DEAD IN BED By Bailey Simms: The Complete Second Book

PART 10, AUTHOR'S NOTE - 2/10/15, 12:09pm

"You're almost there, Bailey." The cop was calm. "Don't make me come in there."

With this, I closed my eyes, whipped off my bra and underwear, tossed them out the doorway, and wrapped one of the two towels from the rack around myself.

I turned on the water. I just had to get this over with as fast as possible.

"Make sure it's hot, Bailey. I mean it. Hot."

I kept my eye on the doorway. But the cop didn't ever look in. While the tub filled, I watched him grab my clothes off the floor, but he kept his back to me. Before the bath was even close to full, I stepped into the tub, lay the towel over the edge, and lowered myself into the scalding water. I lathered the washcloth with the bar of soap—men's soap—and hurried to scrub myself clean. There wasn't any shampoo at all, so I had to wash my hair with the soap.

"Take your time," the cop called out over the spilling water. "Do it right. You'll just have to do it all over again if you don't do it right."

By then, I was already as clean as I was going to get. I quickly stood and wrapped the towel around my body, clutching it tightly. The tub had filled; I hadn't bothered to turn off the tap. I turned it off now and stepped out, dripping water into the floor.

And that's when I remembered: the scene the cop had written where Ashley bathes in her dwellings room. It was right before he'd had Shawn knock on her door, right before he'd written Ashley enthusiastically sleeping with him.

What was about to happen to me?

I released the drain and pulled the towel even more tightly around me. Now that the tapwater wasn't running, things were quiet. My heart thudded. The only sound was the water gurgling down the drain.

"Don't drain it," the cop called out. "We can't afford to waste water."

This didn't make sense to me, at the time, but I quickly did what he said and stopped the drain. The bathwater sat motionless with a film of soap and grime.

"Come on out, now," he said. "Don't let the water get cold."

I cinched the towel around myself as tightly as I could. It took all my will to step out the doorway. I made straight for the corner farthest away from the cop, my hair dripping water onto the floor.

"Thank you," he said quietly and without expression.

And then he took his pants off.

He whipped them down and peeled them over his ankles so fast that I jumped. He folded them neatly and lay them on the chair, right on top of my own clothes, which he'd also folded neatly. Then he jerked his underwear down over his hips.

I turned around, quickly facing the corner. I was torn between a need to avoid looking at the cop while he undressed and a need to keep an eye on him in case he was going to approach me. I felt too vulnerable facing the wall; I turned back around. He was completely naked. For a moment I thought I was going to pass out from fear. He'd lain all of his clothes, folded, on the chair. And now he sauntered into the bathroom. I heard him lower himself into the bathwater—the same dirty water that I'd just bathed in—with a muted splash.

I listened while he casually bathed. He took his time scrubbing himself. Finally, he stepped from the tub, dried off with the second towel, and hung it again on the rack. He folded it as precisely as he'd folded the clothes.

By then I'd collapsed in the corner, pinching my towel around my ankles so that it covered as much of my body as possible. Refusing to meet his gaze, I kept my eyes locked at the floor.

He jangled the handcuffs.

"Wrist," he said.

I didn't move.

"Bailey. Wrist. Now."

I crept timidly to the bed and sat. Holding the towel with my right hand, I held out the left.

He cuffed my wrist to the bed rail.

For a moment he didn't say anything else. He just stood there, naked, right in front me, his arms folded.

"Just think if this was real," he said, lecturing me. "You wouldn't be half so lucky if this was a real kidnapping."

I just stared at the floor doing everything I could not to start hyperventilating.

"But this isn't real. You're scared, yes. You need to be scared. It's for your own good. You haven't had enough tough love." For a moment he paused. Then he added, "But you're safe, Bailey. You should know that by now. I'd only ever have consensual sex with you. Nothing else."

The way he used the term "consensual sex," with such hope that such a thing was a real possibility, was almost as terrifying as anything he'd done up to this point.

He gathered up all of the folded clothes, stepped out the door, still naked, and locked the bolt.

I have no idea how long it took me to start breathing normally again, or for my heartbeat to return to a semi-regular pace.

It was long enough, though, that I was still curled in a ball on the bed when a plate shot through the slot at the bottom of the door, slid all the way across the floor, and knocked into the wall by the bed.

When I took off the lid this time, there on the plate was my clothes, washed, ironed, and folded neatly. Resting on top of my underwear, which was folded into a precise triangle, lay the handcuff key.

I haven't seen him since.