Escape

by Jay Crownover

  When the connecting door opened silently under my hand, I held my breath as I peeked into the still dark room. I thought for sure he would lock me out. I literally begged the teenager to let me look at his varied and extensive injuries. He tried to refuse the same way he had with dinner, but I pushed and pleaded until he caved. There wasn’t much I could do for the old wounds, but the fresh ones and the wounds that looked raw and possibly infected I did my best to clean and bandage up. There wasn’t a spot on his long, gangly frame that wasn't marked in some way. He’d been through hell in the back of that rusted out RV, and when I said as much, he quickly corrected me and told me that some of the bruises came from his time hustling. The poor kid hadn’t seen kindness in so long he didn’t recognize what it was anymore.

  There was a lump under the covers in the center of the bed. I sucked in a surprised breath and put a hand on the center of my chest when my heart leaped in reaction. I couldn’t believe he was still here. I couldn’t believe he believed in us enough to stay.

  I was backing out of the room as quietly as I could when a disembodied voice drifted up from the cocoon of covers. “I know you’re there, Brynn.”

  I stopped and pushed a hand through my damp, shower-sex tangled hair. I’d done a lot more to get dirty than clean while soaping up and sucking off Lane this morning. I should be embarrassed by getting caught snooping on Bauer, but I wasn’t. I wanted him to know someone cared, that he was worth checking on and fussing over.

  I tugged on the belt of the fluffy bathrobe from the spa-like bathroom that I’d thrown on after my shower, twisting it around my hand. “I wanted to see if you were still around. I wasn’t sure you were going to be here this morning.”

  The covers rustled, and suddenly his head appeared amidst all the white linen and cotton. His hair was clean, but the auburn strands were sticking up in a million directions indicating that he fell asleep when it was still wet, and it had dried crazy. The red in his hair made me smile, and so did the way he rubbed the sleep from his eyes with his fists like he was a little kid. There was still some youthful innocence buried inside of him. I wanted to give him the chance to let more of it out. He was young enough that there was still time for him to salvage his childhood.

  “I wasn’t sure I was going to be here either. I planned on taking off, but after you left, I took a shower, ordered some food and tried to get in touch with Mikey again. It’s been years since I wasn’t smelling my own stink and not fighting off hunger pains. I’ve been sleeping with one eye open and my hand on a switchblade for so long I think I forgot what it was like to sleep straight through the night. I told myself I was gonna close my eyes for a minute. I guess I needed more than a minute and having a full stomach didn’t help my plans either.” He reached for the phone that had dropped to the floor at some point in the night. I could tell from the glower on his bruised face that he didn’t like whatever was on the display. He shoved a hand through his wild hair and looked up at me. “Thank you for last night.”

  I tugged on the terrycloth and nodded. “It was my pleasure.” I motioned to the phone. “Any word from your brother?”

  He shook his head and threw himself back against the mountain of pillows. “No, and that’s not like him. Mikey always responds right away when I find a way to contact him.”

  I worried my lower lip with the edge of my teeth and tried to push down the apprehension that was rising in the center of my chest. “Did you tell the guy in the RV about Denver?” I didn’t know how far the people who abducted Bauer would go to get him back, or if they even would try.

  Bauer shifted his eyes toward the ceiling and tapped the phone against his palm. “No. I didn’t tell that asshole anything other than I wanted him to let me go.” His thin shoulders shifted, and he pulled at his hair in frustration again. “But I did tell the guy who picked me up in the BMW that I had an older brother. When we were exchanging sob stories, I told him all about Mikey trying to protect me from my dad and how he promised to take care of me once he was old enough.”

  That wasn’t good. That meant the kid they sent in as bait knew more about Bauer than he did about the people who snatched him. His older brother not responding suddenly seemed even more alarming, but I didn’t want to worry him any more than he already was. I forced a smile that I was sure he could see right through and offered a platitude that he met with a flat stare. “I’m sure we’ll hear from him soon. Order something to eat, and after we pack up, we’ll get on the road. If we drive straight through, we should hit Denver sometime after midnight.”

