by A. J. Norris
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t matter anymore.”
“How can you say that?” Ben stepped into the bedroom.
Mackenna could’ve crumbled right there. She could do this—shut off her emotions, put on another face and pretend to be better and stronger than she really was, ruin another life if she had to—but not if Ben was there.
“Dammit, Ben. I told you to wait,” Ray said.
“I need to talk to her before it’s too late.”
“Is this the day the universe decided no one was going to do what I told them to?” He stood between Mackenna and Ben, and he might’ve been looking back and forth between them, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Ben. He looked exhausted.
“Fine.” Ray threw his hands up. “We’ll have someone on you, Mackenna, and we’re working on getting in place at the airport. I’ll have my best guy get her.”
“I want you to do it, Ray. I won’t believe she’s okay until I hear it from you and her.”
“Okay. I’ll do that.” He left, closing the bedroom door behind him.
“This is crazy,” Ben said, closing the gap between them. “Who is this guy? How did he find you?”
“You don’t know?”
“No. They wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“After my mom died and my dad started drinking, my sister went wild. Alcohol. Drugs. I knew she was in trouble, but I thought she’d snap out of it. One night she snuck out of the house to go to her boyfriend’s and never came home. For years I thought she was dead. Then I got a call from her. She was crying. She asked me to pick her up, but we got disconnected. I traced her call to south Dallas. I drove the streets at night looking for her, but never saw her. Then I checked the strip clubs. I saw pictures of her in two of Frances Miletto’s clubs. I started a relationship with the owner’s nephew.” She shivered at the memory of Travis’s hands on her skin, his mouth on her lips, his dick inside her. “One night, when he was asleep, I tried to hack into their personnel files. Travis caught me, so I told him I would do anything he wanted if he’d help my sister.”
“Travis?”
“Yes.” She pulled out her phone and showed Ben the photo she snuck of him before he sat down at the diner that afternoon. “Does he look familiar?”
Ben took the phone and studied the picture. He sighed, sat down on her bed, and looked at the picture again. “This is Travis.”
“Yes. Why does he hate you so much?”
“Javier and I were best friends with him and his brother.”
“Were?”
“One day my dad drove us to the lake. He was drunk. We had a horrible wreck, and Travis’s brother died.”
“And you all lived?”
Still looking at the phone, he nodded. “My dad went to prison, but that wasn’t good enough for Travis. He took a bat and…used Javier to punish our dad.”
“I saw the pictures, the police reports.”
“He gave him brain damage. Javier will never be the same. And Travis was a juvenile, so…”
“He got out.”
“With a sealed record,” he spat out and handed her phone back to her. “Miletto. That was his mom’s maiden name. I knew that sounded familiar.”
Mackenna sat next to him. So many lives ruined. So much devastation. So many choices stripped away in an instant of bad decision-making. “He had me followed that night because I kept putting him off. I liked you. I didn’t want to ruin you. He knows we slept together.”
“Which is why you can’t do this.”
“No. It’s why I have to do it. After I install the spyware on his computer tomorrow, Ray will have what he needs, and Travis will go to prison for a long time. But if that happens, I’ll never know where my sister is. I’m running out of time, and I need to pack.”
She tried to walk away, but he stood and pulled her back. “Let me stay with you tonight. I want to be with you.”
She couldn’t do this. She’d already exposed more of her need than she ever wanted. What she needed right now, what Ashley needed, was for her to keep it together. “I can’t. I shouldn’t. I—”
He put his fingers to her lips, silencing her protests, and kissed her cheek.
“You don’t know me, all the things I’ve done. The lives I’ve ruined.”
He kissed her other cheek. “I know you. I want you.”
The last time she’d given in to her truest desires and opened herself to Ben, Travis’s mole had been watching. There was no one watching or listening now. She kissed him, her mouth expressing the hunger she’d felt for so long. Even when they were together the first time, she’d been reserved, masked, because she knew if he really knew her, he wouldn’t want her. But now he knew. He knew everything and still wanted her.
Ben pulled her sundress over her head and threw it to the floor.
“Mi Cielo,” he said and then pulled his own shirt off, revealing his lean, toned body. A runner’s body. She wanted to feel him over her and inside her. It was the first time she could remember wanting to feel anything at all. He started on the button to his jeans, but she put her hands over his and took over like before…like in Travis’s picture.
“No.” He stopped her. “I want you to trust me now.”
A familiar panic rose in her chest. It had been so long since she ever thought she’d be able to trust someone again, to be free to show him who she really was. To lose control. She knew Ben’s lips tasting her would make her lose her mind with pleasure she wasn’t sure she deserved.
Looking down at her, he brushed her hair off her face and asked, “Do you trust me?”
She nodded. She did trust him, even if she didn’t deserve him. She climbed back onto the bed and lay back. Ben slid her panties off her and practically growled at the sight of her. Then he went down, his tongue teasing her most sensitive places. When he found the perfect spot, she grabbed his head, tangled her hands in his hair, and whimpered with pleasure.
