by Marata Eros
What a lie.
My hands tremble as I slide the zipper of my backpack home.
Riker is due to return from his little vacation at prison. Snare's younger brother and sister, Denny and Micah, have been farmed out to state homes. This time, Snare couldn't stop the wheels of CPS turning. Actually, he's trying to get Riker a more permanent spot out of their lives forever. Snare will give testimony before a judge soon, so the twins are safe.
But I won't be there. Snare has my written testimony. I lied to him, saying I wanted to keep my thoughts straight. We had the paper notarized. I did that much.
My mother awaits my abusive stepfather's return like a junkie getting ready for her next fix.
I throw my backpack over a shoulder. I take deep zen breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth. Gooseflesh seizes me, spreading over my skin in anticipation of my next move.
Snare is set to pick me up in an hour and take me to his apartment. I'll be long gone before he arrives. Snare's free now. Isn't that what you do for someone you love? You let them go.
He's free of the stepsister he had to protect. The obligation.
Tears sear like fire behind my eyelids as I shut the door on a bedroom that was a prison since the day I moved in.
I pass the closet where I gave up my virginity to Snare. Then I pass the hidden cubby that leads to an even smaller closet known only to us.
I don't look. I can't bear the reminder. My heart is bleeding with a seeping wound of grief. My insides are too raw over leaving Snare to acknowledge the part of our lives that was only ours.
I keep moving. Walking into the living room, I catch sight of my mom.
She sits on the couch, her hands folded as though in prayer. Her eyes rise to meet mine.
I'm having your grandchild! my mind screams.
“Where ya heading?” she asks in a dull voice, her knotted hands limp in her lap. I try not to notice my resemblance to her. The dark, chestnut hair, the deep, midnight-blue eyes. But her looks are like a faded photograph, folded at the edges, used—washed out.
I swallow a lump in my throat, blinking slowly. “Out.” I touch the edge of the doorknob of the front entrance.
“Your father's coming home today.” She scowls at me, no doubt angry over my not wanting to be here for Riker's homecoming. I repress a shiver of revulsion.
I've attended those little homecomings before. It's a drunken brawl, ending in him beating the shit out of my mom and coming after me. I can hide, but he finds me. Many times he found Snare instead.
But not all.
I squeeze my eyes shut, closing out the image of my mom's vacant stare, her almost fervent anticipation of the return of our abuser.
Not anymore.
“He's not my father,” I say, walking out the door.
I don't look back.
“Sara Isabelle!” my mother shouts from behind me.
I keep walking. Public transit is just around the corner. I'll take the train out of Kent and go to downtown Seattle where the strip joints are.
I won't show for a few more months. I'll make it.
Somehow.
3
Snare
Present day
Hard to keep focus.
The blonde's head bobs up and down on my cock, really working it. Mouth like a siphon—cunt like a clamp. I should be riding high about now, getting ready for the rocket ship to shoot. But my fucking hard-on is circling into noodle territory.
Fuck.
Sara. It's a brunette head I see moving like liquid fire on my dick, not some sweet butt that thinks there's a chance to be my property.
Even though I've been wanting to sample this particular sweet butt for a year. Crystal was always too busy trying to get in Noose's leathers to give a fuck about mine. Not very fucking flattering.
Tonight's finally my turn. My chance to spread her wide and dig deep. Mine her twat for all the hidden treasure there is.
If my fucking heart would be in it.
Crystal pops off the top of my rod with a smack of her lips. She sits back on her heels and pouts. Swinging her palm in the direction of my half-erect cock, she says, “I've done what I can, but you're not here, Snare.”
I nod. The rest of my dick agrees, falling over like a flesh tree on my inner thigh. “Thanks for noticing.” So fucking helpful.
Her dark eyebrows hike. “Duh.” She draws the word out. “Can't help but notice.” She snorts, crossing her arms underneath nice but fake as fuck tits.
