I put as much space between us as I could. His eyes dropped to the space I’d just occupied to where I now stood.

  He regarded my trembling form with something akin to displeasure flashing across his face, which I found hard to believe considering.

  “What is going on? Where are those men taking my friends?”

  “Are you sure they’re really your friends?”

  What? His question was obviously meant to throw me off track because it made little sense.

  He then turned his head and looked back at Amy’s lifeless form. “You may find it hard to believe, but she deserved that.”

  I had no words for that asinine statement. I was certain her motherless children wouldn’t agree. I continued to stare at him skeptically.

  “I don’t know who you are right now, and I don’t know what you want. I…I can’t even believe this is happening.”

  My voice cracked and I stopped, inhaling a deep breath to calm myself down. “Why did you take them, Ryker?”

  “Them? Not us? That’s an interesting choice of words.”

  “I know why you took me.”

  “Do you?” He took a miniscule step closer and my leg muscles tightened, prepping to run.

  He instantly picked up on the underlying fear I was trying my damndest to mask, he’d always been able to read me like no one else could. Save for Sam, his baby brother.

  “You have nothing to be afraid of in this room, Faith. You’re safe.”

  “That dead body behind you says otherwise, Ryker!” I jabbed a finger in Amy’s direction.

  “My kidnapped friends would say otherwise!”

  “This is not the place for this conversation.” He released a heavy sigh and started towards me again.

  I shot a glance towards the set of double doors, mind already mapping out an escape plan.

  I sidled in its direction, keeping my eyes on his chest, unable to fully meet his gaze head on. If I did, I knew I’d falter.

  I never in a zillion years thought this day would come. The day I needed to run away from him instead of towards. And even in this surreal fucking moment, I had to forcibly suppress every urge I felt to go to a familiar place of comfort, my shelter from raging storms.

  “Faith,” he intoned, “running out of this room will not give you the freedom you seek.

  “All it will accomplish is pissing me off and making what I do when I catch you excruciatingly unpleasant. In case you need clarification, what I mean by that is it will be painful for you. However, it will bring great fucking pleasure to me. So if you want to run, run. Just know that I will catch you.”

  The promise rang clear and gave me immediate pause. All hope I had banked that he wouldn’t hurt me went up in smoke.

  My hesitation gave him all the time he needed to grab hold of my hand in a bone crushing grip.

  He ignored my squeak of pain and began tugging me along behind him as he headed for the exit.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FAITH

  I attempted to stop walking and was dragged onward, nearly tripping over my own bare feet.

  “Ryker,” I spluttered.

  He continued to ignore me and I had no choice but to follow him, nearly jogging to do so. His painful hold on my hand was unbreakable.

  Upon exiting the ballroom, my eyes promptly began to burn from the sudden change in lighting. When they finally adjusted, I was left gaping incredulously at my surroundings.

  We were in a long hallway, obviously located in a home or venue just as elaborate as the ballroom.

  The black marble flooring continued here. Rows of crystal light fixtures hung from the high ceiling.

  The walls were a deep midnight spruce lined with the oddest décor I’d ever seen.

  There were crosses hung here and there, which wasn’t all that alarming or out of the ordinary, aside from the fact they all looked to be facing the wrong direction.

  The paintings hanging beside them were morbidly fascinating.

  And also horribly wrong.

  Horned, grotesque beasts with battered wings had naked women contorted in unnatural sexual positions, some of them with missing limbs.

  Ryker didn’t offer an explanation for what I was seeing and I didn’t ask.

  We crossed a massively large foyer with darkened halls splitting off it, all empty of a single soul.

  He led me up a wide staircase, and at the landing was another painting.

  This one was by far the largest and most disturbing.

  There was a long wooden table; in the center chair sat a humanlike creature with two horns. It had one hand in the air, holding up its pointer and pinky fingers.

  On top of the table was a bloodied man or woman. I was unable to tell the gender. Whichever one they were, they no longer had a lower half.

  The people sitting in the other chairs had blood smeared around their mouths from their feast.

  It was only after we went up another set of stairs that I realized I’d been looking at a rendition of the last supper.

  The next landing split the hall in three separate directions; multiple black doors lined either side.

  Crying came from behind one located on the right.

  Ryker went to the left, leading me all the way to the large black door at the end, pulling me into a lavish bedroom.

  The space was the size of me and my father’s master suite combined. A large sleigh bed done up in plush maroon fabrics sat against one wall, matching end tables on either side of it.

  A tufted ottoman was positioned against the footboard. The rest of the room contained a large wardrobe, dresser, and curved television mounted above a bookshelf. Long, heavyset curtains hung down to the floor, effectively blocking my view out the windows.

  It wasn’t what I was expecting. I thought I’d be placed in a cell or perhaps a barren room with only a pot to piss in.

  Those were more appropriate accommodations for a victim of kidnapping.

  Not this.

  I looked up and noted the ceiling was high here as well. I couldn’t recall ever being in a home like this before.

  “Where am I?”

  “Your new bedroom.” Ryker dropped my hand and shut us in.

