by JA Huss
“Oh, we will, darling,” he says, petting my hair. And then he claps his hands and the doors swing open again. This time a staff of servers come in carrying platters and plates with silver domes covering them. They head into the dining room and one produces a tablecloth, snapping it into submission as it’s laid out on the table. After that it’s a whirlwind of glassware, and dishes, and bottles of champagne.
Fuck yeah. We’re having drinks. Fizzy ones, which are perfect for dissolving pills. Now I just need a chance to plop it in.
When all the table-setting fanfare is over, Carlos pulls out a chair for me. I smile politely and say, “Thank you,” as I take my seat.
He sits across from me, grinning like a boy as he opens his napkin and places it in his lap. Servants remove the silver domes over the plates and platters, revealing a proper Mexican Christmas feast.
“Delicious,” I say, biting my lip a little to entice him to soften up and forget about work.
Champagne is poured and then Carlos orders the servants to leave us alone.
“A toast,” he says, raising his glass. “To our first night together.”
I raise mine too but tilt my head at him a little. “Yes, well, technically it’s our second night.”
“But it’s our first night as a couple.”
“No,” I say, correcting him again. “We’re still in the getting-to-know-each-other phase, right? I mean, we did agree.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” he says, putting his drink down. “You want a courtship? Yes?”
Courtship. Jesus Christ, this guy. He’s so delusional. “Yes,” I say. “Exactly. A courtship.”
Carlos smiles. It’s kind of a… sneaky smile, if I had to put a name to it. A sly smile. A cunning smile. Like he’s got a trick or two up his sleeve that I never thought of yet. Like a cat on the prowl after a mouse, where he’s the cat and I’m the mouse and I just walked right into his trap.
“Well,” he says, getting up from the table to walk around behind me. He takes my hair in his hands, plays with it, his fingertips brushing against the back of my neck, making the little hairs stand up on end. And not in a good way.
Something is wrong here.
He leans down, his lips pressing against my ear in a soft kiss. “Well, that means we are… dating, mi amor. And people who date do other things while they get to know each other. So you’re going to stay with me now. Every night in my bed, starting tonight. What do you think of that?”
I’m holding my breath, my chest tight, my mind racing with what this means. “Other things?”
“Si,” he purrs into my ear, kissing my neck now, his hands on my shoulders. I didn’t pick a revealing dress, but they were all strappy. He slides the straps down my arms now, his hand moving forward to caress my breasts.
It takes every ounce of self-control not to elbow him in the mouth. Every bit of willpower to let him touch me like this.
I let that breath out. Slowly. Silently. And say, “Where are the tamales?”
“What?” He laughs. But it stops him. Stops his kiss. Stops his hands.
“Tamales?” I say. “I love tamales. The sweet ones. But I don’t see any on the table. Don’t you have any tamales?” I turn in my chair to look up at him. “Please? Can you ask someone to get me some?”
He starts playing with my hair, a hungry look on his face, and not for the food on the table. “Dessert comes later. And tamales weren’t the sweet ending I had in mind.”
I will remain calm. I will think critically. I will win this game by being smart, and strong and—
Fuck it.
“Please, please, please,” I beg him, standing up in my chair and turning, so we’re face to face. I place both hands on his cheeks. Gaze lovingly into his eyes. Then take one more for the team, lean in, and kiss him on the lips.
He grabs at me, pawing at the straps on my dress like he’s going to take me right now. His kiss is forceful. Hard and overly demanding.
I will not let my revulsion fuck this up. I won’t.
So I kiss him back. And just as he’s about to lose control, I pull away and say, “Please,” again. “Can you get me some tamales? I promise to thank you for it later.”
He hesitates, and I stop to consider that he may be crazy, he may think he’s in love with me—hell, he may actually be in love with me—but this tamale gambit is still pretty goddamned thin. But I’m in it now and so I keep playing the game.
