Dirty Bet

by Melinda Minx

  I wait, and then I feel her pulling on the gag.

  It comes out, but I don’t speak.

  “No need to act tough,” she says. “I know you’re strong. You’ve got nothing to prove to me, Liam.”

  “Do what you have to,” I say. “But do it to me.”

  “Sorry,” Cynthia says. “Any punishment will have to hurt you. I know you can bear the pain...but she can’t.”

  I feel the cloth pull across my face, and a flash of light blinds me.

  Everything rushes into focus, and I see Amber just like in the photo. Naked, bound, blindfolded, and gagged. She’s about fifteen feet away from me, facing me. Her skin is still raw against the rope, but there’s no other signs that she’s been hurt or tortured.

  I feel my stomach drop. Cynthia’s been waiting for me to arrive before she gets started.

  I look around, searching for the guy who brought me here: Winston. I don’t see him anywhere. My team knows where I am, but the only way I can signal them to rush in is by biting the tooth and releasing the gas. If Winston doesn’t get knocked out, he could get Cynthia and Amber out before my team came in.

  There might even be more guys than Winston. I need to feel out the situation more before I bite the tooth down and release the gas.

  I can’t tell what kind of building we’re in. The room looks like some kind of bedroom in a low-rent apartment. The carpets are old, and the walls are eggshell white with old nails in them. There’s no furniture aside from the chairs that Amber and I are sitting on. The ceilings are low, and there’s a window, but it’s covered from the outside with black plastic. The only light is coming from a standing lamp leaning against the wall.

  There’s a door on the wall to the left of me, but it’s shut.

  “Amber,” I say. “It’s okay, I’m--”

  Cynthia’s face turns to pure rage, and her foot flies up and hits me in the gut. I feel her heel dig into my hard abs, and the air is knocked out of me.

  “Don’t fucking talk to her,” Cynthia says. “You talk to me. Show me how much you love her.”

  She pulls a knife out of her purse and starts cutting the rope.

  How stupid is she? The moment that rope is cut and my arms are free, I’m going for her throat.

  But she stops short.

  “Let’s see how fast you can free yourself,” she says, grinning.

  I’ve already started working. I flex every muscle in my body, leveraging against the back of the chair. I push my chest out and try to pull my arms up until my back aches, and I feel the rope starting to give way--ever so slightly.

  “I think you need more incentive,” she says, walking toward the door.

  She opens it up and shouts inside, “Bring him in now.”

  I see Winston shove a naked man into the room. It’s a man I recognize at once: Anton Valencia.

  I see a revulsion on Winston’s face, but he stands against the wall with his arms crossed. Now if I break free, I wouldn’t be able to just take Cynthia out--I’d have to go through Winston.

  I could bite the tooth right now, but Winston is lingering right in the doorway. The moment he saw the gas, he could slam the door and get out. He needs to be closer to me--or I need to get closer to him. I need to get in the doorway and then bite down. I need to keep Winston, Anton, and Cynthia in this room long enough for the gas to do its job on all three of them.

  And why the fuck is Anton even here? And naked of all things?

  “Anton,” Cynthia snaps. “Do whatever you want to Amber. This is your chance to lose your virginity before I kill you.”

  His eyes widen, but his cock is completely flaccid. He looks terrified.

  Amber starts to struggle, and Cynthia pulls off the gag.

  I hear Amber screaming, and my muscles burn as I fight and pull at the ropes. One of the ropes snaps entirely away, but there are dozens more. I have to bite hard on my tongue as I work and struggle, so as to not accidentally trigger the gas. I bite so hard I taste blood dripping down my throat.

  “Please, no, no, no,” Amber says. “Anton, don’t--”

  “She doesn’t want me to,” Anton says, his voice trembling. “I’m not going to...r-r-r-ape her.”

  Cynthia growls and shoves him against the wall. She reaches down between his legs and squeezes his balls.

  His eyes roll back into his head, and I see his cock start to twitch and stiffen.

