Mountain Captive by Cassie Mint

Nine

Natalia

Iwake to a sunlit cabin and the smell of pancakes and bacon. Stretching my arms overhead, I sigh happily and roll over, smoothing my hand across the mattress beside me.

The sheet is cold. Ice cold.

Carver didn’t sleep here last night.

I frown and sit up, blinking the sleep from my eyes. He’s here, by the kitchen range, dressed in worn jeans that cling to his long legs and a sage green flannel shirt. Carver’s back is turned, his head bowed over the cooking breakfast, and unease prickles at the back of my neck.

“Carver?” He turns and throws me a smile over his shoulder, but it’s all wrong. Polite. Distant.

“Breakfast is nearly ready. Do you want syrup on your pancakes?”

I nod, willing him to call me princess. He turns back to the range without another word, flipping a pancake with a spatula.

A cold, clammy sensation trickles down my spine. All the warmth of the morning slides away—the sunshine spilling golden through the windows, the leftover warmth from the fire, it’s all chased away by shadows. I bite down hard on my tongue.

“What’s going on?”

With my father, I always danced around my questions. Played it safe, lest he blow up in my face.

I’m done playing it safe. I’m no coward—not anymore.

Carver’s shoulders tense, but his voice is steady. “I’m making breakfast. Brewing us coffee. Then you can have another shower if you like, and I’ll walk you back to your tent.”

My heart thuds in my chest. It beats slow and hard, my pulse roaring in my ears, and for a second I forget to breathe. My hands fist in the bed sheets, knuckles turning white, and I will myself to stop feeling.

When I suck in a ragged breath, Carver finally turns around. He’s frowning, concerned, but what the hell does that matter? It’s the polite concern of a host, not a lover. A host who’s ready for me to leave.

“Natalia?”

I scramble out of bed, my legs wobbly as I stumble over the floorboards. I glance around, looking for my possessions before I remember that I was stolen here without warning. Holding my chin high, I march and scoop up my sleeping bag with all the dignity I can muster.

“Natalia,” Carver barks. “You need to eat first.”

I whirl on him, not bothering to hide the hurt etching my face. It’s cracking me open, slicing up my insides, and I couldn’t smooth it away if I tried.

Carver freezes, eyes wide.

“I don’t want your food. You got what you wanted, is that it? You got your revenge, you had your fun, and now you’re done. Time to ruin someone else’s life.” My laugh is hollow, so bitter, and Carver winces before he steps forward. He’s still clutching a spatula in one hand, and for some reason that makes me want to scream.

“Goodbye, Carver,” I spit, bundling the sleeping bag higher in my arms. “Do me a favor, okay? Go and jump off a cliff.”

It’s a lame parting line, but I don’t even get to finish storming out. I yank his door open and march out onto the deck, but I don’t even reach the first step before two arms cage me back against a hard chest. Carver lifts me easily, kicking and cursing in his hold, and carries me back into his cabin as I fight like a wildcat.

“Let me go,” I yell as he drops me on his mattress. He reaches for the rope still tied around the bed rail, his expression calm. “You can’t tell me to go and then tie you to your freaking bed!”

“No?” His fingers are quick, tying the knot around my wrists as I kick and fight, my puny noodle arms next to useless compared to his strength. “Looks like I just did, princess.”

I yank on the ties, hard enough to rub my skin raw, and a scowl lowers over his features.

“Be careful,” he says, voice dark. “I won’t be happy if you hurt yourself.”

“You jerk.” I slump back against the mattress, suddenly exhausted. Tears well in my eyes, spilling down my cheeks, and how am I here again? In the one position that I woke up craving, and that now feels like a cruel joke.

He doesn’t want me to stay. But he won’t let me leave.

“Please.” I screw my eyes shut. “Let me go.”

The hurt that bloomed in my chest when he told me I’d be leaving today—it’s spreading like a bruise through my body. My breaths are coming fast and ragged, and when fingertips trace my cheek, I tear my face away and bury it in the pillow.

“Princess.”

“Go away.” My yell is muffled by the fabric. The mattress dips as he sits beside me on the bed.

“Princess. Look at me.”

“No.”

“Natalia. Please.”

It’s the desperate edge to his voice that makes me look over. Out of bitter curiosity more than anything else, but then I find his face open and raw. Carver gazes down at me with so much naked emotion that my chest throbs. I tug on my ties, lips parting as he watches me.

“I didn’t realize.” He frowns. “I’m your kidnapper, Natalia. I never dreamed that you would want to stay.”

I blink at him. I can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can only lie perfectly still and strain to hear his quiet words.

“I’ve done so many bad things to you already.” He traces my bottom lip with his thumb. “And princess, it’s just the beginning. Stealing you away, tying you up—it’s just the start of the bad things I want to do to you. Do you understand?”

I nod. Dazed. Not quite daring to hope.

I want him to do those things to me too.

