Lap of Luxury (Love Don't Cost a Thing)

I’ve been kidnapped and he’s trawling through my social media lies? This is adding insult to injury.

“I’ve been to Mykonos, thank you very much.” I went with some friends after high-school graduation for a few days of warm Greek wine, fried food and dancing till three in the morning. It was done in the most frugal way possible, but I still blew through my meager savings. “And the Swiss Alps.” For like a day.

“Why did you never tell me that this is what you wanted? I would have taken you anywhere.”

I stare at him, confused. He’s speaking as if we share something intimate together. “What are you talking about? I don’t know you.”

“It’s my fault. I didn’t think to try and find out about you online. Dating has changed since I was twenty-one.”

“Dating?” I rattle the handcuffs that have me chained to the bed. “You think this is dating?”

He reaches out a hand to stroke my cheek, and his eyes are as dark as black satin. “I can show you the world, Bethany. All you have to do is ask.”

His seductive words twine through me, as if he’s offering me a ripe, juicy peach. Damir, with his strange appetites and starving-wolf gaze, wants to show me the world. But at what price? “I don’t want anything from you.”

His eyes drop to my mouth, and I find myself looking at his lips, too. His lower lip is full and soft-looking, like he could give decadent kisses that would go on for hours. I feel my toes curl.

“We’ll see,” he murmurs, and his hot breath fans my throat.

My flesh prickles with awareness of him. “I need to use the bathroom.”

Damir dips into his pocket for a key and unlocks my handcuffs. “You have two minutes. Don’t bother to try and lock the bathroom door. I broke the lock while you were passed out.”

I stand up quickly and take a step toward the bathroom, and my eyes land on the door to the cabin. Damir is lounging on the bed behind me. If I lunged for the door and it was unlocked, I might be able to get out of the room.

“Do you think I’m some sort of amateur?” Damir drawls. “That door is locked. We could wrestle for the key, if you like. It’s in my pocket.”

I can just imagine the sort of wrestling Damir is into. “Do this often then? Kidnapping?”

“Jealous of all the girls who came before, princesa?”

I stalk into the bathroom and slam the door behind me.

I gaze around the room as I pee. The room has been stripped bare. No towels, no little bottles of shampoo. I finish, flush the toilet and check under the sink and in all the drawers, but there’s nothing. No hairdryer with a cord that I could use to strangle Damir. The only thing in the room is a cake of soap on the basin. I use it, and then drink from the tap. I drink a lot because I’m so dehydrated, and then splash water on my face. I have to dry myself on my blouse because there’s nothing else.

I stare into the mirror, taking a moment to collect my thoughts. It’s like I’m living in one of the movies I consume like popcorn. A madman with a knife fetish who’s out for blood. If he catches Mr. Ravnikar and Ciara, they’re done for. And me? What fate does my Freddy Krueger have in mind for me? Will I be snuffed in the first act, or make it through to the end?

There’s always one girl who makes it out of the haunted house. The cabin in the woods. The suburban party gone wrong. She confronts the killer, rips off his mask, and then—

Then she takes his face in her hands and kisses him tenderly, and he pushes her roughly down onto the nearest flat surface and fucks her hard. That’s how it goes in my fantasies, anyway.

I know. I’m fucked up.

What actually happens at the end of those horror movies is the final girl kills the bad guy. Or, at least, she thinks does. He’s lying there, looking dead as dead can be, but as soon as she lowers her weapon and steps over his corpse, he comes back to life and grabs a hold of her. They have one final struggle before she really does kill him and she’s finally free forever.

You’ve got to be clever with these killers. They’re tricksy bastards.

There’s a rap on the door, and Damir says in an angry voice, “Time’s up. Get out here.”

I open the door and step out. “I’m coming—ah.” Damir’s yanks me back into the room and pins my wrists together behind my back, his arms tight around me and his face close to mine.

“I told you two minutes,” he seethes.

“It was two minutes.”

“It was three. And I heard you going through the vanity. Why?”

“I was looking for a hand towel.”