"Until you answer me Vaughn, I'm going to keep touching her. But I won't let her come. It's up to you to put an end to it, one way or the other."
What if he told him to stop? She'd suffered everything already—the touches, the coercion, the embarrassment. What if she wanted it? That small reward after enduring everything else? It was what she'd chosen, back at the other cabin.
In the end, without knowing why, he answered out of a fear he didn't understand, or even suspect.
"Let her."
"Let her what, Vaughn?"
"Let her come."
Conrad's triumphant smile was grossly indecent.
"Here that, love? Vaughn wants you to come."
Vaughn was queasy with sudden guilt as he watched Conrad go on touching her, his hand still clamped over her mouth. But, once again, in spite of everything, he was hard, hot, almost panting, the scene between Devan and Conrad, and even his role in it, had him so aroused.
Just a few seconds later she shuddered hard and a strained, muffle cry seeped out from under Conrad's hand.
Vaughn didn't know, after, if he'd betrayed her, or assented to what she'd wanted.
"Since you were so generous to Devan," Conrad's loathsome, purring voice broke in on Vaughn's self-torment, "I think it's only fair you should get to have a bit of fun, yourself."
Conrad was grinning at him over Devan's shoulder as he finally took his hand from her mouth.
"Name your pleasure, Vaughn."
The pit of Vaughn's belly went cold as he allowed himself to understand where Conrad was going next.
"What would you like to do with our sweet Devan?"
No fucking way. The things the fucker came up with.
"Another blowjob? Or perhaps you'd like to fuck her again? Maybe try out her…other virginity?"
Oh god. He couldn't. Even Conrad couldn't be so awful to her.
"Come, come, Vaughn. Let's have your answer."
"Fuck you."
"I'm afraid I'm not on the menu, Vaughn. Though I might reconsider, if you keep talking dirty like that."
Vaughn sat, silent and frozen with rage and terrible fear. Staring at Devan staring back at him, trying to keep her fear hidden from him. God, Dev. All the sweet things he felt for her seemed more potent, more poignant now. He'd been insider her. Her first.
"Still waiting, Vaughn."
Vaughn turned deliberately to Conrad.
"I don't want anything from her. Not like this, you fucking monster."
"No?" Conrad lifted Devan from his lap, rose, and coaxed her back down into the chair. Then he slinked over, behind Vaughn, put a hand on his shoulder, lips to his ear, his palm on his fierce erection. "But you're so hard. Are you quite sure there's nothing you want? Perhaps to play the monster, yourself, for once?"
Vaughn was speechless with hate. With fear. Fear of something other than Conrad.
"Oh, well. If you don't want to play, Devan and I shall have to manage without you. Don't worry, I know we'll have a lovely time, though I do think it would be more fun if you'd join in."
With that Conrad's hand slipped from Vaughn's hard prick, and a moment later he was dragging Devan back into the bedroom, and closing the door. In a fit of sudden alarm Vaughn strained pathetically at the cuffs chaining him to the chair, until the futility of it sunk in. His terror slowly faded to a sickening anxiety. He hated it—Conrad cloistered behind that closed door with Devan. But Vaughn was rescued from the worst of his fear by the growing certainty that whatever it was Conrad planned to do with 407
Devan, he'd do in Vaughn's presence. The head case got off on it—Vaughn's fear. And Devan's. She'd be afraid, on her own. But it was infinitely harder for her, he knew, with him witnessing it all. And that's how Conrad wanted it.
She hardly resisted as Conrad dragged her back to the bedroom. What was the point? It would only make it more awful for Vaughn, seeing her struggle futilely. She heard the door latch click to as her wrist slipped free of Conrad's grip.
"Get on the bed, darling."
Now. This was it. She couldn't move. Conrad took a step, closing the space between them, put his hands on her shoulders, and guided her back, until she felt the bed against the backs of her legs. Hopeless, she sank down.
"Give me your hand."
Her arm felt limp, like her body, but she lifted it, gave him her hand. From his pocket he brought forth a pair of handcuffs, and latched one bracelet closed on her wrist.
"Please, Conrad," she sobbed, trying to be quiet so Vaughn wouldn't hear.
"Please don't tie me. I won't fight. I promise."
