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  “Bellisima?” The deep timbre of the accented voice startles me. I try to process the word, struggle to focus on why my brain tells my head to turn and look toward it, but my muscles don’t react. I hear some incoherent sounds and can’t comprehend why they sound like they’re coming from me.

  I’m disoriented but I most definitely feel the hands that slide around my waist, know I’m being tugged back against the solid steel of a man. There is nothing in my body functioning enough that tells me to fight his hold. My sluggish brain tries to process resistance but fires unsuccessfully. Peppermint mixed with an earthy cologne infiltrates my nose, scars my senses.

  I can’t make sense of anything, except for the peppermint—the scent of my childhood. Of warmth and home and fires in the fireplace during the holidays.

  And then he speaks again.

  Candy canes and the idea of comfort vanish.

  His simple words change my world forever.

  “No one has claimed you yet, no?” he says, pausing as a hand covers my mouth to prevent the scream I tell myself to emit but never really sounds. “Bene. You are mine, then.”

  A shiver of terror ricochets through me and takes ownership of my every nerve. It permeates through the miasmic haze closing in on my consciousness, but it’s too late.

  Darkness wins the battle.

  Consumes me.

  My world slips away.

  Chapter Three

  I hear my breath first.

  Not the beat of my heart.

  Just the ragged, stuttered rasp as I breathe in and then the uncertainty in it as I exhale.

  My heart is quiet. Frozen with fear. Silenced by the unknown.

  I’m concentrating, trying so hard to not move—to pretend to be asleep so that whoever did this to me still thinks I still am. I’m so focused on not moving that for a moment I don’t register the pressure on my eyes, don’t realize I’m blindfolded.

  My thoughts scatter.

  The only one I can grab onto is about the drink from the bar. The one the brown-eyed man bought for me. Then blacking out in the alley. Now feeling completely different than a hangover. The inability to think, to grasp complete thoughts tells me my mind has been altered. That I’ve been drugged.

  My head is still in a haze of chemicals, but it recognizes one thing and one thing only—fear. Empty, panicked shouts ricochet around in my brain but cannot escape, cannot manifest themselves into a scream.

  The bed beneath me is luxuriously comfortable. The thought flashes through my head, and I struggle to comprehend why in the midst of my chaotic emotions my mind picks to think about this, to concentrate on this. But I cling to the thought, hold onto something tangible to fixate on rather than the unknown that surrounds me.

  My mouth is dry and my jaw feels sore, tired. I struggle and break through the fog momentarily, then frantically dive back under when thoughts connect, synapses fire, and realization hits. Something is lodged between my front teeth. I’m bound and gagged. Fear mixes with anxiety as my mind emerges from the haze. I immediately move my hands to remove it and realize I can’t. My arms are stretched out at my sides and restrained at my wrists, as are my legs.

  A gentle strain on them from an unforgiving hold.

  My heart thaws only to be overtaken by a new sensation.

  Terror.

  Unfettered panic begins to reign. Body wracking tremors attack my limbs as I begin to struggle, fear owning me, the need to escape overwhelming me. I try to yell for help but all that comes out is a muffled sound as I thrash my head back and forth. I buck and writhe my body, my head still groggy but my body on high alert, consumed with the unknown and the never-ending darkness I see. I struggle to breathe, to think, but all I can focus on is that I’ve been kidnapped. That I’m going to be raped, killed, and who knows what the hell else, but I’ve watched enough true crime television shows to know what happens to women in situations like this.

  I struggle again, yanking against the restraints with all my might. The only results I have to show for my efforts are aching joints and muscles screaming just as loud as the despair in my soul.

  Nothing gives.

  Nothing gives except for my first strands of hope.

  A tear leaks out. I wait for the feel of it sliding down my cheek, but it doesn’t because it’s absorbed immediately by the cloth covering my eyes. I attempt to swallow and gag on the bile wanting to escape, just like I do. I try to calm myself down, flee the mind-numbing fear that takes hold but I can’t. Not only have I been taken and held against my will, but so has my most important sense: my sight.

