by Nicole Casey
I almost said it again—especially after the recent dream, ‘master’ was on the tip of my tongue. But I swallowed it back. “Derek?”
He parked the car and got out without responding, but he was at my door two seconds later. He reached for the bag of food with one hand and my wrist with the other and yanked me out. I couldn’t stop the tremor that rippled through my body. No warning signals were sounding in my head, but something was definitely wrong. Had we been spotted? Did we have to abandon the car? But he brought me with him to the trunk of the car and then stopped.
“Eat,” he demanded, thrusting the bag at me.
What had I done? And whatever it was, food seemed like an odd punishment.
“I’m not punishing you, Pet.”
Of course, he knew what I was thinking.
“I’m going to fuck you, and you haven’t eaten since this morning. But Christ, do you have any idea the sexy sounds you make when you’re sleeping?”
The tremors transformed into tendrils of heat. I’d seen him aroused through plenty of my punishments. So it had been no surprise to see it there now. Food didn’t hold much appeal in comparison to what he had planned, but I opened the bag and peered inside, pulling out a package of fries obediently.
I still didn’t like this part. It felt strange to eat in front of him. I wanted to feel his fingers brushing my lips when he placed the food in my mouth. This is what he wanted though, so I did it, spurred on by what I knew was coming next. I must have been making progress because I could feel his eyes on me, and yet I kept eating.
Halfway through the fries, he yanked them away, stuffed them in the bag. “Face the car and put your hands on the trunk.”
I obeyed while my sex throbbed in anticipation of what was to come. I inhaled and exhaled slowly, waiting.
Waiting.
Why wasn’t he shoving my pants down and fucking me?
Waiting.
I was strung taut, vibrating with sexual energy. Waiting. He was near. I could feel the heat of his body.
His fingers brushed over my nipple and my whole body jerked at the unexpected contact. A startled moan escaped my lips, but then his fingers disappeared again.
“What’s the matter, Pet?” he crooned against my ear.
“I want…” I had to clear my throat because it was suddenly so dry. “I want you to do what you said.”
“Why?”
Why? That wasn’t along the lines of his usual questions. “Because I want to feel you inside me.”
Both his hands were on me then, cupping my breasts through my shirt and rolling my nipples between his fingers. My head rolled back and I tried to angle toward his lips.
He turned away. “Eyes forward,” he whispered. “Now, tell me why?”
Again with ‘why’! He was punishing me for something because this felt like torture.
When I didn’t respond, he clamped down on my nipples. Pain shot through me, but it wasn’t pain, at least not by the time the sensation reached the apex of my thighs and made the sensitive bundle of nerves there throb harder.
“Why?” he demanded. “Is it because I’m master here, and you can’t refuse me?”
“No,” I replied honestly, and then I ventured further, hoping I wasn’t treading on quicksand. “You…you wouldn’t make me. I know that. I want this.”
One of his hands slid down inside my pants and pressed against my clit. The arousal made me bolder, freer with my thoughts. “I want you. When you’re inside me, I feel…complete. Whole.”
He whipped my pants down so fast, they must have left rug burn—not that I would have noticed. Because a split second later, he was ramming inside me, filling every empty inch of me. His thrusts were hard, frenzied, and he held onto my hips for leverage. I held onto the trunk as best I could, but I didn’t need to—he wouldn’t let me fall.
I was climbing fast. He slammed into me again and again. I could feel every thrust against my cervix. It should have hurt. Maybe it did, but it only drove me higher.
“Tell me why,” he ground out against my ear before nipping it firmly between his teeth.
Moments away from yet another earth-shattering orgasm, it took a minute to figure out what he meant.
One hand left my hip and I felt the sting of his slap against my backside. My hips jerked as the sensation fed my arousal.
“Why?” he reiterated and then sunk his teeth into my shoulder, not deep enough to draw blood but enough to bring me dangerously close to toppling headlong over the edge.
“I want this. I want you inside me. I want you touching me, fucking me…hurting me.” Confessions were easy when every brain cell was preoccupied with mind-numbing pleasure.
He groaned and his hand returned to my hip, gripping me hard enough to add fuel to the fire. God, it was just too much. My body exploded, and I cried out as I quivered and quaked through every shockwave of pleasure that coursed through me. A moment later, he groaned through his own intense release.
He remained there, wrapping an arm possessively around my waist and leaving a luxurious trail of kisses across the backs of my shoulders. I had no interest in moving—maybe ever.
It seemed a reluctant move when he withdrew, and then he straightened our clothing and pulled me back against his chest. He dug into the paper bag, helped himself to one of the burgers and nodded for me to take the other.
It was so calm and peaceful, wrapped in a one-armed embrace with my cheek against his solid chest. I wanted it to continue. I didn’t want to think about running and hiding from bad men, or how to fit myself back into the person I’d been. I wanted the calm I’d felt when I had knelt between his thighs and he stroked my face while he fed me. “Please,” I whispered, making no move to reach for the bag myself.
He looked even more reluctant now, but eventually, he nodded and led me around to the open passenger door. He sat in the seat with his legs on the ground outside the car, his thighs parted, waiting for me to fill the empty space.
