by Kyle Autumn
“That’s it. Give it to me.”
God, do I. I empty myself all over her. But it’s not enough. I have certainly proven that I can take, but I also feel the fierce impulse to give back. If her moans were anything to go by, she was getting close, and I won’t allow her needs to not be met just because she provided me with mine first.
I know she’s wet, so with dry fingers, I probe through her folds until I reach her opening. I slowly slide two fingers inside her and curve them upward to find her special spot. I know I’ve found it when her sounds turn into high-pitched moans of pleasure, and I swipe it over and over again. In and out. In and out. My fingers arched, my thumb sliding through her folds and hitting her clit.
She’s propped up on her elbows, her head thrown back. But, soon, she falls all the way back on the bed, and I pull one of her nipples into my mouth. The triple whammy of erotic pleasure hits her like a tidal wave and her climax sends her into spasms. So I slow my rhythm even more as she comes down from her high.
At the bottom of it, she starts to giggle. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Didn’t have to,” I tell her as I remove my fingers from inside her, “but I certainly wanted to.”
“Just like I wanted to do that for you,” she replies, brushing her sweaty hair from her face. She scoots over on the bed and pats the place she just vacated.
I grab an old T-shirt from my closet so I can clean her up a little. She watches me as I gently wipe the cloth over her skin, a lazy, blissed-out smile curving her lips. When I’m done, I toss the shirt into the laundry basket, and she grins at me again, the gesture melting a little of the ice around my heart.
So I fall onto that spot next to her, letting the warmth from her body capture me in its spell. I should be worried that I’m tired as fuck and she’s free to do as she pleases if I fall asleep. I should be worried that the door can’t be locked so that she can’t get out of it if she tries. I should be worried that she’ll run the second I let sleep take me over.
But I’m not.
Probably because she’s curled into my side, plastered to me like she never wants to leave. Probably because I’m more comfortable than I’ve ever been in my entire life. Probably because I have my arm around a woman who didn’t run from my scars.
If anything bad wants to show up at my door right now, let it. She could leave right now, go straight to the police, and send my ass to jail, but I wouldn’t care. Things have never been better, so I can’t even be bothered to give a fuck.
Not while she’s in bed next to me.
19
Ali
“Will you tell me about them?” I ask as I draw shapes along the lines of his scars.
He hesitates for only a moment before answering me. “That job that paid me so well?” he says in the form of a question.
I hum lightly to acknowledge that I remember.
“Well, this is why I got paid so well. Hazards were high.” His fingers lightly caress my back as he speaks.
I’m glad he’s feeling more comfortable with me. He’s not being very specific, but we all have to start somewhere. And I already know that this is more than he’s told most people. So whatever else he has locked up in his head, whatever he’s protecting in his backyard—it all must be worth living a life of secrecy. Though he seems like he’s nearly ready to leave some of that behind and share his burden with someone else.
With me.
“I hope it was worth it,” I tell him without looking at him.
He inhales deeply. My head rises and falls on his chest with the large breath he takes. He holds it for a few seconds before letting it out on a rush. “I don’t know. I mean…” He turns his head so that his lips are on my forehead. “It led me here, brought us together. So maybe.”
I tip my head up so I can see his eyes. Mine crinkle at the corners when I smile. “I like this.”
A small laugh escapes his lips before he says, “Surprisingly, I do too.”
My jaw falls a little in mock shock. “Excuse me. I think it should be way more surprising that I like this. After all, you are the one who knocked me upside the head for trying to help you.”
My words affect him in a way I didn’t plan for. I was trying to joke around, lighten the mood, keep things fun. Instead, he winces like I’ve wounded him and turns away from me.
“Hey.” I twist his face back to me using pressure on his cheek. “I was playing around. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” he spits out intensely. “I hurt you, and after the ways I’ve been hurt, I promised myself I wouldn’t do that.”
“My head will be fine. No scars,” I reassure him. But that’s not good enough.
“I’m not just talking about physical scars.” He grunts and gazes at the wall across from the bed.
Well, now I have to know what he’s talking about. “So tell me what you mean.”
After some heavy breathing, he must decide to be honest with me. “I was in a serious relationship before.”
When that’s all he says, I wait him out. Silence ends up needing to be filled, and if I give him long enough, he’ll fill it with what I want to hear. What I’m willing to listen to and help him through.
“But she betrayed me in the worst way. She wasn’t who I thought she was. And, with the secrets I have to keep, I can’t put that on someone else to carry with me. I won’t hurt anyone like that.”
“So you don’t even try?” As I say those words, I realize how much of a hypocrite I’m being.
He laughs harshly. “That’s rich coming from someone who thought she was being kidnapped for sex. Sounds like neither of us is doing a good job of trying.”
It’s so true that I don’t even take offense. I laugh along with him instead, and his rough laughter turns into lighter chuckles. My body shakes with his as we both come down from the funny moment.
“What was her name?” I ask when we’ve settled.
“Melinda,” he answers through gritted teeth, like saying her name is poison on his tongue.
The single word freezes my blood to ice, and just like that, the tables have turned.
