Snapshot Read online

  I didn’t know what to do with this. Stop him and risk my life? Put faith in him that it was a purely erotic move? I didn’t think I had a choice, which was both arousing and terrifying. I’d no clue what he was doing as he pushed a finger in between the rope and my wrist which increased the pressure, but it wasn’t tight. He grunted and turned me to face the island counter. His now-hot palm pressed in between my shoulder blades, pushing me to bend over the counter.

  His movements were controlled and slow. I stared at the knife block at the end of the counter and stretched my hands up to be near it as I pressed my chest into the wool blanket. At least I could try for a weapon if this went sideways. I turned my face, pressing my lips into my shoulder and feeling the rapid breaths escape my nose and tickle my skin. It was like every nerve ending in my body became hyperaware of every hint of stimulation. His palm trailed over my back, my ass, and down my thigh, like he was mapping every curve on my body.

  I felt myself growing wetter with every drawn-out moment, like this was his plan all along. His hand hooked behind the knee of my right leg, coaxing it up over the edge of the counter until my thigh pressed into my ribs. The toes of my left leg were left to dangle, barely brushing the floor. I was so exposed and helpless in this position.

  His hands disappeared. I waited, completely still, listening to the heavy silence. The whisper of cool air from the still-open front door teased my skin, and goosebumps sprung to life. His cedar smell carrying on the breeze seemed to calm me a bit.

  Then his hot breath puffed over my most vulnerable flesh. I could feel my arousal drip down my leg. He hummed appreciatively. He wasn’t close enough to touch, but close enough that I could feel the vibrations of that hum. It ricocheted up my spine, making me raise my head and gasp for breath.

  “Xander,” I moaned, my voice a plea.

  “Zvonová sklenice, I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you that you were something special.” His tongue trailed up my thigh, lapping up my juices. “But you are so much more than I ever imagined.”

  His face dove into my pussy, and he moaned as if basking in the most delicious food. I cried out at the assault of sensations from the vibrations and strokes of his tongue. From this angle, the rough whiskers of his five-o’clock shadow scraped against my most sensitive parts, only heightening the pleasure. Holy fuck. His hands gripped my hips, pinning them in place against the counter’s edge. I couldn’t move, though that was the last thought on my mind.

  Until his tongue strayed up and circled my asshole.

  I squealed and squirmed to get away. It felt beyond good, but Holy God, no one had ever done that to me before. It was no use anyway. I couldn’t overpower him, and he had a firm grip and I was in a position with no leverage. He bit my ass cheek and chuckled at the way my body clenched.

  “Stay still.”

  His fingers pumped in and out of my soaked cunt, his thumb toying with my sensitive bundle of nerves until he had me on the precipice of release. Then he pulled out and his mouth was back. He bit down on my clit and sucked hard. I came on his tongue, screaming his name. Off in the distance, the chickens cackled, startled by the noise. I lay my head back down and breathed into my shoulder. I heard his pants hit the floor.

  “I have never seen a more perfect picture, my love.” He smoothed his hand over my ass cheek. “I will have this soon enough. But I want you to roll over to your back and sit up.”

  I did as he asked. He helped me with the sitting-up part as I struggled to find a way to leverage my bound hands. I arched my back to counteract the forward momentum as I teetered on the edge. He looped my hands behind his neck and put each of his arms under my knees.

  “Look down,” he said.

  I watched every inch of him as he lined up and disappeared inside of me. His movements were measured, slow. The controlled drag, every twitch of his dick, felt exaggerated and real. It lit a fire inside me, felt more substantial because I could see it.

  “This is the way we are joined as one. You are a part of me. You see the monster in me and instead of tremble in fear, you tremble with need. I will worship you until the day that I die.”

  My release came as a trickle, like molten lava dripping from the base of my skull, sliding along my spine until it reached my core and burned through me. It utterly consumed me, and I clenched around him in heavy spasms, arching my back. My head snapped up with the movement; his too. He trapped me in his gaze, watching me while we came together, as he said the words that would mark my soul forever.

