Page 16 of Claiming Sarah

My eyes shift to him, finding his trained on me already. His head tilts, dark hair grazing the edges of his mask. The mask obscures most of his face except those cerulean eyes searing into my soul. I don’t know how I know, but I know he’s not letting me go anytime soon.

“Don’t show fear. Some patients are like bloodhounds. Don’t let them smell it on you,” Dr. Sawyer lectured, absently straightening the lapels on his white coat.

My precept words echo in my mind, and the urge to run grips me, constricting my air. Dayton steps closer, towering over me. I catch his hand out of the corner of my eye, lifting and dropping back down to his side. I stare at it, noting the pattern of scars are straight slashes across the back like someone dragged a knife across his knuckles horizontally out of boredom.

My eyes shoot back up to his.

“What do you want with me?” The unknown stretches out in my mind’s eye, taunting me. I need to know.

“You’re going to help me with something important. But first, I thought you wanted to use the phone.” Dark brows drop low over his eyes, conveying his confusion. But something about his words and mannerisms brushes across something familiar, something I’ve encountered before in other patients.

“You live alone. Do you have family or friends?” Ihedge, fingers twitching at my side, nervous energy needing to be burnt off.

“Are you trying to get to know me, Dr. Bell, or manipulate me?” Menace and a veiled threat lurk in his voice. Unbidden, the phantom feeling of what it felt like to have him suck my clit into the wet cavern of his mouth surges forward. Threat or not, he’s dangerous, but in that moment when he bartered to taste me, he was merely a man desiring a woman. I can use that. Because suddenly, I suspect I know what kind of animal I’m dealing with.

13

MANIPULATION

ZAIDEN

She’s trying to manipulate me.

“Kill her.”

I know it, but I genuinely want to share with her, tell her who I am and who I used to be. I want her toseeme. But she won’t. Nurses and doctors like her never did.

“She’s just like them.”

“Getting to know you,” she lies, the words dripping off her traitorous tongue.

My body moves without thinking, crowding her until her back meets a wall, then wrapping a hand around her throat. She pants, showing me a hint of that tongue, nostrils flaring and pupils expanding.Does she like this?

My head leans closer, and I wish I could smell her through the mask.

“You’re lying, Dr. Bell. I dislike liars,” I warn. Her pulse throbs in my hand, either from fear or excitement, I can’t tell. My mouth moistens for a taste, saliva collecting in the corners and beneath my tongue.

Red and Blue’s chant from the night before stabs into my brain.

Taste. Taste. Taste.

“Tell me the truth. Why do you want to know?” I inhale deeply, hoping to catch a spare whiff of her scent through the filtration of the mask. It eludes me.

“I don’t owe you anything,” she snaps, fire sparking in whorls of green. Her heartbeat flutters like a butterfly against my palm, and I’m convinced it isn’t due to fear.

What to do?

SARAH

Dayton’s hand rests against my throat, sending signals to my pussy, dampening my panties. I don’t need a mirror to know red flushes my face, and I resist leaning into his touch. A fucking gas mask lies inches from my face. None of this—the entire situation—should arouse me, but I can’t wrangle my body to get the message.

“And I don’t owe you anything,” he snarls behind his mask, grip tightening briefly. “If you think you’re going to manipulate your way out of here—” My broken laugh cuts him off, causing that curious head of his to tilt.

“You’re not answering, so that means no to both. If you don’t have any family, then you’re either an orphan or recently lost someone, and grief makes us do stupid things. If you have no friends, it’s because you have trouble making and sustaining connections, leading me to believe you have a social disorder or a mental illness that impairs your judgment, and you’re probably unmedicated.” I get itall out in a rush, heart racing behind my ribs and palms sweating.

He could very well kill me after this, but I’m betting on my life he has a social disorder. Hell, doctors diagnosed Jeffrey Dahmer with borderline personality disorder. If I know his diagnosis, I can understand his mind. Manipulate my way out of here? I’m trying to get him to keep me alive for as long as possible, and all I have at my disposal is my body and my mind.

Someonehas to come looking for me.

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