Carver shakes my shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt, just to jar me back to the conversation.

“You’re not gagged, Natalia. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

I lick my lips. And tell Carver the words that I can only admit to him. To the man who knows me, body and soul.

“I’m thinking… that I wish I were gagged.”

Fierce hunger ripples through him. His eyes darken, his lip curls with savage satisfaction. A tendon stands out in his neck.

“Princess,” Carver says, rough and tender. Then he snatches up last night’s gag and shoves it between my teeth.

He’s not gentle with me. Not in these moments, and I relish every bruising grip, every yank at my clothes. Carver tears the shirt and sweatpants off me, splitting the fabric straight down the middle. And when he climbs onto the bed, kneeling between my trembling thighs, he grins as I kick at his chest.

“Easy, now.” He catches my ankle and squeezes. “You’ll only make this worse for yourself.”

I growl and shake my head, thrashing and gnawing at the gag, and Carver laughs darkly as he runs one finger up my bared pussy. I’m drenched, dripping onto his bed sheets, and the sound of that smoky chuckle makes my hips twitch after his touch.

He tugs his shirt over his head. Unbuttons his jeans. And pulls out his cock.

“Mmph.”

I yell into the gag, twisting and panting as Carver looms over me. He’s big and bulky, the weight of him dipping the mattress, and his dark chest hair tickles over my skin. He pauses at my entrance, jaw clenched tight, and forces me to look at him.

“Are you sure?” he asks, hunger still burning in his eyes, but there’s more there, too. Care. Love.

I nod quickly. I want this more than anything, more than can be healthy, and I bracket his hips with my thighs and squeeze. His mouth quirks and then his broad head nudges me, pushing inside my entrance. It’s a stretching, burning sensation and I let out a whimper as the first inch disappears inside me.

A cool palm smooths over my forehead, brushing away the hair.

“It’ll be okay. Just a bit of pain at the start, and then I’ll make you feel so good, princess.”

I nod weakly, breath hitching as he slides in another inch. I’m so wet that there’s barely any resistance—only the tightness of my muscles. I force myself to relax, dragging in a low breath and imagining myself melting into the mattress. It helps, another few inches sliding inside me, and Carver murmurs soft praise into my hair.

“Fuck. You feel so good. So perfect, Natalia. This pussy was made for me. Made for me to tie up and fuck. I’ll never let you leave. Never let you out of my goddamn sight.”

I nod, heat prickling over my skin at his words. The stretch of him still stings, but there’s something else there now too. A delicious tickling sensation, a perfect kind of friction, and I lift my hips to chase it. Carver chokes out a low laugh and seals his mouth to mine, pressing the rest of his cock inside me.

It’s big. I’m so stretched and full and my heart is brimming over in tandem. Especially when Carver grits out a dark curse and begins to move, hips pumping, gentle at first until that rough edge I love comes back. His hips slam into mine and I lift up to meet him, tugging on the rope tying my wrist and savoring the scrape on my skin.

With anyone else, I’d feel deviant. Sick. But with Carver…

I’m home.

He matches my darkness, meets it with his own, and I decide here and now that it doesn’t matter if he tries to do the right thing. If he tries to take me back to my tent.

He brought me here. Showed me how love can feel. Let me into his home and his heart, taught me the sweetness of pain, and ensnared himself too in the process.

I’ll never leave. Whatever he tries.

He’s not the only one with no limits.

“Stay with me,” he grinds out, like he can hear what I’m thinking. “Stay here in my cabin. Don’t go. Don’t ever fucking go.” His face is pressed against my collarbone, licking and biting, and when I nod my chin scrapes his hair. Carver groans, digging his fingers into my hips, and slams into me over and over. It’s too much and it’s perfect, a sweet overload of sensation, and my toes curl against the backs of his legs as he rubs against my clit.

“There’s only you, Natalia. Only you in the whole goddamn world. Just your sweet face and your wicked smile and your clever mind. And this pussy.”

His fingers dig deep into my hips, deep enough to bruise, his thrusts becoming crazed. I arch my back, seeking the friction I need, and he rubs over my clit in a way that makes my body sing.

My orgasm is like the storms that haunt the mountains. It rolls in slowly at first, but as it fills me, it crackles with power. I bite down hard on the gag, wrists tugging on the rope, and lock my thighs tight around Carver’s hips. And I come.

He pushes up on his hands, staring at me as wave after wave of sensation rolls through me, tightening around his cock. Sweat beads of my forehead and my cheeks flush, and still he watches me like I’m the answer to all his prayers.

“Fuck,” he mutters as I finally slump back against the mattress. Carver licks a stripe up my throat and slams into me once, twice, three more times.

Warmth spreads through my pussy. Carver hovers over me, muscles shaking, as he gives me everything. Every last drop.

I hitch my legs tighter, drawing him deeper into me.

I’m not going anywhere. And neither is he.