by Riley Ashby
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said harshly. He took a deep breath, blowing air through his nostrils as he gentled his voice. “It won’t happen again. I promise.”
His words washed over me like mist; I barely heard them. “I knew I wasn’t really safe here. I’m not an idiot. But something about …” I put my head in my hands. I couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t admit that despite this entire situation, I’d started counting on him to protect me. He was better than Vin, and I knew that. But what was that worth when Vin and his henchmen could show up and barge in whenever they wanted?
“I told you that I was protecting you. And I lied.”
“Yeah, you fucking did.” I looked at him and didn’t bother to try to hide my tears. “How many fuck-ups are you going to have to apologize for? If you really gave a shit you wouldn’t have brought me here. Or at least, you’d take me back now.” I tried to stand but was still too unsteady. He put his hands on my shoulders to steady me, but I pushed him away and fell back on my butt. “Tell me why I’m here, Gunner. Can you be honest with me about that?”
He twisted his mouth as he thought. Was he going to try to lie? I couldn’t see him telling me anything right now that I would believe. He’d never do what was really necessary to protect me from these men. What good was his protection if it always showed up late? What if I couldn’t make enough noise next time, or Vin told him to let me be because they had more important things to discuss?
“I know your mom.”
“You told me already. How? Why does that matter?”
“You know she gambles, right?”
“No. She stopped after she went to rehab.” It was a chapter of her life we didn’t talk about for obvious reasons. Thankfully, we noticed she had a problem long before it got out of control, and she accepted help readily. For a month in my senior year of high school, she went on a “vacation” to a center in California. When she came back, she acted like her old self again.
“Well, she started back up. And in order to hide the money she was losing, she started borrowing from us.”
“Who is ‘us’?”
He hesitated again.
“Stop fucking with me. Or you might as well put me back downstairs and lock me up on that chain. Haven’t I earned something from you?”
He grabbed at his hair. “Vin’s last name is Maldovano.”
My blood cooled. “The Disciples.” I’d heard of them, of course. Everyone had. But only in abstract terms, only when one of the “family” members was named as a suspect in a murder investigation or released from prison on a technicality. What was Mom doing mixed up with them?
“She took more than she could pay. So … you’re how we get it back. I convinced Vin that since your mom and I have a good relationship, she’ll be more likely to cooperate if you’re staying with me instead of with him.”
If I hadn’t already been reeling from what just happened, I would be with this new information. My family wasn’t chosen at random or even targeted because of our money. My own mother got me into this situation. She hadn’t just lied about going back to gambling, she’d dug such a deep hole that the only way to get out of it was for my well-being to be put at risk.
“Quinn? Can you hear me?”
I blinked. “What?”
“You zoned out there.”
“I think I’m going to throw up again.”
“You need to lie down. I’m gonna touch you, okay? To help you stand.”
I nodded, and he grasped my shoulders, pulling me to standing, and I fell against his chest. He wrapped his arms around me, lightly at first, then tighter when I pushed myself against him more. I didn’t sob, didn’t have the energy, but let the tears fall slowly down my face as I trembled in his arms.
“Colby’s never coming back here,” Gunner whispered, lightly touching his lips to the top of my head. “Come on. Let’s get you upstairs.”
I tried to pull away, but he lifted me off the ground before I could put any kind of distance between us. I had no choice but to hold on and trust him. In my room, he set me on the bed and then crouched in front of me.
“Get cleaned up,” he said gently, “and I’ll bring you some food.”
“I don’t know if I can keep anything down,” I muttered. My stomach clenched at the mention of food.
“You need to try. Not a lot. Just get comfortable and I’ll be back.”
The clothes I had been wearing went into the trash. There was nothing wrong with them, but what did it matter? I broke down in the shower, scrubbing myself repeatedly to try to get the feel of Colby’s hands off my skin. I couldn’t do this. Couldn’t keep holding my head up while these men hurt me again and again, cut to the bone with their insults and the sharp cuts of their hands.
As consumed as I was, I couldn’t miss the opening of the door and the gentle rap of knuckles on the fogged glass of the shower door.
“Are you holding it together?”
“No.” I closed my eyes as the water drenched my hair, my eyelashes, and ran in rivers down my naked body.
“Can I come in?”
I put my head in my hands and breathed deep. “Please.”
Soft fabric hit the floor, and a moment later, cool air invaded my sacred space while strong arms wrapped around my shoulders. Bare skin met my back, but he still had his boxers on, and the wet fabric quickly clung to my skin. His chin nestled against my neck.
“I wish I could go back and stop it from happening.”
You could have, I stopped myself from saying. You could have warned me away. Dropped me at home instead of drugging me. Walked away after you helped me with my shoe and told Vin to go fuck himself.
But then, I wouldn’t have him at all.
Out loud, all I could manage was, “I know.”
I lost track of time as we stood together beneath the spray, rocking gently in time. When the warm water finally turned cool, he reached around me to turn it off and dried me with a clean towel, then helped me into long pajamas and a robe.
“Go lie down,” he commanded, and when he met me at my bed, he was clothed again. He sat on the floor and held up a cracker from a plate on the nightstand. “Try to eat this.”