I sigh, giving my short hair a rough pass with my hand. “Sorry—thought I'd be into it.” Not happening. I pick up my limp dick and let it flop back down. Damn.
Crystal licks her lips and sucks her lower lip between her teeth. “I was really wanting to get fucked tonight. I hear you have a huge cock.”
Again, flattering. I smirk. “Yeah, well, my cock's not on a leash. It won't sit, stay, roll over. But it's playing dead pretty fucking good right now, so not tonight, sweet cheeks.”
Crystal sits on her ass, then swings her legs around and slams her feet into sky-high platform heels. “That was an ego bust.” She stands up, naked except for the heels.
I enjoy the view, like every other red-blooded male around. Huge tits, small waist, enough ass for a handful, slit totally smooth of hair, tight twat.
I glance at my dick. Uncooperatively flaccid.
Gee-zus.
“Sorry, babe. Can't get ʼer up.”
Crystal huffs, walking to gather her shit lying all over the floor.
I watch.
She bends over, giving me a great view of her holes lined up for the taking.
My dick doesn't even twitch.
Fucking Sara. My cock comes to life. Perverted life. I get a memory of taking my stepsister's cherry and—boom—hard-on central.
Crystal turns around, gets a load of my junk, and a sly smile spreads on her face. “I knew it,” she says, walking toward me.
There's something about the view of a chick walking in heels that puts a sort of sway to the hip. It's the hottest thing coming or going.
I slit my eyes, fuzzing Crystal out. Her fake blond hair, the bright green eyes, the spread of golden freckles over the bridge of her nose. I make it opaque and open my mind to a different memory.
A memory of Sara.
Sara's dark hair, her eyes so deep a blue they're almost black. Her smile—the scent of her skin.
Like food of the flesh.
Crystal starts working my cock. Long, sure strokes. Wetting her palm from fingertip to wrist, she takes the meat of me in her hand and drives it down to the root, followed by practiced lips.
Back and forth she goes.
But it's Sara's hand and mouth, her touch my dick gets rock hard for.
I need this. I need to release. My cock aches painfully as though I haven't fucked a hundred chicks between that stolen moment in the closet with Sara and now.
None of it matters. None of them matter. Only Sara.
Crystal spreads herself over me, and I part my legs to stabilize my body on the couch.
Her hot cunt encloses my cock, and a painful exhale shoots out of me. Part relief, part pleasure.
Crystal begins to move up and down, squeezing on the way up and slamming her hole on my dick.
I pant, dipping my head to my chest. I won't touch her. Can't defile the memory of Sara.
Crystal speeds.
“Oh my God, you're a bitch-splitter, Snare,” she says in stunned wonder. “I'm gonna come on your huge cock... now!” She tosses her head back, and I catch her so she doesn't fall backward and break my dick off.
Her pussy pulses around my aching cock, and I blow. Painful jets of repressed come shoot out of the tip of me like machine-gun fire, and I groan, and it sounds kinda like a sob.
My cock throbs, my balls curling up against the base of my dick. Been too fucking long. Needed to get off. With a woman instead of a memory.
Any woman will do.
Since the one woman I want
is somewhere I can't find her.
Maybe Sara doesn't deserve to be found?
*
Feel better after I grab a shower. Thank fuck Crystal had rolled on a condom at the last second.
She's not a bad bitch, just cunning. That I don't need. I slap her ass on the way out the door of the room I use at Road Kill MC.
She blows me a kiss.
It's with a supreme sense of relief I close the door, though it doesn't last long before there's a knock. “Fuck off,” I say automatically.
“It's Noose.”
I smile. “Fuck off.”
I hear a chuckle. “I saw the sweet butt leave. Unless you're your own best friend, I can come in.”
My smile turns to a face-splitting grin. “Come in.”
Noose opens the door. He fills the space and moves through.
“You take up the oxygen in the room, dude.”
Noose nods.
He's a man of very few words. A great fucker to have at my back. A little strange with the knots, but everybody's got shit.
