Page 24 of The Alpha's Punishment
She slid into the back seat. He immediately pushed her down to lie on the seat and taped her wrists to the base of the front seat, preventing her from sitting up. He leaned over her with the pillowcase open and she realized his intent.
“Wait, no,” she shrieked as the case came down over her head.
The car door slammed.
“Mr. Stone,” she cried. “Ben! Please. Please take it off.” She struggled to dislodge it, rubbing her head against the seat.
The car started.
“Please. Please,” she begged.
“Calm down, Ashley. I can’t have you seeing where I’m taking you.”
The car began to move.
“Get this off me. Get this fucking thing—” She thrashed around, yanking at her wrists to get them free. “Oh, God,” she moaned when it seemed clear he wasn’t going to take it off and she couldn’t get it off on her own. “Oh, God.”
Panic took over. She couldn’t breathe. She screamed over and over again, drawing in short gasps of breath between shrieks. Her feet kicked at the door, her bound wrists thrashed so much she punched herself in the face.
The car swerved and braked hard.
Oh, crap, she’d made him mad. He was going to put her in the trunk. She tried to stop screaming, but she couldn’t get control.
The car door opened and the pillowcase came off with a whoosh. He reached for her and she cowered, thinking he would strike her. Instead his large hands grasped her head, cupping it, stilling her. His palms were over her ears, muffling her sense of sound. The forced quiet gave her a strange sense of security, as if she was cocooned safely by those hands, protected.
He was leaning over her, his brows drawn together with the same expression he’d worn when he thought she’d been hurt. Pained—like her panic attack had caused him pain. And he’d shrugged off his own bullet wounds. Which… what the hell had happened to them? He wasn’t even bleeding anymore, nor did she see any sign of a bandage under his tight-fitting t-shirt.
“You’re claustrophobic.” It was a statement, rather than a question.
She nodded rapidly, still unable to catch her breath.
He began to fold the pillowcase lengthwise. She jerked away when he held it up to her head, but he persisted, wrapping it over her eyes like a blindfold. It wasn’t long enough for him to tie in the back, though.
“I won’t look. I’ll lie down and I won’t look, I promise,” she promised, still shaking like a leaf.
He ignored her, pulling out the duct tape. Once more, he positioned the pillowcase over her eyes, then wrapped the duct tape all the way around her head, securing the fabric like a crown around her head. “There,” he said. “Lie down.”
A wedge of fresh fear shot up and she groped wildly for him, her fingers landing on his t-shirt, which she wrapped up in her fist. His heavy hand dropped onto her nape. He muttered a curse, then pulled her out of the car.
She panicked, twisting wildly in his grip. “Not the trunk. Please—not the trunk. I’ll be good, I promise.”
To her shock, he wrapped his arms around her and held her against his chest. He didn’t say a word, but there was no mistaking the intended comfort. She clung to him, her body trembling against his hard muscled form. She drank in his strength, the solidity of his body. Inch by inch, her body relaxed.
“You’re not going in the trunk,” he said gruffly. “You’re riding up front with me.”
“Oh.” She willed herself to stop shaking as she took a deep breath. He released her from the embrace and wrapped a firm arm around her waist, guiding her forward and around the car. He followed her head in with his hand as she sat, the way the cops do on crime shows. His weight pressed against her and she heard the click of her seatbelt.
Returning to the driver side, he climbed in. She heard the rustle of movement, then he grasped her head and pulled her down until it connected with his thigh. He’d put something soft over the center console—a sweatshirt, maybe. She appreciated the thoughtfulness. “Stay down,” he said, a note of warning in his voice.
She brought her bound wrists to his leg and wrapped her hands around it, as if he were her security blanket, and she just needed to feel his warmth to stay calm.
He put the car in gear and backed out, one hand still on her nape holding her down. Except then his hand began to move. His fingers threaded into her hair and closed into a fist, tugging slightly but not hurting her. They opened and closed again.
She held perfectly still, not wanting him to stop. She imagined his hands gripping other parts of her body, his touch rough, his grasp firm. What would it be like to be taken by him? Did werewolves have sex with humans? The image of him rolling with his opponent in wolf form, all snarls and teeth, returned to her.
What was he going to do with her? Maybe it was Stockholm syndrome, but she wanted to believe he would take care of her. That he wouldn’t harm her.
But what about Melissa? She was someone’s prisoner right now, too—if she was still alive. Had she been harmed? How had her captors treated her?