  “There you go,” she says. “I swear to fucking God, Anton, Winston is going to put a bullet between your eyes if you don’t get your dick wet. You die either way, so at least go out a man.”

  My muscles bulge with animalistic intensity. More ropes snap, and Cynthia looks back at me with glassy eyes. “Why couldn’t you fight like that for me? My Lion.”

  She looks away from me and presses her lips against Anton’s, her hand still tightly squeezing his balls.

  I swear that I see Winston shudder, but he doesn’t look at me. Cynthia must have him under some form of duress. Blackmail, or worse. If he looks at me now, he’ll feel too strong a temptation to help me. He doesn’t want to humanize me, as disgusted as he may feel.

  I tear harder, faster, and the ropes start to snap one after another. My arms break free, and I reach down and tug at the knots on my legs.

  I see Winston’s body tighten. Is he ordered to stop me as soon as I break free, or does Cynthia want to see me go off on Anton?

  Anton’s cock is hard now, and Amber is still pleading. Every pained syllable from her mouth cuts me deeper than any knife ever could.

  “Please,” Anton says. “I can’t do it. She was just being nice to me…”

  “Doesn’t she look so hot, though?” Cynthia asks, stroking his dick. “Imagine my hand is hers.”

  The knot comes undone, and I leap forward out of my chair.

  I go straight for Winston--the greatest threat. I bite down on the tooth even before I reach him.

  I hear the gas hissing, and I grab hold of him before his gun is even halfway drawn.

  I grip him for all I’m worth, and I exhale, trying to get as much gas as possible into his lungs while blocking the doorway at the same time.

  I hear a gun go off, and I feel my leg explode in pain.

  Winston shoves me off him, throwing me down onto my back.

  He grabs Cynthia and pulls her away, throwing her through the door. She doesn't let go of Anton, and the two of them disappear into the door. Winston slams it shut, pulls off his jacket, and shoves the jacket down to seal the crack between the door and the floor.

  Winston shouts through the door. “There’s gas! Stay away! Cynthia, I swear to God, I’m not betraying you!”

  I try to stand up, but my leg explodes in pain. It’s not the type of pain I can just shrug off, it’s the kind that spreads itself all the way through every nerve until my vision goes black and I collapse down in agony. The bullet must have shattered a fucking bone.

  Winston looks down at me. “I’m immune to your gas. Same injection you got.”

  Fuck.

  “What does she have on you?” I grunt.

  I look up at Amber. She’s asleep now. That’s probably for the best.

  “My wife,” Winston hisses. “If Cynthia doesn’t call in every hour, they kill her. I couldn’t risk her going to sleep.”

  “Cynthia won’t let your wife go,” I say. “You have to know that. Work with me, we can--”

  “You know you’d do the same thing in my shoes,” he whispers.

  The SWAT team is coming, and Cynthia is on the other side of the door. Winston has every reason to kill Amber and me as soon as he hears their booted footsteps. I wasn’t supposed to break the tooth unless it was going to knock out everyone. The team has no reason to be stealthy. I ordered them to come in fast while everyone was knocked out cold, and to get Amber out.

  Now I can’t even fucking stand up, and Winston is holding a gun in his hand, ready to execute both Amber and me at the first sign of trouble.

  “Cynthia?” he
shouts through the door.

  “She’s asleep,” Anton yells.

  “Fuck!” Winston slams his fist into the wall, then brings the gun around to me.

  “When did she last call in?” I ask.

  “Forty-five minutes ago,” he says, the veins on his bald, glistening head bulging out.

  “You have fifteen minutes to figure something out--”

  “Fuck you!” he shouts, pointing the gun at me.

  At least he’s going to kill me and not Amber.

  I have to tell him about the SWAT team, and now.

  “There was a tracer in my tooth,” I say. “A full SWAT team is rushing up the stairwell right now. I don’t know what floor we’re on, but--”

  He starts to laugh maniacally.