  No one knows I’m here, wherever here is. Not a single soul.

  Oh fuck!

  It hits me—the direness of the situation and slams into me head-on.

  The tears flow uncontrollably now, my body jarring from the vigor of my sobs. Hopelessness sets in momentarily. And then I get pissed. Pissed at myself for giving up when nothing’s happened yet. I try to calm down, attempt to tell myself there is a rational explanation for all of this. That this is all a mistake, a misunderstanding.

  And then the hysteria bubbles up and its laughter catches in my throat as I realize how dumb that sounds. A misunderstanding? My laughter ceases immediately, my mind unable to pick one thing and focus on it.

  And then I do.

  The boys.

  Oh god. My boys. Will I ever see them again? Will I ever hear their laughs and smell the scent of dirt against their skin after a T-ball game? Hear their deep belly laughs? Feel their pudgy hands on my cheeks as they tell me they love me?

  My breath comes faster. Hard, sharp draws of air as I try to shove the sheer panic down, try to lock it up so I don’t draw those beautiful little souls into the abyss of darkness that I’m in.

  Despair is overtaken by resolve and the will to fight—to survive whatever it is that is going to happen to me—rides shotgun right along with it. I buck and struggle against my restraints, the cool sheets on the bed beneath me growing warm with my defiance. Nothing budges. Absolutely nothing. My head hurts and stomach churns. Defeat settles over me as I try to calm myself, gather my wits, and figure out what to do next.

  And then I hear a sound.

  The creak of the floor as if someone is shifting their weight and I freeze; my breath, my heart, my body stops, but my mind races.

  The floor warns of movement again, and I force a swallow down my throat. The fear is still there running rampant, but it’s the anticipation now that kills me. The need to know who is there, what he’s doing, what he’s planning on doing to me. So many scenarios flicker and flash and none of them are welcome.

  I flinch violently when I feel the warmth of his breath against my cheek and smell the peppermint again. He’s close, inches from me, and my skin breaks out in goose bumps, the chill coming from the inside. I strain to listen and without my sight I have nothing to rely on, which causes every single one of my senses to be amplified. And it’s this hypersensitivity that allows me to feel the chills race across my flesh, that allows me to realize what I couldn’t before in my fear-induced panic.

  I’m naked.

  Completely naked except for my blindfold, my gag, and my restraints.

  I try to hold back the sob as his breath continues to heat my cheek, and I attempt to get a handle on the terror, but I fail miserably. I sob as I think again that I’m about to be raped. Raped and I don’t know what else. Then what? My kids. Anderson. Oh my God. Oh my God.

  Get a grip, Lilly. Pull it together. I tell myself over and over as my blindfold is so damp with tears the fabric begins to cry itself. I focus on the peppermint smell, trying to pull up the comforting memories from the depths of my mind. The recollections an endless reel of images to lose myself in.

  I gasp and become paralyzed, my memories cruelly snagged away as a finger trails over my collarbone. It moves purposefully from one end to the other and then slowly, tortuously back to its starting point. He makes no sound, no other movement, just a fingertip pressed to my sk
in so all that rages in my ears is my shuddered breaths mingled with my pulse.

  Time passes. Seconds? Minutes? I’m unsure because it feels like an eternity sitting in this suspended state of the unknown.

  He sighs into the room and it hangs there like a hand waiting to smother me.

  “Bellisima, vuoi essere il mio amante?” His murmured voice hits my ears, a deception to my senses, because even though I don’t understand him, I know it’s sexual in content. I know his voice sounds seductive, but it’s what he’s going to do to me that stops any part of my body from reacting.

  “Don’t be scared, sweet bella. I won’t hurt you.” He laughs, rich and amused, and I’m confused, trying to draw into myself and away from him because I know that laugh is a ruse to trust him. To not fight him when I’m sure he’ll violate my body. Scar my mind. Steal my soul. His laughter stops when I whimper.

