Page 56 of Striker

He slides the back of his hand along my thigh and grips under my calf. He lifts my leg, bracing my ankle on his shoulder. My fingers splay on the cold wood floor. Turning his head, he presses his masked mouth to my inner calf, placing soft kisses on my skin as he slides his covered lips to my ankle.

I freeze when he grips my boot.

“Do you dream of us, Sweetheart?” he whispers. His masked face is in profile, and the light behind him filters through just enough, letting me see the outline of a nose. “All of us between your thighs. Your pussy filled with our cum?”

I swallow, chest heaving.

“But you weren’t dreaming of us last night, were you?” he asks. “You have bad dreams, don’t you?”

My mind trips over his words. They must have watched me on camera when I woke screaming. Did they see me wake, knowing I had a nightmare and still chase me? Still play a game that ended with me on my hands in knees?

I’m not sure how I feel about them knowing I have nightmares. It makes me feel weak. Vulnerable.

I don’t like it.

“You know we watch you,” he whispers. “Always. Every second of the day, we know where you are.”

Fear slithers down my spine.He knows. He’s just been toying with me.

With his other hand, Viper unlaces my boot, slowly, methodically loosening one lace at a time until I may pass out from the slick feeling moving through my gut. Then he grips the handle of the steak knife, and rips it free with such force I jerk, the cold blade on my stomach slipping upward.

“You and cutlery,” he says, placing another gentle kiss on my inner leg. “If you tried to stab one of us with this, you’d only piss us off.”

Except I wasn’t planning on stabbing. I just wanted to pop a few locks.

“You’d need something sharper. Something that cuts cleaner so you can press it in deeper.” Viper reaches around his back and whips his arm out, gripping a small knife. The blade gleams in the faint light spilling from behind him. He flips the blade, and it closes, then he does it again. When he repeats the movement, I realize he’s showing me how the blade quickly pops open. How to hold it. That the knife is meant to be held backward, away from the body, the blade extending outward from the palm, the hilt up by the thumb.

He flicks the knife closed, then glides the back of his fingers across my cheek. “Pretty little girls should be scared when they’re trapped in a house with men who want to eat them alive.”

My pussy flutters.

“If our sweet girl needs to feel safe, take this. I won’t tell them our secret,mo leannan.” He slips the knife in my boot and reties the laces. “Put it under your pillow at night. Then maybe when you have another nightmare, you’ll know you’re armed and can fight.”

Viper drops my leg and grabs his knife on my stomach, re-sheathing it as he stands. He doesn’t look back as he walks fromthe room. I watch his solid back as he walks down the hall, then disappears around the corner.

Gathering my dress, I cover my breasts, sitting upright. Viper was the one that felt more dangerous than the others.

He’s also just handed me a tiny piece of safety.

Without the other’s knowing.

Chapter 23

Delilah

It’s been two dayssince Viper gave me the knife. I practice whipping the blade out like he showed me in the bathroom at night when I take a shower. It’s taken me several tries, but I can pull it from my boot and have it at the ready pretty fast. More than likely not fast enough, but Viper is right. I feel safer walking around, knowing I have this tiny knife even if I’m inexperienced with using it.

Viper was the last one I would expect to give me a weapon. But then I felt his softness that night in the club. He just chooses when he lets it free. Like Reaper, Viper is cut from something sharp and cruel, but even he carries around softness and I’m reminded again of Reaper’s gentle touch followed by his harsh slap. I know I’m mentally wrecked when I reach between my thighs as I shower at to ease the ache there.

This on top of the fact that I now look forward to my meals three times a day, though I tell myself it’s because I’m lonely, and not because I like sitting on Breaker’s lap, feeling his hard length beneath me. How Viper laughs at my snarkycommentary, and how Striker’s hand caresses my chin, or he brushes his fingers over my lips as he takes a turn feeding me. I think the only reason I have yet to get a fork or feed myself is simply because they like touching me. Feeding me. Taking care of me in this twisted way. Reaper’s been absent from each meal these past two days. I haven’t seen him since the woods.

You belong to us now. You’ll listen to us. Be rewarded by us. Get punished by us.

My belly flutters. I tuck the book in my hand under my arm as I stop in the foyer to shut the front door, noticing that when I do, the latch doesn’t catch so I have to shove it closed harder like I did the other day. Maybe he’s not leaving it open. Maybe the catch is old and worn. It seemed so careless for a man so in control of everything.

As I pass the large windows overlooking the front of the house, I glance out at the bright cloudless sky and the open stretch of lawn that leads to the garden. Yesterday, my first day out of the house, I was able to see the scope of the estate, and know running is futile. The mansion sits back from the rocky little cliffs, surrounded on one side by the dense woods that wrap around most of the property, the other a marshy area that looks like it goes on forever.

Even if I tried, I’d never make it through the marsh. The woods, I know from experience, are dense. I have no idea where we are or how many miles separate us from the nearest town.

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