“Undo my hands?” I suggested. “I can take off your shorts.”
I tried to look innocent. I was almost loose anyway. The last loop fell away while I waited. Chris had made a mistake. Bikini material stretched.
Lazily he checked me out. “Nice teeth marks.” The saliva from his bite cooled on my nipple. It throbbed, but so did my pussy. “Untie you? No. I like having you my…our little prisoner.” He put his right hand to his waistband and lifted his hips as he pushed down the shorts.
God. I was going to do this. Hope. Fear. A bit of panic. And a tinge of guilt. Stupid maybe, but I didn’t want to hurt him.
I have to.
This could go so badly, but I had to try. They wanted to be my masters? I rallied anger. Fuck them. I hadn’t asked for this. I’d seen that small weakness. The forest was only another twenty yards away. Now or never. I crouched down and licked my lips as if eager to taste him. My traitorous pussy spasmed as I smelled him,
man
.
Such a waste. His cock, freed from the shorts, waved under my nose. I almost moaned.
Weakling. Snap out of the sex fuzzy zone.
“Go on. Suck.” He said, hoarsely, tugging on the leash. His right hand was still on his shorts.
Thunder rumbled and the sky grew dark. A spot of rain hit my shoulder. Way to go, ominous weather.
He looked upward at the sky. “We might have to go indoors.”
Do it. I reached down, picked up the glass…it bumped on the lounge on the way up and I almost dropped it…shit! I jabbed the glass into that white scar on his arm. Only, that musical crack I’d heard had been the glass chipping. Red spread across his arm and he cursed. His arm flopped, lifeless. He twisted to grab me with his right but I’d jumped the lounge and was sprinting away.
Another curse as he tried to get up but was entangled in his shorts.
The forest. What had I done? I made him bleed!
Run, fuck you, run. You do not want them to catch you.
I had a fifteen yard head start on Andreas, the man I’d just cut. He’d kill me if he caught me. Wait, no he wouldn’t. But Chris might.
My internal monologue scrambled my head.
Shut up.
“Kat! Kat! Stop! Fuck it.”
The shouts made me run faster. I’d made him bleed.
Trees. I entered the tree line, stumbling through the small shrubs. Deeper in, the undergrowth thinned. As I ran, I frantically tucked the leash around and around my collar. If that caught on something, I’d break my neck.
Chris was shouting now too. Then they went quiet.
Bad, that was bad. Meant they were coming fast, too fast to yell, or they wanted to be silent.
I ran. My legs pelted into the sand, then into harder sand and dirt and twigs that hurt my feet as I went deeper into the trees. Dark, dark, darker. More grumbling thunder. Rain started smacking down through the trees, whacking into the big leaves, jostling the tree ferns.
Panting, big breaths sucking my chest apart, I paused with hands on knees. Change direction. Go somewhere they won’t expect.
I went deeper. Ran. Pound, pound, pound into the rainforest dirt.
Ow!
“Fuck.” I staggered into a tree, caught my foot, and hopped. Bit my lip to stop the hurt from turning into a loud curse. Somewhere near, I could hear them running. Damn, still close.
I peeked at my foot, praying it wasn’t bad. Just a twig. I plucked it from the notch it had scored in my sole and gingerly set my foot down. The trees here mostly went up straight to the sky, seeking light. Thick roots snaked across the ground, green with moss. A curious little bird swooped in and buzzed past to perch on a branch sending it rocking. It angled one pristine-blue eye at me, then the other.
Through a gap, I saw water below, smelled the dark fungal aroma of a rainforest creek bed, and heard the gurgling notes of water running over rocks. Something had slid down the muddy bank recently. I could see the smears and scratches on the roots and in the soil.
Frowning, I peered down a slope dense with rotting trunks and ankle-snaring roots.
Claw and slip my way down that embankment or… If they came close and I threw a rock over there, to the opposite bank, maybe I could send them away? The water wasn’t that deep. They could cross, so potentially, I might I have. That smear of dirt would make them think so.
A huge gnarled rain tree, yards in diameter, dominated a thicket to my right, its branches and roots twined about, as if a giant had twisted the tree’s trunk in his hands then shoved it in the earth. The tree ferns and the palms gathered about its base made a place I could hide. Footsteps came closer, crunching wetly on fallen leaves.
