The Abduction of Kelsey (12 page)

The switch whistled through the air and bit into the backs of her thighs, leaving a searing sting in its wake. Kelsey screamed. The next blow hit her squarely across both ass cheeks. She screamed again and tried to roll away, but James’ firm hand on her back stopped her.

“Naughty girl. You just lie there and take what’s coming to you. It’s okay to scream, though. No one will hear you. It’s only you and me, babe. Just you and me.” He struck her again and again until she felt as if her skin were being flayed from her body. She struggled and cried out with each biting stroke but James just kept on, and on, and on, until all the fight went out of her.

She lay limp and sobbing as the whippy rod continued to slash over her ass and thighs. Finally, finally, the beating stopped. Her body was bathed in sweat, the salt stinging her abraded flesh. She felt something warm and wet rolling down her legs and realized with dizzying horror that it was blood.

~*~

James dropped the switch and crouched behind Kelsey, staring in fascination at the welts he’d raised, his eyes tracking the slow roll of bright red blood where the branch had cut her soft white skin. He hadn’t meant to hit her quite so hard or for quite so long. Though it had been over a decade since he’d felt the cut of the switch, James still remembered its fiery sting. But his father had never made him bleed.

But then, he’d never tried to shoot his father in the face, either. Kelsey had tried to kill him! In cold blood, she’d pulled that trigger, fully prepared to murder him. The thought was too much to handle just then, so he pushed it away, focusing instead on the rivulets of blood that trailed along her welted thighs.

He had done that. He had chastised his naughty girl with a beating, and now he would find a way to forgive her.

He realized his cock had returned to a rock-hard state, despite his having just orgasmed. He leaned forward and parted his lips, licking her skin as his cock throbbed. He drew his tongue down her leg, tasting the warm copper of blood mingled with the salt of her sweat.

I write the rules,
he told himself, refusing to allow himself to be shocked at his behavior
. We’ve left the world behind us now, well and truly. My word is law. Kelsey lives or dies by my hand.
The thought thrilled him, power surging through his blood like a drug.

Kelsey was crying quietly, the tumble of her hair hiding her face as she rested against the hood of the car, her feet barely touching the ground. She looked so fucking hot like that, naked, arms bound behind her back, her ass and thighs welted and bleeding. Though he’d planned to take her inside and make love to her in the master bedroom, he realized he couldn’t even wait as long as it would take to get her there.

Standing, he unzipped his shorts and pushed them down his legs, kicking them away. He grabbed her hips, lifting her to the proper angle as he nudged his aching cock between her legs. He brought one hand to his mouth and spit on his fingers. He reached for his cock with that hand and guided it to her tight entrance.

She stiffened at his touch. “No!” she whimpered through her snuffling tears.

“Yes,” he replied. She squealed as he pushed his way inside her velvet heat. He felt like a god, powerful and dominant, completely in control. How dare she resist him? That would have to change. He would beat it out of her. He could see now that was the only way.

He pulled her fully onto his shaft, groaning with pleasure as her vaginal muscles massaged him. Her skin was hot to the touch. He looked down, watching his cock slide in and out of her. The sight filled him with fiery lust and he began to pummel her savagely.

“Bad girl,” he grunted breathlessly as he rode her. “Bad, bad girl.” His balls tightened and he knew he was seconds away from exploding. He looked down again at their conjoined bodies. He pulled out just as the spurting began, adding the cream of his ejaculate to the blood and sweat glistening on her welted ass and thighs.

When his heart had slowed and his head had cleared, he let go of the bound girl and took a step back. As he pulled his shorts back on and zipped them, he saw that fresh blood had seeped through the bandage on her calf. She lay limply over the hood of the car and, now that the bloodlust of his desire had eased away, James felt a rush of remorse.

Quickly he leaned over her and released the cords that bound her arms, which fell lifelessly against the hood. She didn’t move. She didn’t even appear to be breathing, and for a heart-stopping moment he thought she was dead.

He leaned over her again and put his face close to hers. Relief flooded him when he felt the soft rise and fall of her breathing. Gently, he reached beneath her and lifted her as he stood upright. Her eyes were closed, but they opened as he maneuvered her into his arms.

