Wyatt (Lane Brothers #1) (4 page)

With that in mind, I do something I would consider vile in any other circumstances and unsnap the button of her jeans, letting the zipper down slowly.

When all she does is snuffle and snuggle closer into my front, I slip my hand into her panties and start searching her out. She’s smooth, warm, and perfect when my fingers slip through her slit, bypassing the fat lips I’m dying to see and taste.

Once I find the hard kernel of pleasure nestled in her folds, I start rubbing in soft, slow circles, my touch feather light and achingly drawn out so as not to wake her.

It hurts to touch her so intimately with my sex so stiff and pained when all I want is to strip her, roll her over, and lick every crevice.

I want her pleasure drunk in her sleep and humping my hand to climax. That way, when she wakes in the morning with dreams of pleasure and the wetness in her panties, she’ll be so off-balance that I can launch a full attack on her defences.

Her hips start bumping and she sighs long and deep, still fast asleep and hopefully dreaming of me as her sex strains for release. My thumb stays on her button as my fingers slip lower, and I growl out a curse when her opening contracts and sucks at my fingertip.

So warm and moistening quickly!

“
Uhhm
.”

Yes, baby, that’s it, get yourself off on my hand
, I snarl silently when she bares down to take my finger to the first knuckle inside her walls. A flood of wetness rushes forth to meet my touch, and I grit my teeth so as not to do something I’ll only regret later.

Ellie is lost in her dreamy quest for fulfilment, and I have to wrestle my beast back when she moves harder, her clenching around my digit a torture to my dick.

When I speed up my thumb where it hits her nub and use just the tip of my finger to tickle just inside her sex, sending her into an intense orgasm, it physically hurts to pull back and zip her jeans up before she can awaken and know what’s going on.

She’s still sleeping peacefully, her face a display of fulfilment when I guiltily take my erection out and start stroking slowly.

By the time I’ve brought myself off beside her unaware form, I’m covered in my own cum and hornier than I was before.

Shit. Ellie better get with it quick, or I’m afraid things will get ugly soon.

Ellie

I feel weird and absolutely mortified when I stretch awake and blink my eyes open the next morning. I dreamed about my captor all night long, and that’s saying a lot because we retired in the late afternoon, which means I spent a good twelve hours, if the clock beside the bed is right, having dirty dreams about the man.

Stop perving over him and you won’t!

But how not to? The man is gorgeous and perfect for the old me I’ve been trying to supress all these years, and my untouched vagina knows it, too. The first dream was tame compared to the others, and that’s horrible because I’d been dreaming of his hand on me, in me, and giving me so much pleasure that for the first time in forever I actually got off before the dream ended.

That in and of itself is a miracle, because even in college I’d woken up before the grand finale every time. Doesn’t say much, not when my dreams had starred my lackluster boyfriends and hadn’t left me aching the way I am now.

Do not ache for your kidnapper, Ellie, it’s a bad idea. You know it’s dangerous. That way lies risk and the probability that you’re getting killed.

My biggest hurdle is that after one lousy day of his company, I just can’t see a man like Wyatt being the bad guy. The bad boy, yes, but nothing at all like Bolton was, and definitely not the type of man who’ll hurt me or rape me.

Nothing about this scenario fits, and that’s what’s got me hopping in my head.

If I believe him and my instincts, it’s possible that he’s telling the truth and that he just wants me. Unbelievable. Why would a man like Wyatt want a woman like me? I mean, I’m not a dog or anything, but I’m no supermodel.

Didn’t your alarm bells ring loud and clear the first time you met Bolton Conrad? Didn’t you know from that first slimy handshake that he was no good?

I’d known and steered clear, really not paying enough attention after that to realize I had a real problem with him until the phone calls and the “gifts” had started arriving.

By that time, it was too late and I’d had no defence. I hadn’t saved any of the texts or messages, and the gifts were considered harmless by the police.

Besides, stalking laws are a bitch in a lot of states, and Philly had been no different. By the time one detective took me seriously, Bolton had me in his clutches and I was screwed.

Pulling myself away from those memories with difficulty, I finally snap to attention and look around. I’m alone and free of the handcuffs, able to stand up and move around.

I rush to the door and almost start doing a happy dance when the latch turns easily and the wooden door creaks open.