  “Pull it together,” I shout. “If you get me outside, I can call them off, I can--”

  “The room is shielded!” he shouts. “No signals can get in or out! No one is coming. Cynthia had to go down an entire floor every time she called the guy holding my wife. No one is coming!”

  34

  Anton

  “No one is coming!” Winston’s voice shouts through the door.

  I look down at Cynthia. Her mouth is wide open and drool is dripping down.

  I held my breath as soon as I saw the gas, and Winston shoved us both out of the room fast enough that I didn’t inhale anything. I guess Cynthia wasn’t as smart as me. For once.

  I never wanted to be a hero. I just wanted to lose my virginity. But now, circumstances have allowed me to become a hero. And if there’s one thing you rarely hear of, it’s a badass hero who saves the day but doesn’t get laid.

  I take in a deep breath. I might still die a virgin, but at least I’ll die a hero.

  I reach toward the doorknob, and as soon as I hear Winston shout again, I turn the knob and rush the door.

  35

  Liam

  The door flies open, and Anton’s pasty-looking naked body rushes out. He slams his head into Winston’s back, and the gun clatters and slides across the floor. I grab it and point it at Winston as he tumbles onto the carpet in a heap with Anton.

  The gas is still thick enough that Anton’s eyelids get heavy, and he passes out, his dead naked weight pinning Winston to the ground.

  Winston tries to shove him off, but I aim the gun right at his face. “Push that naked dude off you,” I say, “and I’ll shoot you. You know I will, to save Amber, just like you would to save your wife.”

  Winston growls, and lets Anton’s dead weight crush him back to the ground.

  “Now listen,” I say. “You’re going to go get that phone from Cynthia, and you’re going to bring it to me. I’m going to call the asshole who is guarding your wife, and I’m going to offer him as much money as it takes to let her go. Do you understand me? This is the only chance she has, and it will feel a lot better than killing Amber and me.”

  He breathes heavily for several moments, and then he nods.

  “Okay,” I say, still holding the gun on him. “So push Anton off you, get up, and go get the phone. You’ll have to drag me out of the shielded area so I can make the call.”

  He opens the door, and I watch him walk forward. I can see the back of Cynthia’s head on the floor. Her black hair spilling across the tile.

  Winston steps out of my view.

  I watch for him to bend down and get the phone, but instead I hear a loud gunshot, and I see Cynthia’s black hair begin to stain red.

  Winston throws the gun down next to her, kicks her body, and walks back toward me with the phone in his hand.

  “She didn’t deserve to live,” he grunts.

  I don’t know that I could have put a bullet in her head like that, but I’m not going to argue with him right now.

  “You want me to drag you?” he asks. “Or hoist you?”

  “Get me up on my good leg,” I say.

  He reaches down and clasps my arm. He pulls me onto my god leg, and helps me hobble out of the room. The shattered bone of my left leg doesn’t let me bring the foot up, but I tilt just enough that it doesn’t drag or catch on the floor. It still hurts like hell. Every step I take and every jostle sends white-hot lances of pain through my body, nearly making me pass out, but I soldier on.

  We step through the kitchen and living room, and finally get out into the hall.

  “Give me the phone,” I say.

  “The whole floor is shielded, remember?” he says. “I gotta get you down the stairwell.”

  “Fuck,” I hiss.

  “My wife’s got about seven minutes left,” he says, starting to drag me. “So you can bear a little pain.”

  I nod, and I hobble with him on toward the door to the stairs.

  It nearly kills me to get down. Each step is torture, and my bad leg catches at least a half-dozen times. I almost wish I’d just cut the fucking thing off for how bad it hurts.

  When we reach the next floor, he thrusts the phone into my hand and hits a button.

  He holds it up to my ear for me.

  “Reporting,” a man’s voice says.

  “She’s dead,” I say. “But I can pay you more.”

  There’s a pause. I fear the worst: that I’m going to just hear a gunshot, and that Winston will kill Amber as revenge.

