Page 13 of Outbreak

“Besides being kidnapped and handcuffed in your truck? Nothing! I need to pee,” I half lie, deflecting with my snarky sarcasm. Good. This feels normal. He can’t know the thoughts I was just having. I don’t want to give the asshole anymore ideas. I do actually need to pee now that I think about it. I haven’t used the bathroom since before the party, and that was God knows how many hours ago.

In the light casting on him from the inside of the truck, I can see his eyes a little better. It’s still too dark to make out their color, but I can see him perk up with excitement.

“Oh, do you? Don’t move, I’ll be right back,” he says, dark amusement lacing his words. My stomach flips at whatever has sparked this reaction in him. I don’t know if I want to know the reason.

“And where would I go, asshole?” I respond to myself because he disappears around the back of the truck. My voice might sound bored and irritated, but my own excitement decides to make its presence known in my body. My curiosity is going to get me killed one day. Maybe today.

While he’s gone, I shove the last bite of my sandwich I almost lost into my mouth and uncap the water he gave me. With my luck, it’ll be drugged, but YOLO and all that. I turn it up and down half the bottle in one go. By the time I hear him coming back around, I’ve drained the whole bottle. I have no idea when he’ll let me pee again, so I might as well drink some more before I go. I have no idea what I was expecting, but it sure as shit isn’t what he walks back up with.

“That’s gonna be a hard no from me, buddy. I don’t fucking think so.”

Okay. This shit ain’t cute anymore.Ex-fucking-cuse me!?

“It’s cute that you think you have a choice in this,” he says, his voice deepening in a way that really shouldn’t be sexy. I seriously need to book that therapist.

“I’mnotwearing that.”

He cocks his head to the side in amusement. I’m glad he finds this comical. He dangles the black leather collar and silver chain leash off one finger, swinging it slightly. “Since I can’t trust you not to run away from me every chance you get, youwillwear this anytime we aren’t in the truck. That means bathroom breaks.”

“I’ll bite your fucking hand off if you come near me with that shit.”

“I have a muzzle, too, if you wanna try me,” he states flatly, shrugging his shoulders.

He’s fucking serious.This motherfucker!I’m going to kill him. I sit back on the seat, not agreeing to this because it’s fucking ridiculous, but also knowing if I don’t pee now, I might actually piss my pants.

“That’s a good girl,” he growls in approval, and fuck me sideways if it doesn’t make me clench my thighs together. That only manages to piss me off even more. I don’t understand why my pussy can’t get on board that we don’t like this asshole.

He wraps the buttery leather around my neck, buckling it in place in the back. I hear something click into place, and my anxiety ramps up a few notches.

“What was that?” I ask, my voice coming out higher than I’d like.

“Well, it won’t do any good if you can take it off whenever you want,” he says, holding a small key up to show me.

A fucking lock!

He locked it on my neck. Yep. I’m gonna kill him. He slips the key into his pants pocket, then clips the leash onto the silver ring on the collar. His fingers graze the skin on my neck tenderly, pebbling goosebumps in their wake, and I have to fight off amoan at how good his skin feels against mine. He hooks two fingers beneath the leather, tugging and turning me toward him quickly. My uncuffed hand shoots up to land on his hard chest to keep from falling into him and out of the open door.

My eyes lock on his, though still too dark to reveal anything beneath the mask. I can feel the intensity of his stare all the way to my toes. I can’t explain it, but I realize as much as he pisses me off, I’m not scared of him. Even though I have no idea who he is beneath the mask, I don’t think he will actually hurt me. He even protected me against… well, whatever that man was back at that house. He could have killed me when he caught me after I ran from him. He has gone out of his way to keep me safe, even if it is literally chained to him. I don’t know what he wants, but I feel safe with him, and I don’t know how I feel about that.

Have I finally lost my mind? Given my past, it's a short walk off a tall bridge to consider that my mental health might play peekaboo on the edge of insanity. Have I finally dove over that ledge and plunged into needing grippy socks and a straight jacket?

He flexes his hand, wrapping his thick fingers around my neck over the collar, pulling me out of my mental debate and back into the intensity of his gaze.

“You look good wearing my gift. I bought it just for you,” he says, like that’s not fucking creepy, and… okay, it’s kind of hot, too. I don’t know what to say to that, and I don’t trust my mouth not to betray me like other parts of my body that can’t get it together, so I keep my mouth shut.

Thankfully, it doesn't seem like he’s expecting a response because he finally releases my throat and looks away. He goes about unlocking the cuffs on my wrist and the door, massaging the light red marks left behind on my skin from the metal digging in during my panic attack. I can’t handle his gentle touches. It really shouldn’t be this hard to remember he is thebad guy here when he literally stole me from fucking college just a while ago.

Pulling my arm out of his hand, I rub the sore spot myself, looking around him in the woods. We’re in the middle of nowhere. No one to hear me scream and nowhere to run to if I could. I could die out here. The smart thing to do is to play nice and wait until we get somewhere that I can get some help. He could snap my neck out here, and no one would be the wiser. So the survivalist in me is screaming at me to shut the fuck up and be a good girl for the stranger.

“Let’s go,” he says, picking me up and setting me on my feet like a toddler. He shuts the door and gives me a nudge to walk ahead. Our feet crunch on the dead foliage on the ground, snapping twigs and crushing leaves that have fallen off for the season.

We only walked a short distance away from the truck when the chain connected to my collar pulled taut, jerking me back and making me stumble. “What the fuck, dude? A little warning would be nice,” I grumble, then immediately cringe at myself. I literally told myself to play nice, and I can’t seem to get a filter on my mouth when it comes to him. Everything he does and says either pisses me off or turns me on, and sometimes both at the same time.

“That’s far enough,” he says, ignoring my snark. “Go pee.”

“Wait… are you going to watch me?” I ask, spinning around to face him. I realize I didn’t think this through. The leash is only a few feet long. Of course the creeper is going to watch me pee.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he replies, really giving no fucks about how ridiculous this whole thing is or how I feel about it.Fucking ass face.Well, the jokes on him. I’ve been degraded and humiliated in ways he couldn’t even imagine in my life. This doesn’t even make the highlight reels.

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