Convict: A Bad Boy Romance

by Roxie Noir

  She looks at the table and then nods once, perfunctorily.

  “Got it,” she says, and I can tell she’s trying to hold her emotions in check, at least in front of me. She spins the pencil around a few times, not making eye contact, and then speaks up again.

  “Do you mind if I shower?” she asks. “I know there’s no clean clothes, but I’m pretty disgusting.”

  I look at her for a long moment, because I don’t really trust her alone. She’s determined to keep trying to escape if it kills her, more than anyone else I’ve ever met.

  Plus, I was dumb enough to crush that vial in front of her, and now she knows I don’t want to hurt her.

  Fucking idiot, I think at myself one last time.

  “Sure,” I say. “I gotta check the bathroom first, though.”

  I walk in and she follows me, leaning against the door frame, arms folded. There’s nothing in there weaponizable: soap, tiny shampoo and conditioner bottles, three towels. A shower curtain.

  “Go for it,” I say. “Five minutes, and then I start assuming you’re in there fashioning a gun from toilet pieces.”

  “Seven?” she says. “I have a lot of hair.”

  “Usually I make people leave the door open,” I say. “Five.”

  I hold up five fingers and close the door. Once the water starts in the shower, I go outside quickly, holding my burner cell phone up toward the sky.

  What if she’s right? I think. Maybe there just isn’t enough signal around here.

  Maybe Manny’s been calling and calling, and we could just go home right now. This could all be over.

  I feel a twinge of disappointment at the thought and brush it away. The signal out here is no better than it was inside. No calls, no messages.

  That’s odd, but nothing major. Sometimes it takes a day to convince people that we’ve really got their kid. There could be a million reasons I haven’t heard yet.

  But parents always come around when it’s about their kids’ lives. Every single time.

  Tessa will be fine.

  I give her seven minutes in the shower before I knock on the door, though.

  “One more minute!” she shouts, but I open the door anyway.

  Steam rolls out as I stick my head it, and I can just barely see her shadow behind the curtain. Her dress is hung over the towel rack.

  “Come on,” I say.

  The curtain rustles, and then she sticks her head out, shampoo still in her hair, shower curtain clutched to her body.

  “I told you, I have a lot of hair,” she says, green eyes glittering with irritation.

  I force myself to stop thinking about the fact that she’s naked behind that curtain, even as I can feel my dick begin to wake up.

  “Hurry it up,” I say, and back out, shutting the door.

  I put our dinner dishes in the sink and stare at the window, determined to get myself under control. The sun’s gone down, so all I can see is my own reflection: a glowering man with black hair in a dirty white shirt.

  You do not have sex with hostages, I think at my reflection in the window.

  And, for fuck’s sake, you do not start to kinda like them.

  14

  Tessa

  “You’re fucking kidding me,” I say.

  I’m standing at the door to the master bedroom, the only bedroom that isn’t triple padlocked from the outside.

  “Like hell we’re sleeping in the same bed,” I say. “No. You’re sleeping on the couch.”

  Alex ignores this and brushes past me, into the bedroom.

  “I’m not kidding,” I say.

  He just fucking smirks at me.

  “Sorry about the arrangements,” he says. “Last time I was here there were a couple of twin beds.”

  He’s already unbuttoning his shirt, and I’m forcing myself not to look. Until I realize he’s also wearing an undershirt, and I relax a little.

  “I’ll sleep on the couch, then,” I say, and turn around.

  Before I can leave he’s across the room, my wrist in his hand, and he’s holding it tight.

  “You sleep in this room,” he says.

  “It’s twenty feet away,” I say.

  I pull on my wrist, but his grip is like a vise. Damn.

  “I have a job to do, tiger,” he says.

  There’s still a hint of that smirk in his voice, but he’s dead serious now.

  “And it’s not to make you happy. It’s to make sure you stay here.”

  I fucking hate this. One minute we’re doing crosswords over dinner, and I can almost pretend that something halfway normal is going on.

