by Marni Mann
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 breathing.
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?”
“Get your mind off what you’re fearing and concentrate on what I’m asking you.”
“Yes,” I panted. “I’ve been to Vegas.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“It was fun.” The pounding in my chest started to subside. “Lots of lights and noise. The food was delicious.”
“You’ve become a foodie now? I could barely get you to eat anything, other than powdered doughnuts and bacon cheeseburgers when we were kids.”
I laughed at the memory. “I like food. Probably a little too much.” I stopped rocking and took some deep breaths. My hands were no longer shaking. “Do you like your life there?”
“I work. A lot.”
“Do you date?” The question came out before I could stop it.
“I wouldn’t call it dating.”
I wasn’t going to ask him to elaborate. I understood perfectly what he meant by that.
“What about you, Kyle?” He moved over to the sink and squirted some toothpaste over his finger, brushing his teeth, while he stared at me.
“I doubt my life in Tampa is even close to as interesting as your life in Vegas.”
“I meant, do you date?” he spoke through the side of his mouth and spit when he was done.
“I go on dates. They don’t turn into anything, but I go on them.”
“Too picky?”
I wanted to laugh at his question, but in all actuality, it wasn’t really funny. Maybe I was too picky. It didn’t seem like the case when I drove myself home at the end of each date. It was more like none of them made me feel anything. We lacked chemistry. If there was a slight physical connection, which we pursued, I’d quickly learn that our personalities clashed.
Maybe in some strange way, I’d been comparing them all to Garin.
“Not compatible is a better way to put it,” I said.
“So, you live in Tampa. You go out on dates. You work. You work out, obviously. You like food. What else do you do, Kyle?”
I held a secret that should have been spoken from my lips many years ago. Instead, I kept it inside, allowing it to fester and morph into so many different emotions that it caused panic attacks.
“I have a small group of friends I hang out with,” I said, trying to hide any trace of those thoughts from my voice. “I read. I decorate my house and think I may like it, and then I decide I don’t and redo it all over again.”
“You’re not happy.”
My mouth opened and immediately closed.
I couldn’t lie. He’d see right through it.
“There are some things missing from my life.” Some things that were controlled too tightly. “But I’m not unhappy. I just can’t say I’m completely satisfied.”
“What would you change?”
I couldn’t be completely honest with him, which was making this conversation harder than I thought.
“I wanted college, and I got it. I wanted to be able to turn my art into a business, and I got that, too. I wouldn’t change any of that.”
“But you’d add in love. That’s what you’re missing.”
His eyes were a darker green today, maybe picking up some of the brown from the floor or the gray from the blanket. I felt them inside my soul.
I slowly nodded. “Yes.” I took a breath, surprised by how easy the air passed through my lungs. “What about you? Are you happy?”
“I’m happy enough.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve accepted the way my life is, the amount of work that’s involved, the people I have to report to. It will be that way until I grow tired of it all, or I get killed.”
I tucked my knees against my chest and held them there. “You say it so easily, like you’re talking about someone else’s death and not your own.”
“Because it is that easy. I knew what I was signing up for when I went into business with Mario. I suspect you knew the same.”
He was talking about my career and opening my shop, but there was so much he didn’t know.
It wasn’t the path I’d chosen.
It was the path that was chosen for me.
And, now, after all the time I’d put in, all the sacrifices I’d made, I didn’t expect forgiveness. I didn’t expect redemption. I sure as hell didn’t expect a fairy tale. But, when I looked around the cell, this wasn’t what I expected at all.
“It’s not that easy for me,” I said.
“That might change when you get out of here.”
I had been staring at the trays that Beard had set on the ground. Several orange slices, four grapes, and a heaping pile of what looked like yogurt sat on each.
I wasn’t hungry.
I finally looked up at him. “You mean, if we get out.”
You’ll get out of here, Kyle.
Beard delivered another blanket a little while later—only one though and still no toothbrushes or towels or anything to drink. I’d held my breath the whole time he was in our cell, waiting to be plucked out or grabbed or hurt in some way. It didn’t happen. He just tossed the blanket inside, grunted, and left. I tried shouting out a question, hoping that while he was still inside our cell he would at least give me something. But he didn’t. He ignored me and slammed the door shut.
All of this was so strange.
But we now had two blankets, and we’d eaten three meals today. Whoever prepared our food somehow managed to make yogurt taste like cottage cheese and beef taste like fish. And all of it left a terrible aftertaste of plastic. It didn’t matter how much toothpaste I smeared across my teeth, I couldn’t get rid of that flavor.
I stood at the sink, finishing my evening routine of washing down my body, but this time, I stripped off my tank and hung it over the back of the toilet. I left my bra on as I soaped under my arms, across the tops of my breasts, and over my stomach.
“I know you’re watching me,” I said, keeping my eyes on my hands.
“I am.”
I finally glanced in his direction. “There are three other walls, a floor, and a ceiling.”
“I don’t want to look at them, Kyle. I want to look at you.”
It wasn’t just what he had said; it was the way he had said it. The sound of his need. The roughness in his voice. It was deep enough to make me shiver. Sexy enough to make his words flutter underneath my bra and between my legs.
I looked away, knowing my reaction was showing on my face, and reached for the button and zipper on my pants. Things hadn’t progressed with us physically, but I still wanted to be clean. So, I laid my pants over my tank top, dropped my panties into the sink, and squirted more soap on my hands.
