Every human being had a cruel side, but as she looked into the blackness behind his eyes, she didn't see a facet of varying traits. She saw the entire man. He was cruelty incarnate.
He released her, and she stumbled. He reached out to catch her arm, but she jerked away, refusing to be dragged. He grabbed his glove from the floor, slid it on, and gestured toward the kitchen. “After you.”
His soft gait followed closely behind her. She tried to focus on a plan, a useful weapon, anything but the way her wanton body was reacting to the feel of him behind her, around her, dominating her space.
He stopped beside the kitchen sink and set the tablet on the counter. “Get me a glass of water.”
Apparently, breaking-and-entering, fucking with women, and being an all-round asshole made him thirsty. “The water is shut off.” She couldn't stop the flush of humiliation that crept up her neck.
The look of detachment on his face irritated her as much as it frightened her. “I bet you prepared for that. Open the fridge.”
Her molars crashed together as she stormed to the fridge and yanked out one of the four pitchers of water. When she finished pouring a glass, he tugged a baggie from his pocket and dumped the powdered contents into the water, stirring it with a gloved finger. “Drink.”
“No way.” She backed away from him with rasping breaths. “What is it?”
In the next heartbeat, he was on her, chest-to-chest, arms around her back, hauling her to the sliding door. He yanked the shades aside, and the blinding light of the backyard set her skin on fire and her heart into overdrive.
Her legs gave out, and she swung her head away from the horror of the open, inescapable space. If she went out there, it would be her ruination. She wouldn't be coherent, wouldn't be able to talk or scream without breath.
She clawed at his hands, to break his hold, to escape the door. Black bursts spotted her vision, and her heart slammed against her ribs. She panted for air and couldn't fill her lungs. Her eyes smeared with hot tears, blinding her. She fought harder, but his arms were everywhere, too tight, constricting and suffocating. Consciousness teased at the back of her mind as a blanket of warmth and aftershave swept in.
The slide of the drapes sounded, and the sunlight receded. Too late, she realized she was on the floor, curled in his lap, with her face buried in the crook of his arm.
She pushed against the hand cupping the back of her head as the rim of the glass touched her lips.
“We can do this all day.” He rolled the glass over her chin, sloshing cool water against her mouth. “Or you can drink and fall asleep gently.”
So he wanted to knock her out? Well, he could eat a dick. She sealed her lips together and turned her head. “Then what?”
“Then...we go for a ride.”
Van knelt on the bed beside Amber and drew a deep, calming breath. After three more stubborn confrontations with the sliding glass door, she'd worked herself into a sniveling, spasmodic conniption. And promptly fainted.
Shaking his head at the irony, he tied her limp arms to the headboard with the belts from her closet. Then he grabbed the drugged water from the side table.
Fainting wouldn't keep her under long enough for the thirty-minute drive, but the Roofy in the water would. Wrestling with her in front of the open door had been a gamble, but he knew the neighbors on either side were at work and the trees out back blocked the view from the other houses.
Still, it had been a risk that could've been avoided by simply pinning her down and forcing her to drink. But watching her struggle with the choice, seeing how far she'd take it, had revealed a lot about how her mind worked.
She'd convinced herself the biggest threat was out there, beyond her doors and windows, and the least amount of pain was in her house, with him. He was certain she would welcome a bullet before drinking the water, knowing the tranquilizer would result in her removal from the house. It was absolutely fascinating.
In his online research of Amber Rosenfeld, he'd validated she'd won countless first place prizes in prestigious contests in fitness modeling and beauty pageantry. Then, after a fourteen-year career, nothing. For two years, no news articles, nothing in the search results except a profile on an online crafts store selling leathercrafts. Why?
Only a year older than his thirty-three years, her firm figure and youthful face would've provided her a comfortable income from modeling. Yet, here she was, carving leather and drowning in debt. What the fuck had happened to her?
She had no social media profiles, and no friends or family mentioned in the public search results. She'd simply vanished from the spotlight with a disqualification from what might've been her fourth win in an international beauty pageant. The significance of the number four hadn't been lost on him.
He straddled her hips, anxious to dig into her complex mind and savoring the feel of her tight little body against his balls. Christ, all her struggling had wreaked havoc on his control. But he wanted to fuck her in his house, on his bed, where the surrounding acreage's dense timber would swallow her screams.