  The next moment my situation slaps me in the face again. Now I’m supposed to share a bed with the guy who kidnapped me.

  “Sleep on the floor,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “No,” he says, squeezing my wrist just a little harder. “What? You think I’m gonna try something on you tonight? While you’re sleeping?”

  I straighten my back and swallow.

  “You already did,” I say.

  He laughs, though his laugh has a sharp edge to it.

  “You mean last night, at the wedding?”

  I can feel my face get hot, and I just nod.

  He steps closer, and now he’s towering over me.

  “Don’t lie to yourself,” he says, his voice lowered. “Every single dirty thing you did last night you wanted to do, tiger.”

  He starts to smile, and I swallow.

  Right now, I fucking hate him.

  “Or do you not remember dry-humping me on the dance floor? Do you not remember sucking whiskey off your fingers, or hitching your skirt up so you could wrap your legs around me?”

  I remember it vividly, thanks.

  “That was under false pretenses,” I hiss.

  He shrugs, and he’s trying to look nonchalant, but I can tell I’ve triggered his anger. I should probably be more cautious, but I can’t help it.

  “If I were going to do something, I had all day to do it,” he says. “And here you are, still mouthing the fuck off.”

  With his other hand, he reaches out and flicks off the lights.

  “Get in bed,” he says. “Dressed or undressed, I don’t care.”

  He tugs on my wrist and I jerk into the room. The door shuts behind me, and I’m fighting down furious tears again.

  I feel helpless, and I fucking hate it. I’m exhausted and stressed beyond belief, and I just want to be out of here, away from this guy who’s nice sometimes and an asshole sometimes.

  The worst part is, I want to shut him up, but I want to do it by clamping my thighs around his head. Even now there’s a part of me that wants to rake my fingernails down his back, bite into his shoulder.

  Every sparring match we get into I want it worse.

  It’s the trauma or something, I tell myself again. This isn’t you.

  You, Tessa Fulbright, like nice men who don’t kidnap you.

  I lie on the bed fully clothed and stare straight at the ceiling. There’s moonlight coming in around the cheap mini blinds, and after a few moments, I can see almost perfectly.

  On one wall is a poster for the movie Scarface, and I roll my eyes. It’s the only decoration in the whole house, and of course, it’s for a movie about a drug lord.

  I bet the people who use this house fucking love that movie. I bet they all think they’re Tony Montana.

  There’s a soft whump at the foot of the bed, and I glance down, staying perfectly still. Alex is standing there, back to me, just wearing a thin undershirt and pants.

  Even in the dim light, I can see the outlines of even more tattoos. Under that, there’s the thick ripple of muscle.

  I look back at Al Pacino on the poster, determined not to think any more dirty thoughts about Alex, even as I hear the clink of his belt coming undone, then then clank as it hits the floor, along with his pants. He reaches over his head and takes his shirt off as I really, really study Pacino’s grimace and his grip on that machine gun.
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br />   I press my knees together, trying to quiet the throb between my legs. My brain knows better, but apparently my vagina hasn’t gotten the not him message yet.

  It’s okay. It’s not like I’ve never had self-control before.

  “Tessa,” Alex says.

  “What?” I ask, not tearing my eyes away from the wall.

  “Look at me,” he says.

  I take a deep breath, then make a show of acting totally nonchalant as I prop myself up on my elbows, then raise my eyebrows expectantly.

  Eye contact only, I tell myself.

  It doesn’t work, because Alex is fucking hot. Even with his arms crossed over his chest, he’s broad and muscled, his abs rippling even in the scant moonlight, his arms bulging. It’s too dark to make out his tattoos from here, but I can tell his chest and arms are covered in them.

  I force myself not to look any lower.

  He holds something up on one finger. The car keys.

  “These are between the mattress and the box spring on my side of the bed,” he says. “I’m trusting you not to go for them.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Because if you do, I have to handcuff you to the bed,” he says.

