Page 27 of The Woman

My only choice is to run now that I’m discovered.

I glance to the left, mapping out my escape route, and then back to his enticing yet hard face. I don’t know where I’ll go once I make it outside – being a female on your own will get you picked up immediately – but I’ll have to worry about that once I’ve made it.

After sucking in a fortifying breath, I charge across the room, heading straight for the front door. My hope is that he’s caught off guard, giving me enough time to escape.

My bare feet slap against the tiles as I make it across the room and into the foyer. I reach the front door and even manage to turn the handle a fraction before a strong arm bands across my stomach and lifts me up. I let out a squeal, kicking and flailing my body about.

“Where do you think you’re going?” his deep voice murmurs close to my ear.

I continue struggling to get free but only manage to knock a small puff of air from his chest. It’s no use. His grip is like iron, and he’s much stronger than me. With one arm, he carries me back into the living room like it’s no hard feat and then drops me onto the couch. I immediately make a move to get up, but he’s a step ahead of me, bringing his body down to hold me with his weight.

For a moment, our eyes remain locked on each other, with my chest heaving underneath his and his breaths coming out in short puffs, which, if I had to guess, I’d say is from excitement from catching me rather than from the strenuous activity.

Regardless, I’m completely trapped with the hardness of his body above me, contrasting the soft and plush couch behind me.

I’ve noticed many of his other possessions are also soft and plush: the rug under the coffee table, the beds, the throw pillows and blankets, and me. Perhaps that’s why he chose me in the first place. I wasn’t quite as skinny as the other women there.

“What are you?” he asks, flicking his eyes back and forth between mine.

I refuse to answer, sinking my teeth into my lower lip and catching him watching the movement as if he likes it.

We were taught to expect to have sex as often as a man wanted, that we are here to serve them and give them company and stress relief. I didn’t mind the thought of that task if it meant keeping myself safe. However, Phoenix, for the most part, hasn’t seemed to want anything from me, no matter how much I’ve tried to seduce him and no matter how aroused he appeared to be.

Even wearing the clothes that reveal my body never worked. It has kept me in a state of uncertainty. I was hoping to distract him with sex so that he’d become attached and too preoccupied and blinded to see that I was different, that I’m not normal.

Having these thoughts . . . having any thoughts at all is not normal.

“I asked you a question. Answer me.”

Despite the position I find myself in, my natural inclination is to want to go against what he tells me. The defiant voice inside my head whispers at me to resist. It’s almost gotten me caught in the past, so I’ve fought it.

“Maybe I don’t want to answer,” I reply quietly.

His eyes narrow, that jaw of his covered with stubble clenching tight as I’ve seen it do so many times when he’s concentrating or unhappy with something. The thinning of his lips tells me, in this case, he’s not happy with what I said and that he’s irritated with my non-answer.

But there’s something else there as well, a spark in his eyes that says otherwise, like maybe he actually enjoys me talking back or not saying what he expects.

I think I would like to see that spark ignite and watch it burn.

“You’re a WOUN, aren’t you?” he asks finally.

I make another feeble attempt at escaping, managing to press my hands to his chest, but he easily takes hold of both of my wrists with one hand and plants them above my head, a move that brings his face closer to mine.

“I won’t let you send me away,” I tell him.

When he raises a single brow at my statement, I turn my face away, trying to avoid the magnetic pull his eyes have. I’ve watched him closely since I arrived here, learned a lot about him, and I’ve found him to be interesting, different from the men at the facility.

I like him.

But he’s going to get rid of me. He’ll send me to that place where women like me go when we’re discovered, and then I’ll be no more.

“And how exactly are you going to stop me?”

“I don’t know,” I answer stubbornly. “But I’ll think of something.”

Warm fingers grip my jaw, forcing it back to face him so that he can peer down at me with that same curiosity in his narrowed gaze as if still trying to make sense of me.

“You do think, don’t you? You’re not like normal women.” His eyes scan over my face, studying me like an abnormal creature. And I guess I am.

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