Captive (4 page)

Well, she didn’t. When she got out of here, she’d set them all free.

When she was finished, she hit the button she assumed was the flusher. A transparent lid whooshed closed, a red light flashed inside, and everything in the pot disintegrated. She barely heard the whoosh of the lid opening over Max’s very loud, very high-pitched imitation of Axel Rose singing, “I ain’t got time for the game—”

“Pretty high-tech toilet for a cult.” She secured her blanket.

He kept on rocking his hips, singing, “I need you, yeah, I need you...”

Stepping right behind him, she shouted, “Hey, rock star, where’s the sink?”

When Max turned to face her, he flashed a playful boyish grin and her breath caught. Wow. She couldn’t help but return the smile. If she weren’t trapped against her will, being in a room with this gorgeous man wouldn’t be so bad.

He strutted to one of the pitchers, picked it up, and sniffed it before holding it out to her. The clear liquid had a pungent cleanser type odor.

“This one’s for washing.” He handed it to her, took the other pitcher, sniffed and then held it under her nose. This time she smelled nothing. “This one’s for drinking. Don’t get them mixed up.”

He set the drinking pitcher down and, taking the other one from her, led her to the “flowerpot.” His large, warm hands positioned hers over the pot before he poured liquid over them. “Rub them together and let them air-dry. There’s your sink.” He pressed the button, and the noise ripped through the awkward silence.

“Umm...how about a hairbrush, toothbrush, deodorant?”

“None of that in here. You can take a swig of this, gargle and spit. Kills the germs pretty good.”

“But you said not to get the two pitchers mixed up.”

“I said spit, not swallow. Relax. It won’t kill you or anything. It’ll just give you the— er...stomach problems?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Gotcha. So what else can you tell me?” If she pumped him for information, maybe she could figure a way out.

He set the pitcher down. “How about you tell
me
something.”

“Like what?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Where in Northern California are you from?”

“We’re trapped in a box together against our will, and you want to chitchat?”

“Would you prefer sex?” His devilish grin set his vivid eyes twinkling with lust.

Adrenaline surged within her, but she didn’t retreat. She held his gaze. “I prefer to get out.”

“You don’t find me attractive?” His wounded tone tugged at her heartstrings.

Manipulative bastard. She decided not to answer. Instead, she crouched by the fireplace. “What’s that?” Addy pointed to a glowing red cube the size of a die behind the dark embers. It was so small she hadn’t noticed it before now.

He crouched next to her, invading her personal space. “Furnace.”

“That little thing’s a furnace?”

“You’d be surprised,” he said, not taking his gaze off her, “how one little thing can heat up an entire room.”

Addy had a sudden need to clear her throat. She peered up inside the fireplace.

“There’s no flue,” he said, though he hadn’t been looking up.

“I can see that.” What kind of fireplace had no flue or at least a vent? She pulled her head out and scanned the barren walls. “If we got in, there has to be a way out.”

“There isn’t.” Max threw a log into the fireplace. It immediately ignited without help from a match or lighter.

What was with all the high-tech gadgetry? And why did he need a fire if the furnace was red-hot? “Then how did the food get in here this morning?”

“There’s a door—” Max stood and pointed to the wall behind her “—but it’s controlled from the outside.”

She ran her hand along the wall and down its corners, looking for a crack where the door might be.

He crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back against the wall and looked at the ceiling, bored. “Do you seriously believe I’ve been stuck here this long and haven’t already tried everything you’re thinking? I’m telling you there’s no way out of this room unless they let you out.”

“Has anybody ever escaped?”

“Not from this—”

“I mean from out there. You said we’re only in here until we—” she gulped “—you know.”

“Yes. I know.”

Ignoring his deep, sexual tone, she pointed to the wall. “So has anyone ever tried escaping from out there?”

He let out a heavy sigh. “Yes.”

“And?”

Max’s eyes hardened. “He failed.” He strode to the other side of the space with fists clenched. She heard his intake of breath and the slow release before he started singing to himself, “A little patience, mmm yeah, yeah.”

“What happened to him?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t have asked.”

