Deliver (10 page)

Was the air poisoned? Were they gassing him, drugging him? His heart hammered against his ribs, his lungs struggling to keep up. “What are you—” He coughed, harsh and painful. “Am I—”

“Drink.”

The voice was a muffled tinkling of ice. He thanked God it was her under the mask but didn’t understand why that knowledge had coaxed his joints to relax.
She
had put him in that box.

She palmed his nape, raising his head. Cool water sluiced over his parched lips, his tongue, trickling down his throat, both abrading and refreshing.

The pressure in his bladder twisted tighter. “Bathroom.”

“You shouldn’t have held it.” The mask’s filter concealed her mouth. He couldn’t read her and wondered if that was the intent. She worked the chains quickly, tugging at his hands and feet. “Your bladder is breeding bacteria as we speak.”

She’d chained him in a box and was worried about a UTI? The restraints slackened, but his wrists remained locked together. He pulled up his legs, bending at the knees and trembling through the effort. He didn’t have the strength to drag his hands to his chest.

Releasing latches at both ends of the box, she let one side fall open and lay flat on the floor. He rolled out in a haphazard tumble, arms bound together, legs free but weak as hell.

A random pattern of eyehooks protruded from the subfloor around him. There were hooks everywhere, the ceiling, the walls. They dangled padlocks, chains, and cuffs of leather and steel.

She left him lying there, heeled boots encasing her calves and clicking on the wood. His view from the floor arrested on the black PVC-like corset dress molding the curves of her waist and hips and stopping just below the creases of her muscular backside. Wrapped in pleather, she was a promise of suffering and ecstasy.

The sudden stirring in his groin shot a burning stab to his bladder and spurred him to his knees. He slid one foot forward, his muscles screaming, and rose, swaying on his feet. “How long was I in there?” He swung his cuffed-together hundred-pound arms toward the box.

Her silence magnified his heartbeat thrashing in his ears.

With unmoving eeriness, her blacked-out lenses watched him stagger toward her, his toes catching on the hooks. He could physically feel his body tensing with hatred for this woman, who regarded him without a twitch to assist his clumsy advance.

When his shins hit the porcelain rim, he dropped his shackled fists on the wall behind the tank, and lost the fight with his bladder. He’d meant to sit. Too late for that. Needing his hands on the wall to hold himself up, he melted into the relief pouring from him, the stream of urine spraying unguided. Thanks to his shaking legs, his aim was marginal at best.

Her mask tilted downward. At the mess he was making? At his nudity?

Let her stare. He’d showered and peed in the presence of others every day in the locker room. This was different on so many levels, but he didn’t have the strength of mind to care.

He’d never been drunk, but it probably felt like this. His brain struggled to engage, his perceptions clouded by fatigue, his legs and arms wrestling to respond. He was nude and helpless before a woman who meant to sell him as a sex slave, and he grappled to keep his eyes open.

Bladder empty, he dropped the weight of his head on a braced arm and angled his face to glower at her. “My parents?”

Her vinyl-wrapped head cocked. “Last check, Mr. Carter was celebrating his empty nest at the kitchen table, wrinkling the lacy tablecloth and toppling over that god-awful ceramic rooster centerpiece as he pounded his cock into Mrs. Carter’s ass.”

He swung his bound arms—To shut her up? Make her hurt? Knock off the mask?—and missed. His sideways motion sent him careening into the spot she’d vacated, tottering past her and into the open shower stall.

The boot slamming into the back of his knee brought him stumbling to the ground in a discombobulation of limbs and defeat. Flopping to his back, he could only glare up at her. Even his frustration required more effort than he could manage.

She squatted over him, a boot on either side of his hips, the gap of her thighs wide enough to expose a swath of black lace. He jerked his eyes away, disgusted with her and himself.

“You can look.”

“No, thanks,” he ground out, tried to buck her off his hips, and failed.

