Didn't You Promise (A Bad for You Novel)

by Amber Bardan

  My elbows locked, and I glanced over my shoulder. Looked right at him as he touched me from behind. “It all.”

  His head shot up, and he met my gaze.

  “I want it all.”

  His eyes flashed. Maybe satisfaction, maybe with challenge, I couldn’t think past the ache in my core. His fingers skimmed down. Two plunged into my pussy, rocked back and forth, hard and fast. My spine arched, curled up like a cat. Sweet building ecstasy unfurled through my pelvis. He pulled his fingers out, pushed them back to my ass, that middle one driving right inside, and didn’t stop until he was knuckle deep.

  I jerked. Air hissed between my teeth.

  “Stay there,” he said.

  The round head of his cock returned to my aching pussy, and drove into me. My eyes shut. He thrust with his cock, gripped my hip and began a torturous rhythm.

  His finger moved in my ass. Slippery enough to thrust with the same tempo as his cock. Heat swamped me. Hot, so, hot. Too much. Pleasure in the front. Pressure in the back.

  That drag and pull in my depths.

  An excruciating pleasure, the middle ground of bliss and agony. But I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t pull my hips away. Couldn’t resist the need for more.

  My vision clouded. Sweat trickled down my face, collecting on my lips like salty tears.

  His cock, always big, now challenged my capacity. I squeezed my eyes shut, panting and willing my body to stretch, to take it. Damp hair stuck in hunks over my face.

  A hand slid against my scalp. He gripped my hair, and lifted my head.

  I turned my face towards him. Caught sight of Haithem behind me. Need rushed over me, made my hips want to bear backwards.

  He pushed hair out of my eyes. “Is this too much?”

  I breathed in, then out. Even that movement, the rise and fall of breath, reached all the way to where he took me. Made my flesh give with each exhale.

  I’d never been so in my body. Never so fragile. So human. So aware of every inch of skin I owned.

  I owned it, this body, this skin. And I gave it to him. Gave him everything. Inside and out.

  I turned my cheek into his wrist and rubbed my lips against his pulse. “There’s no such thing.”

  His eyes shined the brightest black I’ve seen. He drove in, all the way inside both places. My spine curled. He took it all. Dragged every emotion I’ve ever had out through my body.

  Pleasure surged again—that twisting bone crunching desire. How was there more? He moved in my ass, tugged in my pussy. Something desperate coursed in this, something more than before. As though the fear in our throats could be purged between our legs. I dug my nails into the carpet. Said words. Cried words. Begged words.

  In that moment neither of us was sweet—we were real.

  Everything drew sharper, muscles strained and tightened. His finger left my ass and he grabbed my hips, fucked me harder.

  I came again—clenching, shouting, and gushing.

  “Oh shit, Angel,” he groaned and fell against me, spurting hot and high in my vagina. His bristled cheek scraped my back.

  My arms gave out. I flatted onto my stomach. He lay on me. His pulse beat from his chest against my back. Beat so closely, that thump, thumped inside me too. My eyelids drifted closed. I could sleep forever under his weight.

  He shifted against me, the skin between us slippery. The back of my thighs wet. “This time, my love, you’re the one who made a mess of me.”

  My eyes flew open.

  Had I?

  I knew I had. Somewhere deep down I knew my thighs weren’t damp from sweat. Heat crawled over my cheeks.

  “Now I’m going to expect that every time...” His lips brushed over my shoulder, and he rolled on to his side.

  I leaned on my elbow facing him.

  He grinned, and pulled my knee over his hip. Cradled me into him. I buried my face in his chest. He wasn’t embarrassed.

  So why was I?

  I’d felt a little gushing before, never let myself think what it was or what it meant. The idea itself too dirty. Pornographic. A kinky thing nice girls shouldn’t understand. But what’d just happened, that’s not something nice girls do either.

  Now it didn’t seem so dirty, and I wasn’t ashamed.

  I knew why my thighs trickled.