Upon noticing how solid I’ve gone, Keaton says, “That’s what hearing her name usually does to me too,” with a slight chuckle. But then he strokes my back, realizing I’m not playing a game. “What’s going on?”
“I knew a Melinda once.” My words are barely a whisper. “She was horrid.”
“Must be the name,” he jokes. “Maybe all Melindas are awful fucking people.”
I wish I were still in the mood for jokes, but memories from my past flit through my mind like a slideshow. It takes Keaton’s pointing it out for me to realize I’m shivering.
He slides his hands up and down my body before inching around me to pull the blanket down. When he can’t grip the end of it, he sits up, taking me with him, and lifts me off the bed, keeping me close to his chest. Once he has the blanket at the end of the bed, he lays us back down and surrounds me with his warmth and the security of the blanket.
“What secrets do you want to talk about?” he asks when we’re cuddled up again. This time, we’re facing each other while he holds me in his arms. “Clearly, you have some too, and I’m a good listener.”
“I’ve already told you too much,” I confess, thinking about all the things I’ve said but shouldn’t have. “Can we just pretend none of that exists?”
Sadly, he shakes his head, his beard scratching my chin with the movement. His eyes hold so many secrets of his own, and every time I look at him, I know how wrong it is to think we can let the past stay there.
After a deep breath, I decide to tell him just a bit more. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll have to move again soon now. I can’t stay anywhere for very long.” I squeeze my eyes shut before I start crying.
He brushes my cheek with his thumb. “Is this related to why I had to put your phone in a cup of water?”
I don’t look at him or even acknowledge that he’s spoken. All of this is fa
r too much. I hate the reminders. I hate remembering what happened to my mom, what almost happened to me. What could happen if I’m not careful enough. If I don’t keep moving or cover my tracks well enough. I just want this one night where I feel safe, where someone else is taking care of me for a change. Just this one kidnapped night.
“Because I have to do that too, you know,” he says softly. “I know the drill, and I’m starting to think we found each other for a reason.”
His kindness has me opening my eyes, but the tears in them make my vision blurry. I blink several times before I can see him clearly. A small sniffle causes me to breathe in sharply and then hiccup.
“I’m so tired of crying.” I snuggle my head against his neck and wrap my arm around his back. “I seem to do that a lot around you.”
“When you’re conscious and not begging me to fuck you,” he says around a miniscule laugh, his chest rumbling with his deep voice.
That makes me stop crying and pull back to look at him, shock written all over my face. “He has jokes.”
“And…” he says, a finger under my chin to keep me from looking away.
The seriousness in his gaze sucks the breath out of my lungs before he shocks me with what he says next.
“He thinks that maybe—just maybe—we don’t have to live this life alone anymore.” He holds my gaze with fierce intensity. “Maybe we can live this life together.”
20
Keaton
I can’t tell if she likes the idea or if I’ve scared her off completely. She’s not saying anything, and her facial expression hasn’t changed from the shocked look she was giving me before I took us both by surprise.
Honestly, I’m not sure if I even know what I’m saying. What would that look like? A life with the two of us together? After I’ve knocked her out, kidnapped her, and tied her to a chair? After she’s confessed to having seen her mother’s murder, needing to move around very often, and being unable to have a cell phone for too long?
When I haven’t told her all the things I’ve done?
They say that relationships shouldn’t be based on lies. But can they be based on unintentional crime and intentional omissions?
Probably not. Which is why this is so ridiculous to think about.
But it also makes perfect goddamn sense.
“Think about it,” I continue in order to coax some kind of reaction out of her—hopefully a good one. “We can keep each other company while we run. We can keep each other safe and sane. And you have to admit that the sex is good.” I grin at her, hoping to see the same from her mouth.
But nothing happens. She just stares at me with a blank expression, and I’m forced to wait her out, wondering why I’m pushing so hard for this when I’ve vowed in the past never to do this kind of thing. There’s just something about her that draws me to her. I can’t seem to help it. So I sit in silence and hope for the best. Whatever that might look like.
After several agonizing, excruciating moments, her face finally cracks. Then it crumbles as she breaks down and dissolves into a puddle of tears again. Fuck me, I didn’t mean to make her cry, but maybe she doesn’t know how to tell me that she doesn’t want the same thing I do. Above all, even above wanting her with me all the fucking time, I need her to be happy. After everything I’ve done and everything we’ve been through, she has to be happy, and if it’s not with me, it’s not with me.
Doesn’t mean I won’t try though. Selfish asshole right here, remember?
“We can split costs on things,” I assure her, “or I can pay for a lot of stuff. I still have quite a bit of—”
Luckily, she stops me by poking me in the chest before I spill any more secrets. “Stop, you big oaf,” she giggles between sniffles. “You don’t have to convince me.”
I lean away and grip her upper arm. “I don’t? But you were—”
“They’re tears of relief. Of joy,” she says through a beaming, watery smile.
“Even though you don’t know everything about my past?” I hedge. Because, honestly, if I told her, she’d flee faster than I could say, But I’ve changed.