I peek my head around the door and look out at the corridor. Empty. Good. Since I didn’t undress last night and my shoes are easy to slip into, it’s a matter of seconds before I’m easing my way into the hall and tiptoeing my way down it.

The coast is clear with not a sound to alert me of his nearness, and I take the opportunity to hotfoot it toward the stairs. I don’t slow down until I’ve reached them, and another peek around the wall shows the foyer is unoccupied.

Now all I need to do is get out of the house at a point that’s not in clear sight of the windows and run like hell. I’ve done this before, only that time I had to chew through my rope bindings and make my way out of the cellar I was in.

Not now, don’t think about it now
, I warn, tiptoeing down the stairs, my senses on high alert.

The front door is a no-go and I know it, because if Wyatt was being honest, and I have no reason to believe he wasn’t, I still have guards to get past undetected.

For that reason, I turn left at the bottom of the stairs, run silently all the way to what looks to be a huge library crammed with books and to a window at the far end.

We’re still in the south, I can feel it the moment I open the window and the humid air hits me. What I hate seeing when I look out is all the open grass before the tree line starts. I’ll have to run a few too many meters out in the open before hitting cover, but what other option do I have?

At least it isn’t the dry desert like last time. Remember—

Shut up!

I won’t think about that suffering or how a part of me regretted escaping when my thirst and the heat became so great, I was delusional and stumbling around in pain.

If I do, I don’t know that I’d have the courage to climb out of the window and run. Almost dying that way, all that pain and suffering, only to have him snatch my weak body up again and drag me back…

I won’t think about that now. Instead, I ease the window up another notch, looking behind me nervously, and push a leg over the sill. When I hop down and crouch behind the growth of bushes below the window I’m terrified and almost winded by the shallow, nervous breaths huffing out of me.

You can do it, El, just run. Run and keep running till you’re safe.

I obey and dart forward, my eyes trained on the tree line ahead, and my legs hit their stride. I make the wood in a matter of minutes and burst forward through the dense foliage so common to forested areas in the swamplands of the south.

No one yells or comes running, so I’m almost giddy with victory when another five minutes of running takes me farther and farther away from my prison.

All I have to do now is keep going till I reach a road or another house and then I’ll be home free.

Take that, Wyatt
, I yell inside my head, doing a mental fist pump.

And to think he actually scared me with all that talk of security and the impossibility of escaping.

Thinking of him now slows me somewhat, and I experience what feels oddly like regret at the thought of leaving him. Okay, I’ll admit it, part of me likes the man and his good-humored quirkiness, and even is tempted to stay.

This same part of me had actually believed him about keeping me safe, even from myself. If I get free of this, I’ll move, obviously, and just go back to my life as it was, with a lot more paranoia and fear, but back all the same.

Do I really want to return to being that ghost of myself after the way he treated me yesterday, making me feel special despite the incessant doubts and fear plaguing me?

No, but whether I do or not, the fact still remains that regretting leaving him is stupid. He’s nuts, crazy, totally out of his mind thinking I’d ever trust him.

Don’t you, El? Didn’t you fall asleep in his arms last night and have the best night’s sleep in years?

Shut up!

No, you need to face this shit and deal, girl. You’ve turned into an idiot who sleeps three hours a night, if you’re lucky, and won’t even eat something nice because you don’t think you deserve it.

Bolton Conrad hurt me four years ago, but I’ve been hurting myself ever since.

I am pulled back to the present when a wall covered in overgrowth rises up in front of me suddenly. I’m so surprised that I’m breathless and unable to stop quickly enough.

I make impact and bounce back onto my ass with a thump that knocks the wind out of me.

“Please, please, please.”

I’m on my feet and searching through the foliage, my heart sinking rapidly when I pull the leaves back to reveal a wall well over eight feet tall staring down at me.

The top is covered in what looks like electric fencing, and the darn thing stretches as far as my eyes can see.

“Shit.”

“Told you.”

My scream sets off a flock of birds and I jump back, plastering myself to the wall when Wyatt comes ambling into view, his eyes so dark that they look black instead of that captivating blue.

Heart thumping wildly, I look around frantically, hoping desperately that I’ll spot a weapon of some kind around me. Nothing jumps out at me as I cower closer to the wall, and I feel myself tremble and quake when he stops not three feet away and glares.

“Your lip is bleeding,” he snarls.

