by Pam Godwin
“I made this with Liv's real hair. Collected it for years from her pillow, her hairbrush, and directly from her scalp.” At the time, he didn't know why. A compulsion maybe? A sick one. He removed his hand and shoved it in his pocket.
“Oh, Van, I can't even...” Her voice strained with disbelief, and she cleared her throat. “Why?”
He was damaged, in the most irredeemable way. He brought shaky fingers to his forehead and gave her his back. He hated this feeling, this fucking vulnerability. “This was a mistake.”
“Van Quiso.” Her clipped tone vibrated with impatience. “You put me on that bathroom counter with my legs spread and made me talk about some scary shit. You owe me.” She sucked in a long breath and softened her voice. “I want to understand why you kept her hair. I want to know everything about you.”
Her words moved him. And the sudden support of her arms wrapping around his waist and her chest against his back found him and held him.
“I have a memory of my mother under the tin roof of our makeshift shelter. She wasn't crying or stoned. She was just sitting there, being.” He placed his hands over Amber's on his abs, absorbing her warmth. “She was sitting so close her hair touched my face and shoulder, and I imagined maybe that was what her fingertips would feel like or her kisses.” His voice thickened, his chest aching. He coughed into his fist.
She slipped under his arm and cupped his face with fire in her eyes. “My mother couldn't look at me because I reminded her of her illness. She gave birth to me, this child who embodied the worst of her sickness, and nothing I could've done would change that.” She caressed his chest. “I guess what I’m saying is...I get it. I wanted you to know I understand.”
He coiled his fingers through her hair and put his lips on her forehead. He was his mother's repulsive reminder of her slavery. Of course, he knew that, which was why he needed a relationship with his daughter. To show her she wasn't a thing he resented. To give her a father's love. “The third one doesn't know I exist.”
“The third?” Her brow wrinkled beneath his lips. She pulled back and peered around his shoulder at the display cabinet. “The small doll is the third person you...she's...” She swallowed, hard.
“Livana will be eight next month.” Another birthday he wouldn't be a part of. His throat burned with painful frustration.
She nodded, a jerky movement, as her gaze shifted over the doll, swimming with thoughts. “Livana. Liv and Van.”
Livana. The name he’d given to the child that was snatched away the moment she was born. Mr. E hadn’t even allowed him to hold her.
He touched the scar on his cheek. “Mr. E gave us matching scars when I got her pregnant.”
Her eyes squinted, probably narrowing on the hand-drawn scar on the mannequin.
With his hands on her waist, he turned them to face the cabinet, standing behind her with his arms around her mid-section, holding her tightly in case she ran. “Mr. E and his wife raised Livana.” His voice clogged, thick with painful memories. “My father prohibited us from seeing her outside of the videos he sent.”
“Videos?”
“His incentives. To ensure we didn't fuck up the meetings with his slave buyers.”
“My God—”
“I knew where Livana was the whole time and kept it from Liv.” Though he’d never been allowed contact, he’d secretly watched his daughter from a distance. “Liv would've gone after her. It was too risky.”
His stomach hardened with guilt. He could've helped her get their daughter, but in doing so, he would've lost Liv. In the end, he lost her anyway. He closed his eyes, breathing in the clean scent of Amber's hair, and opened them. That same end had brought him a woman he would never deserve. “When she shot me, I told her everything. I'd planned on telling her anyway. Mr. E killed her mother, and I knew Livana was next.”
“Jesus.” She pivoted in his arms and ran her palm across his shoulder, over the bullet wound. “She shot you and your father.” She chewed on her lip, watching the caress of her hand. “And she escaped. So why did she never mention you to the police?”
“She'd killed seven slave buyers. She thought she killed me. And she hasn't heard from me since the day I wired her six of the seven million we'd earned in trafficking.”
She stepped away from him and paced along the wall of doll parts. “A payoff?”
“An apology.”
