East Rising (Naive Mistakes #2)

by Rachel Dunning

  "I just want it to be good for you. I want it to be incredible. Explosive. Hot and powerful. I want you to come with every fiber of your body when we're together. I never want it to be normal. I want it to be over-the-top, memorable, every time. That's why I make you wait sometimes. It's not that I'm playing with you or teasing you. I will never play with you. Ever. The orgasms are just better, more explosive, when they're made to wait a little longer, aren't they?"

  He turned to look at me on the ground. I rolled my eyes back in a "oh yeah they're fucking amazing!" motion.

  He smiled. "That's what I thought. It's also good for me when we make it last a little longer."

  I looked down his body. He was getting hard again. I couldn't fucking believe it! I looked at the ceiling and smiled. "I'm ready for another go if you are..." I said. "I mean, it has been like an hour or so since the last time you came, right?"

  He got on top of me, rode me, over my thong. I learned that night that men last longer — much longer! — after coming a few times. The playlist played one whole time through before he finally came again. By that time he'd made me come another two times already.

  Now we were even for the night.

  -7-

  "Leora."

  Uh-oh, something serious. "Yes?"

  "Great swim."

  I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, no shit."

  -8-

  "Leora."

  Again? "Yes?"

  "How's your, um, 'kitty'?"

  I laughed. "My 'kitty'?"

  "Yes, I mean, was it too much?"

  There had been a lot of friction there, but it didn't hurt (and boy did I feel self-conscious at Conall knowing so much about women!)

  I growled, "Meow!" and turned to kiss him. He smiled. "And your, um, 'rooster'?"

  He couldn't stop himself from laughing, and going a little red. Then he played along. He sang out, "Cockadoodledoo!"

  That's my boy... His rooster was just fucking dandy as far as I could tell.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  -1-

  We sat by the fire at the end of the night. I was ready to pass out from exhaustion. We sipped on wine. I was really starting to like the stuff. Sauvignon Blanc, that was my favorite.

  "Sweetie," I said to him, "why don't you just make love to me?" Are you not serious about us? I wanted to ask. But I didn't.

  He unwrapped his arm from my shoulder, put his glass on the table. Then he turned to me. "Leora, would you be OK with going on the pill?"

  "Who says I'm not?"

  "Are you?"

  I was quickly embarrassed. I shook my head.

  "Would you be OK with getting onto it?"

  I shrugged. "Sure, um, I mean I wouldn't know how to go about it here..."

  "I can help you with that. You know that when you get on it you have to wait a few weeks before it's safe, right?"

  I nodded.

  He grabbed my hand, the one I was holding my glass of wine with, and eased it onto the table. I put the glass down, and he held both my hands, stared me deep in the eyes. Flames danced in his own eyes.

  "Leora, I want your first time — at least with me — I want it to be — "

  "Wait, what? What did you say?"

  "I wasn't finished saying it."

  "No, the part of 'at least with you' or whatever."

  "Well, yes, I mean, that guy..."

  I pulled my hand away. "Conall, I never slept with Dorian."

  Wow, the name felt like worm-infested dirt falling from my lips. How could I ever have doubted myself, my own gut feel, so much to have gotten involved with him? I cringed at the thought of him and me being together, how meaningless it had all been...

  And I dreaded seeing him again.

  My oh my, how things tend to complicate as you get older, more involved, more and more tangled in the intricacies and knots of human relationships...

  "You didn't...sleep with him?" Conall asked.

  "Huh? Oh, sorry, I phased out there a bit... No..." I thought about it. "God, no!" I pulled my hands away from Conall. "Never! Not with — " I shuddered.

  "I see." He smiled.

  "You're not the only one who was faithful, you know?"

  "Then why did you — No! Never mind. Forget it. I don't want to know."

  Thank God, because the sooner I can forget that mistake, the better. "Good! Because I don't want to tell you!" I crossed my arms. And I wasn't pissed at Conall, even though it probably looked like it. I was so pissed at myself...

