Interception

Suddenly, the world was all pinpoint detail.

Hoffman kept his gaze front and centre and his hands just where they were, fixed around the metalwork. He watched a droplet of water form on the chilly surface, watched it grow heavy, shining senselessly, and then fall. The knife pressed against his neck was angled, and now the cutting edge itself fetched up against his skin.

“Either cut me or find something else to do,” he growled. “I'm busy.”

“Fucking prick,” was the response, but despite the words, the tone was clearly amused.

Amanda adopted a lazy grin, looking Hoffman up and down as he rounded on her. She lowered her arm and stuck the knife in the back of her belt. Even in the muted light she could see from the slight flutter at his throat that his pulse was only just starting to slow; she was honestly impressed by the show of bravado he'd put up in spite of the apparent threat, but damned if she'd let it be known. Her bare arms prickled with goosebumps in the chill of the room, but she ignored this and raised her chin at the piping behind him.

“How's the water pressure?” she asked. “I found a few leaks last night.”

“I know. They're fixed. It's fine.” he said, his words clipped and vaguely distracted. Amanda returned her attention to his face, however, and saw that his eyes were tracing her up and down with what she could only assign to outright prurience. Eventually, he seemed to realise he'd been caught in the act and his mouth curled into the familiar smirk.

“So why are you still screwing with it?” she asked, stepping around him and circling the apparatus, running her hands over the connectors, feigning absorbed curiosity. Hoffman didn't move, but his head turned, owl-like, to follow her. She spared him a glance and saw that his gaze was still simmering.

The question had been largely rhetorical. Amanda herself was prey to much the same malady: frustration. It had been a long time since the last series of tests – time filled with little besides running errands, feeding the prisoner, watching John deteriorate and sparring with Hoffman as if they were a pair of alley cats. Most of all, she'd watched the detective at every available opportunity, and was surprised to discover, of late, that there were hints of something else, something unexpected, mired in the hatred she'd been carefully cultivating. Rivalry was one thing, but this was–

“What?” he was asking her. Amanda's lip twitched and she became aware that she'd been staring back. She hissed a short sigh between her teeth and jerked her gaze away, raising it to the restraints.

“They're too short now,” she said, curtly. “I told you to leave it alone, didn't I?”

He gave her a look which had shut your fucking mouth written all over it in letters of blood, but instead, he said: “They're long enough. Try for yourself if you don't believe me.”

“Fine,” she snapped, stepping into the middle of the device and raising her arms to take hold of the lowest links. She winced slightly as she felt the cold steel slide over her skin, but gamely raised herself onto her toes and wrapped the chains around her wrists, tugging on them.

Hoffman moved so casually that she didn't spot his intention until it was too late; but with a spasm in her gut she heard the padlock snap closed and he was stepping back again and she was curling her fingers into the links like claws, every jerk raising her feet from the floor, trying in vain to slip her wrists from the chains. It was of no use. She'd watched him tie and shackle more than enough test subjects to be left in any doubt as to his talent for it.

“Let me out,” she said, keeping her voice low and even. He didn't even offer her the courtesy of a head-shake; he merely blinked once, slowly and deliberately, his quiet mockery all the louder for the turbid silence.

“Let me out,” Amanda repeated, and this time her voice cracked a little but she pushed through, driving her head forward to spit her words at Hoffman as hard as she could. “You god-damned rat bastard bottom feeding shit-eating cock-sucking son of a bitch let me out right now or I'll make you eat your fucking balls!”

This last fevered scream rattled the pipes along the wall and reverberated down the corridor outside. Dimly, she heard Matthews cease his hectoring in response to her own, and Hoffman took a moment to turn around and pull the door closed, the latch clicking with frightening finality. When he turned back, his face twisted, drawing into horizontal lines, all at once the very picture of ill intent. Amanda's heart skittered and she drew back as far as she could within the restraint of the chains, arching her body in a futile, animal effort to be away from him.

As he approached, she tilted her head back, but he curled one chilly, gloved hand around the back of her neck and clamped the other over her mouth. She snorted several quick, panicky breaths through her nose and thrashed weakly, but the lack of adequate purchase on the floor meant that all she achieved was to thrust her hips against him, and she felt his cock stir slightly in response to her frantic struggles. His breathing became harsher, and Amanda felt each exhalation brush her face, the only source of warmth in that refrigerator of a room. For several seconds his iron grip on her head tightened until she saw white light flare in the corners of her vision, and then he removed his hand from her mouth.

In spite of her fear, Amanda's reflexes took over at that point and she snapped her head forward, catching Hoffman on the bridge of the nose with what little strength she could summon from such an awkward position. He grunted – more in annoyance than in pain, she thought – and reared back, and she watched with wide eyes as a fine crimson streak burst from one nostril. He didn't react to this, didn't take his eyes from hers, he simply ran out his tongue and licked some of the blood from his upper lip as if it were a matter of little relevance.

“Did you enjoy that?” he asked her, his voice dull. His eyes were glittering savagely, and then he reached behind her back and withdrew the knife from her belt. He brought it up and turned the blade to and fro between them, the steel casting quivering, darting flashes of light across her eyes.