His hand on her shoulder, he slowly pushed her back, back, until she was lying down, then stretched over her and closed the other end of the cuffs on the headboard.
Methodically, slowly, he climbed onto the bed, gently pushed her legs apart, knelt between them, and using his legs, pushed her further open.
"Won't fight?" he cooed down to her.
"No," she breathed, her heart tearing her chest apart.
"Won't fight what, love?"
"You."
He drew forth another pair of handcuffs and held them dangling above her.
"Give me your other hand, Devan."
Physically, she didn't know how she did it, lifting her hand to him, holding it there as he clicked the cuff closed. If he'd released her wrists, told her she could go, that she could take Vaughn and go, she didn't think she'd even have the strength to sit up. The metal cuffs clanged against the headboard as he locked her second arm overhead.
"If I uncuff you, darling, what will you let me do?"
The frail hope that maybe he'd free her wrists brought on a sudden flood of tears that blurred his face looming over her, then trickled tickling down into her hair.
"Anything," she whimpered. Why not? He could do anything he wanted, anyway, with her cuffed to the bed. Only it would be a thousand times more terrifying.
"Such as?"
Playing with her. Again. Let him. Just get him to take the cuffs off.
"I'd let you," she almost said 'rape,' but edited, "fuck me."
"Would you?"
"Yes."
"What else?'
"I'd…use my mouth on you." She caught his disapproving look. Remembered how he hated her coy euphemisms. "I'd…suck your cock. Let you come in my mouth."
"Mmmmm," he sighed, closing his eyes for a few seconds, then opening them, seeming to study her. "And would you spread your legs for me, nice and wide, and let me open this pretty little flower with my mouth, and taste you?"
His finger brushed over the wet crotch of her underwear.
"Yes."
"Yes," he echoed back in a sigh. Then he smiled. "Such lovely images. They'll be with me all afternoon, dear Devan."
He rose, pulled the covers up under her arms, and quietly left the room, closing the door behind him. It wasn't until he was gone, until Devan's terror began to ebb away that she felt the hot throb between her legs. What the fuck was wrong with her? He hadn't even really touched her.
When he returned to the kitchen Conrad saw from Vaughn's face that he'd succeeded in allowing enough time to elapse so that Vaughn couldn't be entirely sure Conrad hadn't taken his liberties—however hastily—at last. No reason to let him off the hook just yet. He gave Vaughn a teasing grin, then slipped around back of him and uncuffed one wrist, then dropped the key on the table in front of him and stepped carefully out of reach.
"Come on, Vaughn. Let's get out of here for a bit. I'm going a tad stir crazy in the coziness of your little cabin."
He watched as Vaughn cast a fretful glance toward the closed bedroom door.
"She'll be all right. We won't be gone long."
With the air of a man who hasn't any choice, Vaughn unlocked the cuff at his wrist, then untied his ankles and stood, obviously a bit stiff.
"I shouldn't have left you tied up like that for so long. A bit of a walk will do you good." Conrad briefly waved the tranquilizer gun. "Just don't do anything annoying. I don't fancy having to drag your unconscious body back here."
Off they went, into the woods, Conrad ever cautious to keep Vaughn at a safe distance. Vaughn never ceased to amuse. Conrad knew the man was ready to perish with anxious curiosity, not knowing what Conrad might have done to Devan while he'd had her alone in the bedroom. Still, he walked along in silence.
"I'm curious, Vaughn. Why the gun?"
"What?"
What a nerve. Vaughn had almost sounded bored.
"When you discovered Devan here, in your cabin. What was with the gun?"
"You've read my entire fucking journal. What do you think was with the gun?"
"Devan hadn't drugged you. She was here alone. What is she, half your size?
Hmmm? What in bloody hell did you need a gun for? Were you trying to make the poor girl piss her pants?"
Poor fellow was apoplectic.
"I didn't want to hurt her."
"Oh, Vaughn. You don't really believe that, do you?"
Vaughn's eyes had gone red, his pale skin had paled another shade or two.
"You remember, Vaughn. That's all you wanted. To hurt her. You don't have to tell me. You didn't have to write it in your diary. I know you. I know. After everything that 411
happened to you, you found her, here, in your little secret hideaway, and everything in you wanted to hurt her. Wanted her to be worse than those others all put together, just so you could do to her what they'd done to you. Use her, with no regard for her as a person, to realize your darkest fantasies. With total justification."
