“You didn’t eat,” he growled.
Maybe I was a little out of sorts because I just woke up. Maybe the lingering dream messed with me, and maybe I was having an episode from low blood sugar. Maybe all those things combined together, because my resolve from the night before had gone straight out the window.
“No,” I said defiantly. “And I’m not going to, either, until you tell me just who you are and what the hell you are doing with me.”
It was a pretty stupid thing to say, and I regretted it instantly. I mean sure, I might be able to resist eating, but what was I going to do if he was like, ‘okay’ and walked off and let me starve?
He stepped into the room, and the door closed. He said nothing, simply put the lids on the plates of food with an unnerving—okay, terrifying—calm.
My stomach turned icy again, and my bottom felt hot as I remembered where this kind of sass had gotten me before.
“Do you imagine, Natalia, that you are in any position to givemean ultimatum?” he asked, looking at the polished plate cover for a second before shifting his gaze to me.
I froze.
Of course not, of course I wasn’t.
But I’d already thrown down the gauntlet. What was I supposed to do? Say I was sorry? Cave in?
I reminded myself that my plan had in fact been to do just that.
But instead of saying something like that, I jutted my chin out, opened my mouth, and said:
“Maybe not. But you can’t make me eat.”
His jaw flexed, and a moment of frightening silence passed.
I was getting under this guy’s skin, and I knew I had better back off.
“I can make anyone I wish,” he growled, “do anything I want, Natalia.”
Something twisted inside my chest.
I stared at him.
“I’m not eating,” I said quietly.
He moved with such calm toward me that I didn’t have the sense to so much as flinch. Someone walking toward you like that seems more like a person about to tell you bad news, or take your drink order, or something like that.
So when he lunged like a panther, out of nowhere, and picked me up suddenly and with such ease that I went flying through the air and was over his shoulder in less than a second, it came as a total surprise. We were out the door and moving through a dimly lit hallway in no time at all, and a fair bit out of the room before I realized that he was carrying me somewhere.
I squirmed and tried to push myself up, pushing against his back with my fists balled up, but his thick arm just coiled around my legs tighter, and he drew his free hand up to my lower back, and I was as immobilized as in my dream. Sure, I could strain against him and toss my head around a little, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I might as well have been trapped from the waist down in a block of concrete.
I continued to flail for a few moments, screaming obscenities at him, each one stupider than the next, until I realized that I was wasting energy hysterically and I wouldn’t get anywhere. I was sweaty, my arms and back were growing tired, and I wasn’t getting anywhere.
The hallway went on and on, but I couldn’t see much. How big was this place?
He made a sharp turn, I heard another beep, a puff of air, and the sound of a door unlocking, and we entered a dark space, which was frightening enough to make my heart stop for a second.
A light turned on, dim at first, warming up as me moved into the space.
I was in motion again before I got a chance to see anything, turning, hitting something firm but soft and silky on all fours. His hand pushed on my lower back again, and pressed me flat to what seemed like a bed, and he pinned me on either side of my torso with his legs.
I was stunned into silence and started to fight back again, pulling my hands up to push my torso up, even though I could feel that I wasn’t going anywhere. He grabbed my wrists, one at a time, and pulled them firmly but with a bizarre kind of gentleness, up above my head, and I felt something clasp them.
Leather. A leather strap. I looked up at my hands through my loose, sweaty hair and caught a glimpse of the device he was securing around my wrist. A thick leather strap, with a soft velvety inside.
Up went my other hand. I was still pinned between his thighs, his body weight lightly on top of my ass, and my options, I could tell, were running out.