He carried her along the path and up the porch stairs to the front door. He had to set her down as he reached for his keys and unlocked the door, though he kept one arm securely around her shoulders so she wouldn’t fall as she leaned heavily against him. He pushed open the door and deactivated the alarm.

The air was close and musty, but once he got the air conditioner going, it would be fine. Again he lifted his darling into his arms and carried her through the living room into the master bedroom.

In the few times he’d visited the cabin since his mother had died, he’d always stayed in the room he and his sister had shared when they were kids on their summer vacations, but that wouldn’t do, not now that he had Kelsey with him. He was master of the house. Kelsey might be his unwilling captive for now. In time, though, he’d teach her to be his lover, his soulmate, his wife.

Once they might have been equals, back in that other life, under others’ rules, but all that had changed now. Kelsey had left him no choice. Now it was up to him to help her understand that a man needed to exert a firm hand to teach his woman her place in his world. Once she understood that, they would explore the new frontier of their love together, far from the prying eyes of others.

He laid her gently on her stomach on the bare mattress, not even minding if she stained it. Soon he would cover it with fresh sheets. “You rest while the tub fills,” he said to her back. She didn’t respond. He sat next to her and stroked the hair from her face. “Kelsey. Look at me.” She turned her head and fixed her large green eyes on his face. Her cheeks were flushed and damp with tears. Christ, she was beautiful.

“Kelsey, listen to me. I want you to understand something. You did a very bad thing, and you were punished, and now it’s over. You are forgiven. I still love you. There’s nothing you can do that would make me stop loving you.” He waited a beat, half hoping she would respond in kind. She didn’t.

She didn’t love him.

Not yet.

That would come, in time. He understood now that his love alone was not enough to penetrate her sweet but thick head. She needed concrete lessons, and the switching he’d given her was only the beginning. He would break her down, wiping away her ego and her resistance. Only then could he build her up into the woman of his dreams. Only then could he claim her as the love of his life, and he of hers. They had time. All the time in the world.

“You’re going to stay put while I run the bath, right? You’re not going to try anything stupid again, are you?”

Slowly she shook her head.

James nodded. She looked too spent to try another escape, and anyway, he was bigger, stronger and faster. Still, why take chances? “I’m going to set the alarm. If you try to open a window or an outer door, it will trigger the alarm. You don’t want to do that, Kelsey,” he informed her. She didn’t react. She was exhausted, poor thing.

He stood and stared down at her a moment, examining her ass and thighs. Yes, it had been a thorough whipping, but she’d be fine. The cuts were superficial, though there would probably be some bruising. He shrugged philosophically. Now she would think twice before she tried anything stupid again.

He set the alarm and then went into the bathroom to fill the tub. He added some bath oil he found in the cabinets and pulled out some towels. When he came back into the bedroom, Kelsey hadn’t appeared to have moved at all.

He went to the kitchen to check out the provisions. The refrigerator was empty, but in the pantry he found cans of soup, a package of pasta and some spaghetti sauce, along with an unopened package of saltine crackers and a can of Cheez Whiz. He reached for the crackers and cheese. He put these on a serving tray, along with a glass of water, and returned to the bedroom.

Kelsey had shifted to her side, he was pleased to note. She watched him silently as he entered the room. He set the tray down and approached her. “Can you stand?” he asked solicitously. “I’ll help you to the bathroom.”

She didn’t answer.

“Kelsey,” he said sharply. “You will speak when spoken to. I know you don’t want another switching…” He let the sentence hang as he glared at her.

That got her attention. She struggled into an upright position, wincing as her bottom touched the mattress. “Yes,” she said, so quietly he had to strain to hear her. “I can stand.”

“Good.” He helped her upright and put an arm around her back for support. “Come into the bathroom and I’ll feed you while you soak in the tub.” He led her to the bathroom and let her pee. When she was done, he pulled the T-shirt over her head and crouched in front of her to remove the soiled bandage. “The wound is healing nicely, in spite of everything,” he informed her with a smile.

Again she said nothing. Annoyed, James pressed the issue. “That’s good, right?”

