End Game (A Dark Romance)

by Waltz, Vanessa

  “You feel so fucking amazing.”

  My free arm wraps around his waist, seizing his bare ass and digging my nails into his muscles. I clench myself hard as he buries himself, unable to fight the roaring pressure inside me. I fall apart in his arms, coming around him, yanking on the sharp handcuff.

  Joe’s lips fasten on mine, swallowing my moans as he pushes down on my chest, my legs wrapping around him again. His face transforms into something much more vulnerable. He looks younger. The stoic mask finally slips away and he gives himself to me, breaking down in a series of shuddering gasps as he slams into me. His legs shake and I feel warmth spreading inside me. Joe bites my ear and sighs, his body collapsing over mine.

  I sweep the strands of hair away from his face and kiss his wet forehead. His head lies on my shoulder, his cock still buried inside me as it jerks with the aftershocks of his orgasm. Then he pushes himself away from me, his body stretching out almost as if it was on display for me. His head rests on the pillow next to me, and he gives me a look I’ve never seen before.

  It almost makes me feel cherished.

  He reaches out and touches my face, the side that’s still bruised and hurting. Joe opens his mouth as though he wants to say something, but he can’t quite do it. He slips out of bed and I turn around, the happiness emptying out of me. The orgasm took away all excitement and left me with crushing reality. Joe flips a switch without saying a word and I’m bathed in darkness. Then I feel safe. A tear burns down my cheek, and then another. I bite my lip to keep from whimpering, but my chest shakes and the slightest sound escapes through my lips.

  He slides back into bed, moving too close to me. A heavy arm wraps around my waist and pulls me into his chest. Then his lips brush against my neck. It’s almost like he’s mouthing something against my skin, but the hand brushing my skin feels like an apology.

  * * *

  My arm hurts like hell.

  I shift it in another position, but metal digs into my wrist and I wince. My eyes, crusted with tears, open in the early darkness to see my wrist still attached to the handcuffs. I twist around in the bed, but Joe isn’t there. I strain my ears, and I can’t hear him in the apartment.

  Maybe I should try to get the hell out of here.

  Fire blazes in my chest, filling me with energy as I envision myself sprinting out of his apartment, straight to the police. Even Joe admitted that he wouldn’t be able to help me, even if he wanted to.

  How far would I get, really?

  I sink back into the bed as pressure builds behind my eyes again. It’s everywhere, sitting on my chest and on both sides of my skull, crushing me.

  My father.

  He fucking did this to me. I hate them all: Jack, Vincent, Jamie, and that bastard who hit me, but I feel a mixture of loathing and heart-wrenching betrayal for my dad. He could have named my brother as the owner of the company, and he’d be in this mess. He would’ve probably handled it better. I was chosen because I was disposable. Easily replaced. Dad did not give a fuck about me.

  I yank on the chain again, gritting my teeth when it bites into my skin. It gouges a deep, red mark into my skin, and I revel in the pain of it. It’s so much better than crying, and I hate myself more than anything for allowing this to happen.

  The only glimmer of happiness in my life is also my jailer. How fucked up is that?

  My wrist twists, and I grit my teeth hard as it stabs through my skin. I’ve hardly made any progress. In the kitchen, I heard the scuff of feet and I freeze, holding in my breath as if he can hear that, too.

  Joe walks into the doorway, wearing nothing but a pair of black briefs.

  Hot.

  I want to kiss that line of dark hair leading from his flat abdomen to the tempting bulge hidden under a thin layer of cotton. The smooth look of unconcern is back on his face, but he walks around the bed, a small smirk playing on his lips.

  “Looks like you’re still tied up.” He laughs at his little joke.

  “Oh, ha-ha. Can you uncuff me, please? I need to pee. And I need a shower.”

  He sits down next to me and my heartbeat starts to pick up. I have a very nice view of him. He’s all lean muscle, and ruggedly handsome, and the bastard knows it.

  “Hm.” A broad hand smoothes over my stomach, over my breasts to squeeze them slightly. It freezes. “You fucked up your wrist.”

