Dead and Loving It (9 page)

T
wo nights before the full moon, and she was actually torn.

Torn!
It was almost like she was dreading her impending escape. Which only proved a steady diet of rich food and amazing sex lowered IQ points.

Every day, he asked her to tell him the truth, promising to let her go if she did. And every day, she told him the truth…a lie would have choked her. She hadn't broken their date by choice. She had wanted to see him again. And she almost didn't hate him.

That one she kept to herself.

He hadn't tied her up since that first night. And she hadn't tried to attack him. Another example of her quickly lowering IQ. When they were between the sheets (or in the bathtub, or on the floor in front of the fireplace), the last thing on her mind was leaving. But far more disturbing, when they weren't between the sheets, the last thing on her mind was leaving.

And it wasn't that she was thinking with her pussy instead of her brain. Well, it wasn't
just
that. Because to be perfectly honest, what exactly, was she going back to? To be at Mikey's beck and call? To hang out with a group of people who disapproved of her and then go home to her lonely bed? The pack didn't much want her, and she sure as shit didn't want someone who wasn't pack, someone who was fragile—who would break if she really let loose.

Dick fit the bill admirably, and he approved of her—to the hilt! He thought everything she did and said was swell. She could have farted on him, and he would have rhapsodized about it. In fact, she did…after a particularly strenuous sexual marathon and when she was relaxing in his embrace. Relaxing a little too well, in fact—she really cut one. Quick as thought, she pulled the blankets over Dick's head, trapping him with the noxious odor. Cursing, he finally freed himself and then they both laughed until they cried.

She rolled over on her back and stared at the ceiling. It was getting rapidly dark in the bedroom; the sun would be down in a few more minutes. She'd adjusted nicely to his schedule and now slept her days away. Frankly, she preferred his schedule—she'd never been much of an early riser.

He'd be here any minute. Any minute. She felt a tightening in her stomach and was disgusted with herself. Just thinking about him—about his long fingers and his mouth and his tongue and his cock—was making her wet. Some prisoner. Now she had Stockholm Syndrome. Except it was more like Bimbo Hypnotized by Bad Guy's Huge Cock Syndrome.

And then later he would bring amazing food, and they'd talk about everything and anything. And he'd read to her—they were halfway through
Salem's Lot,
which he seemed to think was a comedy—while she paced. She liked books but couldn't stand to sit still for the hours and hours required to read one. Or they'd wrestle, and once she'd thrown the leftover apple pie at him and they'd had a food fight that ruined the drapes.

Jane sighed. If it was
just
his dick, it wouldn't be so bad. She could always buy a vibrator. No, it was
Dick.
She really, really liked him, more than any guy she'd ever known, and she knew a lot of fellas. And she was having a helluva time remembering she was a prisoner. In fact, she didn't think Dick remembered much, either.

 

Her vision doubled, trebled…and then her knees buckled. Luckily, she was bent over the footboard, so she had some support.

Dick let go of her waist and pulled her back onto the bed. “That was…sweaty.” Panting lightly, he flopped over on the pillows. “Jane, your stamina knows no bounds. Look at me; I'm actually out of breath. And I don't even need to breathe.”

“My stamina? Look who's talking. We've been at it since—holy shit, the sun's gonna be up in another hour. You'd better beat feet back to the coffin, old man.”

He snorted. “It's a bed, not a coffin. It's one of the guest beds, in fact.
You're
in my coffin, so to speak.”

“So why don't you sleep here?”

“I've been thinking about it.” He propped himself up on one elbow, bent to kiss her shoulder, and then said, “More and more, actually. In the beginning, I dared not leave myself at your mercy, but now I wonder.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You take longer to say something than anyone I've ever met.”

He didn't smile at her bitching like he usually did. “I'd be quite helpless, Janet. If you, ah, decided to be angry, there's nothing I could do until the sun went down. And the tables in here are all made out of wood…so are the chairs. It wouldn't be difficult for someone with your determination to fashion a rudimentary stake.”

She'd never thought of that. She couldn't believe she'd never thought of that. “Oh.” She mulled it over for a minute and then said, “Well, I don't especially want to stake you in the guts.”

“The guts I wouldn't mind so much. How about the heart?”

She rolled over and rested her chin on his chest. “There either. I dunno, you're okay. When you're not being a total shit. Stay, go, I don't give a fuck.”

“Well, I can hardly turn down such a warm invitation.” Still, he glanced nervously at the table in the corner before climbing under the covers. “Ah, well, here goes nothing. Climb in next to me.”

“I have chicken grease under my nails,” she pointed out.

“So we'll take a nice hot shower together later tonight.”

“Sounds like, a date.” She snuggled in next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. His body was still slightly warm from their earlier exertions and, as she pressed closer to him, remained that way.