  “I love you, Rosie. And I won’t let you run away from that.”

  My heart slowed to a crawl, thudding beats in my head and clouding my hearing.

  Thuuump.

  Thuuump.

  Thuuump.

  And I remembered that I needed to breathe.

  Run

  Those words echoed in my head hours later. I love you, Rosie. And I won’t let you run away from that. He knew. He had to know I was planning to leave, and that show with the rope and fucking me on the blanket I was prepared to run with was a message. But the real question was… how would he stop me? If you really love something, you can’t kill it, right? And I felt truth in those words. Or at least I thought I did. Though I couldn’t decipher which part was the truth.

  But the simple truth was that it wouldn’t last. Xander and I had no future, and he was bound to see it eventually. I was about as fucked-up as they came, carrying enough baggage for an entire roomful of people. And he was dangerous in more than just the figurative sense. I needed to run as fast as I could, as far as I could, at the first opportunity. My survival depended on it.

  After the sex earlier, Xander had carried me to the bathroom and bathed me, and then he’d reheated leftover turkey to feed me in bed. I couldn’t have walked after if I wanted to. But it was all the care and attentiveness after he fucked me senseless that always rocked me to the core. It didn’t line up. He’d knocked me off balance this entire time, until I couldn’t see the situation for what it was.

  And then there was the other shit he’d said. You see the monster in me, and instead of tremble in fear, you tremble with need. As fucked-up as it was, it was true. The thought didn’t fill me with butterflies and have me picking out flowers for our wedding. It had me scared shitless. Not so much of him, though parts of me were for a multitude of reasons, but of what I was becoming: dependent on a guy and even worse, one with murderous tendencies. Feeling whatever it was I was feeling toward him wasn’t good. It went against everything I’d fought so hard for. It had me twisted around backward, trying to reconcile the depths I’d fallen.

  I would not become my mother. I would not become one of the vast majority of the women in my backwoods hellhole of a home.

  Fuck. I lay in the bed, listening to his breaths even out. I needed to make sure he was asleep, then I’d find the first opportunity to get the fuck out of here. I’d sacrificed myself, and now it was time to collect the bounty. I could tell he was tired when we lay down. He would be dead asleep soon, after a hard day of digging graves and fucking.

  The tick of the clock on the living room wall was loud in the dead of night. It echoed in my ears, a hollow, empty taunt from the inanimate, telling me that the world still spun on its axis even if it felt out of control from my point of view.

  Minutes passed.

  Hours.

  He slept.

  I made my move in slow, measured increments. The hare never won the race. I’d make it out of here with my life, even if my soul was a lost cause. He rolled in his sleep, moving from his side to his back and edging closer to me. I took that as my cue and made my move rolling in the same direction until I was at the edge of the mattress. I waited to make sure my movements didn’t wake him.

  When I was sure I hadn’t, I slid out until my knees touched the floor, and I let my body follow. Silently, I crouched next to the bed, listening for signs of movement. Nothing. I crept out of the room on my hands and knees. Once I was well past the door, I stood. I tiptoe
d through the kitchen and into the laundry room, dressing as quickly and as silently as I could in the clothes I’d abandoned.

  Back out in the kitchen, I pulled the sweater over my head. Xander had moved it to the counter, where it sat folded neatly next to his clothes. He was probably the cleanest man I’d ever met. Even his garage was spotless, organized, and tidy. I’d never seen anything like it before. Which made the fact that parts of the interior of the house were in such disarray—just another thing about him and this house—this whole situation—that didn’t add up.

  I grabbed my purse off the table and started throwing random food items in without thought to anything other than not making a sound. Once my purse was heavy enough to start digging into my shoulder, I stopped. I’d forgotten the coat, so I grabbed that and the blanket as I raced for the door, scooping up my boots from the floor along the way. I twisted the lock and the doorknob so slowly that a hundred heartbeats pounded in my ear in the time it took to open each one. I pushed the normally squeaky screen door open just enough to slip through and pull the door shut behind me.