I have a load of shit.
“Made any progress?” I ask.
He nods.
I fold my arms. “I assume you're bugging me after I just got off because you have something new.”
Noose spreads his arms. “It's been five years, Snare. Why you looking for this girl? You gave me a name and age. But fuck, man. We're talking western Washington. Chick wants to get gone, she can.”
I step into his airspace, and he stills.
“She's not just any chick.”
Noose frowns.
“The more ya know.” Noose shrugs, tapping his temple once.
Fucker.
I tear my fingers through my hair. Not to neaten it but to give myself something to do.
“She's my stepsister,” I admit in a low voice.
Noose's golden-brown eyebrows slowly lift, his hands falling to his sides. “What in the actual fuck?”
“It's not how it seems.” I glare at him.
“Right,” he says, clearly unconvinced.
Noose isn't a confessing kind of guy, and so he expects nothing in return. But I've effectively hamstrung him with as few details as I could give him. Pretty much Sara's first and last name was what he got, and some basic stats.
“Sara Thomas,” Noose says dryly. “Five foot three, one hundred fifteen pounds, dark brown hair, dark blue eyes.” Noose shrugs again. “Give me something. Besides the obviously fucked-up perv program you're operating.”
My eyes hood. “Listen, you pain in my ass, I might not tie knots like a fucking wet dream, but I can still kick your ass.”
Noose smirks, giving a slight chin lift. “You can try.”
I razor my eyes on him like knives. “What if I just want to find her—make sure she's okay?”
Noose shakes his head with slow deliberation. “Nobody goes to this much trouble unless it's about pussy.” He shrugs.
I wish I could work through mental shit as simply as Noose. I just can't. Noose has been forced to scale back to the basics. At least, that's what he told me. That's what I know.
“Just barf it out, Snare. I can take it.” His smile grows. “Perv.”
Prick. “You see this?” I point to the scar that bisects my face.
“What—the knife wound?” Noose asks, his voice as smooth as silk.
“Yeah.” My own is a raw bark.
“She's my stepsister. But she was a victim. My dad was always beating the fuck out of everyone, me—my half brother and sister. Then Sara moves in and is the new punching bag in the house. And I couldn't—” I turn away from Noose.
Tears burn the back of my eyes. Fucking weak. But thinking about what Sara endured, what I endured so she'd have less, always makes me feel like a piece of me is coming loose, getting ready to float away where I'll never find it again.
“Hey. Fuck man—I didn't know.”
“I'm not confessing shit. Sara didn't have anyone. When Riker came after her, I stepped in.”
Silence beats between us like drums.
“That's what I did,” Noose says.
I whirl, looking at his solemn face. Zero bullshit, as always. “What did you say?”
He lifts a muscular shoulder, and the leather of his cut creaks with the motion. “When I was in foster homes. Some of the fucking men beat and rape the girls, pimp them out. I have size.” He shrugs. “Not much else. Became like a game. They try to fuck up the girls, Noose becomes the target. When I got old enough, I fucked them up.” His voice goes low with recounting his past, like a hoarse whisper of remembered dread.
I know exactly what the fuck he's talking about.
Noose's face breaks out in a sudden grin. “I didn't fuck any of the girls, though.”
God. “I only—had sex—with Sara, once.”
Noose's mouth drops open. “So let me get this straight. Your real dad beats everyone in the house?”
I give a terse nod.
“You become the target so the other kids don't get it as bad.”
My silence is the answer.
He nods, clearly getting the routine—he's played the game himself. “So when this new girl comes, your dad marries her mother.”
“Just to get to Sara.”
Noose appears unsurprised, his jaw sliding back and forth. Hard. Thoughtful. “He's a planner, the sick fuck.”
“Yeah,” I say, sounding pretty sick myself.
“And he gave you this scar?” His gaze travels my face.
“He tried to rape her, Noose. She was seventeen.”
