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“Good answer. Now tell me you trust me.”
Veronica balked at the request. Of all the things he could have asked her for—all the dirty and degrading things—it was this thing, this small verbal acknowledgment that she couldn’t give him. It felt like losing everything—like selling her soul.
He raised an eyebrow and waited. “I haven’t drowned you, yet. We’re alone in the middle of nowhere. It would be easy. How long do you think it would take them to find you? From what you told me that first night, nobody would be looking. It could be years. Certainly long enough for that brand to decompose off your body. And then what link would there be to me?”
She started to swim at a feverish pace toward the shore, desperate to get away, to lock him out of his truck and just drive forever.
He easily caught up with her in a few short strokes. It was obvious he swam a lot when he could get away from the ranch. “Tell me.”
“Tell me you trustme,” she countered. He clearly didn’t. Men and their double standards.
“That’s different. You could send me to prison.”
“You could take my life. You just got finished laying it out point by point. The stakes are bigger for me.”
He nodded. “All right.” He moved them closer to the edge where he could stand, but she couldn’t yet. Before she could get much of a breath to hold, he pushed her under.
In the first few seconds, she panicked, thinking he’d finally crossed the last line. Maybe the story he’d just painted sounded safer. Dimly in the back of her mind, she didn’t think he’d drown her. She believed he was only screwing with her, trying to scare her and intimidate her into obeying his earlier request. But what if she was wrong? He’d already shown edges of crazy with the episode a few nights ago when he’d called her by the name of his former lover.
In a moment of self-protective madness, Veronica reached between his legs and started stroking his cock. Pleasuring him was the only currency she had to work with. A part of her recoiled at the act, especially under the circumstances as she struggled to hold her breath. His hand loosened on her shoulder and she came up, gasping for air. Then his lips were on hers, his tongue in her mouth.
He pulled away. “Don’t stop touching me.”
The thought hadn’t crossed her mind; she was too desperate to keep him happy so he wouldn’t push her under again.
“Take a deep breath,” he said.
Veronica shook her head, her eyes widening. “Please, Luke, don’t push me under again.”
“What did you call me?”
“I’m sorry, Sir.” How could she be expected to remember titles when he was scaring her like this?
“Tell me you trust me and mean it.”
“I can’t.”
“Take a deep breath, then.”
She wanted to lie to him and give him the words he wanted, but he’d know she was lying. She took a breath and he pushed her under the water again. She stroked his cock with one hand, while she played with his balls with the other, still hoping she was reaching him and he saw the value of keeping her alive, while privately she fantasized about murdering him. This moment was perhaps the most degrading, while he held her life so precariously in his hands and she pleasured him to appease him—to keep breathing.
A few moments later, he came and pulled her back up. She took in gulps of air.
“If I wanted you dead, it would be so simple. Tell me you trust me or we’ll do this until the sun sets.”
“You can’t force someone to trust you!” she shouted. Her survival instinct had fled in the wake of her anger. Let the fucker kill her. What difference did it make at this point? She was his slave. No better than one of his animals. He’d slaughter her the second her continued existence became inconvenient for him. Fuck him and every man on that ranch.
“Then just say the words. Tell me you trust me not to harm you.”
Why did he need to hear it so much? Had Trish trusted him? Was it part of the charade of her being his dead lover? If Veronica said it, they could leave, maybe. Despite her anger, despite being at the end of her rope, she didn’t want to go under again, and with him spent, she had nothing else to barter with.
“I trust you not to harm me, Sir.”
“And eventually, you’ll mean it.”
She thought he was going to push her under again, but he helped her out of the lake, instead. He took a blanket from the truck and wrapped her up in it until she was dry, then slipped her dress back on over her head and helped her into the truck. He locked the cuff back around her ankle and then put his own clothes back on.
She was crying, trying to wipe the tears away before he could see them when he got back in the truck.
