Filthy Secret

Search for missing east side bride enters second day.NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.

Family and fiance issue plea for safe return.

LYRA

Light…

Warm, but blinding. I squeeze my eyelids shut and turn my head, face pressing into soft fabric. Inhaling, I’m overwhelmed with the

scent of pine, cedar, and men’s cologne.

My wrists are unnaturally heavy, and when I try to lift one arm, the other comes with it. My hands are bound.

I roll, and my upper body moves but my lower body stays put, tension on both my ankles. Different points of tension. I can’t curl my legs up or pull them together. I blink my eyes open only to immediately close them. Blurred colors. Whites and browns and blacks and greens. My stomach heaves, and there’s an ache between my hips I can’t place.

Help.

In my head, the word sounds normal, but the noise that comes out of my lips is nothing but a raspy, weak groan. I swallow, wondering if I’ve had something cottony shoved in my mouth with how dry it is. “Help.”

Soft noises echo below me. A chair scraping on the floor. Footsteps. My chest starts to ache from how fast my heart is pounding, and when I open my eyes, I see a shadowy figure. A man’s silhouette. No. Cade’s silhouette. The bed dips, and his face and torso blur then come into focus. He cups a hand under my head and lifts me up slightly.

“Nnnooooo…”

“Shh, Lyra. I got you.”

His thumb pushes my chin down, then something curved is tipped to my lips. Cool water floods my mouth and I choke, causing him to draw back, but when I lean forward and reach for the cup, he obliges me. I swallow gulp after gulp to wet my throat before he takes it away far too soon.

“Easy. Too much and you might get sick.”

He’s right. Already my stomach is twisting, but I’m unsure if it’s nerves, fear, hunger, or the drugs.

Cade sets the cup aside and adjusts me on the bed, lifting me like a doll and placing me on a stack of pillows. The semi-propped up position finally gives me a clear view of the room. Wood floors, wood walls, and a wood ceiling. Behind Cade I see a dresser with a mirror and a small armoire. They look hand made. So does the bed frame my legs are bound to, short posts at all four corners with pegs and clasps dangling off them.

My eyes fall on my reflection in the dresser mirror. I’m still in my gown. The tulle skirt covers most of my legs, which are bound to short bedposts with leather cuffs. The same style of cuffs on my wrists. Any makeup I had on has dulled after hours of wear, and my perfectly styled hair is a mess. Cade took the veil off at some point, and I spy it sitting neatly folded on the windowsill.

I turn from my body to his, taking in the large tattoo on half of his back. A forest scene with tall trees, with an eagle flying overhead. Slowly my gaze drifts to his front, where more tattoos color his muscles. Another set of trees and scenery running down the side of his ribs. Various icons scattered across his skin. He turns to the nightstand, and I see cursive script on his neck. It’s tiny, but I make out an L and a Y before I turn away.

“Where are we?” My voice shakes, still raspy but stronger than it was when I first woke up. Cade doesn’t answer. He opens the nightstand drawer and takes out a few small bottles. I read the labels. Coconut oil. Silicone lubricant. Lubricating gel. My stomach tightens, pulse starting to race.

“Cade… ”

“We’re home, Lyra.”

Such a simple statement, but the words have so much weight an ache blooms in my chest. Home. Where I always wanted to be with him. Where I never felt like I was in the city.

Cade grabs a few more things I can’t see from the bedside table then shuts the drawer, looking back to me with a small smile on his face. “You really didn’t think I was going to let you marry someone else, did you?” He shakes his head, amused. “I wanted to get you earlier, but there were always people around. They never left you alone. I could tell you hated it.”

I’m too focused on quieting the small part of my mind that agrees with him to say anything. There were times I hated it, but I knew I was lucky to have so many friends around. I was never lonely like I had been before we moved, never desperate for attention and affection like I had been when he came along.

And so what if he’s right? A broken clock is right twice a day. He kidnapped me. I’m tied to a bed in the middle of God only knows where.

Any secret apathy I had about my new life without him would never excuse this.

I twist my neck to gaze out the window, noting the absence of the skyscrapers and large buildings I’d grown used to. Instead, there are sloping hills covered in thick trees, and nothing but more of the same in the distance. I turn back to see Cade smiling, then he tilts his head and leans in. When I twist my lips away, he cups my cheek, turning my face to his as he settles his body on top of mine. I shove at his chest with my bound hands, but he ignores it, sliding one hand into my hair and closing it into a fist. I wince at the pain, trapped in place by his weight and his fingers in my hair.

Then his mouth is on mine, swallowing my gasp, licking my lips open so he can slide his tongue inside. He strokes his tongue against mine, trying to coax a response from me but all he gets are muffled pleas for him to Stop. Wait. Don’t. He catches them with his tongue and pushes them back into my mouth like they never happened.

I swallow the soft moan that rumbles his throat before he pulls back and smiles. “I forgot how good you taste.” He bites my bottom lip softly, and I try to twist again but he holds me still. “Don’t fight, Lyra. I haven’t seen you in over three years. Do you know how awful that’s been?”

“Do you know how awful this is?” I shove him again, but he takes my bound wrists in one hand, lifting them over my head. “You drugged me, Cade! You stole me from my-”

“I didn’t steal you.” He pecks my lips, then my cheeks. “I can’t steal what’s always been mine.”

I jerk my head back, to the side, then to the other side, attempting to avoid his kisses. I’m so focused that I don’t catch what he’s doing above me, not until my arms are stretched long over my head and I hear a soft click. There’s a short chain between the cuffs, and he’s hooked it to an attachment on the bed frame to lock me in place. I try to yank my arms down, the leather cuffs digging into my skin. My heart races and my whole body starts to tremble, including my voice when I try to speak.

