“Kneel down!” The gun jerks from Anastasia’s face to in my direction within a few seconds, and she whimpers as she kneels down in front of the masked man. I feel bile starting to gather in my throat as I realize he might intend to rape her, and suddenly it’s as if I’m floating along on a sea of calm. My heartbeat slows and my breathing becomes even as I stare at those hazel eyes.
“If you touch her, I’ll make sure you never see the light of day again, motherfucker.” I’m not sure if it’s Tom’s voice or my own that emerges from my mouth, but hearing those words from someone who has been certified as crazy seems to shake the masked man a little. The gun twitches once, and then he takes a step back from Anastasia and reaches behind him.
From his waistband, he withdraws two plastic cuffs. So I’m needed beyond this point. First he puts his boot on Anastasia’s shoulder and pushes her down onto the ground. Then he straddles her waist and rolls her over beneath him. Her face is pale, and she’s as loose as a ragdoll. I don’t know where she’s gone, but Anastasia is not with me anymore. I can see that when her glassy eyes stare straight ahead as she’s cuffed.
Next is a blindfold from his back pocket. I wonder why he’s blindfolding her. It’s not as though he’s going to get us out of here without someone seeing, right? I hold onto the hope that someone will see him escorting one of us to his car, and the police will be called. Or he’ll screw up, and I’ll have the opportunity to get my hands around his throat. But right now, I’m no use to Anastasia dead.
He tosses the plastic cuffs to me and instructs me to put them on from the front. I use my teeth to tighten the plastic cuffs, but try to leave enough room that I might get my hands free later.
“Tighter!” He takes a step towards me, and I give him my best ‘I’m crazy’ smile as I hold my wrists out to him.
“Why don’t you come do it?” I ask him innocently as I prepare myself to tear my wrists free as soon as he gets close enough.
“Do you think I’m fucking stupid? Pull them tighter!” Frustrated, I do as he says. I can tell he hasn’t thought this through very well. I still have full use of my arms, which means when he gets close enough to blindfold me I’ll be able to retaliate. I feel the smirk tugging at my lips, and wonder just how he’s going to finagle this one.
With the gun pressed to my temple, he manages to get the blindfold around my head without losing his grip on the weapon. I close my eyes as the cloth comes over my vision, and take in a deep breath. I hold it, waiting for him to slip. But he must have practiced this, or we’re not his first victims.
Now that I’m sufficiently blindfolded and cuffed without too much of a struggle, the man pushes me off the stool. I was waiting for the gesture, and land on my feet with only one stumbled step forward. Anastasia’s breathing is loud and labored nearby, but I can’t reach out to feel her. I hear the deadbolt unlock, and then the door closes.
I’m pretty sure we’re alone, but I don’t say a word in case we’re not. This man knows I care for her, and therefore, he will use that against me. The door opens and closes again, and the sound of shoes scraping across the floor meets my ears. His breathing is labored, so I assume he’s under a lot of stress. I hear Anastasia squeak, and then her sounds are muffled. Then there is something being put into my mouth and tied around my head a second time.
Once we get to his destination, I’ll overpower him and take him out. Whether that means I’m going to get shot or not, doesn’t bother me anymore. I should have tried something before this moment. Damn right you should have. Tom whispers in the back of my mind. Now is not the time. I respond.
I hear the door open and close again, and this time I’m not able to hear the ragged breathing of Anastasia in the room. It takes a few minutes, and during those minutes I try my hardest to get the plastic cuffs off so that I can ambush him when he comes back in. But my twisting and cussing is fruitless.
“They don’t look very strong, but they’re pretty good.” My cussing stops midstream when I hear him talk, and I realize that he probably never left the room. There is someone else working with him.
Strong hands pull me up by the shoulders, and by the feel of them they’re larger than the first guy who came in. I’m pushed out the door of the suite and led down the steps like an invalid. Then I’m put into a trunk next to a warm body, and I realize it’s Anastasia. She attempts to say something, but I can’t understand her around the gag. I roll over so that I’m almost spooning her and try to pull the plastic cuffs free.