He rubbed his palm heels over his eyes.

Good. If he wasn’t going to help them get out of here then let him be frustrated.

“You want to know what happened? He escaped. He got caught. He was killed. That’s it.” Again he spoke in that monotone card-game-directions voice.

“You know, you’re a real pain in the ass.” She hoped her anger hid the terror coursing through her. The cult murdered the people who tried to escape? She clamped her teeth together to keep her jaw from trembling.

Max sauntered toward her, a knowing smirk on his face. “And you,” he began in a sultry tone, “are even more beautiful when you’re fired up.”

The sudden one-eighty change in his demeanor caught her off guard. Her fear-thudding heart now flipped in excitement. He’d obviously practiced that voice more than a few times.

Max ran a finger up the length of her arm, leaving goose bumps in its wake. She stepped back. How the heck did he turn on the bedroom eyes so fast? “Don’t,” she breathed.

“It’s why we’re here.”

“What about the song? You know, ‘“Patience’?”

He moved closer. “I ran out.”

Stepping back again, she bumped into the wall next to the fireplace. Smoke wafted to her with its unusual fragrance, seeped into her head and made her dizzy. Or was the dizziness due to Max, half naked, closing in on her, desire burning in his eyes?

Maybe if she kept him talking, he’d change his mind. “How m-many times have you done this?”

Idiot. Don’t talk about sex!

He took another step and bowed his head down toward her. “Enough to know how to satisfy you.”

Her belly quivered. She had no doubt he was telling the truth. Heat from the fireplace coursed through her body, warming her most secret places. She slid along the wall, heart thumping like a jackrabbit’s. Her throat dried. She couldn’t take her gaze off his penetrating eyes. His sleek, muscular body moved like a bobcat stalking his prey, waiting for the right moment to pounce and tear into her.

Was it wrong that part of her wanted him to? No doubt the sex would be awesome.

What was she thinking? It didn’t matter that Max was hot. It didn’t even matter that her body responded to his sexual prowess. She didn’t know him and she didn’t want to have sex for some murderous cult. And she sure as hell didn’t want to get pregnant by a man who slept with countless women and fathered... “H-how many babies did you make?”

He pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. “No idea.”

“You’ve been a sex slave for fifteen years and you don’t know if you have kids?”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t be here if I were sterile.” He rested his hands on the wall trapping her between thick arms.

Anyone emanating masculinity and sex like he did couldn't be sterile. His lips, mere inches from hers, tempted her to taste him. Their breath mingled in sensual intimacy. If only she could glance away, but his gaze held hers captive. She swallowed. “Doesn’t it bother you to know you have children out there somewhere?”

He paused. A far-off look clouded his eyes. Was he backing down?

With a shake of his head, the lustful eyes returned. “No more talking. It distracts from the seduction.”

“But I—” His mouth, soft yet powerful, covered hers. Liquid heat flooded her veins. His lips coaxed hers open offering a sampling of his fruit-sweetened tongue. Then, slowly, his kiss withdrew.

Breathless and trembling, she gaped at him, mouth still tingling from his five o’clock shadow. Never in her twenty-three years had she been kissed with such sensuous hunger before. And never had her body reacted with such intensity.

The room swayed as if she were tipsy. Lightheaded.

His sexy half smile spoke of unleashed desire. “Don’t be afraid.”

Supercharged, her body revved on the starting line, waiting for her brain to give the green light. But the signal never changed. Her thoughts chanted:
Sex. Slavery. Selling babies.

He planted soft kisses on her neck.

Shivers shot throughout her body. Her breasts tingled with the need to be touched. Her head spun with drunken passion. She closed her eyes, lost in sensation. In one swoop, he lifted her into his arms, carried her two strides to the pillow mattress. The soft bedding cradled her as he laid her upon it.

“Please, Max. I can’t do this. I don’t know you. I don’t love you.”

“None of that matters to the Hyboreans.” He removed the sheet from his hips, and her breath hitched at the sight of him in all his naked glory. “Just relax and go with it, and they won’t hurt us.”

She barely had time to register his words before his heavy body covered hers. His kiss hijacked all thoughts except one. Would it really be so bad if she slept with him?

