Sweet: A Dark Love Story (11 page)

Afterward, she slowly returned to herself, at least enough to realize he was providing aftercare by cleaning her up, cuddling her, and holding her as he carried her to the bed and lay down beside her. She shivered and shook under the aftermath, experiencing a million different sensations and emotions all at once. She was too overwhelmed to probe them at the moment and gladly surrendered to the blissful escape of sleep.

She woke very early the next morning and found Declan still asleep, snoring softly beside her. As she shifted, Kat realized how sore she was. Her pussy ached, her backside twinged, and her neck felt sore and scratchy. Moving quietly, she rolled out of bed after disengaging his arm carefully from around her waist and walked into the bathroom still naked
.

After her morning ablutions, she looked into the mirror and winced at the bruises forming on her throat. They formed a thick band from the leather strap, and the sight was disturbing, but even more disturbing was the way her body reacted by becoming excited again at the memory of being so perfectly under his control.

There was something wrong with her. Looking at herself marred like that, she couldn’t deny the truth any longer. Perhaps this had always been inside her, and Declan had unlocked her own latent depravity. It seemed unlikely that he had created this need in her, but as long as she was with him, she would freely indulge in it at the cost of her self-respect.

Abruptly, she realized it was still early enough that the tide hadn’t come in yet, and there would be little or no water in the boathouse. If she could find the key, it would be even easier to leave. It was the only way she was going to escape this island. It was no longer about escaping Declan, and all about escaping herself and her own dark desires.

She left the bathroom and tiptoed into the bedroom, half-expecting Declan to be awake. Instead, he was still curled up on the bed with his arm over her pillow instead of her now, and a faintly troubled expression furrowing his sleeping brow. Did he miss her even while he was asleep? Would he be devastated if she found a way to flee?

She couldn’t allow herself to think that way, or she would end up surrendering everything to him. In the throes of passion, that sounded fine, but it was the morning-after that gave her pause. Did she want to spend the rest of her life feeding her dark compulsions, or did she want to return to the real world and try to put all this behind her? Her brain was cool and logical, urging her to make the sensible choice. Her heart was what made her stumble, since it felt like it was breaking at the idea of leaving Declan behind.

She shook her head, doing her best to blunt the ache in her chest and focus on the task at hand. She was quiet, but methodical, as she searched the area around him, including his armoire of toys. When she found nothing, she approached the nightstand, having saved it for last because it was so close to where Declan slept. His back was facing her at the moment, but all he had to do was roll over and grab her as he had done that first night when she’d crept into his room.

She shivered at the memory; not from fear, but rather longing. She let out a small sigh of disgust, trying to focus on what she had to accomplish. Carefully, she eased open the drawer without a squeak. She let out a small sigh of relief before looking down. Just as she put her hand in the drawer, she remembered there was a gun inside. Her fingers brushed the cold metal, and she recoiled from it. She took another deep breath and reached farther back into the drawer, searching for keys.

She found nothing else metal, but as she pulled her hand out, a piece of paper stuck to her finger. She pulled it off slowly, attempting to avoid making a rustling sound that might wake him, and as she was about to put it back in the drawer, she recognized her own face.

It was her face, but from four years ago. It was a four-by-six photo, and she remembered Mrs. Hornsby from the school office had taken it for her and her foster parents. She stood between Clay and Claire, proudly holding her diploma. Before going to live with them, graduating high school had seemed like an unobtainable goal, and not because she wasn’t intelligent. It had simply been a matter of having little time to study and a father who didn’t care if she attended school.

It was completely up to her to make it there every day, to study for her exams, and handle all things related to school without parental involvement whenever possible. That had changed with Clay and Claire, and she’d spent the last two years at high school enjoying the experience and accepting it as a foregone conclusion that not only would she graduate from high school, but she would go on to college as well.

She looked young and optimistic there, with her dark hair flowing over the pale gray graduation robe, the mortarboard still firmly placed on her head, though the tassel was missing. It had been a good day, and she was filled with warmth at the sight of her foster parents’ faces.