Quietly, I weaved my way into the plants, trying not to leave marks, and I crouched on the opposite side of the rain tree’s trunk. I wished I could stop breathing, for each time my chest moved the harsh sound seemed louder than before. I pressed my mouth to the back of my hand to muffle it.
Andreas stalked into view, silent, vigilant. My heart, frantic, thumped into higher gear.
But also…relief. He was okay, though as naked as I was. Fresh blood shone on his forearm. I wrinkled my forehead, straining to see. He’d not tied anything on the wound but from the quantity of blood I hadn’t hit anything major.
The ache in my ribs ebbed. If anyone deserved being cut it had been Chris, not him.
His erection had gone. A man without pants on always looked a bit silly to me – their genitals never seemed made for running about. Everything wobbled. But then my tits did too. I looked down as I registered a small tickle there, jumped in fright, but caught myself. Bug. Green. A baby praying mantis? On my boob. Ugh. I flicked the pretty creepy crawly away.
Where was Chris? Where the fuck was he? I needed to know. Andreas turned away from me and took a few slow steps toward the creek. As he peered over the edge, a few yards away from him, the fronds of a low plant shivered. I glimpsed reptilian scales. Gray green. Fuck. Crocodiles liked water. We were near the sea. He’d said there were drag marks at the beach. No. Calm. It’s a lizard.
Just a lizard.
There were big monitor lizards here.
Crocs could move fast.
I bit my lip as the thing beyond the leaves moved nearer to Andreas. How fast could they move? Could they go a few yards in a second? I stopped breathing, recalling a video of a nature show where a croc leaped yards into the air to grab a dangled chicken. Yes, they could move fucking fast.
What to do? What
should
I do?
They’d done bad things to me. Served him right. Except, no. Not Andreas.
I wiped at my eyes, started backing away, farther into the undergrowth. I couldn’t do this. The thing rattled some leaves. More reptile showed. Big, damn big, not a lizard.
Andreas was a good man, sort of. If you subtracted the kidnapping. The rape. What was I
doing
forgiving him?
Scream, and run. Scream. Run. I sucked in air. God, this was dumb.
“Andreas! Behind you! Run!”
Then I spun around and did the same. Feet again thumping, jumping, I shoved aside leaves. A noise to my left warned me. Man. Oh shit, oh shit. I dodged, leapt over a root. Feet pounded after me. Shit. Don’t look. Don’t.
Run!
A hand snagged my arm, whipping me about. I staggered and put my palm to the ground as I swung and ended up sprawled and rolling across the ground.
Free again. A chance. Go! I scrambled to rise and was tackled down, face first. My chin scraped into leaves.
“Got you!”
A heavy body landed on me, knee in my back.
Once before, Scrim had done this. Learn from that! Don’t. Sit. Still. I squirmed madly, crazy with fear, just plain crazy, feeling mud smear into my body. But my hands were caught, wrenched back as I strained the other way. I gasped at the force on my shoulders, at the iron grip that didn’t give no matter what I did.
I spat out a leaf and dirt, grunted as I pulled and tried to jack knife. Fuck. The man was heavy, like a damn gorilla sitting on me. I sagged. It wasn’t fair. It was so not fair.
The click as he connected the cuffs made me stiffen. I sobbed, heard the crackle and rustle as he rose. His foot landed on my back. I lay there, defeated, still sobbing, in an effort to both gain enough oxygen to live and to expel some of my panic. It didn’t do much. After sliding down my nose, my tears dripped onto a leaf.
More padding footsteps and a man’s foot arrived next to my face. His toes flexed.
“Fuck, she can run.” Chris.
“Yeah.” Andreas. The foot next to my face lifted and came down, gentle yet firm, on the back of my neck. “That was stupid, Kat. There’s two of us and we can go faster than you. Even if you did try sticking me with glass first.”
I gulped in air, sniffled. “I didn’t mean that. Just to hit you. I never wanted to cut you.”
“Shit. Really? Too bad, girl. I’m pissed at you now. What are we doing with her, Chris? You’re the punishment man. The enforcer.” He said the last like it was some sort of stamped-on title.
That did not sound good. Fear and dread tightened on me.
“You mean do something here? Like whip her with a stick maybe?” He laughed, damn well laughed as if this had been a morning stroll. “Sure. Why not? I can hang her by the cuffs from a branch. Be a good lesson for her. She needs punishing. We’re on the opposite side of the wall to Scrim’s house so her screams probably won’t reach him.”