  "Fine, whatever." He pried my mortified hands from my chest, held them again. "I would like it, and I think you would like it, I mean, I assume... I'd like it if, your first time, well, ever... I want to come inside you, Leora. I want to be a part of you, completely natural, the two of us, united."

  I was stunned. I imagined it, him inside me, all of him, and then the orgasm.

  Damn it, that made me hot again! Slooooowwwww down! (Although, even if I'd wanted to, the flesh was pretty damn weak right now on my part. I really did need a break!)

  "Does that sound weird? Tell me if it does, I mean, I'm a guy, guys make mistakes — "

  I put my finger to his lips. My own lips tugged up into a smile. "It sounds perfect."

  I dissolved into his chest, rested my ear against it, listened to his heartbeat.

  My eyes watered at what he'd suggested. But I hid it. He'd made me so happy. And I'm too fucking weepy when I'm happy. That night I was the happiest frickin chick ever, in the whole world. I couldn't believe what I'd landed, this guy, this prince! I couldn't believe he was mine, and that we were together.

  I had no idea, that less than twelve hours from now, this shining, radiant light of love which I now felt, would be replaced by a darkness of loss so black that it would forever be the worst day of my life, and one of which I still have nightmares about every night.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  -1-

  I was singing when I woke up the next morning. I wasn't even sure what song it was, probably one of the many-times repeated songs of Conall's lovemaking playlist he'd put on for us the night before.

  He was going to drive me down to Seaford later that day. He'd get to know Dani. I was gonna pick up some clothes and convince Troy to take off several more days (with lots of eye-batting and finger-tickles down his forearm...) Conall had a few business meetings coming up but he'd said that, after that, he'd take a hotel near to where I was staying and only travel to London when he needed to. He could work remotely. That was the benefit of being a high-gun software consultant that only got called in to pull in the big deals.

  "Besides, I have a car, you don't. It's no sweat off my back," he'd said the night before.

  I was making coffee in the kitchen, thinking about our unbelievable mutual orgasms, grinning. The coffee aroma wafted into my nose, my aura. I sat on cloud nine, not there at all. So not there that I completely missed the click of the kitchen door as it opened.

  When I finally heard it creak I figured, in this blissfully ignorant world that I was momentarily in, that it had probably been the wind. When I heard a footfall, I felt suddenly confused, yanked sharply from my daydream but not enough to apprehend what was happening around me.

  It was only when the leather glove smothered my mouth, and the hot pot of coffee smashed on my foot, burning and blistering my lower leg, that I realized someone had made it into the house.

  And by then it was too late for me to do anything about it.

  -2-

  I screamed, muffled screams, into the leathery glove of the man I could not see but who smelled strongly of body-wash and tobacco. I screamed for the aching throb on the top of my right foot where the coffee pot had landed and for the searing pains now shooting up my shins from the scalding liquid.

  But, mostly, I screamed because of the two men who raced past me, heads wrapped in face masks and guns in hands, up the stairs and to Conall's room. I fought the man who held me. I tried to get a grip on him, but his other arm was to my neck and he squeezed, just sl
ightly, so that I knew, if I resisted, I'd be choked to death.

  My screams went unheard, just dead stifles into nothing.

  The man dragged me by my heels. I became acutely aware, then, that I had on no trousers. I suddenly became thankful that I did have on panties (as if that would make any difference.) My only covering was Conall's shirt I'd put on and slept in.

  The chilled outside air made the hairs on my bare legs rise. My heels burned from the scrapes against the ground. The man hadn't even frickin asked if I'd go with him! No, he just fucking dragged me, like all women are supposed to be dragged on their heels because we're goddamn dogs or something.

  I tried to fight, but the brute just turned me onto my side and dragged me that way now. I tried to elbow him, and he kneed me in the ass. He did it several times. Each time he did it bought him a fraction of a second because the dull pain went all the way up my spine.

  By the time he got me to the navy blue van, I was all but defeated. It was only the fear instilled in me by television and all those missing persons shows, by everything I'd been brought up to believe about men taking women, that gave me fight enough to put up one last struggle before they threw me into the back of that van.

