by Lena Bourne
Disappointment stabs through my stomach with a physical pain. “Why?”
“You want me to stay?” she asks, doubt thick in her voice.
“Yeah, I want you to stay.”
She picks up one of the tacos and smiles. “Oh, OK. I thought you were telling me to leave before.”
She bites into the taco, the shell crumbling between her lips and the contents spilling out over her fingers. She proceeds to lick them clean. It’s crazy sexy. Everything about her is.
“No, you misunderstood, Samantha,” I say, grinning at her. “I want you to stay right here.”
She laughs. “Fine. But I do need to go get some clothes at some point. I can’t keep wearing this old thing.”
“Why not? It looks great.”
It was a stupid line. Just like it’s stupid I haven’t told her who I really am, and why she’s really here. Well, she’s here because I can’t keep my eyes off her, let alone my hands. But she’s also here because I made a promise. The longer I keep that a secret from her, the harder it will be to tell her. Yet I have no idea how to bring it up.
“So, did you come down here all by yourself?” I hear myself asking.
She shakes her head, chews her food and swallows. “No, I was supposed to be meeting a friend, but she’s currently otherwise engaged, if you know what I mean. So I found something else to do too.” She winks at me and takes another bite.
“You mean someone?”
“Yeah, that,” she says.
I should just tell her. But all I want to do is kiss her again, and after I tell her, there might be none of that ever again. The thought makes my chest clench and my dick get even harder.
“I was supposed to be meeting my sister and her…her husband…but they’ve changed their minds about coming,” she says after she’s done chewing, a shadow passing over her eyes, making them appear darker. “I think he changed her mind. That guy is just so controlling.”
“Not really,” I hear myself say. Tommy is a lot of things, but I wouldn’t exactly call him controlling. And he seems to be doing Tara’s bidding lately, not the other way around.
She frowns. “I think he is. I mean, I met the guy twice, and I’ve been doing what he wants me to do ever since.”
She has that part right, I guess. But Tommy just has this way of getting people to do what he wants, he’s never invasive about it. Hell, I should be telling him to go to hell over how he betrayed the MC, yet here I am willingly doing favors for him, and defending his good name.
“Is that why you dyed your hair to match his?” I ask, the words just erupting from my mouth before I can stop them. I really do need to think before I speak, else I just mess everything up.
The frown on her face is mostly confusion though there’s anger there too, as she tries to puzzle out what I meant.
She puts her taco down and wipes her lips with the back of her hand. “What are you telling me right now, Brett?”
Her eyes are like the sea just before a really bad storm hits. There’s no going back now.
“I’m saying I know Tommy, we used to ride together. He asked me to keep and eye on you until they can make it out here,” I say. “There’s a good reason why they’re not here yet. But I think you should talk to your sister about it.”
She stays silent, not a single muscle in her body moving. But the storm in her eyes is brewing.
“I can’t believe this!” She shoots to her feet, her knees banging into the table. I just barely manage to balance it in time, before everything spills to the floor, but a glass shatters anyway. “I told him, I can take care of myself. And you just used me! Why? Because you heard about what I was, and you figured why not?”
“No, that’s not it. And we both wanted it,” I say, but that’s not entirely true. I picked her up, I brought her to my place, I fucked her for pretty much two days straight, and I lied to her. She’s right to be angry at me. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t know when to tell you.”
I reach out to take her hand, because the window for me to touch her some more is closing fast, and I can’t just let that happen. But she snatches her arm away.
“Didn’t know when? You had plenty of time,” she says, breathing hard and glaring at me. “Not that it matters. I’m leaving now. And I never want to see you again. Tell Tommy I said so, and tell him I don’t need a babysitter. You and your MC have done enough for me.”
She turns and storms inside, grabs her bag off the sofa and slams the front door behind her before I even manage to stand. She’s completely justified in being pissed, has every right to hate me. Shade has put her through hell. And I just added some more wood to the fire by not being honest with her.
She’s already halfway down the street by the time I exit my building, and I have to jog to catch her. She tenses when she hears me approaching, then starts walking faster. But I’ll catch her and make it up to her. I don’t see another choice at all. I need her to stay with me at least a little while longer.
SAMANTHA
I’m out of breath, my ankles are burning from the pace at which I’m walking, and I don’t even know if I’m going the right way back to my hotel. But I don’t care. I just need to get away, start pretending none of that happened the way it did. What did I even expect? Of course there had to be a catch. There’s always a catch. But he seemed so honest.
“Wait, Samantha!” he calls after me, but I just start walking faster.
He catches me anyway, grabs my arm to stop me, and I lose my balance as I try to yank my arm from his grasp. He grips it tighter, prevents me from falling.
“Just get lost, OK!” I yell. “I don’t want anything more to do with you!”
“I don’t want to get lost,” he says, actually grinning at me. “Unless it’s with you.”
“I don’t care what you want. I want you to leave me alone!”
“Come on, don’t be like that. I should’ve told you who I was, but would that have changed anything?” he’s still grinning, still holding onto my arm, but loosely, almost gently. I yank it away.