  “You think I lie? You think that I want to hurt this beautiful body of yours?” His voice is firmer now with a touch of anger, a result of my disbelief. The bed shifts as he gets off it, and behind my blindfold my eyes move as if I’m watching. My ears strain to track which direction he is going. “This body is mine. Your body is mine. I do not hurt what is mine.”

  I start trembling again. My toes curl and then relax, the only movement I voluntarily make under his quiet scrutiny I can’t see but can feel. Processing his words is just too much—everything too much—because all I can focus on is I’m now at this man’s mercy.

  His slave.

  His next whim.

  “I will give your body pleasure—take the pleasure you give me willingly—”

  Like hell I’ll give him anything of me. “Fuck you.” The garbled sound is out of my mouth before I can think, and I realize my mistake a second too late.

  Spikes of pain light across my right breast, pin pricks that sting causing my nipples to harden instantly. My breath hitches and I arch my back in reflex to the bites into my flesh, my only reaction to combat the unexpected pain.

  And I start thrashing my head from side to side as the contradiction of his words and actions hit me. He’s not going to hurt me? Then what the hell was that? My body vibrates with trepid anticipation because the silence is killing me. I want him to talk again. If he talks then maybe I won’t be obsessively focused on the silence, on the creaks of the floor, on waiting for the next blow to strike.

  His hand presses on my neck, covering the entirety of it, and forces my chin up. My mind races. My body freezes. His undetected approach reaffirms my unchallenged vulnerability. Silence screams between us, our only connection his hand pressed against my throat. My lips shock apart when I feel the heat of his breath against my cheek. And yet he doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, just remains there, reminding me of his constant presence.

  An unknown amount of time stretches. When he finally speaks, there is an unprovoked bite in his tone. “Do not fucking question me. Do not talk back. Is that understood?” I can’t find my voice to answer because I’m focusing so hard on trying to find the breath that he’s robbed from me. “Is that understood?” I nod my head as best as I can with his hand still pressed there. “I will fuck you as I see fit. I will use you, own you, make you mine.” I feel his tongue slide down the line of my jaw to the lobe of my ear, and I fight the shudder of revulsion that riots within. His lips brush against my skin. “And when I’ve taken everything I want from you, I will let you go.”

  My head startles at his last words. “What?” The word falls from my mouth but all I hear is an incoherent mess of sound. He’s going to let me go? The question is in what condition will I be left when he’s done with me? It doesn’t matter. I can do this. I can survive this—anything—if it means I get to go home to my boys.

  My moment of skeptical joy is halted when his finger begins a slow descent over my collarbone. This time he stops when it hits my midline and starts to move down between my breasts. My body shivers at the feeling—at the coarse tug of my skin against his finger, and I realize he is wearing gloves. Leather gloves, I think. The material pulls on my skin, an odd contrast to the gentle nature of the touch causing chills to dance and disquiet to own my every fiber.

  He stops at my lower abdomen, and although he leaves his finger there, the floorboards broadcast his methodical movements. I frantically track the sounds as he walks around the perimeter of my bed, my prison. My chest deflates and body freezes—fear firing anew despite his words promising relief. I feel the bed dip near the end by my feet and the anticipation of what is going to happen is almost as numbing as the fear that is now a constant.

  His finger never moves, but I can feel it shake, the bed sway, as he adjusts his positioning, and it’s ridiculous because I can’t see him, but I swear I can feel his eyes scraping over every inch of me. Observing. Assessing.

  I force a swallow over the fear that chokes me and mentally prepare myself for what’s coming next. The pain, the brutality, the loss of my consent. I try to control my trembling because I have to assume he likes the fight—is turned on by it—so if I don’t give it to him, will this be over that much quicker? Will he discard me and move on to someone who gives him what he wants? Because let’s face it, only sick fucks get off on shit like this, and if I don’t give it to him, won’t he want someone who will?

