Room 24: Theirs to Humiliate, Theirs to Pleasure

“But we can move on from that, right?”

“Can we? Maybe I don’t want to.” I swear, I could script this. Even now, with a hundred ugly possibilities racing through my head, the predictability is sad enough to almost be funny. Now it’s time for him to pout, fold his arms, and draw me in, promising I’ll make it up to him.

“Then why would you come looking for me? You knew I needed help. You’ll always know me better than I know myself.” The words curdle in my throat, but I force them out anyway.

His shoulders lower from where they were hunched up around his ears, and his expression softens. He almost looks like the Adam I first fell for. The Adam he was pretending to be when he swooped in, and I got caught up in all of his lies. “You know why I had to look for you. We belong together. You need me. How could I let you go, knowing that?”

All I have to do is roll to the left until I’m off the bed, then grab my coat. I can just see it out of the corner of my eye. My whole body is poised, ready to make my move.

Until Adam trips over my open bag. We both look down, and I freeze in dread when I see what started to spill out.

“What is this?” He bends down and grabs it, pulling it out and holding it up for inspection. The corset. “What are you doing with something like this?”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I can’t come up with an excuse fast enough.

“Tell me!” he bellows before throwing the corset in my face.

That’s what gets me moving. I roll to the left, ready to reach for my coat, but he’s too quick. He takes a fistful of my hair and wraps it tight, pulling me back hard enough to make me scream.

“What have you been doing? Who have you fucked in this filthy place?” It doesn’t matter how I kick or scream. He pins me to the bed, wrists over my head, the weight of his body holding me down. “Tell me! Were you letting men fuck you? Is that how you’re making money now? You fucking slut!”

He holds both of my wrists with one hand, the other running between us and coming to a stop at my waistband. I buck and kick harder than ever, screaming, pleading, tears rolling down my cheeks. This is one thing he’s never done before. One line he’s never crossed.

He’s going to cross it.

“Nobody touches what belongs to me,” he grunts, working at my fly before yanking the jeans down over my hips.

“Please, please, no! Adam, no!”

We both jump when the door flies open hard enough to bounce off the wall next to it. It all happens so fast that I can barely keep up. One second, I can’t breathe because Adam’s on top of me. The next, he flies off me and hits the wall next to the bed. There are more people in the room, men, and one of them pulls Adam to his feet by his shirt collar.

Ranger. Followed by Dash and Arden; they’re all here. But why? And how?

“Are you okay?” Arden leans down, eyes darting over my face.

“How?” I look at Dash, standing behind him. “How?”

Ranger slams Adam against the wall, and there’s something satisfying about watching his head bounce off the paneling. “Get the fuck off me!” Adam snarls.

“Oh, no, pal. Not until we have a talk.” Ranger glances over his shoulder. “She okay?”

“I’m all right,” I whisper, drawing my knees to my chest.

“Adam Palmer.” Dash folds his arms, snickering as he looks at him up and down. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

“What are you talking about? Get your hands off me!” he demands. Ranger only uses him as a human hammer against the wall once again.

“If you’re going to download videos of girls who look like they’re barely old enough to grow hair on their pussy, you should make sure your security is a little tighter,” Dash informs him. “It took me all of five minutes to go through your files once I confirmed your name and location. You don’t even use a password for your Wi-Fi. It’s like you were begging to get hacked.”

“You hacked me?”

“Is it really hacking if you made it so easy?” Dash tips his head to the side. “That wasn’t all of it, either. Was it? I found some other things, too. You were actually stupid enough to let your face be seen in a mirror in one of those videos. Did you know that?”

I turn my head slowly, eyes wide, in time to witness the color draining from Adam’s face.

“That’s bullshit,” he whispers.

“You’re not a very good actor,” Arden mutters through his teeth. “I guess we shouldn’t be surprised a man who hurts women hurts little girls, too.”