“I’m just going to throw it up, and then your sheets will be ruined.”
“I don’t care about the sheets. Quinn, please, just try.” He grasped my hand. “This broken girl in front of me is more than I can bear. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it if it will make you smile.”
I squeezed his hand back. “I’ll give it a go.”
I ate half a dozen crackers nibble by nibble, trembling the entire time. I finally pushed his hand away, unable to stomach more. I was dead tired.
Broad hands stroked my hair. “Try to get some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
“I doubt that,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut.
“You’ll see.” He didn’t move.
I tried to breathe around the rock in my chest. The next words were almost too hard to get out. “You don’t have to stay.”
He took his hands away, and for a terrifying moment, I thought he was actually going to leave me.
“I’m not.” He pulled me into his arms once more, and despite my anger and how betrayed I felt, I put my arms around his neck and let him carry me through the door, down the hall, and into a room on the other side of the house. I barely moved as he tucked me beneath the cool sheets of a new bed, and I found myself enveloped in the scent of him. I’d never noticed it before, woodsmoke and mint, but now that I was surrounded by it on all sides, I found myself begin to calm. And I didn’t have to ask him to slide onto the mattress next to me and wrap me in his arms, to tuck my head against his chest and place his chin on my crown. He did it all without asking, but at the same time with tentative movements and light touches that told me I could pull away at any time. But I didn’t want to. I pressed my face against his chest.
“What happens if—”
“They’re not coming back,”
he whispered. “I changed the door code while you were in the shower. We’re safe.”
“I deserve this.” My voice was ragged. “This is my punishment.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb. You know what happened to me.”
After a moment, he nodded, his neck moving against my forehead. “Tell me anyway.”
No. I didn’t speak about what happened to my sister. She was a baby when she disappeared. The memories I had of her were so fleeting and wispy, but I held to each one like the last thread keeping me from tumbling over the edge of a cliff. If I forgot her, I could never forgive myself because it was my fault she was gone. Speaking those memories out loud would let them evaporate into the void; sharing them with someone else divided the images until they were too small for me to grasp in my mind.
“I’ll tell it if you don’t. You were a toddler, right?”
“Four.” The word left my mouth without thinking. “She was almost a year old. We were normal then.” It happened as Dad’s company was taking off, and his designs were starting to get noticed. We still lived in a lower-end neighborhood. My parents had dumped everything into the business, trusting it would pay off one day, but I often wondered if they regretted not moving us out of there earlier. “Mom was in the front yard with us. I scraped my knee on the sidewalk, and Mom took me inside for two minutes to put a bandage on it.” I curled around myself tighter. Pieces of her, pieces of me were slipping away with every word. I could feel the hollow inside me as acutely as if someone had torn out my heart.
“Keep talking.”
“I can’t,” I sobbed. “It’s too hard.”
“In less than a week, you’ve assaulted two professional killers and lived to tell about it. You can do this. Talk.”
I could barely understand myself. Snot and tears ran down my face and onto his shirt. “When we came back outside, she was gone. No one saw who took her. There were no witnesses, no calls to the police about a crying girl being snatched. She just … disappeared.” And with no leads at all, the trail went cold far too quickly.
He inhaled as if about to speak, but I barreled on, unable to stop now that he’d pried open the gates. “Mom broke down completely. I was never left alone, ever. Every year, we hold a vigil and show age-progressed photos of her around the country in hopes that someone, somewhere, might recognize her. But every year it’s the same. No one knows her.”
It was a couple of years before my anxiety and depression really began to manifest; the enormity of what had been taken from me hit me like a bullet to the chest. The guilt of feeling like my minor injury had broken our family apart. That was when the nightmares started. Nights spent cowering in bed, afraid to fall asleep, knowing what was waiting for me within my own mind. My parents almost lost me, too, as I sank into a depression deeper than most adults have ever had to suffer. It took years of therapy to get my symptoms under control. Though I could mask my symptoms in front of most people, even the therapists, I still fought off the guilt each day. And here he was, with his hands in my chest, pulling out every broken piece and cutting me with them again and again.
“Why do you need to be punished for any of this?”
“Because it’s my fault she’s gone. She wouldn’t have been taken if I hadn’t hurt myself. Mom told me to be careful, and I wasn’t.”
“Your mom doesn’t blame you for that.”
“How would you know?” I choked back fresh tears. If he was put off by my tone, he didn’t show it.
“She talks about you. About the both of you. About how she misses her and cherishes you all the more because of what happened.”
“That’s a funny way of showing it, getting me kidnapped.”
He pressed his lips against the top of my head. “Your mom is sick. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you.”
“Just stop, okay? I don’t want your words right now. I still can’t process all this.” What could he or anyone say to me that could make this better?
“Listen to me.” He grabbed my face and wiped it clean with his sleeve, clearing my eyes, and held me still against him. “You have to let this go. It’s not serving you. You’ve carried this around for too long, letting it weigh you down, and where did it get you? Can you honestly say you’re happy, living life always looking over one shoulder, followed by middle-aged security guards?”
