by Riley Ashby
“Don't leave me,” I begged. He wrapped his arms tight around my back.
“I'm not leaving, Ellie. I'll stay right here.”
“You left before.” I widened my eyes as far as I could, trying to take in everything, but nothing made sense.
“Ellie,” he gasped, flipping me around and holding my shoulders. “It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you.”
I sucked in deep gasps as he helped me sit up and pulled me against his chest. Now I was free and I could breathe again, but I still couldn’t move. I sucked down as much air as my lungs would hold, clinging to him as the world spun and then steadied. It was strange, to sit in his arms when I'd been so angry, then so turned on, then so frightened all on the past few minutes. But as he held me, I found myself trembling, the anxiety of being bound rushing back to finish what had started.
“Oh my God,” I said. “What just happened?”
“Shhh.” He soothed me as I started gasping and listed to one side. He laid me down on the couch, my head on his lap, and ran his hands through my hair. “Look around tell me five blue things in this room.”
“I can’t see anything.” My eyes felt blurry; none of the shapes in front of me made sense.
“Yes, you can.” He leaned over me a little, hand on my cheek. “You can see me, right?”
I nodded. “Blue eyes.”
“That’s one. Tell me four other things.”
My brain searched desperately for something I could recognize. I heaved in a breath. “The couch.”
“What about out the window?”
“The pool.” The setting sun glinted off the calm surface.
“Two more.”
I looked to the ground and swallowed. “The cloth you used to blind me.”
“I’m sorry about that.” His voice was a whisper. “Tell me one more thing.”
“Rug.”
“That’s good.” His fingers trailed against my neck. “Can you see now?”
“Yeah.” The room was in focus once more.
“Tell me four things you can smell.”
He walked me through the rest of my senses, and by the time I was calm again I felt like it had just been one ridiculous overreaction. I pushed myself up to sitting, but he kept hold of my hands.
“Thank you for that.” Instead of arousal or fear, now I was ashamed. How embarrassing was that?
“Don’t thank me. I'm so sorry, Ellie. I thought you were playing.”
“I was,” I gasped. “I was at first.”
He sat grabbed my wrists, rubbing the skin where I'd been tied. “No blindfolds for you.”
I closed my eyes and fought back a gag. “I don't know where that came from. I couldn’t move…”
“Just relax. Let me get you some water.” He pushed my hair away from my face, smoothing away the tracks left from my tears, then went to fetch a glass of water. He rubbed my back while I drank.
“Thank you.”
“Don't mention it.” He sounded pissed, but when I looked at him, he had his head in his other hand, staring at the ground. I pulled his hand away from his face, holding it in mine.
“I'm not mad at you.”
“You should be. I should have listened. We should have talked more before we did this.” His jaw was set, his mouth a thin line. He was fixated on the floor.
“That would have required me to admit that I wanted to do this.”
It was meant to be a joke, but he didn’t laugh. “How are you feeling right now?”
“Honestly, really tired.”
“I’m not shocked. That took a lot out of you. Do you want to go lie down?”
I took a deep sigh to try and suppress another wave of panic. “Yeah, I think that would be nice.”
“Okay. Go get changed, and I’ll clean this up then bring you some more water.”
He was acting so uncharacteristically nice, and I wondered how long it would be before he was back to his normal self.
But really, was it uncharacteristic? He was always a dick, that was true, but he also had these strange moments of kindness that I couldn’t quite ignore. The way he came running to help when my car wouldn’t start. The pep talk when our parents announced the engagement so I could get myself in order. Making me dinner. And he didn’t have to sit here and talk me through a panic attack. He most certainly didn’t need to bring water up to my bedroom, pull the blinds closed tight on the windows so that no remaining daylight seeped through, and sit on the edge of my bed while I drank. So when he rose to leave, I grabbed his hand.
He turned toward me with a curious look, sitting again slowly. “What is it?”
“I don’t know.” I put my head in my other hand. “I’m afraid to lie down and be still. Like that panic will just rise up again once it’s dark and quiet.”
“Do you want to talk for awhile?”
I sat up again and pressed my palms into my eyes. “Is that stupid?”
“Ellie.” He ran his hands along his scalp and kissed the top of my head. “It’s not stupid at all. I’ll stay as long as you want. I just don’t want to scare you anymore.”
I met his eyes and he took my face in his hands. “I’m not scared of you, Rhys. I mean, I was, but you showed me I could trust you. You showed me that a long time ago, when you didn’t push anything while I was drunk.”
He snorted. “I knew you remembered that.”
My eyes fell closed and I struggled to swallow. “You didn’t stay with me that night. Can you stay now?” I opened my eyes so I could look at him. “Just until I fall asleep.”
Eyes wide open, he moved forward, and this time he touched his lips to mine ever so briefly, but with all the fullness of emotion that had built behind so many years of dancing around each other and pushing down the passions that had grown between us with each passing moment. He broke our connection just enough to speak.
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to leave you alone ever again.”
I blew out a quiet laugh and closed my eyes again, my lips curving into a smile as he guided me down to the pillow and slipped beneath the comforter behind me. His hand snaked around my front to pull me tight against him.
