by Marni Mann
He deepened our kiss as I slid my hands up his neck, his tongue swirling around mine. I combed through the thickness of his whiskers, stubble I’d never felt on him before. A coarseness that I fantasized scratching up the inside of my thighs. I reached his cheeks, and suddenly, I was in the air, my legs wrapped around his waist, my back still on the wall.
The space between us was gone. We were shirt against shirt, breasts against chest. Lips so intertwined, it felt like they’d never been apart.
And it was perfect.
It was too perfect.
All these years, I’d wanted to know what it would have felt like had I not left his apartment that night and had begged him to take my virginity. I was getting a taste of that now. It made me want more.
And it made the guilt grow.
And the guilt made it hard to breathe.
“Garin…”
I pulled my mouth away, but his didn’t go very far. It moved to my neck, biting across my throat and down my collarbone and over the tops of my breasts.
“Mmm,” I moaned.
“You want this to stop?” He lifted his face, his eyes holding mine.
Was I capable of telling him to stop? Not at this point. Not after being reminded of how good he could make me feel.
“No,” I said.
He sucked my bottom lip into his mouth, pulling it away from the teeth that were grinding into it. “I want to torture this fucking lip.” His eyes only confirmed his words. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“And go where?”
He kissed the outer edge of my cheek, his deep voice tickling around my ear, turning me on even more. “To a place where I can give your body everything it needs.”
He set me on my feet as he waited for my answer.
An answer that was already on my tongue.
A tongue that watered to taste more of him.
I was going home tomorrow where I could dwell on the guilt for the rest of my life. But, tonight, I wanted to feel some pleasure even if I didn’t deserve it. And I wanted Garin to give it to me.
I took his hand and led him to the door.
Five
Kyle
My throat was so dry. I couldn’t swallow. Every time I tried, I choked on the thickness of my tongue. It was swollen, stuck to the roof of my mouth. The taste was worse than morning breath. More like days’ and days’ worth of morning breath plus bile.
I rubbed my cheek into the pillow, not understanding why it was so firm. Why there was no give. Why it felt like muscle, not feathers or fluff.
“Don’t open your eyes too fast,” a man said. “Whatever they gave us was some heavy shit.”
I pushed away from whatever my head was lying on and opened my eyes as I sat up. “Ow!” I screamed, covering them with my forearm.
He was right; I shouldn’t have opened them too fast. The light stung and made my head pound. The little I could see was all blurry and rushing in circles, like I was inside a washing machine on full spin. Sweat covered my skin. My mouth watered.
I was going to throw up.
“Take some deep breaths. It will get better,” he said.
I leaned back into what must have been the headboard and sucked in mouthfuls of air before blowing it out through my nose and inhaling more. I knew the voice that kept speaking to me. Even though it had changed over the years, it was a voice I would never forget. It was deeper now. Sexier. I just didn’t understand how he was able to talk to me in person. I had a flight to take me back to Tampa early this morning, and there was no reason I shouldn’t be on it.
Maybe I was on it, and he’d decided to come with me. Maybe the spinning in my head was really turbulence. But then, why didn’t I remember checking in at the airport?
“Tell me we’re on the plane.”
“We’re not.”
“Tell me I didn’t miss my flight.”
“You missed it.”
“Shit.”
Still covering my eyes, I tucked my head between my knees and tried to take more deep breaths. “Was I that drunk?” My stomach churned. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to talk about what I drank. It hurts too much.”
“We were both pretty drunk.”
I remembered both of us drinking. I remembered ordering more drinks. I didn’t remember much else besides…him kissing me. It was a little cloudy, but I could visualize the hallway we were in. My back was against one of the walls. His hands were around my throat, and there was tongue and biting and moaning.
Lots of moaning.
Had we done more? I reached down and rubbed my thighs. I was wearing pants. They felt like the same ones I’d worn to the funeral. I wiggled my butt and felt the pull from my panties. My shirt and bra were on.
