“You showed me how to do it, Beautiful! You taught me how to dance and then you showed me how to treat a whore. You made me a man!”
As he spoke, he shoved her on the bed and got on top of her.
“Hey, stop!” Sammi blurted desperately. He was so heavy she could barely breathe. “You…you can’t treat me like this, Sonny-boy!” she gasped, trying to play into his fantasy and make him stop. “You…you have to treat me with respect!”
“Whores don’t deserve respect.” His tiny black eyes were bright with a mixture of fury and lust. “And that’s all you ever were, Beautiful—a whore.”
“I’m not—” Sammi started but he didn’t let her finish.
He shoved his face close to Sammi’s and glared into her eyes.
“That’s why you taught me how to dance and rubbed yourself against me and took me in the bedroom and taught me how to be a man and how a man treats whores,” he spat at her, his words tumbling over each other in a kind of religious fervor.
“Sonny-boy, please!” Sammi pleaded desperately. But it was too late to stop him— clearly he was working himself up, losing himself in his own sick fantasy.
“You taught me how because you are a whore!” he snarled. “Because—”
He stopped abruptly and pulled back, his nose wrinkling as he inhaled. Bending forward, he pressed his face to Sammi’s neck and sniffed suspiciously. When he pulled back, he was glaring at her.
“You didn’t wear your perfume like I told you to, Beautiful,” he said in an accusing tone. “That’s very important—you have to wear the perfume.”
“Okay…” Sammi’s throat was so tight with terror she could barely get the words out. “Okay, just…just let me up and I’ll put it on.”
To her surprise, he did indeed raise up off her—but only enough for Sammi to reach for the purple perfume bottle on the night table. She squeezed it tightly in one hand, feeling the sharp angles of the glass bottle dig into the meat of her palm.
One chance, she thought desperately. I only have one chance at this!
Turning the bottle, she pretended she was about to spray some on her throat. But at the last minute, she whipped the purple bottle around and sprayed it directly into her captor’s cruel black eyes.
“Arrrgh! You bitch! You whore!” he roared, rearing back as he grabbed at his face.
Sammi took the opportunity to squirm out from under him—mostly, anyway. One of her legs was still pinned under his heavy torso. She started to spray him again, but a blow from his arm knocked the perfume bottle out of her grasp. It fell with a muffled thud to the carpeted floor and she was once more weaponless.
Or was she?
Looking down, she saw the sharp heel of the black stiletto she was still wearing on her free foot. Without thinking, she reached down and plucked it off. Reversing it, she gripped the top of the shoe and rammed it into her captor’s eye.
Or that was what she had planned to do, anyway. At the last minute, he moved again and the sharp heel of the shoe hit him in the throat instead.
Sonny-boy made a muffled gagging sound as the sharp heel hit him right in the larynx. He grabbed at his throat, which was bleeding now, and tried to shout something at Sammi. No sound came out but she could see his thin, spit-flecked lips mouthing the words, Bitch! Whore!
Suddenly two thick hands were around her neck. Sammi gasped and tried to hit him with the shoe again, but he elbowed it out of her hand and started to squeeze.
“No!” she shrieked, but it came out as more of a frightened whimper. “No, stop! Stop!”
“Whore!” Sonny-boy’s voice was back as a hoarse, raspy whisper. “You’ve always been a whore, Beautiful. And now I have to kill you for it—again!”
The hands tightened on her throat and Sammi started to see black spots dancing in front of her vision. She was vaguely aware that there was a pounding sound coming from somewhere—maybe from the door at the top of the stairs? But she couldn’t concentrate on that—couldn’t think of anything except how badly she needed to get some fresh air—how badly she needed to breathe…
Fifty-Five
Roark could feel her fading fast. He was hurting her—the bastard was killing her and Roark couldn’t get to him to stop him—the door was locked!
He kicked the thick wood again and again and again but he might as well have been kicking iron. Unlike the rest of the house, this door was new and it had been made to withstand any assault. Roark felt like he was going to go mad—he was desperate to get to Samantha!
“Goddess!” he cried. “Goddess, help me!”
There was no answer but he suddenly felt a rush of strength infusing him from some outside source. A final fierce kick splintered the wood and broke the lock and Roark went charging down the stairs.