by Naomi West
“Fine,” I grumbled as she picked up a few.
On the way up to the checkout, kidnapper gear in hand, she stopped me. “Hey, Asa. Can we do something real fast?”
I growled. “What now? I'm already doing this shit, what else do you fucking want?”
“Just a few books, okay? You're not exactly a great conversationalist, and I like to read while I'm in the car.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine,” I said as I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her over to the books section. She immediately squealed and started digging through the huge selection of romance novels, pulling each book out and reading the back cover. “You know, you ain't exactly stellar in that department either.”
She pulled her eyes away from a cheap paperback and eyed me. “What?”
“Fucking exactly,” I replied, sneering.
“Whatever, Asa. You're just lucky you're a great fuck.”
“Great, huh?” I mused.
“Don't let it go to your head,” she replied as she went back to browsing. “Al's wasn't exactly a meat market or anything. Before you, it was months since I'd seen anything other than an overweight trucker in that joint.”
In a sense, she was right. I wasn't exactly much for talking to begin with, especially not with someone who could use anything I told to try and get at me. I laughed and shook my head.
“What about you?” I asked. “What makes you think you're so damn special and anything more than a piece of ass?”
“Well,” she replied as she decided one book was good enough for her stash and tucked it under her arm. “For one, I can read.”
“Think I can't read?” I asked, a little upset. I could read, I just didn't like to. They're two different things. “Think I'm just some dumb thug? I found you, didn't I?”
She sighed. “Finding me at that gas station wasn't exactly you writing a dissertation on quantum mechanics or anything, handsome.”
“Well, I can fucking read.”
“Okay,” she replied, tucking another book under her arm. “What was the last book you read?”
I looked to ceiling, searching my memory banks. Damn, what was the last book I'd read? Had it been all the way back in high school? That one about the lawyer and the little girl in the south? Shit, it had been in high school. I growled and shook my head. “I can fucking read,” I repeated.
She chuckled and went back to browsing. We stayed silent as she grabbed another book and we headed to check out.
“What's that say?” she asked, pointing to one of those cheesy black and white newspapers as we stepped into line.
“Bat Boy Escapes Again?” I said, before I realized she was making fun of me. I muttered under my breath as she snickered.
“Just checking,” she said.
We finally got through the line. The cashier, a middle-aged woman with mousy brown hair, gave us an amused smile as she saw our check out selection of chains, locks, new panties, and romance novels. “Just got together, or trying to rekindle that old flame?” she asked as she bagged our items.
I just glared as I pulled my money clip and handed her the cash.
“Brand new,” Lauren replied, a saccharine-sweet smile on her lips as her hand went down to my ass and gave a little pinch.
I jumped in surprise, breaking my glare and shifting it to Lauren. We headed outside, and back to where I'd left my car in the back forty of the lot, the chain jingling in the bag like a menacing jester as we crossed the burning hot blacktop.
“Get in the car,” I said as I pulled the cuffs from my back pocket. I locked her wrists up behind her back like before, then got her into the passenger seat, then buckled her back in. With her secure, I pulled the chain from the bag and bent down between her legs.
“Woah there, handsome,” she purred. “Thought you might wanna wait for tonight before an encore.”
“Shut up, Lauren,” I growled as I wrapped the chain around one of the chair supports below, then stretched it up in front, padlock in hand. With the chain outstretched, I unbuckled her.
“What are you doing?” she asked as I switched her cuffs around to the front, then locked the chain around the connector in the middle of the bracelets.
“Figured you'd want to read,” I replied as I shut the door.
When I climbed in on the other side, I glanced over at her. She had a look of bitter sweet happiness on her face.
“You didn't have to do that,” she told me.
“Well, figured this would give me a little bit of quiet time, and you'd get to read. Plus, it still keeps you from jumping out of the car. Win-win for everyone.”
“Quiet time? What are you?” she asked, laughing. “Fucking five?”
I shook my head at the barb and started my Camaro up. We pulled out of the parking lot and, soon, were back on the road. I figured we could clear another seven hundred or so miles today, maybe more.
Only a couple more days of this bullshit, and I'd be done with Lauren.
The only problem was, I didn't know if I really wanted to be.
After a couple pit stops along the way, we finally made it to our destination. The previous nine or ten hours of driving, had been quiet, marred only by the constant rustling of pages as she turned from one page to the next in her first trashy romance.
We pulled up in a shitty motel and I hopped out, just like before, to get us a room. I was groggy and wiped, my body and mind numb from the constant driving with no stimulation. I went back to the car, climbed in and silently drove around to the room.
“This the place?” she asked as we pulled up.
