Play Me

by Alla Kar

  He sucks me hard into his mouth while he flicks my other nipple between his index finger and thumb. “I want to devour you, Roxanne.”

  I groan into his mouth. I want to be devoured.

  “Taste every single inch of this skin. Consume you,” he whispers against my belly while his fingers unzip my jeans.

  Finally I’m lying naked beneath him, shivering with needs that only he can fulfill. His erection presses against my wet entrance. He cusses underneath his breath and then lowers himself on top of me. “I’m not my father, Roxy,” he groans.

  I furrow my brow. “I know that—,”

  “No,” he teases me again and I buck upward. “I’m not my dad. I will not become my dad. I meant what I said about Maddox. I love him,” he whispers against my throat. “As much as I love you. And I will never let anything happen to either one of you.” He laughs and slides inside of me. “I never thought I could be this man. There was no future in marriage or love for me. I never felt love back. That was all I needed, someone to love me like no one ever has.” He locks gazes with me. The corner of his full mouth rises up in a smirk. “I love you, Roxanne. And I don’t give a goddamn rat’s ass who knows.” He slides into me again and begins to quicken his pace.

  “I’m yours whether you want me or not.”

  His fingers dig into my hips as he pushes further into me. “Good thing I want you then.”

  He groans and lowers his mouth to my ear. “You’ll always have me.”

  “Hey, Weston?”

  He stops moving and glances down at me. “What is it?”

  I reach up and run my fingers through his dirty blond hair. “I love you, too.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Weston

  I know this doesn’t make my dad and me friends. Or even normal. But I know a step in the right direction when I see one.

  Roxanne went over there to confront him without telling me. At first I was too stunned stupid to even think. Then I realized it worked. Roxanne put him in his place like she’s put me in mine so many times. A sense of pride formed in the pit of my stomach.

  “What can I get you?”

  What? I glance up over the counter at Java City at a familiar face. Where have I seen her before? “You never called,” she says.

  Oh, right. I smile over at her and actually glance at her name tag instead of her rack. “Rachel, is it?”

  She flips her hair, still hopeful that I’ll call her. And I would have—if Roxy hadn’t have come tumbling into my life. “You’re a beautiful girl,” I say.

  Her smile widens. “But I’m in love with someone else. “

  All the color in her face pales. “You’re Weston Garrison, right?”

  I nod.

  Then she furrows her brow. “You’ve fucked everyone else but you won’t fuck me? What the hell did I ever do to you?”

  Ouch.

  I lean closer to her. “Nothing and that’s a good thing. You don’t need me or any other guy to fuck you, Rachel. Why don’t you find the guy that wants to take you out instead of have sex?”

  Her cheeks redden. “Right. Well, why don’t you just order and put me out of my misery?”

  I smile. “Two Oreo Javalanches, please.”

  She rolls hers eyes and starts making them while mumbling underneath her breath. Can’t win them all.

  I carry both drinks out of the library and out to my truck. Driving to Roxy’s house is programmed into my brain. I’ll find myself turning down her road without even realizing I’ve turned. The feeling of knowing you have someone to go to is heart-warming.

  The radio changes to an upbeat song and I hum along as I drive. It’s been three weeks since the incident and there hasn’t been one peep out of Ryan or any potential fuckup friends. No more bashed in trucks. No more envelopes full of money. No kidnapping and no break-ins.

  But a nagging feeling at the back of my neck has been hovering over me for the past couple of days. There hasn’t been any sign of them but I feel it. Deep down I feel it.

  It’s quiet on Roxy’s street. No noise. No passing cars. Even the neighbor’s cars are gone. Just her small Honda Civic is sitting in the driveway. When I park, I sit staring at Duplex number 6. No one passes by the windows. A few lights are on but that’s it. It’s unsettling.

  When I walk to the door, I listen. Only the faint sound of the TV from Maddox’s room is playing. Panic sets inside of me, so I open the door and walk in.

  The living room is a mess. Pillows torn to pieces, the mirror over the entertainment center is in shards scattered on the floor. Jesus Christ. I rush through the house like a madman. I can’t think straight. Where are they?

  I sling Roxy’s bedroom door open and stop dead in my tracks. Ryan is sitting on the edge of her bed. He isn’t looking at me but she is. Roxy’s hands and feet are bound together. Tearstains are covering her cheeks. One eye is swollen shut and blood is dripping from her lip. “Are you okay?” I ask.

  She begins to shake but nods. “Where is Maddox?”

  Ryan chuckles beneath his breath and stands up. His clothes are starting to hang off of him. Both cheeks are sunken in and dark shadows line his eyes. “He’s safe in the closet.” He gestures toward the closet. “There.”

  I run to the closet and find Maddox gagged and bound on the closet floor. Anger floods me and I fly upward but he’s holding a gun to Roxy’s head when I turn around.