“Right, you thought you’d have some fun with me first, didn’t you? Your friend Shade probably told you all about how much fun I can be. Maybe you were even one of the ones he let fuck me, while he was trying to break me.” I’m so angry, I’m shaking. Brett never fucked me before the other night, I’m sure of that. So I know I’m not being fair, but I’m so done with men using me and messing with me. “Or maybe Tommy told you all about my dad, and my sorry upbringing. And you thought, hell, she’s well broken in, I’ll just use her for a little while, no need to tell her the truth. She’s just some whore anyway!”
He’s no longer grinning, just looking at me with a shocked, surprised look on his face, his mouth slightly open. A dog started barking while I was yelling, and it suddenly runs right into the rickety fence we’re standing next to, the chain it’s on clanking against the concrete. The noise sets at least five other dogs to go crazy too. Amid the barking, I hear their chains rattling all around us. But I’m too angry to even feel fear.
“Hey, you had a good time too,” he finally says, and despite the rage coursing through me, I can tell he really wants me to agree.
“Yeah, how the fuck would you know? You just wanted to get your dick wet!”
“I heard no objections from you.”
The screen door of the house we’re standing next to slams open, a man in a wife beater glaring at us. “Cállate puta Americana!”
Brett glares at him. “You shut the fuck up!”
Then he turns back to me. “Listen, I’m sorry about what Shade did to you. I had no idea. To the best of my knowledge, whores, I mean prostitutes weren’t something the MC was involved in. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who I was from the beginning. But it doesn’t change anything between us. Can we just get over it now?”
He grins again, and a little voice inside my head is very firmly telling me to stop acting like this, because I enjoyed the time we spent together very much, and I don’t w
ant it to end yet. But I’m too mad. He didn’t even do anything that wrong. It’s just the reminder. Just the fact that he belongs to the MC that abducted me, made money from selling me to freaks and psychos for sex. Threatened to kill me. Kept me locked up in a room with no windows for months.
“Fuck you and your apologies! I don’t need your sympathy. Just leave me alone!”
I storm away down the sidewalk, past all the barking dogs, off into the darkness.
Surprisingly, he just lets me go. I look back eventually, once I have my breathing under control again. He’s following me, but at a distance. And I’m thankful for it, because the street is very dark, and the nightmare that was my life in captivity is very fresh in my mind right now.
BRETT
I don’t know a whole lot about women, but when they start screeching and accusing me I’m just like their deadbeat father it’s always a good idea to take a step back and let them cool off. That’s what I should’ve done, not engage her in that stupid argument and winding her up even more. The accusation that I raped her cut pretty deep though. I had nothing to do with any of that. I hope she’ll eventually believe that.
So I just follow her at a safe distance. Which is probably all she’ll let me do from now on. But I’ll make sure she doesn’t get hurt. Even if she never lets me touch her again. But, fuck, I hope she will. As it is, I have no idea how I’m managing not to grab her and drag her back to my place.
SAMANTHA
I’ve been alone in my hotel room for almost an hour, and I’m still not calm. Vivid memories of all those terrible things I thought I’d finally started to forget keep flashing through my mind. They include the stuff done to Tara and me when we were children now, stuff I thought I’ve let go of long ago. But that was just the added bonus of the breaking Shade executed on me. All that crap came up too.
And he hardly ever even gave me a painkiller. Said he wanted me sober and alert, so that I could take care of the clients properly. I had to beg for the pills. He enjoyed watching me beg. So much so, it makes nausea rise in my throat now as I remember the mean glimmer in his eyes whenever I did. I tried not to beg, but sometimes I just had to. Because it was too hard, too painful, too damn hopeless. But he never gave me a sleeping pill, no matter how much I begged.
I guess I should thank him for forcing me to kick that lifelong habit. But I have all the sleeping pills I want now. And I take two, try not to wish Brett was beside me as I get under the covers and turn off the lights. I didn’t need a pill to fall asleep in his arms. But that was a fluke. I was just tired from all the sex, and the drive down to Mexico. It had nothing to do with him personally. He’s just an asshole like all the rest.
He followed me all the way to the hotel, I saw him cross the street after me as I entered the lobby. But I hope he’s gone tomorrow.
The shut and shuttered windows of my room aren’t blocking the loud music from the nightclub downstairs. I’d prefer silence tonight. But the sleeping pills are already working. They won’t give me any dreams. Sleeping pills never do. That’s why I love them so much.
And tomorrow will be another day. I’ll go right back to forgetting everything tomorrow. Maybe I’ll even start looking for someone new to forget it all with.
Chapter Seven
SAMANTHA
It’s almost eleven when I wake up the next morning. My friend Abby finally calls me back an hour later. I called her last night, trying to get together, but she wasn’t picking up. She says she’d love to meet me for dinner, but can’t make lunch. I doubt she’ll make dinner either, since I can hear a party in the background of where ever she’s staying. I almost ask if I can just meet her there, but I’m not really in the mood to party. Which is odd in itself. The old Sam, the one that wasn’t trafficked yet, would never have slept alone on a vacation in Mexico. Or go to breakfast and to the beach alone. But that’s exactly what this new me has planned for today.