  I garble a cry at the unexpected, my body and mind shocking to the present when the wet warmth of his tongue traces the seam between my thighs. I try to snap my thoughts in line, but his unpredicted action bewilders me long enough that I don’t even think to fight him. And because my body is still and my senses attuned, I can feel the softness of his tongue, the languorous, heat-inducing trail it blazes up to my clit, circling over it not just once, but twice, before sliding back down and deftly parting my folds down to my opening.

  My breathing shallows, my teeth bite down on the gag, and I attempt to comprehend, assess, come to terms with what I’m feeling. How I can be scared boneless and yet still have that slow burning ache unfurling in my lower belly. I tell myself I’m crazy—that my mind is playing games on me, my subconscious shutting down so I can compartmentalize everything—but I know I’m kidding myself. I can’t even concentrate long enough to sell myself my own lies because it’s impossible to ignore, impossible to deny the traitorous warmth that spreads through my core and simmers there. Amidst the haze of desire that assaults me, my rationale tries one more attempt—one last ditch effort. It must be the after effects of whatever drugs he gave me because there is no way in hell I should even be remotely turned on by his touch on my skin, his tongue delving into me.

  I shouldn’t.

  But I am.

  I adjust my hips some, tell myself it’s not real, but the ache doesn’t dissipate with movement. And in response to my squirming, his finger leaves my skin for the first time but is back instantly, this time in a different place. Hands grip my inner thighs and pin them immobile. I’m still gasping in the air from the sudden, bruising hold he has on my legs when his tongue plunges into me.

  My cry is involuntary. The buck of my hips and arch of my back in response isn’t even a coherent thought but rather a reflex. I fight to ignore the blissful warmth between my thighs, rationalize that it’s my body’s natural reaction, that I won’t succumb to his persuasion of pleasure.

  Pleasure that’s unwelcome.

  Pleasure that is still pleasure.

  His tongue slips in, wetting me, opening me up, manipulating me. My nerves ride a disloyal roller coaster as he plunges in, circles around, and then withdraws to slide up, circling my clit, sucking on it, igniting it, before moving back down and licking back into me.

  The first moan that falls from my mouth startles me. My logic attempts to validate why my body reacts this way when I should be locked like a vice … but I can’t focus on anything because his tongue just keeps moving: up, down, in, out, around and around. A tantalizing assault that leaves my head reeling and my body humming.

  My muscles tighten as his fingers dig deeper and his tong
ue laves more fervently. I can hear his panted breath. It disrupts the silence of the room, but the other sound I hear is even more disturbing: my own stifled moans as I try to fight the sensation swelling through me. Time lapses and warmth spreads, nerves ignite, and then my body detonates, splintering into a million pieces of pleasure.

  I have no choice but to succumb to the tidal wave that hits and then drowns me momentarily. I can’t close my legs or relax my body as I normally would, so for some reason the exposure makes my orgasm seem more intense, more explosive.

  More traumatic—emotionally and physically.

  His hands hold me—my muscles still spasming against his possessive fingers—when I feel his lips press against my inner thigh. They curve into a smile against my sensitized flesh like a familiar lover would, and the contradiction hits me—the tenderness displayed in a situation so contrary—makes it that much harder to process what just happened. What I just succumbed to and derived pleasure from.

  Oh my God. Oh my God.

  What is wrong with me? How can I find pleasure from this man who is holding me against my will? What kind of sick, fucked up person am I? How can I even remotely be turned on?

  The bile rises. I try to fight it, try to swallow it down. My head becomes light and my breath shallow as my body becomes starved for the air it needs. I begin gagging, coughing violently, trying to revolt against the object in my mouth. I can’t dislodge it. I yank against my restraints, buck my body as I seek my next breath.

  In an instant his hands are at my head. I feel them tug and manipulate something. I focus on the peppermint again, use it to calm myself, but with the blitzkrieg of sensations and emotions hitting me, my connection to the scent is losing its effectiveness. My head dizzies as his mouth brushes up against my ear. “Bella, Bella, Bella,” he soothes with the deep timbre of his voice. “Calmare la mia bella. Breathe slowly,” he commands as I feel his body against mine, his hands at the corners of my mouth. “Calm down.”