After Our Kiss

by Nora Flite

  Conway shifted his finger-pads until they pushed relentlessly against the roof of my pussy. He explored until he found the sponge-texture of my G-spot. He wrote words inside of me letter by letter. This man brought me to the cusp of orgasm the way poetry could make you break open and cry before you were prepared.

  I came hard, choking his fingers, listening to him eat me out with glee. His face was shiny when he stood again. Kissing me, I tasted myself, and it made my insides tighten with new pressure.

  He slid a condom from his fallen jeans. The sight of it pulled me from my pink bubble—it reminded me of logic, and logic would say that fucking this man was idiotic. He caught my stare, peeling the rubber circle free. “No accidents,” he said, and that word made my heart shrink.

  His eyes reminded me of charcoal engulfed in flames. I could taste the smoke. “Georgia, we can't pretend for a second that getting you pregnant would be—”

  “I know.” But the pain had calcified inside of my blood. It would always be there.

  He was hesitating, so I took his hand, rolling the latex down his shaft with him. The action was erotic, it brought us back to the moment we wanted to be lost in. “Face the wall,” he said, fisting himself a few times.

  I spun, bracing my palms on the tile. His hand settled over one of mine, his other running the tip of his cock up and down my slit from behind. I thrummed each time he rubbed my swollen clit. “Fuck me,” I begged. “Please, I'm tired of waiting for this. I can't... I don't want to wait. Not anymore.”

  I'd waited so many years for Conway.

  And he was finally here.

  His cheek scraped over mine; he nipped my ear then kissed me with breathless abandon. The head of his dick spread me an inch, then he withdrew, my muscles begging to squeeze, to keep him inside.

  He did it again, teasing me every time.

  I was blind with desire.

  “What do you want?” he demanded.

  He'd expected something filthy to spout from my lips. I had, too. We got something else entirely. “I want to be yours,” I said. “I never wanted anything so much.”

  Crushing my hand in his, Conway panted like an animal. His cock stretched me open in one great thrust. He was done playing—had my response been the one he'd actually been seeking?

  He swelled inside of me. That sensation, nearly breaking, barely able to fit him, sent me coming again. The latex didn't keep me from feeling the heat of his come. It reverberated through me, pulse after pulse. Overwhelmed, I thought I heard him cry out my name. I couldn't be positive... and when I tuned in, it was only his breathing that echoed on the tiles.

  Conway embraced me in my arms. He played with my tits as he finished, his pulse so frantic I worried he'd pass out. But of course he wouldn't. This man was strong enough to conquer the world.

  “That was amazing,” I whispered, relishing our nearness. His chin balanced on my head; he turned me to him, kissing me softly. It was more tender than I believed he was capable of.

  There were a great many thoughts rotating through his eyes. He opened his mouth. The words never came, replaced at the last second by new ones. “It's time to go.”

  Draping a towel around my body, he started to link his hand with mine. He pulled back, because such a gesture was meant for sweet couples. Not enemies, like he wanted us to be.

  We walked back to my little prison together.

  - Chapter Sixteen -

  Georgia Mary King

  I pat the bed. “Do you want to... I don't know, stay?”

  “Part of a new plan of yours?”

  Bristling, I dug my nails into the mattress. “No. I'm just lonely.”

  The raw pain that attacked his fine features left me stunned. “I know all about that,” he whispered. “Besides you, I haven't really been around anyone other than Lonnie. It's easier to be a recluse.” He stood against the far wall; his head tilted back, eyes at the ceiling.

  It came to me in a sudden electric pop. “Am I the only girl you've kidnapped?”

  “Yes,” he blurted.

  “But—the news! I heard them.” The night that felt so long ago played through my mind. “They said you were the prime suspect in multiple abductions.”

  Conway ran his finger along his knee. He twiddled with a loose piece of thread, then ripped it free. “I probably am. That white van was bought for cash, I guarantee it was used for some suspicious shit before Lonnie and I got our hands on it.”

