Page 20 of Defending Van

Once again, she opened her mouth to scream to the others to get out and run, but this man must have ESP or something, because right as she drew air into her lungs, he chuckled and whipped her body around so she was pressed with her back to his front, his hand over her mouth, silencing her.

“I don’t think so, little Makayla,” he purred in her ear as he picked her up so her feet were off the floor, and walked the rest of the way down to the room where the others were. Keeping her pinned to his chest, he fiddled with the keypad outside the door for a moment. “Code is changed, your friends aren't escaping, and I'm sorry to say neither are you.”

The thing was, he actually did sound disappointed in that, which was so confusing.

What was with this guy?

“You’ll remember this lesson more than my last one I think, won't you, Makayla?” he asked, his voice all velvety and soft, washing over her like a gentle caress.

It reminded her of the way his fingers had stroked her jaw when he’d removed that silicone ring. He’d massaged her jaw, the same way he’d massaged her hands and feet after undoing the leather straps from the chair. Those strokes of his long fingers against her skin made her system go haywire, because parts of her liked his touch, that appreciated it as a woman, but it scared her, too, because he wasn't an ally, he was the enemy, and it was dangerous to forget that.

Because it seemed like he really did have ESP, Van began to stroke her cheek, his palm still pressed to her mouth. He wasn't hurting her, and just like when he’d had his hand around her neck, she knew he wouldn't. Why did she know that, when everything she knew about him said he should kill her in a heartbeat?

The only answer was that she didn't know everything about him. Didn't know any of the important parts.

“You didn't put me in there,” she whispered when he lowered his hand. “Did you change your mind? Are you going to punish me?”

“Some sort of masochist, little Makayla? You seem very fixated on me punishing you, yet you said you don’t want me to.”

“Not fixated on you not punishing me, I'm fixated on the fact that you're lying to me.” Maybe pushing this man was a bad idea. Even though she felt something was off with him, it didn't change the fact that he’d caned her until she bled, then bound her to a chair and forced her to allow the men here to stick themselves inside her mouth against her will. Hell, he’d done it himself, too, although at the time she hadn't been sure he was enjoying it, and now she was sure that he hadn't.

“Lying?” he asked, shooting her one of those smiles as he whipped her back around so she faced him. He backed her up to the door, where the door handle dug into the small of her back, but she didn't break eye contact with him, she wasn't going to back down. “Make no mistake about it, little Makayla, I am not a man to be messed with.”

“You didn't kill me. You haven’t punished me,” she reminded him.

“You mean nothing to me,” he said, but the veneer was slipping. Those words sounded far too much like he was trying to convince himself of that than convince her.

“You're not the same as them.” The more she spoke, the more confident she became.

“I’m here, aren't I?”

The question was to taunt her, she got that, but he was trying too hard. Her instincts were good, and they’d kept her alive for almost thirty years. She wasn't about to back down from them. There was a reason she could think of as to why he was here, part of a sex trafficking ring, when he felt like he was different.

“Are you … an undercover cop?” she asked, dropping her voice to a whisper just in case anyone else happened to be around and she just hadn't seen them.

Shock flared in his pitch-black eyes before he could mask it, and then that obnoxious smile of his was back. He was right when he told her he wasn't a man to be messed with. She sensed the danger swirling around him, the darkness that had claimed his soul, but she sensed other things, too.

“You know that smile of yours is really obnoxious,” she muttered, not afraid to taunt him because … well, she was still breathing and she’d threatened to kill him. If ever there was anything she was going to do to earn retaliation, that was it, but he had chosen not to retaliate, and that meant she was safe with him. Or at least as safe as you could get in a place like this.

For a long moment, he just stared at her, and then he threw back his head and laughed.

Full on laughed.

Until tears streamed down his cheeks and he clutched his stomach.

Since she didn't really get what was so funny, Makayla just stood there and watched him, wondering if perhaps her question had somehow fractured his mind.

“You're something else, Makayla,” he finally said. “If anyone else held a knife to my throat, they’d either be dead or screaming in agony with a broken arm and whatever other injuries I chose to inflict.”

“Right,” she agreed. “And if it had been anyone else out here, they would have done the same thing. Deacon, Adrian, Henry, William, Hank, Marvin, Josh, they’d all either have killed me or taken great pleasure in making me suffer, but you didn't do anything.”

“Time for you to go back in the room with the others.” Van’s large hand clamped around her shoulder, and he tried to maneuver her backward so he could get to the door, but she struggled against him.

“No. I'm not going back in there. Not until you tell me the truth.”

“The truth is I want to be here.”

“That’s not an answer.”