My hands feel almost raw by the time I get the cheap, plastic handcuffs to pull loose on one wrist. Her arms immediately pull towards her front, and she removes my blindfold and the gag first. Then she starts to work on my cuffs, but her hands are too weak from the lack of circulation. I stop her as the car slows down, and our breaths mingle as our noses touch. Neither one of us can see in the dark trunk.
“Listen,” She’s still trying to get the cuffs off. “Anastasia, I want you to curl up along the back of the trunk. I’m going to lie in front of you, and when they open up the trunk I’m going to try to overpower them. If you can, I want you to run.” I hear her draw in a deep breath to protest, and lift my hands up to put a finger to her lips.
“Just run, and get help. I’ll hold them off as long as possible. They won’t kill me because they’ll need a hostage or I can tell them I know where this tape is at.” I’m lying through my teeth to her right now. I think we both know that if she gets away, I’m dead. But she nods against my fingers anyway.
I open up my hands and find her cheeks with my fingers. Wetness trails down over them, and I bring her face to mine. First our noses touch as the car begins to move again, and then I find her lips with mine. This time is not like the incident in the farmhouse. I taste her slowly, and then she opens her mouth for me and all I have is the scent of her skin and the feel of her lips on mine.
Minutes pass by as we explore each other, and then the car comes to a complete stop. The engine cuts off, and I push away from her violently, and shove her into the back of the trunk, furthest from the opening. I use my entire body to shield her, and wait patiently for someone to pop it open. It’s an old car because our assailant uses a key to open up the trunk.
The first thing that hits me is the light, and then the smell. We’re near a forest, and judging by the amount of time it took to get here, we’re not that far out of town. I can still taste Anastasia’s kiss on my lips, and that is what fuels me to kick out my feet first. My sneaker makes contact with the smaller assailant’s face and sends him flying back to the ground. His hands immediately go up to his nose as blood begins to spurt out, but it’s not enough to have him down for long.
The second assailant, the large one, grabs me by the hair and hauls me out of the trunk with the gun shoved into my face. I stare at the hazel eyes, and realize that these are not the ones she saw the first time she was kidnapped. They’re darker, more like green than hazel. And I recognize them.
“Henry Cooper,” I spit out as a distraction. It’s not until I hear Anastasia’s shoes pounding on the dirt road that I realize she’s made it. My heart soars as I begin to laugh, and then I hear the sound of a gunshot. For a moment, I believe that the burly one has shot me between the eyes, but when I don’t lose my vision my heart sinks.
Her scream enrages me, and I ball up my hands into fists as I try to punch my way out of Henry’s grasp. His grunt of pain notifies me that I hit him somewhere delicate, and I bring up my knee in an attempt to get a better shot. Another gunshot goes off, and this time Henry roars in my face as he spins me around. Anastasia is nowhere in sight, and what must be Benjamin Cooper is lying on the ground.
His chest jerks once as blood starts to gurgle from between his lips, and then his eyes open wide as he stills. It was a precise kill shot that took him down, and I look to the tree line at the back of the farmhouse to see who fired the gunshots. It seems fitting that the Coopers will die here. With that thought, I bring my foot up and try to slam free of Hen
ry, but he tumbles to the ground with me.
“I can’t get a clear shot!” I hear someone screaming, and then I hear Anastasia begin to yell.
“Then don’t shoot! Don’t shoot for God’s sake!” But the gunfire ricochets off the house above us. She must have diverted the person who was shooting’s arm.
I get in a few good hits to Henry’s face, and the gun falls out of his fingers. Scrambling to pick it up, I start to yell. “He’s unarmed!” Over and over again I yell it, and finally someone is pulling me off Henry’s body and yanking me to my feet.
Blindly, I swing at the third person with my hands balled up. But Chief Robertson grabs my wrists before I can make contact with his face and stares me down. My breaths are coming fast, and my mind is blank for the first time in my life. I’m operating on survival mode.