She pinched her bottom lip, wearing a pensive expression. “And she has something you want. Which was why you were on my porch.”
“Mr. E's widow has my daughter. But I know Liv has unrestricted access to her.”
“You're a stalker.” She reached up and traced the gnarled seam of a doll arm. “You’re also a fugitive, and your daughter lives with the Police Chief's widow.” She dropped her hand and looked at him with confusion etching her beautiful face. “I'm sorry, Van, but I don't understand what you hope to gain by seeking out Liv.”
He put his hands in his pockets to hide his shaking fingers. “She could bring me along on her visitations with Livana. She could introduce me as a friend or an uncle, and someday, when Livana's old enough, when she trusts me, I could tell her.”
Her lips tilted into a frown, her eyes downcast and glossy as she shook her head. “Why would Liv agree to that? Van, she must be terrified of you. She'd never let you near Livana.”
His pulse sped up, his voice hard. “I'll convince her I can be a good father, that I'm not a threat.” He moved toward her with determined steps and gripped her head, tilting it back, trapping her gaze. “You're doing so well, going outside every day. You could tell her how much I've helped you and convince her I've changed.” Adamant resolve strengthened his posture, and he channeled that strength to his eyes. “Come with me.”
The flash of Amber's eyes and the set of her jaw made Van's stomach drop. Fuck, his words had come out all wrong. They clotted the space between them, shoving them apart.
She yanked her head from his hands. “That's why you've been forcing me outside? You thought you could fix me, that I could vouch for you?”
The sadness in her voice ripped him in half, but he refused to let go of her or give up on this. He grabbed her wrists and held them against his chest. “You could tell her I'd be a good father, that I would never hurt my daughter.”
A tremble skittered across her chin. Her arms twisted in his hands, her fingers clutching his jacket. Then, in an unexpected move, she lifted on tiptoes and pressed her mouth against his.
The beat of his heart stumbled as she kissed him without resentment or anger or any of the reactions he'd feared. He was numb with shock, dizzy with lust, swirling his tongue over her lips. Fuck him, those lips. He needed them on his body, on his cock. He needed to tug it out and shove it inside her, to bury himself in the place she accepted him.
She broke the kiss and spoke quietly. “I don’t think you’d hurt your daughter like you’ve harmed all the other women in your life.” He opened his mouth to agree, and she pressed a finger over his lips. “In fact, I think you’re done treating women that way.”
“I am—”
“Shh.” She dropped her hand. “You would be a great father. Fierce and protective and attentive.”
God, that felt good to hear. He pressed his lips tight to keep from smiling like an asshole.
Her eyes darted away, and she leaned back. “But I can't be the one to confirm that, Van. I can't...” She shook her head. “I can't leave. I'm not fixed.”
There lay the crux of his conflict over the last few weeks. He didn’t just want her fixed for his purpose. He pulled her back to him with her forearms pinned against his chest. “That’s not why I want you. I just want...I need you to want to be by my side.”
She sniffed, her eyes closing then cutting back to him. “You said there were four? Four people you cared about?”
Ah, there was his little countress. He might've grinned if his chest didn't hurt so badly. “Number four...” He blew out a breath, lowered his brow to hers, and
told her the truth. “When I met her, I wanted to pick apart her mind and play with the pieces. I wanted to become her obsession, her solitary devotion, her fear.” She tensed and so did he. “But along the way, she picked me apart. I'm the one who is obsessed, devoted...scared. Come with me to see Liv?”
She wrenched from his hold and backed up. “I can't.”
He prowled after her. “You handle the agoraphobia just fine while hanging from a tree in subspace.” She stumbled against the wall, and he closed in, blocking her on either side with his arms. “You don't even know you're outside when I'm fucking you beneath the shelter of my body.”
“Right.” She straightened her spine, hands clenched at her sides. “So you plan on whipping and fucking me during this meeting with Liv? 'Cause I'm not sure that'll help your fatherly image.”
