloved fur friend rub her head against my leg with a gleam in her eye, willing me to push on. She couldn't understand that at this moment, I had failed her. Even if she was actually here, she wouldn't understand. She loved and accepted my every flaw. Her soft tongue would lap away at my salty tears, and her head would rest on my bouncing chest as I cried, comforting me more than I deserved. People didn't deserve dogs.
My tears soaked my pillow as I fell asleep, and the softness of her pants and smiles were my lullaby. She was my guardian angel, but she felt farther away than ever.
***
Pounding on the door jerked me upright. My shoulders slumped as I remembered that I was on a one-way train ride to enslavement. Today needed to be different. I had to find my way out. If I had to use my body as a weapon, I would. No price was too large for my freedom. It had been too long since I had indulged in my future, but with Bubbles coming to comfort me in my dreams, I felt a renewed sense of energy.
The door flew open, and Connor stood there, taking up the entire doorway. His bare chest was lined with intricate Celtic tattoos. His abs flexed as he clenched his fists, and his biceps swelled. The wolf had come out snarling, his teeth bared, waiting for his prey to move.