“Jonah, it’s alright. Anastasia’s fine, and we have Henry in custody. Ben’s dead. Why don’t you come with me and we can get your statement at the station?” I know that voice. It’s the one that the nurses would use at the psych ward when they were afraid I was on the verge of snapping. They were right, and so is Chief Robertson. I’m about to snap.
“Jonah?” Her voice is like a cool summer’s rain on a hot, muggy day. It releases me from the haze of murderous rage and washes over me. I let that tenderness fill me until I’m sure that I won’t turn on whoever touches me next. Thankfully, it’s her cool fingertips on my face as she turns my head.
“Are you okay? Did he hurt you? Why aren’t getting the cuffs off him?” Her voice rises with each question, and I feel a smile tugging at my lips. The Chief holds up his hands in surrender and calls for someone to get some wire cutters. As soon as he’s a few feet from me, I turn my full attention to Anastasia.
“I’m fine, are you alright? No bullet wounds?” I know I have a smile on my face because I’ve already glanced over her to make sure that she’s okay. She nods, and before I can ask her anything else an officer taps me on the shoulder gently. I let the woman cut off the cuffs, and rub at the raw, sore spots.
“Do either of you need an ambulance?” I look myself over once.
“No, I’m fine.” We both say at the same time. My hand snakes out to take hers, and we make our way to a squad car. I want to get this done and over with. After this is all settled, I think I’m going to ask this woman out on a date.
* * *
“God, I feel like someone shoved a camera up my ass to look for polyps while they were questioning me.” I rub my behind to make my point, and her laughter tinkles through the room of the suite. I haven’t brought up the fact that we should return to the farmhouse soon and fix it up so that it’s livable. I’m not sure if she wants to stay here now that everything has been finished, and I don’t want to hear her tell me that she’s not yet.
“I know, but thank God they were there when they were. We’d both probably be dead if not for them.” I sling an arm around her shoulders and pull her close just to confirm that she’s really beside me. Her stool teeters and I release her, but my hand slides down to rest on her thigh.
“I wouldn’t have let you die. I promise.” She’s about to say something, but someone knocks on the door. This time, I hop off my own stool to head for it. I have to unlock the door knob, the deadbolt, and the chain lock before I can open up the door to see who is at it. But before I swing it open, I look out the peephole to make sure that it’s the pizza delivery kid.
“Mr. Quinton!” He says hurriedly as he hands over my pizza. “Is it true that you singlehandedly took out three guys with guns?” His eyes are alight with his excitement, and I wonder what other rumors have been flying through the town only four hours after the incident.
“No, I barely took out one.” He looks disappointed, but I’m not here to please the rumor mill. I hand the kid his cash and a little extra, and close the door before he can ask me any more questions.
“This is going to be a mess for a while.” Anastasia mumbles as I set the goods on the counter. Tonight, I grab us both glasses and plates. For the next fifteen minutes, not one of us speaks as we dig into the greasy pizza, cheese fries, and the appetizer sampler I ordered. I wait until she is sipping on her water to ask my question.
“Hey, now that we’re not on the run from psychopaths anymore, I was wondering if you’d want to see a movie with me.” At first I think she might not answer me, and then I see the twinkle in her eyes and see her swallow her water. Maybe I should have chosen a better moment.
“What movie?” The way she asks it makes it sound as if my decision on the movie will determine her decision to go with me. I think about for half a second before I see what this is.
“Any movie you’d like to see.” I tell her with a wicked grin. Anastasia chuckles and pops a fry into her mouth. I don’t know if it’s to make me feel the suspense or if she’s trying to make up her mind. I’m starting to get sweaty palms.
“Alright, I want to see a sappy romance where the guy gets the girl.”
“Done.” As we’re cleaning up dinner, her hip brushes me here and there in the small kitchenette. I feel her arm brush across mine as she’s putting away the chips. Each time we make contact, her body flushes in that spot and her cheeks become rosier. As she’s putting away her half drained bottle of water, I reach in behind her to put mine away.
Just the barest of touches makes her warm, and she turns around while my hand is on the fridge handle and the other is against the counter. I can feel her hot breath across my neck, and try to remind myself that we haven’t gone on the actual date yet. But her next words seem to erase my reasoning.