  I narrow my eyes.

  “If you’re flirting, it’s not working,” I say.

  “Try getting the keys and see if I’m flirting,” he says. “I’m a light sleeper.”

  He walks around to his side of the bed, and my eyes slide down to his boxers despite my best intentions.

  Even soft, it’s like there’s a garden hose in there. As he walks his boxers practically glue themselves to its outline, and all I can think about is last night, my back to the wall, that thing rock-hard and pressed against me.

  I’m almost disappointed that I’m on a bed and he’s not even a little excited about it.

  He crouches down and shoves the keys under the mattress, and then he’s lying next to me on his back, arms over his head. Right in the middle of his chest is an eagle with a snake in its talons, the snake fighting back. Over his left chest are the letters LC in old English lettering, faded and starting to blur, like it’s older and not done as well as the rest of his tattoos.

  “See something you like?” he says.

  I flop back on the bed and stare at the ceiling, and he just chuckles.

  “No,” I say. “And I am trying to sleep.”

  There’s a long, long silence. Ten or fifteen minutes, and I stare at the walls, the poster, the ceiling. My mind spins frantically as I try to figure out what to do, because doing nothing doesn’t feel right.

  I should be escaping, or secretly calling in the cavalry, or fashioning a weapon out of plastic forks and soup cans, or something. I toss and turn for a while, making a frantic inventory of everything that I’ve seen so far in the house, but I come up blank.

  Finally I get out of the bed, glancing back at Alex. I haven’t made it two steps when I hear his foggy voice.

  “Whacha doing, tiger?”

  I sigh and step to the window. I pull the blinds halfway up and lean my forehead against the glass and don’t answer him, just wonder how far I’d get if I started walking right now. I’ve got a vague idea of which way the nearest highway is, but it’s a lot of miles, and the only shoes I’ve got are four-inch heels.

  There is nothing I can do, and I feel fucking helpless as I fight tears.

  Alex turns onto his stomach, and I can feel his eyes watching me.

  “You’ll be out of here before you know it,” he finally says. “In a month, you’ll forget this ever happened.”

  Do not cry in front of him, I think. I don’t care what else happens.

  Do. Not. Cry in front of him.

  “I doubt that,” I say softly.

  “You’ve got a good family,” he says. “Even if your dad fucked up pretty bad, he loves you. You’ve got friends. In a while, it’ll amaze you how much this never happened.”

  I shake my head, scoffing a little.

  “You ever been kidnapped?” I ask bitterly.

  Neither of us speaks for a moment, and I look over at him. On his back he’s got the words CHAVEZ HEIGHTS arching over both shoulder blades, the same Old English lettering as the LC on his chest. It looks like it was done around the same time, the letters faded and a little blurry.

  “No,” he says.

  I turn back to the window, wondering where Chavez Heights is. It sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.

  “I’ve been shot twice,” he says.

  “That sounds like your own fault,” I say. “What’s that saying about living by the sword?”

  He laughs.

  “You’re looking for ‘those who live by the sword die by the sword,’ tiger.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jesus said that, you know.”

  “Well, he was right.”

  More silence.

  “The first time I was thirteen. Walking home from school. Rampart 18th did a drive by and I caught a bullet in the arm. It went straight through, just nicked the bone. I was lucky as hell.”

  I glance over. He pushes himself up, arm muscles rippling, and leans against the headboard, sitting up.

  “You probably can’t see it from there,” he says, pointing to a spot on the back of his arm, mostly covered by a bright Virgin of Guadalupe tattoo.

  “Rampart 18th is a gang?” I guess.

  I’ve never heard of them, but it’s not like I’ve got a working knowledge of street gangs beyond the Crips and the Bloods.

  “Yeah. They were in a war with Chavez 13.”

  “That’s your gang?”

  “I’m not in a gang,” he says. He bends one knee and rests his elbow on it. “That was the neighborhood’s gang. I’m... sort of affiliated with them, you could say.”