I knelt down and nuzzled my cheek against his thigh and opened my mouth when he’d torn off a piece of his burger and held it to my lips. I sighed content, at peace, and knowing without a doubt now that I was one fucked up girl.
But I had time to put myself back together. I wasn’t for sale. I was his, and if I could convince him I wasn’t your run-of-the-mill Stockholm sufferer, he would be there to help me figure out how all the pieces fit. Asking him to feed me like this probably hadn’t been a good idea in hindsight, but this would be the last time. From here on out, I intended to start working on the jigsaw puzzle of pieces so I could stop worrying about him leaving the moment he believed I was safe.
I needed time to be angry and time to heal, but most of all, I needed to know Derek would still be here when I was done.
3
Derek
I drove the entire day and half the night before I was willing to concede to a few hours of sleep in another motel room off the highway. What I really wanted to do was get Scarlett on a god damned plane and put an ocean between us and anyone who might be following us.
It had been too risky to take a flight out of Nogales Airport. Marcos owned half the security in the airport, and in every airport within a five hundred mile radius. Along with the crooked cops he’d had in his pocket and his entourage of loyal goons, distance had seemed like the best option. Another day, and we’d be in Panama, far enough away that a flight would be less risky than to continue by car any further south.
There’d been no sign of anyone tailing us. No cars I’d seen a little too often. No suspicious people. Nothing. And if it weren’t for the prickle at the back of my neck, I would have been tempted to say we were in the clear. But it was there. It had been there since the night we’d driven away from Marcos’ flaming corpse. If anything, it had only grown stronger the further we ran.
I wasn’t used to running. It wasn’t my style, and maybe that accounted for the uncomfortable sensation that kept me on high alert. I didn’t think so though. That would just b
e too easy.
So, I glanced around the motel parking lot before getting out of the car and felt for the solid reassurance of the guns in the holsters beneath my shirt. Darkness shrouded everything beyond the parking lot, but the overhead lights lit up the area immediately surrounding us. After tailing us for so long without detection, an assailant wouldn’t risk a shot from far away. Something could go wrong and he’d lose the advantage of stealth.
I knew that because that was precisely what I would have been thinking. Anyone hunting us also couldn’t risk a shot going astray and hitting Scarlett. Whoever it was out there, they’d want her back—free of bullet holes.
I wanted to draw them out. The need to face the fucker on our tail was an overwhelming urge that would have been impossible to resist if it weren’t for her. I couldn’t risk Scarlett winding up in the crossfire. I wouldn’t.
With my eyes peeled and ears attuned for anything out of the ordinary, I took her hand and pulled her along with me into the motel clerk’s office. Five minutes later, we were ensconced in a room behind closed curtains and a locked door. Four, maybe five hours at most, and we’d be back on the road. At the moment though, she looked more like she needed to stretch than to sleep.
I released her hand to put our bags down on the small table and then peered out the window one last time. She remained right where I’d left her, looking around while her teeth toyed nervously with her bottom lip. I let out a deep, regretful sigh. I’d done this to her. I’d made it so that despite how much her body needed to move, she would stand there, waiting patiently for my next instruction.
At times, she seemed to overcome it, forgetting for a moment that just days ago there had been consequences to everything she chose to do on her own—cruel consequences that I had inflicted. I was an evil son of a bitch, and why she wasn’t trying to sneak away at every opportunity, I had no idea.
I was glad she wasn’t though. With threats still out there, I would have had no choice but to drag her back and hold her captive until I knew she’d be safe. It was my fault she was in this mess but this was my only hope of getting her out of it.
Once she was safely hidden across the Atlantic, then maybe things could be different. Unfortunately, by then she’d probably have come to her senses and would happily send me on my way. I’d fucked up. Actually, it turned out everything I was, was one giant fuckup. And I was going to pay for it big time when she mustered the nerve to walk away.
“Why don’t you go have a shower? It’ll help after sitting in the car for so long.”
The entire car ride hadn’t been bad. There were the pleasurable stops, but I’d also managed to get her talking afterward. I’d carefully avoided mentioning her books or the god damned journal—what the fuck had I been thinking about that confession?
We talked about hobbies instead, and it turned out the girl had come a long way from the stick figure drawings on my parents’ fridge. When she’d said she was kind of into art, I hadn’t thought much of it, but I must have seemed too dismissive because she’d searched around for pen and paper with a determined fire in her eyes—god, I loved that fire. Then she’d sketched out a rendition of the blazing car we’d walked away from, complete with an eerie pair of eyes staring back from amid the flames. Cold eyes. And despite the lack of color in her sketch, there was no mistaking who they belonged to—Marcos. It was as if he had been staring out at us even in death. It had sent a shiver down my spine and I’d promised myself to never underestimate her again. She was strong and smart, beautiful, and crazy-talented.
And right now, she was standing next to the door, fidgeting with her bottom lip. “What is it, Scar? If you have something to say, you’re free to say it.” Was that just another command? A few days ago, it had been ‘don’t speak’, and now I was telling her to speak. But what else was I supposed to do?
“I want you to come with me.” She looked up at me with hooded eyes—seductive eyes.
