The cloth is dragged off my head. “Fixed.”
I purse my lips and rasp out, “Forgiven.”
“Huh.”
There’s a long moment where he stares down at me, and I do the same, looking up at him. Concern is obvious in the wrinkles on his forehead and angle of his lips. He palms the side of my face where it’s grazed, and I wince.
“They’re lucky they’re dead.”
Then he leans in and presses his mouth to mine in a beautifully possessive kiss and, for a second, my heart stops to appreciate the sensation. The softness, the hush of our breathing. As he lifts away and retreats from me, his warmth fades, but the rush of that all-too-sexual contact lingers.
My wrists remain behind me, where the zip ties compel me to keep them, and I should be unhappy with that forced kiss, but…
I am so undone. My lips tingle, remembering the feel of him, the pressure even as I sighed into his questing mouth. Hiseyes follow the rise and fall of my breasts, and he makes this small animal sound before he leans in again. His nose touches mine.
“Dearest Hailey, I forgot this.”
When he comes in for another kiss, I close my eyes. With his hand wrapped about my jaw, he tilts my head upward then bites the angle of my neck and shoulder, hard. I gasp as his teeth sink into muscle.
When he lets go, my flesh is stinging and I’m sure there will be marks.
Disbelieving, I search for the reason on his face.
“Much better.” Head cocked, he considers me.
Then he slips to the right past the tree, and disappears from my view.
I am tempted to swear, wish I could touch my neck, to feel what he did there. Instead, I wrap up that moment in threads of memory and put it away, carefully, so I can take it out and think about it another time.
Silence descends. I should hate him for that.
I should. But the repetitive throb from his teeth constantly reminds me of what he did to me the night before.
My brain decides to kick back in.
He’s not really forgiven for tying me up. Why has he made me stay here? Is he worried I’ll see where the bodies go? I witnessed the murder, and it can’t get more incriminating.
I take in my bound situation, the small hurts, that I can’t see much past a few yards, and I’m totally alone.
“Fuck this.” I test all the zip ties for looseness. Why did he have zip ties on him?
The other men must have had them.Oh. Oh no. Now that is frightening.
Ten minutes of wriggling, swearing, and twisting leave mewith eroded skin at ankles and wrists. If I go further, try harder, I will make myself bleed, badly. That’s not smart. Not when I’m here. Are the night noises only coming from bugs?
Probably. God, I hope so.
I slump onto the tree and ground and give up trying to get free. Cautiously, I wriggle my butt to relocate a broken branch that’s poking into me. I stop and listen. I should stay still and try not to breathe loudly. What was that crunching to the left?
Was that a possum, or something worse? I remain quiet and keep listening.
If I get chewed on by some predator, I will rescind calling him my rescuer.
Above me, an owl hoots then I hear the soft flap as it glides across my front to somewhere way up high. If I stare long enough…is that it?
A pair of eyes glints in the moonlight. Then another pair opens below those, then another, each pair smaller than the one above. Those appear to be all on the one bird.
Before I can truly translate the shadows and faint light, it vanishes into the darkness.
