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Hellie
Iwake up in a bed.
It’s a big, comfortable bed, with soft sheets and luxurious pillows, and I’m pretty delirious as I try to make sense of my surroundings. An older man’s sitting near me, checking my eyes, talking to me through the haze. I try talking back, but it’s like clearing cotton from my brain.
“You were given propofol, it’s a common drug in surgeries. Recovery is quick and it should leave your system soon. Please, don’t try to get out of bed for a while.”
“Who are you?”
But the older man’s already getting up. He snaps closed a doctor’s bag and walks to the door, glancing back at me with a sympathetic smile. “Good luck, Heloise.”
He leaves, shutting the door behind him with a click.
I groan, try to sit up, but my head swims. It takes all my willpower just to stay still and stare at the ceiling as I try to recount how I ended up in this place.
The room’s beautiful. Like something from a modernist painting. Clean lines, expensive furniture, thick rugs, and an actual fireplace. Windows overlook something, I can’t tell, I only see black sky. It’s still night, which means I haven’t been out too long.
I remember Erick. I remember running, getting pinned to the ground, the needle—
Then nothing.
I have no idea where I am.
Fear swims into my mind. It’s muted and distant, held at bay by the drugs still swirling in my brain, but with each passing moment, more of my strength comes back.
Along with my determination to get out of here.
Just like Dad said, don’t make it easy. Just keep running.
He’s been running from trouble his whole life; he should know how to keep one step ahead.
I push myself up, swing my legs over, and stumble to my feet. My eyesight swims and I nearly lose my balance, but I steady myself, wait until the dizziness passes, then I stumble to the door. I’m trying to remember how a knob works when it turns on its own and I’m forced backwards as Erick steps into the room.
He stares down at me. I’m struck again by his sheer sexual masculinity. The man’s a specimen, oozing strength and intensity, doing nothing but looking at me like he wants to pick me to pieces for his own pleasure. His rugged beard, his tattooed hands, the small scar on his right jaw under his ear all suggest a hard life, one filled with pain and violence.
But it’s his eyes that hold me. Those dark pools, liquid and expressive. He says nothing, but he still speaks to me by the way his body angles in my direction, by the way his gaze drags from my lips to my chest to my legs and back up again. He seems happy with what he finds.
“The doctor said you should stay in bed.” He breaks the silence. I take a step back.
“Where am I?”
“My house. Please, lie back down before you hurt yourself.”
“You drugged me. You stuck a needle in my arm.”
“Yes, I did.”
“That’s crazy. This is crazy. I can’t—” I stagger forward and try to get past him, but he grabs me, lifts me off my feet, and carries me to the bed. I try to struggle, but I have no strength as he drops me back on the mattress. I stare at him, my breath hitching in my throat, aware that he can do whatever he wants with me and curious about how it might feel for this brute, this massive monstrosity to peel my clothes off and brush his rough lips along the soft skin of my inner thigh.
Which is an objectively insane thing to think under the circumstances.
“If you leave my house, you will die.” He stares down at me and I squirm under his attention.
“You mean, you’ll kill me?”
“No. You will either die in the attempt, or you will be killed back in town. Either way, you’re stuck here for now.”
I want to ask him what he means by that, but I shut my mouth. I’m trembling with fear. I’m at his mercy, completely vulnerable and intensely aware of it. He remains standing at the foot of the bed, his enormous shoulders and sculpted chest flexing with some inner emotion. Frustration? Desire? Rage? I can’t tell—his face is a mask.