He tugged on her toga, slipped a warm hand inside, and brushed his fingertips up the side of her breast. Goose bumps tingled her flesh, tightening her nipples. Her body yearned to be explored.

How could she feel this way about a man she’d just met?

Sex. Slavery. Selling babies.

“No,” she whispered against his lips and wriggled to get free. Big mistake. The toga opened and his erection pressed hard against her. Her movements must have excited him because he planted hot, hungry kisses on her neck, throat, and breasts.

Heat radiated from the deep center of her tightening belly. She barely heard herself gasp above her heart pounding against him. He obviously thought he could make her change her mind, and perhaps under different circumstances he could have. Lord knows she shamefully wanted him.

It was as if she were intoxicated with lust.

Wait. Was she intoxicated?

Had he slipped a date rape drug into her breakfast?

She clenched her jaw so tightly it ached. Her ears pounded. Angry heat coursed through her, waking her from her sexual stupor.

A knee slipped between her thighs, nudging her legs apart.

She couldn't shove his rock solid body off of her. “I said no, you fucking animal!”

Max froze. His dead weight crushed her chest. He looked down in disbelief, as though he too had awakened from a spell, and realized what he was doing. The next instant he jumped off.

Precious air rushed into her lungs. She covered herself with the blanket and scooted against the wall, putting as much distance between them as possible.

Staring at her, horrified, Max backed to the other side of the room. He stepped left, then right, then back again, as if he didn’t know in which direction to go. Not that he could go anywhere anyway.

“Fuck.” He kicked the metal bowls and pitchers, launching them into the walls with a powerful crash. They ricocheted off, painting the room with pink splatters and black goop. Liquid mixed into the black breakfast pulp and streaked down the walls like mascara tears.

She tightened the blanket around her and coiled into a ball, crushing her back hard against the wall, wishing she could melt into it, watching him through dry, unblinking eyes.

“You’re right. I
am
a fucking animal. A goddamn beast.” He back-kicked the wall with enough force that Addy felt the vibrations on her side of the room.

He rubbed his hands hard up his face, into his hair, and let his shoulders fall against the wall. “I can’t delude myself any longer.” Slowly his body slid down until he was crouched on the floor. Their gazes met, and for the first time since he had washed her hands over the flowerpot, she knew he saw
her
. Not a sex object. Her. Addy Dawson.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Saying nothing, she stared with what must have been a stupid look on her face at his distraught eyes. Her heart ached in empathy for him.

Him?
Her cheeks flamed. How could she feel sorry for
him
?

She had seen his sexual desire. She had felt his strength. She hadn’t been able to fight him off. The only reason she was whole right now was because
he
stopped. He stopped because she called him an animal. It wasn’t much of an insult, but it apparently hit a nerve.

“I won’t force myself on you,” he said. “I’m tired of being this beast.”

His eyes filled with anguish she didn’t understand. Anguish she knew came from someplace other than his attack on her. Whatever the cult had done to him in the past, she knew this incident was merely his last straw.

The muscles in his face hardened with hate. He jumped to his feet. “Listen up,” he roared and pounded on the wall. “I’m through being your goddamn stud. I’m through being your alpha gladiator. Fuck your consequences. And fuck you.”

Another kick sent the bowl crashing into the wall. “Torture some other Earthling, you alien bast—”

Zap!
Max grunted in pain, clutched his choker, and stumbled backward. A longer zap, and he fell to the floor, motionless.

A second passed before Addy blinked. A second passed before she breathed. A second passed before she remembered last night’s paralyzing pain. Fingering her own choker, she didn’t wish that agony on anyone, including her enemy. Would he be okay?

She heard his labored breaths above her own frightened panting. He was alive. But was he paralyzed? Blind?

Damn her emergency training. As terrified as she was, she couldn’t remain clenched up in a tight ball. She had to help him. She leaned forward to crawl toward Max when a silent blast of cold, white fog surged behind him as if a smoke bomb had detonated. Instead of inducing a coughing fit or making her eyes sting, it enveloped her in its icy embrace.