“Or I can thank you now, if you prefer.” And I wink at him. Because I just need him to turn his back so I can slip the drug into his champagne. Once he does that, I can deal with whatever comes next. I will have to. He’ll pass out soon. I just need to get the damn drug in his glass or there’s no way he’s not gonna fuck me tonight.
His grin grows. Then he lets out a hearty laugh. “Very well. Give me a moment.”
“Take your time,” I say.
He turns away and walks over to the large double doors, opening them wide, looks over his shoulder once, again with the hungry look, and then starts speaking to the guards.
I whirl into action. I have the pill over the top of his glass in one blink. It plops into the fizzing champagne and begins to bubble.
Carlos is still talking when I look over my shoulder to check. But when I look back at the glass, the pill is still clearly visible.
Jesus. Fuck. Leave it to Ricky to give me an insoluble drug! I stick my finger in the glass and give it a swirl real fast, still looking over my shoulder at Carlos’s shoulders between the two half-open doors.
I look back at the pill. Still there!
I hear Carlos say, “Gracias.”
Oh, my God. I’m so busted.
My finger comes out, I sit back down, and reach down to pick up my napkin on the floor where it fell when I stood up.
A hand on my shoulder makes me gasp. “What are you doing?” Carlos asks.
“Waiting for you to deliver dessert,” I say back, adding a coy smile to my play. “What else?”
He stares at me. Then his gaze begins to wander around the table. Looking for something out of place…
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I’m sure he’s just about to spot the pill in his glass—sure I’m about to be raped, then killed—when shouting and a hard knock at the door pulls his attention in another direction.
I exhale the breath I was holding.
The doors burst open and a man is standing there, talking so fast in Spanish, I can’t keep up with the conversation. Something about a truck, and a blockade near the border…
Carlos turns back to me and says, “I have to go. But I’ll see you later when I come to bed for the night.” He strokes my cheek, looks at me with real affection, and I let myself feel a little relief.
I won’t be raped and killed.
Not yet, anyway.
“It’s fine,” I say, my voice slightly shaky. “I’ll be here.” But then I get another idea. “But before you go…”
“Yes?” Carlos asks, already walking towards the door to deal with whatever drug-lord emergency he’s having.
“Do you mind…? I mean, it’s Christmas Eve and all. And I’m all alone. Do you mind if I take a walk out near the beach? I haven’t seen it yet. I promise not to go in the water. I’ll just walk on the sand.”
He’s shaking his head no before I even finish. “It’s not safe, Madison. Not tonight, I’m sorry.”
“But… But you have guards, right? Like everywhere? Right? Surely, it’s safe. I know it is. You control the whole place. No one can get in here. I mean, you brought me here to keep me safe. And there’s walls and—”
“I said no, Madison.” He looks a little angry at having to tell me twice.
I only have one trick left. So I do the only thing I can.
I cry.
Not sobs or anything. Just a tear. Just one. I let it leak out of my eye. Let it fall down my face. He’s transfixed at the whole display. And when I say, “OK,” in the smallest, weakest, meekest voice possible�
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He sighs.
“Fine. But only the beach right in front of the house.”
“Thank you,” I say, standing up. I finger the lapels of his suit. Smile up at him. Kiss him gently on the chin. And say, “I feel so much safer knowing your guards are watching. I’ll be right on the beach.”
He kisses me. Good God, how many times do I have to let him do that?
As many as it takes to keep breathing, Devil says.
Truth.
Carlos leaves, pulling the doors closed behind him.
And I bolt towards the sliding glass doors, opening them up just enough to slip through.
I force myself to walk, looking over my shoulder at the guards. But they’re congregating together, heads pressed in tight. Talking. Then shouting begins on the other side of the wall around Carlos’s private dwelling and they scatter in several directions to see what new fresh hell the devil has conjured up.
I take my chance and run.
Because fuck this. Tyler was right. I’m gonna get myself killed. And the way it’s going, that’s gonna happen before morning.
I figure he can’t own the entire coastline, right? So I can just dart up the beach until I get far enough away to slip through some other rich drug lord’s compound. Or whatever.