Despite Declan’s revelations about his financial assistance, she could see as she looked down at them that they loved her. They genuinely cared about her, and though it still stung to know they had accepted Declan’s help, she was pretty much over the sense of betrayal at that point.

The question was, how did Declan come to have the picture? Presumably, Claire or Clay had given it to him. Did that mean they were offering periodic updates about her life as well? It seemed likely, considering they thought he was a benign benefactor who cared about seeing her succeed, and not realizing he planned to keep her as his own personal sex slave/broodmare.

With a sigh, she put the photo back in the drawer and closed it, reminding herself not to get sidetracked by the revelation of her picture by his gun. If she wasn’t so focused on escaping, perhaps she would spend more time fretting about it. Right now, it seemed unimportant in the scheme of things.

With a regretful sigh when she didn’t turn up the key, she walked to his bedroom door and slipped out quietly, tiptoeing down the hallway until she was near her room, when she burst into a nearly silent jog.

Once in her room, Kat took time to change into a pair of yoga pants, a tank top, and a hoodie. They were her most practical clothes that offered the most coverage. She still had no clue how she was going to get the boat out of the boathouse, but this morning, she was determined to try.

She made her way out of the house, holding her breath the entire time. She expected him to wake at any moment and realize she was gone, instigating him to come after her. Dressed as she was, he might believe she had simply gone for a jog if he found her, but she didn’t know if he was that naïve. If he found her anywhere near the boathouse, he would realize she was still trying to escape. Would he put her on tighter lockdown, or was he so confident of his security that it wouldn’t concern him at all?

She had a feeling it would concern him greatly in one area. He would feel betrayed by her escape attempt. A dart of guilt shot through her, and she ruthlessly squashed it with the reminder that she had nothing for which to feel guilty. She was simply trying to escape this false reality he’d created and return to the real world, a world where she didn’t get wet from being spanked, and she didn’t beg someone to strangle her so she could orgasm.

She paused at the top of the rough-cut stairs and cringed, remembering how she had prostrated herself before him last night, begging him to tighten the strap around her throat. A sickening wave of nausea passed through her, leaving her lightheaded for a moment. Kat took a step back to ensure she didn’t fall down before planting her bottom on the top step and her feet two below it.

Breathing deeply, struggling to center herself and push back the disquieting memories of last night, she tried to focus. At the time, it had cost her a great deal of pride to ask, but now, in the cold light of day, she couldn’t believe she had even needed his hands around her throat, let alone needed to beg for it.

She had begged him to choke her. What the fuck was wrong with her? That wasn’t natural or normal, and she couldn’t blame it on her childhood, as fucked up as that had been. Neglectful, abusive, and absent adults in her life certainly had little to do with her needing pain and asphyxiation to get off sexually. She couldn’t see a connection if there was one anyway. No, for once, she couldn’t blame Joe and Irene Evans for her fuckedupedness.

Her strange need rested solely on her, but she had managed to suppress it for twenty-two years. All she had to do was flee from the dark temptation he offered, and surely she could return to her normal, pre-Declan state.

She just had to have the fortitude to tear herself away from him, as much as she wanted to stay. That part was frightening too, because even as she made her way down the stairs, finally recovered enough to walk without falling, she kept glancing over her shoulder in anticipation. She expected Declan to come running after her at any moment, and it wasn’t fear that greeted the thought of him stopping her. No, it was hopeful expectation.

As she approached the boathouse, the fact that she wanted Declan to stop her was what actually urged her on. She knew there was no entry without the key, at least the conventional way. However, a handy rock from the beach, where tide pools were still visible, and morning tide was just starting to wash in, offered a solution.

She hefted one in her hand and ran back to the boathouse, pulling back her arm and throwing the rock through the glass of the largest window as hard as she could. It shattered, and she took a step back, covering her face in case any of the shards flew her way.

