The Experiment

by Holly Hart

  “Thanks,” I say, tasting the tang of adrenaline in my mouth.

  “Oorah,” he says. He’s not even breathing hard as he kneels down to pick up the gun.

  “Empty,” he says, weighing it in his palm. “These guys are punks. Do you want to call the police?”

  “I never have before,” I say. “It always complicates things.”

  “You’ve done this before?” he asks, eyes wide.

  “I return missing girls,” I say with a shrug. “The people they sometimes end up with usually aren’t too keen on handing them over peacefully.”

  He shakes his head and looks at the bodies lying in heaps on the asphalt.

  “Wow,” he breathes. “You were seriously badass.”

  “So were you,” I say, trying to slow my breathing.

  He pulls me closer and runs his hands along my face and torso.

  “Everything okay? No injuries?”

  “Nope. You?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Good. I wouldn’t want this to ruin the rest of our evening.”

  He goggles at me for a few moments and then shakes his head, grinning.

  “Seriously badass,” he breathes

  “Like the old song on the radio in the storeroom used to say, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

  I take his hand and lead him down the street to my apartment.

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Three

  30. SARA

  “Welcome to my castle,” I say as I turn on the light in the entry. The old sconce on the wall illuminates my stylish closet with the plastic accordion door, as well as the fabulous vintage shag carpeting that’s stylishly worn threadbare in several spots.

  “Nice,” Chance says. “Looks like you’ve got everything you need.”

  I sigh as I finally get to kick off my pumps and feel the floor against my bare feet.

  “That’s sweet of you to say.”

  “It’s true. I like this place.”

  I lead him past the two bedrooms - one for my bed, the other for my workspace – and my one bathroom, into the combination kitchen-living room space at the back. It’s tiny, but there’s a huge window that has a great view of the building across the street.

  “The location is good, anyway,” I sigh. “Only a few blocks from our office. Grace’s basement suite is less than half a mile, too.”

  “Like I said, everything you need.”

  I rummage through the fridge and discover, much to my surprise, a can of Coors for Chance in one of the crispers at the bottom. The bottle of cold pinot grigio that hasn’t started to smell like vinegar yet is good enough for me.

  We take a seat on my old IKEA sofa and each kick back a good, long shot of our drinks. We’re obviously both still a bit on edge from our fun earlier in the evening.

  “You really should be proud of this,” he says. “It’s not a palace, but it’s clean and it’s yours. And I’m betting you live here because the low rent lets you do more work for clients who need you but can’t afford to pay. Right?”

  I raise my glass. “Spot on. There have been a couple of girls who ran away from homes that had money, but they’re few and far between.”

  “And you can’t say no to someone just because they can’t pay you.”

  I wince. “I really should learn how to.”

  “No, you shouldn’t. And you shouldn’t feel guilty for having to work with Quentin Pearce, either. If that helps you to help other people, I’m all for it.”

  “What I do is nothing compared to what Atlas does,” I say.

  He surprises me by frowning.

  “I wish you’d stop that,” he says.

  “Stop what?”

  “Comparing yourself to others. You’re wonderful, Sara. Not ‘wonderful relative to somebody else.’ Just wonderful. Get it?”

  I smile shyly. “Did the Marines teach you to think like that?”

  “No,” he says. “You did.”

  My stomach jumps. “What are you talking about?”

  Chance shakes his head and slides closer to me until our hands are touching, making my insides flutter even more.

  “I spent so much of my life feeling like I was less than other people,” he says softly. “Because I didn’t have parents, or money, or a regular home like everybody else. But you taught me that everybody felt like that, in one way or another. So I actually was like other people.”

  I swallow hard. Chance was always there to let me know that things would be all right when the rest of the world was dark and crazy. He was like the beacon at the top of the lighthouse for me when my dad would hurt me or make me feel small, or when Mom was in one of her manic stages and I couldn’t deal with it. He was always there to show me the path away from the stormy seas to the safety of the shore.

  To think that I did the same for him – it’s an incredible feeling.

  He takes my hand in both of his. “So enough of putting yourself down,” he says. “That’s an order.”

  I smile and squeeze his hand. “Yes, sir.”

  “Besides, I’m not some kind of hero. I’ve done things in my life that I’m not proud of. Plenty of things.”

  “You mean like shoplifting when you were a kid?” I ask. “Big deal. Kids do it every day.”

  “Not that. I was involved in some other stuff that I never told you about. Drugs. Breaking-and-entering. Other things.”

  I stare at him for a few moments, processing. I never knew that about him. He had a life outside of me, of course. I guess I just thought he used to tell me everything.

  “Still,” I say. “Look at your circumstances. You had a really hard life, Chance.”

  “So did you,” he says. “You stayed on the straight and narrow.”

  “Time to take your own advice, Marine. That’s an order.”

  He gives me a half-smile, but I can tell he doesn’t feel it.

  “There’s other stuff,” he says. “Things that happen in the heat of battle. Decisions you make in impossible situations that haunt you afterwards because people get hurt. Decisions that leave you with scars like the ones you saw the other night.”

