Page 14 of Burn for Me

But maybe that was worse. If he didn’t want to kill me, what was his intention?

He had to be one of Massimo’s associates, and Massimo tried to kill me. My family were all dead. No-one would be looking for me.

There was no saviour on the horizon. Once I thought Massimo was one, but instead he’d ripped my world to shreds.

A tear trickled down over my cheeks as the memory of my family’s bodies sparked into my mind. Mum’s perfect white dining room soaked in scarlet and burning to a crisp. They were far from perfect, but they’d been all I had known.

The pain in my chest continued as I willed myself not to flinch. I wouldn’t give the insane masked fucker the chance to enjoy it.

Eventually, he stopped. A finger turned my face toward his, and reluctantly, I opened my eyes. He held up a washcloth and a tub of soapy water, before pressing the warm, wet cloth over my wound.

The intimacy of the touch made my stomach turn, and his dark eyes watched every movement I made as he continued to clean the blood and dirt from my skin. The tenderness almost made it worse, each stroke of the warm cloth felt good, loving, like I was precious. From someone I wanted, it would have made me feel cherished, but from the man who had kidnapped me? It disgusted me.

Turning my face from him, I let my mind go elsewhere, trying my damndest to pretend the psycho washing me didn’t exist.

I had no idea how long I had been out of it, or where I was.

The room was modest but plushly decorated in rich polished woods and cream leather. My brows creased as Inoted the small, circular windows, and nothing but blue outside.

The motion around us struck with such clarity that it took my breath away. We were on a boat.

My pulse thundered at the realisation my situation was even more dire than I’d thought. Not only had the man taken me, but how on earth could I hope to escape?

If I even survived his makeshift nursing.

Fuck.

Maybe death would be a kinder end.

A tap on my cheek had me turning my head slowly back to him. He was holding out a bottle of clear liquid for me.

Antiseptic.

He undid the cap and placed it above my left breast, his fingers lightly trembling at the proximity to my nipple.

His other hand moved up to slide into my fingers, grasping them. I couldn’t pull away with the way I remained tied, so I had little choice but to let him hold my hand.

Then he poured.

A sob tore from my throat as the antiseptic burned like acid against my crudely stitched wound. His eyebrows furrowed when I writhed against the bed, trying to escape the blazing sensation. His fingers squeezed mine, and I returned the action, forcing my pain in through my grip and onto him.

He let me.

Placing the bottle down, he wiped the excess from my skin before disentangling his fingers from mine.

‘Who are you?’ I asked, my voice weak.

Rising to his feet, he just looked at me before shaking his head.

‘Please, just a name?’

Nothing.

He covered me with a soft blanket before heading out of the room, leaving me to sob on the gently bobbing bed.

I should have been getting married.

Instead, a masked man had tied me to his bed, on a boat, probably in the middle of the sea. My family was dead. My life, gone.

---