by Stella Noir
“Help yourself,” I say, getting back up on my feet. “I’ll see what I can do about finding something that shields you from my prying eyes.”
She casts me a quick look that could mean anything from worry to anger. “Thank you.”
I turn around and head for my room. I’m sure as hell not giving her anything from the dresser in the other bedroom. Things are weird enough already.
I turn around to check the living room, before I produce the small key from my pocket to unlock the door. She’s not following me, and that is all I needed to know.
My room hasn’t changed one bit since I moved out seven years ago. Returning to it always feels like a bit of travel back in time. Even the smell hasn’t changed. Although I haven’t lived here for quite a while, the room still serves a purpose for me, a secret purpose that no one – her especially – can know of.
I don’t dwell on these thoughts and head straight for the closet and rummage through the belongings of my teenage self. A black hoodie shirt, some basketball shorts and socks will have to do for now. I’m sure she’s not going to complain. A twisted part of me can’t wait to see her dressed in my clothes.
When I return to the living room, I see her standing in the kitchen area, assessing the groceries I brought. I’m not much of a cook myself, so I just bought the ingredients for the only things I make for myself on regular basis.
“Sandwiches,” she concludes, scanning the food she’s laid out in front of her.
“Not good enough for the little missus?” I ask, throwing the clothes I brought for her onto one of the bar stools at the counter.
She hastily shakes her head. “It’s all good, thank you.”
She hugs the towel around her body and walks over to the clothes to assess them. The look on her face speaks volumes.
“Yours?” she asks.
I nod. “I didn’t steal them from some random street kid.”
She shakes her head again. “No, of course, I wasn’t—”
“Go change,” I bark at her.
She clutches the clothes against her chest and looks up at me through wide eyes. “Here?”
For God’s sake. She’s been alone in here for hours, she knows that there’s another room that’s unlocked. Or the bathroom. Why is she asking me this like a little girl?
“If you want to,” I tell her, walking past her to the kitchen counter. “I certainly won’t mind laying my eyes on that body of yours again.”
Of course, she blushes. I know she’s not immune to my obvious attraction. She might be troubled and messed up, but she’s still a woman. She doesn’t cast me another glance when she scurries toward the hallway, disappearing inside the bathroom.
When she returns dressed, we eat in awkward silence. She’s sitting across from me on one of the barstools and inhales the sandwich I made for her in a desperate hurry, as if she hasn’t eaten in days. Maybe she hasn’t.
I am leaning up against the counter, preparing another sandwich for her before I finish my own. I have never cared for anyone like this before, and it gives me an odd sense of satisfaction to see her face light up when I place another sandwich on the plate in front of her.
“Thank you,” she says, casting me a shy smile, before she grabs it with both hands and takes a shameless first bite like a starving child.
She slows down after the second bite, washing it down with some lemonade I brought along, while I watch her with a different kind of hunger growing inside of me. I never knew a hoodies sweater could look this sexy on anybody. Her tiny wrists appear even smaller now that they’re peeking out from the way too long sleeves as she brings the drink up to her mouth. As I finish the last bite of my sandwich, I can’t help but imagine myself lifting her up, knowing that her bare skin is rubbing against the fabric of my clothes, as she wraps her legs around my waist and presses herself against my upper body. My cock swells at the thought of it, and I’m glad that she’s not able to see its steely hardness bulging from the front of my pants from where she’s sitting.
“Better?” I ask, after she sets down the drink and visibly tries to suppress a burp.
She nods. “Yes, thank you. I was quite hungry.”
“I noticed,” I say. “When was the last time you ate?”
She tilts her head to the side, placing her elbows on top of the counter as she rests her head in her hands.
“I don’t know,” she says. “A proper meal? That must’ve been a while. Eating wasn’t really a top priority lately.”
I walk around the counter and stand next to her, slowly pushing her plate to the side, so I can place my elbow on the counter top, towering above her as I fixate her with my eyes.
She looks up at me with the same kind of fear I’ve seen in so many eyes before, but she’s not backing away. Her slim and naked legs are dangling from the bar chair in a childlike manner, but they freeze the moment I put my eyes on them. She’s tense, radiating an equal combination of anticipation and fear.
“What was a priority?” I want to know.
She shrugs, without losing eye contact with me.
“Getting things done,” she says. “Wrapping up my life, you could say.”
“Was getting laid one last time among those things you had to wrap up?” I ask.
She furrows her eyebrows. “Is that all you can think about?”
“No,” I say. “But it’s the most pleasant thing I can think about.”
She looks up at me, question and wonder written all over her pretty face.
I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help the desire that continues building inside of me. I want to be inside of her, to claim her, to possess her — and a sick part of me even thinks that this could actually help her, that me fucking her could help to get rid of the evil inside her head that caused her to go up to that remote bridge in the first place to end her life.
“You’re fucked up,” she says, the words dragging from her mouth as if she’s scared to say them.
“So are you,” I retort, raising my hand to sweep aside a long strand of hair covering the side of her face. “What else would bring a girl like you to consider such a stupid thing?”
