by Lena Pierce
“We can’t just leave her to die!” she snarls.
“Fuck,” I growl. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. Wait here.”
I wrap my tattered T-shirt around my nose and mouth and then jog back into the building. The flames are mostly hugging the walls but some of them are latching onto pieces of the floor. The worst part is the smoke. Like all fires, the worst damn part is the poisonous gray gas that fills up the place like a thousand smoke grenades have just gone off. I run to the stairs in the corner and take them two at a time. The fire hasn’t spread here yet, not completely, but it’s starting to. I have to leap over a small wall of flames to get onto the second step. I charge up the stairs and into the apartment, which is so full of smoke I can hardly see.
What the fuck was her name?
“Girl!” I roar, though my voice is starting to become choked now too. “Girl! Girl! Where are you?”
“Here!” A tiny voice squeaks back. “The—the bedroom!”
“I can’t see the fuckin’ rooms!” I snarl.
“My—voice! Follow!”
I listen past the crackling flames and through the layers and layers of smoke and pinpoint her voice ahead and to the right of me. I move through the smoke as quickly as I can, aware that if I take too long the flames will creep up the stairs behind me and lock us in. I can only open the bedroom door halfway.
“Something from the—something’s fallen!” she shouts hoarsely from the other side of the door.
“Stand back!” I shout. “Right back!”
“Okay!”
I lift my boot and kick that damn door as hard as I can, so hard that, instead of kicking it open, my foot goes straight through the cheap plywood. Cursing, I withdraw my leg and kick again. I kick and kick, tearing the door apart piece by piece, until finally I see a small, pale face poking through the gap. I reach down for her. “Hurry.”
“Okay, okay, thank you.”
I drag her to her feet and throw her over my shoulder. She’s a small girl; weighs hardly more’n a child. Holding her like that, I creep back through the apartment to the top of the stairs. The flames have eaten up the first four steps now. The girl sees and goes stiff in my grip.
“We’ll die,” she wheezes. “We’ll die!”
“I’m not dying like this, girl,” I tell her. “So you might as well stop with that damn whining.”
I walk to the edge of the flames, take a small crouch, and then leap cleanly over them. I land with a punch to the gut and I reckon she gets a worse one, my shoulder jabbing into her belly, but then I’m running out into the alleyway with her. I place her on her feet and stumble against a wall, coughing as Meghan goes to her friend and makes sure she’s okay. Then I realize something else: my jacket! I dart back into the store, singe the hair on my goddamn forearms, and then come back out, shrugging my jacket on.
Then I gather us all down the street. The girl is looking at me oddly. She knows I know her, and she doesn’t want me to say anything.
I take Meghan by the arm.
“We’re going,” I tell her. “Your friend will have to find her own way home.”
“No—wait.”
“It’s okay,” the girl says. “Really.” She sounds grateful.
“Come on.” I drag Meghan down the street toward my bike.
She comes. I think she’s still in shock.
Chapter Six
Meghan
We ride through the night. At least I think we ride through the night. But I’m not here, on the back of his bike. I feel like I’m a million miles away, standing in an antiseptic bare white bathroom staring at myself in the mirror. I’m naked for some reason, and then I remember: the fire burned away all of my clothes. I might be on this man’s bike but that’s a different me, a faraway me. I’m someplace else. I’m safe.
And in this distant, strange place, I’m talking to myself.
“Jackson followed through with his hidden petty threat,” I whisper, staring at the frightened wraith in the mirror. “He said something bad would happen to the store, and it did. I should’ve known it was him.” The wraith in the mirror steps out and stands next to me. The mirror is empty and she is right there. “You should’ve known,” I tell her. “Our brother is not a good man. He’s never been a good man and he’ll never be a good man. It’s no wonder he did it; he can’t stand to be wrong. We know that, don’t we? We just forgot it.”
“What about you and that Dirk fellow?” the wraith asks. “You can say you hate him, that you’re pissed at Jackson for sending a jerk to your store, but we both know that when he kissed you, when he laid those big hands on you, you got wet.” The wraith giggles. “You got really, really wet, in fact.”
“Shut up.”
We turn a corner: in reality, the shocked me and the smoke-smelling Dirk.
“I won’t shut up,” the wraith says, “because it’s the truth. You can pretend to hate this man as much as you want, but I know, and you know, that you want him. You want him to handle you like that again. You want him to shove you up against the wall and take you. Yes, you do!”
I slowly return to myself as I realize where we are. Dirk pulls into the parking lot of a seedy-looking motel, the sort of place I wouldn’t be surprised to find is a refuge for sex workers and their clients. A few bits and pieces sit in the pool, slowly floating across it, and from one of the parking-lot-facing rooms, I hear a couple arguing. A lone child scuttles from one room to the other. A teenager walks into the parking lot, gets something from the vending machine, and then heads back to the street. It’s not the sort of place I want to stay, a place that’s always busy, a teeming place like an ant’s nest.