“No. I'm just saying you can do this without the mental distractions. I won't leave your side, Amber, and I would never let anything out there harm you in any way.”
She shoved against his chest with a shriek and slipped beneath his arm, shuffling backward. “My enemy isn't out there, Van.” She thrust a finger at the garage doors. “It's here.” She gripped her head. “Right here. I sit in this house day after day and tell myself I'm strong, that I'm better than this. But once I step outside, something takes over. Something more powerful than me invades my body and I can't fight it. I try.” She sobbed. “I fucking try. But it brings me to my fucking knees. Every. Time.”
He reached her in two strides and lifted her into his arms. His chest was so fucking tight it felt like his heart was shrinking. He couldn't fail her. He wouldn't. He carried her out of the garage and through the house. “When you're ready” —he climbed the stairs— “you'll be there with me.”
With a heavy sigh, she hugged his neck. “So you won't go see her? You won't leave?”
God, she sounded so relieved, and he was about to steal that away. He set her on her feet beside the railing in the loft. “Liv is singing in a bar tonight. It's neutral ground, a good place for me to feel her out.”
“What?” She gripped his hair and pulled his face to hers. “You can't. She'll turn you in, Van. You can't go.”
He removed her hands from his head, walked to the nightstand, and grabbed a length of rope. “Do you need to go to the bathroom?”
She gaped at him. “No. Why?”
“On your knees.” With the rope taut between his fists, he returned to her with a clear sense of purpose in his strides. He promised her a punishment, and he expected her to remember. She must've read the intention in his eyes because she lowered to the floor.
“Arms up and together.”
She obeyed, but of course, she couldn't keep her mouth shut. “You can't punish me for having thoughts, Van. They're just thoughts!”
Insidious thoughts that fed an eating disorder. He wound the rope around her wrists—nineteen times because she'd told him once it was her least favorite anti-number—and tied it off at the base of a banister beam on the railing. An anchor hitch knot she wouldn't be able to undo with her bound hands.
The restraints were just preliminary, to prime her for the punishment she would receive when he returned. The rope prevented her from standing and leaping to her death, but she could lie down. Which was a mercy because she would be there awhile.
He left her with a lingering kiss and adjusted his tie on the way to the front door. A sudden thought veered his path toward the kitchen counter, to the doll she'd left there. He picked it up and lifted the gown, pressing his thumbs against the seams in the leather torso.
“Stomp on it.” Her voice drifted down from the loft.
He spun and met her gentle eyes peering through the railing overhead. When she gave him an encouraging nod, he set the doll on the floor and slammed his loafer into the soft belly. The limbs bounced but remained attached. He cocked his head, heart thundering. With an unsteady hand, he scooped it up and raised the gown. No holes. Every stitch intact.
The tingling started in his hands and spread out through his entire body in a warm feeling of weightlessness. “You did it,” he whispered then raised his voice. “You fucking did it.”
When he looked up, her gorgeous, teary smile lifted him on his toes. He wanted to tell her that she had to come with him, that he needed her because he loved her, that she found him and released him with a fixable doll, and maybe, just maybe, she could fix him, too.
But the warmth that nuzzled every tattered shred of his being didn't come from some doll. It was brought to life by her unfathomable understanding. She could have called him a creeper and spit on his collection. Instead, she supported it by devoting thought and effort to make it better, not for herself but for him.
He wanted to tell her this, wanted her to know how much her actions moved him. But as she sat back and pulled her bound wrists to her chest, her smile soft, her lashes lowered, she seemed to already know. So he settled on a thickly uttered “Thank you.”
“You're welcome.”
He placed the doll in a paper bag and tucked it under his arm. With one last glance at Amber, he squared his shoulders and hardened his expression. “I'm whipping your ass when I get home.”
She nodded, her eyes gleaming with an inner light. “I know. Just come home.”
Fuck, he loved her so much it hurt. If anything happened to him, if he wasn’t able to return, would she die of starvation? He shoved a hand through his hair, his fingers clenching. “I promise.”