  The pain in his eyes is heartbreaking. I can’t imagine what he’s seen, what he’s been through. I doubt anyone who’s never been in a war zone could possibly know what it’s like. There’s nothing I can do to take that pain away.

  But what he said about decisions that hurt other people… that leave you with scars…

  Suddenly, I’m filled with a certainty I’ve never felt before: it’s time to tell him the truth. I can’t go back in time and do it then, but I can do it now and maybe start us on a path that will actually lead somewhere.

  “Chance,” I say, steeling myself for what’s to come. “There’s something you need to know.”

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Four

  31. CHANCE

  When she’s finished, I sit there, silently processing it all for a long time.

  After a few minutes, Sara looks at me with naked hope in her eyes.

  “Can you forgive me?” she asks, her voice on the verge of breaking.

  “Forgive you?” I ask. “I’m not going to forgive you.”

  Her eyes shimmer with tears as I realize what I’ve just said.

  “That’s not what I meant,” I say. “I meant there’s nothing to forgive. Jesus, you sent me away from your house that night to stop your mother from killing herself. You can’t take any blame for that.”

  Now her tears are flowing and I’m kicking myself for handling this like a fool. I wrap my arms around her and pull her tight against me as she sobs quietly.

  “You were in an impossible situation,” I whisper. “Your choice was to make me happy or save her life. That wasn’t a choice at all. You made the right one.”

  “But I could have,” she sobs. “I could have told you after…”

  “Shhh. You couldn’t have found me. I didn’t have a cell phone, and I never told you where I was headed to enlist. Then you went off to school and things chan
ged. For both of us.”

  It finally makes sense. After all these years of wondering what I did to have her toss me away, only to find out she was forced to do it. What kind of teenager could possibly handle a situation like that?

  “I’m so sorry I hurt you,” she says shakily. “You didn’t deserve it.”

  “Sara, if anyone should apologize, it’s me. I should have known better than to believe you’d just up and hurt me like that for no reason. I should have had more faith in you. More faith in us. But I was so fucking angry, I just took off and said to hell with you and stormed off to the Marines.”

  I hold her for a few more minutes until her tears finally subside and she wipes her face dry with a tissue.

  “Got an issue, here’s a tissue,” she says with a harsh chuckle. “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop it. That’s an order.”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  “Don’t make me ship you off to Canada, soldier.”

  That sparks a real giggle this time, and it makes my heart soar.

  “I’m so glad I got that out in the open,” she says. “It’s been festering in my heart like a splinter ever since that night.”

  “You and I were victims of outrageous fortune, like Hamlet,” I say. “None of it was our fault.”

  She blinks at me. “Did you just reference Shakespeare?”

  “Hey, I wasn’t a total washout in school, you know,” I grin. “The Marines wouldn’t have accepted me if I was.”

  Her head sinks into my shoulder as she snuggles in closer. I wrap my arm around her, reminding me yet again of our nights in the storeroom.

  “My parents really fucked me up,” she sighs. “Everything they did still affects me to this day.”

  “What a pair we are,” I say. “Me with no parents, wishing I had them, and you with two parents, wishing you didn’t have either one.”

  She picks up her glass form the table and downs the last of her wine.

  “At least with my father, you knew what to expect: he’d either yell at you or beat you. But Mom was something else. She knew how to manipulate us and make us feel guilty. And she instilled so many fears in us.”

  I kiss her temple. “But you’ve gotten past those by now, haven’t you?”

  Sara sighs deeply. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But we haven’t. Especially the big one.”

  “Big one?”

  She turns to face me, her eyes locking onto mine.

  “You know how panicked I would get back then that Mom would find out we’d been together?”

  Do I ever. I was a thousand times more scared of her than I ever was of the cops.

  “I always used that as an excuse for us not to… you know. Go all the way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That was part of the problem,” she says. “But not all of it. And it’s still with me to this day. You saw it the other night in your bedroom.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Chance,” she says quietly. “Sex gives me panic attacks. And I’m still a virgin.”

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Five

  32. SARA

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I feel an immense weight lift from my shoulders. Just admitting it to him makes me feel like we’re closer somehow because of it. Like he finally knows all my secrets.

  He stares into my eyes so long that it makes me uncomfortable.

  “Say something, please,” I whisper.

  “That bitch,” he hisses. “She couldn’t even let you enjoy sex. Did she have to ruin everything for you, for fuck’s sake?”

  My heart throbs as he says the words. So many dark thoughts were rushing through my mind when he didn’t say anything. Then suddenly he’s my old Chance again, my protector, the one who’s always on my side, no matter what.

  “It sure seemed like it for a long time,” I say.

  “So you’ve never…? With anyone?”

  “The other night with you was the closest I’ve ever gotten. I’ve fooled around with a few men, but I never let it get past a hand under my shirt. That’s why they all stopped calling after the fourth date.”

