Chapter Six
He was heavier than I expected him to be. That was the only thought I would allow myself as I hauled his body over my shoulder, through the hidden door in my basement to my subject room. I’d cleaned most of the blood from the last subject off the floor, but you could never get all of it. As always, the only thing in the room was my tool chest and the wooden ladder back chair in the middle of the floor.
Before he could come around, I laid him out on the floor to strip him. This was where I usually went into work mode and didn’t notice anything about the subject but their vulnerabilities. But that was with subjects I had never known in the real world. This time was completely different. I could never admit it to anyone, but Worthington had gotten to me. Even now, as I was pulling down his sleep pants, I couldn’t help noticing his strong thighs, firm calves...and some very strange scars on his knees. It looked like a cross between tiny cuts and carpet burn, some places still scabbed over and raw around the edges.
Next was the sleep shirt he had been wearing while he was running. He’d had me mesmerized watching him run that night. I’d almost felt his desperation. He had seemed to be reaching for something and never quite running fast enough to reach it. My plan had been to take him when he went to sleep that night, but I’d had to push up my timeline. Watching him had been moving me to say to hell with the job and just take him for myself like I’d planned. But I couldn’t let his transgressions go without punishment. It was black and white, and Worthington had moved to the dark side of my judgment. No matter how much I secretly wished it was otherwise.
As the shirt came off, I couldn’t help but admire his lean chest with just a hint of hair in the center. His skin was pale and pure. It would be beautiful with melted wax dripped over it in a rainbow of colors, or striped from a soft flogger.
Shaking my head, I got back to the job at hand. I didn’t need any more temptation, so I decided to turn him over onto his front to take his underwear off. When he flopped roughly over onto the concrete, I couldn’t contain my sharp intake of breath.
Holy fuck, he wasn’t lying! Jesus, what have you gone through?
Worthington’s back was the exact opposite of his front. Where the skin on his chest had been pure as an angel, his back looked like he’d been cursed to wear a demon’s hide—striped with whelps and scars more than likely caused by a whip, flogger or something much crueler. I felt an involuntary twitch in my jeans from the scarred skin. Along with the long thick scars crisscrossing his back, there were small and medium-sized burn marks and thin lines that could only be caused by a blade. The boy had definitely been tortured. He’d told me as much when he lost it in the car. But I hadn’t believed him.
I couldn’t deny the damage in front of me, but I needed to know who was telling the truth. He’d said he’d enjoyed this in his tirade, so was the client telling the truth and he’d been roped into doing these things to make Worthington happy? Or was the ex the torturer and I’d hurt an innocent man? That thought was enough to give me pause. I had never hurt an innocent before, had orchestrated my whole life to avoid that very possibility. But had I done it now?
I needed more information from both parties before I made up my mind.
With all of these thoughts whirling around in my head, I picked Worthington, no,the subject, up and propped him in the chair. The rope was in its place in the chest as always, so I took it out and tied him to the chair, making sure it wouldn’t give an inch. I’d been paid half a million dollars already to resolve this situation. I had a job to do, God dammit.
No matter what my very inconvenient feelings were telling me.
* * *
He was awake.
I had been out to pick up Snow and some groceries. I felt like cooking this week, so I’d gotten some beautiful vegetables and fresh proteins from the shops in the small town down the mountain. That was one of the things I loved about living in southern Oregon. You could be in town in forty-five minutes and be back in the middle of nowhere and disappear from the world in the same amount of time. I had picked up my mail while out since I didn’t have an address up here at the cabin. I preferred it that way. No one was coming here being nosy, for either of my businesses. I’m sure it kept many delivery people alive by keeping them away from me.
While thinking about dinner and having a small conversation with Snow about what she wanted, I heard some movement coming from the monitor on the kitchen table. Small sounds at first, but then more fervent movement and grunts could be heard in no time. The grunts were because of the gag I’d placed in his mouth.
He has a pretty mouth.
“Shut up, for fuck’s sake!”
Snow mewed up at me with a look on her kitten face that said I was insane.
“I already know that, lovely, but thanks for reminding me.”
I filled her bowl with the gourmet food she loved the most, then walked out onto the back porch. It was late April, and the weather was cool and clear this evening. I took several deep breaths and cleared my mind to go to work. It was so hard to keep my distance this time, but I had to keep a clear head to get to the truth.
When I walked into the room, I couldn’t stay impassive to my latest subject. My reactions were instant. My first thought was that he shouldn’t have been this beautiful to me in his condition. He was bloody, scarred, and imperfect. But what I saw as beauty were the things that would make him imperfect to anyone else. His scars pulled me in a way I was anxious to explore. I wanted to feel every welt and imagine the pain that would have created it. But at the same time, I resented the fact that I hadn’t been the one to place them there. I needed to mark him as mine. But those thoughts had to wait. I needed to see how this would go before I made a final decision.
I walked around his still form, tied to the simple but sturdy wooden chair in my subject room. The floor had been painted with the blood of all those who’d come here before him. All those who’d walked in, but never walked out. Soon, his blood might have to color the floor a brilliant crimson. I was unusually torn about that thought.
I finished the circle of my latest subject and was struck again by the perfect skin on his front. Whereas all of his back was a patchwork of whip marks, knife cuts, and burns, his chest was pristine. I couldn’t control my hand as it reached out to run a single finger down that beautiful and unmarked piece of flesh. He must have been startled by my gentle touch because he raised his handsome face, that pretty hair falling into his eyes like I liked. He tried to talk, so I took the gag off. Hard to interrogate someone who couldn’t speak. After licking his full lower lip, he spoke softly.
“He would never touch the front because someone might see it accidentally. He never wanted anyone to know what he was doing to me behind closed doors. He convinced me it was my fault. That I wanted it that way.”
There was a tremor in his voice that told me he was on the verge of telling me everything. It was my job to notice even the smallest details about my subjects. I knew there was more, and I had a very good idea of what it was. He had hinted at it, and my jeans got tight at the thought that I might be correct. I noticed him attempting to swallow thickly, so I gave him a sip of water from a bottle I’d brought in with me. Then I got to work.
“But it was you, in the beginning, wasn’t it? It was you who loved the feel of the pain in the beginning. That’s what you told me, right?”
He dropped his head down and to the side, but there was no hiding in my workroom. There would be no quarter given by me. I demanded the truth at all cost.
“No, you look at me, God dammit! This is my fucking place, and you play by my rules. You look at me and answer every question, and don’t you fucking dare even think of lying to me. I require the truth every time you open your mouth.”
His head whipped up at my harsh tone—the one I hadn’t used with him yet. I got even harder at his immediate response. I shouldn’t have, but he hit me on a level I hadn’t reached in so very long. I needed this level of obedience. I needed to hear his answers.