Ben’s tongue swirled around her clit, arousing a need in her she couldn’t deny. She needed Ben. She needed trust. She needed love. “Please,” she begged. “I want you inside me.”
She fumbled inside her bedside table for a condom, praying there was one in there. He took it from her, put it on, and positioned himself over her.
“Look at me, Mi Cielo. I want to see you. I want you to see me.”
She opened her eyes, exposing the tears that were pooling. “I see you,” she said, opening herself to him. “I trust you.”
When Ben pushed inside her, his breath hitched. “You feel so good, Cielo.”
She put her hands on his face, kissed him, and said, “I trust you.” It was so much more intimate than saying I love you, even though she did love him. Their slow rhythm gave way to his rising need and her responsive body. She matched his pace, thrusting her hips to meet his. The dance of their give-and-take grew frantic as she wrapped her legs around his waist, sending him deeper inside her until all self-control was spent.
“Ben,” she whispered, clutching him close to her, and her body seized around his.
He pushed deep with one final thrust and gasped as he throbbed inside her. Mackenna lost control. She clung to him as waves of pleasure washed over her body and nourished her soul.
It wasn’t long before Ben fell asleep with a smile on his face. Their lovemaking had been an exercise in trust and need. It was amazing how much those two emotions depended on each other and incredible the way Ben drew them out of her. Now she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to contain them again. But she’d need to…at least once more.
Ben had been asleep for over an hour when Mackenna decided it was time. Since her meeting with Travis at the restaurant, she knew this would be the only way to truly protect Ben and Javier and get her sister back. She climbed out of bed and went to her bathroom, taking the disposable phone she’d bought at the mall to keep Ray from hearing this conversation. Two deeps breaths and a prayer later, and she was dialing Travis’s number.
“Who the hell is this?”
His speech was slurred. He was already flying.
“It’s me.”
“What do you want?” She could hear disdain in the shortness of his words.
“I made a mistake,” she said. “I want to come back to you.”
Chapter Eight
Mackenna
Mackenna sat on the leather sofa in Travis’s office and watched him pop an ecstasy tablet into his mouth. “You sure you don’t want any, baby?”
“I’m good.” The bass from the music in the club pulsed within her. She never understood why he liked being back here so much. The bad music, cigarette smoke, and stale air didn’t create the most inviting of atmospheres. For some reason he loved it.
He sat back, threw his arms over the back of the sofa, and rested one hand on her shoulder. Then he laid his head back, took a deep breath, and said, “Ramos didn’t do it for you, huh?”
She remembered the gentle way Ben had kissed her even after he finished and said, “Not at all.” She eyed the razor blade on the coffee table next to the bag of coke and the assortment of pills. She wanted to do it now, but instinct…or fear…told her to wait.
Travis moved his hand and massaged the back of her neck. “Shit, Mack. You’re so tense. Take a pill already. I don’t wanna get too far ahead of you.”
She knew when she called him that this is where they’d end up. Actually…she knew when she left the restaurant that this is where they’d end up. He was never going to let her sister go. He was never going to let Ben go. He was never going to let her go.
Travis sat up and caught her looking at the items on the table. “This is a good one.” He picked up a pink pill and held it to her mouth. “Go ahead, baby. It’ll be just like old times.” The music got louder. The bass pounded harder. Travis’s face, which once was relatively handsome, now seemed blotchy and red.
She didn’t want to take the pill. She didn’t want anything to be like it was when she was with him, using him to get closer to Ashley. She hated putting a pill in her mouth, not knowing what it was going to do to her, not remembering half the time what she did under its influence. But Travis was holding this pill to her mouth, and she needed him to trust her. She opened her mouth and let him place it on her tongue.
“Swallow it.”
She obeyed, and he drew her close to him, kissing her hard. His hand moved up her skirt, and part of her wished the drug would hurry up and take effect because she didn’t think she’d be able to do this without a little help.
“Wait,” she said, putting her hands on his chest and pushing him away.
“What?”
She glanced at the bag, razor, and mirror on the table. “I was thinking about before. How I used to set it up for you. Do you remember?”
One corner of his mouth turned up. “That was so fucking hot.”
Of course, he would think that. She’d cut his lines for him, he’d snort his poison, and then she’d blow him. The memory of that nauseated her. It was yet another example of the lengths she was willing to go to get her sister back. She allowed herself to be humiliated, used, trashed…and she still didn’t have what she wanted.
“It was hot,” she said, trying to make her smile as natural as possible. “Let’s do it again.”
He unfastened his jeans and pulled his hard dick out. “Oh baby, I’ve missed this.”
That was a lie. He probably had scores of prostitutes in this very office blowing him on a regular basis. The music slowed down but still pounded inside her. The lights in the room were already pulsing. The drug was starting to work. “Lay your head back. Relax.”
