Safeword: Arabesque (Safewords Book 9) (24 page)

Cassie nodded and Clemente turned to the other man. “Get her clothes off.”

Cassie fought him and landed a few punches, but Clemente kicked her in the side until she crumbled into a heap.

Once she was naked she tried to retreat inside of herself so she could pretend the things happening to her, weren’t.

They tied her over a spanking bench and Clemente used his belt on her ass. He didn’t warm her up, and it just fucking
hurt
. He never called the other man by name, just looked at him and gave him orders.

Clemente ordered the other man to fuck her face while Clemente took her pussy, and Cassie gagged around the cock in her mouth and fought for air. She bit down once, but the man pulled out and punched her in the face hard enough she didn’t try it again.

When Clemente pulled out of her pussy and pushed into her ass, Cassie screamed and cried around the invading flesh in her mouth and throat, but they only laughed at her.

“Now you fuck her ass,” Clemente told the other man, once he’d come inside of her.

Thankfully, the other man wasn’t as big around, but he was longer and she once again screamed in pain, but didn’t give them the satisfaction of hearing her beg.

They jerked and yanked her around like a rag doll, and Cassie shrieked in agony when she felt her arm dislocate from her shoulder.

Thankfully, from that point forward she wasn’t completely lucid. She hurt, and knew they were doing things to her, but everything merged together and she experienced it in a haze. Her eyes kept returning to the clock on the wall, and she was aware they hurt her and used her for more than four hours, and both men raped her more times than she could possibly count, but only the worst of it registered once her shoulder dislocated.

Clemente sent his slave downstairs before he whaled on her with his fists and then ass-fucked her one last time, ejaculating on her face with a slew of expletives before he added to her bondage and finally left the room.

Alone at last, she tried to move. However, her arms were secured behind her back, her shoulder dislocated, and her feet bound together and tied to something. There was no way to get across the room to her clothes and cellphone, or to the door.

Screaming hadn’t brought anyone, so she tried kicking the floor and the bottom of whatever she was tied to, but gave up when it didn’t bring anyone, either.

Chapter Twenty-One

Cassie thought she must be dreaming when someone from Sam’s security detail entered the room. He ordered the man with him to call police and an ambulance, and knelt beside her. “I’m going to take some pictures before I untie you. Okay? The local DA will need them to prosecute.”

Cassie nodded and didn’t look at him as she heard the electronic shutter. He took the pictures quickly, and then bent to free her feet with his knife after instructing the other man to take video.

“You know who I am?”

She tried to talk but her throat was raw from screaming. She nodded and managed to say, “Sam’s security.”

“That’s right. Sam was worried and had me look for you. My name’s Nathan.”

She warned Nathan about her shoulder, and he was super careful as he freed her arms, and then pulled a blanket from his backpack to wrap around her.

He squatted on the floor in front of her, opened a bottle of water, and put it in her good hand, careful to be sure she could handle it before he moved his hand away. “Just a little for now. Technically you shouldn’t have it in case you’re in shock, but I think a few sips will do your throat some good.”

The water soothed her parched mouth and throat, but brought the taste of the men back. She filled her mouth with water, swished it around, and spit it on the tan linoleum floor. The water was tinted pink, but she looked away from it and took another sip.

The paramedics took the water away from her when they arrived, and the police weren’t far behind the ambulance. Thankfully, Nathan told the officers they couldn’t talk to her until she was in the hospital and had been taken care of. He flashed some credentials at them when they started questioning why he was there, and they backed off.

The ride to the hospital was hell, but then she went into another version of hell as police and hospital personnel scraped the underside of her fingernails into a bag and then explained what they needed to do to gather evidence of rape to be used to convict whoever did this to her.

When they’d finished collecting whatever was needed for trial, the doctor gave her a shot to deaden the pain and put stitches in her rectum where the two bastards had split her open.

They brought a portable x-ray machine in and took pictures of her shoulder and ribs, and when one doctor finished with her genitals, another put her shoulder back into the socket.

When Sam finally walked into the room, Cassie thought she might start crying, but the tears wouldn’t come. She’d distanced herself so far from her emotions she wasn’t sure she’d ever feel anything again.

Her mental health training told her she would, but she ignored the voice of logic in the back of her head. She could only process so many things at once, and for now, the haze she was in was there to protect her, so she’d let it.

Her friend took charge of the situation by using her fancy lawyer talk to politely let the officers know how it was going to be, and then had Cassie tell her story to the officers without them interrupting to ask a zillion questions.

Sam stayed on Cassie’s left side, so she must have known about her shoulder. Or, maybe the sling gave it away.

Cassie did okay telling her story until she got to the part where they stripped her of her clothes. Sam had been holding her hand and providing moral support just by sitting with her, and now she told her, “You’re doing fine, Cassie. I know this is hard but we need to document everything we can so we can nail the bastards. Okay?”

With Sam’s help, Cassie managed to tell them all she could remember. As the officers prepared to leave they let Sam know another officer had been assigned to guard her door in case Clemente showed up.

Cassie’s stomach jumped into her throat and terror took her breath.

“Ethan and I will both stay,” Sam assured her. “Frisco and Tom and everyone else are close, too. Jose Clemente won’t get anywhere near you. I promise.”

Cassie took a shallow breath, then one a little deeper, careful to keep her ribs as still as possible. She ordered her body to relax, and rested her head on the pathetically flat hospital pillow before closing her eyes. If Sam said Clemente wouldn’t come near, then he wouldn’t.

The door opened and fear shot through her again. She opened her eyes, saw it was Frisco, and turned her head away. She didn’t want him to see her like this, and she certainly didn’t want to have to look at him.

