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He crawled across the bed, bull-like with those sharp horns on. “There’s my girl,” he rumbled, pushing my knees wider apart. He nuzzled his face between my thighs, histongue lashing out at my slit while one of his fingers slid up and pressed into the tight pucker of my bum. I groaned.
“I like you dirty like this,” he growled while I squirmed and his finger pressed in harder. “Tonight’s going to be special. It’s going to hurt, baby. But you’re going to want it. I’ll make sure you never forget me.”
“No, hon, come on now. Please don’t—I know you’re a good man.”
He bit me, hard, and I screamed.
“It’s shaman.”
“Yep, okay, shaman.”
He grunted and went back to his sucking and licking. I started to fake a monster orgasm, squealing and moaning, whispering, “Yes, shaman,” while my hand went up to grab my hair then slid sideways like I was reaching for a grip on the headboard while overcome with passion. My heart beat hard enough to explode in my tight chest—if I screwed this up, he would hurt me. Something had shifted and he wasn’t the Josh I recognized. I’d have one second after I lunged to the right. My hands shook.
There wasn’t any more time to dither. I threw myself sideways and grabbed the lamp, nearly knocking it off the table but I managed to get a hand around the spindle body. His mouth lifted away from me and my stomach compressed. My arm whooshed through the air and I didn’t slow down or stop to look at his face. I smashed the brass base of the lamp down hard onto the top of his head, right between the horns.
CHAPTER TWO
He dropped like a stone, his face landing on my belly. I sprang back, still gripping the lamp. My vision went blurry, my shallow pants so fast I thought I’d pass out.
“Oh hell,” I said, sucking in a shaky breath. Josh’s head looked like a dinged bumper. He started convulsing, face down with his mouth and nose smooshed against the mattress.
Swallowing, I forced myself to get off the mattress and go to him. He was so low on the bed that my damn handcuff chain made it impossible to get a good grip on his body. I tried to push him toward the center of the bed, one handed, but he was dead weight. Finally, worried he would suffocate himself, I grabbed his other arm, stretching out as far as I could reach, to pull him onto his side at the edge of the bed. That was the way his body would turn.
Except he rolled off the bed and smacked onto the floor. The back of his head thumped against the hardwood flooring.
“Shit.” I moaned. He needed an ambulance. I hauled him toward me across the floor. Crouched down on my handsand knees, I could finally reach his pockets with the hand not in the handcuff. “Where’s your damn cell phone?”
His pockets were completely empty. No key. No phone. The gun wasn’t on him either. He’d come in wearing his khaki shorts, a fur hat with big horns on it, and nothing else. “Damnit, Josh.”
I tore the bed apart to unhook the headboard. Part way in, I hunched over, my throat closing up—I needed a screwdriver. I picked up the brass lamp again and started banging on the wooden spindle my handcuff was attached to. I didn’t look at Josh. Still, I could tell he wasn’t moving.
My shoulders were aching and trembling, and I’d shouted every curse word I knew before I managed to free myself. I ran out of the room and down the hall. Josh had set up his doomsday bunker in the guesthouse family room and kitchenette. He’d locked me up in the attached bedroom.
Ten computers and televisions sat on desks and tables arranged into a command center that took up most of the room. News channels and online video outlets flashed on the screens. Three smaller monitors showed the bedroom where I’d spent the last three days, with Josh sprawled out on the floor.
A pile of cell phones was scattered across a table—the burner phones Josh had used to contact sketchy people he was organizing with. I grabbed one and dialed nine-one-one.
I was put on hold. Pacing, I grabbed another phone and dialed Franklin Mccurty.
The lawyer’s phone rang for a long time, then went to voice mail. What day was it? Thursday. I called again. His personal cell phone was an emergency-only type of situation, he’d stressed to me several times. Well, mission accomplished, sir.
“Hello,” Josh’s lawyer said shortly. “I don’t recognize this number.”
“Mr. Mccurty, it’s Sally MacCullen.”
“Oh hello, dear,” he said. “Thought you were a robo-caller. Hate that nonsense.”
“Well, that sure would be a lot easier to deal with.”
“Okay,” he said, all business. “Tell me, Sally.”
I did. The emergency dispatcher got to me part way through my story and Mccurty waited until I could get back to him. Surprisingly, of all the people I’d met through my dealings with Josh and his family, that old lawyer had been one of the kindest. Or maybe he simply had an extremely smooth bedside manner, so to speak. Nothing ever seemed too bad or unfixable with Mccurty on your side.
“I’m glad you’re okay. I have been worried—well, never mind that for now. I need to move fast. There’s a conflict for me, dear, since I also represent Josh’s father, and this is going to get complicated. But I know a smart defense attorney, a woman, who will be out there in under an hour.”
I started crying, clinging to the phone and the sound of his voice in my ear. We hung up. I wiped my face, shivering in the air-conditioned room. I was standing there, still naked, with sirens approaching in the distance.
Josh had blocked the air-conditioning in my room, letting the ninety-degree heat keep me sweltering hot. I ran to my room and my own clothes, the handcuff and chain dragging behind me. I managed to get on flip-flops, sweatpants and a tank top and robe before letting in the paramedics and police.