“No...” she yelped, and Hoffman tilted his head at her, questioning. “'What?” he asked, his tone now terrifyingly civil. “You didn't enjoy it? Come on. Take pride in your achievements, Amanda. I'm disappointed in you. You drew first blood and you should be grateful for that, but now it's my turn...”

With this, he laid the edge of the blade along the side of her neck, applying just enough pressure to keep her still and freeze her last breath half taken. He leaned in close and inhaled deeply, nuzzling at her cold flesh, smearing his own blood across her cheek like war-paint. She struggled listlessly once more and whined softly into his ear.

He laughed, and to Amanda's horror it was a musical, pleasant laugh, laced with what sounded like genuine good humour, and it was all the more disturbing for that. The blade turned, traced a lazy zig-zag path down her throat, and then plunged. She quailed, but the point of the knife lodged in the V of her t-shirt instead of her shrinking flesh. Hoffman's hand tightened on her neck as he sought more leverage, then dragged the blade down in a series of vicious jerks, slicing through the thin cotton. She squeezed her eyes shut as he ripped and cut the rest of her clothes away from her, panting like a bull from his efforts.

When she was stripped to his satisfaction, he stepped back to study her for a moment. Amanda saw that he still held her shredded panties in one hand, and he raised them to his face briefly, inhaling her still-warm scent, his lip curling with filthy pleasure. Then, dropping the violated garment, he closed in once more.

She was quaking and partly numb from the cold now, and even under the circumstances she was grateful for his proximity and the warmth he radiated. She felt his hands low on her body, felt the cold leather of his glove between her shuddering legs, felt his fingers probe inside her for a second, and she twitched in her chains like a fish on a line as his fingertip grazed her clitoris, his touch insouciant. Then he was gone, stroking his palms delicately up her body, cupping her breasts for a second before caressing her throat.

Amanda felt the urge to flinch from his touch, but this time she ignored it. Her pulse had slowed and was now almost lethargic, and each breath poured in and out of her lungs as if fluid. She twitched one side of her mouth in the ghost of a smile as Hoffman hooked his hands into the collar of his own shirt and ripped at it, tearing off the buttons. In spite of the chill, she saw that his flesh was glazed with a fresh patina of sweat that glistened in the tawny hair between his nipples. He moved closer still, close enough for her to smell the salt on his skin. It was intoxicating, and she licked her lips.

“Bite,” he said, the word no more than a tremor in the air between his lips and her ear.

“What?” she muttered from the depths of her sudden delirium, thinking that she'd misheard him.

“I said, bite,” he repeated, quietly.

Saying no more, he merely unbuckled his belt and freed his erection. Amanda sucked in a rasping, jagged breath as he lifted her without apparent effort, pushing between her thighs and making contact. She twisted gently, assisting him now, wrapping her legs around his waist and locking her ankles in the small of his back. Only then did she look him in the eyes, and what she saw there sent the iciest of erotic chills down her back. Hoffman's gaze was cool, detached and – she now understood – quite unhinged. She parted her lips to say something, but then he leaned in and forced his cock into her and she cried out, overwhelmed.

“I knew I'd make you scream sooner or later,” he panted, his voice coarse, as he began to thrust into her. “I told you to bite me, you dirty little bitch. Do it!”

She obeyed blindly, ducking her head and clamping her mouth onto his shoulder, her teeth raking skin and muscle. She tasted the fresh blood welling up, pouring over her tongue and sliding down her throat. Hoffman shuddered violently against her but did not break his rhythm or his silence, and Amanda shrieked as he skewered her even harder and faster, fingers digging into her thighs with bruising strength. The chains were now cutting into her wrists like razor wire and her hands were aching from the loss of circulation, but she couldn't bring herself to care about the discomfort; she was focused solely on the exquisite agony between her thighs. She felt something thick and sticky trickling out of her and suspected that she was probably bleeding by now, but this, too, was secondary to her building climax.

“I'm going to make you come so hard you lose your fucking mind,” snarled Hoffman. Amanda did not doubt it for one moment. She was squirming frenziedly, every muscle in her pelvis bunched and trembling.

“Don't...stop...” she begged. Her head rolled to one side, her eyes glazed over and she began to sob hoarsely, exhausted and aching now but unwilling to relinquish the beautiful hell-fire in her loins and the feeling of Hoffman's tongue on her exposed throat. He seized a fistful of her hair and pulled as hard as he could, and in the wake of this searing pain her orgasm hit her like a speeding train.

Several brutal thrusts later, Hoffman joined her. Amanda's cunt was still convulsing from the fury of her own peak, and now he erupted inside her with a rough gasp, his semen quickly overflowing and mingling with her blood, the hot fluid running down her thighs and between her buttocks.

For long moments, the only sound in the room was a harsh, discordant panting as they both recovered their breath. Amanda, her mind still operating on base instinct, tightened her legs around Hoffman's waist, loath to release him, not wanting that inevitable feeling of loss that always came afterwards. However, now the climactic shiver was subsiding her other nerves were making themselves felt with increasing vehemence; she was starting to shiver from the cold once more, her scalp was stinging, her pussy was raw and she knew her wrists and shoulders would suffer later. She unhooked her ankles and let him go, closing her eyes as he withdrew from her abruptly.

Moments later she heard the scratch of a key in a lock, and then the chains slipped abruptly from around her wrists, and then – quite without warning – she passed out.