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EMILY

T he stiff black fabric pressed close to my face and tied in a knot behind my head meant I couldn’t see the first rays of sunlight that streamed across my cheeks. But I could feel it. The warmth that kissed my skin and added a hint of color I was certain was missing after weeks spent underground. While the air I sucked into my lungs tasted like freedom instead of death and dust mites. Somehow lighter each time I funneled a new breath through my nostrils and forced it back out my mouth again. My hands were bound and my hearing was dampened yet I felt more free than I had since waking up in that fucking hospital bed.

It was funny how much you missed the little things like fresh air and sunlight when they weren’t an option anymore. And what I wouldn’t do for a cup of stale coffee from the office breakroom. They could keep the cream and sugar. I’d drink that muddy water straight black right now. Coffee grounds floating around the bottom and all.

I didn’t make it a few steps onto the damp, newly cut grass before I was scooped up and tossed into the back of some sort of vehicle. A van? The rumble of the engine followed by the jostling of metal told me we were already moving. Away from wherever Cohen was keeping me, towards who the fuck knows? It wasn’t like the asshole gave me an itinerary. For all I knew, he was about to knock me over the head with one of those giant landscaping shovels and drop me in a shallow grave in the middle of the woods. Though I didn’t think that was really his style.

Cohen liked shit with a little more flair. And much more theatrics. Fucker really missed his calling. Could have been the next lead in the Phantom of the Opera. He already had the whole messed-up face thing going for him.

A sharp right turn had me gripping on to one of the paneled walls, trying to steady myself before I felt my arm being tugged upwards and then the clank of metal was the only warning I got that I’d just been handcuffed to the ceiling.

“Didn’t know it was bring your bitch to work day,” a muffled voice called out from the front passenger seat. That creep who got off on watching. I recognized his pattern of speech. Guy sounded like his words were always two steps ahead of the rest of him. But ten steps behind whatever he was thinking. Almost as if his brain and his mouth didn’t know what it meant to work in tandem.

“Shut the fuck up unless you want that stupid-ass smirk embedded in your stomach lining,” Cohen grunted. Then his mouth was pressed up against my ear, the smell of his cologne an odd sense of comfort all of a sudden. I could only assume it was the familiarity in an unfamiliar setting that had me relaxing against my restraints instead of tugging harder to get free. “Don’t give me another reason to kill you today.”

“Today?” I muttered under my breath without meaning to.

“Yeah, today. Who knows what I’ll decide tomorrow?” Cohen whispered, while pulling a piece of my hair away from my face. Tucking it beneath the blindfold far more gently than his tone suggested he was capable of being.

Then his hand was creeping up the hem of my dress, his fingers dancing across my freshly shaved pussy—something Cohen had insisted on doing himself before we left. And really, what choice did I have when I was strapped down and at the mercy of a madman with a straight razor?

I bit down on my bottom lip, forgetting to keep track of the number of turns the van took the moment the first finger slipped inside me. Moving back and forth in a slow rotation while his thumb circled my clit.

A moan parted my lips before I could swallow it down and then Cohen’s breath was by my ear again. His hand continuing to work me as he hissed, “Don’t you dare make a fucking sound or I’ll be forced to cut out your larynx.”

I nodded once because what else could I do? Getting lost to the pleasure was far better than whatever was waiting for me wherever it was we were headed.

Cohen’s free hand shot out and clamped around my throat as he shoved me against the closest paneled wall, his hips pinning me in place as he ground his cock into my stomach in time with the curling of his fingers. The flicking of his thumb. The panting of his breath next to my cheek.

I didn’t know if it was intended to be a distraction so that I couldn’t keep track of how long we’d been driving, or if the crazy son of a bitch really just got off on almost fucking me in front of his friends. It was a moot point either way, because I honestly didn’t care about anything else right now. Nothing but the feel of his hand, the building pressure in my lower belly, the wetness pooling between my thighs and dripping down my leg. Everything combined had my head reaching forward, my mouth seeking his even as he pressed harder on my neck. Then his tongue was choking me too. Darting past my lips and thrusting down my throat.

He tasted like mint and nicotine. Flavors that shouldn’t go together but for whatever reason worked for him. And did something to me .

I could tell he was two seconds away from yanking down his zipper and fucking me for real when the van came to a stop, a few strokes too short for my libido, and then I was left panting as Cohen dropped his hands and stepped back. Leaving me in a pool of my own arousal when he jumped out and slammed the door shut behind him. Not a word shared between us while the lingering silence in the seemingly empty space was more than a little deafening, especially when the only other sound was the whoosh of my own breaths.