Free Escape from Bondage by Dusty Miller Page A

resistance of the pillow, which was a lot
softer than she was used to. “Um.”
    It felt good, but it wasn’t
sleep.
    There were more small sounds, little
bumps and a rasping sound. She thought it was the tree branches
again, the wind must be really picking up out there. Her eyes
flickered. It wasn’t working…it was like she just couldn’t drop
off. Every so often she had a night like that, of course. It was
never welcome.
    A strong thud came right at the
window, looming a couple of metres away from the foot of her bed.
Panes rattled and the curtains trembled.
    “ Argh.” She thought for a
moment and whispered a single expletive. “Shit.”
    There was quiet now except for the
sound of light rain on the glass. She was just turning from her
right side to the left yet again. The sound of tapping on the
window made her growl in frustration. She snapped on the light and
sat up, strongly tempted to go over and reassure herself it was
just branches in the wind. She glared in the general direction of
the offending window.
    “ Eek!”
    There was a dim red shape in the
glass, visible through a narrow gap in the dark patterned curtains,
down low just over the sash. It took recognizable form in her
consciousness.
    Her jaw dropped.
    Braden! What instinct for
self-preservation stopped her from shouting his name, or anything
at all for that matter, was a blessing of the first
magnitude.
    Oh, my God.
    His hand beckoned, and he mouthed
words silently. His face was wet from the downpour as she swung her
legs out of bed. She went to the window, putting her toes down
first and making a minimum of sound. She pulled the curtains away
and tried to lift the window.
    The thing was sticky in the guides.
She bent low, put her back into it and got a good grip.
    She bit her lip. It made a groaning
sound. She shoved the thing up as high as she could get and then
stood back, keeping the window up with her left hand as Braden
clambered up and over, dripping a trail of water and grinning like
a drunken idiot who has just won the lottery after a lifetime of
total mediocrity.
    Her eyes slid to the window. Braden
nodded, and took over. He eased it down until it was up just enough
to get his fingers out from under it. She looked around, and
settled on a rolled-up magazine to keep the window from dropping
the last bit. He stuck it under and gave a small push on the top of
the frame. He pulled the curtains tightly closed. They billowed
slightly in place from the remaining air flow.
    Putting a finger to his lips for
silence, he pointed at the bed and so Heather gratefully retreated
someplace warm.
    Sitting with knees up and a blanket
over her legs, she watched as Braden took off his ball cap and
opened his jacket. The silence of the room was all too loud now.
What in the hell was he thinking?
    Yet the thoughts of having
sex silently, which perhaps might not be truly impossible, stirred her and
she wondered if Braden was some kind of a genius. The last three
months had been sheer hell. Her groin throbbed at the thought of
sex. The first week here, had brought on a kind of desolation of
the spirit. She had been struggling with it. He stood at the end of
her bed, looking down in total seriousness. His initial smile had
vanished.
    She licked her lips and watched his
eyes, breathing deeply in anticipation.
    He came over and sat down on a small
chair she used for dressing. He reached into his side jacket pocket
and pulled out what looked like a sandwich bag. She wondered if he
had condoms in there. The notion of a snack or something seemed out
of odds with what was happening…
    He opened the top and proffered a note
in her direction.
    “ Read it.” The words were
barely perceptible, but she flinched from the unthinkable
possibility that one of the other sisters might wake up in the next
room or across the hall.
    His eyes traveled the walls and the
layout. He held a small flashlight, with his elbow propped up by
the night table, as she opened it up and began