by Marni Mann
I pushed the tray away and reclined against the wall, rubbing my stomach as the food moved around inside. Garin sat next to me, and I knew I needed to get up and use the sink. My fingers were sticky, and my face needed to be washed. But I was too full to move.
“How do you feel?”
His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and his hands were resting on his thighs. They were still wet; we didn’t have a towel to dry off. I couldn’t stop staring at them.
“I ate too fast. My mouth tastes like plastic, and this wall is miserably hard.” That wasn’t all of it. I hated to admit the rest, but not mentioning it seemed like a lie. “I’m really scared.”
“Come here.”
He tapped his chest, and I fell against it, feeling his breath blow onto my neck. He was much more forgiving than the wall. Much warmer. Much more caring. But his affection didn’t hide the truth.
“Le voy a dar lo que se merece y después se muere.”
I shivered from Beard’s words as they played over and over in my head.
“You’ll get what he gives you…and then you’re going to die.”
He hadn’t said anything about Garin dying. Just me.
Actually, Garin’s presence made no sense at all. Maybe he was here to comfort me before they killed me. Maybe our captors believed I’d told Garin the secret.
But one thing I knew for sure; he was prisoned because of me.
His life was put at harm…because of me.
My mouth began to water, and I could feel the food rising in my throat. “Oh God,” I whispered, saliva dripping from my lip.
I pushed off his chest and rushed toward the toilet. Like my lips were the rim of a hose, chunks of food and liquid poured out of them. With each purge, I squeezed my stomach tighter, the cramps hurting as badly as the burning in the back of my throat. When I heaved nothing but air, I stuck my face under the faucet and let the freezing water cool my scorching skin. I kept it there until my body shivered.
“What can I do to help you feel better?”
I held up a finger, and using my other hand, I sucked in palmfuls of water. Once my mouth felt rinsed out, I swished around some toothpaste and swallowed a few gulps of air, trying to calm my stomach. It settled just enough to know I wouldn’t be sick again.
“Your body couldn’t handle that much food at once,” he said. When I sat next to him, he pushed his arm against me, so I could lean into it. “You have to eat slow and give it time to adjust.”
Eating fast wasn’t the only reason I had thrown up. But if I allowed my mind to go back there, I’d be sleeping in front of the toilet tonight.
“We have to get out of here,” I said, “before something happens to one of us.”
“I’m going to come up with a plan. I just need to feel out that guy a little more and find his weakness. I’ll also memorize the times he drops off our food. Don’t worry; I’ll get us out of here.”
But I did worry. “I trust you.” I needed to get my mind off of it before it made me even crazier. “What would you be doing right now if you weren’t in here?”
He looked up at the window. There wasn’t any sunlight coming through. The only light was the overhead bulb that buzzed and sometimes flickered. “I’d probably still be working.”
“Me, too.”
“In the shop or behind the scenes?”
I’d told him about my job when we had first gotten to the bar. It wasn’t like he had researched me the same way I had Googled him…unless he had been acting and really did know.
“Behind the scenes,” I said. “My employees work in the shop and handle the walk-ins and the retail side of the business. I manage the large orders and anything custom. I don’t use stock images. I draw everything.”
“You enjoy it.” He said it like he already knew the answer, which was ironic because it was one I really needed to think about.
Art was all I’d ever wanted to do, and college had taught me how to make my craft more mainstream than having just a struggling paint-and-canvas career. Business was the part I didn’t enjoy as much, especially having my brother as my business partner. He took away all the fun, and he sucked out all the passion.
“Yes,” I finally answered. “I love the creative part.”
“Have you had any business deals go wrong?”
“A few.” I searched his eyes. “Why?”
“I was thinking that could be the reason we’re in here.”
As much as I wanted to believe that, I couldn’t. It didn’t make any sense. Arguments over pricing and wrong colors wouldn’t land me in a prison cell.
“Then, why are we in here together?” I asked.
His eyes narrowed. “Maybe it’s something we did as kids.”
Garin was dominant; he always had been. He was someone who wouldn’t give up control in any situation unless he was locked in a cell with a captor who had two guns on his hips. His edges were hard, and his stare didn’t waver even slightly. Someone like that had enemies. Big enough ones who would have put us in here.
I still didn’t believe it.
I looked straight ahead, unable to hide the guilt from my face. “I’m sure there are endless reasons for why we could be in here.”
He would hate me once he found out it was because of me.
I would hate me.
I already did.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” he said. “I told you not to worry, so don’t.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve been in enough situations to know.”
“But what if—”
He was so fast that I barely felt myself move. I only felt the landing, which had me straddling his lap, his arms fully wrapped around me.
“Wow,” I gasped.
I couldn’t move my gaze from his. I was frozen. There was so much intensity between us.
“You were starting to panic again. I needed to stop you.”
What a strange thing it was to be looking at his face again, a face I’d known since I was a child. But, now, it had hard lines and small imperfections, the evidence of age on both of us.
