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“Come on,” I said, offering her my tattooed hand. “I have something set up for you.”
“For me?” she asked. When I nodded, she added, “Well, when you put it that way, how can I say no?” She slipped her frail hand in mine, and I led her away from the library, knowing she wouldn’t have said no for long. I would’ve made her come with me whether she wanted to or not.
I took her through campus. It was a quiet Saturday; most of the campus was actually gone because of the three-day weekend. We had no classes Monday…hmm. Maybe I’d keep her in my room longer than I planned. She deserved a bit more of a punishment than I had prepared with what she did with Sawyer.
“Where are we going?” Ash asked, her eyes taking in her surroundings.
“It’s a surprise,” I told her, and it was. She’d never been in my room before. It would all be new to her, just as I suspected my punishment would be, too.
My dorm building was for upperclassmen. It was nicer than the freshmen dorms, and a lot taller too. There were ten floors, each of them decked out with their own lounge with a huge, flat screen TV.
Ash let out a laugh when we walked into the lobby. Its floors were marble, white with gray streaks, everything about it new and expensive. “This looks like a dorm,” she said. “Tell me the surprise isn’t in your room. I don’t know if we’re at that level yet, Travis.”
Oh, we were. She simply didn’t know it yet.
I gave her a quick look as I brought her to the elevator and hit the button to my floor. “Trust me, you’ll like this.” I had no idea if she would, but that was okay. I’d make her like my punishments sooner or later. Sometimes these things took time. It was a good thing I was a patient man.
As we rode up the stainless-steel elevator, Ash chuckled softly to herself. “You guys are all so strange.” There was a pause before she muttered, “And somehow I’m still here.”
It was good she was still here. I had no idea what I’d be doing if she hadn’t come to Hillcrest. Going along with whatever Sawyer said, probably, doing whatever he wanted to do. Getting back at Declan, making him wish he was the one who hung himself and not Sabrina. And I was fine with it, but that was before meeting Ash. Before seeing her. Before knowing what it was like to truly have an obsession that took you over heart, body, and soul.
The hallway leading to my room was painted a light grey, the carpet darker grey squares. Not a single door we passed was open; most everyone was at home. I’d seen a few other students who’d stuck around, but they were the shut-ins who hardly ever left their rooms in the first place.
“I’ll admit, given how Sawyer had to steal your skateboard to get you to go on a date with him, I didn’t think you’d come with me so easily,” I said, glancing at her. My hand tightened around hers; she was locked in. Ash wasn’t going anywhere.
“There’s a part of that equation you’re not realizing,” she chimed in. When I lifted my brows, she added, “I like you a hell of a lot better than I like him.”
Hearing that nearly made me rethink what I was about to do, but…no. I wouldn’t let her pretty words sway me. Ash would be punished until she realized she was mine and Sawyer didn’t matter.
Sawyer didn’t matter, Declan didn’t matter. Nothing else should matter to her but me.
I released her hand as we stopped in front of my door. I unlocked it and gestured for her to go inside first. Ash stepped around me, her fingers fiddling with the straps on her backpack as she walked in, freezing almost immediately.
The chains, probably. They were on the floor, in between my bed and the couch, which was where my roomie’s bed would’ve been, if I had a roommate. It was a damn good thing I didn’t; I wouldn’t be able to do this if I’d been forced to live with someone else. The door swung shut behind me, and I was quick to lock it.
Ash let out a strange sound, something that sounded similar to a nervous chuckle. “What—” She couldn’t get out anything else, because I grabbed her backpack off her and dragged her to the chains before she even blinked.
She couldn’t fight me. I was stronger than I looked, and this? This was nowhere near as serial killer-ish as it appeared. I wasn’t going to hurt her, just force her to sit and think about her actions. Talk to her. Try to get her to understand that Sawyer wasn’t right for her.
I had her on her knees as I slammed the metal cuffs around her wrists. Not obscenely tight, but tight enough she couldn’t slip out of them. I locked them with a key, quite old-fashioned, too. My family would be proud.
Maybe. Or maybe they’d disown me for doing something so stupid. Oh, well. My family wasn’t here.
“What are you doing?” Ash asked, jerking back as I tightened the chains to the base of my bed. Now she couldn’t stand, couldn’t get up. The only thing she could do was crawl on her knees a few feet.
I set her backpack down on my desk, still holding onto the key. I ran my thumb over its metal face before putting it on top of her bag. I then moved to kneel before her, giving her a smile, which she didn’t return. Of course she didn’t. Why would she? Look at where she was, helpless, at my mercy. Ash wouldn’t smile.
She also wasn’t screaming, either.
“You’ve been bad,” I said simply, reaching around her, my hand running down her back. I heard her breath hitch and saw her cheeks flush in spite of the circumstances, but unfortunately right now I wasn’t touching her to bring her close to me. I wasn’t touching her in a way that would make her enjoy being chained up—that would come later. I was only getting her phone out of her back pocket.
“Bad?” Ash echoed, her grey eyes a whirlwind of questioning. Those same stormy eyes followed me as I sat on the couch opposite her, my knees apart. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the sight of her chained up in my room. If only I could keep her here…
No, she was her own person. Not a pet. I couldn’t keep her locked in a cage like a bird. I’d let her go, but first she had to learn her lesson. She had to promise me she wouldn’t talk to Sawyer again, at least not privately. Not while I wasn’t around. I couldn’t take the idea of losing her to fucking Sawyer.
Sawyer got everything he ever wanted. The women, the money, the booze and the drugs. What did I ever get that I wanted? Sure, I got a girl every now and then, but no one who understood me. After this…Ash would understand everything.
“You know what you did,” I told her, tracing the edges of her phone. I was hesitant to meet her eyes, mostly because they held waves of emotions I could not decipher. Not knowing what she was thinking, it killed me.