“Yep,” I said wearily before climbing out the car and going around to unlock her. With our bag of shopping items in hand, I led her to the room and we promptly got situated. This room, just like the previous rooms, was bland and nondescript. We were in any hotel west of the Mississippi, and it showed.
She stripped down and I got her naked form shackled to the bed. I couldn't help but look longingly at her body, remember how wonderfully inviting it had been the last three times. After the long boring drive, my brain was fried. I went around, stripped down, and crawled into bed next to her, her warm body like a beacon of heat and warmth beneath the cool covers. We crashed instantly that second night on the road.
That night, I dreamed of the future. Of me kicking Dalton Saylor from his golden throne, of my taking his place at the head of the Fortress. The world burned around me, and I just laughed as the flames lit the sky with yellows and reds and oranges as the tongues licked the heavens.
I woke to Lauren's lithe body pressed against mine. She pushed back into my cock like the morning before, her body wiggling. “Asa?” she whispered just like before. “You awake?” she asked as she slid her slick entrance up and down my cock.
I didn't think twice, even though I knew I should have. I pushed forward into her channel, my hand on her hips, my fingers digging into her flesh as we lay on our sides, spooning.
She groaned as I slid deep into her in just a couple strokes, her cries muffled by the pillow she'd planted her face in.
I fucked her hard and fast, her body wriggling and squirming as she came on my length again and again. I slapped her ass like before, my cock driving deep into her from behind. She called out my name, and I bit into her shoulder to stifle my own yells as I emptied into her.
Gasping, we pulled apart, my cum dripping from her, my cock flaccid and well-used. She turned around with a jingle of chains, the individual links clinging together and we kissed. “Good morning,” she purred as I folded her into my arms.
“Yeah,” I said, kissing her again, my tongue pushing into her mouth. “Want a shower?” I asked like we were just another honeymooning couple, instead of our actual status.
“Together?” she asked with a little grin. “Not afraid I'm going to try and push you over in the tub?”
“I think you'd run,” I said honestly, my fingers trailing up and down her back as I pulled her thin, curvy form into mine, “but I don't think you'd murder me.
”
“What makes you so sure?” she asked with a grin, kissing me again.
“How about I just take my chances, then?”
We showered together, with her getting my back, and me getting hers. Her soapy hands felt amazing as they scrubbed my back, and her skin was silky smooth as I ran mine over her. We kissed again in the shower, like actual lovers and not like whatever the fuck we were pretending to be. As we toweled off, I made a decision. When we got close enough, I was going to tell her what I was really after with her father. First, I wanted to watch her a little more closely.
Fully clothed, we headed out for the day. We pulled out onto that lonely stretch of highway and headed west, the early morning sun burning our eyes as it rose into the sky like a Greek god of old, or a burning angel rising to heaven.
After an hour or so the silence of the drive started to get to me. I glanced over, saw that she was near the end of her book. “Lauren?”
“Yeah?” she absently asked as she flipped to the last page of the first book we'd purchased.
“When you start the next book, can you read it out loud?”
She laughed, the tip of her tongue sticking out between her teeth as she snickered at me and my question. “You can't be serious.”
“Why not?” I asked. “There's nothing to listen to on the radio but crazy conspiracy nuts and political shows. Read to me.”
She shook head, laughing again. “Fine. Next book. You want a western or crime?”
“Western?” I asked. “Like cowboys and shit?”
“Yeah,” she said, her eyes sweeping out over the desert vistas. “Figured it was appropriate for out here.”
I snorted. “Yeah, western I guess.”
She laughed. “Got it. As soon as I'm finished with this one, okay?”
I drove for the next eight or nine hours, and she read to me. Beat the hell out of the silence and the singing of my tires on the asphalt, that was for sure.
At the end of the night, we pulled into a smaller college town and found a place to pull over to sleep. Like the other places before, this was another skeezy motel. This time we were both more awake than the previous night. Her reading to me had kept both of our minds occupied as we'd laughed, gasped, and panted a little in the steamier parts, the whole way down the road.
I got her chained into place at the bed when she grumbled about being hungry. “We ate on the road,” I said as I cinched her cuffs into place on the headboard and locked the chain around the cuffs between her hands. Neither of us were tired, so we hadn't stripped down yet for bed.
“I know,” she said, “but my stomach won't stop grumbling.”
“How about we just order a pizza or something?”
“I don't want pizza” she pouted on the bed. “I want a burger, or some friend chicken. Oh, fried chicken sounds good. With mashed potatoes and gravy.”
I sighed as I straightened up. This was worse than having a goddamn girlfriend. “Fine,” I growled. “Fried chicken if it'll get you to shut up.”
“Yay!” she cheered, waving her cuffed together hands over her head. “I think I saw a place just up the street.”
