Beyond Resistance (The Ransom Series)

by A. T. Douglas

  I’m jerked back by the arm as I realize my body was still moving forward but my hand connected to Lily stopped a couple feet back. She looks a little worried as she takes in my face, her scrutiny causing me to immediately look away. I must look scared out of my mind right now and it would appear for no good reason to any sane person out there, including Lily.

  With a subtle deep breath, I pull myself together and return my gaze back to where it should be, focusing on Lily’s beautiful face and concerned eyes. “Sorry. Got a little lost in thought there.”

  “It’s too much, isn’t it?” The brightness dissipates from Lily’s face and is replaced with disappointment. “Jesus. You’ve been kept in seclusion so long it’s given you social anxiety.”

  I don’t want her to diagnose me or judge me. I don’t like the idea of standing here looking weak. If the point of all this is to get me to face the world and actually live in my lifetime, I’m going to fucking do it.

  With a tug on Lily’s hand, I encourage her the few feet off the main sidewalk in between two buildings filled with arcade games on one side and a gift shop on the other. Despite the constant flow of people continuing along the path just feet away from us, I feel like we have some privacy here, at least enough that I can get out what I want to say.

  “It’s not too much. It’s just what I need.” I hold our connected hands between us and encircle her hand with both of my palms. The worry on Lily’s face seems replaced by shock at the turnaround I’ve gone through in the last ten seconds, or maybe it has more to do with how I’m looking at her like I want to kiss her.

  I really want to kiss her.

  Her lips look overly enticing, but I don’t want to rush into that again. As much as I’d love to taste her right now, I opt for a safer route, placing the softest kiss I can manage at the corner of each of her eyes. When I pull away, she is back to smiling, her eyes lighting up at my gesture.

  I’m a bit afraid of what she has to say, so I preempt her next move by pulling her out from between the buildings and dragging her along behind me like she was doing to me earlier. She laughs and jogs to catch up so that we are both walking side by side at a quickened pace ready to take on these crowds and this amusement park and anything else life has to throw at us today.

  Despite my attempts to steer us immediately toward the tall wooden roller coaster in the distance that I know is our ultimate reason for being here today, Lily insists on starting out small, and I mean really small. She drags me onto the carousel first and forces me to sit on one of the horses that moves up and down. I feel like a complete idiot the entire length of the ride, but each time I look over at Lily next to me and see her carefree smile and attitude, I start to care less about how ridiculous we must look.

  Lily praises me for being a good sport and proceeds to take me on spinning rides and bumper boats and an antique car course. She finds ways to make me laugh and smile even when we’re just waiting in line for the next ride. We’re having such a great time together that I’m not even paying attention to the crowds anymore. I’m so consumed by the feelings Lily creates within me that the rest of the world seems to fade away. All the worry and pain and heartache and everything that’s happened in the past vanish from my thoughts, and all that’s left is Lily.

  15

  By the time we make it to the log flume ride–Lily’s self-proclaimed favorite in any amusement park–I find myself studying her more closely, contemplating whether she would truly fit into my life and if I could fit into hers.

  I seem to be doing a poor job at hiding my thoughts, though, because Lily’s quick to call me out on them.

  “You’ve been doing so well at letting loose, but I see those wheels turning in your head now.” She gives me a mock look of disapproval from where she’s leaning against the wooden railing as we wait for our log boat to arrive.

  I shrug with my response. “Just thinking.”

  “Uh huh. Nice and vague there, Dante.”

  Something makes a clunking sound next to us, and I turn to see our log boat is ready for us to board. Lily leads the way in, sitting down in between the backrests for the front and back seats. I’m a little perplexed as I try to figure out where I’m supposed to sit given where she’s put herself.

  “Come on. Sit behind me.” She motions to the far back of the seat, and I immediately realize where this is going.

  She’s going to sit right up against me, right between my legs.

  Jesus Christ.

  I somewhat reluctantly take the offered seat, and Lily scoots back to position herself directly between my open legs. Despite the layers of clothing still between us, we might as well be skin to skin in how intimate this position feels with her. It doesn’t help matters when she pulls my arms around to encircle her stomach as she leans back against my chest.

  The ride attendant lets our log boat go free to drift down with the river of water. As much of a relief as it is to get away from the eyes of everyone still waiting in line watching us, I find a new dilemma in that each bump of the log boat against the cement walls as we float along the river makes my entire body rub up against Lily even more.

  In the rising heat of my body and the sudden stiffening of my cock, I seem to lose all willpower and control. One arm tightens around Lily’s stomach while the other ventures higher, my fingers splaying out until they’ve just grazed the bottom of Lily’s bra through her shirt. I dip my head forward, leaning into her soft hair and rubbing my head against hers as some primal need takes over me. My hand finds her entire breast this time, and the moment I squeeze it, a soft moan escapes her lips.

  Lily quickly turns around in the seat and straddles me as our lips collide. I grasp her back and hold her steady as she dives in for kiss after kiss and grinds her lower body against me. One of my hands falls lower until I’m holding her ass, encouraging her to move even harder against me. I feel her hands in my hair and her chest pressing against mine as our tongues mingle and we taste each other all over again.