She flinches at my touch, but sighs audibly once she gets accustomed to it, and before I know it, she’s lifting her own hand to touch mine, resting her cheek against the palm of my hand and closing her eyes.
“A girl like me,” she whispers. “You don’t know me at all, Kade.”
My pulse skips a beat when I hear her say my name.
“I don’t,” I agree. “But I know a troubled person when I see one.”
She nods, and pain is written all over her face as she leans against my palm, her eyes still closed.
“Please,” she whispers. “Take it away.”
Her voice is so soft and so full of longing. I almost feel bad about all the things I want to do to her. Almost.
But if she’s seeking the soft and gentle comfort of a boyfriend, she’s misjudged my readiness to help.
CHAPTER SIX
Meadow
I’m confused. The drowsy disorientation I feel after just waking up from a nap is nothing new to me. I’ve had terrible nightmares for weeks and barely gotten any sleep, so my body involuntarily shuts down in the middle of the day, forcing my eyes to fall closed and me to drift off unexpectedly. Every time, I woke up not knowing where I was, or even what day and time it was. I’ve come to appreciate those blissful moments of ignorance, the dreamy and peaceful calm that washes over me before my mind clears and I remember the details of my current situation.
But, until now, I have never woken up with anyone by my side.
A heavy arm is flopped across my naked torso, embracing me in a lazy but possessive hug. We’re on the sofa, intertwined like long-term lovers, and breathing in the same rhythm.
One by one, the memories come flooding back to me. His name is Kade. He literally grabbed me from the bridge, drawing me back to safety and life with vigor instead of empathy.
His words still rin
g in my head.
“One last good fuck. Is there a better way to die?”
That’s what he said. Then, after I denied him, he went and added something that made him the ultimate creep, “I guess I’ll just have to wait until your body washes ashore.”
Was this what it was between us? The last fuck he wanted to get out of me before I die?
I don’t even know how I feel about that. I should be scared, freaked out, appalled. But I feel none of these emotions.
He still seems to be fast asleep, or at least acting as if he is. His face is right next to mine, turned away from me, so I can only see the outline of his profile, his ear, the hairline framing it and the back of his head. His hair is disheveled and I’m dying to see what it looks like from the front.
I lay still, my body mostly on top of his. I’m wrapped in his one arm, while his other one is hanging over the edge of the sofa, his big hand resting on the carpet with his palm opened upward.
My cheeks blush as I remember what happened. He fucked me. Hard. He made me come before he even started, and he left me in an apathetic daze after the fourth orgasm. My pussy is sore, I can feel it even without moving. It’s been so long since I’ve had sex — and I’ve never had sex like this. Raw. Violent. Impassioned. Relentless. With a man who cared about my pleasure at least as much as his own.
With every orgasm, he commanded me to look at him. His handsome face, ripped chest and the wild tattoo — those were the things I saw each time I climaxed.
Even after all of this, my body is starved for more. A hungry throbbing starts pounding inside me, and for a moment, I wonder if I should wake him up with a blow job. Because damn it, I need this. I need him. I need more.
It’s still dark outside and the only light in the room comes from a small light shining in the kitchen area. I’ve no idea how long we fucked or how much time has passed since we fell asleep on the sofa, but I know that he kept his promise. He made me forget. He made me scream, beg and squirm. He made me feel alive and yearning for more. More life, more of him.
I carefully lift myself up to look at his sleeping face and remember the deal we made. Just this. Just today. It might be the only taste he was willing to give me. One last fuck….
I accidentally push him in the side with my elbow, which causes him to let out an annoyed groan. He opens his eyes and looks up at me with the same disoriented confusion that hit me.
I freeze, unsure what to do or say. We stare at one another as if we’re seeing each other for the very first time. His hair is ruffled in all directions and his eyes narrow as he fixates his gaze on me. The hand he has on my back strokes along my spine once, twice, before he stops, as if it was a mistake.
We’ve just had sex. Crazy good sex, the best I’ve ever had and the most intimate, too. Why is neither one of us speaking?
Just as I decide to break the silence, something else does it for me. A phone rings and vibrates on a hard surface somewhere behind me, making the most aggravating combination of sounds I can think of right now.
His eyes darken, but he doesn’t hesitate a moment to straighten up, moving me aside in a quick and almost careless motion. He slips out from beneath me and jumps up from the sofa, heading toward the obnoxious ringing. Just like me, he’s completely naked, and I scan his beautifully sculptured back as he strides over to the kitchen counter, where his cell phone is dancing to each series of vibrations.
He has his back turned to me when he answers it. “Hello.”
A few moments of silence pass while the person on the other end talks to him. As he’s listening to the person on the other end of the line, he turns around, casting his dark gaze in my direction.
“I’ll call you back in a minute,” he says, still looking at me.
He hangs up and puts the phone back on the counter.
“I gotta’ go.”
His announcement hits me with a twinge of disappointment.
“Where?” I ask, as he starts picking up his clothes from the floor so he can get dressed.
I’m not surprised when he shakes his head no. Of course, he won’t give me an answer.