“The past is the past, Keaton,” she says, my name on her lips sweeter than sugar and more addictive than crack.
I’ll never get enough of this woman. Ever.
With one hand, she holds my cheek. “I don’t care what you’ve done. And what’s happened to you doesn’t mean you’re bound to be someone who’s defined by that. Together, we can make a future that counts, even on the run.”
Her skin on mine almost burns. It’s like a warning that, even though I think I’ll never get enough, a man can only receive so much before he’s hurt. But I stuff that down, unwilling to allow past transgressions and wounds to dictate what my future can and can’t be. I call the shots, and they’ll always include Ali. Because she gives me the strength to take chances when everything hurts and nothing makes sense. When my secrets are too heavy to carry on my own, having her next to me gives me that extra boost to keep going.
Eventually, though, she’ll have to find out. Nothing stays secret forever. So I can only hope that she’ll stick to her word and accept that the past is the past. What happened then means little now.
Until that time, I’ll keep her close to me.
She snuggles up against my chest, and I wrap my arms around her back and press her even closer. On a deep inhale, I breathe her in, memorizing the way she smells and how she fits perfectly in my embrace. Soon, her own breathing has evened out and small snores replace the hiccups and sniffs from before.
The relief that she’s content enough in my arms to fall asleep is overwhelming. The feeling of having her here is so addicting, and the selfish part of me rises to the top. But I won’t let that fully win. I’ll do whatever she needs me to in order to make sure she’s happy here, with me, in my arms. We’ll need to talk though, figure out where to go from here to make this work. Even though nothing else in my life has worked out the way I’d hoped, she gives me a reason to try one last time.
So, while embracing Ali in my warm, comfortable bed, I slip off into a deep, restful sleep. Happy and satisfied for the first time in a long-ass time.
When I’m roused sometime later from a knock at the door, I’m pleasantly surprised to still feel her in my arms. If someone weren’t at my front door, I’d watch her sleep like a fucking stalker. But I can’t allow comfort to tear my guard down. No one ever shows up at my door, especially at whatever time it is at night. I keep this room completely dark so I can sleep at night, which means I can’t tell the time by how it looks outside. But it must be late, so this must be serious.
As soon as I have the bedroom door shut behind me, another three knocks boom through the room. And those knocks are followed by three words that could blow this whole situation up.
“Police! Open up.”
21
Ali
When I wake up from the deepest, most wonderful sleep I’ve ever had, Keaton’s gone. His side of the bed is still warm though, so he couldn’t have left that long ago. I don’t want to fully open my eyes. The light we left on makes them water, and they’re puffy from all the times I’ve cried in the last…however long it’s been. So I keep them shut and snuggle deeper into the soft, cozy sheets.
But then I hear voices coming from the other side of the door.
One is definitely Keaton’s, but two more hit my ears and I have no idea who they are. I’m not sure if I should go out there, but I do gather my clothes on my way to pressing my ear to the door to hear better. And what I hear makes my blood run cold.
“We have to take her down to the station,” one man says. “Her friend is worried about her and wants to report her missing.”
“And I’ve told you that we talked to her friend,” Keaton tells the other men. “She knows that Ali is okay.”
“You’ve said that,” the same man says, “but we still need to lay eyes on her so we can see for ourselves. Then she needs to come to the station and sign some paperwork so w
e can finish our reports on this case.”
“This isn’t a case,” Keaton insists, a hardness that wasn’t in his tone before spurring me into action. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you—”
“Sir, we need to see Alex Jarron right now,” says a second man. “Her friend has tried calling the number she has for her, but no one is picking up and she wants to file a missing person’s report. Just let us see her.”
When my clothes are on straight and my hair is secured in my hair tie, I open the bedroom door. Straight ahead is the front door, where Keaton is standing with two men.
Men dressed in police uniforms.
“Officers,” I say as I approach, hoping it’ll calm everyone down. “Are you looking for me?”
The tall one on the left straightens his spine as his eyes widen for a half second. If I hadn’t trained myself so diligently over the years to notice subtle changes like that, I would have missed it. Just like I would have missed the slight elbow he gives his partner.
Keaton doesn’t see any of it though. He’s staring at me like he wishes he could erase me from time itself. When he glances at the side table with a few framed photos on it, I follow his gaze and see why. The photos depict a smiling Keaton—something I’ve rarely seen. He even has a clean-shaven face, which is obviously something I’ve never seen. But there’s something else.
A woman. A smiling, happy woman laughing next to him at the camera.
By the length of his beard now, I can tell that this was a long time ago. And he’s already told me about her, so I don’t know why he wouldn’t want me to see her. Maybe he didn’t want me to know that he still has photos of her, but I have more important things to worry about right now.
Like getting the police off my back.
“Are you Alex Jarron?” the shorter one on the right asks.
I nod. “What can I do for you?”
The tall one speaks up now. “I’m Officer Todd and this”—he points to the man next to him—“is Officer Yardley. Your friend, a Jane Thompson, wants to file a missing person’s report due to being unable to reach you. We told her it was premature for that, but we assured her we’d check into it to see if you were okay.”