Noose looks down at his thick black combat boots. “Fuck.” When his chin rises, he looks me square in the eye. “So tell me this isn't tail. Because if you did this girl once, and she's legally your sister? Tell me it's more important than family reunion time.”
I nod. “She left, man. We have sex, I'm set to pick her up the next day. Got a great dorm apartment thing on the U Dubb campus and poof, I got back home, my fucked-up dad is there already laying into Sara's mom, but she's gone.”
“So she what—lied to you?” He shakes his head.
I scrub my face, weary already. “No. Yeah—I don't know. She left a note.”
“I hate that Dear John shit,” Noose mutters.
I frown. What?
He reads my expression and passes a palm back and forth. “Fuck it. I just mean when a chick is scared to say what the fuck they want and don't give a man a chance to respond. It's fucked up. Not a goddamned mind reader.”
Yeah. “What about Rose?”
Noose whistles, smiling and shaking his head. “I think I about got her done with Dear John.”
“I hope so. You guys are married now. Got a kid.”
Noose's face softens, but damn, I’m glad I know him to see the subtle expression change. Noose is hard as nails. “What'd the note say?”
“Said she didn't want me to have to protect her anymore. Said I wasn't her keeper.”
“Is that true?” Noose asks.
I nod. Yeah, I was her fucking keeper.
Noose studies me and folds his arms. Blows out a harsh exhale. “You're not gonna like what I got.”
My bowels hiccup. I jerk my chin in his direction, clenching my jaw. “Tell me.”
Noose tosses his palms up, facing out. “This is not a girl that wants to be found, Snare. Just let it go. Fuck the sweet butts. Choose one of the other three point five billion girls in this world. I thought Rose was complicated pussy? Pffft.” Noose jerks the hairband at his nape, tightening it. “This girl makes Rose look simple.”
My palms go damp, my heart about to thump out of my body. I move into Noose, our chests almost touching. He's got a couple of inches on my six-foot-two frame, but we're both tall. Both hard.
Different nightmares. Same dream.
“I came to you because I knew with your military connections, you might find her. I have to know she's okay.”
“What about your dad?”
I jerk my chin back. “What a
bout him?”
“He still give a fuck about Sara?”
I shake my head. “Hell if I know. I did my bit in college, didn't want to be a citizen, patched in. Don't talk to his sick ass anymore. Denny and Micah are in the system. Probably better off not being around him.”
Noose nods. “He's looking for her too, Snare.”
I step back. The movement is actually closer to a stagger, like a drunk righting himself. “What?”
“I have feelers out. But from the beginning, given your description and her shitty background, there's only a couple of things a chick can do that makes money.”
His pause is significant.
Fuck me running. I should have thought about it. Should have known. My heartbeats spasm, tripping over each other in response to my panic. My pits tingle with nervous sweat.
“She's a stripper, Snare. Word on the street—a good one.”
My head feels hot. Like bursting-into-flames worthy.
A strong hand at my elbow jerks me to the couch where I just fucked Crystal. I land my ass on the cushion, and Noose puts my head between my knees.
I can't breathe. I suck air anyway, sounding like a whistling train.
“It's okay. I got Trainer tailing her naked ass.”
“Naked?” I squeak between my teeth, my eyes trained to my boots.
“Yeah, man, what part of titty bar didn't you get?”
The part where the only woman I've ever loved is taking her clothes off for strangers.
4
Sara
“Meow!”
High heels tap after me, and I roll my eyes. Lola is such a pain in the butt. But I love her.
“Kitty! Wait up, you demented pussy!” That gets me turning with a smile.
But I don't have an ass ton of time to chitchat. I gotta get Jaylin. My little girl's preschool is over in twenty. It's ten bucks every thirty minutes I'm late. I hate my hours. I barely get to share a meal with her and I'm back here at The Crawl.
The Crawl used to be only a swank bar tucked in next to Pike Place market and the pier. Now it's got a high-class strip club attached to the original bar section of the old turn-of-the-last-century building.
