Page 21 of Break for Me

He hooked a third zip tie through the one on his wrist and then through the one on mine before he tightened it.

“Now, move over.”

“This feels a bit extreme,” I said, scooting across the mattress while he got into the bed beside me.

“I’m not overly excited about this arrangement either, Fancy Face.”

“If you snore, I’ll smother you.”

“Threaten me with a good time, and I’ll show you one.”

I was thankful that he chose that moment to lean back over to turn the lamp off rather than taking the opportunity to see my entire face turn red over his comment. Then this asshole took the TV remote right out of my fucking hand and started flipping through channels. He stopped on something that was done in black and white.

Fucking black and white.

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

This real-life Satan tossed the fucking remote across the room. “Sleep tight, Fancy Face.”

* * *

It had been a very long time since I’d woken up next to a solid body. My half asleep mind hadn’t registered why I was waking up next to that solid body yet, only that said body was warm and very firm. I found myself inching my whole body closer to the arm that I was already practically lying on top of, until I was holding onto it and my head was on a shoulder that felt like a bundle of rocks. I was tired enough that I fell asleep soundly at some point, regardless of being attached at the wrist to a madman who willingly chose to watch black and white shows on TV. My eyes ripped open at that thought. The raspy chuckle from the throat of that madman brought it all back to my brain as clear as could be. He was already awake, scrolling through something on his phone with his free hand. His entire other arm was trapped against my body, being held in place between my fucking breasts by my own fucking hands.

“What the fuck?” I screeched and tried to roll away and jump out of the bed simultaneously, just to be reminded that I was still physically hooked to the arm that I was trying to run away from. He laughed again at my awkward flailing before he sat up and held his hand out in my direction so that I could fucking right myself with the extra freedom to move.

“Come back over here,” he said and chuckled again. “I’ll cut it off.”

My chest was heaving like I’d just finished running several miles.

“How long have you been awake?” I asked, still unwilling to move.

He smiled and tugged his arm gently back toward his own body. “Come. Here.”

I did want freedom. I did not however want to do anything at all that he told me to do.

“Why wouldn’t you wake me up?” I asked.

“What? Before you decided to dry hump my arm? Why would I want to miss out on that?”

My face was on fire and I opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn’t make any words come out.

“I’m fucking with you,” he said and laughed another time. “Get over here. Does everything have to be a fight?”

What was he fucking with me about? Did I seriously dry hump his arm? Everybody gets sleep horny, so that was a real possibility. Or did he really just allow me to do it? Because men are never not horny themselves, so that was also a real possibility. What. The. Fuck.

I forced myself to crawl back across the bed toward him. I noticed the deep, throbbing pain in my foot while I moved this time.

seventeen

JERSEY

I probably shouldn’t have gotten so much pleasure out of messing with her the way that I did, but watching her squirm had been the highlight of the last couple days. If she was going to make me chase her little ass through the woods in the dark, I was going to make her watch old reruns of some show I’d never even heard of just because I noticed it was in black and white. Sleeping zip tied to the subject of a job was definitely not common practice, but I was nothing if not innovative. I wasn’t about to risk her ruining this. Memphis was overly worried about it. She mentioned it every time we spoke and it was starting to leave an unpleasant feeling deep in my own chest. I didn’t allow myself to spend much time thinking about it. It wouldn’t do any good to focus on that when focusing on this job would handle all of the nerves.

She almost thanked me when I cut her free from my wrist. Almost. There was a hint of gratitude in the way that she looked at me and I swore I could physically see her talking herself out of offering me any pleasantries. She was hellbent on staying as difficult as possible. I figured it was her version of kindness when she opted to say nothing at all in response when I told her that she could have another fifteen minutes alone in the bathroom to change clothes or brush her teeth or do whatever women do in bathrooms in the morning, before I would be joining her in there. It was another victory when she left her high top Chucks sitting on the floor just beside the bed while she went into the bathroom with a handful of her shit. As soon as that bathroom door closed, I had her shoes in my hands and I was digging out a little tracking device from the pink duffel bag that Memphis told me to find a way to plant on this girl. I wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of allowing her to have her shoes back, because they would make her even more willing to try to run at every turn, but I did need to make sure I could find her again if she managed to get out of sight and this little device was the best option for that. I had to laugh at how easy it was to plant the tracker in the sole of her shoe. It was already falling apart before I went jamming a little piece of equipment into it. Hopefully, the inside of the shoe wasn’t so broken down that she’d be able to feel it when she wore them, but the thing was barely the size of my pinky fingernail and not any thicker.

I put the shoes back in their place by the bed and sent Memphis a text to tell her that it was ready. She responded within seconds to tell me that the software to track it was already on my laptop. I smiled when the bathroom door opened just a minute or two later. She wasn’t in there anywhere close to the full fifteen minutes, but she clearly didn’t want to share anymore small spaces with me if she could avoid it. The limp when she walked looked a little worse today, now that the adrenaline of the situation had worn off. I took the first aid kit from the bag again and pointed at the edge of the bed. She sighed hard, but she did sit in front of me without a fight. I knelt to the floor to wrap a padded gauze bandage around the stitches so she’d be able to wear socks and put her feet in her shoes without anything rubbing the stitches directly.

“Thank you.”

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