A swipe of my tongue proves his words are true. I have a tiny split at the corner, nothing huge or painful, but it’s bleeding. And the place on my cheek where I hit the wall is pulsing softly.

“Don’t hurt me.”

“Goddammit! I won’t. I fucking told you that already, Eloise. However, you won’t get away with harming yourself and I warned you about that.”

Why those words cause warmth to unfurl in my traitorous belly is beyond contemplation, and I find it horrifying to even entertain the zing of excited joy over the fact that he cares so much.

“Come.”

I shake my head and ignore his outstretched hand.

That sets him off and he starts cursing so badly, I feel my cheeks heat at the crudeness of his words.

“You come here right now or I’m coming to get you, and, Eloise, I promise you, you won’t like what happens then,” he warns.

“What are you going to do, huh? Beat me? Like I care, asshole. Been there, done that, worn the stitches and the cast already. You lay a finger on me and I’ll hurt you right back.”

I’m yelling as the tears filling my eyes spill over and run down my cheeks. I hate crying, loath showing such weakness, but I can’t help it.

I was so close.

I see his fists clench and those eyes go so molten, they turn from black to a glowing blue that is just plain mesmerising.

“I would never hurt you,
never
,” he spits, grinding his teeth. “Come here, Ellie. Please. Before the snake hanging off that vine gets any closer to you.”

I’m terrified of snakes and just the mention of one has me shrieking, running, and leaping straight into his arms and crawling up him like a spider monkey.

“Don’t let it touch me, don’t let it touch me!”

The fear—that numbing, undeniable fear—grips me so hard that I’m hyperventilating as I attempt to get all the way inside the man in my need to escape.

My therapist tried to help me with that once, but nothing ever broke me of the hysteria that comes over me at the mention of snakes.

Just looking at one in a book is enough to have me almost catatonic.

“Shh, baby, I have you now. There’s a good girl, princess, just breathe deep and hang on to me. I have you safe and sound.”

He croons to me and starts walking back the way we came, his strong arms and gentle baritone serving to keep me tethered precariously to reality.

I hate the slimy, slithering bastards after what Conrad did to me, and nothing will cure me of it. If I had to choose between starving to death and walking by one snake to get at sustenance, I’m afraid I’d die from starvation.

“Shh, baby, stop now, you’re making yourself sick.”

He has to sedate me to calm me, and I slip off into oblivion wondering what to do or think about this man. He hasn’t hurt me in any way, has fed me, held me while I slept, and told me over and over that he won’t do anything harmful to me.

I want to believe him. I
need
to because I won’t get another chance to run. If that’s true, I’m at his mercy.

***

Wyatt

I feel like the worst piece of crap to ever walk the face of the earth after that lie and regretted it immediately when poor Ellie tried crawling under my skin to escape.

I know that my baby has a phobia about the critters, but I’d never imagined she could be that terrified that she’d start hyperventilating to the point where I had to knock her out to stop her from going crazy.

Good going, Wyatt. Just great.

The worst part is the way she’d subconsciously thrown herself at me, trusting me to save her from it, as if she believed in me despite knowing she shouldn’t.

             
Idiot!

I’m so angry at myself right now. I’m pissed and taking my frustration out on a punching bag till my knuckles split and start bleeding. I keep going till the bag is slick with blood and I’m so exhausted and sweaty that I collapse to the floor in a heap.

Fear and revulsion of spiders and snakes is one thing, but Ellie’s reaction was extreme. What I saw three hours ago was something beyond natural fear, and if not for my anger at myself, I would have realized it sooner. I consider all the reasons for her hysteria and come to my feet in a rush, my screaming muscles and pain forgotten as I run for the stairs and hit the office minutes later.

“Yo, bro, what’s up?”

Jared answers this time and I wince. I could talk to Miah without the threat of getting my eardrums blasted. Jared is another animal entirely and already half smitten with Ellie from all the watching he’s done over the months.

He’ll likely go mental when I confess what I did and how my poor baby went so crazy.

“I need you to hack into Dr. Hanley’s files, bro.”

An indrawn breath and then curses reach my ears.

“That’s a violation, Wyatt, and you know it. I was down with watching her and you taking her off the streets because of all the other shit that was going on, but you know how I feel about going too far.”

Yeah, and yesterday I would have agreed wholeheartedly with him, but today…I can’t help her if I don’t know what’s going on.

“Jared…”