The eyes that stared back weren’t childlike. They were the eyes of a man.
A hungry man.
“You did,” I finally said.
He glanced down, and I felt my skin flush, my nipples slowly hardening and poking through the thin fabric. He noticed and gradually looked up at my face. His erection was pressing into my ass, my mouth opening from the size of it.
“If you need a minute, take it,” he said. “Now.”
“I…”
His gaze was so strong; it felt like it was stroking me the same way his fingers were. Fingers that shouldn’t have been touching me because I didn’t deserve it. Fingers that should have been locked far away from me because I had been such a coward.
Before I could process my next thought, he was moving me once more. This time, he placed me on the floor, a little farther away from where I had been before.
“When I kiss you again, there isn’t going to be any uncertainty in your voice. I’m going to feel the answer in you and know it’s what you want.”
I couldn’t tell him that what he felt in me was the guilt.
He had his own emotions and his own demons and his own reasoning for why we might be in here. It didn’t stop him from wanting me.
And I wanted him. More than anything.
I always had.
But I also wanted to tell him what I had been holding in. I just couldn’t do that. I couldn’t tell anyone. Where I was from, spilling a secret like that could get you killed.
It was no different inside this cell.
I tucked myself into the corner and rested my forehead against the cold cement. My knees pressed into my chest, and my arms crossed over them. My smile grew as I thought about the way he had looked into my eyes, the feeling that had come through his fingertips, how his dick had hardened beneath me.
I needed a minute, just a minute to get this ridiculo
us smile off my face and to cool my body down to the right temperature. And I definitely needed more than a minute to get my chest to stop beating so hard.
I hid the grin under my arm and closed my eyes.
It took less than a minute to remember the reason we were in here and the fear that I would never be getting out.
Sleep now, Kyle.
Eight
Kyle
Light had been seeping in through the top of the window for hours, but I barely had the strength to lift my arms. Whatever they had drugged me with had to still be in my system. I had never been this exhausted from doing nothing.
At some point during the morning, Beard had delivered more food. This tray had a heaping pile of meat in a red sauce that was extra plastic-tasting, overcooked carrots, and a roll. Still no silverware. No napkin. Nothing to drink besides water from the sink. I’d been drinking the rusty liquid though. Garin said I had to. I needed to stay hydrated, or I’d get extremely sick. Sicker than I’d been the night before when I threw up my entire dinner.
When Beard dropped off the trays, he’d also given us a blanket. No pillows or cot or even a blow-up mattress. All we had for comfort was the cold concrete floor and a single gray wool blanket that stared at me from the corner of the room.
I was surprised Beard had been so giving after the confrontation he’d had with Garin. In his profession, maybe he was considered a forgiving man, or maybe he just wanted to give us one last luxury before he pulled the trigger.
Whatever the case was, we needed to get out of here.
And I told Garin that at least once an hour.
“I would kill for a popsicle and a fluffy pillow right now,” I said.
“That’s an odd craving.”
“My throat is on fire.”
It didn’t just hurt when I swallowed; it hurt constantly. I was sure it was from throwing up. I had retched so hard that I was surprised my chest wasn’t sore, and my eyes weren’t bloodshot. The reflection in the sink showed me they weren’t. But it had shown that I looked like a mess, which I’d done nothing to fix.
I was too tired.
“I can’t give you either, so how about you use my shoulder?”
I grinned. “I would love that.”
He grabbed the blanket and returned to my side of the room as I went over to the sink. I’d been sitting in these clothes since I arrived, and I hadn’t done more than swish a bunch of toothpaste around my mouth. I squirted some on the pad of my finger and took my time brushing it over the front and back of each tooth. Then, I used my nails to scrape in between them. When I was done, I soaped up my hands and rubbed them over my face, across my chest, and down each arm. It wasn’t nearly as good as taking a shower, but I was surprised at how much better I felt once I rinsed all the suds off.
Now facing Garin, I saw that he had opened up the blanket and spread it out over the floor, folding the top several times to make it thicker where our heads would lay. I hadn’t felt his eyes while I was washing up, but it was all I felt now.
“My turn.”
His hand grazed my waist as he passed me. It was brief. Gentle. Unneeded because there was enough room for him to walk by. I stopped breathing when I felt it. There wasn’t any panic this time, just a warm tingle that dipped between my thighs.
I hurried to the blanket and sat in the middle, unsure of which side he would want. I crossed my legs and tried to focus on my hands. He’d given me minutes of privacy whenever I’d asked for it by looking the other way. It was the least I could do for him. But when I heard the water turn on and his hands rub together, as though he were lathering the soap between them, I wanted to peek.
I put every bit of effort into keeping my face pointed down…but still, I glanced up.
His shirt was draped over the corner of the sink and his sudsy long, strong fingers were washing his neck. My eyes traveled to his forearms. They were covered in a dusting of dark hair, the grooves in his biceps and triceps so well defined. His shoulders were wide, squaring off the top of his back, and the muscles narrowed at his waist. From this angle, with his pants sitting low on his hips, I could only see the side of his abs. They were lightly covered in hair, and there was more across his chest.