“Okay?” he asked in a low voice, making sure I wasn’t going to break down again at how tightly he was holding me.
“Okay,” I whispered.
His lips ghosted across the back of my neck. “Relax now. We can talk more tomorrow.”
Chapter 7
I was alone in bed the next morning, but he was at my door the moment I sat up, as if he’d been waiting for me to wake up.
“How do you feel?”
I grabbed blindly for my phone with one hand and rubbed my eyes with the other. “Fine. Thank you for sticking around last night.”
“No problem.” He took a few steps closer, then sat on the edge of my bed while I scrolled through my notifications. With a heavy sigh, he reached forward and snatched the phone out of my hand.
“Hey!” I reached to grab it back, but he held it far out of reach.
“You spend too much time on this thing. You need to unplug a little.”
“Don’t you have to go to work?” I lunged across the bed, tackling him to the mattress.
“I took the week off.” He shoved my phone in his pocket and held my wrists at bay easily. I tried to swing my legs over his hips so I could pin him down, but he was too fast. He flipped me off him and pushed me down on my stomach, holding my arms over my head while he weighed me down with his body. He kept his hands loose around my arms, enough that I could move a little. “I thought this would be a good time for us to reconnect.”
I twisted my head to glare at him. “Did you always plan to seduce me this week?”
His low chuckle made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. His lips brushed my ear. “You would have come to me yourself. I know you’ve been avoiding me ever since the pool.”
My whole body felt hot and tingly, and I was definitely feeling something between my legs. I tried to breathe normally.
“Of course I was. That only happened because I was drunk.”
“Are we still playing this game?” He trailed his hands down my arms at the same time he pushed his hips harder against my butt. I closed my eyes and shivered, feeling his growing erection. “We’re past that point, Ellie. I’ve been berating myself for years, thinking you were too young for me. Thinking if I fucked enough other girls, I’d get you out of my system. But it didn’t work.” He brushed away my hair and kissed the back of my neck. “Did it work for you?”
God, I couldn’t think. I was so confused. Twenty-four hours ago I would have been happy to never see this man again. After last night, I just wanted him to stick around and finish what we started—this time without a panic attack. But how could I, when I was still holding on to so much from the past?
“Tell me, Ellie. Did all those fuck boys you picked up in bars when you were barely legal make you forget about me?”
I buried my face in the mattress. What was the point of lying? He’d seen past my smoke screen every step of the way. When I spoke, it was in the quietest voice I could manage. “No.”
His breath was hot on my neck as he exhaled a deep sigh. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”
My lungs burned and I forced myself to inhale, wondering what came next. How quickly did he want to move? What did he want from me? I knew he wanted to sleep with me, but was that all? Would this be a one-time deal, or was he hoping for something more? I didn’t know what to hope for myself.
I gasped a little as he suddenly rose off me. “Get dressed and come downstairs. I made breakfast. Then we have plans.”
Huh? I turned to watch him leave. “What do you mean, we have plans? Maybe I have plans. Maybe I have to work.”
He looked at me over his shoulder with an expression that said he didn’t buy a word of what I’d said. “You don’t. I know you took this week off too. Just come downstairs when you’re ready.”
I dressed quickly but took my time with my makeup, wanting to make him wait a little. When I got to the kitchen, he was sitting at the breakfast bar sipping orange juice while reading the newspaper. I let myself pause and look at him for a second. Light was coming in from the window behind him, creating a bit of a halo around his head. His hair wasn’t styled the same way; he’d mussed it up a little. As if he’d just woken up, or maybe as if I’d just run my fingers through it. He looked up and smiled when he caught me staring. I rushed to sit down.
“You’ve sure got a lot of recipes up your sleeve.” I spooned myself some scrambled tofu from the serving tray and added roasted potatoes on top. He nodded as he swallowed the last of his orange juice and then grabbed his coffee mug.
“I usually cook for myself because Dad gives me shit about not eating meat. I just started coming over here for meals when you moved in.”
My cheeks reddened. I was used to guys playing it cool. But with Rhys there was so much out in the open, and he was being up front with everything. I didn’t know how to take it.
Reading my mind once more, he smiled and reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “In case it’s not clear, I’m done playing games. I told you I was coming for you. I’m not going to jerk you around anymore.”
I chewed and swallowed. My mouth felt too dry, and I reached for his coffee to wet my mouth. The moment I set it down, he turned and yanked my chair toward him so I was between his legs. He put his hands on my knees and started slowly sliding his palms up my legs, stopping when my breath caught. His fingertips touched the hem of my shorts.
“I can’t just trust you.”
He nodded. “Because of last night.”
I shook my head. “Because of the years before that, Rhys. You tortured me.”
“I protected you.”
“Whenever you saw me with my friends, you went out of your way to embarrass me.”
He took his hands off me, and I felt the absence like a missing tooth. “Yeah. I did do that.” He put his fingertips on my knees again and drummed softly. “That’s why I tried to apologize.” He ducked his head a little to look me in the eyes. I was biting my lip.
“You spanked me like a child.”