  I came—I’d squirted.

  There, I’d named my sin. Put such a thing to words. His chest hair tickled my nose, but I didn’t move my face.

  How ironic, after the way we’d fucked, the thing that worried me, the thing that made me blush, was the fact I’d come so hard I’d made a mess. That my own body’s natural response should be so unmentionable.

  Not anymore.

  I’d just re-calibrated my vocabulary.

  Chapter Five

  Haithem

  I pushed aside sweat soaked sheets and slid from the bed, leaving her sleeping, then yanked on jeans from the floor, and a clean shirt without bothering with buttons. I slipped out of our room, escaping to the balcony. The night breeze offered a soothing stir against still damp skin. India had always held special magic to me. A magic enhanced by the night and the feeling that you were standing part in reality and part in fiction. Maybe it had something to do with the kind of books my mother read to me as a boy, or maybe it was India’s distinct essence—it had its own breath—so no matter where you stood you knew you were there and nowhere else.

  I approached the railing and looked out. It didn’t matter where I stood tonight, or any other night. There wasn’t room on earth to outrun what chased me.

  What always followed me. I’d never told a soul about the dreams. Not even Angelina, who slept when I slept, and woke when I woke. She must know. I felt her gaze on me in the dark. Her fingers on my cheek. I’d never tell her what I saw when my eyes closed. My shirt ruffled. I set my elbows on the edge of the balcony, leaning into the breeze.

  I dreamed of a house.

  I dreamed of blood.

  My parents’ house as it’d been left after their death.

  A crime scene.

  Blood splattered across my mother’s pristine kitchen cupboards. Cupboards she never tolerated to be smudged, painted in crimson drops with her own blood.

  Blood smeared across the cream carpets.

  By now there’d no longer be any trace of the violence that took my parents. Before I’d left, I’d given instructions for cleaning, new carpet, the kitchen to be replaced, but I’d always see it the way it’d been that day I returned home.

  The air cooled, and I pulled the edges of my shirt together. I never went into the basement where they were dragged. Where they were questioned.

  Where they died.

  Yet in sleep, the gaps filled. I saw their bodies—wide open unseeing eyes—my mother’s throat gaping—I could never be untold that’s how she died.

  Air turned hot, painful and poison in my lungs.

  The sliding door glided opened with a gentle whoosh behind me.

  In the nightmares that’s what I saw. Their bodies. The basement door opening, blood rushing down the stairs at my feet, my parents prone at the bottom.

  I’d thought nothing could be worse than those dreams.

  Footsteps padded closer, and warm hands brushed my sides.

  I was wrong.

  Because tonight it’d all changed.

  Her arms circled me. “Everything okay?”

  Tonight that basement door opened, blood cascaded down those same stairs, and—

  I covered her small hands with mine and pulled her arms tighter around me. Her cheek rested on my back. The rise and fall of her chest behind me willed my breaths to slow. They couldn’t slow, not even to match hers.

  —Angelina lay at the bottom.

  * * *

>   We left the hotel half an hour earlier than planned. The car we’d arrived in remained with the valet for Avner to take care of once we’d well and truly gone. Haithem sat in the backseat of the chauffeured car beside me. We rolled through traffic. The blaze of the air conditioner not helping the rolling in my stomach any more than the stop-starting, or the fact we’d changed directions three times.

  Haithem glanced out the window behind us, gaze narrowed and assessing.

  I turned my head.

  “Don’t look,” he snapped.

  I focused on the road in front of us. This was my fault. Ever since he’d seen my picture in the paper he hadn’t been the same. He’d been twitchy, even more cautious than before. We’d managed to do nothing more than burn time with circling back. If we didn’t pick up pace we’d miss the train.

  “Turn here,” Haithem said.

  The driver turned left onto a narrow road. Haithem’s gaze flew to the rearview mirror and his jaw ticked. Local children clambered around the car. Our pace slowed to a crawl. Kids swarmed us. Little fists pounded the windows like drums.

