Someone has to hear. Someone has to help me.
Because I’m out of time.
The first step of the staircase drops beneath me, but before my foot makes contact with the aged wood, the iron band of his arm loops around my waist. He drags me back into his hard chest, and I shriek in terror and defiance.
“Let me go!”
The world tilts, and my belly collides with his shoulder. He lifts me up as though I weigh nothing, and his arm clamps down on my thighs. My legs jerk uselessly in his cruel hold. I can’t get the leverage I need to kick out at him.
I slam my fists into his back and scream out my impotent rage.
I hear the sharp crack of his hand before the answering pain flares on my bottom.
“Calm down,” he growls.
Hespankedme. As though I’m a child having a tantrum.
I fight harder, punching his lower back with all my strength. A feral, warning sound rumbles from his chest, but I can’t stop trying to get free.
“There’s no use screaming,” he says, unnervingly matter of fact. “No one will hear you.”
“Because you’re going to drug me again?” I bite back, writhing in his grip.
“No. Because I sent the staff away, and my family summers in Spain. We’re the only two people for miles. Now, calm down.”
A shrill laugh fills the bedroom, and I barely realize I’m making the maddened sound. “Calm down?You kidnapped me, Dane. You drugged me and brought me to another country. Let me go!”
He obliges me, and my stomach dips as I drop.
The soft mattress cushions my fall, and I immediately try to scramble away from him.
The monster is on me before I move an inch. His long fingers encircle my wrists, shackling them above my head. His other hand curves around my neck, threatening to squeeze if I continue to defy him. The weight of his body pins mine, and I squirm uselessly in his restraining hold.
“I can’t let you go, Abigail.” It’s a calm statement of fact.
His perfect features might as well be carved from ice: frigid and unfeeling. If it weren’t for the way his emerald eyes blaze, I’d think he was completely devoid of human emotion.
Blood trickles down his cheek from a small cut at his brow. I managed to inflict some damage when I struck him with the lamp, but it wasn’t enough to save me.
“I won’t go to the cops,” I promise desperately. “I won’t tell anyone what you did to me. Just let me go home.”
His jaw ticks, and his eyes flare with a dark possessiveness that I recognize all too well.
“I can’t let you go,” he repeats, and it holds the solemn ring of a life sentence.
He’s insane. The man I thought I loved is absolutely insane.
“Get your hands off me, psycho!”
He flinches, but his fingers firm around my neck, choking off my ability to hurl insults at him.
“I never claimed to be sane. I’ve let you see exactly what I am, and you begged for more.”
My lips part on shallow breaths that barely squeeze through my constricted windpipe.
“Please…” I barely manage to whisper the plea.
“You like this, Abigail.” The words are a dagger to my thrumming heart. “You want me. The real me.”