  It feels like we’ve both just entered this beautiful state of connection when we’re ripped right out of it as the log boat we’re in hits something firm and begins its slow ascent up the conveyor belt to the ride’s highest point. Lily pulls back from me the moment we hear the ride attendant at the top yelling at us, telling Lily she needs to turn around.

  I’m sure the look of disappointment in Lily’s expression is mirrored on my own face as she reluctantly turns back around and settles in between my legs. I know she can feel how hard I am for her, but I’m not uncomfortable with it at all. I like that she can feel it.

  The ride attendant at the top of the incline scowls at us as we approach him. I try and fail to hold back my laughter as Lily blows him a kiss just as our log boat leaves the conveyor belt and is handed off to gravity to finish the ride for us.

  I tighten my grip around Lily’s stomach as we both yell out and plummet down the hill into the pool of water below. Our log boat splashes huge walls of water out to our sides as droplets and mist rain down on us. We’re laughing hysterically, though I’m not sure it’s even from the rush of going down that final drop. Everything that happened between us in this log boat up until that point is where the real excitement was.

  Lily peers over her shoulder at me with a knowing look before belting out in laughter again. We both seem to have a hard time calming down from it all even as our log boat pulls into the unloading area to an annoyed-looking ride attendant waiting to help us get off the ride.

  “You two need to wait here,” she says sternly with way more authority than her sixteen-year-old appearance should have. “They want to talk to you.”

  As I hold on to Lily’s waist to help her out of the log boat before getting myself out, my eyes follow to where the teenage girl is pointing. I’m not overly concerned by the two men in black pants and white button-up shirts approaching the door to the unloading area until the sun catches the light on the shiny gold badges pinned to their shirts.

  Lily steps awa
y from my grasp just as I realize this, and I’m temporarily frozen in place. I can’t help what I know is an absolutely terrified look on my face, because except for encountering the prison guard who wanted to chat when I was driving Cindy away from the women’s prison, this is the closest I’ve ever been to someone with a badge.

  My mind immediately and inevitably turns to the worst case scenario. The instinct my parents engrained in me from birth triggers in my brain, and I do the first thing that comes to mind.

  It’s time to run.

  I grab Lily’s hand and bolt to a side door marked for employees only, bursting out into the sunlight and taking an immediate left turn down the sidewalk that is furthest away from where the cops were about to get us. I hear people yelling in the distance behind us. I feel Lily struggling to keep up as I pull her along, but I can’t let us slow down. We have to keep moving. It’s imperative we get away from them.

  Internally I’m fuming at myself for so many things. I should have studied a map of this park to memorize the routes and find hiding places and exit points before I ever stepped foot in this place. I shouldn’t even be at this park to begin with, all these people and eyes watching me, all with the potential to ruin me and my family if they discovered even a hint of who I really am. I shouldn’t be involved with Lily at all, letting someone into my life who can never truly be a part of it. Everything about this situation is bad and wrong, and I feel stupid for falling for the idea that I could have a normal life when my existence is anything but normal.

  We turn the corner at a catering area, and I see a spot where a wooden fence blocks off a small area from view of the sidewalk. I pull Lily with me until we’re safely behind the fence and out of sight. I’ve been breathing hard this whole time, but it feels like only now my lungs are actually getting oxygen.

  I continue to take a few moments to breathe before I dare to look at Lily’s face, and the expression I see there is not at all what I was expecting. She’s silently trying to hold in her reaction, her face about ready to burst into laughter until she seems to really take in my expression. I know without seeing myself that my skin is completely pale. I look scared and pathetic, not at all the way I want Lily to see me.

  “Dante,” she half-speaks, half-giggles, but the grin on her face quickly begins to fade. “Dante? Hey.” She grasps my cheeks with her hands, forcing me to look in her eyes. “It’s okay. It was just park security, probably pissed off about our public display of affection on the ride. They weren’t going to arrest you.”

  Somewhere in my brain I knew there wouldn’t be real cops here, but that didn’t lessen my mind and body’s reactions. That didn’t change my inherent programming to run from the people who protect society from criminals and the dangerous people of this Earth.

  I shake my head and try to look away, unable to face Lily or the realization that I can’t just forget my past. I can’t ignore who I am and what I have to hide from for the rest of my life.

  Lily’s too damn insistent, though. She still has her hands on my cheek and uses them to coax me to look at her again, but nothing works until her lips find mine. She kisses me gently, once, twice, three times. She runs one hand slowly through my hair as the other sneaks around the back of my neck. She stares into my eyes, willing me to calm down until my body finally responds. I take a deep breath and let out all the tension coursing through me.

  “I have issues,” I admit to her quietly, unable to hold back my honesty at this point, because I care enough about her to want to be as up front about this as possible so she can get the hell away from me now if she chooses. “There are things about me and my past that haunt me, that make me the way I am and affect how I live my life. As much as I wish I could talk about them, I just can’t. You can never know these things, and if that means you never want to see me again, I won’t hold it against you.”