That didn’t mean I hadn’t been naked at some point.
I sucked in the walls of my pussy, trying to feel for that familiar tenderness that was usually there the day after I had sex.
“We didn’t fuck.”
How did he know what I was thinking?
“If I’d fucked you, Kyle, you wouldn’t have to try to remember it. It would be the only thing you’d be thinking about.”
I rubbed my temples, trying to dull some of the pounding. “A little conceited, aren’t you?”
“I’ve wanted to fuck you since I was fifteen years old. If I got the chance to finally be inside you, I would have fifteen years of making up to do. And it would be something you would never, ever forget. So, no, I’m not conceited. I just know what I’m capable of and how I’d want to make you feel.”
I didn’t care how much it hurt or how badly everything inside my head was spinning, I had to see the expression on his face. So, I spread my fingers slowly, letting in a little light at a time.
The sweat on my skin was starting to dry, and the dampness in the air was hitting me now.
“Why do you have the air-conditioning on?” I asked. “It’s freezing in here.”
“The air isn’t on.”
I had one eye open, focusing on him, while I gradually opened the other. Everything was hurting even worse now that I could see, but that didn’t take away from his gorgeous face. A face with long scruff and messy hair that was leaning against a wall.
A wall…not a headboard.
And beneath him was a cement floor that was the color of dirt.
“Where are we?” I asked, slowly peeking around the room.
There was a toilet just to my left with a pedestal sink, both made of rusty metal. A bottle of soap and a tube of toothpaste lay on the sink. The door across from us had a square cutout in the center, filled with thick rusty bars. On the next wall was a rectangular window directly under the ceiling.
No color, no tile, no paint. Just metal, rust, and dirty cement.
“Is this your bathroom?” I asked although he still hadn’t answered my first question.
My bathroom in The Heart was nicer than the one in Garin’s hotel, which seemed really odd.
He shook his head. “No.”
Why was I so cold?
“Then, where are we, Garin?”
“From what I’ve been able to piece together, I think we’ve been taken.”
“Taken? Taken where?” Everything inside me was suddenly shaking, including my voice. The sweat was back; the churning had returned. The whole room was spinning.
“The guy who opened our cell wouldn’t tell me, and he shut the door too quickly for me to grab him.”
“OUR CELL?”
I pushed myself off the ground and wrapped my arms around my stomach. My chest was heaving, my pulse racing. The air was closing in on me. It felt like there were hands squeezing my throat. And then there was this awful taste in my mouth, like I’d been sucking on a piece of hard plastic. But there was nothing between my lips, nothing around my neck.
Just me, Garin, this cell, so many unknowns, and not nearly enough air.
Stop fighting it, Kyle.
“I can’t breathe.”
I tried yanking my c
ollar away from my throat, but my tank top wasn’t anywhere near it. The movement only made it feel tighter. Three clumsy steps, and I was at the sink, splashing cold water on my face, gulping it down. It didn’t help. I still couldn’t breathe.
Tiny flashes of light sparkled at the corners of my eyes as I paced in a small circle. They weren’t pretty; they were a warning that I was going to pass out. I needed to breathe. Nothing was going in; nothing was coming out.
Breathe.
Garin’s hands were on my shoulders.
Breathe.
“What’s the worst design you ever made?”
“What?” I panted, looking up through the pieces of hair that had fallen over my eyes. I was holding my chest because my throat was too tight to touch.
“Worst design,” he said. “Tell me about it.”
Relax, Kyle.
I shook my head. The plastic taste wasn’t as strong, the tightening starting to loosen just a little. “It was supposed to be a calla lily.”
“And?”
The shaking stopped, and the room was no longer spinning.
“It looked more like a tulip.” I inhaled through my nose and exhaled slowly out through my mouth. “Client hated it. Made me redo it, and the second one was just as bad.”