“Please leave,” she told him, trying to sound strong.

“I need to make sure you’re okay.”

“You don’t care,” she said, her voice more bitter than she intended. “Go away.”

Thankfully, Sam spoke up and said, “Cassie’s been through a lot. She’s not okay, but she will be. Maybe you can talk to her later?”

Frisco said something about being just outside the door, but Cassie kept her head turned away from him until he was gone.

“What do you need from me?” Sam asked. “It’ll be best if you can close your eyes and drift off, but if you can’t handle the silence I’ll talk about whatever you want.”

Cassie sighed and looked at her friend. “Frisco and Cam and I? It was perfect. But he wouldn’t give me what I needed, physically
or
emotionally, so I guess it really wasn’t as perfect as I want to make it.” Sam didn’t say anything, and Cassie added, “He didn’t lead me on. He told me from the beginning he’d just show me the ropes, but I had to go and fall in love with him.”

“Frisco called Cam when we couldn’t find you, to see if he’d heard from you. I didn’t know Cam had moved in with you.”

Cassie nodded. “Yeah, Frisco kicked him out when Cam told him he loved him.” She rolled her eyes. “Their contract said no heavy emotions beyond the training relationship, so professing his love broke the contract.” Sighing, she added, “It doesn’t work with just the two of us. I mean, we’re friends, but sex doesn’t work without a Dom over us.” She looked away from Sam and focused on a blank spot of wall. “I should’ve been safe tonight. I took all the precautions and thought I was being even safer by checking out the neighborhood in daylight, but…”

“Don’t beat yourself up,” Sam told her. “Clemente is an asshole and a bully, and you aren’t the first woman he’s put in the hospital. He fucked up this time, though. In the past he’s done it to prostitutes and street girls — people without the resources to make him pay. He offered them fifty thousand dollars to drop the charges and lie and say maybe it was someone else. They thought they were set for life, but you’ll laugh at that kind of payoff.”

Sam had won her title fight the night before but was pretty banged up, and she’d hurt her knee bad enough it was in a brace. Cassie saw her babying it, so when the nurse came back she asked, “Can you get my friend some ice for her knee, and maybe a way to prop her leg up while she sits?”

The nurse had someone bring a recliner in, and brought an ice pack that fastened around Sam’s leg.

“I’m supposed to be taking care of you, but thanks.”

“You had a rough fight last night. You’re supposed to still be taking it easy.”

Cassie should probably tell her to go back to the hotel, but she needed her friend and was terrified of being alone.

“I’m not sure where my phone is,” Cassie said, looking around though she knew it wasn’t in the room. “I was going to wait until morning to call Cam, but since he knows what’s going on I should call him now so he’ll sleep.”

Sam handed her phone over and Cassie called him. He answered on the first ring and she could hear the relief in his voice when he realized it was her.

“Are you okay? Frisco said…” He hesitated and quickly picked up with, “Are you still in the emergency room? Do you need me to fly out? I checked flights, I can be there in about six hours.”

“No. I need you to stay home and take care of Jake for me. I have Sam and Ethan and my other friends, and I’ll be home in a few days.”

“They’re letting you go home?”

“No, they’re admitting me but I know what my injuries are, and they should release me tomorrow or the next day if there are no complications.”

“Is there anything I can do from here? I feel so helpless.” His voice cracked and Cassie wished he could be here to hold her hand, but knew he needed to stay home and keep up with his classes and rehearsals.

“I’ll be okay, but it means the world to have you care so much.” She took a breath around the sharp pain in her ribs and said, “If you want to do something for me, find someone who took some pictures of your performance last night and send them to me. I need something to make me smile.”

A female doctor came in as she was handing Sam’s phone back, and made sure Cassie wanted Sam to stay in the room while they discussed her injuries. Cassie squeezed Sam’s hand to make sure she stayed put, and told the doctor to speak freely.

“You know about your shoulder, and you’ve probably guessed you have some broken ribs. There was some rectal tearing, which we’ve stitched up, and you have a lot of bruising and abrasions around your entire groin. It looks like you were repeatedly struck with a number of instruments and there is a good deal of bruising and trauma to large portions of your body but I believe those areas should heal on their own. I’m a little concerned about the open wounds on your back, but you’ll be on antibiotics to keep the stitched area in your rectum from becoming infected, and those should protect your back as well.”

Cassie nodded. “The bastard whipped my back. Can I see the x-rays of my shoulder? Both before and after they worked on it? Also, I’d like to see the ones showing my ribs.”

The doctor hesitated and Cassie said, “I’m an RN, and I’d like to see exactly what’s going on inside of me, please.”

“Oh, certainly. I’ll get one of the nurses to bring them in for you. Let us know if you want to see anything else.”

“Can you order some x-rays of my jaw, please? I’m still nursing some old injuries, and they…aggravated it.”

It was nearly daylight outside before Cassie was moved out of the ER to a regular hospital room where more of her friends could be around her.

With a room full of people, Cassie convinced Ethan to take Sam back to the hotel, and the group decided Tom, Tara, and Kirsten would stay with her.

Frisco tried to insist he’d stay, but she didn’t want him around. He told her he’d be in the hall just outside if she needed anything.

Apparently, the police officer was still there, as well as someone from Sam’s security detail.

At some point, Frisco came in with everyone else and she was tired of telling him to leave. He stayed in the background and didn’t try to talk to her, but she had to look at him and wished he’d just go the fuck away.

Eventually, he started insinuating himself into the conversation, and by the evening she kept forgetting to snub him.

This would be so much easier if she didn’t actually like him.
Asshole
.