  Joe sighs angrily as he retrieves the key from the nightstand on the other side. He quickly unlocks it and I hiss in pain as it unsticks from my raw flesh. He touches it gently, soothing fingers moving over the raw, circular lines.

  “Thanks.”

  I sit up next to him and get up without another word as he lets his hand fall. He follows me out the door and right into the bathroom. I turn around on him incredulously.

  “You’re going to watch me pee?”

  His beautifully carved shoulders shrug. “I’m not taking any chances with you.”

  “This is fucking ridiculous. What do you think I’ll do?”

  Dark eyes watch me. “You did pull my own gun on me. I don’t trust you. Not by a long shot.”

  Anger bubbles in my chest as I watch him fold his arms over his chest. I march to the toilet and lift up the lid. Joe tries to retreat a respectful distance, but no matter how you cut it, it’s awkward as fuck when someone’s looking at you. I try to flush as I’m peeing so that he can’t hear anything.

  When I’m done, he’s still there, looking at me out of the corner of my eye. I slide back the shower door and twist the knobs, waiting until heat pours from the nozzle until I step back inside.

  My head lifts up as the hot spray singes my body, easing the aches in my muscles and doubling the throbbing ache in my ankle. I grab the tall Dove liquid shampoo and lather my hands with it.

  The shower door scrapes open and I almost slip when I see a completely naked Joe standing there. He pushes his way inside.

  I find my voice somehow. “What’re you doing?”

  He joins me under the spray, the water darkening his hair and trailing down his rippling muscles in little rivulets. The temperature of the shower seems to skyrocket. What was a pleasantly warm temperature is now a raging furnace.

  Joe pins me against the glass wall and my back hits it with a resolute thud. He takes my head in his hands, and a devilish grin spreads over his face.

  “I couldn’t resist.”

  I’m glad that the shower’s heat gives me an excuse for my face to be red. The smile on his face makes me temporarily speechless. My breasts flatten against his chest and his head turns, his lips searching for me. “You shouldn’t.”

  “Usually when a girl is naked in my shower, I’m with her.”

  “I bet she isn’t handcuffed to the bed, either.”

  Humor glints in his eyes. “Sometimes.”

  But he gives me no time to respond. With the gentle touch of his finger under my chin, my head turns closer to his, until soft lips kiss mine so tenderly that I feel a different sort of desire stir inside me.

  He pulls away and my heart is still banging against his chest. He picks up the soap, oblivious to the feelings he stirred inside me, and runs his hands down my body as he washes me. I take the razor sitting on the wall.

  “Can I use this?”

  “You’re not going to slit my throat, are you?”

  I shake my head and bend over to shave, my ankle protesting slightly.

  “You shouldn’t be standing on that.”

  “I shouldn’t do a lot of things.”

  He wraps his arms around my waist and blood rushes to my head, when I feel his cock hardening against my leg.

  “I can’t keep my hands off you.”

  A sharp pain shoots up my leg and my face crumples into a whimper. Joe gives me a concerned look and shuts off the water. “You need to stay off that leg.”

  He brushes my back as I lean on my other leg. “You’re very bossy.”

  “I am the boss of you, remember?”

  I turn to his face with
a smile, but there’s no laughter on his face. “Yeah. Whatever.”

  I don’t feel like a fight, anyway. At least, that’s what I tell myself. This was what I wanted, right? For someone to swoop in and take control?

  Be careful what you fucking wish for.

  After we’re toweled and dried, Joe hands me a pair of his black exercise pants that I have to roll up three or four times, and a Rolling Stones t-shirt that drowns me. He tries not to laugh at me.

  “We can get some of your clothes later.”

  He pulls on a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt, looking far better than I do at the moment. Joe takes my arm and steers me into the living room, which looks slightly better than yesterday. It’s as if he spent the morning cleaning. The broken glass is swept up and the bottles of beer are gone. A wet streak on the coffee table hints that it was recently wiped. A small smile tugs at my face when I sit down. He joins me on the couch and I take in the room for a moment and reel in the strangeness of it all.