“Ahhhhh,” he sighed. “You're better than my electric blanket.”

“That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. You should write for fuckin' soap operas,” she grumbled, but inside she was glowing. He was trusting her with his life. He knew he was easy prey, and he was going to sleep anyway. It spoke volumes about his true feelings for her…and her status as his “prisoner.”

Well, shit,
she thought, drifting into sleep. Her palm rested over his heart, which beat once or twice every minute.
Maybe there's hope for us after all.

R
ichard woke, as he had for the last several decades, just as the sun slipped past the horizon line. He felt Jane's head resting on his shoulder and smiled. A wonderful way to start the evening. And he was
warm,
so delightfully warm. She was better than a hot tub. He'd have to do something really nice for her for not killing him. Like…let her go?

He couldn't. He knew it was the right thing to do, knew he had no business keeping her as a sort of mid-sized boy toy, but every time he thought of his condo emptied of her refreshing presence, he wanted to shiver. Hell, he wanted to go for a walk in the sunshine.

He couldn't even pretend it was about revenge anymore. Even if she had lied, they were square after that first night. No, he was keeping her because he was a selfish monster and he couldn't bear to let her go. To be brutally honest, he was thrilled she was sticking to her story, because it gave him the perfect excuse to keep her.

The fact that he wasn't pinned to the bed via a table leg through his rib cage spoke well of her feelings for him. He was as hopeful as he'd been in—what year
was
it? She had her chance for vengeance and hadn't taken it. And he doubted his lovely Jane was in the habit of passing up a chance to avenge herself. Was it possible she'd forgiven him? That was too unrealistic to believe, but perhaps there was hope. Perhaps—

“No! No, God, no…aw, jeez, Bobby!”

She was screaming. Screaming in her sleep. He was so startled he nearly jumped off the bed. Never had he heard his Janet so terrified, and so young. She sounded like a teenager.

“I didn't—Bobby, don't move, I'll get an ambulance, oh, God, don't die, please don't die!”

She was clawing at him in her sleep. He caught her hands and squeezed. “Jane, love. It's a dream. It's not real.”
Anymore,
he added silently. His chest and throat felt tight. Whatever had happened, it had been horrible. Awful enough to scare her away from lovemaking for years and years.

Her eyes flew open. He was shocked to see them filling and then her tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “I didn't mean to,” she sobbed.

“Of course you didn't.”

“They told me it wasn't a good idea—that monkeys are fragile—but I didn't listen.” She made a small fist and thumped it against his chest. “Why didn't I listen? Oh, we were having such fun—it didn't even hurt, and I thought it was supposed to hurt the first time. And then I started to come and I wrapped my legs around his waist and squeezed and—and—”

“Janet, it was an accident.”
Monkeys?
Odd slang—he had never been able to keep up with it. Had she broken the boy's ribs? Had they been in a precarious position and fallen, and perhaps the boy had…? Well, whatever had happened, he was thoroughly certain of one thing. “You didn't mean to hurt him, Jane. You never would have hurt him. You've got to let this go.” He was stroking her back while he soothed her, and she finally relaxed against him. He added jokingly, hoping to see a scowl, “Besides, you don't need to worry about such things with me. You could set me on fire while you were having your way with me, and I'd be fine the next day. Before you ask, though, I'm really not into that.”

She jerked up on one elbow and stared at him. Her eyes were smudged with tears, bloodshot, and enormous. He thought she'd never looked so pretty. “That's right,” she said slowly. “I was thinking about that last night and you…I can't hurt you. You can take whatever I dish out.”

“And have been,” he added, “for several days now. See, look!” He showed her his arm where, in her agitation, she'd clawed off ribbons of skin. It was nearly healed.

Oddly, she was still staring at him as if she'd never seen him before. “I don't know why I didn't think of it before, Dick.”

“You've had other things on your mind. Now, that's enough crying over a fifteen-year-old accident you couldn't help,” he said briskly, hoping she agreed. He couldn't bear to see her cry. He rolled out of bed and stood up, casting about for a way to distract her. “How about sushi and maybe some vegetable tempura for breakfast?”

She perked up immediately. “I like raw fish,” she said. “I like steak tartare, too, but I like it better with steak, not hamburger.”

“Sounds like we have lunch figured out, too, m'love.”

“But first we have to shower,” she said, almost shyly.

He laughed, bent to her, picked her up, and kissed her. “Yes indeed. You are
filthy.
And so am I. I foresee lots of scrubbing in our future.”

“Fucking pervert,” she snorted, and he cheered inwardly, knowing she was back to herself.