  “So you intend to keep me here?” I flexed my throbbing fingers and looked towards the door on the other side of the wardrobe.

  “I intend to do lots of things to you, Faith. And what I intend to do, I will.”

  I held completely still, feeling him right behind me. His warm breath tickled the back of my neck.

  My body instantly reacted to his nearness, nerve endings stirring.

  He took hold of my ponytail and gently moved the hair before pressing his lips to my nape.

  I remembered exactly how good he was with his tongue. How his hands felt grabbing onto my hips, and the feel of his cock buried inside my pussy.

  His mouth moved to the side of my neck, the tip of his tongue sweeping along my flesh.

  “Ryker.” I suppressed a shudder and squashed the urge to turn and touch him. The neediness in my voice filled me with self-loathing and snapped me back to reality.

  “No,” I objected, propelling my body forward before spinning around to face him. I was beyond fed up with his evasiveness.

  “No?” he mocked in bemusement, tilting his head to the side. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how good we are together.”

  “There is no we,” I snapped.

  “Isn’t there?” He grinned, showing both rows of his pearly whites.

  I wasn’t going there with him, not now. Fuck, after this, not ever.

  “My friends—”

  “Are safe…for now.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He clicked his tongue at me and sighed. “You really don’t understand the meaning of patience.”

  “Tell me why you took my friends. Tell me what you want. What this place is. Tell me something,” I pleaded.

  I didn’t care what it made me look like and I wasn’t above begging for their safety. He was also right about me not ever having any patience. That was his forte, and it’d always driven me crazy.

  A dull throb began between my brows as a headache took form. My head had yet to stop spinning, trying to process everything that was happening.

  “What I want and what I must do is dependent solely on you,” he replied slowly.

  Opening my mouth to demand yet another explanation, I was silenced by his fingers covering my lips. I remained still as he traced the pad of his thumb around their outline, a new look darkening his eyes.

  “My pretty little Faith.” He spat my name out like it tasted bitter in his mouth.

  This drastic change in his personality made me nervous, uncertain. I diverted my gaze to my pale blue toes, indecision plaguing my entire body.

  I’d never been given a blueprint on how to react if I found myself kidnapped. Even if I had, I’m not sure it would have explained how to handle my emotions.

  How were you supposed to feel when it was someone you knew? Someone you trusted? Someone you cared about? Because all I could muster up was a typhoon of hurt, confusion, and anger.

  I brought my gaze back to his, blue clashing with blue. He looked like himself, the man I’d loved since I knew the meaning of the word, but he was someone else entirely.

  I knocked his hand away and took a step back. I refused to be swept away by the feelings I harbored for him, even if it made my scar covered heart hurt so badly I wanted to rip open my chest and tear it out.

  My feelings for him weren’t enough to ignore all that had happened since I’d woken up in this goddamn house.

  Anger began to simmer my blood. I had an overwhelming urge to hurt him, to dig my fingers into his gorgeous eyes and gouge them out. I took another step back, needing as much space as I could get.

  “I’m here because of Sam, right?”

  He opened his mouth to respond, I cut him off. “I get it, Ryker. I do. What I don’t get is why you paid for my rehab and therapy if it was all going to lead to this?

  Why did you wait three years to take me? Why did you sleep with me if—”

  Before I knew what was happening, he was in front of me and his hand was wrapped around my throat.

  “Patience was code for stop asking questions. I thought you’d be smart enough to understand that. Clearly I was wrong. If you aren’t going to be able to control your mouth, I have a much better use for it,” he sneered.

  “Fuck you, Ryker,” I snarled, trying to break free of his hold.

  He grinned devilishly, tightening his grip. Using his body, he began walking me backward, squeezing to the point I began gasping for air, desperately clawing at his fingers.

  He lifted me from the floor, leaving my feet to dangle and kick out.

  My lungs began to ache, feeling as if they were shriveling up inside me.

  “You’re wrong, so wrong about everything. You’ve devoured every lie you were fed, pretty girl. Now I’m going to make everything better.”

  He continued walking until the ottoman met the back of my calves, then proceeded to toss me down like I weighed nothing. The mattress broke my fall, encasing my body in the softest bedding I’d ever felt.

  I bounced slightly and pushed myself up using my elbows, coughing and dragging air into my lungs like a fish deprived of water. Unfettered tears streamed uncontrollably down my cheeks.

  “Tell me what you want!” I screamed at him.

  “You want me to tell you what I want?”

  He began removing his suit jacket, followed by his dress shirt and tie. The sight of his body both sickly aroused and terrified me.

  Every solid ridge of muscle was well defined beneath the shaded tattoos covering his tanned skin in two sleeves.

  “Right now? I want to feel your pussy wrapped around my cock.”

  He came forward and I instantly began to scoot back. His hands shot out and grabbed hold of my ankles, dragging me down to the edge of the bed.

  “Go to hell!” I broke one leg free and kicked out, connecting with his forehead. He stumbled back a bit, quickly righting himself.

  “That was very foolish, Faith.”

  His voice was as calm and detached as ever but the look in his eyes fringed on excitement and desire.

  I tried to kick him again when he came closer, but this time he’d been expecting that.