Ice shivered up my spine, raising goosebumps. He won’t hurt me that much, not with Andreas here. Won’t, I repeated in my head, half-convincing myself.
Why’d he mention Scrim and the house? I was that close? Had I run in circles? Couldn’t have, could I? Shit, I couldn’t even run the right way.
A memory jarred me. I twisted my face to one side so I could be heard. “Crocodile! I saw one behind Andreas. Back there. Please look.” I feared Chris but a croc was far worse.
“Was that why? Why you yelled to me?” Andreas lifted his foot and squatted beside me, studied me closely. With leaves bunched up around my face, I could only see him with one eye but he almost looked…relieved? “Thank you. So you don’t hate me?”
What the? “Crocodile?”
“Chris is checking. Do you hate me? Don’t lie, little Kat. It’s important to me.” He stroked my cheek then down the side of my damp nose, as if following the path of my tears.
I blinked at him. More tears leaked. Jeez. What a question. Did I? Should I lie? I was such a mess I couldn’t figure it. But I shut my eyes, unable to take more of this. I was trapped again. Run down like some forest creature, tied up…again. I wanted to go
home.
“No. Maybe. I guess not,” I whispered. Not him. It was true still.
“Good. I told myself that if you ever truly hated me that I’d leave.”
I stared at that leaf, caught in a dilemma. If he left, there’d only be one. It would be easier to escape if there was one man. I was stuck, half about to spew out something about lying, that I hated him, but I couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t believe me anyway – not so soon after what I’d said.
Besides, Chris would be the one left. Chris, alone with me. That made my skin crawl. He always seemed one breath, one step, one
something
, away from doing something wicked to me.
“So…you don’t hate me. You even risked getting caught again to try to save me. That counts in my book. That’s, yeah…” I felt his fingers at the collar then he carefully turned the collar to unwind the leash from my neck. His nostrils dilated as he took a long breath, as if what I’d done meant more than its face value. “That’s good.”
Him and Chris were both giving me the creepy vibes.
“The leash. Good thinking. I can use that.” Chris had returned.
Though there wasn’t a lot of point in resisting, I had a go at kicking him when he hauled me upright. I shouldn’t have bothered. He just had Andreas hold my legs while he undid the cuffs and tied them to a low branch with the leash. Since it wasn’t a branch with any give or resilience and he calculated wrongly, I ended up having to balance on my toes, half the time. It was that or strain my shoulders when flatfooted. So I varied from one to the other. Then I caught him staring avidly.
Ahh, what was I thinking? Not well, that was for sure. He’d done it deliberately.
“Asshole,” I muttered under my breath.
“I am that. I can lip read that much, Kat.” He swished the whippy branch he’d found through the air. “Lucky for you I’m feeling lenient over swearing. Swear away. What I do is going to happen anyway.”
“I don’t fucking care. Do what you want to.” I showed my teeth, too fed up with being his willing victim to pretend. He’d do what he aimed to do anyway.
“I will.” Then he stepped in and flicked it across my left breast. The smack was sharp and unexpected.
I hissed and couldn’t stop myself checking my nipple. Another half inch… Shit. Blood beaded along a scratch.
Then the rain began again. Overhead the steady patter became a low roar. A stray raindrop made it through the overhead foliage to spat onto my forehead.
“It’s still there. Your nipple.” The smile was vicious. I should’ve thought him ridiculous. Stalking about in this storm darkened forest, circling me, naked, his dick half-erect with Andreas watching. A scene from a B-grade movie. Rain pouring down between us. Obscuring him.
Then I saw myself through his eyes. Whipping a naked woman hanging from a tree was probably his ultimate turn-on. The leather cuffs squeezed along my wrists, getting wetter by the second, I blinked away the water. Cold. My nipples poked out, hard and also frigid and I shivered, feeling more rainwater run down my flanks.
As it dribbled down my face I remembered why he’d gone missing. The crocodile.
The stick flicked out again and pain striped my ass. Damn him, he was making this last.
“The crocodile!” I said aloud.
He said nothing, circling me, and Andreas prompted him for an answer.
“It was a lizard. Probably. You saw a monitor lizard.”
He hadn’t found it then? I twisted to follow him. Or was he messing with me? If I asked and he was, he’d mess with me again. My heart drummed. This wasn’t worth making a mistake over. In the shadows around us I imagined that the rain rattling the shrubs and palms was disguising the first move of a croc.