by B. B. Hamel
“I have a girl with me,” I said to him. “Her name is Piper. You should forget you ever saw her as soon as you leave. Got it?”
“Sure,” he said, shrugging. “Couldn’t care less about a piper.”
I nodded and opened the door. “Come on in.”
He smiled and we went inside together.
Piper was siting at the kitchen table. She stood up as soon we stepped inside. Randy smiled big at her.
“Well, you must be the piper,” he said.
“Nice to meet you.” She gave me a look.
“Pipes, this is Randy. He lives around here. He knew my father.”
Understanding bloomed across her face. “Well, then,” she said. “You should come inside and get comfortable.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Randy said. He went into the kitchen area and opened a cabinet. He fished a bottle out from behind some pans and poured three drinks. He passed them out before sitting back down at the table.
“That’s better,” he said. I held my drink loosely, still standing. Randy slugged his drink back and poured another before raising his glass for a toast. “To dead ol’ Ron King, the best bastard I ever knew.”
“Here, here,” I said. We all drink. Piper made a face and I grinned at her.
“How long have you lived around here?” she asked Randy.
“Hell, most of my life.”
“And did you know Gates’s father well?”
“Pretty good, I’d say. Ron used to come up here, oh, three or four times a year. We’d spend a day or two fishin’ and huntin’ and drinkin’, which is what he wanted to do and I’m always willin’ to do. Then he’d disappear.”
“Randy has been taking care of this cabin,” I told Piper.
“Ah,” she said. “That explains it.”
“Sure does,” Randy said. He frowned, looking around. “How long you two plan on bein’ here?”
“Not sure,” I said. “As long as we want, most likely.”
“Sure, sure,” Randy said. “I was just thinking, not much stuff in here. How about I come up with some supplies tomorrow morning?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s a nice offer.”
“I’d expect to be paid,” he said, laughing. I relaxed a little bit. “I could use a little pocket money and I bet you two could use a little food. What do you say?”
“Sounds good,” Piper said quickly before I could answer. “Thanks, Randy. That’s really nice of you.”
“Of course.” He poured three more drinks for the group and knocked his back immediately.
I sighed, drinking mine. I didn’t know what to make of this guy. On the surface, he seemed like just some normal backwoods character, but there was something a little off about him, something a little strange. He knew my father but he was pretty vague on the particulars.
“Well, then,” I said to him. “Let’s say you come back tomorrow morning?”
“Okay then.” He stood up. “I got the message. I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone.”
Piper blushed and I sighed. “It’s not like that,” I said.
“Sure, it’s not, sure.” Randy grinned at me and walked to the door. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning, assumin’ the rains don’t make the roads impossible. Sleep tight, you two.” He shut the door and went outside.
I watched him get into his truck, turn around, and drive off. I turned back to Piper. “I have a bad feeling about him.”
She cocked her head at me. “Really? He seemed nice.”
“He’s strange. And how did he know we were here?”
“He said that he saw us.”
“He lives miles away. How did he see us?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.
“There’s something off about that guy, Pipes.”
“He knew your father.”
“Maybe. Probably. It’s hard to say.”
“We’re safe, Gates.” She walked toward me. “You got us to safety. You can relax a little bit.”
I shook my head. “This is the mob we’re up against. I can’t relax for a second.”
I walked away from her, over toward the kitchen, my mind a hot dense sphere of thought and worry.
“You can have the bed tonight,” I said. “There’s only one. I’ll take the couch.”
“Oh,” she said. “Okay.”
I frowned at her. “I won’t be sleeping much anyway.”
“I understand.” She walked back toward the bedroom. “I’ll get settled.”
“Sounds good.”
She disappeared into the back room and I leaned up against the counter, worry rolling through my body. I noticed her disappointment, but I didn’t understand exactly why she was let down. I was trying my best to keep us both alive, and I needed to stay sharp. I couldn’t let some strange guy lull me into a false sense of security.
The thing that kept bugging me was how Randy knew that we were in the cabin. He didn’t come up right away because he was watching some game, but that didn’t seem right, either. If some strangers were going into his cabin and he saw them, he would have followed them right away. Otherwise, how could he have known that the car he saw was going to his cabin? There were other cabins in the area.
Randy wasn’t telling us something. I was absolutely sure of that. He knew something abut this cabin that he wasn’t telling me. Why else would he have kept it in such good condition for so long? I couldn’t imagine it was out of loyalty to my long-dead scumbag father.
I had to keep an eye on him on top of everything else. I was stressed, but I wasn’t going to break. I had to protect Piper. That was my goal above all else.
Nobody was going to come close to touching her so long as I was around to stop them.
15
Piper
I woke up on the cold, hard mattress and it took me a second to really figure out where I was. The night before was a blur, and I had to really think back to realize that I had gone into the bedroom to take a look around and ended up falling asleep.
I sat up and looked at the clock. It was six in the morning and the sun was just rising over the trees outside. I must have slept for like twelve hours or something like that.
I shook my head, feeling groggy. Gates wasn’t in the room, though I expected that.