But Dirk takes me by the arm and leads me to the end of the building, inside a room with a bed and a TV and an adjoining bathroom. It wouldn’t be right to call it en-suite since it is attached to the room so bluntly, like it’s just been jammed on.
I sit on the edge of the bed, watching the door, calculating the distance between me and the door and Dirk and me.
He stands at the window, peering through the curtains. Dirk Dvorak is one of the fittest men I have ever seen. Even standing there in his Shattered Hearts leather I can see the muscles bulging through, and his legs are just the same. He is tallish, but not overly tall; he looks like he could spring into action any second. His dark brown hair is cut army-style, keeping his tight curls neat, and he has a well-trimmed goatee that gives him a devilish look. His eyes are dark too: a brown so dark they’re almost black in some lights.
“We’ll stay here tonight,” he says, “until I can get in contact with the boss and see what the next move is.”
“I don’t want to stay here,” I tell him, finally fully returning to myself. I remember the wraith oddly; I must’ve been really messed up. “I’d rather go to a hotel or a friend’s house.”
“Well, I’m sure you would.” He glances at me. There’s some kindness in his expression, but not enough. He won’t let me go. “But you haven’t really got a choice right now. My job is to protect you and that’s what I plan on doing.”
“Is that what you did back at the store? Protect me?”
“When I got you and your friend out of the fire? I reckon so.”
“No—before that.”
“You mean the kiss?” He laughs. “Don’t play games with me, Meghan. You enjoyed it just as much as me.”
“I didn’t!” I lie, wanting to hurt him. “It made me feel sick.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” he says, sitting in a chair next to the window. He leans back and closes his eyes. “If there’s one thing I know, Meghan, it’s when a woman wants it. And you wanted it back there.”
“You just keep telling yourself that.” I stand up and go for the door. “But I refuse to be kept prisoner.”
He leaps up and blocks my way. “I can’t let that happen, I’m afraid.”
“So you really are going to keep me prisoner here? Is that your grand plan? Are you serious?”
“Call it what you want,” he says. “You’r
e not leaving by that door or any other. I’m keeping you here just like the boss ordered me to.”
“Just like Jackson ordered you to, you mean.”
“Yeah—he’s the boss.”
“I can’t believe you follow Jackson,” I spit. Maybe insulting his standing in the club will get to him. I don’t know why—or maybe I do and I don’t want to admit it, even to myself—but I need to hurt him, to show him that I can get to him just as much as he can get to me. “You can’t act all hard and tough and then follow a man like Jackson. He used to cry at horror movies when we were little, cry like a baby. And even now, as a man, he’s not much of a man. I haven’t seen him in years but I’ve heard the whispers. Most of the men don’t even respect him, do they? And you follow him. He’s your boss.”
His eyes flicker for a moment. I think he might leap on me. But then he laughs, shaking his head. “No, no way,” he says. “That shit ain’t gonna work on me. I’ve tangled with terrorists overseas, little lady. Your D-grade interrogation tactics aren’t shit.” He points to the bed. “Are you going to sit down, or am I going to sit you down?”
An involuntary thrill runs through me at the thought of him sitting me down. I ignore it and go to the bed, sit on the end of it, and glare up at him. “You’re a bully,” I say. “That’s all you are. Just a big asshole bully. You might think you’re tough, but you’re not.”
“Sure.” He drags his chair closer to the door and sits opposite me. “And maybe in a little while this bully’ll take another kiss from you.”
I keep my face composed, but I can’t stop my cheeks from flushing or my heart from racing. “Don’t make me sick,” I whisper.
“Sick?” He laughs, staring at my breasts. “Is that why you’re breathing like you just came up for air, Meghan? Are you sick?”
“You’re a real piece of shit,” I say, turning away from him. “My home—my business—the place I spent years of my life building, making sure nobody could ever ruin it … it’s gone and all you can do is sit there and make snide comments.”
“I feel for you.” He looks at me sincerely. For a moment. His forehead creases and he lets out a sigh. “All I can do is try’n keep you safe, which is what I’m doing. Comforting you; all that emotional stuff, that just isn’t me, Meghan.”
“But perving on me is?” I toss the words at him.
“I wouldn’t phrase it quite like that,” he mutters. “I’m not perving on you. All right, let’s play a little game. Tell me to stop and I will. But be careful, because that means I’m stopping forever. I’ll never tell you what a sexy fuckin’ lady you are again. I’ll never tell you I wanna kiss you until it hurts, ever again. So go on. Tell me to stop.” He stares a challenge at me.
I will the words to my lips; try and force myself to say them. It should be easy. I don’t know him and he’s being extremely inappropriate. The last thing he should be talking about right now is how much he wants me; anything sexual should be far, far away. And yet the words will not come. The thrills that run through me each time he talks sexually to me won’t allow me to give him a definitive rejection.
I avert my gaze. “Whatever,” I say.
“I knew it.” He stands up and walks over to me. He does it slowly, swaggering, and then stands over me with a smile on his goateed lips. “I knew you liked it, Meghan.”
