Struck Down

by Penelope L'Amoreaux

  My heart was soaring. I didn’t know how he had found me. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he had come for me. He was going to take me away from his awful family.

  Isaac scrambled to untie me. He took every opportunity he could to hurt me; pulling too tight on the ropes before loosening them, “accidentally” stepping on my fingers, digging his fingernails into my skin and gouging out chunks. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t hurt me anymore. Not really. Not now that Grif was here.

  He came for me.

  When I was fully untied I yanked the cloth from my mouth and stood.

  There he was. His face pale, the gun shaking in one hand, machete in the other. Grif looked ready to throw up. I could hear his labored breathing and oh god, I realized he was having a full blown panic attack.

  His eyes never left his father’s, though.

  “Renee, come here.” His voice cracked. He was barely holding it together. I ran to him, resisting the urge to fling myself in his arms.

  “Please, take the gun.” My hands reached out and grabbed it from him.

  I’d never hurt another person in my life. Never bullied anyone. Never got in a fight. Never hit someone. Nothing. I had never understood the need. Until now.

  Now I had his gun in my hands and I looked at the two men who would have hurt me. Raped me. Burned and mutilated me. My finger started to close on the trigger, but I felt Grif’s hand on my back.

  “Don’t. Not unless they move.”

  “Why not?”

  His voice broke. “Because they’re family. Even now, after all of this, they’re family.”

  I felt a hand on my cheek. It was tender and starting to swell from where Isaac had hit me. “Which one did this to you?”

  “Your brother.”

  I kept my eyes on Herman and Isaac, but I could feel Grif’s rage beside me.

  “Isaac, you lose a hand for this.”

  Isaac went white as a sheet. “You can’t be serious, Grif.”

  “Put it on the table.”

  “Grif, no--”

  “You touched her. You’ve damaged her. Look at her face.”

  Isaac stopped pleading. He grew stony instead. “She deserved it. You know that. You know how the training goes.”

  “Oh, I do… I do. Put out your hand.”

  “No.”

  “Put it out on the table or I will have her shoot you .”

  I swung the gun toward Isaac. Some part of me hoped that he refused and gave me permission to blow him away. My legs closed more, remembering his attempted invasion.

  Isaac’s hand, shaking badly, went out and rested in the table.

  Grif moved quickly, clamping one of his hands down onto his brother’s forearm, holding it still. The machete in his other hand arced up and came slamming down on Isaac’s wrist. The hand thunked when it hit the floor.

  Isaac’s screams as he clutched his bleeding stump to his chest were so loud, so agonizing that I could taste them.

  They tasted good.

  “Isaac!” A woman’s voice rang out, slicing through my blood lust.

  “Mother,” Griff gasped. It was hard to keep my eye on Isaac and his father, knowing Grif would agonize over seeing his mother.

  “Grif, what have you done to him?” His mother cried out.

  “Only what he deserved.” Grif came back over to me and laid a protective arm over my bare shoulders.

  Grif’s mother ran to Isaac, trying to comfort him. Isaac screamed. “Don’t touch me, you stupid cunt.”

  She shrank back from him, her hands still longingly stretched out, wanting to aid her son. I couldn’t believe my eyes. After Grif’s stories, she should be rejoicing. Isaac now had one less hand to hit her with.

  “Mom,” Grif pleaded. “We’re leaving now. Come with us.”

  His father hissed, eyes fiery with rage. “Don’t you dare, Mara.”

  My eyes drank in the scene like a dream. Shock was hitting my body. I could feel it in the way my muscles were shaking and my mind was becoming foggy. Grif’s mom looked back and forth between son and father. She cowered, faced with an decision that should have been easy. She should have come running to us.

  She went and knelt at his father’s feet. The malicious grin that spread across Herman’s face made my stomach threaten to heave. I knew, then, that she would pay for that decision. She chose to stay, like he had trained her to, and he would punish her for it. Maybe even kill her, just to spite Grif.