“Do you think we could just skip the date, and go right for the goodnight kiss?” I pull away about two inches, which feels too far and look down to see if she’s serious. I don’t think a person could look more serious than this.
“I guess we could, but what if I don’t want it to be goodnight?” Anastasia reads directly through my words to the meaning, and I feel the air between us growing warmer. I can tell she doesn’t know where to put her hands, so I pull mine away from their positions and take hers.
She lets me pull her up onto her tiptoes as I wrap her arms around my neck, and I give her a goodnight kiss she’s sure to never forget. It doesn’t start out chaste like in the trunk. This one is just like the time we were in the farmhouse, and I mean to take advantage of the entire situation. Tom doesn’t interject into my thoughts anymore, not even when I was in the trunk. The medication appears to be working.
Having her arms around my neck is not enough, so I put my hands on her waist and pull her up so that she’s plastered against the shelves of the open fridge. It’s not until the alarm starts to go off that I realize where we’re at and what we’re doing. Anastasia ignores the sound, but it’s ruining my vibe. So I pull her away and close the door with my foot and lift her up onto the kitchenette countertop.
Automatically, her legs are wrapping around my middle as I pull her to me. I tear away from her lips to explore her neck, pulling her head back with my hand in her hair. The other hand is busily trying to unsnap her bra under her shirt. The damn things are much trickier when I’m distracted.
The material finally loosens, and she almost protests when I start to pull off her shirt. It’s not because of the fact that she’s on the countertop. She’s protesting because I’m going to see all of her if I have my way, and that means I’ll see all the scars right along with the flawless flesh. I pull away far enough that I can look into her eyes, and slide my hand up under the front of her shirt.
“You’re more beautiful to me than anything on this planet.” She still looks unsure, and gasps when my hand finally palms her breast. Despite the way her eyes read hesitation, I can feel the evidence of her want against my palm.
“You haven’t seen the worst yet.” She warns me in a quiet voice. I let my other hand fall away from her hair and remove the one from her chest. Her breath catches in her throat when I pull the shirt up over her head. Next is her bra, and they both hit t
he kitchen floor.
“You’ll let me know if I’m going too far?” I don’t look at her, not yet. I couldn’t stomach looking at her before me, wanting if she says that this is too far. Please God don’t say it’s too far.
“You won’t.” I’m not sure what that means in this moment, but I take it as an affirmative to keep going. So I grip my hand in her hair again like I thought of the first time I saw her, and I take her mouth with mine gently at first. I’m trying to gauge her reaction to see if this is too far for her, but it’s obviously not. So I push her back so that she’s leaning with her hands behind her, and then I explore her neck.
I wait until she’s breathing quickly and her skin is hot to the touch before I run my hands over her breasts again. The peaks of her nipples brush against my flesh, and then she’s sitting up. I’m afraid she’s going to tell me that this is far enough, but she’s reaching down to pull my shirt off. It hits the floor with her clothes, and I decide this is going to move to the bedroom.
“Oh!” She laughs when I pull her back to me and put my hands on her bottom, gripping her tight. I’m sure that she can feel how badly I want her right now, and I like the way she involuntarily moves against me as I carry her back to my room.
I pay attention to her breasts, ignoring the scars running across them and down her stomach. Some of them are deep and look as if they were extremely painful when they were self-inflicted, but I’m paying more attention to the fact that she’s starting to wriggle under my touch. Her back arches when I take her nipple into my mouth and suckle hard.
“Jonah,” She says, but it’s not to get me to stop. Her hands are trying to unbutton my jeans, but I pull them away and hold them above her head. When I look down into her eyes, I see complete trust staring back at me. When I kiss her again, tenderly, it’s to erase everything that was ever done to her at the hands of another.
I admit, when I shimmy off her jeans and her underwear, I pause long enough that she looks unsure. A person really must hate themselves to cut their inner thighs. I run my nose over the silky flesh and then my tongue. Enjoying the teasing, I slip my hands up to brush across her scarred breasts again. I’ll never let her hurt herself as she did again. Not in a million years.
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