Still furious, still ignoring my phone, I throw the few things I brought with me into two large holdalls. It doesn’t take me long to pack and I start to load my few belongings out to my car. I lug out the two heavy bags, dragging them along the path and heaving them into the back seat of my loyal little Clio. Despite my brave demands I know I can’t get my new camera back so I see no point in hanging around waiting for that. I’ve not much spare cash left but I need to buy another camera and pay rent somewhere else. I’ll have some money when my first payment from Gloucester Student Housing Team comes through in January. That’s only six weeks away, but until then, I’m going to be broke. I don’t eat much, but I can’t live on air. I’ll just have to sell some of my mum’s jewelry to get by for now. Jesus., what a mess.
I’m ready to go but Sadie’s nowhere to be found. I’m not leaving here without my cat. I make sure the door’s locked before I start rooting under the bed, her favorite hiding place. Not there, so I start poking around in the space under the kitchen cupboards. No joy. Christ, don’t let her be outside somewhere!
Ten minutes of frantic searching, still no Sadie. And now it’s too late. He’s here, Land Rover dumped outside my gate, nose to nose with my car. I’m going nowhere except on foot. He’s pounding on the door, shouting at me to open up. Not a chance. And I’m pathetically grateful to that state-of-the-art security lock keeping him out. He must know I’m here, he’s seen my car, but I don’t answer. Let him pound on the door all he bloody likes. I know that in a few moments he’ll be looking in through the window so I slip my shoes off and creep silently upstairs to stay out of sight. I’ll wait it out, sneak away when he leaves. He can’t stay out there forever.
I’ve not even reached the top of the stairs before I hear the door open, then shut with a click. My heart drops to my stomach at the sound of heavy footsteps downstairs. Oh God! Oh fuck, fuck, fuck! Should have realized he’s my landlord. Of course he has a key.
I dive into my bedroom and slam the door. Heart racing, I frantically drag my small dressing table against it. It won’t hold him back for long but could give me the extra few moments I need to escape. I run to the window and throw it open, intending to take my chance jumping out. And I see him back outside now, walking calmly down my path to my car. He points my key fob—shit, I should have at least grabbed my car keys before I bolted upstairs—and the locks spring open. He leans in and drags my bags from the back seat, then locks the car again before casually dropping my keys into his jeans pocket. He glances up at the bedroom window, my escape route obvious, as he effortlessly picks up my bags and strolls back into my house.
I hear a couple of thuds as he dumps my bags. A few seconds later his footsteps are on the stairs, coming up. He reaches my bedroom door, knocks softly.
“Come out of there, Ashley. We need to talk.”
“Drop dead.” I’m back at the window, leaning out, weighing up my chances.
And I know they are absolutely nil when I see Nathan Darke easing his tall body out of a black Porsche parked right up behind with my Clio. He walks round the car, opens his passenger door and lifts out my camera, still in its box. He leans back against the car, looking up at me, a sardonic smile across his handsome features. He’s an attractive man in a satanic sort of way, a man I might have been drawn to but for that air of cruelty, that distaste for me—so strong I can almost taste it.
He lifts his hand to me in a mocking salute, then taps the camera box. “Got something of yours here. Are you coming down to get it? Preferably by the stairs. I don’t much care if you break your neck, but Tom seems to want to keep you in one piece.”
It’s a trick, must be. A cruel joke. They’re just having some fun with me. I feel like a child in a playground, desperately trying to grab my lunchbox back while the school bullies taunt me, pushing me around. It’s a long time since I was that kid in the playground, but the angry, frustrated helplessness is just as vivid now as it was ten years ago. Except this time there’s a lot more than a couple of cheese sandwiches and a carton of apple juice at stake. Sick with fear, completely vulnerable, trapped and alone. No kindly teachers to intervene here. No other kids to hide behind. Just me. And both of them.
I hear the sickening grate of my barricade scraping across the polished floorboards as Tom Shore shoulders open the door. He’s in. And he’s angry.
“Drop dead, Ashley? Now that’s not nice.” His voice is soft. Deceptively so. “You called me a pig. Told me to go to hell. Not polite. You need to tell me what this is all about. Now. Before I run out of patience.”