  “If it's not true, how can you be so casual about this? People are out there thinking you're some awful creature!”

  “They're not wrong.” He tossed the thread aside. I watched it go, forgotten. “How many times do I have to say it? I'm awful, Georgia. I'm a fucking demon. I belong somewhere worse than prison. What do I care if the world thinks I kidnapped one girl or fifteen? I'm guilty enough without them getting the facts straight.”

  “It does matter,” I insisted.

  He dropped his eyes onto me. “Why, so you can decide for yourself if I'm worth saving? I'll let you in on a secret, Georgia. I'm not worth saving. None of me is.”

  I didn't know when I'd started shaking my head, and I didn't know if I could ever stop. “No! Just no! You've done nothing wrong, it's all an act.”

  “You think this is a costume?” he asked scathingly. Running his fingers down his chest, he pointed at the door. “This place isn't pretend! This situation isn't a game! You're scared to accept what's true—that I'm your enemy.”

  “Prove it.” I stood off the bed in the clean jeans and soft sweater he'd gotten for me on the way back to my room from the bath. But I didn't move closer to him. “If the only thing you've done is kidnap me, then it's up to me to forgive you. And I can! I will! So what the hell is holding you back, how can you keep insisting you're evil when the facts say otherwise?”

  “Because of Anna!” he roared, throwing his arms down.

  My tongue wouldn't move, but it didn't have to. He knew what I would have said next.

  “You asked about her before.” His head swung low, pushed down by something greater than any external force. “She's the proof that I'm worse than scum. The reason I'm so tired of hearing you tell me I'm not a broken, terrible excuse for a human being.”

  “Oh, Conway...” Pain moved through my heart for him.

  Air rushed from his nose. “She was the first woman my father kidnapped,” he said softly. “The one right before you.”

  The tiny drumbeats in my chest exploded. If Anna was the girl before me, that meant...

  “Yes,” he said, examining the shock on my face. “She's the one who died.”

  “They never found her body,” I whispered. “The police looked everywhere on the property. I don't think they believed me, but I believed you. I was sure she was there.”

  Conway's head fell even lower. “My father made me bury her in the woods, miles from the house. It'd be hard for anyone to find her bones.”

  But not for you, I thought, sensing his regret. “Conway, how did it happen? How did she die?”

  “I killed her.”

  A whistling began in my ears. “What?”

  Conway approached me as slowly, one toe in front of the other. His eyes were hollow. “I killed her, Georgia.” Another step. “I was supposed to keep her alive, that was what he asked me to do, and it was a job I fucking hated but it was better than... than anything else he could have asked of me.”

  My shoulders thumped into the plaster. Was this how Lonnie had felt when I'd swung at him with my shard of glass? Conway was acting erratic.

  Another step. He was so close. “I couldn't handle listening to her cry anymore, nothing I said or did soothed her. I left to clear my head, I just needed some damn space.” His expression exploded like brittle steel. His shoulders began to shake. “When I came back later, she was dead.” He wrapped his fingers in his hair, his voice cracking. “Anna suffocated herself. Tangled her face in the bed sheets.”

  That's why he never gave me sheets or blankets. Graspi
ng the reasons behind Facile's decisions turned my bones into jelly. What was worse was realizing that Conway had followed his guidance.

  “Do you understand how badly she must have wanted to escape, if she could have done that to herself?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said solemnly. “I do.”

  “Exactly. Fuck, of course you get it.” He turned away, his head thrashing. “Dad blamed me. He was right to, you know? It was my fucking fault she died. Anna could have... maybe, like you, she could have... If I'd realized sooner I could have saved her. But I was too scared. I was a useless coward then, just like I am now.”

  He was pleading with me to hate him. At the same time, he was begging me to understand. And I did—as messed up as this all was, I really did get what he was telling me. Anna's death had weighed on him this whole time.

  Thanks to her he'd gone out of his way to free me.

  Curling my arms around his stone-hard body, I hugged Conway from behind. “It wasn't your fault! It was an accident! You can't let this drag you down forever.”