There’s not much cover, but there’s little shrubby bushes and lots of hilly dunes. I climb one, slip down the other side, and look back to see if anyone’s coming after me.
Nope.
I smile, sure I’m gonna get away. Sure I’m gonna be on my way home soon, back to my fucked-up life that’s looking not so fucked up right now…
And that’s when a large man in black jumps out from behind a dune, cups his hand over my mouth to make sure I can’t scream, and tackles me to the ground.
Chapter Twenty-One - Tyler & Maddie
TYLER
The balls.
That’s where she knees me.
Right in the balls.
And I’m not gonna lie, it feels pretty good.
“Maddie!” I stage-whisper. (Which is a term I learned back in good old Speech and Debate.) “Maddie, stop thrashing! It’s me.”
She stops flailing but I can feel her still shaking underneath me, her coiled energy causing her to vibrate. She is what in Sanskrit is called Kundalini and what is represented in imagery by a female serpent.
Yeah. That sounds about right.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” she shout-whispers back.
“Helping!” I say. “Saving you from whatever the fuck! You didn’t check in. You were supposed to check in. You didn’t check in. So I’m here. This should not be surprising.”
“I’m not surprised!” she says. “I’m…” I wait for it but get no more words. She just stares at me.
Finally, “What?” I say.
And then she grabs my face and kisses me on the mouth. Hard. And I know it’s been less than forty-eight hours since she last pressed her lips to mine, but it may as well have been since time before time. Because I think I’m gonna start fucking crying.
Grabbing her face in return, I kiss her hard back, and then my hands are fumbling down her sides, reaching for her ass. She grinds her hips into me as I claw at the bottom of her dress, dragging the material up her legs and digging my fingers into her skin.
“Stop,” she says. “Stop.”
“No. Why?” I pant, still kissing.
“Uh…” She gestures outward with a we’re-in-the-middle-of-a-beach-out-in-the-open-with-drug-lords-and-armed-guards-and-shit-all-around-us look on her face. And, I can’t deny it, she makes a good point.
But still.
So I shrug and keep kissing her, letting my hand find its way up the inside of her thigh, under the hem of her dress, pushing her panties aside and discovering that she’s already wet.
“Doesn’t seem like you think it’s that bad of an idea,” I murmur, still nibbling at her red, pouty lips.
“We. Could. Get. Killed,” she grunts out in between gasps of breath as my fingers slide inside her.
“Yeah, well, this is how I’d want to die,” I tell her.
“Uh-huh,” she whines, and nods her head. And then she’s seizing my belt, unfastening it, and working my pants down my hips. She uses her feet to push them all the way down to my ankles so that our lips don’t have to separate as we continue recklessly, wantonly, foolishly consuming each other’s life force.
Because she’s right. This moment—this here, this expression of passion and love for each other—could get us killed.
So we may as well make it fucking count.
MADDIE
This is a bad, bad idea. Bad? No. Catastrophic. But I don’t give a shit. I want him so much that I don’t care if we get annihilated in a meteor shower of bullets. Or in an actual meteor shower, for that matter. Or if the sea decides to become angry and swallow us whole, dragging us both into the briny unknown. I just don’t care. I want him.
I want him to purge me of the feeling of Carlos. Of Carlos’s body against mine. Of his lips on mine. Of his fingers touching my skin. I want to feel Tyler inside me instead and, in this most ridiculously unsafe of situations, feel safe.
I take his cock in my hand even as he pulls my underwear down. He has to contort himself to draw my legs free of the fabric, but I won’t let him go. His dick is throbbing so fast. It feels like I’m holding his heart.
With my dress hiked up and my bare ass resting on the sandy beach, I can close my eyes and pretend that we’re somewhere else. On some island vacation somewhere. Maybe twenty, thirty years from now. Still hot for each other. Still ready to fuck any time, any place.