  Lily’s eyes are like tiny mirrors, her dark brown orbs glimmering back to me the same sadness and pain erupting from my heart. She pulls me against her and runs her fingers through my hair and rubs her cheek against my shoulder. She’s quiet, and I fear that she’s plotting out the words she wants to say to break off whatever this friendship or relationship is that’s developing between us.

  “If you’re trying to scare me away, you’ll have to do a lot better job than that.”

  I’m taken aback by her words. I have to pull back from her to read her face to understand what she’s trying to say even though the words she spoke are completely clear.

  “We all have issues, Dante. We all have secrets.” She holds my gaze despite looking slightly uncomfortable at her own words. “Though I pegged you for potentially being a dangerous guy the night you offered to drive me home from work, I’ve since determined that you’re completely harmless. I don’t know why you reacted the way you did just now, and you don’t have to tell me, but nothing changes my belief that you’re a good person. I’m not going to run away from you.”

  My face remains even as I try to fully comprehend Lily’s words. She’s okay with me just as I am. She doesn’t expect me to spill my life’s secrets to her. She’s understanding without having a clue about the history and context of all the strange things in my life.

  She is true perfection.

  “Thank you.” I can’t manage to say a word more than that as I take her hands in mine, willing her to understand just how grateful I am.

  A smile returns to Lily’s face just before she eyes me up curiously. “You didn’t just pull that stunt to get out of going on the roller coaster, did you?”

  “Hell no.” Though I’m not thrilled about the idea of spending another minute in this park even though I know there is no real threat from the authorities inside it, we came here with one goal in mind, and I have no intention of leaving without completing that goal. “Let’s go find that damn roller coaster.”

  “There he is,” Lily comments with a relieved grin. “My Dante’s back.”

  My Dante. I think I like the sound of that.

  With a deep breath, I entwine my fingers with Lily’s again and we emerge from our place of hiding. We weave through the crowds until we’re in line at the large wooden roller coaster. We wait quietly in line, allowing our bodies and actions do the talking for us as we study each other in ways that aren’t as easy during normal conversation. We sit next to each other in the front seat, hand in hand, as the roller coaster climbs toward the sky, reaching for the clouds and beyond. We scream at the top of our lungs as we fall hopelessly back down, releasing the reins and giving in to let the roller coaster take us where it may on its winding journey, and no matter how many twists and turns we encounter along the way, at the end of the ride we’re still exactly where we should be.

  Together.

  16

  It’s taken me two days to arrive at this conclusion–two long, painful days–but I’ve learned a lot from the experience. I’ve come to realizations that I never thought I would arrive at, dreamed of things that were barely a thought in my mind before. I’ve seen a potential life for myself outside the walls of our secluded house in the woods, possibilities that existed as nothing more than whispers of ideas taunting me but completely out of reach.

  I’m falling for Lily, and two days away from her is about all I can take.

  After being spoiled with an entire day in her presence when we went to the amusement park on her day off, Lily was asked to pull double shifts at the tavern. She hasn’t had time for renovation projects in the morning. I barely got to talk to her for fifteen minutes each night before she started falling asleep on the phone. The exhaustion and stress that overpowered her normally happy and carefree demeanor during our phone calls put me on edge and only made me want to see her more. I’ve been tempted on more than one occasion to stop by and see her, but I’ve managed to hold off.

  Until now.

  I have a good excuse, and I’m going to use it. A pipe is leaking at my grandparents’ house and we purposefully didn’t leave them much for tools to fix anyth
ing. My parents and I wanted to make their lives as comfortable as possible after their twenty-year sentences in prison for protecting us. The least we can do is help maintain their house for them.

  It was hard not to stop at CJ’s Tavern on the way to my grandparents’ house knowing that Lily was inside working. I had the perfect motivation for completing the pipe repairs at my grandparents’ house, though. The entire time I couldn’t stop thinking about how I’d get the chance to stop in to see Lily on the way home, maybe put a smile back on her face and help her relax after spending so much consecutive time working.

  By the time I finished the repairs, I was eager to get going, but when Robert offered for me to stay and visit, I couldn’t say no. He poured two glasses of sun-steeped iced tea and motioned me to the front porch.

  We’ve been sitting here chatting quietly while Cindy naps inside the house. I thought this little extra visiting was completely innocent, a grandfather’s way to learn more about the grandson he’s never really known, but the further we get into our conversation, the more I realize something’s up. I’ve skirted around the topic of Lily the few times that Robert has brought her up, but we seem to keep coming back to her. I’m starting to wonder if this conversation is more like an interrogation.

  “I’m worried about this girl and her intentions,” Robert admits flatly.

  I look back at him, frozen in shock and completely dumbfounded. I get that he’s been repressing his detective tendencies for decades at this point, but how can he give that assessment with no basis for making such a determination about Lily? “She’s absolutely harmless. There’s no way she has an ulterior motive.”

  “How can you be sure, though?” Robert’s gaze is firm. “You’ve only known this girl for a couple weeks. You have no idea who she is, and she can never know who you truly are.”