  He nodded and looked back at the phone. He tried to appear nonchalant, but I could see how anxious he was.

  I told him, “Take your time.”

  Hoping I wouldn’t freak him out or give him the wrong idea I walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress. I reached out a hand and put it on his bony shoulder, giving him a reassuring squeeze. His eyes were so sad and filled with so many secrets that it was impossible not to get pulled into the darkness trapped inside of them. This kid got to me on so many levels it was nearly impossible to separate his hurt from mine. I was starting to understand why Lane had felt the need to put his entire future on the line for me when we were younger. All I wanted to do was put myself between this kid and everything in life that was going to hurt him.

  I felt him shiver under my light touch and watched as he slapped a practiced but indifferent expression on his face. “It’ll be okay, Bauer. Whatever is waiting for you, it will be okay. You don’t have to face it alone.” I knew how hard it was to have hope when it felt like every day brought some new, unmitigated horror with it.

  “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt because of me…because of who I am.” The last part of his sentence dropped off and his face twisted into a mask of disgust.

  It was so wrong that the people who were supposed to love him unconditionally didn’t. It killed me that anyone would tell a child that who they were was somehow wrong and worthy of all the pain and suffering he’s been through.

  I squeezed his shoulder again and rose to my feet. I didn’t want to crowd him, even though I wanted to stay close by if he needed me. He needed to know someone would show up for him, no questions asked.

  “There is nothing wrong with who you are. You are exactly the way you were always meant to be, just like I was. When I was born with this red hair all I heard was how wrong it was, how ugly and against my heritage it was. I was an anomaly, a monster and my mother and her people never let me forget it. I thought something was wrong with me until my little sister came along. She looks just like my mom and just like all the other little girls on the reservation where I grew up, but she wasn’t treated any better than I was. My mom still acts like she was an inconvenience and an abomination, and the people on the reservation still treated her like she was less than worthy because our dad is white. Some people hate because that’s all they know how to do. That’s their problem, not yours, and eventually, you will find someone who loves everything about you. Anything that happens from this point forward is not your fault, Bauer. That blame lands squarely on the shoulders of the people who only had one job, to take care of you, to raise you. They failed, not you.”

  Something I said erased the self-loathing that was creeping over his entire body. His head cocked to the side, and I bit back a smile because he reminded me of a curious puppy when he looked like that.

  “You grew up on an actual reservation?”

  I nodded. “I did. My mother belongs to the Crow Nation. My grandfather is one of the Crow tribe elders. Believe it or not, he used to be a rodeo star back in the day.” If they had been better people, I would have taken so much pride in both those facts. I never took my heritage lightly, but it wasn’t something that I used to define myself either. I couldn’t, not when I heard over and over again I wasn’t enough of anything to claim it. “He was very disappointed when my mother hooked up with a roughneck and had me when she was still a teenager. I don’t know if he hated that m
y dad was white more than the way he beat on my mom when he could be bothered to be around.” My dad was my mom’s biggest mistake, and very much like Lydia Warner, he came and went like a bad rash we could never quite get rid of.

  Bauer jerked his gaze away from mine once again and fiddled with the seam of the comforter. It was crazy that his mannerisms appeared so young and untried when his eyes seemed ancient and world-weary.

  “I loved history when I was in school. Learning about cowboys and the Old West was my favorite. Is Lane a real cowboy? He looks and acts like one.”

  I couldn’t hold back the laugh that bubbled out. “He’s the real deal. If you ever make your way to Wyoming, he can show you how to rope and ride, how to herd cattle and catch fish. He can even teach you how to play sad country songs around a campfire. His family’s ranch is pretty much my favorite place on the whole Earth.”

  A wistful look crossed Bauer’s face, but he hid it when he looked back down at Lane’s phone, swiping the screen and typing what I assumed was another message to his brother. “I would like that…a lot. Once I told my dad I was gay, he stopped trying to teach me anything besides how not to be gay anymore.”