  “Let’s go,” Grif mumbled, his shoulders slumping. He had rescued me, but we were carrying each other out, deeply bruised inside and out.

  “Grif,” his father warned as we turned to leave. “This isn’t over. I said you were dead to the family. This kind of provocation won’t go unanswered, though. An eye for an eye.”

  Grif whipped back, pointing. My finger began to itch on the shotgun. His father wasn’t making a threat; he was promising to retaliate. The ferocity that welled in me threatened to burst forth in two pump-shots to Herman’s guts. If Grif hadn’t kept his hand, calm and steady, on me, I would have done it.

  “You,” he growled. “You took my woman. You hurt her. You were going to burn her. You are lucky I’m not leaving you and this house in ashes. We are even. We are through. If I ever see you again, I will stop at nothing to end you.”

  With that, we left. I kept checking over my shoulder, afraid of seeing Grif’s father rush out after us.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Grif opened the door to his car and helped me in, reaching over to buckle me in tightly. He ran to the driver’s side and soon we were peeling out of the driveway.

  As soon as the lights from the church disappeared in the rearview I released a deep exhale of relief. My body, strung tight, began to loosen. Just a bit, though. I could feel the tension rolling off Grif next to me.

  “Grif--”

  “Don’t talk.”

  The car swerved a little; we were going so fast I heard the tires struggle to find purchase. After a fishtail that left me biting my tongue to keep from screaming, Grif slowed down and yanked the car to the side of the road.

  Then I saw what was really happening. His shoulders were shaking violently. His breathing was rapid and it sounded as if he was wheezing a bit. He began to shrink into himself, his eyes darting around.

  The gravity of what he had done hit me. He had left his home for me. Defied his father and mutilated his brother for me. Watched his mother refuse his help and then left her.

  Now everything was hitting him.

  I unbuckled my seatbelt and lunged across the seat, wrapping my arms tightly around him. He tried to shake me off, but I wouldn’t let him. I locked my fingers together, squeezing, trying to make his world smaller. Contained. Sheltered in me.

  “Shhhhh,” I whispered into his hair.

  “She stayed with him,” he choked out.

  “You came for me.”

  He didn’t respond. Slowly, his breathing returned to normal. The shaking disappeared. Instead, his hands gripped the steering wheel tightly as he collected himself.

  In an instant, he broke from my arms and pulled me to him, his mouth crushing mine. His tongue pushed into my mouth, commanding me. I moaned and fell into him, my body compliant. His hand went between my legs, stroking me where his father had planned on maiming me.

  My body was already wet for him. Always for him.

  Grif pulled his hand away, leaving me aching.

  “It’s not enough,” he growled as he suddenly left the car, leaving his door open. He rushed around, opening my door and yanking me out. Grif jerked me to the hood, still hot from the drive, and pushed me face first on to it. The metal stung my skin, close to the point of burning. I felt the same fear I had felt when I saw the hot poker closing in on my clit in the cabin.

  “I’m not him,” Grif said behind me, reassuring me.

  No, he wasn’t his father. I heard him take his belt off. My nipples tightened in anticipation. Instead of whipping me, though, his hand g
ripped my jaw, opening my mouth. The leather slid between my teeth, over my tongue. I gagged a little as he pulled on it, jerking my head up. My hands braced on the hood, my breasts swinging as my back arched.

  He was using the belt as reigns.

  He plunged into me, no warning. It wouldn’t have mattered, I was so wet.

  Grif held the belt, pistoning into me. I grunted, the leather biting into the sides of my mouth, my eyes wide and rolling as he plowed into me.

  “I. am. not. him.” He punctuated each word with a hard thrust, slamming my body into the hood, making my neck ache with the resistance against the belt.

  The pressure was building in me, swirling in my stomach, its delicious tendrils snaking their way through my limbs. I was close.

  “Hmghhh,” I grunted against the leather, needing the release.

  Grif withdrew, denying me. I groaned in frustration and he spanked me, hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. His hand kept wailing on my backside, slap after brutal slap. I could feel the rage building in him as he hit me.

