Stay Vertical (The Bare Bones MC #2)(47)
He growled in my ear, “You don’t want to take a joy ride? Guess I’ll have to go down the dirt road then.”
What the f*ck? Not only was he starting to scare me with his lewd suggestions, he was talking like a six year old. I managed to jam a rapid elbow into his chest and spin around. “Listen, Iso, I’m not about to lay any pipe with you! See this cuff?”
Iso’s eyes flashed angrily. “Yeah. It’s a stupid f*cking cuff.”
“It means that I’m Lytton’s old lady now, so hands off!”
I didn’t turn my back on him again, but I darted to the side to inspect a table littered with, ironically, cuffs, ball gags, and leashes. Some cuffs were even nicer than mine, and I remember sort of bristling that he couldn’t have even come downstairs to choose this rhinestone-encrusted one for his cuffing ceremony.
I know—my survival instincts must have been asleep at the wheel or something. But I still wasn’t alarmed that Iso would get out of hand. I mean, I was Lytton’s old lady, and this was his house, right? They had a business partnership and Iso would ruin it for that?
Apparently I have a gift for overestimating people. No sooner had I brushed aside a pair of Velcro cuffs—like the ones Lytton and I had used in the greenhouse—than Iso whipped them past my fingertips. He’d already fastened one around a wrist before I really comprehended what he was doing.
He was snarling like a dog with rabies, and I cringed away from his foul breath as much as from his grime-encrusted being. “You think I give a shit whose old lady you are? I get what I want. And I f*cking want you, you cunt.”
I tried kneeing him in the balls, but for a f*cked-up wasted guy, he was surprisingly adroit. He sashayed his hips aside time after time while hooking me to a strong D-ring bolted to the wall. I could still reach out with some awkward karate kicks, and Iso dodged all but one that finally connected with his groin. I was wearing the black leather cowboy boots I thought went along with my new image, and they had a firm, pointy toe.
It was a full-on nut kick that had Iso doubled over, mouth gaping with pain. My free hand flew to unhook the cuff from the D-ring.
Iso was faster. Rebounding from the widowmaker kick, Iso backhanded me across the face. I fell to my knees, completely stunned. Everything went black like they say in novels, and I briefly wondered if he’d severed my optic nerve or something. I was so overwhelmed with sudden fear that I didn’t protest when he took my free hand and encased it in a different kind of cuff.
“Fucking cunt,” he muttered as he worked. “Think you’re hot shit because you’re an Illuminati whore. I told Zelov not to trust Driving Hawk. Fucking the sister-in-law of Ford Illuminati? That looks like a lowdown weasel who can’t be trusted, to me.”
Apparently he was yanking on some rope or pulley. Now that my wrist was encased in the new leather cuff, he could pull it toward the ceiling. I was sitting on the floor with limbs splayed, my eyesight coming back. It returned like a reverse tunnel vision, clearing first in the center as though I looked through a long telescope.
I thought of my phone, which I had seen on the table next to a ball gag. It was about six feet too far for me to grab. I was being manipulated like a marionette by some sick and dangerous psychopath.
“There!” he chortled. “You’re not going anywhere now.”
I knew the best reaction to dealing with instances like this was to placidly go along with things. I’d taken Peace Corps classes in diplomatic self-defense and the best course of action was to be submissive. Women who screamed and fussed and put up a fight were the first ones maimed or worse. I might not even be tasting my own blood on my tongue right now if I hadn’t tried to fight Iso.
Playing along is sometimes the best method. I used to watch those survival shows that depicted people extricating themselves from certain death, interviews of women who’d almost been raped and killed. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, hands down, the woman who played along was the survivor. It went against every grain of my being, but I had to pretend to go along. I wasn’t exactly in any physical position to rebel.
Of course, my spiritual conditioning had me making a few feeble attempts. “Iso. My sister Maddy is expecting me at noon. She knows I’m up here. She’ll come looking.”
Oh dear Lord. He was unbuckling his belt. I’ll never forget—he had a hand-forged buckle with the crossed swords logo of The Cutlasses, the belt so worn the leather was practically disintegrating in spots. Displaying how long he’d been a Cutlass, I guess. “You think I care, cunt? I can just sit on the front porch and pick off anyone who drives up. You think that little girl is going to scare me?”
As if on cue, my phone declared, “Call from Madison!” followed by the honkytonk jangling of the piano ringtone.
Great. Just great. I knew for sure he’d toss the phone out the window or stomp on it, but he didn’t seem to care. He was too involved in taking his dick out of his jeans, and the stench was unbearable. I turned my head aside and took several deep breaths, knowing I’d have to hold it.
“Driving Hawk thinks he can score all the fine, obedient bitches. He’s been lord of this f*cking manor for years, showing off his slaves, his cunts riding up and down the mountain on his * pad. Then he has to go and be a woos, shoot me in the foot.”
Iso went on and on in this manner, totally spilling scorn on Lytton. As though they hadn’t just done a job together, as though Lytton wasn’t working hand in hand with his club.