  His brow furrows. “Guys can be bastards,” he growls.

  Just the fact he said that makes me melt. None of the others ever took the time to understand me. It was always about them. Chance never, ever made it about him.

  “But I came so close with you,” I say, stroking his cheek. “It felt so good. So right.”

  “It felt that way to me, too.”

  I wet my lips and press them against his. The flutter in my heart reaches all the way down to my core and reignites the fire I felt in Chance’s bedroom. He envelops me in his arms as we kiss more deeply.

  I pull back suddenly and look in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “This isn’t the right time. I shouldn’t have – ”

  I lay a finger on his lips with one hand as I unbutton his shirt with the other.

  “It’s the right time,” I say. “It’s so right, I can barely stand it.”

  His eyes widen as I finish with his shirt and pull off my camisole, leaving just my sports bra. I lean in close and put my lips right next to his ear.

  “I want you to undress me,” I whisper.

  He takes orders well. His hands unbutton my fly and slide the zipper down, all while keeping his eyes locked on mine. I shimmy out of my jeans, until I’m in nothing but my underwear.

  “Hurry.” I sigh. “I want to be naked in front of you.”

  He pulls off his own shirt first, pitching it to the floor, before reaching up and squeezing my breasts through the thin black cotton. My nipples are already at attention, responding to the heat of his touch.

  A moment later and the bra joins my jeans and his shirt on the floor. He pulls me toward his bare torso and my breasts feel like they’re on fire when they touch his skin. I can feel hot dampness inside my panties as his lips close around me and his tongue finds my nipple. I gasp at the sensation of his teeth gliding up and down against the sensitive skin.

  In the back of my mind, I can hear the voices telling me it’s wrong. But I take strength from the touch of Chance’s skin, his steely muscles holding me tight, keeping me from harm.

  They’re not going to win this time.

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Six

  33. CHANCE

  “Are you all right?” I ask, looking up into her eyes from breast level.

  “I’m perfect,” she sighs as she scoops up a breast and guides it back into my mouth. “Now get back to work.”

  I’m nothing if not a good soldier, so I do as I’m told. As I minister to her needs, I kick off my boots and use my toes to awkwardly slide off my socks. I need to free myself from these jeans soon before I suffer the same painful fate from my dream about this moment.

  But Sara pins me in place by straddling me. If only she knew how much it hurt to be in this position with my rock-hard cock pressing outwards against my jeans. But she’s just learning. I have to be patient.

  “Oohh,” she moans as my fingers tweak her free nipple. I can feel that familiar damp heat between her legs against my crotch, just like the night in my bedroom.

  I stroke her naked back with my fingertips as our tongues meet and start to explore each other again. Slow and easy. There’s no hurry. We have all the time in the world.

  She pulls her mouth away from mine and puts it against my ear again.

  “Take your pants off,” she says. “I want to feel your hard cock again.”

  Or we could move faster. That works, too.

  She stands up and I yank my jeans and boxers down in one quick movement, kicking out of them with each foot. My soldier is standing at full attention, and it draws Sara’s attention right away.

  She turns around and bends over, giving me a birds-eye view of her heart-shaped ass. My hands move independent of my brain, grabbing the waistband of her panties and sliding them down, revealing her fully to me.

  Sara s
teps out of her underwear and pulls me up from my seat, until we’re standing facing each other.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing, but I want to learn,” she says. “I need you to tell my what’s good and what’s not.”

  “It’s all good,” I moan as my shaft throbs and jerks at her touch.

  She takes her other hand and guides mine toward her mound. Her knees tremble as my fingers reach her slick outer lips, and she gasps.

  “Oh, my God,” she breathes.

  We stand there, using our hands on each other, for a long while. I make sure to stay away from the inner area so as not to hurt her, focusing instead on the sensitive nub of her clit. With each bit of pressure, she gasps again and pushes against me.

  My other hand gently takes the one around my cock and grips it tighter. She gets the message right away and starts stroking with a firmer grasp. I groan in appreciation and start moving my hips in time with her.

  Suddenly, she slides an arm around my neck and holds on tight. I feel her mound mash against my hand as her breath hitches in my ear.

  “Oh yes, oh yes, right there, oh yes.”

  Her body shudders for a several long seconds, but she never forgets the hand around my shaft. As her tremors subside, her lips at my ear say: “That was so good, Chance. It was like being full of butterflies.”

  “So is this,” I say, taking the hand around my cock again. “Don’t stop.”

  Now that she’s recovered from her orgasm, Sara looks me in the eye.

  “The voices are gone,” she says. “I can feel it. We don’t have to stop.”

  “That’s good,” I breathe as a shiver runs through me. “Because I don’t think I can.”

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Seven

  34. SARA

  Chance seems to take what I said for what it was: an open invitation to do what he wants with me.

  He scoops me up in his arm and carries me into my bedroom. Thank God I cleaned up this morning, otherwise he’d be tripping over shoes and assorted electronics. He reaches the edge of my bed and lays me down on my back.