He stabbed the water with the drinking straw he'd found in the kitchen, sealed it with a finger, and trickled it down her throat.
She coughed, swallowing, and gasped awake. He had another strawfull waiting before she opened her eyes. She blinked, lips parting, and he emptied it in her mouth.
Her throat convulsed, her arms yanked uselessly at the restraints, and she angled her neck to look at her hands. Her eyes rounded, her fists clenched, and she roared, “You dirty, conniving” —she bucked her hips— “heavy-ass dick, let me go!”
He slapped a hand over her mouth and nose and howled with laughter. “I'm going to show you how dirty, conniving, and heavy my dick is. First, you need to take a long nap.”
Christ, she was cute, but it really wasn't funny. If the neighbors were outside, they might've heard her. He cocked his head and watched her struggle for air beneath the clamp of his hand. Time to get ugly.
Releasing her face, he reared back and slammed a fist into her stomach. Not enough to damage organs, but plenty of oomph to knock the wind out of her and get her attention.
She gulped silently, her body straining beneath him. Her lower lip rolled inward, trembling, as she bit down on it. Her eyelids fluttered, brimming but not quite shedding tears. When the pain faded from her eyes, she narrowed them at him.
He held out the glass and raised his brow.
Her lips formed a white stubborn line.
Slowly, he trailed a finger over the cotton covering her stomach, circling the hurt and taunting her until her pupils dilated with fear. She shivered, and sweat beaded along her honey skin. Earlier, it hadn't just been fear that prickled and dampened her flesh. She'd been aroused, too, by his fingers in her pussy, or maybe just from the feel of his erection at her back, from having a man attracted to her. But she'd fought it, fought him, and that had turned him on far more than the juices slicking her cunt.
His finger followed the line of her sternum, traced her collarbone, and roamed over her chin and cheek.
“What are you going to do to me?” The quiver in her voice teased the darkest pleasure centers inside him.
He leaned forward, and his touch caressed a path over her full lips, the bridge of her nose, and her slim eyebrows, drawing out her anxiety. When he reached her nose, he pinched tightly, blocking the airway. Her gaze flew to his, white-eyed and red-rimmed.
Holding her face immobile, he angled the glass beside her chin, using the mattress to balance it. As her lips opened to inhale, he poked the end of the straw between her teeth.
With his fingers clamping her nose, he used the heel of his hand to hold her head down and her jaw shut around the straw. “I'll let you breathe after you drink through the straw. If you pass out, I'll wake you up, and we'll do it again.”
Those huge brown eyes glared at him until the pressure of her lungs overpowered her stubbornness. Her throat began to work, swallowing the drug. Gorgeous, watery pools of desperation
engulfed her lashes and trickled down her temples.
“Shhh.” He bent over her, without releasing her jaw and nose, and kissed the paths of her tears.
When air coughed through the straw, he set the glass on the table and lowered his face to hers. She drew heavy, greedy inhales, tucking her chin to escape him. He chased her lips, catching them with his own and sucking, teasing, enjoying the heave of her chest and her useless struggles to get away. Then he sat back.
She pulled on the restraints and gave up quickly, evidently exhausted. Her eyes slid over the room as if memorizing every detail and locked on the aquarium of mutilated awards. “I can't go outside. I can't.” Her voice crept over him, somber and resigned.
“Why did you quit?” He nodded at the aquarium.
She looked at him, her gaze wet and glazed, not really looking. “You'll see.”
He narrowed his eyes, wanting to press, but he only had twenty minutes before the Roofy took effect. So he offered the same obtuseness. “I'm going to fix you; then you'll see.”
Tuning out her objection, he strode to the closet. He yanked three duffel bags from the top shelf and stuffed them with the bulk of her wardrobe.
When she figured out what he was doing, she wailed more nonsense about not going outside until he gagged her with a balled up sock from the dresser.
He added her toiletries from the bathroom to the last duffel, followed by the empty water glass with the Roofy evidence, her powered-off phone, laptop, and his tablet.
Twenty minutes later, he found her sleeping heavily, made sure the airway in her nose was clear, and left the gag in place. Then he slid on sunglasses and entered the garage.
Empty. Not even a car. Guess that made sense since she didn't go anywhere. Snatching the garage opener from a bare shelf, he closed the doors behind him. Because it was daylight, he strolled down the street and around the block.