“No,” I whisper, but the way he’s standing … it’s so dominant. And right now it might feel good to just let myself go with it, to disappear into the madness of the moment and forget the greater madness of tonight. “No,” I repeat, but my voice is weaker.
He grabs me by the shoulders and basically wrenches me to my feet. Then he presses himself against me, his lips crushing into mine. I take the kiss this time, opening my mouth, allowing my body to do what it wants to do instead of fighting it. He grabs me hard, presses me closer, our tongues dancing and my moaning rising into the air. The moaning does not sound like mine. It’s too carefree, too musical. It’s the moan of somebody who’s completely letting go, and I never do that.
Scared by his effect on me, I pull away.
He grins, and his grin is like Satan’s: tempting and dangerous.
Then he grabs my hand and leads it to his pants. He runs my fingers along the outline of his cock, which is massive, at least ten inches, maybe more. It’s difficult to tell in the denim. But it’s rock-hard; that’s not difficult to tell. It bulges against my hand.
“See what you’re doing to me?” he growls.
I swallow. “Me?” I ask in an innocent voice. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Chapter Seven
Meghan
He laughs, but it’s not a ha-ha laugh. It’s more the laugh of a man who knows what he wants and is going to get it and is not going to let any stalling on my part stop him. All of that, in one laugh … and in those dark, dark eyes.
He keeps rubbing my hand up and down his cock. I feel myself getting wet at the touch of it. I just can’t believe how big it is, or how hard he is for me.
“You know exactly what I mean,” he says after a pause. “You’re the sexiest damn piece I’ve ever laid my eyes on, goddamn. Just looking at your face could make a man come.”
I blush deeply. I’m not used to talk like this. I’ve been with men before, but it’s always been tinged with a distant sense of shame, as though neither of us knew what we were supposed to be embarrassed about but were certain that we should be. Dirk is not like that. He stands with his legs apart, watching me like prey. And in his calm attitude I find myself returning his gaze bravely. But I am scared. He is intimidating. And this night has been full of terror.
“Okay …” I manage.
He leans forward, whispering directly into my ear. His breath caresses me, moving down my neck. “Do you want me to keep you safe tonight?” he says.
“Y-yes,” I whisper. “Of course.”
“Are you ready to work for your protection, Meghan, or do you expect a man to run into a fire and save a woman just for the hell of it?”
I lick my lips. He’s almost chewing on my ear now, he’s so close. And it feels incredible. The brazen closeness of it gets me most of all. I wonder how comfortable he’d feel in other places. If he’d ease me into that just as effortlessly as he’s easing me into this. “I—don’t know,” I mutter.
“You don’t know? Hell, let me ask you an easy question then. Do you want me to stay here, or do you want me to leave?”
“Stay here,” I answer at once. I imagine how tonight would have gone without Dirk there to charge into the flames, and then I shiver. Sissy would be dead. I might be dead, too, standing, shocked, in the middle of the store as the fires raged around me.
“Then you’re going to suck me off, right now. To make me stay.”
A strange thrill runs through me, half fear and half lust. I swallow. I fidget from one foot to the other. He’s not ashamed or embarrassed in the least, I see as he leans back and stares at me. He has a small smile on his lips and that same dark looks in his eyes. “Or I can leave,” he goes on, “and you can see how you handle this on your own.”
I decide to call his bluff. “Fine, I’ll leave.”
He takes a wide step aside, opening the area between me and the door. “Go ahead.” He yawns and waves a hand.
I walk toward the door, not believing that he’ll just let me walk out of here. But I’m at the door and he still hasn’t stopped me. I turn the handle, open it onto the night. Still, he hasn’t stopped me. I take a step forward so that I’m standing on the threshold, and that’s when he approaches me … but not from inside the building, from the outside. He steps up to me from the darkness of the night and boxes me back into the motel room, closing the door behind him.
“What the hell?” I look around the room. “How’d you do that?”
He shrugs. Grins. “A magician never tells, Meghan. Now get on your knees.”
The command, spoken so brusquely, frightens me. But it also makes me wetter than ever. My pussy is soak
ing and my clit aches and secretly I’m glad he pushed me back into the room. He paces over to me, puts his hand on my shoulder, and then applies a little bit of pressure. Just enough to tell me to fall to my knees, which I do, allowing him to lead me. My heart beats in my ears and my throat feels tight, and when he unbuckles his belt and brings his cock out, I can hardly breathe or hear.
It’s the biggest cock I have ever seen, a giant spear of a thing with veins running up both sides. It looks like it could explode, it’s so hard. He’s rock-solid for me. It hangs heavily, pointing forward but sagging toward the end under its impressive weight.
“Suck,” he commands.
I’m not even sure if I can fit my mouth around it, and I’m still not sure just how this situation came to be, but my body reacts before I do. I lean forward and take the cock in my mouth, as much of it as I can. I suck down to about halfway, which chokes me and makes me gag, but now my pussy is going really fucking crazy. It aches and twists and pulses through my body, sending urgent signals. I keep sucking.