by Paula Cox
“Stop that!” A hand flies in my view before I can grab another. “Take this instead.” Anton thrusts a glass of clear liquid in my face. I shrug, as I drink it down quickly.
My stomach turns, as I spit some of it back up. “Ugh! What was that?”
“Water. You need it.” He reaches down and opens one of the many large, red coolers. He pulls out a water bottle and places it in my hand. “Take this, too. I’m not going to have you barf all over my back as I ride. I’m not into that.”
“Well,” I try to make some kind of witty comeback, “I’m not into you! So la-di-da!”
He chuckles loudly, as his bright face goes from concerned to—at least—amused. I can’t help but smile back, too. The tension between us has to break.
“If I go with you,” I ask cautiously, “do you promise to not try anything? I’m not that kind of girl.”
He bows down at the waist so that his face is directly in front of mine, as he promises sincerely, “And, believe it or not, I’m not that kind of guy.”
“That’s yet to be seen… damn it!” In the corner of my eye, I see my brother walking towards the outside door. He’s flanked by several of his goonish friends as they chat him up. I hide behind Anton’s massive frame as we both start to move towards the side of the building that leads up to the front parking lot.
Anton’s bike is jet black. Black on black on black, to be exact. It looks like it’s straight out of an action movie. When I see it, I can’t help but ask, “Is that yours?”
“Yeah. It’s my show bike. My other one…” He slows his words, as he rubs a hand to the back of his neck nervously. I get the feeling that I am not going to get a straight answer from him. “The one I usually drive around is getting some repairs done.”
I purse my lips, as I head straight for the bucket seat. I hitch my leg over the side, instantly regretting the tight jeans. He stares at me with eyes that gloss and glare, as I pat the seat in front of me with the palm of my hand. “I like this one.” He pauses, taking me in. I can practically feel his eyes tracing me from the ankle, to the thigh, past my ass, and onto my tits.
I blush and turn away back towards where I hear my brother’s voice shout at someone unknown person. Anton hears it as well and wastes no time jumping into the driver’s space. The engine roars violently before I feel the jolt of the wheels taking off from under me. It’s not till we’re out onto the main streets of town, far from the warehouse, that he turns his head slightly to ask, “Where’s home?”
“Nowhere,” I answer nonchalantly. I’m more focused on the road and streetlights spinning together in a haze. Riding drunk is not something I could ever get used to.
“Seriously. What’s your address?”
I know I should answer. I know that not going home is basically a death sentence. But I can’t do it. I can’t go back there. We pass the last turn to my home before I respond, “Take me somewhere, anywhere else. I can’t go home right now.”
He shouts back at me over the noise of his bike, “Tory, your dad and brother will kill me if I don’t take you home.”
“What do you think they’re going to do me when I do get home? Please, Anton. I don’t care where we go. I just can’t go back there tonight.” The words come out before I can stop them. But they’re the truth. I’ve never broken a rule like this before. I’ve never disobeyed. I have always managed to stay on the good side of my dad’s thin gray line. Now I’ve gone and crossed a point of no return.
I can feel the bike swerve slightly as he goes silent. We pass by a few stoplights and street signs that I don’t exactly recognize. It isn’t until we pull into a small apartment complex that I hear him say, “Fine. I’ll keep you here in my apartment tonight, but only because you’re drunk as hell.”
“What a gentleman,” I answer. “I owe you one.”
“You owe me a life when your daddy finds out.”
“I can’t promise you that.”
“Then you’ll just have to make up for it in other ways.” I can practically feel his chest heave against mine as he laughs to himself. Little does he know that I am not that kind of girl. No matter what he thought before, I was not giving him any part of me just because he did what I asked and kept me from facing my daddy.
Anton dismounts from his bike first and then offers his uninjured hand to me. He practically has to pull me off the bike, as I struggle to find the ground under my feet. Somehow, the ride has made my state so much worse, and I find myself getting more and more tired and worn down. All I can think about is falling back into my cotton candy pink bed and waking up to big glass of water and some aspirin.
But instead, I’m walking down a long corridor with a man I just met. His hand is grasped firmly around my waist, and he’s practically pulling me towards a door I’ve never entered. This is when my red light for danger should be flashing, but I can’t make myself call out. This all seems somewhat right and okay with me.
Anton’s apartment is warm and bright. It’s not exactly what I would expect from a Desert Knight. A large bed and a dresser are in the middle of the room. A two-person table is off in the kitchen area, and a couch is the only other seating area, but it’s on the far end of the room. I pick the bed, my hands reaching for it until I fall back with a thud.
He lingers above me for a long while not saying anything. I can tell he’s unsure what to do. Instead, he reaches down and grabs at my ankles. The shock of him touching me sends me flying upwards. But to my shock, he doesn’t linger. Instead, he slowly takes off my shoes and looks up at me sheepishly. “Sorry. I hate shoes on my bed.”