  I could tell by the inflection that he didn’t believe a trip to the ranch would ever happen, so I told myself that I would prove him wrong. I would show him that sometimes those of us who had had to fight for every little thing we had, eventually got the things we wanted most because we deserved them.

  “Eat something hearty for breakfast. I don’t know when we’re going to get a chance to eat lunch. Don’t give up on your brother. He’s probably just tied up with something.” That got me an absent nod that felt like it came from any teenager who was done with an adult hovering over them. It made me smile.

  When I got back to the suite I shared with Lane I was surprised to see our bags already packed and the room empty. When I left to check on Bauer, Lane was still in the shower weak-kneed and breathing hard from the blowjob. It appeared he had recovered and was getting us both ready to go. I couldn’t help but feel a little swell of pride that it took him a few minutes to recover after I was done with him. I’d wondered how he would taste and feel in my mouth for a long time, so I made sure to draw the experience out and savor it for as long as possible. It was torment and temptation for both of us.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement in the bathroom. The door was open halfway, and Lane was standing in front of the vanity, the lower part of his face covered in a thick slather of white foam. He was watching himself in the big mirror as he scraped a razor over the stubble that dotted his chin. Of the three Warner brothers, Lane was the only one who kept his face clean-shaven. I asked about it once, and Cy jokingly told me it was so that no one missed the sexy little divot in his youngest brother’s chin. Like Lane Warner needed anything else to make him absolutely irresistible.

  Wordlessly I moved around him, pushing him back a step, so I was between him and the sink. He lifted his dark eyebrows as I made a gimme motion with my hand, asking him to give me the razor. Under the robe, I wasn’t wearing any clothes. Watching him watch me with those hooded and hot baby-blues, I suddenly felt every place on my body where that scruff he was getting rid of rubbed my skin raw the night before.

  I wrapped my fingers around his jaw and moved his head, so I had a clear shot at his cheek. Slowly and carefully I pulled the blade across his skin and watched as smooth, tanned flesh was revealed.

  He didn’t flinch.

  He didn’t twitch.

  He didn’t tense.

  He let me handle him like he was mine to do whatever I wanted with, and there was something so exciting and arousing about that that I felt my body start to throb and hum in response.

  He stood perfectly still and trusted me to take care of him. He trusted me and more than that he believed that I wasn’t going to hurt him now that I knew that I could. He watched me with those bright eyes of his, and I swore he saw all the things I’d tried to keep from him for so long. There were no secrets left, nothing left to hide.

  When I had all the shaving cream removed, I dropped the razor in the sink behind me and found a washcloth that I could finish cleaning him up with. The burn in his eyes changed from something hot to something that bordered on the edge of dangerous. I let out a strangled yelp when his hands found their way under the heavy material of the robe and landed on my naked backside. His rough palms moved across my skin in a caress I felt right between my legs. My arms went around his neck as he pressed me harder into the marble behind me, dropping a heated, wet kiss on my mouth before lifting me up like I weighed nothing and setting me on the edge of the vanity.

  It felt good to have his strong body pressed into mine. It was hard to ignore that rigid length that pulsed against my center behind the towel he loosely wore around his hips. Nevertheless, I felt obligated to warn him, “We don’t have much time. Bauer can’t get ahold of his brother, and he’s worried. We need to get on the road soon.”

  His dark hair rubbed against my fingers, and the muscles in his shoulders flexed enticingly where I held him close.

  That grin of his did what it always did, charmed the pants off me, not that it was hard since I was mostly naked.

  “I’ll be fast…in a good way.”

  It was hard to argue with that, and there was no denying the promise of pleasure in his eyes.