  He didn't toss me aside, but he didn't soften, either. “You think it matters if I wasn't the one who pushed her face into the mattress? Georgia, my sins have been building every year and they haven't stopped.”

  A flicker of resentment turned my voice cold. “You could stop one of them right now.”

  He pulled away, turning to watch me. “I can't set you free. It's not that easy.”

  “Why, because you enjoy breaking me apart?” I clawed the air between us. “Just listen to yourself! Anna is a huge regret to this day, you saved me because you were afraid I'd turn out like her. So how the hell can you drag me here and do this all again?”

  “You don't understand,” he said, biting each vowel. His teeth remained bared, eyes wild. Lost. “I can't handle it!”

  “Handle what?”

  “The thought of anyone else I love dying.”

  We both froze. He'd been breathing heavily, but now he stopped breathing at all. His pupils were hard to see in the wide expanse of his eyes. “You love me?” I asked.

  His hands closed on mine, yanking me against his chest. He clung to me like he expected me to fade away. “Of course I do. Ever since the night you cried while asking me to be your first kiss. I felt a warmth grow in me that I'd never experienced before. It's been there ever since.”

  He loves me.

  Conway bruised my lips with his, digging his fingers into my hair. He was a man intent on leaving marks across my whole being. It would have been easy to get lost in this moment. But my life was never meant to be easy.

  Pressing my elbows upwards, I broke his hold, backing away. “No. Just—no.” Hot tears squeezed from the corners of my eyes. My righteous anger wasn't enough to will them away. “If you loved me—if you loved me the way I love you, you'd help me.”

  The shock in his face had my heart crumbling into dust. “I can't.”

  “What does your father have over you that's controlling you like this?” When he gaped at me, full of wretched pain, I knew I was right. “Tell me. Please, just help me understand why.”

  “It would be so much easier for us both if you would just hate me,” he said softly.

  “Your mistake was thinking I was ever capable of hating you.”

  Every part of his face that could move did—the bridge of his nose crinkled, the rows in his forehead deepened, the fine lines at the edges of his eyes bloomed. He was a black hole upon himself, absorbing my feelings and unable to deny them any longer.

  On stiff legs he came back to me. From his pocket he pulled out a phone; I'd never seen it until now. “Before I show you this,” he said, typing in a pass code, “I need you to know that I hoped to keep it a secret forever. I really, truly wanted you to loath me. I never deserved your pity—I never wanted it.” He paused, then he handed me the device. “Don't let this shift your opinion of me into a positive light. Men like me don't deserve that. I made every choice that got us here, and I'll answer for all of them in the afterlife.”

  Shaking under his watchful eyes, I held the phone gingerly.

  I didn't know what I expected to see when I looked at the screen.

  - Chapter Seventeen -

  Georgia Mary King

  The photo was of a young woman. Thin-boned, tangled reddish hair showed even in the green tint of the fuzzy digital picture. She was tied to a chair. Her face tilted upwards, mouth half open. I'd made that same expression many times; agony.

  “Who is this?” I asked, going cold with unease.

  “That's Emily. My sister.”

  I jerked my head up to stare at him. “I saw her in a photo when you were pulling me out of your house. She looked so much like me,” I mumbled. “But now...”

  “You don't look similar anymore, no.” He ran his gaze down my body, both of us seeing how he appreciated my soft curves.

  Emily was thin, that was true, but the hollows in her cheeks came from something insidious. A picture could say a thousand words, but I hoped she'd be able to tell someone—anyone—more on her own. “Who did this to her?”

  He took the phone back, snapping it shut. “My father.”

  “What? How could he do this to his own family?”

  “You met him, Georgia. You know he only cares about getting his way.”

  I held my temples, trying to absorb all of this information. “You said before that he didn't know where she was, that after your mom died, she vanished.”

  “Somehow he found her. And now he's hidden her, using her against me. Emily is the one thing I cared deeply about in this world... besides you.” He flinched. Then his stare softened. “He thought if he threatened me with killing Emily, that I'd do as he said. And the bastard was right.”