  But it was not enough. A hood went over my face. Four more hands grabbed me, by my shoulders. The moment the man's glove had left my mouth, I screamed as loud as I could. My lower back had rammed against the van door's threshold. I yelped in pain.

  The van door slammed shut. I kept screaming. "Help me! Help me! Help!"

  The men spoke loudly to each other in a language I didn't understand. There were three voices. I tugged and moved and fought. Brutal hands yanked at my wrists and handcuffed them to a chair, then my ankles. One of them smothered my mouth again. They shouted at each other, arguing.

  I felt the cool wind against my legs, then between them. I tried to close them but they'd tied them in such a way that I couldn't, not completely.

  A deathly foreboding screeched through me like bloody nails against a blackboard.

  My bladder almost broke. Almost. But I held it. My dad hadn't taught me to be a pussy. I'd get them. I'd get these fuckers somehow. I was brave, ready to face whatever happened, ready to fight these scum to the very end. No matter what.

  Come and get me you sick fuckos. I'll rip your cocks off with my teeth if I have to!

  I tensed my fists, the only weapon I had.

  But then I heard gunshots.

  My hands opened, not enough strength in me to tense them anymore. I gasped.

  The van door opened. One more voice came into it. More shots. The door shut.

  We screeched off.

  Conall!

  The hand against my mouth was replaced by a cloth, and a sweet smell. I became light-headed.

  When I woke up, I was cold.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  -1-

  Water dripped in the distance. I tried to place it — back right? — but couldn't.

  They'd blindfolded me. The blindfold felt oddly like soft wool or some material like that. A cashmere blindfold?

  Cold wind scraped my legs and arms, found its way underneath my collar, down my back, down my breasts...

  As I'd awoken, I'd whimpered, and the sound had echoed back to me. The blindfold would be lifted from my eyes later, revealing a warehouse, but now, all I knew was that I was in a cold, breezy room. Cars honked in the distance, very far away. I was still in that chair they'd had me in, in the van, my hands tied behind my back. My ankles were shackled to it at the bottom. The right one hurt like a bitch because of the coffee burns. My foot throbbed. A low, dull throb that somehow spread to my thigh and occasionally made it twitch in pain. The cold wind only felt good on that leg, burned and scalded as it was. The rest of me was freezing.

  I shivered.

  A desperate thought came to me... I shuffled in my seat, felt that I was still wearing underwear. They hadn't taken it off. The relief that coursed through me at realizing that was almost painful, weakening. But I still worried about it. I put all my attention between my legs, feeling, trying to sense if anything was...different.

  I swallowed. It hurt a little, but only a very little. And that had probably been because of Conall the night before. Yes, yes it was! I remembered. I remembered being in the kitchen and sensing a slight discomfort!

  I gasped out again, not realizing I'd been holding my breath. My gasp echoed back at me.

  They hadn't done anything to me, these pigs. Yet.

  I wanted to tug against the chair, wanted to fight the FlexiCuffs holding me there. But I was afraid. I was afraid that someone might be in this echoing room with me. The whimper earlier, and the exhalation now, had both been cacophonous in this otherwise deadly quiet room.

  Quiet, that is, except for that endless drip.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  Sometimes it skipped a drip, and other times it dripped faster.

  Drip. Silence. Drip. Drip. Drip drip drip. Silence.

  Drip.

  Then another thought hit me.

  Those gunshots.

  Conall?

  Stubborn tears fought at me behind my eyes. I played the scene a hundred times in my mind, a thousand! There was the van, the men with guns racing to Conall's room, and then the bullets...

  Had it been seven? Eight? Had I heard his voice?

  No, I hadn't. Only that foreign language, in the van. Then desperate calls — probably to leave — screeching tires.

  And we'd left.

  But two men had raced past me. And I'd only heard one new voice enter the van after the shots.

  I counted again. Seven? No six.

  Think, Leora! Think! Was it seven shots or six!?

  Like it made an iota of a goddamn difference...