“Why?” He gripped my shoulders even harder.
“I can’t do flowers. Never have been able to.”
“Too detailed?”
“I’m just not a fan.”
“I’ve never heard a woman say that before.”
I shrugged, feeling his fingers bear down on me. “They die too fast. I’d rather have something that lasts a little longer.”
“So, no chocolate?”
I laughed, enjoying the warmth I was feeling from him because I didn’t know how long it would last. “Oh no, chocolate lasts. It goes straight to my ass where it has the potential to stay forever.”
“You’re breathing again.”
“I know.”
To make sure it stayed that way, I focused on Garin. He was in the same clothes he’d worn to the funeral, but now, his shirt was untucked, and there were stains on his pants. His scruff had definitely thickened, and the look in his eyes had deepened. As deep as when he had been kissing me.
“How long have we been here?” I asked.
“At least a night. Maybe more. I woke up only a few hours before you. It took you longer to sleep off the meds.”
He’d mentioned something about that earlier, and I’d ignored it. At that point, I thought I was in his hotel room. I wished I could go back to that thought. That image was perfect.
“What do you think they gave us?”
He sat us down on the floor, turning so that he faced me. His hand left my shoulder. I missed it the second it was gone.
“I don’t know, but something strong enough where they were able to transport us without us waking up.”
Air had fully returned to my lungs. It was my stomach I couldn’t get to relax now.
“Who’s they?”
“I’ve only seen one guy. I don’t know who he is.”
Garin was over two hundred pounds of muscle. It wasn’t just one guy who had drugged and transported the both of us. There had to be at least a few guys. If they took us, they wanted something from us. And if they wanted something from us, something told me they’d do anything to get it.
Anything.
How much time had I lost in this cell? How many days had I lain on that dirty cement while our captor watched us, planning on what he was going to do?
I glanced down at my hands. They looked so yellow in this dim light. Yellow and sickly and unwashed and shaking.
I was shaking again.
This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
I rushed over to the door, wrapped my hands around the bars, and pulled on them as hard as I could. There was no budge. Not even the slightest movement.
“It’s locked. I already tried it. The fucker has no give at all.”
“No!” I shouted. I lifted myself until the bottoms of my feet were driving into the door, and I tugged with all of my weight. “We can’t be locked in here. There’s no reason for it. We didn’t do anything wrong. We…”
There was no we.
Garin hadn’t done anything wrong.
There was only me.
“I’ve tried, Kyle. Trust me, it won’t open. Don’t use all your strength; you’re going to need it.”
My feet dropped to the ground, and I turned around to press my back against the door. My hands stung from the metal, my palms now tinged a deep orange from the rust. I felt myself falling until my ass sharply hit the cement.
“Ow,” I cried out. It wasn’t just my ass that was stinging from the fall. My bladder was full and burning, too. “It all hurts.”
“It’s the meds. Once they fully wear off, you’ll be better.”
“Will I?”
He was sitting across from me, staring into my eyes, his face so stoic.
“Because I don’t know how either of us can feel better in here,” I said.
“Come here.”
I shook my head.
“Come here, Kyle.”
He’d seen the man who had come to our cell. He’d had a few hours to stare at every corner of this room, every inch of the floor, every speck of grime, every bit of rust. Maybe he didn’t have answers, but he had some time to process.
I needed time, and I needed to process somehow.
“Kyle, come—”
“What? Are you going to give me some of your warmth? Or are you going to turn cold again? I can’t take that and this, Garin. And I can’t move.” It must have been the drugs that made my limbs feel so heavy, my head so cloudy. I could see, I could hear, I could feel, but none of it was crisp, and none of it felt like it was under my control.
Finally, warmth shone over his beautiful features, and he rose from the floor and walked over to me. “Come here.” He wasn’t asking me to do anything now. He was telling me what he was going to do, which was lift me from the floor and set me on his lap.
I molded to his body until I was snuggling into his chest with his arms wrapped around me.
