Page 33 of Hitch
He’s serious, isn’t he? He will slit my throat if he wants to.
“Look at how you quake under the knife,” he says to himself. “Such a fiend for danger, aren’t you, Hitch? That’s why you go looking for trouble in places you don’t belong.”
“Duane, listen. I was just—”
He shoves my neck into the crook of his arm, cutting off my ability to breathe. My vision blurs around me, darkness caving in as my senses disappear.Thisis how I die. In the arms of a man who could’ve killed me months ago. A man I could’ve killed myself.
He lets go of my neck and I crash to my knees, air swelling in my lungs. A smug smile paints Duane’s lips, like he knows he’s won.
But not without a fight.
He steps forward and I leap up, punching his chest as hard as I can, but then he flings me down, throwing me on my back, pinning me to the ground. I thrash as hard as I can, twisting out of his grasp.
“Let go of me!” I scream, but he puts a hand over my mouth, pinching my nose and mouth shut so hard that he forces me to look into his eyes.
“You want to breathe again?” he drawls. “You want some sweet air? Then tell me how much you love it. Tell me how wet you are for my cock right now.”
I shake my head, but he holds me tighter, my nose and mouth completely cut off, his cock digging into me as I try desperately to escape. For a second, I’m free, but then his hands are back on top of me so quick that I don’t even get a full breath. As we fight on the floor, he leans into me, crushing me with his weight, and it’s so hard to breathe. Panic expands in my chest.
“Tell me how much you fucking love it,” he repeats.
I bob my head eagerly. I’ll say anything right now. All I want is some air.
He lets go.
“I love it,” I say quickly, my eyes scanning for his knife. Did he drop it on the floor? I see it a few feet away and I nod quickly. “I love it so much—”
I grab the knife off of the floor and jab it at him, nicking his cheek, but he grabs my wrist, holding me with such clarity that I know it was stupid to even try.
Everything around me is fuzzy, like my body is seizing with poison. I can barely move. I should have run while I still could.
“You’re a killer,” I whisper. And the thought breaks through me, knowing that ifIwere him, I’d see me as a trespasser, and he’d have every right to kill me.
He pinches his fingers into my wrist so hard that I drop the knife and groan, a tear slipping down my cheek. Escape is pointless. Duane has me in the literal palm of his hand. The uncontrollable urge to sob takes hold of me. Duane dismembered a body. Fed it to his mushrooms. And I willingly sucked his dick and fucked him like he was some normal man.
His free hand rakes my body, skimming my breasts, down to the valley between my thighs, and he sucks in a sharp breath, taken aback. I fall to my knees.
“Goddamn, I love hearing you cry,” he says. He grabs my chin. I’m so lightheaded, I start to slip, but he holds me up. Then he twists my face until I’m looking up at him. My vision is blurry, filled with tears, but I can see his twisted grin through it all, taking me in like prey. “Pretty. Utterly depraved. And fucking beautiful. You know that, Hitch?”
He gestures toward the knife on the floor.
“Now, I’m going to get up,” he says. “And you’re going to take that knife and you’re going to cut yourself for me.”
At that, he pushes himself up. The knife is at my knees. I could attack him if I wanted to.
But would that do anything?
I search for my purse and find it thrown to the side. How much of this is caught on camera? I can take evidence ofthisto the police too.
But that knowledge doesn’t stop the sensation between my legs, or the tingling that starts at my scalp and runs all the way down to my toes. Because as messed up as this is, I don’t want Duane to stop.
I came here by choice, knowing that I was running into the monster’s lair. And I shouted, making my presence known, until I woke the beast and he caught me.
“I gave you an instruction, Hitch,” Duane says.
I grab the knife. It’s so much heavier than before, like I’m carrying a dumbbell and not a pocket knife. Duane adjusts his stance, his thumbs hanging off of his belt loops, and instinctively, I know I’m supposed to stay on my knees in front of him. Subservient. Like a plaything.
“Why are you making me do this?” I whisper, the fear sending a terrifying ache between my legs. None of it makes sense. I shouldn’t want him to do this—making me hurt myself like this—but I do. “Is this a game? You want to see that you can make me hurt myself?”