“Oh. Wow. Okay.” I lie back down slowly, trying to figure this guy out. Here’s a man who could overpower me in a second. I’m in no state to fight back. But instead he’s concerned about shoes on his bed? Whom the hell did I trust myself with? The question slips out of my mouth before I can stop myself. “Anton, why are you doing this?”
I feel him lie gently on the bed next to me, his body pushing down on the thin mattress. I roll myself over to face him, finally seeing the man who basically rescued me. Two freckles dot his long nose, and the crinkle in his forehead pushes further into itself as he smiles awkwardly. “I, well, don’t know. I guess it’s because you bandaged me up.”
He holds his bandana-covered hand out for me to see. I pull myself up to examine it closer. Slowly unwrapping it, I check the wound. The hot pink thread probably wasn’t my best choice, but it isn’t bleeding, and it’s only slightly red. I can’t help but be proud of my work. The other vet techs have nothing on me when it comes to stitching.
I know I’ve been staring at the hand too long. I can feel the silence growing, as we both become speechless. I look back down at him to see those ocean eyes peering at me. His teeth bite down slightly on the pink, crackled lips. I take a deep breath before lowering my head towards his, and to my surprise, he finds my mouth before I can find his. Our lips touch and part, pressing into one another.
His battered hand reaches around my neck and through my hair, and I move myself closer to him so that my own hand rests on his chest and our hips touch. The heat between our bodies builds, as our kisses speed up. I need to come up for air, but I can’t make myself let go of him. Every movement of his mouth is just deeper, more urgent.
I feel his arm twist me back down to the bed, and one of his enormous legs wraps around my hips and over my body. I hold on tighter, strengthening my grip around his neck, as I try to hold on tight. My whole world is turning and moving, and I am losing all of my control.
He pulls away from me slightly, as I hear him call my name. But I’m already far away…in the darkness of my own, blank mind.
Chapter 5: Letting Go
“Hey, Tory,” I whisper into her ear as sweetly as I can, as I brush the strands that have stuck themselves to the side of her face away. “Tory, it’s time to wake up. We have to get going.”
I watch as she turns quickly away from me, her arms grabbing a heap of the blanket and pillows in their
way. She curls up, her bare legs pulled into her chest and her arms wrapped around whatever she can grab. Her pink lips, still covered in yesterday’s faded lipstick, curl and part as she inhales the morning air. Seconds later, her brown eyes open slowly, each blinking as they adjust to the light of the morning sun.
I give her a moment to adjust. More than likely, she is going to be slow to remember how she ended up in a complete stranger’s bed. And that hangover she’s sure to have isn’t going to help matters.
Just as I predicted, as soon as she gets her first look around the room, she goes into a sort of shock. In an instant, she pulls herself up to sitting, with the blankets wrapped around her chest for a barrier. And when she spots me, the giant towering over her in my boxer briefs, she startles worse than before. So much so that she nearly falls off the side of my queen-sized bed, but I manage to catch her flailing arm just in time.
“What…what…?” I watch, as she pieces everything together in her mind before the drinks catch up to her. She places a hand to her forehead as she moans tiredly. I turn back towards the dresser and hand her a few white tablets of aspirin and a glass of seltzer.
“Here,” I say, as I gently push the glass and the pills her way. “You’re probably going to need this.” She squints in pain, as she tries to make it out. Both of them look suspicious to her, and she refuses silently.
“Come on,” I urge. “It’s not poison or some roofies. If I wanted to take advantage of you, I would have done so last night.”
“So,” she asks, clearing her throat, “we didn’t do anything last night?”
“No. Nothing besides you laying on me at one point. That’s about as PG as it gets in this bed.” I pat the hunter green comforter next to her, as I briefly think back to all the adventures this room has seen. And there have been plenty of them—Tory Walsh excluded.
“But the last thing I remember was…”
“... us about to fuck. Yeah. I’m sure we were just seconds away, but I don’t mess with drunk girls or those who pass out on me. I’m just not into that nearly dead thing.”
She scratches and shakes her head, as she looks at me in complete disbelief. She knows better. Stories of sex in the Desert Knights are always good gossip, and as the daughter of the president, she’s probably had to hear it all, including my story. There’s no doubt that when she sees me, she sees a guy who is rabid and horny twenty-four seven. While that description is slightly true, unlike the rest of the club, I’ve got a better head on my shoulder when it comes to this stuff.
“I need you to tell me the truth…” She stumbles as she tries her best to remember my name.
“Anton.”
“Anton.” She grits her teeth as she adds, “If you did something to me, if you touched me or took pictures of me, you know my daddy will hunt you down and kill you right in this very room.”
Woah. She may be a mess, but she’s a serious one. After seeing how her brother was, I’m surprised she’s even bringing her family into this equation. Still, I don’t like the implication she’s getting at here. I stand up and walk towards the kitchen, not caring if I bang some of the metal pots around. She can suffer.