“Soon, you won’t be able to stop yourself.” She grabbed his jaw and shoved her mask in his face. “Requirement number five. Slave will not touch Master or Master’s property in a sexual way without permission.”

Master’s property?
She didn’t mean—

“For the next ten weeks, I am your Master, and this is my property.” She released his chin and gripped his penis, sliding down, stretching brazen fingers to cup his testicles.

Blood rushed to his groin. No one had ever touched him there and definitely not like that. He hated the visible response of his body but couldn’t stop it. Nor could he stop his fury. He scuffed his heels on the tile, breaking her grip. His back hit the wall. “You’re a rapist.”

Holding her crouched position, she dropped a forearm over one knee. “The first requirement set by the buyer was your virginity. You will never put your cock in me or any woman.”

Her definition of virginity was too specific, or perhaps not specific enough. That did
not
sit well. He clenched his butt cheeks, a sheen of sweat icing his spine.

She stood and reached for the yard of chain hanging from a hook beside the shower head. “Raise your arms.”

He tucked them to his chest and stared at the drain, fighting his eyes to stay open. Twenty-four hours in the ear-numbing, sleep-deprived box. Leading up to that had been an exhaustive day of hauling cotton bales, classwork, and the big game. He didn’t have enough steam left to stop her from hanging him in the shower, but he refused to make it easy.

“If your concentrate every breath on anticipating my orders, your time with me will be much less painful.” Her voice reverberated against the tiles, hollow and robotic. “If you swing at me again, I’ll suffocate you with much,
much
more discomfort than you experienced in that box.” She bent over him, boots shoulder-width apart, hands on her hips. “If that doesn’t penetrate your thick skull, I’ll collect another keepsake from your mother. Perhaps something attached to her little gray-haired head.”

His heart sped up, heated with anger, knotted with dread. When he recovered his strength, he would escape, and he might knock her across the room on the way out.

Straightening to her full height, she slid the chain through her hands. “Swallow your fantasies of escape and rescue. The house is soundproof. There are keypads on every exterior door. I’ve ordered Van to stay in the garage all day to dismantle your truck. When the parts are dispersed to various dumps and junk yards, they’ll be untraceable.” She held out her hand, waiting for his. “No one is coming for you, boy.”

A guttural, sick hatred for her spread its poison inside him, twisting and taking over. What was next for him after she strung him up in the shower? “My virginity…you said…” Dear God, he didn’t want to say it out loud, but he had to know. “What about sodomy?”

Her hands dropped to her sides, the chain slapping against the tile wall. She strode to the door and raised her finger to the keypad.

Was she bringing in Van? To beat him? To bend him over in the shower and pump away in his backside? “Wait.” His attempt to stand on jelly legs collapsed into a bone-crunching sprawl on knees and elbows. “Please. I’ll follow orders.”

She tapped in the code.

“Please, wait.” The effort to stand had depleted Josh. His head swam, and his body screamed for food and sleep. He stood no chance. This had been the aim of the box, he realized. A total mental and physical shutdown. He raised his bound arms and his eyes, reaching toward her goggled mask.

She entered the final digit on the keypad, and the door clicked open. She stared into the outer room, statuesque in her posture. “Requirement number six. Slave will use the title
Master
.”

His extended arms shook, the lump in his throat sprouting jagged edges. “Please…” It was just a word.
Too tired to fight. Just a word.
“Master.”

She made him wait another agonizing moment before closing the door and returning to his side. In a practiced movement, she locked the end of the waiting chain to one of his wrist shackles with a combination lock and removed the existing chain that squeezed his hands together. One arm dropped to the floor; the other tied to the shower wall.

He probably looked like hell, but he was a strong guy. Even in his weakened state, he could overpower her. Wasn’t she afraid he might trap her and squeeze his free arm around her neck? The confident, relaxed pose of her body told him she expected it.