After the last tinkling had ended, she uncovered her face and approached the window. Jagged shards still lodged in the sill, and she stripped off her hoodie to use as a makeshift tool to knock the pieces away from the wooden frame. She was mostly successful, and then laid the fleece jacket over the bottom part of the sill so she could protect her legs as she climbed inside.

She went slowly and carefully, but still managed to gouge her shoulder fairly deeply on a shard sticking out of the top of the sill. She cursed as she rolled into the boathouse, landing painfully on her coccyx.

Kat strained to look at her bleeding shoulder. It was difficult to tell from her vantage point, but it didn’t appear to be a life-threatening injury, and surely the bleeding would slow or stop soon.

She thought about retrieving her hoodie and trying to press it against her shoulder, maybe using the wall for leverage, but decided against it when she saw the glass sparkling in the fabric. It seemed far more likely that she would simply embed additional shards in her skin rather than do something about the bleeding.

Instead, and reluctantly, she stripped off her tank top, leaving her in just a sports bra and yoga pants. It wasn’t the ideal getaway outfit, but allowing herself to keep bleeding wasn’t that great of an option either.

She folded the garment into a square and pressed it awkwardly against the wound before leaning against the wall, allowing the pressure from the wood to hold the makeshift bandage against the gash. It burned, especially when she pressed tightly against the wall, but she gritted her teeth and endured the pain.

After a few moments, she gingerly took a step away and reached for the cloth, wincing when it stuck to the wound for a second before pulling free. All the blood on there made her stomach roll with nausea, but she forced it down and laid the shirt on the floor away from the broken glass in case she needed it again.

Then she made her way to the boat, deciding that she would explore it to see how she might proceed without a key. Could she turn it into a giant rowboat with some kind of makeshift oar? The idea was ludicrous, but she seriously considered it for a moment in her desperation to get off the island.

A thought occurred to her, making her hurry as she approached the boat. There was likely to be a radio on board, and if she was lucky, it ran off a separate power source from the engine or the main battery. It seemed prudent to have it on an independent source, or its own marine battery, but she knew so little about boats that she wasn’t confident that was the case. If it was, she could radio for help and probably be off the island by nightfall.

The idea brought more dread than anticipation, and she forced aside that reaction as she started to step from the platform to the boat, which had drifted to the other side of the U-shaped platform that wrapped around the boat. She should go around, but she was impatient to board and find the radio, so she just stretched farther.

There was enough water underneath the boat to make it shift, and as she stretched, her impractical sandals—the only footwear she’d brought with her—slipped on the edge of the wooden platform, and she went tumbling sideways. Kat cried out and windmilled her arms, trying to regain her balance or grab hold of something as she went plunging headfirst into the space between the platform and the boat. Her head slammed into the fiberglass hull with a sickening thud, and blood poured down her forehead to fill her eyes during the tumble, followed by a wave of blackness she was powerless to resist.

***

A floating sensation woke her, and for a moment she was so disoriented that she had no idea what was happening. Slowly, awareness returned as she realized she was hanging upside down between the boat and the platform, her ankle wedged between the two, which was the only thing keeping her aloft. She had no idea how long she’d been out, but the tide had risen dramatically. The floating sensation had come from the fact that her hair was floating on top of the water, and it was lapping gently against her head.

Fear overwhelmed her, and she began to struggle, doing her best to pull free of the way her ankle was wedged. The boat refused to move, as did the platform. She no longer cared about concealing her whereabouts from Declan or escaping. All she wanted was his help and the comfort of his arms.

Kat opened her mouth and let out a scream, the longest and loudest she could manage. Sharp pain accompanied it, grinding through her head as though someone had driven a thousand stilettos into her temple and was currently twisting the blades. She was forced to fall silent when the pain overwhelmed her, and her throat was too raw and scratchy to continue shouting. She only hoped Declan had heard her. If she had been out as long as she thought, surely he was looking for her by now. If he wasn’t nearby, she was probably going to die.