  I gingerly take a photo from the end table and study it, my mouth dropping.

  The smile of the man in the photograph is so ostentatious that I have to do a double take to realize that it belongs to Joe. He looks a few years younger; his arm wrapped around what must be his sister—a pretty, vivacious girl with the same eyes. He wears a ridiculous grin, the dimples in his cheeks carved in deeply. He’s fit to burst. What a remarkable change from the sullen man sitting next to me, watching me study the photo. Joe does smile, of course, but it’s never really authentic. He gets amused, he laughs—but there’s no joy in his smile. The man in the photo looks like he’s in love with his life.

  “You look so happy.”

  He takes the photo from my hands, frowning at it. “I’m not that guy anymore.”

  “Is that why you have all the pictures facing the other way? Or is it because you can’t bear to look at her?”

  Joe gives me a sharp look, and for a moment I’m afraid I’ve crossed some line. I inch closer to him on the couch as he returns his gaze to the photo, his eyes glazed over.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re the one who told me that it doesn’t mean you’ll never laugh again.”

  He slams the picture frame on the coffee table and I jump into the couch, trembling. “Just because I get to babysit you for a few days doesn’t mean you get to ask questions about my life.”

  I don’t know why I’m prying into his life. I guess I just want to help him. He’s running away from dealing with his feelings. It’s so obvious if you look around at the place.

  But it’s really not the time.

  I avert my eyes from the frightening heat in his gaze. “S—sorry.”

  We lapse into silence for a while. Joe watches the news and Comedy Central and flicks from channel to channel restlessly. I fidget in the couch, wrestling with questions I want to ask him, until I can’t take the silence anymore.

  “What’s going to happen to me? Am I going to die?”

  Joe looks annoyed until he hears the tremble in my voice. Then he sets the remote down and slides next to me, the heat of his body instantly calming me. He pulls me into his chest and cradles my head in the crook of his neck.

  “That’s not going to happen, Marisa.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Trust me.”

  Trust him? How am I supposed to trust him? He doesn’t even trust me. Hell, I don’t trust myself. I have these weird, inappropriate feelings for a man who is supposed to keep me prisoner here. Maybe he’s even supposed to hurt me. I take his hand in mine and I feel a rush of revulsion for the violence I saw him commit, but he’s never really directed that violence towards me. At times, Joe can be firm, but he’s never hurt me. That’s why I believe him.

  I pull away from him and wrap my arms around my knees. “I’m all confused. I can barely wrap my head around what’s happening, and now…”

  His body turns towards me. “And now…what?”

  Can he really not see the conflict I’m struggling with? “I have all these fucked up feelings for you.”

  He shakes his head. “Well you picked a great time to talk about them.”

  “When else am I supposed to? Between getting the shit beaten out of me and getting handcuffed to your bed, I haven’t had much time.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  Say you feel the same way.

  But he shifts and squirms on the couch, looking uncomfortable at the very idea of talking about feelings. “I feel sorry for you if you think I’m the kind of guy that you want. You’ve seen what I’m capable of.”

  “Yeah, I have,” I swallow hard. “It frightens me, but not as much…not as much as if you weren’t in my life.”

  He opens and closes his mouth, looking lost. What he does frightens me. Not him. Never him.

  “Look, you can repeat that badass rhetoric that you throw around all the time, but I know you care about me.” At least, I fucking hope he does. “I don’t know why it’s so hard for you to admit it.”

  He looks down at his hands. “I don’t want to care about anyone. I don’t want to feel anything, that was the whole point of ‘no strings.’”

  “How was that going for you so far?” I try to keep the edge out of my voice.

  Deep brown eyes glaze over with pain as he rubs his palms together, looking increasingly uncomfortable. “Not well,” he admits.