  With both hands up in surrender, I take a step backwards. “Tell me what you want. I’ll do it.”

  Roxy moans and he shoves her back to the bed. “Did you not take me seriously? Did you think I would let you go on with your life—with my wife! With my son!” He laughs hysterically, holding the gun up to his lips. “I told you I had people coming for you.” A sinister looks takes over his face. “And now it’s time.”

  “Promise me they won’t get hurt.”

  “Oh, I never intended on hurting them.”

  Good. Roxy’s gaze flickers to mine and holds. “I love you,” I whisper.

  Ryan grins at the same time Roxy starts to squirm. But something strikes me from behind before I can move, and I hit the floor with thud.

  ***

  A deep ache is brushing against the back of my skull when I open my eyes. It’s throbbing so hard that I can’t see straight. Everything is in duplicates. Two dark rooms. Two high ceilings.

  “He’s awake.”

  Goddammit it hurts to hear. I groan and try to move my hands up to my face but I can’t move them.

  “You sure?”

  Fuck! Prying my eyes open I try to focus on something. Anything. The first movement I see I focus in on. The darkness adjusts and the outline of a giant beam comes into sight. Where the fuck—

  Dread sets in. My eyes focus all the way, and with the moonbeams shining in through the holey ceiling I see where we are. There is only one place in Magnolia that has a building like this. And it’s twenty minutes out of town toward Salem. My mouth dries. The abandoned warehouse has been used by college students for parties for years.

  “Yep, definitely awake.”

  A tall guy with skin as dark as night stares down at me. When he smiles all I can focus on are his big white teeth. “Where are Roxy and Maddox?” I groan out. It feels like sandpaper is rubbing against the inside of my throat.

  “Don’t you worry about them, Garrison. I’m not going to go back on my deal, we won’t hurt them.”

  Ryan appears from the far right corner of the room. That must be the way out. But with two other guys standing in the corner of the room it doesn’t look like a run for it would work, even if I weren’t tied to a damn chair.

  “I really don’t want to have to do this,” Ryan says, dragging a foldout chair across the concrete. Swinging the chair around, he sits in front of me. The gun in his hands flashes in the moonbeams. And everything sets in.

  He isn’t stable and he’s holding a gun. No telling if he is high or not but I don’t think it makes much of a difference either way. He wants me dea
d and nothing is here to stop him.

  “Then don’t.”

  He chuckles and rubs the gun in-between the palms of each hand, his fingers twitching against the trigger. Both shoulders occasionally jerk and I know he’s stoned out of his mind. “You think I went two years without her so that you could have her? You’re not Maddox’s father, I am.”

  “Well, you sure as hell don’t act like it,” I spit out. “A father doesn’t have to be biological to be your father. It’s how you fuckin’ act, butt-fuck.”

  The chair flies backwards as he jumps to his feet and points the gun right at my head. “They aren’t yours!” he screams, his voice echoing into the night.

  Grinding my teeth together, I pull at the twist ties that are binding my wrists together. “That may be true. But they sure as hell aren’t yours either.”

  He screams and pistol whips me across the face. My cheek throbs and blood starts to trail down my face. When I look back up, any ounce of humanity that was left in him is gone.

  He brings the gun back up to my head and grabs a handful of his hair. “Ryan, bro, you—,”

  “Shut up!” Ryan screams and begins to pace back and forth in front of me. I have no idea why he hasn’t killed me. But I’m not complaining. I tug on my wrists again but it only tightens more. “I’m going to do it. I have to. It’s the only way,” he’s mumbling to himself.

  Blood is dripping from my face now and down my white T-shirt. I close my eyes. I don’t want to leave Roxanne, not only for selfish reasons—even though it’s obvious I’m going to miss her like fuck—but because I have no way of knowing how their life is going to turn out. Will Ryan really keep his fucking promise? Or will he force her to stay with him?

  A loud bang shouts off, so I duck my head to my chest. Did someone shoot? Am I bleeding? I look down at my shirt but only the blood from my face is there. The two guys in the corner start shouting but an air horn sounds off from outside. “Magnolia Police, come out now!”

  Jesus Christ. Roxy must have gotten out. Ryan begins to screech while holding his ears. One of the guys comes up to Ryan and starts to drag him out of the building but he begins to fight. My heart is racing inside my chest. Ryan flings the gun around fighting with one of his guys. “Let go! Let go. Let go! I have to get him. I have to!” he screams.

  The officer’s loud footsteps echo into our room and the tall guy bolts, leaving Ryan and me in the room alone. He searches the room—for what I don’t know—and then points the gun back at me.

  This is it. And the theory that everything flashes before your mind is the fucking truth. From the good to the bad. Every goddamn important situation resurfaces, drowning you in your own life. But when those memories stop on Roxanne and Maddox, it doesn’t feel as hard to bear anymore.