  I thought of Conall again.

  And those gunshots.

  I bowed my head, felt the bitter breeze upon my skin.

  I forced myself to stop thinking about it.

  -2-

  I must've passed out again, because what awoke me was something that filled me with such revulsion that I almost hurled.

  A finger, hard and calloused, and a fingernail... The nail was rough, as if its owner had chewed it. This finger scraped up the inside of my left thigh, and then stopped. I'd twitched when I'd first felt it. Now that I was awake, the finger no longer moved.

  I lifted my head, trying to see under the blindfold. Dirty fatigues was all I saw, and a light-source in the back. That's all.

  My fear was held back by my anger. The finger had only made it halfway up my thigh, but it had made me angry, made me brave. I didn't know how long it had been since the van, since the last time I'd awoken. What I did know, was that I was no fucking victim.

  Do to me what you will you sick fucks. But I will get you. I will find you and cut your fucking pricks off with a blunt saw-knife if you've done anything to my Conall. You'd better kill me, or else you're dead fucking meat.

  I clenched my teeth. If I'd been alone, maybe I would have gotten sad. But here, with this...thing...in front of me, his despicable digit pressing against the inside of my thigh, the thought made me motherfucking livid. Braveheart all the way you asshole.

  "What do you want?" I said.

  The finger's pressure eased, only slightly. I forced myself to keep my leg there, to not move it away, to not show that I was afraid! (Even though I was, I really was freaking terrified.) Let him touch me. Let him. I won't show my fear.

  A slow, rumbling laughter started from this man in front of me and began to fill the room. It got stronger, until it was all over me, bouncing off the walls and hitting me between the ears.

  Do. Not. Move. The. Leg!

  I would not show my fear.

  Clown-Man kept on laughing, an "I'm so fucking tough because I pick on women tied to chairs wearing nothing but panties and a man's dress shirt" kind of laugh.

  And then the laugh stopped, abruptly. Two dirty hands covered my thighs, pressed up, and foul, deathly breath wafted up my nose as
Mr. Halitosis here eased into my face and said, "Dis is not joke! You think you tough? Ve vait. You see how tough you feel later."

  Stink-Breath moved away. Thank God! I gagged, and choked. Dental appointment anyone?

  "What the fuck do you want with me?"

  I tried to place his accent. It wasn't Russian, not German. Those I knew well. Not any of the Romance languages because of his substitution of W's by V's. A bead of sweat broke on my brow as I put together the only accent it could be...

  Hungarian.

  "Oh, vith you?" His voice was further away, walking away from me. Dickwad Man flipped a Zippo, lit a cigarette and inhaled.

  Right, that explains the bad breath. May I recommend Fisherman's Friend?

  I tilted my head back. He'd moved far enough away that I could almost see his whole body now from under my blindfold. Big black army boots stood on a glistening floor which was covered with puddles of water. Moonlight reflected off them.

  "Ve have zero interest in you, Miss America. Ve have only interest in your friend, Mr. Villiams."

  My heart caught. I waited for more.

  "But, sinking about it" — I got that he meant thinking — "if Mr. Villiams does not reply to our demands, vell, maybe ve vill have some fun vith you." He gave a half-choke, half-laugh, then threw his cigarette on the ground where it fizzled out on a puddle he'd been standing on.

  I saw his feet turn and come closer. Then his feet disappeared and his fatigues were all I could see. He pulled my blindfold off so fast that it caught in my hair and, as he tugged it, my chair tipped over and I fell — thud, crack! — on the ground! I landed deafeningly on my shoulder. I just broke my arm, I thought.

  I groaned in pain. He'd gotten the blindfold off alright, along with a chunk of my hair.

  I bit my lip, refusing to cry out in pain. Not wanting these guys to see an iota of fear in me. Hammering stings of anguish thudded up and down my arm. I reeled so much that I didn't even think to look up at my assailant. All I saw was the wall in the distance, the broken windows. And then his boot as it swung, slammed, into my stomach, once, twice. And a third fucking time just for good measure.