I no longer felt the dampness in the air or the unforgiving hard floor.
I no longer felt his coldness.
I just felt him.
All of me felt him.
“I feel like a kid again, stuck inside The Heart, your comfort promising me that there’s a way out.”
“I can’t promise that.”
I sighed. “I know.”
I finally smelled him. His skin, clothes—whatever it was, it was a taste. A taste of something delicious inside a flavorless room. A taste that reminded me of years of memories. They embraced me as much as he did.
I needed that…even if I didn’t deserve it.
“I don’t know why we’re in here, but I’m happy they didn’t put us in separate cells.”
“Me, too,” he whispered.
Even if he was being wrongfully accused, I didn’t want to be in here alone. That made me selfish. That made me a horrible person. But I closed my eyes and soaked up whatever he was giving me. If things were about to get bad, then at least I had this minute of good.
“Garin?”
“Mmm,” he grumbled across the top of my head.
“You’re squeezing me so hard. My bladder is about to burst.”
“Then, get up and go to the bathroom.”
I slowly looked at his face. “I’ve never peed in front of a man before. Not even you when we were kids.”
His expression didn’t change, but his grip lightened. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“That you’ve never felt comfortable enough with a man to be able to pee in front of him.”
In all the time I’d been dating, I’d never peed with the door open. There was no pimple-popping. No shaving. Nothing personal, besides putting my clothes back on and walking out the door.
He was right; I wasn’t c
omfortable enough.
It was a sad reminder of the truth.
“Stop overthinking it, Kyle. Just go over to the toilet, drop your pants, sit on the seat, and pee. I won’t look.”
“But you’ll hear.”
“Yes, I’ll hear.”
“That’s just as bad.”
Considering where we were and what had happened, it should have been the least of my worries. The problem was, I was worried about everything.
He pressed his hand over my cheek, his fingers reaching well past my ear, his thumb dipping to the corner of my lip. Even when he was soft, he was still so rough. “I don’t know how long we’re going to be in here, but you’re going to hear me pee, you’re going to see me wash my body, you’re going to watch me get fucking pissed if someone doesn’t bring us some answers and some food pretty soon.” When he paused, it felt like he was reading my face. “If it’s fear, get over it. Right now, it’s just you and me and this goddamn cell. The only thing I care about is keeping you safe and comfortable.”
I wiggled out of his lap and moved over to the toilet. There was no lid, just a big hole and a flushing handle. On the floor was a single roll of toilet paper. I didn’t know if we’d be getting any more, and building a nest would use too much of it, so I dropped my pants and sat on my hands.
Before I peed, I glanced at Garin. His legs were stretched out and crossed, the back of his head resting against the wall, and his eyes were closed. He was giving me the privacy he’d promised.
I shut my own eyes and relaxed my body, feeling the relief almost immediately. When I was done, I washed my hands at the sink and used my pants to dry them. Then, I stayed in the corner, staring at the bars. There were eight of them, at least an inch apart, and through them, all I saw was darkness. “Why are we here?”
I felt his eyes on me, but I didn’t get an answer.
Six
Garin
Two Years Ago
I pushed my chair back, reclined into the soft cushion behind me, and crossed my shoes over the edge of the desk. This was the first time I’d sat down in the last twelve hours, and there wasn’t enough scotch in my wet bar to dull the ache that was throbbing behind my eyes.
It had been a long fucking day.
My marketing director had quit this morning, gone to work for the casino at the end of the strip, challenging his non-compete just one month before the largest poker tournament my hotel had ever hosted. A cocktail waitress had been sexually harassed by a player while taking his drink order. The finger he’d used to rub her cunt with was no longer attached to his hand. When my men didn’t get enough satisfaction from that, they sawed off his whole goddamn wrist. And, to make matters even worse, three of the slot machines had paid out jackpots in the last six hours, totaling over ten million.