“Leave me alone. Please, just let me go.” I’m pleading. Again. I despise myself, but can’t help it. Bone-deep fear will do that to me every time. I already know what Tom Shore’s capable of on his own. But with his hateful friend joining in the fun as well? Gripped by mindless panic, I dive for the door. No real chance of escape, but I’ll go down fighting this time, no passive acceptance today. He catches me easily around the waist and flings me backwards onto the bed. I scream, part fear, part rekindled pain from yesterday’s ill treatment as I land heavily on my backside. I brace myself, expecting him to be on me immediately, but instead he walks around the bed to the open window. He leans out and pulls it closed, nodding to his friend outside. He locks the frame in place before turning to me. He regards me silently for a few moments, his green gaze stormy, turbulent, as if weighing his options.
A movement in the doorway catches the corner of my eye. I glance round to see Nathan Darke lounging against the door jamb arms folded. A quick flash of his teeth as he smiles slightly, and it crosses my mind that I wouldn’t be altogether surprised to see fangs—he certainly looks the type. Defensively I draw myself up into a ball at the head of the bed, my gaze flicking from one to the other, wondering which will move in on me first.
Neither, it seems. At least not yet. “Well, bro, looks like you got it all under control. My work here is done.” Nathan Darke’s words are a low, mocking drawl as he straightens. “I’ll be off then.” Turning to me, “Your camera’s downstairs. On the table.” He glances back at Tom Shore. “Remember what I said about bad ethics. Especially with vanillas like this one.”
“Fuck off, purist.” Tom’s response is as unexpected and enigmatic as Nathan Darke’s comment, but any curiosity of mine is dwarfed for the moment by my overwhelming relief that at least one of them is leaving. Only when the purr of his engine finally fades do I dare look up again. Tom Shore hasn’t moved. He’s still watching me from his position at the window, his hands thrust casually into the pockets of his dark brown waxed jacket, his jeans-clad legs crossed at the ankles. His casual stance is deceptive. He’s still furious. And, even alone, still absolutely terrifying.
“We’ll talk. Downstairs.” And he pushes himself into a stand, strides across the floor to the door, the sound of his heavy work boots echoing around the small room. “Don’t keep me waiting.” The words are flung back at me as he clatters down the stairs.
For the first few moments I am numb. The surge of adrenaline that had so effectively propelled me up the stairs, lent me the strength to barricade the door and even to believe I could jump from a first-floor window has now totally evaporated, leaving me limp, boneless. My hands are shaking, my heart racing. Even at the risk of keeping the imperious Mr Shore waiting, I need a few minutes to compose myself, to gather my wits. I allow myself five.
I can hear movement downstairs, the clatter of crockery. I slowly descend the stairs to see Tom Shore sitting at my table, his wax jacket now slung over the back of his chair, a steaming pot of tea in front of him along with two mugs and a carton of milk. My camera’s there too, on the table as Nathan Darke said it would be, still sealed up in its box. Sadie, the traitor, has miraculously reappeared and is slinking around his feet. He idly leans down to tickle her ears before shooting a glance at me. “Milk?”
“What?”
“Do you take milk, Ashley?” He pushes a mug of tea across the table, indicating I should sit opposite him. I ease myself gingerly into the chair, wincing as my abused bottom throbs sharply under my weight. He notices, but says nothing. I’m grateful—he could so easily start to gloat, reassert his power over me, and I couldn’t bear that at this moment. Despite my brief respite upstairs as I tried to collect myself, my wits are too fragile, my thoughts too confused. Instead, he picks up the carton of milk, raising one questioning eyebrow to ask if I want some. I nod and he pours it for me.
“You feeling a bit calmer now?”
I opt for conciliatory. “Yes. I’m sorry, I thought…”
He cuts me off sharply, his tone clipped and angry. “I know what you thought. You were shit scared up there. You thought we were about to take turns with you. Didn’t you?” His voice is hard, implacable.
I nod, embarrassed. The whole notion seems so ludicrous now, sitting down here drinking tea round my little table. But a few minutes ago, trapped in my bedroom, I did fully expect to be raped.
He leans back in his chair, sips his tea thoughtfully. Placing the cup back on the table, he fixes his stormy gaze on me, the emerald glint hard and sharp.
