“No more moonshine for you.” He pushed on the wall again, and another panel opened. Inside were shelves and hooks displaying every sized dildo imaginable along with whips, chains, and leather straps.
My stomach dropped to the floor. “If you come near me with any of those—”
Stark rushed at me in a blur, and before I knew it, my wrists were handcuffed to rings on both sides of the bed. I hadn’t noticed them before.
“Stark, no. Don’t do this.”
“Your choice. Not mine. Though, I will enjoy it all the same.” He chained my ankles, over my jeans, to something at the foot of the bed in each corner, basicallyleaving my legs open.
“Stark. No.”
“I. Gave. You. A chance.” He stared down, a wicked gleam in his now dark eyes.
“If you rape me, I’ll kill you.”
He laughed. “Did I not tell you once? Rape is very unsportsmanlike for vampires.”
“Then let me go!”
“Not until you come clean. What are you hiding from me?” he snarled.
I glared at him, silently wishing for a meteor to crash through the ceiling and evaporate him.
“All right. But understand,” he said, “you brought this upon yourself.” Stark untied my tennis shoes.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“No! No more!” I yelled, my entire body quaking with involuntary giggles. “I hate you!”
“You asked for this.” Stark ran the enormous feather along the bottom of my foot again.
I jerked and struggled against my restraints, but there was no getting free from these tickles. “Please. Stop. Just bite me! Kill me.” I laughed and snarled at the same time.
“You will have no such mercy!” He feathered my other foot. “Now, tell me what you are hiding.”
“Nothing!” I lied, doing my best to conceal the truth, because Stark had clearly failed my trust test. What if I could still make moonshine? What if Charlie’s people could pull off the plan? The chances were razor thin, but I had to hope.
“I see that the soft approach is not going to work. I must get out the big guns.” Stark dropped the feather and held up his right hand, wiggling his fingers.
“What? Are you going to torture me with a bad magic trick now?” I snapped.
“Not quite.” He took hold of my knee with his large hand.
“No. Not that.” I could take the feather, but the knee tickle? It was game over.
Stark squeezed, zeroing in on the exact spot above the kneecap where the nerves went bananas when prodded. “I’m going to pee! Stop it.” I laughed and growled, squirming on the bed like an angry worm.
“Tell me what I want to know!”
“Fine. Fine!” I yelled.
Stark stopped tickling, and I took my first real breath.
“Charlie asked me to make moonshine,” I panted. “He was planning to use it on Congress so they’d vote against the bill.”
“Really?”
Still panting, I lifted my head with a nod. “Yes. Really.”