A grin grew across one side of his face. “And your attitude shaped up, for a little bit at least.” He leaned closer. “Did you like being put in your place? You did, didn’t you? I was barely holding you down, and you didn’t fight me at all.”
I grabbed his hands. “You don’t—”
“Don’t say I don’t know you.” He stood suddenly, moving one hand to my face as he towered over me. “I know you better than I know myself. That’s the reason I was so good at tormenting you.”
My lungs refused to move, rejecting my efforts to inhale, as his hand slid down my face to stroke my neck. He tilted my chin up at the same time he leaned over to kiss me just as gently as he had the night before. The moment we kissed, my lungs opened; I sucked in the deepest breath of my life right before he closed the final space between us to kiss me fully. His tongue speared my mouth and he pulled me closer as I whimpered into his mouth. The stool I was sitting on fell to the floor as I scrambled to my feet. I was desperate to be closer to him. He obliged me instantly, putting one hand around my waist to pull me against his body. But I still held my arms tight against my chest, unwilling to embrace him just yet.
“Come out with me today,” he whispered when we came up for air. “Let me take you around. Have a normal day. No one watching us.”
I nodded before I consciously made the decision to agree. He smiled and kissed me again, then let me go to pick my seat up off the floor.
“Finish eating. I’m going to get the bike ready.”
My stomach dropped. “Bike?”
“Don’t think, just eat,” he called over his shoulder. I did as he said, but the food tasted like sawdust now. I didn’t even know he had a motorcycle. I’d never been on one before. And now he expected me to ride with him? Hell no.
Oh, who was I kidding. I was going with him. I would have followed him anywhere.
Chapter 8
It turned out riding a motorcycle wasn’t as horrifying as I’d expected it to be, at least not when I was glued to Rhys’ back with my eyes squeezed shut.
“You have to watch,” he called over his shoulder. “That’s half the fun.”
“I’m worried I’ll lose my breakfast if I do.” I gritted my teeth as he took another curve and my stomach swung to the left.
“Just trust me for once.”
I slowly peeled open one eyelid, then the other, until I was watching the world fly by at breakneck speed. It wasn’t too bad, actually, not much worse than a car, except my body was entirely exposed to the outside world and if we crashed, I would end up with road rash over my entire body. I screamed as he hooked a right suddenly and the bike tilted so low I thought I brushed the ground.
“You’re overreacting.”
“We almost fell over!”
“We were nowhere close.” But he finally let off the gas a little, and I relaxed my hold on his waist to put some space between our bodies. I was able to breathe a little easier now that I wasn’t convinced he was going to run us off the road at any moment. The warm sun beat down on my back, with the open air flying by me. Instead of taking us into the city, we’d gone deeper into the suburbs, past houses separated by miles of roads and open fields growing crops or being grazed by cattle. The curious creatures raised their heads to watch us zoom by.
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere special.”
I hummed a little in curiosity. Where was special to us? We hadn’t had too many good times together. But as we pulled up to the entrance to a bustling campground, my back stiffened. I knew exactly where we were.
“What are we doing here?” I asked coldly as he killed the engine. He stood to remove his helmet and then mine, clipping them to the bike and fluffing my hair a little from where it was pressed against my head.
“I need to make some things right.” He grabbed my hand
s and helped me off the bike, but didn’t let go of me even when I tried to step away. “Clearly my apology wasn’t quite enough.”
“There’s no way I’m going in there,” I said. My voice more choked than I would have liked, but I shuffled after him as we flowed through the crowds of happy camping families to the main trail head. Sweat dripped down my back even though the summer heat dissipated slightly as we stepped into the shade of the trees.
“We won’t go in,” he said, “but we need to be there. We have to make some new memories.” He looked at me as he walked. “It’s no wonder you don’t trust me. It was only when I saw you react last night that I realized how scared you must have been.”
The trail sloped uphill and we stopped speaking for several long minutes as we trekked upward. The sounds of the camp faded; families were more interested in the pool than they were hiking at this time of day. My stomach grumbled, reminding me it had been hours since we ate. That certainly wasn’t helping with my feelings of nausea. I tried to pull away as the fear of that day grew larger the closer we got to our destination, but he held me tight.
“Just a little farther now.”
All too soon we were standing at the mouth of Mammoth Cave. The name was a bit of a joke; the explorable part was rather small. There was another entrance around here somewhere, heavily roped off and protected with chains to keep kids from getting lost in the cavernous tunnels below the earth. But the entrance open to the public was a straight line from one end to the other. It was impossible to get lost—you just had to keep walking straight. Unfortunately, I hadn’t known that the day Rhys took me in there. I was only eight years old, and he was the worldly teenager who knew lots of cool swear words and wore eyeliner just to piss off his dad.
“You left me alone in there,” I choked out, ashamed at the tears in my voice. He’d coaxed me inside and told me to wait for him, then never came back. I stood still in the pitch dark of the cave for half an hour before another hiker came along and found me rooted to the spot with tears streaming down my face. I’d spent what felt like hours imagining starving to death in my stone prison. As my eyes attempted to adjust to the total blackness, my brain had conjured up spirits and sprites that haunted my nightmares for years to come. And apparently, some fear still sat in the back of my mind.