  Haithem peered down the street.

  “Aren’t we going to be late?”

  Haithem yanked open my bag and pulled out a blue scarf. “Do you remember the way back to the hotel from here?”

  “Yes, why?”

  He draped the scarf over my head, one end around and over my shoulder, then slid his own sunglasses over my nose.

  “We’re moving to plan B.” He slid an envelope into my bag.

  My heart thumped louder than the hands on the window. “Are you sure—”

  “In five seconds, you need to get out of this car.” Haithem withdrew a wad of cash from his pocket and wound down his window.

  He pointed to a side street beside us. “Go,” he said, then threw cash out of the window to the kids, who tightened the swarm around the car so swiftly it was as though they knew the smell of paper money.

  I clutched my bag and opened the door, my heart hitching up to my throat, and left the car through the sea of grabbing little hands. I bent over until I reached the side street, then straightened, and walked as fast as could be considered not a jog.

  I made my way through throngs of people back onto the main street. Ignored the blisters grinding through the plaster bandages I’d plied all over my feet. The hotel we’d stayed at came into view, but I went into the lobby of the other Haithem had pointed to on our way out, navigating my own way through the lobby to the ladies’ room.

  In a stall I plucked the contacts from my eyes, took off the wig, brushed my hair but then wound it into a bun at the back of my head. I changed clothes, put on a pair of reading glasses, swapped the passport in the money belt at my waist for the one in my bag, and wound a black scarf over my head and shoulders.

  Then and only then I leaned back against the door and opened Haithem’s envelope. My shoulders fell forward. I guess I expected a little more.

  Just a time—6:00 p.m.—and the name of the station.

  We were catching a different train. Or at least I was. My stomach clenched. I’d been running off excitement. Now I stood alone in a hotel in a city I’d never heard the name of until days ago. I wasn’t even sure when I’d see Haithem again.

  When he’d decide it was safe enough.

  I took a deep breath and straightened. No, I wasn’t alone. I stroked the watch on my wrist with my index finger. He’d be with me, looking out for me even when we weren’t together. I walked out into the lobby, spoke to the concierge, and had him organize a car for me.

  I’d always wanted to travel on my own.

  I’d just never had the nerve.

  The strap of my bag dug into my shoulder. My sandals rooted to the spot. People bustled through the train station. They all seemed to know where they were going.

  Not me.

  After a two-hour drive, I’d been standing in the one spot for the better part of another hour. Doubts waged their own little war with faith in the back of my brain. The extent of my ambition had been—get to station. Don’t get followed.

  Check.

  I let out a long breath then moved, turning full circle on my tiptoes, and peered over heads. A bump knocked against my hip. I stumbled back onto the soles of my feet, then looked down into the huge eyes of a boy. Maybe eight years old, maybe older. When a kid’s that skinny it’s hard to tell.

  He handed me a slip with grimy hands.

  I took the paper, smudged with black fingerprints. A train ticket. I glanced back at the kid, gaze landing on nothing but the scurrying bodies of busy people.

  “This isn’t—” I turned around again.

  No kid.

  I rubbed the paper between my fingers. Haithem. I scanned the ticket, found the departure time, then looked at my watch. Adrenaline swept through my system. Ten minutes. I pushed through the crowd, following the signs to the platform. I crossed the overhead bridge and ran down the ramp on the other side. The doors of a purple train opened on the platform. I clutched my bag tighter and jogged to the doors. A uniformed ticket collector halted me in the doorway and held out his hand. I handed him the ticket, then brushed the moisture off my lip as I fought to regain breath. He pointed down the train to where, apparently, I had a private cabin.

  I strode through the carriage, scanned faces sitting in lounges and on antique chairs.

  So many faces and none the one I needed.