  Once outside, I shoved my feet in my boots, threw the blanket around my shoulders, and hit the ground running. My breath puffed out in front of me in the cold night air like smoke. It trailed around my body as I pushed through it with each reaching stride. My purse thumped heavily against my thigh with near-bruising force. I didn’t have time to stop and adjust it. I didn’t have time to study the map. I needed to get away as fast as I could. So I took off in a direction I knew I’d find on the map—the cliff.

  I was well past the tree line, and in the thick of the woods, when I heard it. The screen door cracked off its frame, followed shortly by an animalistic roar.

  “Rosie!” Xander’s angry voice ripped through the night, echoing off the trees.

  Distantly, coyotes howled in response. This was it. I passed the point of no return. I was on my own now because surely if he caught me, he was going to kill me. And I had no intention of letting either happen.

  Shelter

  Off in the distance, a storm was rolling in. Lightning streaked the sky, lighting up the world like the day, brief flashes before the night took over again. I could see the edge of the clouds creeping closer to the full moon, and I knew my time was running out. Soon that guiding light would disappear. After that, my current state of dry warmth would vanish.

  My feet slowed, and I took big gulps of air as the surroundings became familiar. I knew I was getting close. My mind slowed, too, as my breath caught up. I looked around but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I didn’t think he followed me. If he did, he wouldn’t have gotten far before he had to turn back and get dressed. The cold was bitter.

  I found my spot next to the tree and set the blanket down long enough to remove my purse and put the jacket on. Shuffling through the contents of the purse, I searched for the gun. Once my hand found the cool metal, something inside me clicked into place. My heart rate calmed, and my thoughts felt more steady. I placed it in the pocket of the coat.

  Shelter. I needed to find somewhere where the rain wouldn’t get to me. Walking to the edge of the cliff, I waited for the world to light up again to see if I could spot something helpful. I scanned the rolling hills that lay before me in the brief flashes. I was about to give up and try walking farther when I caught a brief glimpse of it. At the bottom of the cliff, on the opposite side of the creek, there was a dark spot. I couldn’t be sure what it was, so I turned and fished the flashlight out.

  I crouched down and scooted on my knees, closer to the cliff. I wanted to hang the flashlight over the edge so when I turned it on, it couldn’t be seen from behind me. I’d no idea if he was close enough to see the light, but I was going to be as careful as I could be. I scanned the woods behind me, slowly, but I didn’t see any movement beyond the normal sway of the trees in the gusts of chilly night air.

  Leaning over, I flicked the switch on and scanned the area I’d seen in the darkness. It was an alcove in the cliff side. I moved the light to shine on the ground below and trailed it up the cliff side off to my right, looking for a way to get down there. About a hundred feet away, there was a spot where the cliff broke with a jagged edge that sloped downward toward the creek. There were roots from trees that grew at the top and poked out in random places. It would have to do. And from here, it only looked to be about thirty feet from the top of the cliff to the creek bed below. I turned the flashlight off and grabbed my purse, cramming the blanket inside as I quickly walked in that direction.

  Once I got there, I took a deep breath to steel my nerves. I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this. I wasn’t afraid of heights, but I didn’t go actively looking to get myself in dangerous situations either. I scanned the area surrounding me, but there were no signs that Xander had followed me.

  I arranged my purse across my body, so it hung in the back, and crouched down, lowering my feet to the sloping edge below. The outcropping was only about six inches wide, so I kept my weight on my toes and inched sideways searching for the next root in front of me.

