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She dodged through the underbrush, threading her way through the trees, crashing and cursing while branches tugged at her leggings and whipped against her face and arms. She really hadn’t thought this through, but it was too late to turn back. Considering how pissed he sounded, she had no intention of letting him catch up until she’d made sure he was good and tired.
No matter how fast she ran, or how agile she thought she was, he was never far behind.
“You’re so fucked,” he growled, so close behind she could swear she felt his breath on her neck.
Goose bumps prickled their way up her spine and spread into her hair. Her nipples were so hard they ached, and every branch that whipped against her arms and neck felt like it was doing his bidding, punishing her for running when she should have stayed and accepted her punishment.
“Where do you think you’re going?” He laughed nastily. “You’re running out of island.”
Sure enough, she reached the shore and veered off to the left, almost falling into a little swamp, but righting herself before she tumbled down the embankment.
He grabbed at her arm, but she yanked away and dodged his next attempted grab, running away from the sadistic laughter that kept catching up with her. The bastard sounded like he was having a good time scaring the hell out of her. She wouldn’t put it past him.
After what seemed like an eternity, she started to tire. Her heart was beating too fast and every breath seared her lungs. She was sweating and dirty, her clothes covered in lichen and leaf mold. Grubby and tired, she tried to find somewhere to hide where she could stop running and catch her breath. The landscape flashed past in a blur and eventually she found herself on the shore again, this time in an area where rocks dropped off to other rocks that were submerged just knee-deep in water. That rock shelf dropped off to something deeper about a hundred feet out.
She kicked off her sneakers and sat on the edge of the dry rock, dangling her feet in the water, reaching down with her toes to see if she could slide down without hurting herself. Her foot touched the submerged rock, which was a bit slippery but not unpleasant. She slid down, then grabbed her shoes and hunkered down, crouching in the hopes Grant would run past her hiding spot. She flattened herself against the smooth stone, trying to quiet her breathing so he wouldn’t hear her over the sound of the water gently lapping the rock. Her leggings wicked the knee-deep water up her legs, the cold feeling good against her overheated skin.
She let herself slide down to a sitting position, holding her shoes slightly over her head so they wouldn’t get wet. Waves lapped around her. Then her shoes were gone from her hand. She looked up into Grant’s grim yet self-satisfied face.
A shriek of terror burst from her lips and she scrambled deeper, away from her predator. When she reached the drop-off she looked back and found him already in the water, approaching her with quiet determination, like the villain in a horror movie.
Without saying a word, she launched herself backward into the drop-off, but her glide through the water was interrupted by the hand that wrapped around her ankle and jerked her back. She flailed in the water, dousing him, but he only transferred his grip to her wrists and towed her back toward land. He directed her steps toward a series of rocks that led back up to higher ground. When she balked, he yanked the back of her leggings down and swatted her ass. Between the cold and the wet, the slap was loud and stung like a son of a bitch.
“No, no!” she shrieked, fighting him as he pulled her up in his wake.
He transferred his grip to her hair, closing his fist in it and pulling her to a nearby tree. There, he stripped her naked. He threw her T-shirt over a low branch.
What the hell was he doing? Drying her clothes?
She was shaking with nerves, trembling from head to foot, her heart still beating too fast. Every breath was gasped and her lungs felt like they’d never stop burning.
“You remember you have a safeword?” he asked, his voice a low snarl, as though his grasp of language was tenuous, at best. The big jerk didn’t even sound out of breath! She had the satisfaction of seeing his jeans were wet to the thighs, at least. He was barefoot, though, his boots having been spared the dunking.
“Yes, Master Grant.”
“I won’t ask you every time, but I thought both of us needed the reminder just now.”
She bit her lip, fascinated by the idea that she might have brought easygoing Grant to the brink of losing control.
Matter-of-factly, he leaned her over the wide branch where he’d spread her shirt. The height of the branch angled her ass nice and high.
This did not bode well.
Grant forced her arms down by her shins then wrapped the thighs of her wet leggings around her wrists and tied the ankles of the leggings around the back of her knees. She thought of the binding as mostly ornamental until she tugged and realized she couldn’t get the wet fabric to release its grip.
God, she was stuck, and he didn’t seem to be firing on all cylinders.
She struggled, but was caught by the branch as though he’d hung her out to dry.
“What are you doing!” From upside down she saw him stripping the bark off of a thin branch with a pocketknife.
“I think someone needs to be taught a lesson, don’t you?”
She considered pointing out that maybe he was the one who needed to be taught a lesson, since he was the one who was taking everything too seriously, but maybe she’d gotten herself in enough trouble for one day.
There was an odd whistling sound. She checked behind her then wished she hadn’t. The branch had been stripped to its greenish white core, and Grant was using it to cut through the air with an alarming snap. He ran his fingers over its surface several times then nodded in satisfaction.
