I swallow, my heart thumping irregularly as he bends to reach into the nightstand. He pulls open the drawer where he must keep his spare charger, but he still has a hand on my wrist; it’s beginning to make me uncomfortable.
I try to pull out of his grip and his fingers curl more tightly around my wrist.
Breathe, Laurel. Everything is completely fine. Don’t make it weird.
“Do you live here alone?” I ask.
His dark eyes look somehow more threatening with him shadowed in darkness like this. “Sure do.”
“That’s cool.” It’s an inane remark, but it’s all I can do to sit still right now. My nerves are starting to tear at me, urging me to insist he release my wrist. “Can I have my hand back?” I ask instead, since it seems a bit less accusing.
“What do you need it for?”
I open my mouth, drawing a blank. “It’s… my hand. I need it for everything.”
He turns back to me, holding something black and somewhat puffy in his hand. What the hell is that? He spreads it open with one hand and it looks almost like an open bracelet. An open leather cuff?
He slaps the cuff around my wrist. I’m dumbstruck, but I think just clearly enough to jerk my hand away and scoot down the bed. “What are you doing?” This time, he doesn’t answer me. His fingers close around my lower arm in a vice grip and he fixes the padded cuff around my wrist. “Sin,” I say, trying to get my wrist away from him. “What the fuck—?”
The cuff clicks. He pulls on it to make sure it’s secure. My heart beats wildly and even though he won’t answer me now, even though I don’t know what he’s doing, I accept that it must be bad. He drops my cuffed wrist and grabs the other one, opening a second restraint.
I don’t know what else to do, so I roll back on the bed, bringing my knees up, and use my feet to shove against his chest and get him away from me.
“Want me to cuff your ankles, too?” he asks, shoving my legs to the side and climbing on top of me.
“Oh, my god,” I cry out, shoving at him. “Oh, my god, what are you doing? What are you doing?”
The cuffs aren’t attached to anything yet, so I know if I can just get him off me, I can run. I hit him in the chest with my cuffed hand, but he ignores me, like I’m not even a minor nuisance. I can’t breathe, and even though he’s on top of me, it’s not because of his weight. It’s because I’m realizing how utterly at his mercy I am. Here I am, fighting with all my strength, and I’m still pinned beneath a strange man, not knowing what he intends to do to me.
For all the harm he could intend, he doesn’t seem to be escalating things. He’s not fumbling with my clothing or his; he’s focused on getting the second cuff closed around my wrist. Once he verifies the security of that one, he reaches along the side of the bed and yanks up a bar on the side of the bed. I stare, horrified, as he loops a thick chain around it, then attaches the chain to my cuffs, even as I struggle with every ounce of strength in my body.
Dread crawls up my spine. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Sin takes a step back and looks me over. I’m stuck on my side now, locked to this rail on the side of the bed. I pull on the cuffs. The chain rattles, but I’m no closer to freedom.
“Help!” I scream. “Somebody help me!”
“You’ll only make yourself hoarse,” he advises. “No one can hear you. I don’t have neighbors.”
“Why?” I demand, at a complete loss. “What the hell?”
Sin shrugs, like this is all completely my fault. “I offered to put you up in a hotel. You declined. Here we are.”
“This is kidnapping,” I inform him, trying to glare him to death.
He appears to be unconcerned. “I’m gonna take a shower. You can scream for help and make your wrists sore trying to get free, or you can just settle down and go to sleep. I know you’re tired. It’s really your call; I couldn’t care less either way.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” I demand.
“I told you. I need you to stay in town another night. I tried to do things the nice way, but you didn’t want to cooperate.”
“I’ll cooperate now. Please… please don’t do this. Please let me go. We can pretend this never happened. Just unlock these cuffs and let me out of here. You don’t even have to give me a ride to the airport, I’ll call a car. I’ll go home. Nobody in this town ever has to see me again. It’ll be like I was never even here, I promise.”
Shaking his head like he’s disappointed, he says, “That’s not even a good offer. I said I want you to stay in town another night. You want to promise your cooperation, you tell me you’ll take the hotel room, you’ll stay in town, you’ll give me the extra day I asked for.”
I offer a vigorous nod. “Fine, yes, I’ll do that.”
“Too late,” he says, lazily unbuckling his belt and drawing it off.