Her face reddened and she backed away from him. “You heard me.”
The loud grinding of teeth cut through the silence in the room as she fought to even out her breathing. Confused by her hostility and statement, he took a step toward her.
“Is winning the game so important to you that you would plan out an attack on me just so you could save me to make me think you care?” Disgust and hurt lined her voice.
She had spoken so quietly, he almost didn’t hear her. He wished he hadn’t. She might as well have struck him. He wished she had. At least he knew how to respond to that kind of insult.
His voice rumbled like distant thunder when he answered her venomous accusation. “If you think for one fucking second that I would stoop so low as to put you in physical danger, then this game is over and I don’t give a shit who takes the title of winner.”
Her stare was cold as death and her response dripped with spite. “You did it once before. What’s the difference?” she mocked.
She was right.
Her defenses were high and seemingly impenetrable, and he was to blame. Just like Emily, his previous actions against her had made her paranoid and unable to rationalize things logically. But dropping her off at some counselor’s office to deal with the havoc he had wreaked on her life like he had done with Emily, wasn’t an option. Elsa was his responsibility and it was his job to deal with the mess he had made. He was accountable for all the lives he had fucked up, most especially Elsa’s since he had demanded she play his game again.
He stepped nearer to her, closing the space between them until he could whisper and be heard. “Tell me how I can prove to you that I would never do anything to hurt you again.”
He braced himself for the brazenness of her demand, but wasn’t prepared for her quick response.
“Tell me how you got that scar.”
16: Surrender
Elsa marched down the stairs to the living room with Victor close behind. She reached for the treasure chest of bondage equipment that now had permanent residency on the mantel, and handed it to him. He looked relieved, but bitter. She had thrown down the gauntlet. Would he accept her challenge or prove to her that Mr. Black was every bit as ruthless as she had suspected?
A little too casually, he began unclothing her, his fingers unhooking the buttons of her blouse and jeans at a painstakingly slow rate. It was obvious he was prolonging the inevitable. However, she had all the time in the world. She would even miss work the next day if she had to. The world outside had already stopped because of the crippling amount of snow and she wasn’t going anywhere.
Thrust once again into darkness, speechlessness and immobility, Elsa waited.
Sounds. Only sounds. There was nothing else to grasp onto. A current of air whistling past the window. The bark of a dog in the distance. A snow plow loudly rumbling down the street. But no words. Nothing. Only Victor’s breathing and occasional paced footsteps and a faint whiff of his cologne. The opening of the front door and coolness filling the room. The closing of the door. Silence. Minutes… The opening of the door again and frigid winter air blowing all around her and the odor of cigarette smoke.
Music. A passionate female voice was singing about salvation. Haunting lyrics… I never meant to fall for you… but I was buried underneath and all I could see was white… My Salvation… My, My…
Is this how he felt? Was this part of the game? God, she was so sick of the ceaseless, repetitive questions in her mind. She just wanted the truth from him... to trust him... She just wanted this fucking game to be over with and to be free from Mr. Black.
Her jaw began to ache and she fought the impending migraine that was jabbing at her frontal lobe. She stretched out as best she could and rolled her neck.
Warm hands on her body. A quick massage of her shoulders. A blanket around her shoulders. Manipulation of her limbs and more massaging. Victor.
An hour had passed. She knew the time because she heard the chirp of her phone in the next room reminding her to text Nick.
Another long period of time of silence interspersed with beautiful, but unfamiliar music.
More powerful lyrics… I fell in love with you long before I knew what it meant to give everything up… I was a rolling stone, rolling my way along until you came and made sense out of everything… But you couldn’t wait… I couldn’t promise you anything…
For a man who claimed to want nothing to do with love and rebuked it with every ounce of his being, why was every song he played so hopelessly romantic? It made no sense. Nothing about this situation did. When the fuck would she just stop trying to make sense of it when there was none to be made?
What little hope she had that Victor would answer question number one was dwindling fast. She wanted to believe that he had nothing to do with the attack, but the nagging voice in her brain wouldn’t let it die.
His padded footsteps were heard moving toward the kitchen, then back to her. He loosened the ball-gag and pressed a bottle of water to her lips, relieving her parched throat. She sipped slowly, enjoying the coolness of the liquid as it flowed onto her tongue and down her throat.
With the gag back in place, she leaned her head back when suddenly his fingers found the bare flesh of her pussy.
“I want you wet before I tell you what you want to know…”
His practiced fingers moved quickly, pumping in and out of her and before she knew it, her body had answered to him and she was saturated with her own arousal.
“Good girl,” he sighed as his lips moved over her breasts and up to her drool-soaked mouth. She felt his mouth near to hers but she turned her head sideways, rejecting him.
“There’s no need to be cruel, Elsa. You’ll get what you want,” he spoke in an agonized whisper.
The weight of his body was felt next to her as he sunk down onto the couch.
“Have you ever wondered what makes people tick? Like really tick? What makes them the way they are? What experiences in their lives have formed their personalities?” he chuckled humorlessly under his breath. “I guess that was a stupid question.” A heavy sigh. “I used to wonder what made my mom do the things she did; why she hated me so Goddamn much. I stopped wondering a long time ago. When she got sick. It wasn’t until then that I simply accepted her for what she was – a cruel, fucking, bitch and taskmaster.” His body jerked. “When she was dying, I took care of her because she had no one else, only me. Even in death, she still couldn’t show me one, motherfucking ounce of kindness.”
Elsa willed herself not to cry. The image of this strong, fierce man caring for his dying mother was gut wrenching. After all that she had put him through, he had still taken care of her when most people wouldn’t. Including herself. How could he be so blind as to not see the compassion within himself and the empathy that resided within his heart? Why did he insist on denying that he could be a kind man?
His voice lowered and the change happened in the blink of an eye. “After all the years I cleaned up after her and covered for her, after all the shit she put me through - not one. Single. Fucking. Measure of compassion. I was nothing but a little bitch in her eyes; her own personal slave.” The grinding of teeth and a deep growl. “Cleaning up her filth… Mopping up her vomit…Nothing but a little bitch. And you,” he gripped her chin harshly and shook her face. “You’re no better. You made me feel things for you all the while you were lying to me. You made me trust you while you were snooping around in my shit and judging me,” he poked her in the chest. “And now this bullshit. You make up some ludicrous idea in your head and make me tell you the worst memory of my life just to appease you…” His voice deepened. “Nothing but a little bitch. That’s all I am to you, isn’t it? A fucking, weak-ass bitch.”