Page 74 of Vow of Vengeance
I back away from him, trying to put as much space between us as possible while also not making it obvious that I'm going for the phone.
"What do you want?" I manage to speak around the sob building in my throat. I move slowly back as he moves steadily forward, cornering me.
He doesn't answer, and I decide I'll have to try and outrun him to the phone. I turn to dive for it, but he gets me around the knees, taking me to the ground with him.
My breath escapes me in a rush as I fall to the ground; pain explodes in my ribs, my stomach. His bodyweight over mine makes me gasp so that when he leans away just enough to let me gulp air into my lungs, I'm relieved.
The relief is short lived, because he flips me beneath him, rolling me like I'm weightless so that I look up at him.
His weight traps me again as he leans over me and tears the straps of my top down my shoulders, making quick work of exposing me and proving his intentions.
He doesn’t have to tell me what he wants. He’s showing me.
“No!”
I try to squirm out from beneath him, to get free, but a hand closes around one of my nipples and pinches hard.
"No!" I scream, because I know what's going to happen.
I can see the violence still to come, hard in his eyes, two dark orbs that peer out at me from behind that mask.
"Vin!" I scream, trying anything to twist away from the touch, the knees straddling my chest, the weight pressing on my stomach and putting pressure on my bladder.
This can't be happening.
This can't be real.
I'm in a nightmare.
I fell asleep when Vin was massaging me, and this is all just an awful dream.
But it's not. The pain tells me it's not when his hand flies across my face, and my head falls back against the floor, stunned by the sudden blow. Heat stings against my cheek, and my bones ache from the force of it, something between a slap and a punch.
For a moment, every nerve in my body is focused on that pain. But it's quickly rewired when I feel his hands on my hips, dragging my sleep shorts and panties down my thighs.
No. No no no.
I do everything I can to get away.
I roll like an alligator, I twist my upper body in a desperate attempt to flip away from him, I flail every limb that isn't being pinned down by his weight on my thighs, which shifts for half a second as he shoves my shorts past them, exposing more of me to him.
I take that half a second and flip, my nails dragging against the floor as I try to use the leverage to pull myself away from him, anything to get away. But his weight never leaves me. It just shifts, and now he uses it to pin me flat against the ground, fingers digging into the back of my neck as he presses against my skull hard enough that the vision in my left eye blurs from the pressure.
"Vin!” I choke. Help!"
"Shut the fuck up!" The voice is gruff, deeper than any I've ever heard and muffled by the material of the balaclava as it presses against my ear. I can feel hot breath through the material, heavy inhalations. It crawls over my body, deepeningthe dread over what this stranger’s intentions are. "Shut the fuck up and take it if you want to live."
I don't have to think about what that means.
There's no mistaking what he means for me to take, because I feel his hands on the back of my bare legs, feel him move my leg to the side, spreading me open. The fingers that grope between my thighs are thick and dry, and when he forces them inside of me, they feel like they're going to carve out my soul.
"Vin!"
It's all I can think to do, to call for my husband. To beg for help, for an end to what’s coming.
Vin is the one who makes everything right, the one whoalwaysmakes everything alright. And yet, he isn't coming.
"He can't fucking help you." The man grunts, and then I hear a click as something presses against the back of my skull, nestling in the soft space just above my neck. "Now don't make another fucking sound."