“You’ve seen it all before.”
Now that he was looking at me dead-on, I saw the true sculpture of his muscles. They were tighter. Stronger. So much more powerful than I had thought.
How could something look so beautiful inside this cell?
I shook my head. “I haven’t seen that.”
“It’s just me, Kyle.”
“No.” I looked him over again. “It’s not just you. It’s a very different, very built, very manly version of you.”
He left his shirt on the sink and walked over to me, grabbing my hands and lifting me to my feet. He grasped my neck to hold my face steady, squeezing like he had outside the restroom at the bar.
“You’re a much different version of you, too, Kyle. You fought to get that business. You’re fiercely independent. You’re healthy. You take care of yourself. You can afford to, and you want to.”
Clearly, he didn’t know anything about me. I hadn’t fought, nor was I independent. But I couldn’t tell him any of that.
Discussing our weight was a much simpler and safer topic. “I was so skinny back then. We both were.”
“You were gorgeous back then. You’re even more gorgeous now. And this body”—his eyes dipped to my mouth—“is fucking perfect.” His hands moved down my sides, stopping at my waist, squeezing my hips. “You’ve filled out in all my favorite spots.” His body seemed to move closer, my chest pressing into him. “The ones I like to touch”—he leaned his face down, his lips kissing the outside of my neck—“and lick.”
A shiver ran through me when I exhaled. I didn’t know how I wasn’t naked already, stripped of everything, including my ability to make a decision. But, in my mind, there was no decision to be made. There was no guilt. No fear. Whatever Garin wanted to do to me, wherever he wanted to touch me, I wouldn’t deny him. I couldn’t. We’d gone through too much. We had survived The Heart. I had been pulled away from him, and we’d been brought back together and put in this cell. That all had to mean something.
“Let’s get some sleep,” he said.
He didn’t wait for me to answer before he slipped his body away from mine and sat me on the blanket. Then, he moved in behind me, his head resting on the makeshift pillow. “Come here.”
I kept my back to him and cuddled into his chest. He was so warm, his grip so strong in the way he held me. The scent of the soap was different on him than it was on my hands. It turned so masculine on his skin, tasty and almost erotic.
He slid me further back, our bodies now pressed together. He didn’t ask if I wanted to be moved. He just read me and gave me what I needed.
But he hadn’t given me everything.
Everything would have been his mouth on mine.
Maybe it wasn’t time for that just yet. Maybe this wasn’t the right place for it. Maybe I was losing focus and should have been concentrating on how we were going to get out of here instead of how good Garin’s arms felt. But he had said he was going to work on an escape plan, and he promised he was going to get us out of here.
And, in the meantime, his embrace and his presence were the only two things that made this feel good. Without one, there was no other.
“I think they’re going to give us some answers soon.”
His voice startled me.
“How do you know?”
“I know the game.”
The whiskers from his chin brushed across the back of my neck. It reminded me of the nights I had stayed in his bedroom, how the sound of his breathing was enough to put me to sleep.
“I just wanted to warn you. You’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
You’ll be fine.
I closed my eyes as the light above us hummed and flickered. I blocked it out and focused on sleep.
Focused on his brea
thing.
Focused on the way he rubbed my hand.
Sleep well, Kyle.
Nine
Kyle
“¡Despierten!” Beard barked.
I flew into a seated position while Garin still lay behind me, his hand protectively resting on my hip.
“¡A comer!” He slid both trays into the room and ran his fingers through his beard. “Vendré por ustedes más tarde.”
Then, the door slammed shut, and he was gone.
“What did he say?”
Garin sat up and leaned his back against the wall. “He wants us to eat and says he’ll be back for us later.”
“Back for us?”
His hand moved to my thigh. “If we’re going to get answers, he has to come back. And, every time he opens that door, he makes himself more vulnerable for an attack. I’m learning his habits. I’ve got this, so stop worrying.”
The dampness in our cell wasn’t the reason I was shaking. Beard made me nervous. Not just his size, the guns he wore, the attitude he had, or my inability to communicate with him, but the fact that there wasn’t even the tiniest bit of tenderness in his eyes. I could never win against someone who had no heart. My tears would go unnoticed; my pleas would go unheard.
I would confess, and then I would be dead.
That meant I couldn’t tell the truth. The second I did, my life would be over.
Garin didn’t seem affected by Beard’s threat. Maybe that was because, as a kid, he had run drugs for the mob and now managed their casino and was used to the way gangsters thought, how they threatened, what they carried through on, and what was meant to just scare. Maybe he was trying to stay strong for me.
The panic in my throat was making it hard to breathe again. I wrapped my arms around my stomach and swayed, trying to ease the air in and out of me. I felt the heat spread over my cheeks and the gripping around my throat. It was tight.
Everything was so tight.
“Have you been to Vegas?” he asked.
I continued to rock, trying to find the breath to grunt out a response. “Huh?”