Page 11 of Sweet Possession
Chapter 4
Cora
As soon as Mr. Fox left, I bolted to the door and locked it. Every littlepart of me screamedthatthis was a trap,evenwith a lock on the door and his promisesthatI was safe, I didn’t believe him.
How could I?
I didn’t know the man, and there was no getting away from the factthathe’dboughtme. For what purpose other than to use me? And I couldn’t ignore Dwayne’s voice circling in my head, reminding me of the poor girl Mr. Fox and his friends violated so badly until she bled to death.
Is this what he did to her? Earned her trust, convinced her she hadnothing to fear, before betraying her in the worst possible way?
A tear slid down my cheek as I slumped against the door. Thebedroom was a far cry from the prison I’d been kept in, yet as my eyes wandered around the room, I couldn’t help but feel like I was still trapped in a cell.
There was no denying it was a beautiful room though, and thesuper-king bed was certain to be more comfortable than the cot bed I’d been sleeping on.
Small mercies I should have been thankful for, I supposed.
Getting to my feet, I let my toes sink into the plush light-gray carpet,enjoying the softness against the aching balls of my feet from the high heels, gladthatMr. Fox had taken them off.
His gentle touch against my skin had sent a shiver through me. Atfirst, I thought it was because I hadn’t expected to feel his hand on my ankle, but when he started to undo the second one, the same shiver had coursed through me. I wasn’t entirely surethatit was as a result of being scared of him.
What it was though, I didn’t know, and it wasn’t something I wanted tothink about. I refused to let myself get drawn into his tender touches and the softness in his eyes. The only way I’d survive whatever was about to happen to me was byprotecting my emotions as much as possible. Especially as there was no hope of me being able to protect my body.
The room was calming, decorated in hues of light and dark gray,white, and black. Aside from the super-king bed which had a huge velvet gray headboard, the room also had built-in wardrobes with mirrored doorsthatran the length of one wall.
Opposite the wardrobe were floor-to-ceiling windows looking out intoa beautifully manicured garden, complete with an enormous swimming pool. Soft voile drapes were tied back, and I quickly undid the ties and pulled the drapes across the windows in case someone could see me from the outside.
On the final wall, next to a large glass dressing table was a frostedglass doorthatMr. Fox had alluded to as leading to the bathroom.
As tempted as I was to explore the bathroom and have a shower towashthathorrible place off me, I didn’t want to take his jacket off. In fact, I didn’t want to remove the clothes I had on underneath the jacket either. As revealing as they were, it was better than nothing.
I pulled his jacket tighter around me, inhaling sharply to try and calmthe nervesthathad taken over my body, only to be hit by a wave of Mr. Fox’s scent. Dwayne’s words rang in my ears, telling methatMr. Fox was a monster,thathe’d hurt girls in the past.
But Mr. Fox’s actions and the way he spoke were the complete opposite of what I’d pictured. Conflict waged a war in my head, a battle commencing where one side told me to keep my guard up and not fall for his kind act. The other side saidthathe wasn’t like the men Dwayne had told me about.
I didn’t know which side to believe.
Feeling like I’d been carrying a twenty-ton weight on my shoulders,exhaustion hit me like a freight train. The past few days had been nothing but emotional turmoil, draining every ounce of energy I had, and if I was right, if Mr. Fox was lulling me into a false sense of security,thenI was in for more turmoil.
I crawled on the bed, figuringthatif I let myself sleep for a couple ofhours, I could work out a plan of what I was going to do when I woke up. Still wearing the jacket, I yanked back the covers and climbed in before pulling the covers over my head as if they would hide me from the world.
When my eyelids became too heavy, I succumbed to sleep, prayingthatwhen I woke up, I’d be back in my bedroom at the house I shared with my dad, and all of this wouldjustbe a horrible nightmare.
A gentle tapping at the door had me bolting up in a confused daze. I’dbeen in such a deep sleep,thatI had no idea where I was or the time of day.
Bright light streamed through the voile drapes, and birds chirpedmerrily outside. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes, the room coming into focus, and memories flooding back in.
So much for waking up and everything being a nightmare.
Looking at the clock on the bedside table, my eyes widened insurprise. I’d been asleep for nearly fourteen hours.
“Cora?”the soft voice of a woman called through the door. My heartbegan to pound furiously as I leaped out of bed and backed up away from the door,eventhough it was on the other side of the enormous room. Panic gripped me as I tightened Mr. Fox’s jacket around me.
“Cora, sweetheart. My name’s Savannah. I know you must be scaredafter everything that’s happened to you, I would be too if I was in your place. But I’m not here to hurt you, Ijustwant to help.”Her voice held nothing but sincerity in it, but I didn’t dare move. It could have been another trick.“I’ve brought you some clothes and some food. You must be starving.”
I hadn’t thought about food, truth be told. I was used to going dayswithout eating when I lived with my dad, and the meals Dwayne had brought me hadn’t exactly been filling.
But now the woman,Savannah, had mentioned it, my belly rumbled,and as if my feet had a mind of their own, I crossed the room heading to the door.