  The heated burn of my cheeks became too much, and I began to shift my hips, wincing and trying to avoid his punishing hand.

  “Fuck you,” he moaned, pressing one hand on my lower back, hard, holding me still while his other hand continued to rain blows on me. I knew I would bruise from the intensity of his hits. Tears were streaming down my face. I wanted it to stop. I never wanted it to stop. My clit throbbed with each strike.

  I squeezed my legs together, trying to relieve the pressure. I was so wet my thighs slid together, drenched in my arousal.

  As he hit me, I felt that same runner’s high happening. The pain encompassed me. It removed me from his parent’s cabin. It took me away from the memory of Isaac on top of me, trying to rape me. I let go of the hurt I realized I felt when Grif had sent me away. All there was this moment. The heat from the hood of his car. The heat from his hand. Me. Him.

  I came, an explosion, my body heaving in shakes and trembles, my voice ringing through the mountains.

  His hand stilled.

  “Did you just come?”

  Still riding the waves of my orgasm, I nodded.

  “Shit,” he groaned.

  His fingers found my core again, pushing into my swollen slit. I cried out, too sensitive still. Smearing my juices on his fingers, Grif moved them and started to spread my arousal on my pucker.

  I had never been taken back there.

  His fingers pushed in and I tensed up.

  “Relax,” he commanded. Oh, but I was trained to him, my body relaxing for him before I could think about it.

  Relentless, his fingers pushed further in, stretching me. I felt full in a way I never had.

  He pulled his fingers out and I felt him replace them with the thick head of his cock. I couldn’t imagine how he was going to fit. Grif planned on taking me in every way, though. I could tell by his determined grunts as he began to push in.

  My body opened for him, relaxing and spreading as he possessed me, inch by inch. When he was fully sheathed, he stopped.

  I waited, anticipating, drinking in the moment. It was night out. The stars were brilliant above us. The smells and sounds of the forest surrounded us, comforting to me, so familiar after my time on the trail. It was serene. It didn’t matter than any moment a car would drive past, seeing my naked form curved over a sports car, a man balls deep in my ass. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know what he was thinking. Grif could fuck me and dump me the next day.

  All that mattered was how I felt, my body warm from the car and so, so full of him.

  He began to pull out, agonizingly slow, leaving me feeling bereft, empty as he left. I whimpered in protest and heard Grif gasp.

  He thrust back in, hard, slamming me into the hood. I cried out at the invasion, at the fullness. Again and again he would draw out, leaving me wanting, only to slam back into me hard enough to rock the car.

  Grif began to pick up the pace, pistoning in and out, using me hard. His hard cock stretched me, making me feel split in two.

  His hand reached under, grabbing my breast and squeezing viciously. I screamed out but my body was still burning, responding to his touch. God, he didn’t even have to touch my clit for me to come anymore. The thought was frightening. Thrilling.

  Grif gripped a nipple between his fingers, twisting until I cried out, my body writhing and clamping down on him as he maintained his punishing pace.

  His other hand reached up, around to grab my throat. His fingers, the same fingers that could bring me to orgasm again and again, clamped down around the delicate skin there.

  I mewled, needing him, until those fingers closed, cutting off my air. My eyes went wide. I reached behind me, slapping at him. I twisted, trying to throw him off me.

  Grif groaned into the night and began to fuck me harder, faster, his fingers tightening more, painfully digging into my throat. I couldn’t breathe.

  My lungs burned and the more I flailed, the tighter he held me to him, the deeper he pushed inside of me. I was beginning to feel weak, black spots dotting my vision.

  He had told me he had held back with me.

  I had no idea how much until now.

  I realized as my world began to get fuzzy, that Grif truly struggled with the urge to hurt me. Really hurt me, like his father and Isaac had hurt his mother.

