By handcuffs.

Fuck.

I sat up quickly and glanced around in a panic. Sharp scratching pain assaulted the side of my head when my shoulder brushed my ear. Feeling around, I realized my left ear had been covered in some sort of bandage. Then, I remembered the events of the night before.

I’d been shot.

Nikki had shot me.

I was in the same room as the previous night, but in the light of morning the details that the darkness had hid were now on full display. At the foot of the bed a wooden dresser that was splintering at the corners sat below a huge flat screen TV. A bi-fold closet took up the entire wall on the right side. The room was only large enough to fit one nightstand beside the bed. It wasn’t huge, but it was comfortable with a plush navy blue comforter and simple wrought iron headboard—the one I was cuffed too.

Where are my clothes?

I was completely naked from the waist up, but thankfully, my panties remained.

I had to get the fuck out of here.

My stomach twisted. I let out an agonized moan and clenched my hands over my belly. The door opened, and the man from the night before appeared.

They call me King

He stepped into the room like he was stepping out of the gates of hell and onto earth where the very presence of us mere mortals pissed him off. He held my gaze with a steady glare that shook me to my very core.

“Name,” he demanded, closing the door behind him, stopping at foot of the bed. He folded his muscular arms over his chest. On the right side of his neck a vein pulsed beneath the ink of his tattoos.

His eyes darted down to my chest and I crossed my free arm over my breasts the best I could to cover myself.

“What’s it to you?” I quipped. King wore the same dark clothes as the night before, same belts around his forearms. The only difference was the addition of a dark grey skullcap. In the light of day I noticed that the tattoos I’d caught a glimpse of the night before were very intricate. If you took the scary out of the equation, King was drop dead gorgeous. His eyes were so dark green they almost looked black. His lips were full and slightly pink.

“I figured we might start with your fucking name and then move on to you telling me where the fuck that bitch went with my money.” He seethed.

He was the most terrifyingly beautiful thing I’d ever laid eyes on. With my fear of the dark, things always seemed scarier at night when my mind had a tendency to exaggerate the situation. But in the daylight King was more everything. More intimidating, more scary, more angry…more beautiful.

“You stole from me, pup. This is your one and only chance to tell me where the redheaded bitch went. You will pay one way or another, but if you tell me right now, you might just get out of paying with your life.”

My head was fuzzy and starting to spin. My life was on the line, but I could only seem to focus on trivial things. “Where are my clothes?” I asked.

“You stole six fucking grand from me, you’re fucking clothes should be the least of your concern.”

Holy shit! Six grand?

Fucking Nikki.

“Don’t play with me girl.” King wrapped his hands around my ankles and yanked, sliding me forward until I landed flat on my back. My arm stretched as far as it could without tearing out of the socket, held captive by the handcuffs. My other hand was braced on the bed, my breasts were again exposed. “Are you worried I copped a feel while you slept? Maybe I did. Because what you are going to learn is that I can do whatever I want with you, whenever I want. Because right now, I fucking own you.”

In all the time I’d been living on the streets, I’ve had some close calls, some serious gut check moments. I’ve seen things that have made my skin crawl and my heart race. I was very familiar with feeling afraid.

Fear had nothing on King.

“Don’t keep trying to cover those pretty tits of yours. Last night, you were about to wrap those pretty lips around my cock, so don’t suddenly feel the need to cover up now. Even though, those little girl panties of yours have kept me hard since I stripped you down.” King leaned forward, bracing a knee on the mattress on each side of my hips. He cupped my cheek in his hands. I tried to turn away from him and he dug his fingers into my jaw and yanked me back to face him. “Do you want to know what exactly it is that I do to people who steal from me, who take what’s mine?”

“No,” I panted. And I didn’t want to know.

“I’d refer you to someone who could tell you firsthand, little girl, but none of them are breathing right now.”

Shit.

“I don’t know where she is, I swear. Please, just let me go.” I plead as I squirmed underneath him. I didn’t want to die because of Nikki’s stupidity. “We can work something out.” I said. I have no idea what exactly I meant by that, but I would’ve said anything to get the hell out of those cuffs and out of that house.

King looked me up and down. “I’m not interested. That ship has sailed,” he said, coming close enough to me to run a finger along my protruding collarbone. “You may be pretty, pup, and those eyes of yours get my cock hard, but you’re all skin and bones. Besides, I don’t fuck junkies.”

“I’m not a fucking junkie!” I screamed wildly. Being called a junkie when in the time I’d been living on the street I hadn’t touched a single drug, set me off like a lighter to a fuse.

“Bullshit! There is no other reason you could possibly be stupid enough to steal from me besides needing a fix. And I know you’re not from around here, because if you were you wouldn’t have even thought about taking what’s mine.” His voice grew louder, his glare ice cold. He thought I was just like Nikki. A junkie. He expected me to cower.

He expected wrong.

“I don’t give a fuck who you are, asshole.” I seethed. “And you’re not as smart as you seem to think you are. Tell me something, who exactly was it who appointed you judge of all people?”

I thought my words would start an all out war but instead King didn’t look angrier, he looked only mildly amused. “Well you are partially right. Because when it comes to me and mine, I am the judge. I am the jury. And if need be, I am the motherfucking executioner.”

His words hadn’t yet had the chance to marinate in my brain when my stomach took the opportunity to interrupt by growling loudly. King’s gaze followed the sound to where I hugged myself with my free arm around my mid section in an effort to steady the ever-growing ache. The dizziness again threatened to take me under, but I fought it back.

King was still sitting upright on his knees, straddling me. I sat up as far as the handcuffs would allow until my face was only inches from his. “Nikki is the junkie. I’m just hungry you fucking asshole!” I spat.

King fists clenched at his sides. He raised his hand. I ducked and covered my face the best I could, bracing myself for the strike.

But it never came.

After a moment I opened my eyes. King was staring down at me, his hand raised, but not in anger, he was rubbing his palm over his short hair. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

I was bound in his bed with no way out and no way of knowing what was going to happen to me. It was a bad time for my foot-in-mouth syndrome to be acting up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I mean, I just—”

“Shut up.” He said with a new calm control.

“I don’t do drugs. I never have. I mean, not that I know of. You see, the thing is—”

“Shut up.”

My stomach growled again, it twisted so hard I saw stars in front of my eyes. I needed to eat. I needed to escape. I needed to be anywhere else, but in his bed. “I swear I didn’t take your money. It wasn’t me. That wasn’t the plan. I was just supposed to get a biker to—”

“Shut the fuck up!” he roared, his explosive rage effectively silencing my scrambled monologue.