Chapter 2
Get to the trees. Just get to the trees.
For some reason, that’s what my brain hooks onto. As if we’re children playing games, and the tree line is “home”. As if the branches and shadows will save me from whatever terror is bolting after me through the darkness.
But even as I try to run, wobbling in my heels, I know how vain a hope it is.
Shadows won’t stop something that’s just melted out of them.
Regardless, I don’t make it to the trees at all. I take all of four steps before the scream strangles in my throat as a powerful hand roughly grabs a handful of my hair. I choke on another scream as hot pain explodes through my scalp. He yanks hard with a deft grunt, spiking my adrenaline as I go faltering backward.
A muscled, ripping arm wraps around my chest, yanking me against his hard, unyielding chest. My feet kick at the dirt, as if I’m still running.
But I’m not going anywhere.
I know this was planned. I know I chose to be here. But it doesn’t stop the sheer terror of the violent flight instinct from exploding through my system as my mouth opens in a scream of pure survival.
A rough, powerful hand slams over my mouth. My eyes bulge when I feel the iron chest behind me rumble with a dark, gravelly chuckle.
“No no no, little prey,” he rasps darkly into my ear. His lips and the scruff on his jaw beneath the terrifying mask brush against the lobe, sending shivers of fear and adrenaline chasing down my spine.
“You’re mine now.”
Something deep inside me snaps to life. The last shred of my fight or flight instinct erupts. I jab my heel back, catching him in the shin.
It’s like kicking a tree trunk. He barely grunts. But his grip loosens just a hint, and that’s all I need.
I jab an elbow back, catching him in the ribs before I explode forward out of his grip. My heart lurches up into the back of my throat as I bolt for the trees again.
This time, I only make it two steps.
I cry out when his sheer size slams into me from behind so hard that my legs give out. I whimper as I crash to my knees in the dirt, his enormous frame dropping with me and enveloping me. His huge arm wrapping around my body. His hand coiling around my throat.
And squeezing.
It’s not with murderous intent, just enough to spike my pulse and send ripples of something vicious and captivating dancing across my skin. Every sense becomes more alive. A ringing fills my ears as his thumb drags slowly up my jugular.
“Caught you, my little slut.”
I whimper as his other arm wraps around me, his hand—this one clad in a black leather glove for some reason—roughly grabbing my breasts. Before I can focus on that strange little detail, illicit pleasure explodes through my core as he mercilessly pinches and rolls my nipples through the blouse and my bra, dragging a haggard cry from my lips.
“I warned you, little prey,” the monster growls into my ear, mauling my nipples as I shudder against him. “I warned you what happens to little sluts who go looking for trouble in the woods at night.”
I cry out as he roughly rips my blouse open, scattering the buttons into the darkness. He yanks my bra down, letting my breasts spill free, brutally twisting and pinching my swollen nipples again.
“They fucking find it.”
His bare hand tightens around my throat. The gloved one twists an abused nipple between his thumb and forefinger before pushing down lower, to my thighs, yanking them wide open. He grabs a fistful of my skirt, and my pulse jangles as he yanks it up to my waist, exposing my panties. I squirm against him, my breath rasping in the tightness of my throat beneath his hand. I try and shut my legs, but instantly, he slaps my inner thigh, bringing a cry of something…wicked to my lips.
Something desperate and achingly needy. Something depraved and dangerous.
“Uh-uh-uh, my little fucktoy,” he snarls darkly into my ear. His fingers play at my throat he yanks my thighs wider apart from behind with the other hand. “You don’t get to run anymore. This fucking pussy is mine now.”
My eyes bulge, my breath stuttering to a halt as his gloved hand boldly cups my slick center through my panties.
“Whose pussy is this?” he rasps quietly, letting one single finger drag up my lips through the soaked lace.
I whimper, almost not even trusting myself to open my mouth to speak.
I’ve had almost this exact fantasy for as long as I can remember. I’ve dreamt of being chased like this. Of being forced to my knees and used.
Of having my control taken from me. Of giving in completely and being utterly at someone’s mercy.
And I realize now that fantasy doesn’t touch reality. Wet dreams and fucked-up internet porn pale in comparison to the raw power, wrath, and malevolence throbbing against my back with the stranger’s hand around my throat.
His hand slips away from between my pussy lips, reaching behind him. When I hear a metallic schick sound, my blood turns to ice.
The knife blade gleams in the moonlight as he brings it around and dances it in front of me.
Holy. Fucking. FUCK.
Every nerve in my body explodes in panic. Every brain synapse screams at me to fight and run, because we’ve left fantasy and fucked-up power plays behind and entered a world of insanity.