  When the gunshot rings through the air I close my eyes. My chair flies backwards and I hit the concrete with a thud. Someone shouts but I can’t tell who it is so I stay still. The throbbing pain in my head is leaving. I’m floating. But then I’m being pulled back down.

  “Sunshine,” someone says.

  I blink rapidly until I see Dom standing over me. He lets out a choked sound and leans my head upwards a bit since I’m still lying on the ground. “Intuition?” I ask.

  Dom nods and gently slaps me on the cheek. “Yea.”

  Epilogue

  Three weeks later …

  The stadium looks so intimidating with only three people in it. The hotness of the stadium lights are hotter. Each noise intensified to the fullest. It seems like life could go on forever like this.

  I stretch my legs out in front of me on the seats below. Leaning back, I watch as Maddox chases Weston around the field with not a worry in the world. For either one of them. Or me.

  Ryan was arrested on attempted murder charges, assault with a deadly weapon, kidnapping and a bunch of drug charges. There isn’t any way he can get out of this. And that makes the pain he’s caused me bearable.

  “Blue forty-two. Blue forty-two. Hut. Hut.” Weston yells, running backwards and tossing the ball over his good shoulder. With the other one in the cast I knew that he wouldn’t be able to play—again—for a while. For an entire month. The season will be almost ending by then.

  “I got it!” Maddox yells. “Mom!” he turns to look up at me. ‘I got it!”

  “Woohoo!” I yell.

  Weston stands still and looks up at me. Even though there are a few hundred feet between us, a feeling I can’t explain overtakes me. I want—need—him up here with me. He nods slowly, bends down and says something to Maddox.

  He nods and starts running around the field. Each step Weston takes toward me something pulls in my lower stomach. I slowly lower my gaze to his chest; even wrapped in a cast he looks amazing. That white T-shirt I helped him get into this morning is clinging to the muscles in his stomach. A pool of heat is burning inside of me.

  When he’s close enough I lock eyes with him. Those big brown eyes roll over me and there is no remorse for his gawking. He takes a step inside the row in front of me. He places both knees on the seat below and lowers himself to me with one hand. “I’ve been shiverin’ down there, sweetheart.”

  I lift an eyebrow. “Cold?”

  He shakes his head, a chunk of dirty blonde hair falls against his forehead. Carefully I run my fingers over the scruff of his jaw. “I’m shiverin’ from want—need—and there is only one person that can help me out.”

  He slides forward until he is bent in front of me, my legs spread around his big body. “Rebecca?” I whisper against his lips.

  He laughs and cups my jaw with his good hand. “No, the most infuriatingly beautiful girl I’ve ever met.”

  I smile and nip his bottom lip. “Coach called me today.”

  Oh, no. I lean backwards and stare at him. “What did he say?”

  He frowns. “The Eagles heard about the accident and—,” he trails off, swallowing a lump in his throat. It seems like I feel it in my own throat. I want to take all of that pain away from him and store it inside of myself. He didn’t deserve this. “They want to offer me a contract.”

  Wait—what? He starts to laugh and I shove him in his good shoulder. “You asshole!”

  He nuzzles my neck and nips where shoulder meets neck. “Maddox is going to be mad.”

  I laugh and it turns into a sob on his shoulder. “Baby—what’s wrong?”

  I sniffle and lift my head. “I was so scared you’d lose your chance to get out of here. I couldn’t live with myself if I was the reason you didn’t make it.”

  He furrows his brow and runs his finger against my lip and jaw. “No, baby. You’re the reason I’m goin’.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He sighs. “You and Maddox are mine now. I take care of you. I love both of you so much more than I ever felt I was capable of loving. And it’s us three to the end.” He swallows and then looks down to smile. “Well, maybe another little one in the next few years but us, always.” He scratches the back of his neck. “What I mean is that you two are coming with me. We’ll both graduate in May and we can find you a physical therapist job in Philadelphia. We can be the family I want—you want—and get out of this one horse town.” His bottom lip quivers. “Together. Always. You’re the realest fucking thing I’ve ever had in my life and I won’t take no for a fucking answer, Roxanne. I’m going to stop rambling now. Please, put me out of my misery.”

  Tears are streaming down my face now. He tries to kiss them away but they’re too many. “Always,” I whisper.

  He nods and presses his lips to mine in a soft, slow kiss that seers my toes. His fingers dig into the back of my neck and he forces me to look at him. “Thanks for taking a chance with me.”

  “It was worth it.”

  The End

  Look for the next installment of the Love Me Series:

  Rock Me coming May 2014

  Other Books by Alla Kar …

  Ranch Hand

  Covert Ops: Shifting Pleasures

>   Make Me Yours (The Forever Series #1)

  You Are Mine (The Forever Series #2)

  Forever Yours (The Forever Series #3)

  Teach Me (Love Me Series #1)

  Stroke of Fear

  Where You Are- Coming from Swoon Romance in early 2014

  Alla loves to hear from her fans …

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