Behind Closed Doors. Tara Quinn Taylor
original captor slowed and Harry held his breath.
Please God, let them be done. Take them away from my wife, from my home.
Still inside Laura, the man lifted a hand, slid it beneath her gown and grabbed her breast.
Harry saw her body lurch. Laura’s injured cry was the only sound in the room—other than the ugly slamming of the rapist’s flesh against hers. Harry watched as the man further exposed his wife’s glistening white skin and tears pooled in his eyes.
Trying to swallow, he choked. His jailor’s grip didn’t loosen.
The man on top of his wife shuddered, jerked a couple of times. There was no huge sigh, no taunts or threats or gloats of victory, no sound at all to accompany the dirty releasing of fluid inside Harry’s wife.
Sliding away from Laura, leaving her body exposed to the air-conditioned room, the man zipped his fly and Harry got a smidgeon of satisfaction when the bastard bit back a low curse as, with gloved fingers and haste, he caught his still-engorged penis in the zipper.
Harry hoped he’d drawn blood.
Other than his original grunt of pain, the taller intruder hardly seemed to notice what he’d done to himself as he walked behind Harry, placing his hands, like a vice, at the base of Harry’s neck and around his jawbone. He was the stronger of the two. And all business.
And when he felt those hands settle on him, Harry knew they weren’t finished yet. Laura legs were crossed, her hands tied at the wrists and fastened to one bedpost. Still facing the wall, she was sobbing. He could see the shudders wracking her slim body.
The smaller man approached her slowly. His hands together at the waistband of his pants, the bastard left no doubt about what he was going to do.
A little more tentative than his partner, he pulled down his zipper, his hard white cock falling out. Laura locked her ankles together when he tried to spread her knees. The man hesitated and from behind him Harry heard a whisper. Something about white, he thought, but couldn’t be certain, not with the roaring in his ears.
That communication changed the smaller man’s bearing completely. With more force than the first intruder had used, he pried Laura’s legs apart. Not glancing, even for a second, toward her face, he stared at her crotch, touched it with a gloved hand. He seemed to like it when she jerked back as far as her constraints would allow. And then, without further warning, he plunged inside her.
Afraid he was going to have a heart attack before he could get to his wife, Harry sat there, trying to ignore the heavy pounding in his chest, tasting blood and bile on his tongue. And leather. Holding the piece of glove he’d bitten off inside his mouth, Harry promised himself they’d get these guys.
And make them pay for what they were doing to Laura. Make them pay and pay and pay.
Her left breast was exposed, and he focused on that, so vulnerable and so sweet.
The smaller man drew out once and plunged back in, and Harry prayed that Laura could last through another onslaught. Then, before the thought was even coherent, the man had shuddered. And pulled out.
It occurred to Harry that now was the time to fear most. Either they were going to torture Laura or him or…what? Did he really expect them to let him and Laura live?
For what purpose?
The smaller man softly repeated the words Harry’s guard had issued earlier. White stays with white. Laura didn’t show any reaction, any sense that she’d been spoken to.
But then, Harry could only imagine the hell his wife must be occupying.
Maybe it would be better if the rapists simply killed them. At this point death almost seemed a mercy.
He grunted a fierce warning, because he couldn’t sit there complacently, just accepting what the bastards had done. The grip on his neck tightened and Harry’s head swam with blackness.
Were they going to finish with Laura after they broke his neck? He couldn’t leave her to them…
Harry’s flesh cooled, the red behind his eyes dissipating, before he realized that the gloved fingers around his neck were gone. He opened his eyes.
He and Laura were alone.
She’d twisted herself around until her lower body was under the covers. Her body shook with sobs.
Tears blinding him, pain in his nose and head and shoulder keeping him sane, Harry threw himself upward and over, hopping the chair inch by inch toward the bedpost where they’d tied Laura’s hands. And half an hour later, with his back to the post, using the numbed tips of his fingers, he had unfastened the ropes, sickened by the wetness he felt.
Blood? Or sweat?
Laura grunted, a deep, unfeminine sound that he couldn’t decipher. But in seconds she was at his wrists, releasing them. He went for his gag next.
“Oh, my love, I’m so sorry,” he said even before he’d untied his feet and faced her.
He assumed she’d untied her own gag as well. He couldn’t be sure. She didn’t say a word. And didn’t stick around for anything else he might have said or done.
Before he’d freed one ankle, Harry heard the bathroom door behind him slam.
And lock.
2
S he had to get them off her. Now. Away. Off her. Gone.
Hearing nothing except the internal voice hollering for cleanliness, Laura ripped at her gown. Her arms were weak, her hands shaking so badly she couldn’t grip. Pinching the fabric between her fingers she pulled, pinched and pulled, but she couldn’t get free.
Get this off me!
Her mind wouldn’t quiet yet couldn’t help.
With tears running off her chin, she stomped her feet, pulling at the garment. Trying to see, to focus on what she was doing.
Pinch and pull. Pinch and pull. And then, almost miraculously, she managed to get a handful of the thin cotton in one fist.
No! Get off me!
Clutching the material, Laura ripped for all she was worth. And stumbling, falling against the counter, she climbed through the tear she’d made down the middle of the gown, leaving the offensive material in a pool on the floor. The blurred image swam before her, blending with the light beige and blue of the tile. It couldn’t stay there.
Couldn’t stain her space with its filth. And she couldn’t touch it again. The disease it carried would crawl through her fingertips, up her arm and, like a spike of poison, slice straight through her heart.
The fuzziness in her mind, the haze surrounding her, enclosing her, allowed only one image at a time to intrude. And her focus was one-hundred percent on that image. The shard of poison—she could see it piercing her heart. Could feel it.
And do nothing.
Then she recognized the gown again. In a heap on the floor. Inches from her bare feet.
Feet that had touched dirt many times. All those summer days she’d walked barefoot as a kid. As she envisioned her toes sliding toward the gown, picking it up, dropping it in the plastic-lined trash can by the toilet, she thought she could do it.
Laura had no idea how long she stood there before she moved. And when she did, she caught a glimpse of her body in the mirror.
She was completely naked. Exposed. Her breast was discolored.
With a shriek, she grabbed a fistful of toilet paper. Using it, she picked up the gown, tossed it in the toilet, flushed and waited. It didn’t go all the way down. She flushed again.
And when the toilet water started to rise, she kicked at the handle behind the seat until it shut off, stopping all flow inside the tank.
The gown floated uselessly