“When… I mean, can I…,” I stutter, quickly covering myself with the brown blanket that we’ve shoved to the side sometime during the night, suddenly aware of my own nakedness.
“You can stay here,” he says. “If you want.”
He throws me a questioning look as he pulls up his pants.
I nod. “Yes. If it’s okay, for now I—”
“It’s okay,” he interrupts. “But in this neighborhood, I’d advise you to lock the door. You need a key for that, which I can’t give you.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, tilting my head in confusion.
“I only have one key,” he explains, now standing in front of me wearing just his pants, his ripped upper body on full display. I can’t believe I slept with a man like him. He looks so damn hot. The v-shaped muscles in his pelvis area are so pronounced, they almost make his clearly visible six-pack appear weak in comparison.
“And I won’t leave that key with you,” he adds.
I tighten the blanket around myself. “So?”
“So, there are two options,” he says. “I leave the door unlocked and you’re free to go whenever you want, but you won’t be safe. Like I said, I wouldn’t suggest sleeping in here with the door unlocked, not in this neighborhood.”
He pauses, casting me a warning look.
“Or?” I ask.
“Or I lock the door when I leave,” he says. “You’d be safe, but you can’t go anywhere.”
“Oh,” I whisper. “I’d be… held captive.”
He shrugs and walks over to retrieve his sweater from where he threw it down hours ago. “If you wanna’ call it that, yeah.”
“When will you be back?”
“Tomorrow,” he says, pulling the sweater over his head and robbing me of the fine view of his muscular body. “You have enough food and drinks. You won’t die.”
I chuckle. “You know I wouldn’t care.”
It was supposed to be a dark joke, but Kade won’t have it. He turns around to glare at me, his hazel eyes burning with fury and his eyebrows drawn together so strongly that they create a deep furrow between his eyes.
“Yes, you fucking would care,” he barks at me. “And you should care! I’m not gonna’ have that self-pitying attitude here, do you understand?”
I flinch at his aggressive reaction.
He approaches me with two wide steps and grabs my upper arm, pulling me closer to him. I try to fight him off, but of course my efforts are futile. His grip is strong and unyielding, he has complete control over me.
“Look at me!” he snaps, as I lower my head in fright.
I obey, meeting his enraged hazel eyes.
“I won’t listen to that shit,” he warns. “If you want to stay, you’ll grow the fuck up and figure out what the hell it is that’s turned you into this whiny little sheep.”
Now I’m the one who’s getting angry. Who the hell does he think he is?! He has no idea what I went through, no idea who I am, no idea about anything.
He responds to the rage on my face with a warning look and an even tighter grip around my arm.
“You asked me to take it away,” he hisses. “To take the pain away. And I did, didn’t I?”
I gulp, trying to hold back tears. His demeanor intimidates me. He scares me.
“Yes,” I breathe, nodding.
“I told you, I’m not good at consoling people, talking about feelings and shit,” he says. “This is all I could do for you. Give and receive pleasure, make you forget the bad and make you remember the good. The rest —— well, you’ll just have to figure that out for yourself. But God damn it girl, you will figure it out.”
He lets go of my arm, and I rub the place where his fingers pressed in viciously on my upper arm. As much as it hurt, I do crave his touch. A part of me feels saddened and lost when he withdraws his hand.
“You should be fuc
king thanking me,” he mumbles, as he turns around to grab his jacket from the bar chair.
“You’re right,” I agree. “And I am thankful. For everything.”
He puts his jacket on and heads for the door. Before he leaves, he turns around to me one last time and looks at me quizzically. “So, what’s it gonna’ be? Door locked or unlocked?”
I hesitate for a moment, pondering both options and their accompanying implications. I know he’ll grow impatient, so I don’t give myself too much time to consider before I answer him. “Locked.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Kade
I’m on the phone as soon as I get to my car. “Sorry about that.”
Unlike me, Joseph never wastes time on pleasantries.
“Is it done?” he wants to know.
“Yes,” I say simply.
“All good?” he presses. “No trouble? No one saw you?”
I hate lying to him. Joseph has been my friend for as long as I can remember. We lived the same fucked up lives, connected through the choices our mothers made. No one gets me like he does. No one. We are closer than most brothers and I trust him, but I can’t tell him about her. I can’t tell him that I picked up a suicidal girl from the bridge as she was getting ready to jump, and I sure as hell can’t tell him that she’s currently staying at my mother’s apartment.
My old home. Telling him would cause nothing but trouble. He would worry about me losing myself, and he would worry about her yapping. Even though there was no reason to worry about the latter, as she has no idea about anything that happened. Luckily, Meadow has been too wrapped up with her own troubles. She doesn’t know I drove up to that bridge to dump off the dead body of a filthy scumbag.
“It’s all good,” I assure him. “The guy is gone, rotting at the bottom of the canyon, just as planned.”
“You made sure no one saw you?” Joseph asks again. “No one followed you?”
“Chill,” I tell him. “This is not my first time. When did you stop trusting me?”
Joseph laughs. “All right, all right. Calm down buddy, I trust ya’.”
He’d better.