With a shake of my head I scooped up my keys and turned on the TV for her. I dropped the remote in her lap. “Remember,” I said, raising a finger. My ultimatum had become rote, and she knew it.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Fried chicken, handsome. Feed me and make me a happy woman.”
I laughed. “Fine. Whatever.”
She stopped me as I went to leave, my body half out the door. “Asa! Dark meat. I like thighs and legs.”
“Got it,” I replied as I shut the door.
I should have known something was up when I couldn't find a fried chicken place anywhere near the motel. After finally getting directions to a local place, I finally met Lauren's demands and was able to return to the motel room with dinner.
The TV blared through the door as I unlocked it with my key and pushed in. “Alright,” I growled. “Not sure what you saw down the road, but it was a-”
I stopped dead in my tracks, the words in my mouth tasting like ashes as the boxes of fried yard bird tumbled from my hands and spilled out over the dirty motel room's floor.
“Lauren?” I asked as I looked around, completely dumbfounded.
On the bed were the handcuffs, the chain connected to them. But there was no Lauren Saylor. The TV blared on, seeming to taunt me. How had she gotten out? How had she managed to get the cuffs off her wrists?
“Lauren!” I shouted, despite knowing full well she wasn't here. “Motherfucking Lauren!” I shouted, kicking the fried chicken all over the floor.
Bitch had done it to me again. I couldn't believe I'd been suckered like that for the third fucking time.
“Lauren!”
I knew she couldn't have gone far, not even in a larger town like this. She was still a wanted woman across state lines, even if it was under an assumed name. I balled my hands into fists at my side, punched the wall. When I finally found her this time around, she was going to learn some fucking respect.
Chapter Eleven
Lauren
My long legs had always made me a natural runner, and that didn't change even when I was in this position. My first thought when I used the bobby pins from my hair to pick the locks on my handcuffs was that I was finally in a town where I might be able to get clear of Asa.
Not that I hated Asa. He actually wasn't half bad. Things might have actually been good between us if he hadn't been working for my father. I'd even enjoyed reading to him all afternoon, the way his brow furrowed as the story twisted and turned and took us on its wild ride. I almost felt bad that I'd had to betray him this way, but survival took precedence. I mean, he deserved to get screwed over by me. He was a thug who'd kidnapped and dragged me fifteen hundred miles east already just so he could deliver me to my pops.
But that didn't mean I couldn't feel bad about him actually getting screwed over. He hadn't been mean to me, or awful in anyway. If anything, he'd indulged me and been kind of sweet. That's what got him into this mess, with me running away and all, but still.
I'd ended up at Double Down Saloon, the first shitty dive bar I'd come across. I'd seen the sign as I rambled down the sidewalk, and ducked down the stairs into the little basement bar, trying to get off the street as soon as possible. Besides, with my go-bag gone, I needed a little fiscal capital to stay on the run, and bars were great for that kind of thing.
What do you get when you mix alcohol, men, parlor games, and a pretty blonde? A bunch of suckers and fools, at least after their third drink. And, like Pops would always say, suckers and fools were soon parted from their money. I pulled open the door and headed inside. The smell of old, stale cigarette smoke filled my nose, followed quickly by a waft of fresh tobacco haze. The bar itself was divided into two levels. The first one, at a glance, was the main area, a shotgun style bar that went all the way back to the rear wall. The second, slightly lower level, was larger and had pool tables in one area and dart boards along the back. Bad classic rock was blaring, the speakers popping like corn kernels on a stove with each bass beat.
Lined up and down the bar were men of all ages, sizes, and shapes. Bikers, truckers, young hipsters who were there to somehow ironically soak up the scene and the cheap booze. As I glanced up and down the bar I realized none of them were my type. None of them caught my eye. The last man who had was presumably still out trying to find me fried chicken.
I, on the other hand, definitely drew a few interested looks from the men. And some irate ones from the women who were pissed that there was new meat horning in on their territory. All in all, Double Down Saloon was a dive bar, through and through. It was definitely my kind of place.
All I had in my pocket was the change from the grocery store where I'd bought the chips and soda before that jackass tried to rape me. That amounted to just under twenty bucks. I hope it was enough to get a cheap stiff drink to steady my nerves.
“Bourbon and
coke,” I called to the bartender as he came over to me. “Well.”
My drink was cheap, only a couple bucks, and I tipped the barter a little extra to help with my waitress karma. Figured I'd need it when I got out of this town, and got clear of Asa.
Drink in hand, pouty lips taking a sip from the straw, I headed down to the billiards area. Here, there were about half a dozen pool tables, all occupied. Most of the guys here looked pretty intent on their games. Besides, with just over ten bucks, I barely had enough to cover an opening bet for a game of pool.