  Now I had a hint of why she had stayed. Because as my world started to go dark, another orgasm built in me. One unlike anything I had experienced before. The lack of oxygen meant all I could feel was the burn and tear of my lungs as they struggled for breath…

  And him. He filled me. He encompassed me. All that I was became swallowed up in the pounding of his cock, his rhythm matching the blood rushing in my ears.

  I came. I came so fucking hard it hurt. My body became liquid as I clamped down on him, squeezing his cock as it shoved into me.

  From a distance, I heard him cry out. He released my throat, gripping my hips so hard it bruised, burying himself in me.

  Air rushed into my lungs. My vision went black as my lungs struggled with breath again, gasping and sucking in as much oxygen as it could. I fell limply on the hood, my body only held up by his hands on my hips and his cock, still inside of me.

  Never had I been so grateful for air. Never had my body felt so complete. Sated. Worn in, like the perfect pair of blue jeans.

  Grif finally pulled out. He left me, lying on the hood, while he pulled up his pants.

  I felt him lean on the car, next to me, his hands in my hair.

  “I’m not him, Renee. But I could be.” He spoke softly.

  Still hazy, I moved so that I was draped on his lap, my arms wrapped tightly around his waist. “I know,” I whispered.

  “You should have gone.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll probably hurt you. Maybe badly.”

  “Grif… I know.”

  “But you’re staying?”

  There wasn’t an answer big enough for the relief I felt. It was perhaps the best, stupidest decision I could make. But the fact was there. I loved him. I wasn’t sure I could say it to him. Not yet. I didn’t know if Grif was ready to hear it, and I was too scared of how he might feel as well. This would have to be enough.

  He had given me my freedom, once. I wasn’t sure he could offer it again.

  I just circled my arms tighter, squeezing him in affirmation. Yes, I was staying.

  Chapter Twenty

  As we sped back to his house, I stared at him in the moonlight. The firm line of his mouth. The determined set of his eyebrows.

  “You came for me, Grif.”

  He nodded.

  “How did you know where I was?”

  “I was tracking you.”

  “What?”

  “In your backpack is a GPS tracker. I wanted to make sure you made it back safely.”

  My heart fluttered at this. “Then you had to have seen me turn back. Coming back to you.”

  “I did. I hoped you
would change your mind. When your tracker turned away from my driveway again, I thought you had. I… I turned it off, thinking I would never see you again.”

  “But--”

  “But I couldn’t stand not watching you. Not until I knew where you ended up. I turned it back on and realized where you had stopped.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for coming for me.”

  He nodded.

  “Are you okay now? We’ve been outside so long.”

  “I’m not going to lie, I am really fucking ready to be home.”

  I smiled a little. “This must be awful for you.”

  “It’s a little better with you here.” He sounded uncomfortable, unsure whether it really was better. I chalked it up to his anxiety.

  My stomach leapt and my skin flushed. It was enough.

  * * * *

  As we got closer to the house I expected Grif to begin relaxing a bit more. Distance between his family. Distance between the image of his mother, groveling at his father’s feet. We had shared the moment when he took me on his car. When he had admitted to me, in the car, that he liked my presence.

  Instead he seemed increasingly fidgety. My knees were tucked into my chest. I wanted to relax into the warm leather seats of the car. I was still naked, but with Grif it felt natural. I wanted to let my head fall back and sleep. Instead I couldn’t stop watching him. His mouth pulled into a tight line. His knee bouncing up and down. His hands gripping the wheel so tightly it creaked.

  When we whipped into his driveway, I started to unbuckle my seatbelt to get out, but Grif didn’t move. He sat in his seat and stared ahead.

  “Grif--”

  “I’m being stupid. You can’t stay here.”

  When I was young I had a tendency to talk back to teachers. I had thought it was funny and it made my classmates laugh. One day I pushed a teacher too far. She sent me to the principal’s office. That walk had been one of the worst in my life at that point. My breath had felt tight, my chest squeezing with each step bringing me toward that office. The truth was, I had been a good kid with the exception of my mouth and had hated being in trouble.