Thief of Hearts by Kimberly Zant

THIEF OF HEARTS

By

Kimberly Zant

© copyright by Kimberly Zant, 2012 Reissue.

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author's imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Dear Diary:

I woke last night to discover I was not alone. It was the most erotic, and at the same time the scariest, experience of my life.

I don’t know why I didn’t wake the moment he touched me. I am not a heavy sleeper. Usually, I wake at the slightest movement, the faintest sound.

Perhaps, in my subconscious mind, I believed it was my boyfriend, and no threat, and that is why I remained passive and more asleep than awake until it was far too late to struggle. But my boyfriend was working out of town, had been gone for more than a week and was not scheduled to return for yet another week.

In the end, I roused enough to remember that, but, as I said, it was far too late then.

It was the tape that covered my mouth that woke me thoroughly. My heart thudded in my chest, but I could not scream. When I tried to sit up, I discovered that I had been tied and before I could see who had stolen into my dreams, my eyes were covered with what must have been a silken scarf. It was tied snugly around my head, blinding me, making it difficult to hear, as well.

A voice whispered near my ear. “Don’t struggle. I won’t hurt you.”

I didn’t believe him, of course. I was still sluggish from leaping from deep sleep to wakefulness. My mind was still grasping with the realization that it was not, as I’d thought, my boyfriend.

But I was certain I was in danger.

What did he want? To rob me? To rape me? To torture and kill?

I could believe anything but the last. I simply could not accept that as a possibility.

Unable to speak, unable to see at all, or hear more than a faint rustle of sound, I was forced to rely upon my other senses.

I felt the bed dip beneath his weight as he loomed over me.

My heart thundered in my ears, but I reminded myself that I needed to keep my wits about me.

A strange sense of calm settled over me, slowing my heart, freeing my mind from panic so that I could think.

I realized that he must be a very large man to cause the bed to dip so that I rolled toward him. In a moment, I smelled a man’s cologne and knew at once that it was not, as I’d hoped, my boyfriend’s cologne. I could not put a name with it, but it was a cologne that I’d smelled before, expensive and heady to my senses. I had tried to get my boyfriend to buy some, because the smell just drove me wild, but he preferred his own brand.

I could detect no odor beneath it that would indicate a cologne bath to cover unwashed body. It seemed doubtful to me that he was some street thug or a common burglar.

Perhaps it was some college freshman performing an initiation?

Maybe not. Try though I might, I couldn’t detect anything that made me think there was anyone in the room besides the two of us, and surely, if it was that sort of game there would have been at least one witness?

After a moment, I realized that while I was trying to place the man in a mental picture, he had removed my nightgown. I had been dimly aware of something sliding along my skin, something cold, hard, thin, but I had been too distracted—too unwilling to accept what my senses told me it was.

When I felt the cool night air on my bare skin, like a whisper of breath, felt the tug of the fabric as he removed it, I began to struggle, trying to pull free, trying to strike at him with my bound hands.

“Bad girl. I told you I wouldn’t hurt you. Now I’ll have to punish you.”

My heart leapt into my throat and I tried to scream, struggling harder as he rolled me onto my stomach. Nothing happened for several moments. I lay stiffly, frightened, but unable to help myself.

In a moment, something slapped against the soles of my bare feet. I jerked reflexively, although it did not hurt. The slapping became rhythmic until my feet began to tingle with sensation. I could feel the blood suffusing them, making them more sensitive as the slapping continued.

When the sensitivity reached the edge of pain, he moved upwards, along my calves, my thighs, and assaulted my bare buttocks. Although I jerked once more in reaction, my terror slowly subsided as I realized it didn’t hurt. What, I wondered, was he doing? What was he using?

Try though I might, I simply could not identify his ‘weapon’, but he continued to strike it against the soles of my feet and against my buttocks alternately until they tingled with sensation, ultra sensitive because he had brought the blood surging to those areas.

I’m ashamed to admit it, even to myself, but I had almost begun to enjoy it when he stopped.

In a moment, something cold, and damp, slithered over my sensitive skin. I jumped at the sharp contrast against my now heated skin. Ice?

I wasn’t sure at first, but as it cooled my heated flesh, I realized it was indeed ice.

I shivered, tried to squirm away from it, but found it was impossible to move more than an inch or so in any direction.

At last he stopped. “Shall I punish you again?” he whispered. “Or will you be a good little girl?”