Travis did as he was told, and Mackenna emptied the contents of the bag onto the mirror. She kneeled at his feet and cut the white powder with the blade until she had formed two perfect, thick lines. She handed the mirror and then the rolled bill to Travis and waited.
“You start,” he said, looking down at her.
She took a deep breath. She was going to have to do this. There was no other way. She wrapped her hand around his shaft, moved it slowly up and then back down.
Travis drew in a deep breath and said, “Oh hell yeah.” Then he did a line of the powder in each nostril. He laid his head back and put his hands on her head, trying to guide her mouth to his dick.
She inched closer but still moved her hand up and down his length, watching him, waiting. His body twitched, and he sat up.
“What the hell? What the hell did you do?” He looked around the room, his eyes landing on the bag of coke on the table. “What’s…where did you…what did I just do?”
She held up the empty bag, her bag, the one she’d filled with the small doses of sedative Ray had given her over the last several months. “I don’t know which is more insulting, Travis, the fact that you’d think I would choose you over Ben or that I would actually want to blow you.”
“I don’t…” He shook his head and blinked a few times.
He made a move for his phone, but she climbed on top of him and sat on his lap, straddling his legs. She grabbed his wrists and held him down, shaking off the dizziness that was starting to set in. She knew back at the Taco Diner that this was what she’d have to do. She couldn’t be as cunning as he was, so she had to be smarter. She also knew she had enough doses of Ray’s drug to cause real damage if she could get him to snort it.
“What did you give me?”
“I honestly don’t know. I do know, however, that a small dose will knock a man out for hours. I probably gave you about ten doses.”
“You…you’re trying to kill me?” He tried to get up again.
Feeling her own strength waning, she struggled with him, squeezing his wrists and pushing him against the back of the sofa. “After tonight, I don’t care if you live or die. I want to damage you like you’ve damaged everyone I care about. I’m going to hold you down until you pass out. I’ll wait several minutes before I call for help. I’d say by the time you get the help you need, your brain will have gone at least fifteen minutes without oxygen. I’m talking serious brain damage.”
“That’s…” He blinked a few times.
“Illegal?”
“Yes.”
“Unhinged?”
“Y…yes.”
“Cruel?”
He nodded.
She put her mouth to his ear and whispered, “At least I didn’t use a bat.”
An hour and a half later, Mackenna climbed back into her bed and snuggled up against Ben.
He wrapped his arms around her. “You okay?”
“Yes. Just needed some water.”
He tightened his grip on her. “After tomorrow, this will all be over.”
She closed her eyes, trying to stop the spinning sensation she’d been fighting ever since Travis’s limbs went limp underneath her. “I know.”
Chapter Nine
Mackenna
One month later
Mackenna blew her sister a kiss through the computer screen. “You look amazing,” she encouraged. “Keep up the good work.” She touched the ceramic angel wing pendant that was hanging from her neck. “And I love this. So much.”
Ashley blew a kiss back. “You’re my guardian angel. I’ll talk to you next Saturday. Love you!”
“Love you too!” She closed her laptop and took in a deep breath. Ashley was getting stronger with every passing week. She was going to be okay.
She went to Javier’s room. “Ready to be tucked in?”
Javier nodded.
She tucked his covers in around him, kissed him on the forehead, and smiled at him. She could never give him back what Travis had taken from him, but she could make sure his world was secure. He would never know what she’d done, and that was okay. Ben didn’t know everything, either. Not yet, anyway. Those years of her life needed to stay tucked away in the darkest corners of her soul for a while. Right now, she needed daylight. Right now, she needed to live. One day she’d unpack them. With Ben’s help, she’d dust them off and sort them into their proper places in her soul—the ex
periences she could use and the ones she needed to let go of.
“Light on or off?”
“Off.”
She turned his light off. “See you in the morning.”
“Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
“I won’t.”
Mackenna left his room and went to hers and Ben’s. He was sitting up in bed, working on his computer. She got into bed and climbed on his lap.
He looked at her over his reading glasses. “Te ayudo?”
“I’m here to help you.” She took his glasses off, folded them, and put them on the table beside the bed. “Are you ready to be tucked in?”
Without breaking eye contact, he closed his laptop and set it aside. “I’m ready for a lot of things. But first…” In one quick motion, he flipped her over and climbed on top of her. He kissed her neck and then both her cheeks. “How do you feel about big parties in small towns?”
The End
About the Author
Genevieve Lynne grew up in a small Texas town where everyone knew each other and gossip was considered a legitimate news source. She was raised on heaping helpings of southern cooking, sweet tea, hot summer nights at the lake and maternal guilt. Even after moving to Austin to pursue her bachelor’s degree in English at The University of Texas, she never could shake the small town out of her. She’s still working on the guilt thing.
Genevieve loves to incorporate the charm of close, crazy families and small-town life into her stories. She now lives in Fort Worth with her husband and three sons.
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