Brett keeps intruding into my thoughts as I shower and dress, but I’m keeping a firm lid on all of that. He was a one-night stand, and nothing else. I’m sure I won’t even remember him after a few more of those.
“And the hunt starts now,” I mutter to myself as I close the hotel room door behind me to head downstairs to breakfast.
It would be decidedly easier to forget Brett, if he wasn’t sitting at the bar downstairs, nursing a cup of coffee. This stupid hotel doesn’t even have a proper dining room. The nightclub is used for that too, and a couple of the tables are occupied by seriously hung over people. Or maybe those are just stragglers from last night’s party.
He sees me, but I ignore him like he’s not there, as I turn on my heel and walk through the lobby and out into the sweltering midday heat. There are other places to get breakfast around here. A thousand of them.
He follows me though. At a distance, like he did last night. I almost stop and confront him, tell him again to just leave me alone. But I don’t want to get all worked up like I did last night. Nothing good came of that. I even dreamt. I can’t remember the nightmare, but my hair was all sweaty this morning, and the sheets all messy like I’d been tossing and turning all night. And I woke up with a queasy, fearful feeling in the pit of my stomach, which is still there if I think of it. So I won’t. And Brett probably won’t quit following me around, if I tell him to. So why bother getting all worked up again? I’ll fix it another way.
I reach a park in the middle of the boulevard and sit in the shade on one of the benches near the entrance. Brett stops by the gates, eying me like he really wants to come over and talk. Well, tough. He blew that chance by being an asshole.
I pull out my phone and dial Tara’s number. It’s like nine hours ahead in Italy, so it’s not too late to call. But even if it were, I’d still be calling, because I need to get Brett off my back.
“Is everything alright?” Tommy asks, but I have zero patience for his fake sympathies.
“No it isn’t,” I say, eyeing Brett from the corner of my eye. He’s still keeping a very vigilant eye on me. “Tell your buddy to stop following me around. I don’t need anyone watching over me.”
“I will, if you go back home,” Tommy says sternly.
“You don’t tell me what to do, OK? I will not go home. And you will tell him to leave me alone,” I snap back.
He sighs rather dramatically in my opinion. “Everything would be so much better, if you just went back home and testified against Shade. Don’t you realize what you’re dealing with? He won’t stop until he destroys you, and if he doesn’t get convicted on the trafficking charge, he’ll probably go free.”
So that’s what this is all about. “I’m done doing your dirty work for you. I want to be left alone. Now put my sister on the phone. Why are you answering her phone anyway?”
I’m done talking to him. Hopefully Tara can convince him to call Brett off.
“I can’t right now,” he answers, his voice cold and flat. But I’ll have none of that.
“Just put her on, I want to speak to her,” I say.
He sighs again, then there’s just silence like he hung up. But I can hear him breathing.
“Tara’s sick,” he finally says. “She can’t speak right now, because she’s sleeping. What happened with Brett?”
So he already knows all about that too? They probably had a nice long chat about what a slut I am. Isn’t that just perfect? But it’d be great if these stupid excuses would stop.
“Tara’s not sick. She never gets sick. Put her on,” I say, my heart racing. She can’t be sick. Not too sick to speak to me.
“She needs rest. They don’t know what it is yet, but she’s not well,” Tommy says, and my heart starts racing even faster, my head spinning like I’ve been out in the sun too long.
“What’s wrong with Tara? How serious is it? How long has it been going on?” I want to add, Why haven’t you told me sooner? But I stop myself.
“It started right before we left for the airport to go meet you,” he says rather bitingly like he bl
ames me for it, but that could just be my imagination. “She passed out. It happened a few more times since. She’s also nauseous all the time. And her stomach hurts.”
“Maybe she just ate something bad?” I ask hopefully like I’m gonna figure out something the doctors can’t.
“That’d clear up by now,” he says. “We’re at a hospital in Rome now, they’re running tests. And she’s feeling better. So don’t fucking complicate things by getting taken again. We’ll be there as soon as we can. In the meantime, do Tara a favor and let Brett watch over you. He’s a nice guy once you get to know him. Or better yet, go back home where you’re safe.”
I’m safe here. But I don’t say that since he sounds really angry, and because he’s right. I shouldn’t cause Tara any more grief. It still shocks me what she did to find me the first time. And Brett is a nice guy. I could do worse than spend another couple of days with him. But I won’t let him off the hook for keeping secrets from me easily.
“Fine, alright. But ask Tara to call me soon, please,” I say, getting up.
He assures me he will, then hangs up.
BRETT
I’m mentally steeling myself as she approaches, readying to get screeched at again. She’s wearing short shorts and a tight tank, her long legs demanding most of my attention anyway so it’s not that hard. She shouldn’t be going around on her own dressed like that around here, but damn am I glad she is.
She stops in front of me, eyeing me calmly, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she is calm. And the way she just ignored me earlier is a clear sign she’s not yet ready to forgive me.
“Are you just gonna follow me around all the time from now on?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest, squeezing her breasts together in a very distracting way.
“That’s the plan,” I tell her and grin, trying not to stare at her boobs.