  “I’m listening,” he says, and I feel my heart pound with relief. The relief that floods through me feels so good that I don’t even feel the horrendous pain in my shattered leg.

  36

  Liam

  Six Months Later

  My limp is almost gone just in time for the wedding. The press had a total field day when they found out what all had happened.

  Yeah, I came totally clean about the engagement, the contract--everything. Amber insisted.

  It didn’t really matter that she had been my fake fiancée, because by that point she was my real fiancée. If anything, it just gave us a great story to tell our kids. Edited for content, of course.

  Cynthia Frost became an infamous household name. Winston sold his story to a movie studio for a huge chunk of cash.

  And you’re probably wondering what happened to Anton... Well, obviously I’ve asked him to be my best man--

  Just kidding. Fuck that guy. He’s serving at least nine years in a federal penitentiary for being an accessory to kidnapping. I had my lawyers hold off on him--just a little bit--for finally getting some balls at the last minute, after he’d fucked up everything and almost gotten everyone killed.

  There’s a knock on the door, and I say absently, “Come in.”

  I think it’s going to be James or one of the other staff, but when I turn around, I see it’s Amber.

  She’s wearing nothing but a t-shirt. A white one. I can see her nipples pointing right through the cloth.

  “Amber,” I say. “We aren’t supposed to see each other on our wedding day.”

  She gives me an evil grin. “Now that we’ve seen each other, we might as well fuck.”

  She licks her lips, and my cock springs up rock-hard. I’m just wearing boxers, and my cock presses right through the opening.

  Her eyes widen as she looks down at me. “Damn, well I guess you’re ready then.”

  When my leg was still messed up and in a cast, we had to get really creative. Amber rode me a lot, but I always liked being in control. Let’s just say I got an incredible workout every time we fucked.

  Now that I’m free of the cast and mostly recovered, going back to the basics feels too good to pass up.

  I grab hold of her through the t-shirt, squeezing her hips. I feel her bare skin on the lower part of my palm, and her warmth through the thin cloth on the top. I reach down instinctively, getting my hands below the shirt, and I squeeze her ass cheeks in both hands, pulling them up as I squeeze.

  Her soft body presses against and into me, and I feel her pointed nipples hard against my abs. I take in a deep breath of her hair. Even after all this time, her scent drives me wild--she’s a drug I can’t quit.

 
; Her lips press wet against my chest, and she runs her tongue up my neck as I lean down into her. Our lips meet, pressing together and opening up until our tongues drink each other in.

  Her taste fills me up even more, and I find my hand letting go of her ass and sliding around to her front. My finger finds her wetness, and I run it up and down her swollen lips.

  She moans into me as we kiss, and when I slide my finger up inside her, she releases the kiss. Her head leans back, and I kiss her exposed neck as I plunge a second finger into her sopping wetness.

  I press her up against the wall, and she raises her leg up to give me more access. She rests her heel on the dresser, and I start to pump her hard with my fingers. Her inner walls squeeze and writhe against me, and her big breasts shake and bounce as I penetrate her.

  I lean forward and pull her hard nipple between my teeth. I bring my lips--still wet with her saliva--over my teeth and I bite down hard. She squeals, and she bucks her hips against my fingers.

  I feel wetness surging within her, so I move faster. I want to feel her cum all over my hand, and when she’s cum so hard and made herself soaking wet, only then will I turn her over and shove my thick cock inside her.

  I run my tongue against her nipple and suck hard as she begins to tremble and convulse all over my fingers. She gasps and screams out my name, and already I feel my cock twitching with anticipation.

  A surge of wetness flows across my fingers as all the muscles in Amber’s body tighten against me. Her pussy grips my fingers like a vice, but she’s so wet that I slide in and out effortlessly.

  She exhales with a moan and a scream, and she pulls and tugs at my wrist.

  “Please, Liam,” she says. “It’s too sensitive.”

  I pull my fingers out, and I lick her thick juices off them, savoring her taste.

  She falls down onto the bed, her ass riding up in the air. She knows exactly what has to happen next.