No defensive retort.
"And that, Vaughn, is why it was so hard for you to let go of your delusions about her motives, even once you'd gotten to know her. Begun to trust her. To care for her.
Why even after your tender interlude that night by the fire you managed to convince yourself she was just putting on some act, spying on you.
Conrad actually hated to see him like that. But he was sure, just as he'd been sure with Devan, that Vaughn would have to face a certain amount of pain, face what he thought of as an ugly side of himself, before he'd be able to live fully and honestly. And before the real fun could begin.
Conrad felt strangely drawn to Vaughn in that moment, a pale echo of the way he was drawn to Devan. They really were strangely alike.
"The sad irony now is, you're so afraid of hurting her, you risk losing her."
Conrad waited, but Vaughn made no protest.
"You know it's true, don't you? It's not a protector she wants. Or some gentleman who'd just hold her hand for five years, leaving her a chaste virgin."
"No danger of that, now." Poor Vaughn sounded more sad than angry.
"No, but that's my doing, not yours. If you aren’t careful, Vaughn, at the end of all this, you'll have lost through tenderness what you briefly captured through brutality."
Conrad had a notion that some little part of Vaughn knew it was true.
"You fucked her last night. You tied her up, stripped her bare, and fucked her.
Your innocent, frightened, virginal Devan."
It looked as though every muscle had tensed, as though every tendon in Vaughn's body had gone taut.
"I won't ask you if you enjoyed it, Vaughn. But, given your no doubt vast wealth of sexual experience, how would you say it was for Devan?"
Judging by the set of Vaughn's jaw, a head on Mr. Rushmore was more likely to reply to that question.
"Have you ever, in your whole life, had a woman so completely in your hands? I don't mean physically helpless. A man can tie a woman up, have her completely in his power, physically, and never manage to touch anything deeper than her skin.
"But you had her. She was entirely yours. She gave herself over to you in a way she never could have in one of your romantic interludes by the fire. She was truly naked to you last night, and so you touched her more intimately, more profoundly, than you could have if you'd come to her…asking her permission."
Conrad probed with his eyes until Vaughn finally looked back.
"And I think you know it."
Vaughn met Conrad's knowing gaze with a look at once sad and fierce.
"I'll tell you what I know. Devan trusted me. I didn't deserve it. I hurt her when she was a stranger. I hurt her when she was a friend. And after everything, she gave me her trust again." His voice was breaking up. "And then you came, and made me hurt her again."
"Get off it, Vaughn. Stop lying to yourself. You didn't hurt Devan. And she still trusts you."
"She shouldn't."
Conrad elected to ponder Vaughn's cryptic response, rather than prod further. He was fairly sure, in any case, that he had a good idea what it meant.
When Conrad returned to Devan, after he and Vaughn returned from the woods, after he'd gotten the reluctant suitor settled in the dining room, she looked at him strangely. He couldn't know, of course, just what it was she was thinking as those dusky eyes tracked him, but it seemed reasonable to hope that she was succumbing to his…little manipulations. And somewhere in that forest, as he'd walked guardedly alongside her lumberjack, he'd settled on his next move. And so, later that night, after they'd eaten, Conrad settled them all around the fire, enjoying their anxious anticipation after hours genial abstinence. Vaughn in the armchair, and Devan on the sofa. He was about to take his place beside her when a brilliant bit of inspiration struck. With a calm,
"Pardon me one moment," he slipped over to the kitchen and poured a single glass of Cabernet and returned to the intimate little party.
"Here, darling. Drink this. Take your time."
He handed the glass to Devan, then seated himself beside her. Close enough to feel the heat of her body. She and Vaughn were looking at him with the expected expressions of anxious uncertainty.
"Only me?"
"Yes love, just you."
"I don't want it," she said, not whispering, but her voice so nervous and low it was only just audible.
"Drink it, Devan. It'll calm you."
Cruel, that. But irresistible. Their faces—priceless. She tipped the glass to her lips. Conrad looked at Vaughn, let him futilely threaten with his eyes for a moment or two, then turned to Devan. And did something he'd never allowed himself to do.