A disconcerting hollowness plagues my head. While it’s possible to die from a nosebleed, usually asphyxiation is the cause and not because the person bled out, so as scary as it is and as gross as I feel, I tell myself I’ll be fine so long as the bleeding stops.
With my wrists tied to the headboard, I can’t pinch my nose to stem the bleeding. I tried. My ankles throb from yanking on the ropes in my attempt to scoot higher on the bed, and even though I couldn’t get my face anywhere near my hands, splatters of dried blood cover my fingers.
I tried to stay calm, but with the blindfold refusing to budge, the gag loose around the lower half of my face, and blood pouring down my nose and throat, the claustrophobia was too much. Add in the memories I associate with nosebleeds, and I couldn’t hold it together. I’ll never admit it, but I panicked and made a bigger mess.
He was gone for so long, and I cursed him every second, but now that he’s back, I don’t have the energy, and a horrible sense of relief and gratitude flow through me. Even though he’s why I’m in this mess, I’m grateful he returned.
“No, you’re not fine. You had the fucking nosebleed of the century, but you’re trying to play it off as nothing. Dannazione, mia caramellina, what the hell am I going to do with you?”
His actions don’t match the anger in his voice. He snags a few tissues from the bedside table and gently pinches my nose while producing a knife from somewhere and cutting the ropes off my wrists. I hiss as the circulation returns to my hands, sending pinpricks of pain up my arms and into my shoulders, like ants crawling under my skin.
He lifts my upper half and settles on the bed behind me before pressing the back of my head against his shoulder. I push against his hand on my forehead and struggle to lean forward.
“Stop fighting me,” he snarls.
“I’ve swallowed enough blood already. Don’t tilt my head back. I’m gonna throw up everywhere,” I manage despite the nausea gripping my stomach.
He listens and leans us both forward while pinching my nose. I cough, desperate to rid my tongue of the coppery taste of blood, but my hands are too filthy to wipe my mouth. My captor jostles me for a moment before handing me a corner of the comforter. I suppose it’s ruined already, so there’s no point in using an entire box of tissues. After clearing my throat and spitting a few times, I wipe my mouth and take the first full breath in what feels like days.
Too exhausted to move, I lean back against his warm chest and just breathe, hoping a little rest will get rid of the hollowness in my skull.
“Has it stopped?” he asks.
His chest vibrates with his deep voice, startling me out of a doze. For a moment, I wonder how he knew my head felt weird, but then I realize he meant the nosebleed.
“I think so,” I croak.
He lifts his hand away from my nose and tilts me to the side so he can study my face. The crusty edges of my blindfold press against my cheekbones. I huff and brace my arm on the bed. My knuckles brush his hip.
“You’re filthy, mia caramellina.”
His tone suggests he’s trying to rile me up, but I can’t muster the energy. I take a deep breath and grimace. He’s right. Even without my sight, my imagination fills in the scene. We’re sitting on a bed in a puddle of blood with smears all over me. The stickiness in my hair grosses me out.
I’d like to say I’ve seen worse in the emergency room, but I doubt it. We don’t stock thick, absorbent blankets or real mattresses, and we never allow someone to bleed for so long without treatment.
When I don’t respond to his goading, he grunts, slips out from behind me, and hands me a bottle of water. As I drink, he moves around the room, putting a few things in the fridge before prepping the bathroom and turning on the shower.
He takes the empty water bottle from me and unties my ankles. I consider laying down but freeze in shock as he massages my calves while avoiding the blisters on my feet. He turns me into a boneless heap, erasing the tension in my legs with his massive hands.
When he scoops me off the bed and cradles me to his chest, I grab a fistful of his shirt.
It’s the first time I’ve touched him without his ropes around my wrists. I stop myself from leaning my head on his shoulder despite the exhaustion plaguing me.
He sets me down on my feet—it feels weird to stand without my ankles bound—and tells me the toilet paper is to my right before stepping away. I fumble through using the toilet while blindfolded and sway when I pull the oversized pants back up to my waist. He leads me a few steps forward and ensures I have my balance before tugging my hoodie and shirt up over my head.
I don’t know what magic he performed on the blindfold, but it remains firmly in place over my eyes. A shiver rolls down my spine as I stand in nothing but his pants and my bra. It’s one of the oldest sports bras I own and is comfortable and supportive, but not what I would have chosen to wear if I’d known someone else would see it.