 

For the second night in a row, Richard woke up warm and content. He had made up his mind as dawn broke in the wee hours of the morning, as Janet cuddled up to him and snored softly in his ear. Today they would go out. He'd take her shopping and buy her a ridiculous amount of clothes. Clothes, lingerie, priceless paintings, pounds of steak tartare—whatever she wanted. He knew in his heart she wouldn't run away from him, and it was past time he let her out of his bedroom. She had been admirably patient, and it was time for a reward.

He stretched. He didn't really need to—he always woke energized and hungry and raring to go—but he enjoyed the sensation. Yes, they would go shopping, she would bully the sales clerks, and it would be delightful. Then back to his place for a light lunch and some energetic lovemaking, and possibly a nap, or more of
Salem's Lot.
Yes, it was all—

Where the hell was Janet?

He'd been groping absently for her while he'd been thinking, but she wasn't in his bed, and the bathroom light was off. He could hear her on the floor, gasping in—pain? Was that pain?

In the second before he looked, it seemed like every malady mortals were prone to raced through his brain. She had appendicitis. He'd knocked her up (it was supposed to be impossible, but who really knew?) and she was having a miscarriage. She was having a heart attack. A brain embolism. A kidney shutdown. God help him, he was as afraid to look as he was afraid not to.

He looked. Janet was on her knees beside the bed, panting harshly, and her back—it almost looked like the knobs of her spine were
moving.
Her hair was hanging in her face in sweaty tangles, and her nails were sunk into the carpet. His feet hit the floor with a double thud, and he reached for her. “Janet, I'm getting a doctor. I'll be right—”

A low, ripping growl froze his hand in mid-reach. And then—so fast, it was so quick, he blinked and it was done—she sprouted hair, her nose turned into a long snout, her eyes went wild, and she was leaping for the door.

She bounced off it, but he was alarmed to see it actually shudder in its frame. She coiled and leapt again. And again. He remained sitting on the bed—he was afraid if he stood he would fall—and stared at her. Janet was a dun-colored wolf with silver streaks running down her back. Her eyes were the same color as when she was a biped, but now they were glittery and homicidal. He remembered how she paced when he read, how she couldn't seem to sit still for long, and realized that in this form she was claustrophobic.

Chunks of the door were leaping off the frame and falling to the carpet each time her body hit the door, but at this rate it would take at least ten minutes and she was likely to damage herself. He got up and walked to the door on legs stiff with shock, fumbled with the lock, dropped his key twice (all the while dodging her small wolf 's body—she never stopped, she completely ignored him, he doubted he was even a cipher to her now), and finally swung open the door.

He ran after her to do it again, and again. Then she spotted the bank of windows facing west and lunged toward them. He dived and managed to catch her back left leg just as she was coiling for a leap that would take her through the window. She spun, and he had a dizzying glimpse of what looked like a thousand sharp teeth as she growled.

“We're three stories up,” he panted, clutching her while at the same time trying not to break her leg. “You'll never survive the fall. Well, you might but—Janet, don't go!”

She snapped at his fingers. Wrathful growls bubbled up out of her without pause or breath.

“Please don't leave! I was wrong and you were right—God, you were so right, I was a blind fool not to see it.
Please
don't leave me.”

She snapped again, her jaws closing about a centimeter from his flesh. A warning. Probably her last warning.

“I can't bear it without you. I swear I can't. I thought I was content before, but it was a lie, everything was a lie, even why I was keeping you was a lie—”

His grip was slipping. He talked faster.

“—but you were right, and you never lied, not once, not even to get away, and Janet, I will spend the rest of your life making it up to you—”

She was almost free, and he was afraid if he let go to get a better grip, he wouldn't be fast enough.

“—but please…don't…go!”

She went.

He lay on the floor in his study a very long time. It seemed too much work to get up, find the broom, and start sweeping up the broken glass. He owned the building anyway, so who cared? Who cared about anything?

He couldn't believe she was gone. He couldn't believe he—who prided himself on possessing at least a modicum of intelligence—had let this happen.

My name is Janet Lupo.

Had done such things, and to such a woman.

I'm not afraid of any man, and I don't lie.

What had he been thinking?

My name is Janet Lupo.

How could he have been so blind?

My name is Janet Lupo.

So stupid and arrogant?

The full moon is eight days away. And when it comes, you're going to get a big fucking surprise.

Oh, if there was a God this was a fine joke indeed. He had finally found the one woman he could spend eternity with…

Your little oak doors won't hold me then.
…and he had kidnapped her and raped her and kept her and ignored her when she spoke the truth.

You'll realize you fucked up, bad.

He'd demanded she admit to being afraid of him, and when she wouldn't, he assumed it was a lie.

You'll know I was telling the truth the whole time, but you couldn't see past your stupid injured male pride.

His stupid injured male pride.

I'll be gone forever, and you'll have the next hundred years to realize what an asshole you were.

He would have cried, but he had no tears.