by Lee Wardlow
“Not well,” Disa replied.
Dad knew Disa pretty, well from our school days when she was friends with Danni and me then to her working for him at Ike’s. He pulled himself away from the counter that he had been leaning against that separated my living room from the kitchen. He gripped the edge though until his knuckles turned white.
“Not well,” he agreed. “I don’t want Ron to have access to you and the only way we can guarantee that you are safe is if you live here with Ben, if that isn’t a problem?”
“No problem,” I responded.
Disa turned around and looked at me. She chewed on her lower lip.
AJ leaned in the doorway. “They don’t know it was us,” he said. “But he will come looking for her and you because he will kill to have Lilah back. Do you want to know what he was doing to Lilah in the basement of that house?” He asked.
She slowly let her gaze drop to the floor and shook her head no.
“Then you’ll stay with Ben,” AJ declared. “Mom, Dad and Seth will help you move in here tomorrow.” He wasn’t giving her a choice.
Her eyes, those amazing eyes of hers traveled up to my face. She was seeking reassurance that I was okay with this. I reached out and caressed her cheek with my fingertips. I knew that I would never get tired of touching Disa. Her skin was soft beneath my fingers and for a moment, I forget that Dad, AJ and Heath were in the room.
“It will be fine,” I whispered.
“It’s time to go,” Heath declared. “Some of us have to work in the morning.”
He had to be at work at six-thirty. It was now two a.m. Heath had to leave home at six. I had to be work at nine and would need to leave home at seven thirty. It was going to be a long day for us. I assumed that AJ would stay home tomorrow. When I asked him about staying home tomorrow, he snorted.
“I sit at a desk all day and crunch numbers. I’m going in.”
I didn’t have a response to that. Somehow, a logical person who had gotten shot would stay home at least one day. Logical, normal people don’t get shot, though.
We walked to the living room. Seth was hanging onto every word that Merci was saying. Disa and I exchanged looks. I don’t know if anyone else saw his interest, but we did. That was not a good idea. Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I didn’t know what she had been through, but I didn’t like my family interfering in my life, I wouldn’t interfere in my brother’s life.
“Time to go, Merci,” Heath told her. Lilah had joined them. I recognized the clothes she was wearing as Disa’s. I didn’t know where hers were.
Heath thought of that though before I could say anything. My brother thought of all the details because he was good at this game he had been playing with AJ for a while I would guess. “Where are Lilah’s clothes?” His tone sounded gruff, but he was just concerned about someone finding them here.
“I couldn’t face putting them back on again. Disa told me to leave them in her bedroom.”
Heath shook his head. “Evidence,” was the only word he said like they could understand his thoughts with just one word.
“I’ll get them,” Disa butted in before Heath could scold Lilah. She glared at him. “Give her a break.”
He shook his head again as Disa walked by him, down the hall towards our room. It was our room now that she was moving in with me.
When she returned she slapped the bag with Lilah’s clothes at Heath’s chest. Dad texted Hawk who responded quickly that it was safe for AJ and Heath to leave with the women.
“Seth, you’re coming with me,” AJ informed him. “I can’t drive tonight. Dad will pick you up in the morning.”
Heath pulled the hood up on Lilah’s sweatshirt. He tied it tight hiding her thick, straight dark hair. Then he zipped it. The room was quiet as we watched my brother touch, the young woman. I didn’t know how old she was, but she was younger than him.
“Let’s go, Lilah. You’re with me.” He shoved her not so gently towards the door. It was unintentional. Heath was used to dealing with five brothers. He didn’t know his own strength and he avoided women because of his leg.
“Easy, Heath,” Dad warned him, rolling his eyes.
He made no remark as he followed Lilah out the front door, letting the screen door slam shut in his wake. I don’t know how my child managed to sleep through the entire fiasco of this evening, but she had.
“This should be interesting,” Dad remarked, rubbing his hand across his face. He was tired.
Merci took Disa’s hands. It was their turn to leave as soon as Heath left the driveway, I gathered from AJ watching out the front door. Then Dad would be following AJ.
“I don’t want to leave you,” Merci declared.
Disa tugged her into her arms. “I don’t want you to leave. I just got you back.” They held each other until AJ told them it was time to go.
“Now,” he repeated himself when nobody moved.
“AJ let them say goodbye,” Dad said.
“What if he comes looking for them tonight?” He appealed to Dad.
Dad patted his shoulder forgetting about his gunshot wound. AJ almost went to his knees in pain. “Sorry son.”
“Now,” he croaked.
“It will be morning at least, before he can track down Ben. Merci told us she didn’t know who he was to tell Elder Ron anything when he came home from the park asking her questions. Most likely he only knows he is a Hatfield, if he has that much information.”
“I would feel better knowing they were both far away from here,” AJ replied.
“Fine,” Disa snapped at him. “Go,” she told her sister. “I’ll see you as soon as I can.”
Seth led Merci outside to AJ’s truck while Disa stepped closer to me. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” AJ told me. I nodded at him. Then I tugged Disa into my side. I knew that she was crying. This nightmare was just beginning, and I didn’t like having no control over the game.