Fuck, what man could resist that offer? I shouldn’t have been doing it. Ending the physical connection between us would no doubt speed up her realization of what was really going on. I knew she was strong enough to break that tie if she saw it wasn’t supposed to be there. She just needed to see it. And yet, here I was, leading the way to the shower. But let’s face it, so long as I had a heartbeat, there was no way in hell I’d ever be able to resist her.
The alarm on my phone sounded at six in the morning and I reached for it on the bedside table to turn it off. Despite the few, short hours of sleep, I was wide awake. I had to be. I wanted to be out of here and on the final leg of our Central American portion of this journey as quickly as possible.
I’d even had the forethought to have Scar sleep in her clothes so there would be no naked tangle of limbs to slow us down. Unfortunately, it looked like her clothes had magically disappeared overnight because her naked leg was slung across my thigh and her hot pussy was pressed against my hip. If I hadn’t already been sporting morning wood, I would have been rock hard in an instant.
Gritting my teeth and forcing my mind onto every bit of unpleasantness I could think of—even that almost wasn’t enough—I forced myself to slip out of the bed, careful not to wake her.
Five minutes later, I’d taken a piss, brushed my teeth and froze off the lingering flames with an ice cold shower. I was awake, alert and ready to get the hell out of here. I stepped out into the room to wake her, but she was no longer on the bed.
I scanned the room, expecting to find her kneeling beside it or sitting at the small table. She wasn’t there. The door was closed and still locked, and the window curtains looked undisturbed.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Where was she?
I shot to the window and looked out, but she wasn’t there. Nowhere. Not outside or in any of the cars in the lot. Scar was gone. A searing pain shot through my chest and the room started to spin in the red haze that clouded it.
Someone had come into the room in the few minutes I’d been out of it and taken her. How? Think, damn it. Think like him. I had minutes to pull it together and figure out what had happened, how the fucker had gotten out and where he’d take her.
No forced entry—that meant a key. I bolted for the door and toward the clerk’s office. I needed a description and a license plate.
She hadn’t screamed. She hadn’t made a single sound, so she’d been taken unconsciously. That meant a blow to the head—which was never a sure thing—or an injectable sedative—the more likely weapon used.
It was a small relief—she wasn’t terrified, not yet. She had no idea I’d failed her yet, and I was going to fucking find her before she came to.
I threw open the office door. It slammed against the wall and the glass shattered. I stormed to the desk, drew the gun out of its holster and held it up to the young punk’s head. “Room twelve, who has the key?”
Incoherent stuttering, and I think the guy might have pissed himself. I didn’t give a fuck.
“You have three seconds before I blow your brains out. Three…”
“Your…your brother. Your brother has the key, Mister. Please, don’t kill me,” he sniveled.
I didn’t have a brother—in case you were wondering. “Describe him.”
“T-tall. Black hair…”
Yeah, in Central America, that was really fucking helpful.
“He-he had a scar. Yeah, a scar on his cheek.”
“Was he alone?”
“I think so,” the guy squeaked. “He…he said he just got back in town and wanted to surprise you. He gave me a thousand pesos to give him the key.”
A thousand pesos—fifty bucks? This dumb fuck had just handed Scar over for fifty bucks? My finger shook the trigger. The kid deserved to die. But Scar invaded my thoughts and I knew she wouldn’t want that.
“Car? What kind of car was he driving?”
“It was black. Yeah, black.”
I cocked an impatient eyebrow.
“One of those really expensive cars, you know?”
As us
eless as it was, that was all the information the punk was going to be able to give me. I couldn’t exactly walk out and have him calling the cops though. So, I slammed the butt of the gun into the punk’s skull and watched him crumple, unconscious in his seat. The kid would never know how fucking lucky he was.
Back outside, I grabbed my shit from the motel room, cast one last glance at the bed as if she might appear there even now, and then left the room. I slid into the car and revved the engine, half-expecting the car to have been tampered with, but the assailant hadn’t bothered. That meant he was either one cocky, son of a bitch, or else he was too nervous to spare a moment even to safeguard his own getaway.
I scanned every inch of space as I pulled out of the parking lot, but I already knew I wouldn’t find her here. It was an easy decision which way to head though. Either one of Marcos’ goons had scooped her up or else the buyer had. Both options meant heading back the way we’d come.
I made the mistake of glancing over at the empty seat next to me. Rage and agony nearly won out. My hands shook on the wheel and were clenched so tight I was surprised the wheel didn’t snap.
I wanted to scream, kick, hit; break everything I could get my hands on. But that wasn’t going to help her. What she needed was the cold-hearted asshole I’d been before I’d dragged her into my life. If I had been hunting down a runaway slave six months ago, I would have been the coolest fucker you’d ever seen. Any regret, any equivocation about the unsavory task…I would have buried it down and focused on the job at hand.
That’s what I did. It’s all I had known for a long time. Do the job—it was all that mattered because it brought what I’d needed. Purpose, respect, money. Power. All the things I’d thought I needed. Until Scarlett. And now because I’d fucked up, the only thing I cared about—the only person who mattered—was slipping further and further away by the second.