  It was a slow process because I’d have to wait for the lightning to streak the sky and reveal the next root to grab hold of. I tried not to think of the distance between me and the ground below, but every time my foot would slip, or the width of the ledge narrowed, I’d look down and be reminded that falling was not an option. I will survive this. I had to. I had a future. Not a particularly bright one. I was never going to change the world, but I had to believe that my existence had enough meaning that there was a purpose to fulfill. And I don’t think dying at the hands of a crazed killer, or at the foot of a cliff, was the point.

  You are meant for great things, baby girl.

  My mother’s voice invaded my thoughts. At any other time, that would’ve been unwelcome, but I needed a distraction. So, I let the thoughts flow.

  My sole purpose in this world is you. I was put here to make you. And I’ve done my job well.

  Tears welled up, and I stopped and brushed them aside with the sleeve of my coat. I could still remember the warmth of her soft lips as they pressed against my forehead. I didn’t know what hurt worse: remembering what she did, or remembering when she was just being my mom.

  Though there was no way I’d let myself think of that night. Not in a million years.

  My foot slipped again, but this time I heard rock break away from the cliff and tumble down its side until it plunked into the water. I gripped the root in my hand until my knuckles were white, pressed myself against the stone face of the cliff side, and waited for my heart rate to slow back to normal speed.

  I had to have been more than halfway down—past the point of dying if I fell, but it was no less scary knowing that fact. I took in a deep breath and counted to ten. I’d move again when I was done. I couldn’t stay here all night. With that thought, the first raindrop landed in my hair. The icy-cold water soaked through to my scalp, causing goose bumps to scatter across my flesh. It wasn’t technically raining yet, more like warning drops from the outer perimeter of the storm. But it did add some urgency to my progress. I didn’t know how well the roots would help stabilize me once they were wet, and I wasn’t keen on testing it. It was too damn cold to come back from being soaked, and I didn’t need to die from hypothermia either.

  As I got closer to the bottom, the roots became shorter, more sparse, and harder to hold on to. I had to switch to finding spaces in the rock to grip. The lightning seemed to be getting brighter and the thunder louder as more raindrops thumped against my coat.

  The next step, my foot found solid ground, and I had no time to stop and think or contemplate what I’d just done. I turned around, sprinting in the direction of the alcove, and pulled out the flashlight to find a spot to cross the creek. The creek wasn’t very deep, and the bed was uneven, forming tiny islands in one part that were just close enough. I hopped across, skipping from dry spot to dry spot until I reached the other side.

  When I finally reached the alcov
e, only seconds had passed before the sky opened up and a deluge poured down from above.

  Off in the distance, I heard screaming, but as I sat and listened through the harsh pounding of the rain, I realized it wasn’t screaming, but the cries of a mountain lion. The ceiling of the alcove was low, low enough that if I stood on my knees, I could reach up and touch the ceiling. I crawled toward the back as far as I could until I was forced to lie down, then scooted until my back pressed against the cool stone wall. I prayed to whoever might listen that nothing called this space home.

  Breathe

  I pushed the peas around on the plate, willing them to disappear. Why we don’t have the ability to make bad things vanish with our thoughts is something I question quite often. If I’d a superpower, that would be it. I didn’t need a lasso of truth like Wonder Woman; I saw the world quite clearly already.

  My fork clanked against the plate, causing Mama to look up. She was thinking again, with a frown squishing her pretty features. She did that a lot. It never meant anything good. And Fred wasn’t home. The combination of those two factors already made it feel like we were standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting to be pushed over.

  “If you’re not going to eat, go scrape your plate and leave it in the sink,” Mama said, sounding tired.

  I frowned and forced myself to eat one more forkful of the mushy green balls. Yuck. Then I couldn’t take it anymore. She went back to staring at the wall, and I quietly pushed my chair back and walked into the kitchen.

  After I was finished, I paused at the door. She didn’t look up or acknowledge any movement, so I walked past her to the living room and went back to the spot I’d left my coloring book and markers. I wanted to watch a show on the TV, but I’d learned long ago that quiet activities were best when I was home. Drawing too much attention to oneself was never a good thing.