Chapter 16
Five days passed, and nothing occurred. We were on pins and needles waiting for something, anything to happen. I expected Elder Ron to show up at my doorstep looking for Merci. Every morning I took Disa and Asia to Mom’s house. Every evening I picked them up. If she was working for Dad, he or Seth took her with him to the pub and brought her home to me.
She felt like a prisoner and she didn’t like it. I was feeding Asia at three a.m. on Saturday when Disa and Seth arrived home from work together.
I could tell the moment they arrived something was wrong. I was rocking my daughter in the recliner. Asia had sucked down about half of her bottle. Seth went to the kitchen and grabbed a beer. Disa plopped down on the sofa nearest to me.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Your dad doesn’t want me to work anymore.”
“Why?” I took the bottle from Asia and put her on my shoulder to burp her.
I didn’t need Disa to work. It wasn’t important to me, but it was to her. She had worked hard for her independence. This confinement was taking a toll on her so Dad asking her to not work was going to make it worse.
“Elder Ron and his guards showed up tonight.”
“Shit. Seth take Asia for me.” I needed to hold Disa. I thought she needed me. If she didn’t I needed her.
He sat his beer down on the coffee table and took my daughter cooing to her. He walked the floor, patting her back. I slipped onto my knees at Disa’s feet, oblivious to Seth being in the room with us.
I cupped Disa’s face between my palms. “What happened?”
“Nothing at all. It’s a game to him. He was there to unnerve me,” she replied. She laid her head in the crook of my neck. “I hate what he did to her and to Lilah, Ben. I had heard rumors of the things that went on in Elder Ron’s house.”
I slid up onto the couch beside her and held her in my arms. Disa talked. She needed to talk about this now. Things she had held inside her for so long.
She used words like prestigious being picked by Elder Ron. The other girls her age at the compound we
re jealous because he had chosen her. She had heard the rumors about him though. Rumors that made her fearful of him. She had overhead her mother arguing with her father about her marrying him. She didn’t want it for Disa. They didn’t need for her father to become an elder. She turned her face to mine. “And I wanted you.”
I kissed her nose and tucked her safely into my side, letting her continue to talk about him and her life at the compound.
“Men had all the power,” she said. “I still remember what my father told my mother. “Remember your place woman.” A tear escaped Disa’s eye and I wiped it way. “She tried, Ben when Daddy died. She tried to protect Merci from him and he killed her for it. I have no proof of that but Merci thinks he did too.”
She sobbed against my neck. Her tears rolling down my throat. I tried to comfort her, but I had no words that would take away her sadness right now.
“I know you don’t want to stay home right now but it might be best. You could spend the day with Mom helping her watch Asia and Jeremiah.”
She nodded. “That’s what she said.” She sniffed back her tears.
“I missed everything a normal teenage girl gets to do. Football and basketball games. Homecoming and prom. I thought when I left the compound, finally I would have a normal life.”
“I know baby. I know.”
She pulled back from me. Her eyes, those beautiful crystal blue eyes of hers were filled with determination. “Ben, I won’t let him take away the life I’m building with you. I won’t let him make me a prisoner.”
I touched her cheek. “It’s just for a little while until we are sure you are safe.”
She huffed at me. Then she got up from the sofa and headed down the hallway to our room. I took Asia from Seth and finished giving her the bottle that she was taking when they came home. He sat down on sofa where Disa had been sitting.
“Well, how bad was it?” I asked.
“Just like she said. He just watched her all night,” Seth replied. “He’s a creepy bastard.”
Asia finished her bottle while Seth turned on the television. When she was done, I burped her and got up to carry her to bed. I thought one thing we could do that would help Disa was work on Asia’s bedroom this weekend. Maybe that would help her mood.
“Night Seth.”
“Night Ben.”
I carried my daughter to her room and laid her in her crib. In two weeks, I had a court date for her temporary custody appearance. Life needed to settle down. I didn’t need any drama before then. I didn’t need anything that would cause me trouble in court.
I kissed Asia on the forehead and laid her down. Then I walked out, leaving her door open not that I didn’t have the monitor. I just felt better knowing that there were no doors separating me from my child.
Disa was lying across the bed in her underwear when I went to our room. I didn’t shut the door again because I wanted to be close to Asia if necessary. Seth would watch television for a while possibly falling asleep in the living room. I didn’t think he could hear anything from the living room.
I slid across the bed beside her and laid my hand on her belly. “Are you, all right?” I asked.
She shook her head no.
“Do you want to decorate Asia’s room this weekend? That would take your mind off your troubles,” I told her.
She nodded yes.
“Talk to me,” I said.
She rolled to her side facing me and my hand slid to rest on the curve of her hip before it dipped to her slender thighs. She laid her head on her bent arm and her other arm rested in front of her.
“Ben, all I could think of all night long was that he is watching me,” she said. Her voice was shaking when she responded. She tried not to cry. “Why?”
“I don’t know baby. Maybe for this very reason, to unnerve you. He’s pissed. He lost Lilah and Merci.”
She moved closer to me and wrapped herself around me. I held onto her like she needed me to. Her lips against my shoulder made me inhale. I stroked her bare back above her bra strap wanting her to feel comforted and safe.