“
Master
is how you’ll refer to the man you are training to serve. With me, you’ll use
Mistress
. Say it now.”

The bite in those last three words snapped his teeth together. His breath hissed past his lips. “Mistress.” Was she smiling behind the mask? Did she get off on binding and selling men? Didn’t matter. He would
never
serve a man.
Never.
“How many times have you done this?”

She moved to the perpendicular wall of the corner shower. A chain dangled from another hook. “Other arm, boy.”

How many had she forced through the horror of this exact moment? Where were they now? Did she even see them as human? What about their kiss in his truck? Her actions seemed so genuine at the time. “How many people have you ripped from their lives, their dreams, their families?” He squinted into the lenses of her mask, his muddy reflection glaring back. “Mistress,” he spat.

Her fist slammed into his mouth, spiking fire through his jaw and knocking him off balance. His back smacked the cold tile floor. His arm, chained to the wall, twisted. Pain tore through his shoulder, ripping a shout from his throat.

“Other. Arm.”

Well, that was stupid.
And incredibly satisfying.
He’d found a nerve to pick at. He crawled to his knees, spitting blood on the floor at her feet, and offered his arm with a belligerent smile.

She made quick work of tightening the chains to the walls, the pull of the restraints stretching his arms out to the sides like Jesus on the cross. Naked, on his knees, his chin hanging on his chest, he didn’t feel the forgiving virtue of Christ filling his heart. It pumped, instead, with the spirit of revenge and loathing.

The cold spray of water pounded ice pellets on his back, and her hands rubbed soap into his skin and hair. He acknowledged that the movement in his muscles wasn’t the flex of courage but the trembling of fury. He’d never felt more subjugated in his life.

Worse was the swelling arousal between his legs. She only needed to touch his backside, his hip, or his inner thigh, and his penis stood at half-salute. He stared at the jerking thing, grimacing. At least she pretended not to notice it, though her eyes could’ve been directed anywhere from within that terrible mask.

The tap shut off, and he wished he’d stolen a few gulps of water. She untied him and led him by the chains to the mattress that sat on the floor. No frame or box springs in this hell hole. He dripped water onto the room’s only rug, shivering like a wet poodle, and waited to see what she’d come up with next.

Maybe she’d command him to perform a tumbling act, sing karaoke, or wear a toga and feed her grapes. Hopefully, something low impact. Dehydration, chills, and exhaustion were riddling him with all sorts of irritable problems, from blurry vision to unmanageable mood shifts. He was so recklessly angry and tired his brain was spinning out of control.

“Requirement number seven. Slave will kneel when Master is present.”

Hallelujah.
His legs were wobbling anyway. He lowered, and his knees gave out before he made it to the rug.

She connected the chains to a padlock and eyehook on the floor in the center of the room, spun the combination to secure it, and dragged a cardboard box to his side. “Eat.”

With enough slack in the chains, he raised the lid, and the sights and smells of cheese, sausage, yogurt and hard-boiled eggs sliced through his haze. He went for the bottled water first, the metal links connected to his wrists snagging on the cardboard. He suspected the menu was intentional. High protein, high fat, likely meant to give him energy for activities he didn’t want to think about.

When he finished the water and reached for a second bottle, she grabbed the cuff on his wrist. “Slow down or it’s all going to come back up.”

He yanked his arm away and dug into the food, using the spoon provided. His body responded instantly to the yogurt, as if it contained magical little sugar motes that seeped into his system, clearing the fog from his head and soothing the quakes in his bones.

She watched from her perch on the mattress, legs crossed at the knees, breasts threatening to tumble from her corset with each inhale. She looked absolutely uncomfortable. He decided to make it worse. “Are you supposed to be seducing me with that outfit, Mistress? Because I got to say—” he pointed at his soft penis, cold and shriveled as it was “—epic fail.”
And a total lie.
If he hadn’t reached his mental and physical limitations, he would’ve been battling arousal and his outrage over it.