Worst of all were the ones of women who were obviously not there willingly. They were shackled, tied, or strung up by chains. Some of them seemed young, but there was no way to know how old they were. Many seemed drugged and they all seemed scared to be where they were. She knew the face of a woman who had been sexually abused. She’d seen her mother’s face many times prior to her getting clean, when she was often subjected to sexual favors in exchange for drugs.
Eimear didn’t want to look at them again, but she had made herself do it anyway. If this was who Ciaron really was and Fergus was trying to stop him, then who was the real monster here? She regretted what she had said to him. It had been designed to piss him off, and she’d been successful. She just hadn’t expected the outcome. She hadn’t thought he’d do her physical harm, as he wouldn’t want to complicate the situation with that, but she’d not counted on him destroying her emotionally. She felt shattered.
Gathering up the photos, she went to the door and knocked. There was no response. Thinking he might have gone to his room, she went to the bathroom and tried the same on that door. Still nothing. Not wanting the photos in her room, not even destroyed, she began slipping them under the thin slit beneath the door one by one. When she was done, she returned to her room and got undressed, climbing naked beneath the covers to sleep, but it didn’t come.
She heard the lock on the door turn, but he didn’t open it. Drawing in her breath, she climbed out of the bed and walked to the door, opening it to find him already across the living room sitting in the armchair. She walked toward him, not caring that she was completely exposed. He watched her with a cocked eyebrow but said nothing. When she reached him, she stood there, her eyes locked on his.
“I want you to tie me up like this and take photos. Send those to him and see if it jars him into doing anything.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not fair to you.”
“None of this is fair to me, and I want to help. If he is the one who took those women, if they are being abused...I want to help you find them.”
He seemed to contemplate this for a moment and then nodded his head. She stood there, feeling a bit awkward walking around with nothing on, and he did her no favors, looking her body up and down appreciatively. Perhaps it should bother her, but it didn’t. In some odd way, it aroused her, and as he retrieved some rope from a nearby closet, she only grew more heated.
“Come on,” he told her, walking toward her room. She noticed that he’d picked up the photos and they were back in the envelope. She could see the corner of one of them peeking out from the open top on a nearby table.
Inside, he took his time posing her on the bed, spreading her legs and arms open and tying them to each corner of the bed. This rope was soft, not like the rough hemp he’d used before, and rather than duct tape, he’d retrieved a clean handkerchief and gagged her with it. She knew that her eyes were puffy from crying, so that would only play into the photo.
Finally, he took out his phone and snapped a dozen or so photos of her, including one with his hand on her thigh, his fingers digging into her flesh. She wondered if he could see how wet she’d become as he went about setting the scene, but if he was turned on too, he showed no sign of it. Whether she genuinely wanted him as much as her body told her she did or it was just a reaction of defiance to what she’d learned definitively about Ciaron today, she couldn’t be sure. All she really knew was that she wanted him to fuck her in the worst way.
“Okay,” he said when he was done.
She watched as he lay the phone aside and undid her gag before moving over to untie her wrists.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Don’t what?” he asked, looking down at her.
“Don’t untie me,” she replied.
“You want me to just leave you here like this?” he said flatly.
“No. I want you to fuck me,” she said, biting her lip hopefully.
“I didn’t bring you here for that.”
“I know you didn’t, but I want you to anyway.”
Fergus looked at her for a moment longer, not saying a word. Then he stood up and began stripping off his clothes, revealing a body just as astounding as she had expected it to be and a cock that was impressive even though he wasn’t even fully hard yet—but he was getting hard, and that told her all she needed to know. He had been turned on by the sight of her naked body or by tying her up, or maybe both.