“For the avoidance of any further doubt, Ashley, let me make this clear. I don’t intend to rape you. Neither does Nathan. He’s my best friend, true, but we never hunt in a pack. And we most definitely don’t share women. And certainly not a scrawny little tramp like you.” He smiles, a flash of even, white teeth indicating his sardonic amusement at the thought of me driving anyone to even consider sexual misconduct. His disdain, and his casual, cruel dismissal are almost as crushing as the act of violation might have been. “You know, there’s not really enough of you to go round even one of us, let alone two. You’re much too fragile, too flimsy, you’d break too easily. So you’re safe. At least as far as that’s concerned. Is that clear?”
His words should offer me some measure of comfort, and maybe they do at some level. But no woman likes to be told she’s so unattractive that no man would be interested. And Tom Shore seems to delight in telling me how unappealing I am, rubbing my nose in it. My sexuality has never been a big deal to me, but even so, the pain of his careless rejection twists in my gut. I could so easily come to hate this man. Maybe I’m already there.
Uncaring for consequences now, I ask the question uppermost in my mind. “What did he mean? What he said as he was leaving, about ethics? And why did you call him a purist?”
His answer is slow in coming. He regards me silently for long moments before finally deciding to satisfy my curiosity. He smiles. “Ah well, seems you have an unlikely champion, little Ashley. Nathan doesn’t approve of what I did to you yesterday. A great believer in consent is Nathan. Especially in bondage games. Safe words and all that. You know the sort of thing.”
I’m staring at him, baffled. Games? In what sort of twisted logic could any of what happened yesterday be construed as a game? “What are you talking about? What sort of thing?
How
would I know?”
He smiles, his grin now broad, genuinely amused. He continues, “Ah yes, Nathan’s right. You are a little vanilla. How sweet.”
I’m really beginning to regret ever starting this, but I need to know now, need to understand. I tilt my chin up, searching for some shreds of dignity. “He called me that too. What does it mean?”
Head cocked to one side he regards me seriously. “It means you like your fucking plain and simple, no added extras. Nothing to spice it up. That sound like you, Ashley?”
“No! I mean…”
I stop. How to even start to explain? No way am I sharing my inadequacies with this arrogant man but my experience is admittedly limited. What I mean is I don’t like sex—‘fucking’ as he insists on calling it—at all. Whether plain, simple, spicy or in any other variety. I’ve generally found the whole business to be rather painful, messy and always deeply unsatisfying. I know others don’t agree—the few female friends I’ve had over the years have laughed and giggled and shared jokes and sexual innuendoes. Not me, though. I’ve always felt left out, excluded, as though everyone else knows some secret I’ve not been let in to. And now here, too, I’m out of my depth. Totally. God, I should never have asked.
Tom Shore can see my discomfort but can’t seem to resist having his fun with me. “No? Maybe there’s hope for us yet. Maybe that inner submissive is going to make an appearance after all. So you
do
like the idea of being tied up, Ashley, whipped maybe? Could I interest you in a little nipple clamping?” He leans forward, whispering now, “Would you let me fuck your gorgeous little arse, Ashley?”
My horrified squeak is all the answer he needs. He leans back, shrugging. “No, thought probably not. Don’t look so scared—like I said, you’re safe enough. I’m not interested in your sort of vanilla fucking, far too pale and uninteresting. I like my partners to enjoy the same games I do. Nice and kinky. Hot and sweaty. Dirty.”
Incredulous, I latch onto the one word in all that which made any sort of sense to me. “You call tying a woman up and beating her a game? That’s sick.”
“Sick? Not if she’s as keen for it as I am. So yeah, Ashley, it is a game, a game that subs love just as much as Doms do.”
“Subs? Doms? What the hell…?”
Impatient now, bored, he waves his hand at me in dismissal. “Look, I’m busy, you’ve taken up enough of my time today already, and I’m sick of attending to your sex education. You’ve got Internet access on that laptop of yours, yes? Well, Google it then. Do the research. Google BDSM, bondage, Dominants and submissives. See what you come up with. Then if it strikes a chord, and if you’ve got questions, you can ask me. Maybe I’ll even give you a little demonstration. If you ask me nicely.”