  This is starting to all sound very, very familiar, and something is pricking at my memory.

  “You grew up in Chavez Heights,” I say, slowly.

  “How’d you guess?” he asks, grinning.

  I ignore that question, still trying to remember.

  “There was a gang war there,” I say, squeezing my eyes shut. “It was all over the news when I was in middle school.”

  Now he’s just watching me, letting me remember on my own.

  “There were like a hundred people killed,” I say. “The news footage looked like... I don’t know, like Bosnia or something. The police refused to go in until the National Guard got there.”

  “I told you I got lucky,” he says.

  Now I remember. For years and years afterward, Chavez Heights was shorthand for terrible neighborhood. I’ve never been there. I don’t know anyone who’s ever been there, or least, I didn’t know anyone until now.

  It’s the kind of place that people won’t even drive through during the day.

  I have no idea what to say, so I say nothing. I’m sorry seems wrong.

  “Until I was ten we lived in Calabasas,” he says.

  “You did?” I blink in surprise.

  Calabasas is a suburb in the west valley. It’s almost as far from Chavez Heights as you can get: big houses, up in the hills, the kind of place with white picket fences and golden retrievers.

  “I did,” he says. “Then my dad left, it turned out that all the money was in offshore accounts, and so my mom, my older brother and I went to Chavez Heights to live with her family.”

  I can’t even imagine going from Calabasas to Chavez Heights.

  “That’s why I get sent to the black tie weddings,” he says. “I can talk to rich white people without sounding like I’m from the barrio.”

  Right now, in this moment, I want to pretend that we’re just two people, talking about our lives. I want to pretend that he’s a nice guy who’s starting to open up to me about how hard his life has been, who’s trying to make me feel better when I’m low.

  But he’s not. I’m a hostage, and I can’t afford to forget that.

  “Come back to bed, tiger,” he says, patting the spot where I’d been lying.<
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  “Don’t call me tiger,” I shoot back. It sounds bitchier than I meant it to, but I walk back and lie down, stiff as a board on top of the covers.

  “There’s blankets in the closet,” he says.

  “I’m fine,” I say, and the room goes quiet.

  15

  Alex

  As she gets into bed, I roll onto my side like I don’t even care that she’s there, lying a foot away from me.

  I’m just hiding my erection. I feel like an idiot for stripping down to my boxers to sleep in, but I hate sleeping in clothes.

  Besides, I know how she looks at me. She wanted me before, and it’s only a matter of time before she wants me again.

  Part of me hopes her dad takes days to come around, and I get harder thinking of the things we could get up to.

  What if he doesn’t come around? I think.

  It’s only happened once that I know of: an estranged father refused to save his son.

  The son didn’t make it. Tessa won’t either if her dad refuses to cooperate.

  They’re not estranged, I think. They’re close. He loves her. Manny said they go to dinner once a week.

  I hope I’m right.

  I don’t want to have to kill Tessa.

  When I wake up the house is already starting to get hot, the sun outside beating relentlessly on the cheap vinyl siding. Tessa’s sound asleep, sprawled on her stomach, her auburn hair fanned out around her, the fabric of her dress hugging the back of her body.

  I follow her curves with my eyes, from her bare shoulder to her perfect, pert ass. It does nothing to help my morning wood, and in moments I’m rock-hard instead of at half-mast, imagining her lips around my cock as she looks up at me with those green eyes.

  For the millionth time I think back about that oh! she made when she came, her pussy tightening around my fingers so hard it hurt, and my balls tighten, just a little.

  Hell, I haven’t even jerked off in three days, and I’m just about ready to pop. I’m not supposed to leave her alone, but how bad could a couple of minutes be? Just long enough to rub one out in the bathroom so I don’t have to walk around like this for another whole day.

  Tessa stirs and rolls onto her back, eyes still closed, and I try to start thinking about the least sexy things I can imagine.