“It kept me safe!” I scratched at his face, and he grabbed my wrists; a moment later, I was on my back with my hands above my head. “I should have listened to my instincts and never gone with you!”
“Then I would have taken you kicking and screaming.” He held my wrists with one hand and my face in the other. “I told you in the car. None of what is happening now is your fault. Just like what happened all those years ago wasn’t your fault either.”
He kissed me on the lips, not forcefully, just a controlling pressure that snapped me free from my panic. I gasped when he pulled back, staring at him as he released my wrists and face.
“Let it go.”
I swallowed past my sore throat. “I don’t know how.”
“Then I’ll help you.”
He lowered himself over me, his pressure on my chest as comforting as a weighted blanket, hands in my damp hair pulling free knots as he pressed soft kisses against my ear and neck and shoulder.
“You couldn’t control what happened then. And you can’t control this.”
My eyes fluttered closed. I sank deeper into the mattress, relaxing my hips, letting him settle between my legs. His hard-on pressed against my core, but he didn’t push into me or make it obvious. Tingles ran down my spine with every kiss, the brush of his stubble against my tender skin, and the curling of his fingernails against my scalp. I was entranced. Out of body.
“Let go of it all.”
I pulled at the hem of his shirt. “I want to see you.”
He pulled his shirt over his head and held himself over me, watching my face as my eyes roamed his chest. Dark tattoos covered his left side, over his heart and down his obliques.
“What are these for?” I dragged one of my bare feet along his calf.
“It’s just a random design. After …” He paused and swallowed. “After my parents were killed, I just went into a shop and let the artist do what he wanted. I needed the pain to help me escape.”
“Do you want to tell me how they died?”
He waited as I slid my arms inside my shirt and dragged it over my head. Then it was my turn to watch him as he placed one hand on my left breast, mirroring where I touched him.
“Car accident. Nothing dramatic. Just a bad turn on a dark road late at night.”
I bit back a whimper as he pinched my nipple, but I must have made some sound because his eyes snapped to mine. “You’re gorgeous.”
“You can barely see me.”
“I see enough.” He sat back and pulled at my pants, stripping them away with smooth hands. He placed one gentle kiss on my sex before returning to my lips. “I watched you for months.”
The admission should have scared me, but the goose bumps that broke out on my skin weren’t from fear.
“I don’t have birth control,” I blurted out, then covered my face. Sexy.
He laughed and pulled my hands away. “Good,” he murmured as he kissed me. “I’ll knock you up tonight, and you’ll really never be able to leave.”
I didn’t have a chance to protest as he kissed me more, dragged his fingers along every inch of my frame, and with some shuffling, he got rid of his boxers. Something long and thick slid between my labia, and every inch of me lit up.
“What does it feel like?”
“Sex?”
“Yeah.”
He grabbed my hand and pressed it between us, wrapping my fingers around him. “I could never describe it. And with you, it will be new.”
I bent one knee, and he pushed my leg out to the side to open me. There was an aching hollow between my thighs, and I was filled with a sudden craving, a
fear that if he didn’t take me soon, I would collapse on myself like a bad star.
“Imagine my fingers, but deeper. Thicker. And every time I push …” He knocked my hand away and grabbed himself at the base. I watched as he hovered just outside my entrance, the tip barely touching me, teasing me, driving every rational thought from my brain. “It drives you mad.”
My lips trembled as he pushed inside, slowly at first, then all at once. A cry escaped my lips—he was too big, and I wasn’t ready—but he shushed me with soft kisses on my cheeks and neck.
“Do you feel it?”
How could I not? I grabbed his shoulders to keep me earthside as he moved into me, every thrust grinding against my swollen clit. “Gunner, it’s too much!”
“Relax. Don’t try to force me out.” He pulled back and pinched my nipples softly, then hard enough to make me gasp. “When you come, it will be so glorious.”
His hand slipped beneath my knee and put it over his shoulder, letting him drive even deeper until I felt that he’d gone as far as he could. I grabbed his face and ran my fingers along his cheeks, his brows, the curve of his jaw, holding him in my mind as he tore me apart.
“Jesus, you’re beautiful.” His nails scraped my thigh. “I wish you could see yourself. I wish you could know how you’re making me feel right now, how tight—” He grimaced and paused. A tight shudder ran through his body before he recovered and started moving again. “How close you are to making me come just by looking at me while I’m inside you.”
Do something. Don’t just lie on your back. But when I tried to sit up, he pushed me down, hand on my throat, and moved faster. “I’m being gentle with you now. This is about you. But the next time we fuck, I will make you raw and sore. You won’t be able to sit without remembering how I felt inside you. Every inch of your skin will light up from my touch.”
My neck arched, and I had to look away. Something was building, a feeling deeper than I’d ever experienced.
“I’ll make you ride my dick until you collapse, and then I’ll move your body for you rather than let you rest. You’ll come so hard you can’t breathe, and when you recover, it’ll be to find me on top of you, bringing you right back.” He grabbed my breasts as he began to rock harder. The headboard slapped against the wall. “So right now, enjoy being on your back. Enjoy your leg resting on my shoulder. Relax and take this orgasm I’m going to give you, no strings attached because from now on, your body belongs to me.”