  So it’s about his sister. He still hasn’t dealt with her passing. It’s a defense mechanism, the oldest one in the book. Don’t get close to anyone, and you can’t get hurt. Unluckily for me, dying seems to be a very likely prospect in the next few days. It’s strange how little I worry about it. Maybe it’s because he’s here.

  “I don’t think I’m capable of no strings. I don’t think you are, either.” My chest squeezes painfully when he looks at me with slightly wide eyes. “I want to be with you. I don’t want to just be your comare.”

  His hand finds mine on the couch and squeezes, a pain issuing from his throat as he sighs. “Marisa…” He looks like he’s on the verge of rejecting me, of saying no. The delicate fortress I’ve built around myself to keep the pain outside is about to collapse. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I just don’t feel the same way.”

  “Oh.”

  Shit. I was wrong. I was so wrong and said all of that embarrassing shit.

  He hurt me anyway. My insides crumble and the world falls away. I thought, at least, that I had him, but it turned out that I had nothing. Joe gives me another pitying look as he gets off the couch and walks away, presumably to leave me alone out of respect for my feelings. To leave me alone to cry.

  I don’t feel like crying. I feel empty. That’s it. There’s no hope for me, now. The sting of unrequited feelings hurts less than the pain of a bullet, and the walls feel frighteningly close around me. No escape. No security.

  JOE

  I’ve read about this thing that happens to kidnapped victims. It’s called “Stockholm Syndrome.” It’s a phenomenon where victims start to express feelings of sympathy and empathy for their captors. Is there such a thing for something happening in the reverse?

  I feel sorry for her.

  It was bad enough seeing her face all fucked up at her apartment. My heart broke when she cried, her small hands cradling her mangled head. I couldn’t stand to watch her get so upset, so I left. Now that I know who did it, my mind has been obsessed—consumed with thoughts of violent reprisal. I already killed one of the pricks, but the rest will have to go.

  I walk into the living room to see Marisa sitting on the couch, watching the Disney channel. Christ, I didn’t even know that I have it. The moment she sees me, she swallows hard and shuts the TV off. She balls her fists at her sides and cringes when I walk closer.

  “Sorry.”

  The tense tone she uses and her darting eyes fill me with searing guilt. She’s back to being afraid of me.

  “You can watch TV if you want.”

  “Thanks,” she
says tersely, but makes no move to turn it back on.

  I frown. I didn’t like rejecting her. Hell, I felt like an asshole when her face fell apart. Of course, I lied out of my ass. The truth is that just hanging around her makes me happier than I’ve been in months. If things weren’t such a fucking mess and if I’d met her under different circumstances, it would be a different story. I just don’t think it’s wise to have her as anything more than a comare. Jack wouldn’t like it, and when Jack doesn’t like you, he gets rid of you.

  That’s the reality.

  It was a nice game to play with her, but it has got to end. I have to end it.

  If only the suffocating feeling in my chest would disappear.

  I sit down next to her and absorb her silence, the way her chest rises and falls, the careful manner in which she places her hands on her thighs. Her face looks a lot better. Almost healed, really, except for a faint yellow shadow on the side of her head.

  “How are you feeling?”

  Oh, I’m sure she’s fucking feeling great after you shot her down. Stupid question.

  “Okay.”

  “Listen,” I begin in a low voice, “about yesterday—”

  Marisa suddenly grabs my bicep and a rush of dizziness makes me forget the rest of my sentence when she climbs onto my lap like it’s the most normal thing in the world. I have to appreciate the gall of this woman. Did I say she could do that?

  But then she straddles my waist and my mouth is suddenly dry. Blonde hair falls around my hands as I touch her small face, which is wretched with sadness. Her hair tickles my face as she leans into me, and her lips fall on mine, my mouth open in surprise.

  What is she doing? I told her yesterday—

  Dude, shut up.

  My heart pounds a bit faster and I wrap my arms around her back, playing with the seam of her t-shirt. I pull her closer to me, feeling lost in the sensation of her tongue playing with my lips. Both of us are fucked in the head. She’s in over her head, and I’ve completely lost mine. I realize that.