  “He's more messed up than I guessed. Is that why he's not here, is he with her?”

  “No. He's still locked up in Mexico. Got put there when I was nineteen for drug trafficking.”

  Shivering, I hugged myself. “Then he had someone kidnap Emily for him. Did they send you that photo?”

  “It came from a burner phone, number doesn't exist any longer. That's how my dad communicates with Lonnie and me. He shoots messages when he can, but they all come from other sources who are working with him.”

  My pulse was racing. “Why would anyone help that man?”

  “Money. Connections. The usual.” His frown became a long, smooth line. “I don't know when he's getting free, just that it'll be a break out. His sentence would leave him in there to rot for another twenty years.”

  I held my head, trying to grasp all of this. “Then... I'm supposed to stay here until he get's out?”

  “Yes.”

  I could be here for weeks or months. An idea struck me. “Are you sure that's your sister?”

  Conway shifted side to side. “Even if it wasn't, how can I risk being wrong?”

  I agreed with that. Family or stranger, this woman would die if Conway didn't do what his father wanted. “And Lonnie? What does he know about all of this?”

  “Everything. I don't know how much he cares about Emily. I'm starting to suspect he's just in on this because he thinks it's hilarious. He always loved seeing me brought low.”

  Turning away, I rubbed my arms up and down. “Then the deal is that you're supposed to break me down, turn me into the person Facile wants me to be. And if you don't, he'll kill her.”

  “Yes. That's what he promised.”

  My eyes shut heavily. I wondered if I could keep them closed forever.

  “Georgia,” he started

  “Thank you.” I looked at the ceiling, then at my own hands. “Really, thank you for telling me all of this. I feel... I don't know. Better, in a way. Lighter.”

  Conway approached me warily. “You shouldn't feel better. I just showed you that I'm willing to ruin you in order to get something I want.”

  My smile was bittersweet. “This was the last piece of the puzzle. I finally understand why you're doing this to me. You can't imagine how ha
rd not knowing has been.” Warmth flushed my face—I was crying again. Fuck, I cried so much lately. “You saved me nine years ago, and then, the first time I see you again, you knock me out and take me here. You've wanted me to think of you as my enemy—”

  “Because I am,” he cut in.

  “You're not. You never were.” Grabbing his hands, I squeezed. “You're as much of a victim of your father as anyone. And now that I know that, now that I get it, I want to help you.”

  He was judging me, trying to grasp my new serenity. “How can you help?”

  I'd told him I wasn't the girl he used to know. But that wasn't entirely true. I'd grown, I'd changed, but right now, I needed what teenage me had after she'd been stolen from her own bedroom.

  The courage to lose.

  “Tell me how to keep us all alive. And I'll do it.”

  - Chapter Eighteen -

  Conway

  There was a list of things that my father had messaged me before I'd kidnapped Georgia. So I'd known, for some time, all the ways I was supposed to wreck her. I also knew my father meant for me to hate it all.

  And on some level, I had.

  But on another lower, baser level... I loved it.

  I'd warned her before. I'm a fucking demon; and not just because I was destined to splinter her mind. If I was a good person, I wouldn't love the hint of fear in her face when I tested her limits. I wouldn't think of it as an aphrodisiac.

  I'm not my father.

  I'm much worse.

  Setting up the camera, then the tablet at one end of the bed, I waved at her. “Get on your knees on the mattress.” She climbed up, obeying me with a quiet curiosity. Her hands gripped her shirt. She had it over her belly before I said, “What are you doing?”

  “Getting undressed. I thought you'd want that.”

  “I do.” My smirk curved like a scimitar. “I'm just surprised you went ahead with it on your own.”

  Biting the edge of her lip, she finished pulling her shirt over her head. Her perfect breasts were full, nipples the color of roses at dusk. A hot spike of passion danced into my belly. Her pants came off next, and with them went her underwear. The look she shot me was dastardly. She's trying to get a rise out of me.