Page 64 of Master of Lies

“I’ll be back in two, three hours at the max. Also, the housekeeper will be here first thing in the morning to get her tip, so you’re one hundred percent covered either way. I built in some redundancy, but you won’t need it. I’ll be back. Really soon.”

“I can’t do this, Jed!” My voice shook. “I can’t be tied up! I can’t do it!”

“I’m sorry, Freya,” he repeated. “It won’t be long. I was just waiting until you went into the bathroom to pee. You know, after all that coffee.”

Somehow, that condescending courtesy pissed me off even more. “You asshole!” I yanked and struggled against the cuffs.

“Freya. Don’t fight. You’ll hurt your wrists—”

“Fuck you!” I yelled, trying to knee him, but he just rolled onto my leg.

“I hate doing this,” he said. “I’m not trying to punish you. But you don’t take orders, and you don’t listen to reason. I don’t have anyone to watch you and keep you safe, and I can’t wait until I do. I don’t have time to coax and plead or wrangle you. I just have to keep you alive until I can get you back to your brother.”

“Safe? You think this is safe?” My voice cracked in raw panic. “Staking me out like a fucking goat for any asshole who comes along?”

“No one will find you,” he soothed. “No one knows you’re here. You’ll be locked in with all of my alarms connected to my phone. I’ll be monitoring you. I’ll know if anyone gets near you, even a rabbit or a fox. I’ll send someone if there’s a problem. And I’ll come running back as soon as I can, I swear.”

“Fuck you, Jed Clearwater!” I thrashed, trying to kick him. “Let… me…loose!”

“Goddamnit, Freya. Stop it. You’ll hurt yourself!”

“You can’t chain me up!” I yelled. “I can’t do this! I can’t stand it!”

He rolled on top of me, forcing all the air out of my chest. I tried to kick him, but ended up wound around him, with his big, solid body between my legs.

The shudder of sexual awareness made us both immobile. I tried to stop crying, avoiding eye contact, but just like that, my panic instantly transmitted into desperate heat.

And I hated myself for it. Goddamn him, for shoving it in my face like that. Humiliating me. I was so afraid of the fucked up, damaged parts of myself, messing with me. Making it so easy for him to manipulate me.

I was usually the boss bitch of the situation. I pulled all the strings, ran the whole show. I organized my whole life around that premise. That I had to be in control.

I knew I was just compensating. Trying to correct for that monstrous shitshow with Uncle Orren and Aunt Jean. As if I could ever correct for something like that.

So I was warped for life, yes, fine. I’d made as much peace with it as I could.

But I couldn’t do my usual compensatory tricks with Jed. I couldn’t pull strings with him. I tried to, and things moved, but never in the direction I intended. I couldn’t make anything go where I wanted it to go. Jed was uncontrollable.

Kind of funny, how that was the exact same problem he had with me.

And now I was chained up again, just like when I was seven years old, in the dark basement room, and it was flooding back into me, as if it had never gone away. My aunt and uncle. The panic, the desperation. Hating on myself because they hated me. I would have done anything to please them or appease them. I just wanted to be good, so they would stop hurting me. I would be so good. I would be perfect.

That was the fucked up part. It could sink me if it mixed up with my feelings for Jed. I had no business letting myself fall in love, or even in lust. I was too messed up to ever get it right. I would just hurt myself, and the more I cared, the more it would hurt.

Now I was sobbing, and I couldn’t stop. Goddammit.

“Freya.” Jed’s tone sounded sobered, nervous. “What the fuck?”

“That’s my line, asshole,” I snapped, snuffling madly. It sucked, having no way to blow my nose. “Ask yourself that question.”

“I know cuffing you is horrible, and I expected you to tell me to fuck myself, but you’re freaking me out. There’s something else going on here.”

“No, you’re just an asshole,” I snapped. “You simply don’t understand how obscene and controlling this is, you filthy son of a bitch, because you are shit-stupid.”

“I never claimed to be a genius,” he said. “But I know better than to take Ethan Master’s baby sister on a mission.”

“I could help you,” I snarled. “I am fucking resource for you, not a bag of sand tied to your foot. I’m smart, I would see things you might not see, I know things that you might not know, and none of that will be available to you, you brain-dead son of a bitch!”

I made the huge mistake of meeting his eyes, and suddenly my nipples were hypersensitive against the fabric of my T-shirt, aching to touch his naked chest.

---