  When he kissed me again, I kissed him back and arched into his touch as he pulled the belt of the robe apart. I obediently opened my legs to make room for him as his hands drifted up and down my thighs. His tongue teased mine, darting in, and out, and around. It felt like he was mapping out the way I tasted and all of his favorite spots in my mouth so he could revisit them over and over again. I submitted to his control, letting him handle me and take care of me the way he let me maneuver him.

  He pushed the robe off my shoulders, and it pooled around my hips where we were pressed together. His hands worked their way across my chest. He took his time tracing the line of my collarbone, stopping to circle the mark he left at the base of my neck the night before. His palms skimmed over the swell of my breasts, his thumbs pausing to circle the swollen tips. My nipples pulled even tighter under his touch, throbbing with a pleasure so sharp it had me pulling in a pained breath.

  He outlined my ribs and rolled his fingertip around the outside of my belly button, all while making love to my mouth. His lips never left mine, and his tongue never let up on its sexy exploration. When his hands reached the tops of my thighs, I had to pull back so I could catch my breath. Lane grinned at me again, and I was ready to hand my heart right on over to him then and there if he promised to never smile at anyone else that way ever again.

  I couldn’t get a single word out though because he used his thumbs to trace the indent where my legs were wrapped around him. That curve led him right to the place that was already wet and waiting for him. Typically, I took a minute or two to get warmed up and into the swing of things. With Lane, I had a hair trigger, and it took nothing more than the flash of those blue eyes, or the hint of that lady-killer grin and I was ready to beg him to stick his cock inside of me. He wasn’t the only one who was running hot and fast when we were together like this.

  His fingers dipped between my legs, and I felt a rush of moisture follow. That grin of his turned wicked, and before I could get my thoughts in order, he dropped to his knees on the bathroom floor. My head fell back with a gasp, and my fingers clutched desperately at the edge of the countertop. I felt him use his fingers to lightly stroke the slick folds in the way of his target. He made a low sound of appreciation, and my heart tumbled when he dropped a sweet kiss on the inside of my thigh.

  “When you blush, you blush all over, Brynn.” He sounded like he liked the pink heat that was under my skin. “You are so pretty, everywhere.”

  His rough fingers carefully pulled me open. I’d never been this exposed to anyone before. I’d never let anyone study and examine me the way Lane was doing. While I sought out intimacy and
the kind of connection I only felt with him, when it came time to let someone in who wasn’t Lane, I couldn’t do it. For him though, I let my legs fall open even more, letting him move me like I was liquid as he put my legs up on his wide shoulders. I gladly lost myself in the sensations he was creating. His breath was hot against my core, and I almost came right out of my skin when I felt the edge of his strong, white teeth on my clit. The almost bite made my spine stiffen and had my ankles digging into his back.

  His tongue flicked at my entrance, lapping up the silken moisture he drew out of my body. When he moaned in satisfaction, it vibrated against my most sensitive parts and had my head spinning.

  “I like the way you taste, Brynn. Doesn’t matter where my mouth is on your body, it all tastes so good.” He proved his point by licking his way inside of my body, making love to me with every part of his mouth.

  I tossed my head from side to side as he curled that subtle appendage and sought out every place he could find that would make me scream. When I was panting his name, and begging him to hurry, he changed his focus so that his mouth was surrounding my clit and his fingers were pushing in and out and scissoring back and forth inside of me. He used his tongue and his teeth to relentlessly torture my clit, biting down on the hypersensitive spot and soothing the sexy sting with mind-numbing kisses. He curled his fingers with unerring accuracy and hit the place inside of me that made me a slave to his touch.

  That steady pressure against that tender spot combined with the rougher, more aggressive attack on my clit pushed me into the oblivion of pleasure so quickly that I didn’t even have time to tell Lane how close I was or how amazing what he was doing felt. All I could do was helplessly come apart under his hands and mouth as he continued to work me over, pulling every last pulse and shudder of my orgasm out of my body. When he pulled his thick fingers out of me, they left a wet trail across the insides of my thighs, a sight that was so erotic and satisfying I wanted him to paint my entire body with the proof of how good we were together.