He shut down as soon as that goofy man had arrived. Gates seemed to think that Randy was a threat, but I wasn’t so sure. Randy didn’t seem like he could threaten anyone even if he wanted to. The old man was kooky, that was for sure, but he wasn’t a bad guy.
Then again, my sense of this sort of thing was pretty questionable at best at this point. I never saw what kind of man Tony really was, even after being with him and living with him. He completely dazzled me and hid his true self, and I felt so absolutely wrecked.
As I sat there on the strange bed alone for the first time since it happened, I broke down. I broke down and cried. I let myself have this one moment of weakness, because I was mourning for something. It wasn’t for the relationship with Tony, but maybe for my innocence. I could never go back to before this happened. I’ll always have seen that murder, always have dated a murderer. From this point forward, there was no turning back from what I was.
I was a fool. It was true. I was an absolute idiot for wanting to be with Tony. Of course, there were warning signs about him, obvious ones in retrospect. He worked late almost every night, and the whole nightclub thing was shady from the start. But I closed my eyes to it all because I thought I knew Tony. I thought I knew him.
I didn’t. Not at all.
Slowly, I got myself under control. I cried and now I was done crying. I wasn’t going to cry anymore for this. Tony had taken enough from me already and he didn’t deserve to take any more. I was going to get away from him no matter what.
I just had to figure out how.
I stood up and opened the bedroom door. The smell of cooking food hit me and I felt my stomach turn with hunger. I blinked away the sleep and walked down the short hall, turning int
o the kitchen.
Gates stood in front of the stove, spatula in hand, doing something in a pan.
“Good morning,” he said without turning.
I blinked. “Uh, good morning. How’d you know I was there?”
“Heard you,” he said and grinned at me. “You stomp when you walk.”
I made a face. “That’s not true.”
“It’s very true. You walk like you’re punishing the ground.”
“Don’t be a jerk. It’s too early.”
He shrugged. “There’s coffee over there,” he said, gesturing at a pot. “It’s instant, but it’ll do. I’m also making some eggs.”
“How do we have eggs?” I asked, pouring myself some of the coffee. I took a sip, and although it was bitter and acrid and not good at all, it was the best coffee I’d ever tasted just because it was exactly what I needed in that moment.
“Eggs are powdered,” he said, laughing. “They’re not great, but they’ll do.”
“Perfect. I could eat anything right now.” I sat down at the table, sipping my coffee.”
I watched as Gates cooked. I couldn’t believe he looked so comfortable behind a stove, but he moved like he’d been practicing. Gates was cocky and sometimes a jerk, but he was just so damn handsome. The memory of his hands against my body came rushing back to me, ad I didn’t know how I was going to restrain myself from him.
And I realized that I didn’t want to restrain myself. I realized that I was in the most dangerous moment of my life, and the time for restraint was so far gone. I’d lived for so long with restraint and look where it got me. A mafia ex-boyfriend that wanted me dead.
I stood up and crossed the kitchen. He smirked at me as I approached him, but didn’t say a word. I put my hands on his chest and kissed his lips softly.
He grunted, turning toward me. He grabbed my hips and pulled me against him, kissing me fiercely. I threw myself at him, pushing him back up against the stove. He grunted into my kiss as I ran my hands down his muscular chest.
I felt his strong arms as I slowly moved my hands down toward his pants. I unbuckled his belt quickly and pulled them down.
“Someone’s impatient,” he said, grinning. “You couldn’t wait for another taste, could you?”
“No,” I said simply as I dropped to my knees. “I really couldn’t.”
His eyes burned with lust as I pulled down his boxer briefs and took his thick cock in my hand. I began to stroke his shaft, needing him to get hard as hell. I wanted to make him come, wanted to taste his hot cum in the back of my throat.
He groaned as I took him between my lips and began to suck his cock. I licked him base to tip, savoring his taste, loving the way he groaned. He laced his fingers through my hair and pressed my head down, forcing me along his shaft.
I began to suck him like that, rolling my hand along his shaft as I sucked his cock. I took him in my mouth, slowly moving down into my throat, as he grunted his pleasure. He pressed me down further.
“Fuck yes,” he said, “I want to feel that cock against the back of your throat.”
I gagged then suppressed it, taking him further, swallowing his whole hard thick cock. I pulled back, gasping for air, as a string of saliva rolled from my lower lip to his cock.
He bent forward and kissed me hard, licking that saliva from my mouth. When he was done, he pressed me back down as I sucked his cock faster, deeper.
“You’re not fucking shy,” he said. “You love having this dick in your mouth, you dirty fucking girl. You love getting sloppy on my cock.”
I moaned, sucking him, sliding up and down his shaft. I let my saliva roll down his skin, not slowing down, sucking his cock like a dirty girl. I wanted to be his dirty girl, wanted him to destroy me, make me his. I loved sucking his cock because it meant I was his. I loved getting sloppy on his cock because it meant I couldn’t hold back.
He pressed me down again, pushing his cock into my throat, and began to fuck my mouth. I held onto his thighs as he fucked my lips, pressing his cock into my throat. I squeezed and he pulled me back as I gasped for air, tears beginning to well up in my eyes. I didn’t care about that, though. I was so lost in the moment, so deeply lost on his strong body taking me, using me, making me his.