“Yes,” she said in a flat tone.

James decided that would do for now. He stood and helped her into the tub. She stepped gingerly into the hot water, biting her lip as she lowered herself into it. While she settled in, James opened the saltines and pulled out a handful, setting them in a neat formation on the plate. He shook the Cheez Whiz can and squirted a circle of orange goo onto each cracker. He popped one into his mouth and chewed. It wasn’t half bad.

He saw that Kelsey was watching him from the tub. “Hungry?” he said, aware she had to be.

She nodded. He lifted his eyebrows warningly and was pleased when she added, “Yes. And thirsty.”

James held the glass of cold water to her lips and let her drink. When she’d finished nearly half the glass, he offered her a cracker. “It’s up to you now, Kelsey,” he informed her. “Good girls get to eat and drink. Bad girls go without their supper. Really bad girls get a whipping.”

Her eyes widened, but she said nothing.

“Good girls respond when spoken to, as a sign of respect. In fact,” James said, a sudden idea taking hold, “from this minute going forward, every time you address me,
every
time, Kelsey, you will call me sir, or you’ll be punished. Are we clear on this, young lady?”

Kelsey pressed her lips together. He watched the cloud of fury pass over her features. She was a feisty one, make no mistake, but he loved that about her. He didn’t want to destroy that spirit, but only to bend it to his will. He waited. He would count to three in his mind. If she didn’t answer by then, and answer properly—

“Yes, sir,” she said. It sounded as if the words had been forced past clenched teeth, but he liked the sound of them nonetheless.

“Say it again, Kelsey,” he ordered. “Say it like you mean it.”

Her green eyes flashed. James tilted his head at his naked captive, waiting.

“Yes, sir,” she finally repeated.

James smiled.

Kelsey turned onto her side on the bed, the cold chain clinking as she tucked her hands between her knees. Her wrists were wrapped in leather cuffs that were clipped to long, sturdy lengths of chain, which James had wound around the post of the four-poster bed.

Her ass and thighs still stung from the beating, and the wound on her calf was itching like crazy, but at least there was some give in the chains. When he’d gone out earlier that morning, he’d cuffed her wrist directly to one of the posts and left her that way, with her arms uncomfortably over her head.

She could hear him moving about in the kitchen of the small cabin, whistling while he clanked pots and slammed cabinet doors. The smell of fresh brewing coffee and sizzling bacon reached her nostrils, and she realized she was starving, the handful of crackers and cheese he’d given her the day before only a distant memory.

They’d gone to bed soon after her bath. James had insisted on drying her, and then re-bandaging her leg. He’d even insisted on brushing her teeth, forcing her to place her hands behind her head while he did so. She’d wanted to scream. She’d wanted to hit him. Instead she’d stood there, passive and unresisting, too afraid of him to protest.

Once in bed, James had wrapped her in a bear hug and pulled her close against his bare chest. Though he had fallen quickly asleep, Kelsey lay awake a long time in his tight embrace, plotting how she might escape. She needed to pretend to play along. She had to stop balking as she had been doing, as hard as that would be. She had to lull him into a false sense of security, enough so he would let his guard down, at least a little. Then she would find something she could use as a weapon. He’d brought the gun with him, after all. Maybe he’d brought the bullets too. There was that pocket knife he’d produced to cut the switch, or she could get hold of a kitchen knife.

If you’d asked her a week before if she could cut someone with a knife, she would have insisted she could not. Now, however, she knew she could—and would. She would slit the bastard’s throat while he slept, grab his car keys and hightail it the hell out of there.

She didn’t think she would sleep at all that night, but somehow she had, because she woke to find James standing over her, his hair wet from a shower, a small towel wrapped around his waist. She could see by the pale pink color of the sky outside the window that it was barely dawn.

He’d let her pee, though he stood there watching like the creep he was, and refused even to let her wipe herself, instead reaching his hand between her legs with a wad of toilet paper. “Though I have forgiven you for trying to kill me,” he informed her as he pulled her to her feet, “you are still in disgrace. It’s up to you how fast you win back basic privileges. You’re going to need to show me that you are repentant and ready to obey me. Is that understood, Kelsey?”