Especially with the blood plastering the white fabric to my chest.
Despite my embarrassment, I don’t cover myself. Goosebumps pepper my flesh as I imagine his eyes roaming over me, and arousal pulses between my legs. He hooks his fingers into the elastic band of my underbust and lifts.
My breasts bounce free. His sharp inhale fans the flames of my lust even as fatigue urges me to drop to the floor for a nap. I ignore my hard nipples and the warm air brushing over my exposed flesh and help him work the fabric over my head and off my arms.
The blindfold remains on, but even if he took it off, I wouldn’t open my eyes. My only hope of truly being free is if I never see his face. If I can’t identify him, then he has no reason to kill or keep me.
He takes my wrists and places my palms on his shoulders, forcing me onto my toes until he bends down. When he cups the back of one knee and lifts, I use his shoulders to balance and grit my teeth as he takes off my sock and meticulously peels the moleskin off my foot. After repeating the process on my other foot, he reaches up and dips his fingers into my waistband.
I dig my nails into his shoulders, a part of me wishing he wasn’t wearing a shirt so I could gouge holes in his flesh while the other part just wants to appreciate his smooth skin.
For a horrible second, I wonder if he’s into blood play. Did my nosebleed turn him on? Does seeing me covered in blood turn him on?
My nausea returns tenfold.
I’ve seen too many car accidents and gang wounds to associate blood with pleasure.
“We’re just getting you clean, mia caramellina. No funny business, promise. Capisci?”
It doesn’t really matter whether I believe him or not. Even with my limbs free, he’s much bigger and stronger than I am, and with how weak I feel at the moment, there’s nothing I can do to stop him if he hurts me.
He releases my waistband and frames my face in his hands.
“I mean it, Mia. I’m hanging on by a thread here, but I won’t touch you until you’re back to fighting form.”
The desperation in his voice loosens something inside me, and my breathing turns ragged. I clench my eyes behind the blindfold and squeeze his shoulders, needing the contact to center myself in the present. After a few deep, counted breaths, I swallow and nod, refusing to cry over something so silly.
He shucks my pants off my legs and guides me toward the shower. When I step over the lip of the tub, a wave of dizziness hits me and I stumble, but he catches me by the shoulders and waits until I have my balance before letting go.
The world spins. My legs shake. I brace my hand on the wall and stiffen when he reaches around me for the knot of my blindfold. He pauses when I swat at his forearm, but after a tense moment of consideration, he continues trying to untie the fabric.
“Don’t take it off,” I demand.
“You need your vision in the shower, bellezza.”
His coaxing tone only insults me.
“No. Leave it on.”
“And how do you intend to wash yourself?” he asks in the ominous voice from the alley.
“You do it.”
For a moment, neither of us moves as the weight of my words settles onto our shoulders.
“No. You need a clean blindfold anyway. I’ll give you eight minutes to yourself, then I’ll call out before I come back into the bathroom.”
“Why, so you can trick me into seeing your face? Or lie and say I saw it even if I didn’t?”
He sighs in exasperation and fists the knot.
The sudden movement sends me reeling, and with legs made of jelly, I lose my balance.
He wraps his arms around my midsection and plasters my back to his front, preventing me from falling. With my heart in my throat and my pride frazzled, I use my adrenaline to snap at him.
“Look, I don’t want this either, but if you leave me alone in here, I’ll probably end up falling and hurting myself, even with the blindfold off. I’m still queasy, lightheaded, and unstable.”
His forearms brush against the underside of my breasts, but he keeps his hands away from my body. I stand wrapped in his arms and listening to the water running as I wait for his answer.
He leans down and speaks with his chin on the top of my head.
“I never said I don’t want this, mia caramellina. I want to put my hands, teeth, tongue, and cock all over your body, but not like this.”
My stomach drops.
No matter how much I hate him, my body responds to his lewd words, my nipples pebbling and clit throbbing with need, but the steam from the shower highlights the blood caked on my skin.
“Then it won’t happen like this,” I demand. “It’s just a shower, right?”
I throw his words back at him, daring him to chicken out.
