Chapter Fifty Three

Raleigh

After Julia left and I went through the clothes, I wanted to rip them all off of the hangers and shred them to pieces but instead, I took a quick shower, constantly looking over my shoulder, terrified that her *Master* would show up at any moment and catch me naked and do horrible, unspeakable things to me.
She seems to think that he’s a good guy, but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s anything but. I mean, he ran me off of the road, caused me to wreck my car, and then abducted me, and is holding me hostage. That doesn’t exactly add up to a good person in my book.
By the time I’d finished with my shower, I’d gotten myself so worked up with different scenarios of what he may have planned for me, that it took the entire time of cleaning up the mess that I’d made within the room to calm myself down.
At some point I must have fallen asleep because the sound of the clicking in the lock wakes me and peeling my eyes open, I find that the room is filled with nothing but darkness. My heart beats hard against my ribcage as I look over at the door, a shape much larger than Julia’s filling the space.
“No!” I shout, as soon as he lunges towards me but my legs are trapped in the blankets and he reaches me before I can try to move away.
His hand lashes out catching my cheek just below my eye and immediately begins to swell. “Did you really think that you could get away from me?” he asks but as if he didn’t actually want an answer, he continues throwing and landing hits on my face, along with the rest of my body. Over and over again his fits land blow after blow.
At some point, I must have passed out because the next time I woke, my entire body is aching, worse than it had been the other day when I woke up after the car accident, I thought that had been pretty bad, and Julia is leaning over me with tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Oh, Dear, I am so sorry,” she says, the last word ending in a sob as a new rush of tears falls from her eyes. “He has—I have—I don’t—” Instead of trying to come up with the right words to say again, she just shakes her head and turns away, unable to look at me as she cries, her chest heaving with the weight of her heartache over her Master’s actions.
“Don’t. Make. Excuses. For. Him.” I manage to croak out between gasps of breaths, even talking hurts, my throat feeling swollen and bruised.
She turns back to me, dabbing at her eyes, tears immediately replacing the ones she just wiped at as she repeatedly blinks, trying to keep them from falling. “I’m sorry,” she says, her lower lip trembling as she tries to give me a sad smile and fails tremendously. “I can’t believe that he’s capable of doing something like this. It just is so—” She cuts herself off by shaking her head again when her breath begins to catch and it’s obvious that she’s about to start to cry again.
I can tell that she cares very much for the man that she calls her Master, which strikes me as strange. I can’t help but wonder who the man himself is and who he is to her? Has she always been a part of his life and she’s more like a grandmother figure to him than his maid or whatever her title is?
“Come on,” she says after a moment. “Let’s get you in the shower and get you cleaned up.” I immediately cringe, the thought of water hitting my aching body causing me to tense up. Julia must notice because her face gentles and she says, “Maybe a good soak in the bath would be a better idea.”
“Thank you,” I tell her, attempting a smile to show her how grateful I am for the amount of compassion she’s showing me after her Master’s cruelty, but the pain in my lips and the tightness around my mouth due to swelling I assume, let me know that I fail in that attempt.
When we get into the bathroom, Julia turns on the light, then turns to ready the bath water. As I wait, I avoid the mirror like the plague. I’m not ready to see the extent of the damage that’s been done to me just yet, and if Julia’s reaction is anything to go off of, I won’t be ready to face it for quite a while.
The water is warm and it feels good on my aching body, but I can’t stop the shuddering of my body or the chattering of my teeth. The bathroom is anything but cold, but a coldness has settled into my bones that won’t leave no matter how much warmth surrounds me.
Aside from my legs, almost every part of my body that I can see is mottled with black and blue bruises, some are large while others are much smaller, just slightly larger than the size of the ends of my fingers.
I close my eyes and lean back against the tub, trying to relax as best I can, although the pain all throughout my body from Julia’s Master's cruelty makes it difficult and I picture Lincoln in my mind's eye.
*He comes barging into the bathroom and finds me lying here naked in the bath, his beautiful blue eyes are full of a multitude of emotions that he hasn’t allowed himself to think about yet, too filled with a desperation to find me that he hasn’t stopped to eat, sleep, or think about anything else since I disappeared.*
*He sees me and he rushes to the bath and immediately pulls me into his arms, not caring that I’m naked or that I’m getting him all wet from the bathwater that’s now dripping all over him as he crushes me to his body, his mouth comes down in a desperate kiss, as if he’s afraid that I’ll disappear if he doesn’t claim my mouth right then and there. Wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, he slides his hands over the curve of my ass as I anchor myself to him and deepen the kiss, my own desperation to have him filling me.*
*“Lincoln, baby, I need you…” I murmur as I break away, trailing kisses across his jaw towards his ear. He rocks me against him, the bulge in his pants hitting my clit and stoking the fire within me even, making it burn even hotter. I nibble on his ear, flicking and twirling my tongue along it as if it were the head of his dick and making his release a groan and a muttered* fuck. *Making my way down his neck, I nip at the sensitive flesh, not leaving little bit marks, but loving the sounds that my actions are pulling from him.*
*When he must not be able to handle any more of my teasing, I feel his reach down and undo his pants, pulling his hard cock free.*
*“Is this what you want, Baby girl?” He asks, gliding the head of his cock along my pussy, covering himself in my juices. His head bumps against my clit as I go to answer, making answer with a gasping, *“Yes,* fuck.*”*
*“I’ve got you,” Lincoln murmurs as he lines the head of his thick cock up with my pussy. His lips come down on mine just as—*
A knock on the door startles me out of my *whatever you want to call that* followed by the sound of Julia's voice as she asks, “Miss Raleigh, are you okay in there? Do you need anything?”
Pulling my hand from between my thighs, I sit up quickly, causing water to splash over the side of the tub a little bit as I try to hold back a slight giggle as a blush covers my cheeks. I bite my bottom lip, trying to fight the grin trying to form on my face as I lower my face towards my lap as if I was just caught doing something that I shouldn’t have.
“N-no, no. I-I’m okay. Thank you though.”
I decide that that’s my cue that I’ve spent long enough in the bath and quickly run through the whole shaving, hair, and body washing routine before stepping out and finding a fluffy white towel waiting for me on the counter, along with a stack of what appear to be comfy clothes sitting next to the towel.
After getting dressed, I decide to brave the mirror and use the towel to wipe the steam from its surface. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and brace myself for whatever I’m fixing to see. When I open my eyes, a gasp escapes me, tears immediately building in my eyes, then falling as I stare at the reflection looking back at me.
One of my eyes is black and blue and nearly swollen shut, which I knew since I can’t see out of it. My nose appears to be broken, both cheeks and jaws are swollen and covered in bruises on both sides of my face. It looks like I’m wearing a mask, it’s so bad. No wonder Julia reacted the way she did.
Reaching up, I prod my nose, knowing that it’s going to hurt like hell, but also knowing that I need to reset my nose if I want it to heal properly. Closing my eyes, I take another deep breath and then quickly, not giving myself time to overthink it, I reach up and shift it back into place, a grunted scream of pain making its way past my clenched teeth as everything goes black and I fall to the bathroom floor.