  He grabbed hold of my ankle mid-kick and applied enough pressure to make the bone compress.

  “Get off me!” I screamed at him in a mixture of pain and rage.

  I struggled to get away, failing miserably.

  He laughed low and dark. The sound sent a chill tearing down my spine. He placed his knees on the ottoman and dragged me back down so my ass was at the end of the bed.

  Within seconds he had my underwear torn off, and his hard cock freed from the confines of his drawers, pressing between my bald lips. I knew what happened next was going to hurt. He wasn’t only thick, but long.

  “What you have yet to learn, Faith, is that this is hell. And I am something worse than the devil.” With that, he slammed his hips forward, forcing himself inside me.

  The rough intrusion burned with an intensity strong enough to wrench a strangled cry from my throat.

  My legs reflexively tried to squeeze back together. He wrenched them back apart, further than they’d been the first time. My walls convulsed around his rock hard cock.

  “Keep fighting me,” he demanded breathily, slamming back in.

  I didn’t need his encouragement. I clawed, bit, and shoved at him until my strength began to waver.

  He grinned down at me. “Don’t tell me that was all the fight you have, pretty girl.”

  “Ugh!” I growled and swung at his face.

  He caught my wrist in one hand and then took hold of the other, placing both above my head.

  Using his other hand, he pinned me down by the throat.

  I sucked in a sharp breath as he thrust with hard, calculated movements, every solid inch of him plunging in and out of my pussy.

  The scent of his minty cologne filtered in and out of my lungs, seeping into the pores of my sweat laden skin.

  No other man smelled as good as Ryker Silas. I’d sworn upon that when I met him as a naïve little girl, and I still stood by it now as he forced my body’s submission.

  This was nothing like the last and only time we’d slept together.

  It was purposely brutal, not a hint of sweetness or consent. It wasn’t a secret rendezvous with my deceased best friend’s older brother.

  I wasn’t riding his cock until I came so hard I saw stars.

  I’d screamed his name as he greedily ate his come from pussy when we were done.

  So why did I like it that much more?

  He let go of my wrists and dropped his hand to my left leg, lifting it over his forearm for a better position. His hard torso came closer to my stomach.

  I tried to focus on the arched ceiling and not the dangerous things I was thinking. But as if he could read my mind, he began to goad me.

  “Tell me how much you hate me. How you hate what I’m doing. And then tell me why your pussy is drenching my dick and your eyes are telling me to fuck you like a filthy slut even as they overflow with tears.”

  A mental battle began to brew in my head. I desperately tried to separate the Ryker I knew from this stranger pounding into me.

  I couldn’t find a seam to make the split.

  When his cock slipped deeper inside me, stretching me even more, I forced my hips to stay flat on the mattress when they wanted nothing more than to lift and meet him thrust for thrust.

  “Ryker.” His name came out as something between a moan and a plea.

  I brought my hands up to his shoulders, intending to push him away. Then, he picked up his pace and I found my fingers curling into his slick flesh. An orgasm built in my core, my walls clenching around his girth.

  The gathering arousal was a betrayal of my body. I had a desire to grab the ass I knew was perfectly toned and pull him even deeper inside me. I wanted to make him to get a little rougher.

  This was proof of my sickening enjoyment in what we were doing.

  No, in what he was doing to me. I prayed I could keep it hidden, but Ryker already knew.

  It was reflected in his eyes, in the way he drank in my expression, my teeth biting into my lower lip to hold in the moans of pleasure and pain, the silent tears of anger and raw betrayal still streaming down my face.

  I loved him.

  I hated him.

  He knew that too.

  There was something to be said about how thin that line was.

  “You’re going to come,” he stated casually, pulling out of me so suddenly it was almost as if it the whole event had been a trick of the mind.

  My hands were left grasping nothing but air, legs still splayed open as my juices dripped down onto the sheets.

  He grabbed my ruined underwear from the floor, shamelessly wiping his cock clean, and then stuffed the ruins in the pocket of his slacks.

  After dressing and readjusting his clothes, he smoothed a hand over his hair to fix what had fallen onto his forehead.

  I wasn’t sure why he’d stopped so suddenly, and I loathed wanting him to finish. I’d moved my body up the bed, ignoring the wetness between my thighs.

  When Ryker was done fully getting himself back together, he looked at where I now sat trembling against the headboard with my knees tucked to my chest and slightly puffy eyes.

  He regarded me with an impenetrable look on his face.

  He was so undeniably gorgeous it made my heart twist even more.

  When he started to speak, it was as if he truly hadn’t just been buried between my legs with his hand around my throat, seconds away from making me come. And I hadn’t been hungry for it.

  As regret set in, I dropped my eyes to the bunched up comforter and freed my hair from the elastic band that was barely securing it.

  I missed the possessively carnal look on his face as he watched my glossy strands fall down my back and around my shoulders.

  “You aren’t here because of Sam, not entirely. What happened to my brother wasn’t your fault, and isn’t why I took you.

  “You’re here because it’s where you need to be.”

  That was just as evasive as everything else he’d said thus far.