“Ben, make love to me,” she whispered near my ear.
I didn’t think it was a good idea. She did. She rolled me over and straddled me rubbing her palms across my nipples then her lips caressed my chest. I gripped her hips.
“Disa, listen to me…” I wanted to explain why I thought when she was so upset that this was a bad idea. She scooted down my body and was touching my cock. Shit, she was making me hard. “Disa, baby…damn that feels good.”
“Lift up,” she told me. She wanted to remove my boxers. I did what any red-blooded male would do, I lifted my hips and let her slide my boxers down. She tossed them over her shoulder.
Disa reached behind her and unhooked her bra. With deliberate slowness she let the straps slide down her arms. She dropped the bra over the side of the bed.
Her eyes were blazing with passion and eager wantonness. I damn near rolled her over and ripped her underwear off. With restraint, I laid there and let her do what she wanted to do. All thoughts of what was right for her went out of my head. She was stroking me like a pro.
I put my arms behind my head and relaxed. I closed my eyes and enjoyed Disa pleasuring me. Her fingers were soft sliding up and down the length of me.
“Do you like that Benjamin?” She asked. Her voice, deep and sultry filled my lust filled mind but I was lost in what she was doing and didn’t respond.
Then her tongue circled the head of my dick and my eyes shot open. Her eyes were glued on me. “I asked you a question.”
“Shit, I love that,” I responded, my voice quivering with lust and desire. I wanted her naked and beneath me in the worst way.
She licked me again and I groaned deep in my chest. Then her mouth slid down the length of me and I almost swallowed my tongue. The woman in all her innocence was a siren. She was here to doom me to hell, I was sure of it.
She watched my every reaction to her action. I was unable to move until she cupped my balls in her hands and then I almost bucked her off the bed. “Okay, that’s enough. Come here,” I growled. “Oral play later.”
I tossed her on her back and she giggled. I snatched those silky drawers from her body and threw them, letting them land where ever they landed.
Her silky blonde curls were spread out around her head. I spread Disa’s legs wide and nibbled at the bend of her knee. She sighed. I licked the inside of her thigh and she squirmed away from me because she was ticklish. I watched her face as she anticipated my next move. I tasted her causing her to arch her back to meet my tongue.
This was only the second time we had been intimate, but it was a natural thing for us. We had a way of anticipating each other’s needs. A connection that was unbreakable. I had never stopped loving her nor she me.
I knew then that I needed to do something about this relationship. Something special to show Disa what I wanted. When and how. I had just the idea to make it special for her and I was going to enlist my sister Danni and I needed my dad too.
I moved up between her legs and she grasped my face in her hands. “I want inside you. I can’t wait,” I whispered.
I slipped inside her gently in case she was still tender. Disa moaned in my mouth. Her fingers tangled in my hair. Her lips brushed across mine.
There was nothing more beautiful that two bodies coming together when love was involved. Her left foot brushed down my right leg. She was always touching me, wrapping herself around me while I thrust into her warmth and her sweetness.
I could live like this. Inside her. Getting lost in her. Loving her until I died. “I love you,” I whispered near her ear then nibbled on her earlobe making her groan.
I didn’t get a response, but I didn’t need one. I knew how she felt. I slid into her wetness. Sliding slowly back and forth across her clit. She was moving with me now. Loving every minute of this new interaction. The friction of our bodies getting her there where I needed her since I couldn’t wait to get her there with
my tongue first which was just as much fun for me as it was for her.
I buried my face in her silky curls and inhaled the fragrant flowery scent. I implanted it in my memories and focused on it to keep from coming in her. I hadn’t put on a condom. We weren’t ready for a baby. Asia was only eleven weeks old but one day I would fill her belly with my child. One day I wanted to share that experience with her.
Right now, though, I just wanted to make her come.
Disa’s hands slid down my back. Her fingers created electric sparks along my spine. Then she dug them into my ass. Holding me as I thrust into her.
“That feels amazing,” she groaned. She was so wet. It was taking all my self-control not to come yet. “I feel like I’m about to orgasm.”
“I wish you would,” I told her, and she chuckled.
She was this bundle of fire and sex rolled up with the face of an angel. Disa ran her tongue along my jaw. I rose up on my palms grinding my pelvis into hers. “Stop that,” I ordered her.
She played with her own nipples and her eyes turned a deeper, icier shade of blue. Burning with a passion that I was creating in her. “I’m coming Ben,” she warned me.
She did. Her body throbbed against my cock. I tilted my head back and held on letting the wave of pleasure wash over her first because then, I was going to pound the shit out of her.
I pulled out of Disa and turned her over. I helped her get on her knees. She glanced over her shoulder at me. I smirked at her then slapped her ass marking her with my handprint.
She gasped. I wasn’t done. I spread her ass cheeks wide, so I could see what I was doing, and I entered her from behind. Disa pressed her forehead to the mattress while did what I promised. I pounded into her making her groan. My body ached for release while Disa’s fists clenched around the comforter.
“Baby are you, all right?” I asked between my clenched teeth.