As I used my palms to scrub, I felt the heat from his stare start to scorch my skin. I expected nothing less. I was only wearing a bra. The side view he was getting was more of my body than he’d ever seen.
I wasn’t aiming to tease him—although I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying it. He didn’t even have to say anything or make any kind of sound at all. I could feel his response in the air.
It was turning me on.
Once each area of my body had been lathered at least twice, the suds completely washed off, I waited for the droplets to stop falling before I grabbed my tank to get dressed again.
“Don’t put it on.”
I looked across my shoulder at him. “I’m practically naked, Garin.”
“That’s the way I want you.”
I had never seen such hunger in a man’s eyes before.
“Come here,” he said.
“But—”
“Come here.” His voice had deepened even more. “Bring your clothes with you.”
It was as if he could sense my worry that Beard may walk in again at any minute and see me standing here, naked. Leaving my panties by the sink to dry, I lifted the tank top and pants and moved over to him.
As I sat down, he stood.
“Cover yourself with that blanket.” He pointed at the one on the ground that he’d folded in half. “I just need a minute.”
While he turned on the water, I climbed beneath the fold and propped myself up on my elbow, so I could watch him. He’d already taken off his shirt and pants, and he was wearing only his boxer briefs. There was something incredibly sexy about watching a man rub suds all over his skin, the way they slowly trickled down his sides, mixing with his tanned flesh and dark hair. His hands moved so fluidly, so confidently.
I wanted those hands on me.
His boxer briefs fell to the ground, and my heart started pounding so hard that I could feel it in my throat. The side angle gave me enough of a view to see the length of his cock, the thickness of it as it laid against his sack. I squeezed my thighs together, needing the heat and friction to satiate the throbbing inside my pussy.
But there was no relief. Just more tingling as my body starved to have him inside me.
A sigh gradually poured from my lips.
Garin looked at me. “Getting impatient?”
I felt my face flush. “No. I—”
“Want me.”
Was I that obvious? Did that mean he finally felt the desire in me and would give me that kiss I wanted?
He carried his clothes over and dropped them on the floor on top of mine. I slid forward under the blanket, so he would have enough room to move in behind me. And he did, sending me a rush of air filled with his scent, and his skin pressed against mine, making me even hotter than I already was.
Kyle.
I tried not to moan as he breathed into the back of my neck. His breath trickled lower and lower, my bare flesh covered in goose bumps.
“You’re wiggling.”
I finally felt his lips. They were pressed between my shoulder blades.
“Every time you wiggle, you grind your ass against my dick.”
“I can’t…help it.”
“You’re making it difficult to take things slowly.”
His words vibrated across my skin, causing my hips to buck forward and back.
“Jesus, Kyle.”
Slow was my past. Slow wasn’t what I wanted anymore. He had to know that. He had to feel it. He had to be able to put all of this in the back of his mind—the painfully hard floor, the dirt and rust, the fact that we were prisoned—and just focus on what was happening between us in this moment.
“Touch me,” I begged.
His hand spread over my navel, gently running up my side and down my thigh.
Kyle.
“Garin…”
“That was the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m trying to be quiet, but”—I gasped as he moved around my arm and squeezed my nipple—“it feels too good.”
His teeth grazed the outside of my ear as he pinched harder, the tip of his cock rubbing between my ass cheeks. Something had changed in him. The hunger, the starvation, the need that pulsed through me, I now felt in him, too. But it was stronger, more powerful, than I’d ever felt from a man before.
“We’re surrounded by cement walls and steel bars, so no one can
hear you,” he hissed. “Show me how long you’ve wanted this.”
He was still pinching my nipples, still pushing the head of his hard cock into my cheeks, still nibbling the outside of my ear, and I was overwhelmed with how good it all felt. Moans—that was all my mouth could produce. They came out with every breath. It only took a few breaths before his hand moved down to my pussy.
Kyle.
“Garin, this is—”
“What you need. What we both need.”
He slid between my lips and gently rubbed my clit. I didn’t expect it to feel this good. He was only using his finger, nothing else. But those expert hands knew just how to touch me, how to bring the most intense sensations to the surface.
And they were there…already so close.
His middle finger wandered down through my wetness and into my hole.
“Yes,” I moaned.
Kyle.
Long, deep shuddering breaths came through my mouth while he added a second finger inside me.
I reached for his hair and used it to pull his face even closer to my neck. “Give me more of you, Garin.”
When I felt his teeth, I tugged harder. They were biting the bottom of my earlobe. Just when it felt like he was going to tear through my flesh, he licked it, soothing it with his tongue.
Stop fighting it.
“Give me what I want first.”
“What”—I panted—“do you want?”
“I want your pussy squeezing my fucking fingers as you come on them, and I want your body shaking so hard from it that your ass pinches the tip of my dick.”
I was there before he had even requested it.
But the build had already passed. I was at the peak now, holding on to the pleasure, trying to control it from leaving my body. I wanted to stay at the top. I wanted to wrap myself in this feeling of bliss and warmth and euphoria because I didn’t know if I’d ever feel it again.
What if things inside this prison were about to become unbearable? What if Garin was about to be taken from me?
I didn’t want to lose him.
I didn’t want to lose this.
I didn’t want to lose us again.
“Come for me, Kyle.”