Not for the doors to the beach—they were closer to Jordan than they were to Trish—and not to the front door because it was farther away than the option shedidtake: the stairs.
Which was so not the right option.
There was nowhere to go but up.
Trish was shocked when she reached the top and Jordan hadn’t caught up to her. It had to have been deliberate. Jordan was bigger, stronger, and faster than she was. If he’d wanted to take her down in the middle of the staircase, it would have been easy for him. But for some reason he’d let her run all the way up.
Probably because Trish was now trapped unless she wanted to jump out a window.
She paused at the top of the stairs and looked down behind her. Jordan stood on the bottom landing, blue eyes blazing, arms crossed over his chest, feet planted in a wide, threatening stance.
“Run, little girl,” he said softly.
20
Trish ran.
Down the hall to her room—what she thought of as her room—where she felt safest. It was also where Jordan liked to play with her and do wicked things to her and punish her, but it wasn’t like she had anywhere else to go.
The heavy tread of his feet coming up the stairs, slow and implacable, had Trish’s heart pounding her throat.
Why had she told him to fuck off?
Sheneversaid anything like that.
She’d never said anything like that to anyone before,ever.
So why him and now, knowing what the likely consequence would be?
A psychologist could have had a field day with her. Trish was too panicked to examine her own motivations, but that didn’t stop her from yelling ‘whyyyyyy’ at herself in her head.
All the doors along the hallway were shut, so Jordan wouldn’t immediately know which room she’d gone into. A quick look out the windows convinced her there was no real escape there. Even if she could get the windows up and herself out in time, the fall from one would be onto hard concrete and the other had someplants made up of as much branch as they were leaf. Running from Jordan would not be worth being even a little impaled.
Trish didn’t want to think about what he might do if she hurt herself. Of course, he’d take care of her until she was better—she absolutely believed and trusted in that—but once shewasbetter…
Sonot worth the punishment.
The sound of his footsteps coming down the hall, heading inexorably for the room and apparently passing by the others—she hadn’t heard a single other door open—told Trish she didn’t have much time. She took the only fast option there was and scooted under the bed. As a hiding place, it was awful, and her heart pounded faster. Her breathing became more like panting, and Trish squeezed her eyes shut as the door to the room opened.
She didn’t know why she had. It was an instinct, an urge she had, as if some part of her brain insisting Trish would be safer with her eyes shut.
That part of her brain was wrong, of course.
She shrieked as hard fingers closed around her wrist and ankle and pulled her out from underneath the bed with a hard, fast yank. The expression on Jordan’s face was torn somewhere between exasperation and amusement.
“Let me go!” It came out as a squeaky shriek instead of an order, and Jordan ignored it.
“I’ve had enough of your mouth, babygirl,” he said, shaking his head at her.
A moment later, Trish was biting down on what looked and felt like a pacifier, except it strapped around her head and she couldn’t spit it out.
She hated it.
But as he bent her over what had seemed like a padded, leather lectern, with her wrists and ankles secured to the base,it wasn’t as though there was a whole lot Trish could do about it. The pacifier gag was a punishment for telling him to fuck off. Even now, she didn’t know why she’d done it. Trish already regretted it.
Jordan didn’t care if she asked questions, he wasn’t bothered when Trish disagreed with him or yelled or threw a tantrum, but any time she became disrespectful, it provoked an immediate reaction. Just like it had today.
“What do you think the punishment should be for ignoring a direct order and trying to go outside, hmmm?” he asked, musing as he ran his hands up her legs from where he’d finished cuffing her ankles. He palmed her ass, squeezing the soft globes and readying them for whatever torment he’d decided on.