“You have two fucking choices right now, my little toy,” the man growls into my ear. “You can say the word you know will end all of this…”
I tense.
“Or,” he snarls quietly. My eyes bulge as the knife lowers, his hand dropping between my spread thighs with my knees in the dirt and my skirt hiked up around my waist. I follow the blade with wide eyes, my mouth hanging open in shock as he slowly touches the tip of the knife to my thigh. He doesn’t cut me, but my skin prickles to ice as he slowly drags the point up my skin.
“Or, you can tell me whose. Fucking. Pussy this is.”
He doesn’t speed up or stop. He just keeps dragging the vicious tip of his knife higher and higher. I shudder, but horribly, it’s not from fear. My body isn’t shutting down or coiling in on itself to escape a nightmare.
It’s coming alive with a desire so fierce and needy that it scares the hell out of me.
Suddenly, the knife reaches the apex of my thighs. My breath chokes to a halt as he lays the flat of his knife against my wet, needy pussy through my panties.
That’s when I know there really is something fundamentally fucking wrong with me. Because when the dark, violent stranger in a devil mask who’s just lured me to the woods rubs the flat of his fucking knife against my sex, I don’t recoil. I don’t scream, or beg him to stop, or use the safe word at all.
I whimper.
And I get wetter.
His chest rumbles against my back as he chuckles darkly.
“Such a filthy little slut I’ve caught,” he growls. His mouth brushes my ear again. “I’m going to fucking ruin you, little whore.”
The blade drags up and slips under the waist of one side of my panties, stretched over my thigh and hip.
He flicks his wrist and cuts the lace.
My breathing becomes ragged as he drags the tip across the mound of my sex, slipping it under the other side near my hip. Another flick of his wrist, and my panties drop away entirely.
The whole world fades away as he sets the knife aside and lets his huge hand boldly run over my bare hip. He drags his fingers up and down my thigh before his hand slides to my stomach. His fingers splay out as his hand begins to slide lower.
And lower.
And lower.
His fingertips are a fraction of an inch from touching me.
That’s when reality kicks in. The haze of dangerous lust and demented pleasure clears enough for my brain to focus for a nanosecond.
What the fuck are you doing?
I want him to keep going. But at the same time, I know if he does, and if he touches me—with his bare fingers, not a knife, this will have moved to a new level.
This will stop being a fucked-up fantasy, and I’ll have crossed the line into real depravity. Because if he touches me, it won’t stop until I’m actually letting a stranger from the internet fuck me in the woods.
And somehow, that breaks the haze. Suddenly, professional Taylor—hot-shot lawyer Taylor with the corner office, regulated schedule, responsibilities, and rational thoughts, is back in charge.
Taylor, who’s in bed by nine. Taylor, who has a brutal cardio routine at the crack of dawn tomorrow followed by a full day of meetings.
Taylor, who barely even dates and who would never in a million fucking years drive to the woods at night to let a psychopath fuck her in the dirt with a knife in his hand and a mask on his face.
“I haven’t even touched you yet,” he growls. “And this messy little pussy is already dripping at the thought of my fat cock pumping it full of my cum.” His hand around my throat splays out again, his thumb stretching up over my jaw to drag across my quivering lower lip. “I think after I’ve fucked your sweet little cunt,” he murmurs, “I’ll have you clean my cock with those pretty lips before I take your ass—”
“Vault.”
It’s like stopping the tattoo gun when it’s hovering over your skin. That last gasping second of clarity before fantasy becomes a reality you can never take back.
The second I blurt out the word, and he freezes with his fingertips a hair’s breadth away from touching my clit, I wish I hadn’t said it.
Don’t listen to me. Ignore that. Do it anyway. Do whatever you want.
Fuck me.
Hurt me.
The man stills, kneeling behind me, looming over me with one hand around my throat and the other splayed out almost touching my pussy, my thighs spread wide, my shirt ripped open.
“You disappoint me,” he growls quietly.
His hands drop so rapidly that I flinch and his arms unwind from around my body. He stands without a word, and I feel a hollow, cold sensation creep over me as I pull my ripped blouse over my bare breasts and turn.
He’s already walking away.
“Wait!”
The man pauses. His head turns, showing me that fearsome devil mask and the cold, captivating glint in one of his eyes in profile.
“Wait, I—”
“Too late,” he rasps darkly. “I don’t do second chances. But feel free to stay in the woods and see what else might come for you.”
Without another word, he turns and walks away, vanishing into the shadows like a wraith and leaving me gasping on my knees.
What the fuck just happened?