“Cade, please… please don’t do this.”

Tears sting at the corner of my eyes, but he wipes them away and smiles down at me. He licks his lips, eyes darkened by lustful intent. “Let’s get this dress off you, huh?”

He sits up and slides his hands around to my back, tugging at the ribbon on the corset. I turn the sob in my throat to a scream as he unlaces the bodice with relative ease despite my arching back, my bucking hips, my head thrashing side to side. “Don’t do this. Cade, please! If you ever loved me… please, I’m begging.”

“I like it when you beg. It sounds so sweet,” he murmurs, so fucking calm as he works the bodice open. My bare breasts are revealed as he pulls the dress down, and his eyes dart to them as he tugs the bodice over my hips. “You’re so perfect, Lyra. You were made for me.”

I stop my thrashing because it’s doing no good, and all it does now is make my breasts shake and roll from side to side and draw more of his attention. Cade unhooks one ankle at a time to take the dress completely off, fastening them back into place and leaving me spread open, wearing nothing but the garter belt and stockings.

Where the hell are my panties?

Cade must see the panic on my face because he smiles as he hangs up the dress. “I didn’t fuck you yet, sweetheart. I wanted you wide awake for that. But I… I did take off your underwear because I needed to do a few things.”

He lifts my panties from the chair and shows them to me, like he’s reassuring me they aren’t lost. My belly twists when I notice the fabric is… stained? Darkened in the crotch. Cade’s expression is a little sheepish when I turn back to him.

“I know, I know. But they’ll wash, and I couldn’t help it. I wanted you so fucking bad right then, but I held back.”

“Why… why did you need to take my underwear off?”

He gives me a matter-of-fact expression. “I needed to get that thing out of you.”

That thing? What thing? My hymen? Did he finger me just to break it so when he uses his dick it won’t hurt as bad? What else…

My mind drifts back to when I first woke up. The ache between my hips. Like cramps. Like someone had been messing around inside me. Not… inside my vagina. Somewhere deeper and much more intimate.

Cade moves to the bedside table and grabs the bottles of lube before walking to the bottom of the bed. My eyes follow, heart pounding so hard I’m dizzy. When he finally meets my gaze at the foot of the bed, I whimper, breathing out a desperate question.

“What did you do to me?”

His lips quirk, and he bends to kiss right below my belly button. “I told you. I took that god-awful thing out of you. You didn’t want it anyway, and you sure as fuck don’t need it.”

All my thoughts vanish, like I can’t comprehend what he’s saying even though I heard him perfectly. It’s that, or I don’t want to acknowledge his audacity. He wouldn’t dare…

Of course he would. He kidnapped me; he’s willing to do anything to get what he wants.

And again, I have to silently berate the part of my brain that wants to admit he’s right. I didn’t want that thing, but Blaine said pills were fallible and the shot would make me bitchy. He didn’t want to use condoms when we finally had sex because it wouldn’t be needed. I was a virgin, he was clean. What was the risk?

Something tells me Cade won’t be interested in using in them either.

I hear the click of a bottle and look up to see Cade coating his fingers with watery lubricant. “Cade, listen.” I sit up as much as my bound arms will allow, watching his eyes flash as he looks from between my legs up to my face. “I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry I didn’t write after I left and… and that I… you had to know I had no choice. I was still seventeen, and my parents took everything away when I got back. They would have had you arrested, and I didn’t-”

“Baby, I don’t blame you at all,” he assures gently. “It’s not your fault, and you never have to worry about them taking you away from me again. They’ll never find us up here. It’ll be just you and me. Like we wanted.”

He bends to grab a stool, takes a seat at the end of the bed, and takes out a small chest. Lifting a dildo, a cone shaped object, and long microphone shaped wand from the box. My breathing picks up, and I start to thrash again when his palms slide up my thighs, fingers dangerously close to my sex.

“Just… just tell me what you want, okay? Don’t do this.” My pleas are useless, but I can’t stop making them. “Do you want money? I can get you money. It might take a few days but-”

“I don’t want your money, Lyra.” He sounds offended, then he rubs a soothing hand over my thigh. “All I want is you. I don’t need anything else but you.”

My breath hitches, lips trembling. He sounds so utterly sincere, his words just as heavy now as when he told me I was home. It’s clear there’s nothing I can offer him. No bargain I can make.

Tears slip out onto my cheeks when he pushes his fingers inside me, slick with lube. He moans, leaning down to kiss one thigh, then the other as his fingers start to move in and out. They twist inside me, curling and making my hips buck involuntarily.

“You’re so fucking tight, sweetheart,” he groans before setting his mouth on me, drawing out a gasp as his tongue licks wide paths over my folds before narrowing in on my clit. I stare at the ceiling, studying the cracks, the imperfections. Trying to shut down, to block it out. But it’s impossible. He’s relentless in his movements, steadily increasing the pressure until he’s coaxing my hips to shift and rock. His fingers withdraw, but then something larger is pushed inside.

The dildo.

He works it in and out until I groan, then leaves it inside me, using his thumbs push my folds back and expose my clit.

“I’ve been looking forward to this, Lyra,” he murmurs between soft kisses and slow licks. “But I gotta get you ready. I don’t want to hurt you, so I need you nice and wet. We’ve got a lot of time to make up for, and I’m gonna spend our first night together buried exactly where you want me. Right here.” He moves the dildo and I feel him smile when I grunt and my body tenses. “That’s it. I know you like it, and you’re gonna love the way my cock feels.”