It’s so weird. I’m not a schmaltzy chick. All that destined-to-be-together crap that people believe in, I don’t. Not usually. But after all this time and all that I’ve been through and all that he’s been through, the fact that we’re here now, together, well… I mean there are seven billion people on the planet, and yet here we are.
So maybe this was all supposed to be. Maybe everything’s gonna turn out OK.
I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing. I wonder if he’s as scared as I am, but willing to put it aside for this chance to hold each other this way. I don’t know for sure if he feels the way I do, but I do know that just in case everything doesn’t all turn out OK…
We may as well make it fucking count.
TYLER
I press my lips to hers again as I thrust my hips forward and enter her. She throws her head back and moans, but just as she does, I hear some shouting in Spanish off to my left. I know she hears it too because she stops moaning and we both freeze for a second. We try to stop our breathing, but both of us gasp in and out in short, sharp bursts. But we manage to still ourselves, me resting inside her.
After a moment the voices disappear off into the other direction and I lift my head to see if I can spot anything. I see nothing but beach and sea and the lights of the—whatever the hell it is. City?—that Carlos has built for himself here. And then my eyes are back on her.
This whole thing is so totally over the top that I can’t help but find it funny. I tap her on the nose with my index finger and she looks at me oddly.
“What?” she asks.
“I love your fucking nose,” I say.
“Yeah?” she responds, beginning to move her hips again.
I swallow and manage to croak out, “Yeah,” before I lose interest in speaking and grind along with her.
She’s holding my ass now. Her fingers pressing into my skin. Pushing me into her deeper. Her eyes are closed tightly and the expression on her face is caught somewhere between joy, pain, and that look people have when they’re dreaming and to them, in that moment, the dream is real.
My hands are on her hips and I hadn’t noticed before, but they wrap almost all the way around her. I have large hands. I can palm a basketball no problem. But even still, it strikes me just how fragile and malleable her flesh is under my touch.
Pulling her back and forth
under me causes her to want to make noise, but she knows she can’t, so she’s stuffing it down. When she comes, all that pent-up energy has to go somewhere though, so I’m bracing for the pornographic air-raid siren that’s likely to echo out of her when she lets go.
To counter the fact that she’s trying not to scream, she digs her fingers into to me harder and harder. As if all that noise has found its way into her limbs and is trying to escape. I can feel her nails digging into my ass cheeks and the sensation of it make me harder. And as my cock stiffens even more, it fills her up entirely, pressing against her pussy walls, consuming all the space inside.
She’s biting her lip, trying not to make any noise. “Goddamn it,” she whispers, turning her head to the side. Unfortunately, I’m not helping matters because everything she does is driving me crazy and it makes me fuck her that much more enthusiastically.
The puffs of air leaving her nose let me know that she’s close. There’s the hint of a whimper along with her breathing and I’m gasping now too. But just then…
More voices. Again in Spanish. Shit.
I lift my head to see if I can spy anyone, but Maddie doesn’t care if anyone’s there. She just wants me. She wants my attention. I know, because what she does now gets it back on her in a hurry.
MADDIE
As my finger finds its way inside his asshole, I’m not sure how he’ll react. I’ve actually never done it to a guy before, I don’t think. But in my understanding, it can go either very, very well, or very, very badly. And I didn’t know I was going to do it. It just happened.
I was already clinging to his ass for dear life and then when he took his gaze up and away, I… I dunno. I panicked or something. I don’t want it to be over just yet. I know that we need to hurry and get out of here, but I want us to be the ones to decide we’re ready to go. Not be forced to stop what we’re doing just because we might get killed. I mean, hell, people die every day, right? But what’s happening between us now happens… well… never.
As my middle finger slides in between his ass cheeks and finds the opening inside, his head snaps back to face me. His eyes are wide. Not in surprise exactly. It’s something else. I think it’s… delight. In fact, I know it is. Because he’s got a little smile. And the smile turns me on so much that I push harder. Just a bit. Seeing how far he’ll let me go.
