Lost Highway by Bijou Hunter Page B

voice rough from sleep.
    “I’m cleaning.”
    “Why?”
    “So it’ll be clean.”
    “Does that mean you plan to
sleep in here again?”
    “No. I like the couch better.”
    “Then why clean?” he asks, now
angry.
    I look at him and find his
expression stuck somewhere between enraged and exhausted.
    “This isn’t Tom’s cabin
anymore. I want to wash away what reminds me of him.”
    Quill says nothing for a long
time before grabbing my arm and yanking me to my feet. “If you want to clean up
after old Tom, you better get started in his trophy room.”
    Dragging me out of the room and
down the hall, he unlatches the door to where Tom kept his trophies. I think I
know what to expect, but the sight of such horror still shocks me. I reach for
Quill, but he shoves me inside and locks the door.
    “These poor people,” I whisper,
looking over the shelves of body parts floating in jars.
    I don’t beg Quill to open the
door. I refuse to listen to the voices asking me to join them. They show me a
nearby blade and ask me to open my throat. They promise me everything, but I
give them nothing in return.
    Quill opens the door and stares
at me. Although his face is concealed in the shadows, his mood is evident. He
wants me to break. If I’m insane, he can save me and be the one in control.
Otherwise, he’s only a man lost in a lifetime’s worth of strange emotions.
    “I’ll burn them once the fog
lifts,” I say, ducking under his arm pressed against the doorjamb. “Thank you
for showing me.”
    Grunting at my comment, Quill
follows me to the living room where I change CDs and play Otis Redding. He
leans against the wall and watches me. I glance at him over my shoulder and
smile slightly.
    “I hate you,” he hisses.
    “You’ll get over it.”
    Rolling his eyes, Quill heads
for the front door. He sees the fog and realizes he has no escape. I watch him
stare at the door, and then he looks at me. I think he might strike out at me.
Returning to the bedroom, I wash out the bucket and decide I’ve done enough for
today.
    I step into the shower, wanting
to scrub away the horrors I’ve seen and touched. My mind is on Quill, and I
wonder what he’ll do next. He’s usually impossible to read, but now he doesn’t
even understand himself.
    Stepping out of the shower, I
find him at the bathroom door. His gaze washes over my naked body, and he
exhales coarsely.
    “It never ends,” he says,
walking away.
    I follow him with only a towel
wrapped around me. He opens the basement door until I touch his hand.
    “We could chain you to the bed
in your room. It’s quieter in there. No lying voices.”
    “I don’t want you in my room.”
    I cross my arms and frown up at
him. Quill is behaving like a baby. While I feel pity for him never actually
having a childhood, I also lack the patience to deal with his tantrum.
    “I won’t go down there.”
    Quill leans in and growls, “I
can make you.”
    “But you won’t. You want me to
be in charge. You need me to chain you up and make you orgasm. So are we going
to your room or are you handling this problem yourself?”
    Frowning, Quill looks around,
and I realize he’s never even masturbated before. He has no idea how to make
himself feel better. The naughty part of my brain hopes once he settles down, I
can teach him a lot of fun things.
    Quill sighs full of defeat. The
poor guy will have to fuck me in a bed. I want to laugh at his expression but
restrain the urge so he won’t lose his already hair-trigger temper. He
retrieves the chains from downstairs and brings them to his room.
    A large, four-post bed rests in
the corner of the room. I glance around at the décor and assume the owners of
the real cabin chose the flowered wallpaper.
    Nearby, Quill strips down. With
every piece of clothing he removes, his expression becomes increasingly sullen,
and the beast more intense. I lock him into the chains before my towel comes
off.
    Again he takes in the sight of
me and seems more