  I crossed between carriages, finding the long lonely hallway of private cabins, and compared the numbers on little gold plates to the cabin number on the ticket. I reached the glossy sliding door of cabin eleven. My heart raced, my breath still hadn’t caught up. A horn blasted, and the train lurched. I grabbed the brass door handle, tugging the door open. Afternoon sun flooded between mustard-and-gold curtains, piercing my eyeballs as the teeming station slid away outside the windows. I squinted and stepped into the cabin, yanking the door closed behind me.

  The train clicked and rolled over tracks. I turned, surveying the cabin interior. A seat ran under the window. A bed on the other wall, a small table in the corner. No matter what my eyes landed on only one thing mattered.

  He’s not here.

  I dropped the bag, rested my knee into the seat cushions and yanked the curtains closed. Then sank back against the seat, laying my head down on a pillow. My right leg hung off the side. A shaft of light from the gap in the curtains lit up the space above my face. Dust particles danced in the air. The scent of musk crossed my tongue with each deep breath. I shut my eyes. Voices carried down the hallway. Doors rolled and slammed.

  He’ll get on at the next stop.

  That’s plan B after all. Split up. I’d take his directions. He’d find me again within twenty-four hours. Only a detour. My dangling foot bounced off the wood paneling under the seat as the train hit a bump in the tracks. My eyes opened and I stared at the trembling dust.

  Only a detour.

  Chapter Six

  By midnight I accepted I’d be traveling alone. The sounds of the train dulled to the methodical whiz and bump of movement over tracks. Voices, people sounds, all reduced to an occasional cough, a baby’s squawk.

  The cabin glowed a deep honey yellow from the lamp on the wall.

  With the sun outside gone, I’d opened the curtains, wanting to see outside. The dark wasn’t a problem for me. Darkness had never been one of my phobias. Maybe because I’d been born a twin. Spent my first months in the shade of my mother’s womb with my brother pressed up against me. Never for a moment alone in the dark.

  We’d shared a room in the beginning—before he got sick—and we’d played in the darkness.

  The space between my ribs ached.

  I hadn’t thought about that in a while. How Josh and I would sneak around at night. Mostly me with the sneaking. Angel
ic by day, rat-bag by night.

  I rested my temple against the window, each bump a knock on my skull. I may or may not have been responsible for the mysterious cookie disappearance phenomenon that plagued our household for years. Mostly though, I’d crawl along the floor between Josh’s bed and mine, on hands and knees, see how close I could get before he’d notice. I never did get a chance to scare him. To leap on his bed and yell Raaa. He’d always start giggling when I was about a foot away, so I’d tickle him instead.

  I sighed, and unwound my bun then fluffed my hair. That giggle sounded in my mind. It hadn’t been lost when I’d blocked everything Josh out. He’d always be there. I smiled and slid on my shoes, not the sandals I’d arrived in, but heels, and left the cabin. The lights dimmed in the hallway. I tingled with energy. It was late enough now, with few enough people around, to risk a trip to the bar—and get out of that closet of a carriage before I lost my ever-loving mind.

  If the bar is even still open...

  I passed through the narrow passage between trains, and stepped into the lounge. I stopped in the carriage a moment, needing to take it all in. I’d rushed through the train before, looked at people, but hadn’t had a chance to really see what I’d drifted through. I ran my hand over the ornate wood frame of a padded chair.

  Maroon-and-gold curtains, carpet, and upholstery—this train was a step back in time.

  A few people lingered in the lounge, reading books, one guy asleep with his chin on his chest. The bar at the back of the room was empty except for the bartender.

  I went to the bar, and ran my fingers over the mahogany counter.

  “What can I get you?” The bartender polished a wine glass with a red cloth.

  I’d never been to a bar alone. Never ordered my own drink. In fact, I’d only ever been to any kind of bar once. I studied the bartender.

  Young—dark—cute.

  “I’d like a Screaming Orgasm.” I managed to keep my smiling lips even.

  Not sure what was even in a Screaming Orgasm—just always wanted to order one. I wanted to look a man I didn’t know in the eye and ask for something dirty.