Just then, I smelled something burning. I cocked my head at him and he looked at the stove.
“Fuck,” he said, pushing the pan from the flame. He quickly turned it off. “Burned your fucking breakfast.”
I smiled and laughed. “Who cares?”
He smirked at me. “Good girl. Now get back to work.”
“Yes, Gates.” I took his cock between my lips and began to suck him faster, using my whole body to bob up and down his shaft. He groaned loudly, pressing me down and releasing me.
I sucked and jerked his hard cock with wild abandon. I lost myself completely, wanting only his cock. I was his dirty girl, his dirty slut. I was a whore for his hard cock and that was all I cared about.
“Fuck yes,” he said. “Faster, you fucking slut. Suck that cock faster. I’m going to come down your throat.”
I moaned, wildness taking over me as I sucked and jerked him faster. I loved the sound of my lips along his thick cock. He suddenly pressed me down and groaned loudly.
I tasted his hot cum fill my mouth and throat. I kept going, swallowing every single drop as he came into my mouth.
“Swallow every fucking drop,” he groaned as he let me go.
I swallowed and licked him, cleaning every single inch of his shaft. When I was done, I stood up, smiling.
“Fuck,” he said. “That was incredible.”
“I know.” I kissed his cheek.
He grabbed me and pulled me into another intense kiss. He didn’t seem to mind as our lips pressed together like that, our tongues touching.
He slowly broke the kiss. “Sorry that I burned your breakfast.”
“It’s okay. You’ll make me more.”
He laughed and slapped my ass as I walked away. I sat back down at the table and he went back to work, cooking me some eggs.
I sat watching him, drinking my coffee and smiling to myself. I’d never lost myself like that during a blowjob before. I never just let loose and didn’t care what he thought or what was right. In that moment, all I wanted was more and more, and Gates had more for me.
When he finished cooking, he placed the plate of eggs in front of me. I dug in, and although they weren’t great, I was starving. He sat down across from me and tucked into his own eggs.
I looked up and was about to say something when Gates suddenly perked up. I cocked my head, not sure what was happening, and then I heard it: the sound of tires on gravel.
“Randy,” Gates said, standing. He went over to the coffee table and grabbed his gun.
“He’s early,” I said.
Gates, nodded, looking serious. “Stay here.”
He went to the door and threw it open. The sound of tires tearing up gravel was more insistent.
Randy was driving fast, faster than he should have.
Something was happening, and I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
16
Gates
I quickly cleared my head as I stood out in the sharp, cold mountain air. The memory of Piper’s lips around my cock still lingered, but I had to get my shit together.
Randy was tearing ass up the road. There was no way this was just about those supplies, otherwise he wouldn’t be driving so damn fast. I held my gun loosely but ready at my side as he slammed on his brakes, skidding over the gravel.
I took a deep breath, forcing myself into stillness. I had been trained to control myself, to drop into a near-meditative state during combat. That way, I could react faster and there was nothing distracting me from what I had to do.
Randy jumped from his truck and walked toward me. “Who you hidin’ from?” he asked me. He looked angry.
“Not your concern,” I said.
“It’s my concern now, damn it,” he said.<
br />
“What happened?”
“Proximity alarms tripped early this morning.”
I nodded. That made fucking sense. Of course he had proximity alarms. That was how he knew we were here.
“And then what?” I asked.
“Some big guys, mean lookin’ bastards, were drivin’ around in some fancy black truck. They stopped and started questionin’ me, wanted to know if I saw a girl and a big guy around here. I said no and the one guy held a gun at my fuckin’ face.”
“Did you tell them?”
“No,” he growled. “I didn’t. Barely got out of there alive, though. Those bastards are still drivin’ around down there, but they’re comin’, that’s for sure.”
“How’d you beat them up here?”
“They don’t know the way like I do.”
“Thanks, Randy,” I said, turning away.
“Wait,” he called out. “You hold on now. We ain’t done here.”
I turned back to him and he was holding an old pistol pointed directly at my chest. I cursed softly. I hadn’t realized he was packing, since he showed up so damn fast. Another stupid mistake.
“Drop your piece, son,” Randy said.
I nodded and slowly placed the gun on the ground. I stood back up, hands in the air.
“What do you want?” I asked him. “We need to leave before those men get here.”
“Money. Everything you have.”
“No,” I said. “We can’t do that.”
“You don’t have a choice, son. Money or you die.” He walked up toward me, getting closer and closer. I waited patiently, letting him get within range.
“We need that money to get away from these men. If you rob us, you’re killing us.”
“Not my problem, kid,” he said. “You’ll figure it out. Your daddy was a bastard but he sure was resourceful. I’m sure you’re the same.”
Fucking asshole. My father was a piece of shit, but that didn’t give Randy the right to talk shit.
Randy got closer and closer and I could see the fear in his eyes. He’d never held up a man before and probably never shot one. His grip was too tight and I could see the sweat on his brow.