He doesn’t move for so long I worry the water will run cold, but when he growls and pushes me under the spray, scorching hot water rains down my body.
It’s perfect.
He lifts my wrist and presses my palm to the wall.
“Wait for me, mia caramellina,” he snarls before sliding the curtain closed.
I hang my head and let the water hit the back of my skull, not moving even when the contusion throbs from the pressure.
He returns and presses his naked chest to my back, guiding me partially out of the downpour with his body. Relief and annoyance flit through me when his shorts prevent his hard cock from gliding against my ass.
“Close your eyes,” he murmurs.
Barely loud enough for me to hear him over the shower, his voice sends shivers down my spine.
“Of course. I won’t open them,” I say.
My conviction remains firm, even though my body sends mixed signals. I want nothing to do with this man. He’s a criminal. I’ll never go back to that lifestyle.
Yet as he unties the blindfold and slips it off my eyes, curiosity roars through me. I wonder if his face matches his sexy voice. Is he covered with tattoos? Or does he look like the average nine-to-fiver?
I already know the last isn’t true by his physique alone.
It doesn’t matter. I won’t open my eyes.
The blindfold plops to the shower floor. I shudder as he leans to the side, unblocking the water, and brushes my hair back from my face.
He shampoos my hair and massages my head with surprising gentleness. I slip into another realm, my mind and body too exhausted from panicking to stay in the present while my kidnapper—a virile, powerful murderer—cleans me like a precious doll.
After applying conditioner to my hair, he produces a washcloth and turns me by my shoulders to face him. He wipes my face with warm water to clear away the worst of the blood before lathering his hands with soap. The familiar scent belongs to a face wash I used a few years ago but stopped when their prices rose. His broad fingertips scrub my face, highlighting our size differences. I feel small and delicate compared to him.
He leans me under the spray and rinses my face and hair.
Keeping the sudsy washcloth between us, he cleans my neck, shoulders, and arms before wrapping his long fingers around my nape.
“Be very still. Capisci?”
I nod.
He runs the washcloth over my upper chest before trailing down my sternum.
Lightning arcs from my nipples to my core as he cups my breast through the fabric. I swallow my gasp and pretend the flush on my cheeks is from the heat of the water. The slippery washcloth may be more erotic than having his hands on me.
He doesn’t linger, giving my breasts a quick pass before lifting my arms and cleaning my armpits and sides. I stiffen as he turns me around. I’m not ashamed of the scars on my back, but my stomach twists as I imagine him reacting in different negative ways. After only a slight pause, he scrubs my back and butt before squatting and giving my legs a quick once-over as though my scars aren’t there.
Electricity sizzles along my nerve endings.
He offers me the washcloth and allows me to clean the juncture of my thighs before rinsing the washcloth and shuffling us around so I stand directly under the shower.
I brace myself on the wall and enjoy the downpour as he cleans himself in the back half of the tub. He’s so large he elbows the wall and curses a few times. A wave of mirth hits me, but I can’t laugh, not when I’m naked, wet, and blind in front of a killer.
A very sexy, confusing killer.
He scoots me into the corner and rinses himself before pulling me back under the spray and ensuring every bit of soap rinses off my body. An involuntary shiver wracks my spine.
He turns off the shower, yanks the curtain open, and wraps me in a towel before guiding me out of the tub. I wring the excess water out of my hair as he runs a second towel over my arms and legs.
An embarrassing squeak escapes my throat when he lifts me without warning and sets me on the counter. I clutch at my towel, needing something to do with my hands as he runs his fingers through my hair. His thighs brush against my knees with every shift of his body, and when he flips open the cap of a bottle and rubs his hands together with a squishy sound, I realize he plans to put a product in my hair. I don’t know what kind, but it smells fruity. My toes curl when he works his fingers over my scalp, but my blisters burn, so I force my feet to relax.
He fumbles with something for a moment before grunting in success when a hair dryer roars to life. I sit in mute surprise as he blow dries my hair. His chest brushes against my shoulder as he leans around me to reach my nape.
When he turns off the hairdryer, my ears ring in the silence.
I take a deep breath and hold it as he ties a new blindfold over my eyes, finally exhaling on a relieved sigh as he secures the knot.
He threads my arms into an oversized shirt, slips it over my head, and pulls the hem down over my towel, covering my torso without bearing my breasts.