I shout back from across the room, “Listen, lady! I’ve been called a whole bunch of things, but no one has ever called me a rapist. I don’t do that shit!” I round the bend of the room, heading straight towards the bed. I’m inches away from her face as I cry out, “You’ve got to be kidding me with this. If I say I fucking didn’t touch you, I didn’t touch you!”
She whimpers, as she cowers towards the bed. She has no idea the nerve she’s managed to hit. Rape and my family seem to go hand in hand. That’s how I was conceived. I’m the bastard child of a Desert Knight member, but my mother never knew whom. She too was drunk or drugged—just like Tory—and someone much stupider than me took advantage of her. And, in the end, he got away with it while she and I suffered every day of our lives as outcasts and untouchables.
I head back towards the living space and grab a pair of dirty jeans off of the couch along with a plain white t-shirt. She stares at me with those big, almond-shaped eyes, as she tries her best to figure me out. I just focus on tying the thick thread of my boot shoelaces so I don’t have to meet her face to face.
Finally, she breaks through the silence and asks, “Why are you acting like this? Is it because you’re lying to me?” She’s in a complete tailspin, as she brings her knee up to her chest with her head resting in the crux. I hear her mumble and murmur to herself in complete terror and disbelief, “God Tory! This is how you lose it…to some guy at one of your dad’s parties? How stupid are you…?”
As soon as I hear the words “lose it,” I run straight back to the bed. I gently pull her hair into a ponytail behind her and pull down so that her head shoots up. She wipes away a tear, as she looks back up at me completely despondent.
I know I have to change my tone with her. She’s used to kid gloves—that or she’s been tortured and yelled at for so long that she can’t get out of her head when someone else does it. I place my hand on her chin, my thumb catching one of her tears as it falls. I find myself saying as softly as possible, “Hey, Tory. Nothing happened. I promise you that. You didn’t lose anything to me. Everything’s still intact.”
A virgin. I should have known. No one at that party last night who’s a regular came in with their v-card—except for Tory Walsh. Hell, even though I was an outsider, I managed to lose mine to a skank at the bar when I turned sixteen. That’s just the way of the club. The longer you have it, the more of a unicorn you become. And no one wants to touch the unicorn. Clay Walsh had apparently done a fine job of keeping his girl untouched and untouchable.
Tory doesn’t smile or look reassured at what I say. In fact, something about her face looks even more disappointed than when she thought we had fucked. I try to lighten the mood with, “I could prove that you’re still a virgin, but I doubt you want to do that here and now.”
She sniffles back a small cry as she says, “I’ll take a pass at that.”
“For now,” I quickly reply. She looks up at me with a coy smile, as I over-exaggerate a wink.
Tory looks back down at the blanket covering her before asking, “So, if we didn’t do anything, why am I undressed? I don’t remember many things from last night, but I remember you taking off my shoes.”
It’s a good question—one that I am not really jazzed about answering. After she blacked out in my bed, her thick, warm body wrapped around me, I had a moment of self-doubt. Here was this girl, this beautiful, powerful girl, who clearly wanted me. Her body was practically begging for it just seconds ago, and being with her would be an extra little bit of revenge towards the Walsh family for screwing me over on the promotion. But she was also dead drunk.
It would have only taken me seconds to rip down her tight little jeans and have my way with her. I could have easily torn at her shirt and nuzzled those perky little breasts of hers without anyone knowing. They were practically calling me all night as I slept beside her, an arm draped protectively around the curve of her waist.
But I resisted. Instead, the moment she passed out, I placed her underneath the covers, making sure her head was on the softest pillow I could find. I then got up and checked my phone for any sign that Clay Walsh was looking for his little girl. Besides a few condolences from my loyal Knights who knew what had (or rather had not) happened at the party, there was nothing. No missing person call, no texts from the boss, no frantic messages asking me for my location. It looked like I was in the clear.
All I had to do for the rest of the evening was just resist sleeping with her while she was under. A few hours passed, as I dozed a bit on the couch, watching old infomercials I’d seen a billion times. But her tossing and turning in the bed kept waking me. And then when I eventually managed to get some shuteye, a bigger worry of her dying from alcohol poisoning in my own bed managed to keep me up and bring me back to the problem at hand.
As Tory slept, I hesitantly
removed the blanket from around her and slowly unbuttoned and removed her jeans so she could be more comfortable sleeping. It solved the issue of her tossing and turning, but then I noticed she was sweating. From my experience dealing with men who did a little too much a little too quickly, I knew that wasn’t a good sign. She was going to become dehydrated fast if I didn’t act. And the only solution I could think was pulling off her top and sponging her off with a towel from my kitchen.
Her body cooled quickly under the rag, as the damp cloth left trail marks up and down her hands, her shoulders, her neck, her chest, and the space between her plump thighs. I carefully worked the rest of the night while I tried my best not to wake her. However, my hands moving slowly up and down the line of her body was agony to me. I wanted her more than ever, so I let myself do one simple thing…I lay down next to her.