Van stepped into the thick black foyer of the Curie Lounge in downtown Austin. Pockets of dim light flickered above the tables. Every chair in the house was filled, maybe a hundred or more live-music enthusiasts sitting back, enjoying a drink and a sexy voice. They wouldn't be disappointed in the latter.
Humming through the speakers was the sound that had haunted him for years. There were no instruments. Just the terraced rippling of her voice, reverberating seductive notes along a man's cock, reaching deep inside him, the only warning she gave before she ate his soul and spit it out. He shivered.
She stood beneath a spotlight in the corner of the large room, eyes closed and sheathed tits to feet in a black gown as she sang a bluesy melody with a sultry sway of her hips.
Remarkable how he didn’t entertain a single obsessive thought for the woman. Amber had truly cured his fever.
Pinching the paper bag between his arm and side, he scanned the lounge for her clunkier half and his gaze collided with Joshua Carter's wide eyes at the far end. The man shot from his chair, all six-foot-two of him, his expression shifting from shock to fury. The burly linebacker glanced at Liv, ten feet away, and back again.
Joshua wasn't a bad looking guy. Age twenty-two or twenty-three with black hair, he had that chiseled jaw women loved and green eyes, which were really narrowed and pissed right now. But even so, Van would've gladly fucked him if he didn't have something better waiting for him at home.
And that something was tied to his banister, waiting for his cock. Damn, he needed to speed this along.
As Joshua strode toward him, choosing a path that blocked his view of Liv, he let his gaze rest on those furious flames of green sparking in the dim light. A year ago, he'd been Joshua's captor. He hadn't fucked him, but there'd been some non-consensual kissing and dick stroking. A friendly greeting was probably too much to ask.
Because of the money he’d wired Liv, Joshua knew he’d survived the gunshot wound. Beyond that, did his former slave assume he was still trafficking slaves? What were the chances they’d even hear him out?
He slid a toothpick between his lips and closed the distance. This should be fun.
As Van approached the charging ex-football player, it reminded him of a game of chicken. Who would yield first? Or the worst possible outcome, neither of them. Amidst a crowded bar of patrons, the confrontation needed to be handled delicately, which wasn't a strength he'd mastered.
At the center of the room, Joshua's hand landed on his shoulder in a hard grip, those tightly pinned lips low
ering to his ear. The voice he'd heard groaning orgasmically through his mics for six months was now harsh and clipped. “What do you want?”
Van leaned back, deliberately removed the toothpick, and glared at the hand on his shoulder until it dropped. “What, no hello kiss? Afraid my tongue might make you come again?”
A sharp inhale. “Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of. Right now.”
So much anger in those eyes. He didn't remember wrangling that much of a reaction when the man was bound and nude in his attic. “Down, boy. I'm not here to fuck you or your girl. I just need to talk with her.”
Joshua glanced over his shoulder at Liv, and Van used the opportunity to catch her eyes.
As her gaze clashed with his, she belted her voice through an eerie cascade of notes, the scar on her cheek a shadowed line beneath the angle of the lighting. She excelled at hiding her emotions beneath a cool facade, her intentions well disguised through cunning and underhandedness. She appeared to be lost in song, but she was probably planning the hundred and one ways he would die when she finished the set.
Whether it was by coincidence or design, she ended the melody with a hum, and stepped out of the spotlight, heading directly for them amidst the rise of applause.
When she reached them, her hip-swishing gait carried her right on by and to an isolated table in the corner. Joshua trailed her like an obedient puppy, and they slid into one side of the booth.
Returning the toothpick to his mouth, Van took the opposite seat and set the doll beside him. Liv knew he’d collected dolls over the years. The night she’d shot him, he let her see replicas made with her hair for the first time. He hadn’t seen her reaction. No doubt it was one of horror. He’d never explained what they meant to him. Maybe someday he could trust her enough to tell her.