“Sorry, mia caramellina, I only have so many clothes,” he says as he slips what must be gym shorts onto my legs.
I shrug. He lifts me off the counter. I grab his shoulders on instinct. He tugs the shorts over my hips as the towel slips to the floor. With deft movements that send my wayward libido into hyperdrive, he ties the drawstring and presses me back against the counter by my hips. My heart skips a beat as his massive hands linger on my curves.
Following his silent order, I lean against the counter as he moves around the bathroom.
When he cups my shoulders and guides me through the doorway in front of him, I hiss at the cold floor under my soles. My blisters pulse and part of me mourns the loss of his arms around me. Even though he captured me less than two days ago, walking on my own feels foreign.
I shove the feeling away and stumble forward, extending my arms in front of me just in case.
He huffs and scoops me into his arms. I ignore the happiness weaving into my soul as he carries me across the room.
Studies show it takes weeks for Stockholm syndrome to form, but maybe it depends on the severity of the situation. If so, it’s only logical my emotions are a wreck. Hell, he saved me from asphyxiating during my nosebleed, so even though it was his fault I couldn’t move, my heart views him as my savior.
It’s bullshit.
Except, what other criminal would shower with a naked and vulnerable woman and not molest her?
He sets me down in the chair. I grip the seat edges, using the soreness in my wrists and fingers as a reminder of his cruelties as he cleans the bed and starts the microwave.
When the smell of my sister’s cooking fills the air, my tears seep into the blindfold, but again, I don’t count it as crying. I’m allowed a few moments of sadness as I miss and worry about my sister. My mouth waters, so I count my leaking tears as a purely physical reaction, just like my overactive salivary glands.
He told me he was going to my apartment this morning, but I didn’t expect him to check inside the fridge. He probably also read the note she left me.
Neither one of us is comfortable texting each other, so we fell into the habit of leaving letters on the kitchen counter when we had news to share. It’s my favorite part of going home when I know Katherine won’t be there.
A sliver of doubt sprouts in my soul. We’ve always been careful not to tell anyone we’re sisters, but what if she slipped up in her note? What if he suspects we’re more than roommates?
No, she wouldn’t. We’ve developed a code of sorts in our letters. We’re both mindful of what we write.
When he sets several containers on the table and systematically opens them, I wonder if he plans to torment me. It would be the worst cruelty to make me sit and listen to him eating the food my sister poured her love into while not allowing me a single bite.
I jump at the unexpected noise when he cracks open a soda can.
“Here, have some sugar. Get those levels back up to normal.” He wraps my hands around the frigid can and urges me to lift it to my face. “Who would have thought mia caramellina would need so much sweetness to be so spicy?”
I choke and nearly die as icy, carbonated liquid shoots into my nostrils.
Snorting cold soda after a nosebleed? Highly do not recommend.
He takes the can from me and lifts me off the chair. By the time I regain my composure, I’m sitting across his thighs with his forearm bracing my back. He wipes my face with a napkin.
My adrenaline drops, leaving my energy so low lifting my arm to push the napkin away seems like too much effort. I take a few tentative breaths, testing my sore nostrils before sighing.
His chuckle jostles me in his lap. As my fury rises, lending me strength, he shoves a spoonful of lasagna alla Bolognese into my mouth.
I tell myself not to forgive him. He doesn’t deserve it. He’s playing with me like I’m some toy. He’s a kidnapper. A murderer. A criminal.
But he also feeds me until my stomach threatens to burst. Somehow, he seems to know which dishes are my favorites and ferries more of those into my mouth than the others.
With my belly full and my tastebuds in heaven, the day’s toll catches up with me and I slump against him.
As I hover between consciousness and sleep, one thought rises from the depths of my soul and plays on repeat.
I need him to let me go. Now.
Not because he’s a dirty criminal. Not because I need to protect my sister.
But because every second I spend with him, I fall deeper under his spell. After only two days, he’s stolen parts of me I didn’t even know existed.
He woke the feminine corners of my soul. The portions that crave to be pampered, worshipped, and loved. The core of me that needs to be challenged and accepted with all my flaws and inconsistencies.
He may not be as cruel as the men of my past, but he’s more dangerous.
I need him to let me go and walk away.
Now.
