Just a silent and unannounced death, in this bed.
Just then the bolted door to her prison clinked. The lock mechanism was being released…as she expected, in the matter of seconds a tall lean silhouette stood in her doorway.
Footsteps encroached upon her mattress haven and Sakura unconsciously shivered as she withdrew into a fetal position, a failed attempt to hide from what came next.
He kissed her.
On the ear, specifically. Sakura shivered, both from the added cold air from the open doorway and the fear she felt from his added presence. Sometimes she wondered if he kept her room and the house (or whatever he'd placed her in) cold just to make her have to cradle close to him, for warmth.
Well, it worked.
Sakura, wearing only a white tank top and white shorts (the latest outfit he'd given her to wear) gave in to his warm hold and buried herself into the soft confines of his black sweatshirt, as he endearingly wrapped his arms around her like a pseudo-lover's embrace.
It wasn't enough.
Sakura still shivered in the cold and Sasuke smirked as she tightened her hold around his waist, pulling his lean muscular frame as close as possible to block out the freeze.
Yeah, he definitely lowered the thermostat whenever he came to visit her. Inner Sakura noted when she felt him kiss her forehead, taking advantage of their proximity.
There were times, like now, when Sakura wondered how such a beautiful dark haired man, with soft embraces like this would have to resort to kidnap and rape to get a woman to be with him.
What had happened to him?
To make him like this?
For that was another thing that bothered Sakura about her austere predicament: she didn't know a single thing about the man torturing and comforting her at the same time.
A content sigh couldn't help escape out from Sakura's cherry lips when the shivers finally subsided; that is, after Sasuke had completely pulled her straight against his entire length and turned so that she lied completely beneath him.
The man was wearing smooth business slacks and a dark black dress shirt that accentuated his lean torso. He wasn't in the least bit bulky, having the perfect amount of muscle to tissue ratio and sinfully attractive looking as a result of his perfect face and height.
Sakura knew she would have fallen for someone like this.
In any other circumstance.
Sasuke smirked as he heard her sigh and felt her shivering subside. Sakura tried to pretend she was still cold, to prolong what she knew he was going to do now that they were in this position but Sasuke saw through her act.
He leaned down and whispered in her ear: "If you're still cold, my dear, I can think of several other methods to warm you up."
And Sakura's shaking subsided, just like that.
Sasuke couldn't smiling at her easy predictable self.
"Please…." Sakura was already pleading. "I really don't want-"
"Shh," was all Sasuke had to say to quiet her and he suddenly drew her sitting up.
"Come with me."
He undid the digital lock on her manacles (by using a scan key he hung around his neck) and pulled Sakura up by her hand. He was being gentle, for right now at least.
To keep him from getting angry, Sakura compliantly followed behind the dark haired man as he led her out of her room, for the first time in…well Sakura couldn't remember the last time she'd seen the
outside anymore.
There was a small bathroom conjoined to the metal room so Sasuke always forced her to shower there, before handing her the clothes he wanted her to wear that day. He even served her meals inside the place so Sakura never had to step out. She supposed it was because of he knew that she had a better chance of running away outside than she did inside.
Sasuke lived in…what looked to be an apartment, only extremely huge. Almost looking like the presidential suite of some fancy hotel. The last time Sakura had been outside she'd been blindfolded and led a very short distance from the metal room, before being forced to sit on a chair so Sasuke could cut her hair. When he'd first taken her, her hair had been short to her neckline.
When he'd cut it, it had already grown to run down her backside.
While Sakura didn't physically feel any older than eighteen (when he'd first stolen her), she knew she was at least nineteen by now.
Sakura was permanently crippled from using her chakra anymore and she couldn't even try to fight him with hand to hand combat because he always kept her mildly weak with sedation in her meals.
The only reason she was so lively right now was because she hadn't eaten anything yet today, which was both ironic and disturbing that she had more energy before eating than she did after.
Sakura bit her lip as they passed yet another corridor while still on the same floor. His home was starting to feel like a maze, and they hadn't even traversed any stairwells yet!
Where in the world was she?
Finally, Sasuke stopped before an empty doorway, shadowed completely in darkness, obscuring whatever it contained.
When the man moved to stand behind Sakura, motioning for her to go in first, she started feeling like a sacrifice in some crude ritual. As if the instant she stepped through she would be devoured whole by some invisible snake.
"Go on," Sasuke said while shoving her gently.
Sakura took one step forward.
Instantly, the lights came on their own, lighting up the entire room.
Scratch that, dining room.
While the entire room was spacious, with a long slender obsidian glass table that Sakura knew was Sasuke's purpose for taking her here.
The table's end that faced them had a cake on it. White creamed with pale pink gel writing (that matched her hair) that wrote simply: SAKURA, across the entire rounded surface.
Next to the cake was also a large but rather flat wrapped box in glossy pink paper and a red ribbon on it.
The entire bizarre scenario screamed birthday party but Sakura was sure that it wasn't winter yet again because for one, she'd already had her birthday, about a couple months after he'd first taken her; and two, because it was always snowing whenever it was her birthday. Right now, judging by the color of the trees, she guessed it to be about Fall.
And also, she wasn't sure if she was comfortable with the idea of her kidnapper throwing her a party.
In the moment she'd taken to observe the scene, Sakura hadn't noticed that Sasuke had sat down at the table.
Before she knew what was going on, she felt him pull her into his lap. Sakura yelped in fear but Sasuke's great strength easily steadied her and she was forced to balance across his legs.
Sasuke's lips curved into a grin. "Do you know what today is, my dear?"
Sakura could hardly focus as she felt a knowing hardness already pressing uncomfortably into her hip; god, tonight was not going to end well.
She shook her head desperately. "I don't know."
Sasuke moved up close to whisper into her ear next: "Our anniversary."
So it had been a year.
One entire year he'd stolen from her.
Her previous fire, that Sakura had thought was all but squashed, reignited inside the pit of her heart. Hatred. Pure enmity, that was what she felt for the man.
Though it was just a spark and she kept it repressed for now.
Sasuke ran his slender finger across the side of the cake to grab a lump of white cream on just the tip before raising it to Sakura's lips, as if to feed her.
God, Sakura hated this.
But she lowered her mouth and sucked his index clean.
Sasuke's arousal was just getting harder beneath her and Sakura couldn't help shivering in disgust. The man mistook this as the chills again. "Are you still cold?" he asked concernedly while rubbing his hand gently over her back.
His voice spoke implicitly: "Perhaps we should skip the cake and do what I suggested after all, to warm you up."
Sakura immediately shook her head. "I-I'm fine!" she cried desperately. "Really I am!"
Sasuke stared at her for a long time, trying to fathom whether or not she was telling the truth. Suddenly he captured her red plump lips with his; he ravished her with all the fervor he could muster. Sakura squirmed instinctively in the kiss but a hand came to lock against the back of her head and he deepened their union.