by April Lust
Yup. This was where they were going.
“So,” she asked, her voice coming out a little shaky from the chill. “Are we just dropping him off here?”
Darren pointed his chin in the general direction of a building somewhere behind them. They were probably just going to throw him in there. Yeah, that made more sense. It made a lot less sense to just leave a dead guy sitting around on the bench like he was waiting for someone to come pick him up.
He wasn’t gesturing towards the building, though. They were just a few steps away when he paused, and the force of him suddenly stopping made her lurch forward.
“We’re stopping here,” he said.
She didn’t ask. He moved the weight in his hands, adjusting his body so that the guy they were both holding started to gently slope down.
“Wait,” he said, even though he wasn’t stopping his movement, either. “Let’s leave him by this bench.” He nodded to one of them, an average-looking, kind of decrepit bench just a few feet off from the waterless fountain.
So they were seriously just going to drop this guy on a bench and then leave him here – exactly what she was afraid was going to happen, and didn’t want to happen. But it didn’t seem like they really had that many options, so she had to go with it.
They worked together a little bit to make sure that neither of them was risking hurting the other. Darren could handle it, and Victoria could force herself to handle it with help, but there was still the fact that there were carrying a 170-ish pound load between the both of them.
Once they’d gotten that all figured out, they put him down. And then Darren set the scene to make it look like whatever had happened, had happened there, and then they walked away.
# # #
They didn’t get really far before they had to talk, but that wasn’t going to happen when they were just a few steps from the spot where they’d just dropped off some dude they’d just killed. That Darren had just killed. While Victoria technically hadn’t killed the guy, she was complacent in it, especially in helping Darren with dropping off the body.
She didn’t want to think about that.
So they couldn’t just stay in that area to talk. Even if they hadn’t just dumped a body off there, it wasn’t the best place in the entire world to go – that was exactly why they had gone there to dump the body, after all. It wasn’t too unbelievable that there could have been a murder out there by those benches. She tried to quit thinking about it, but it kept coming to mind, even as she threw open the car door. It slammed shut loudly, and she winced, but a little humor might even do the situation some good.
At the very least, it'’ keep her mind off of things. Maybe.
“Do I have to be quiet?” she whispered.
Darren looked grim, but at that he smiled. It was small, but it was a smile nonetheless. “No,” he said, getting into the car and buckling in. He looked over his shoulder to make sure that there was nothing behind them, and then he pulled out. “You can talk.” He paused. “If you want.”
“You act like it’d be better for us to just sit here in complete silence,” she countered.
He met that with a few seconds of saying nothing, but as soon as he started talking she realized that it was intended as a joke. “It might be better. Sometimes, at least.”
“You’re going to make me slap you.” She rolled her eyes. She wouldn’t actually. That would be terrible, although she could imagine being drawn to the point of just needing him to shut up. Like the first time they’d ever argued, in that bar.
The bar. She wondered if they were going to drive by it; they didn’t. She looked out the window, watching the streets go by. They were heading in the opposite direction from the way they came, and it was probably for the better. She realized as the car started to speed up, though –
They couldn’t head back to the safe house this way.
She put one of her hands on the window, on the little piece of plastic covering just beneath the glass. Her elbow went up there, too, supporting her weight. Her eyes faced forward and she watched the road, as did Darren; neither of them were talking, and they lapsed back into silence again. This time, though, it was different.
“Where are we going?”
He didn’t answer.
“Darren.”
“Not home,” he finally said, and she struggled not to burst out laughing. This entire thing was horrible, and she just wanted to laugh or cry or both to comfort herself. She did neither of those things.
“You consider that place home?”
“No,” he snorted, but the dark laughter between them didn’t change the facts about what was going on.
It made sense that they couldn’t go to the safe house. Someone had gotten there and tried to kill Darren, and her, too, but it was easier to just imagine it as someone trying to kill someone else who wasn’t her. Anyway, that meant someone knew where it was, and if they went back there this entire thing would probably just happen again. And again. Until.
She looked over just in time to see Darren looking at her. He was watching her think, and probably thinking about the same thing she was thinking about.
He was. As soon as he saw her looking back at him, though, he turned his head back to the road. He had driving to focus on. “You know what that means, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” she said. “So where are we going?”
“I was thinking a hotel.”
They were still driving. Victoria wanted to ask where specifically they were going. For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to. She guessed that they weren’t going to be stopping any time soon, though, because the car wasn’t slowing down at all.
She just had to go with it. “It better be somewhere fancy,” she finally said.
The rest of the drive wasn’t too eventful. She couldn’t even remember anything that happened on the way there. All she knew was that she must have fallen asleep sometime between her last comment and the time the car stopped, because suddenly Darren’s hand was on her arm. He shook her awake, saying her name gently in her ear.
And the heat of his breath against her skin made her flush, thinking back to last night. She bit her lip, trying not to think about it at the same time that she was trying to jolt herself awake. She couldn’t really do it, though, and he kept pressing her gently. Once she could finally respond, it was hardly a response at all.
Sullivan
“Darren?” She yawned out his name, and it sounded like a question. She raised both of her arms above her head, trying to stretch the fatigue from her limbs. And then she realized how cold it was. Her nipples were hard and pressing against the fabric of her shirt, and she hoped Darren noticed.
“Victoria,” he replied, grinning, his voice a fake-stern contrast to her sleepy tone.
She didn’t say anything back. Her arms fell back to either side of her, and she collapsed back into her seat. She was too tired for this. She was too tired for most anything. It usually took her an hour or so to get up in the morning. Before that, she was totally groggy.
Besides that, she didn’t even think she was going to be able to stand up. She didn’t know how long she'd been asleep, but it didn’t feel like it was long enough.
He noticed. “Are you going to need me to carry you?”
She nodded.
Chapter Sixteen
Victoria
Apparently, while she’d been sleeping, Darren had just locked the car and gotten a room reserved for them. The keys jingled in his pocket as he moved towards her car door, opening it like a proper gentleman. And as ungentlemanly as he was, he had a kind of charm. Victoria had no trouble imagining that he could be a real gentleman. If he felt like it.
He’d probably never feel like it. Her heart clenched at the thought of it, though, and for what felt like the hundredth time in the past few days or so, she reminded herself to shut up. The part of her mind that she was trying to get to quit talking piped up at her again, even as she begged it not to. And she couldn’t help it. She
wanted them to be in a relationship. Dumb as it was, it was what she wanted most in the world.
She didn’t say a word as he told her to swing her legs over her car seat.
His hands went to find the undersides of her thighs, his fingers dragging across the skin there. Sure, she was covered by jeans; it didn’t matter. She felt every stroke of his hands as if she were naked. Once he’d gotten her legs firmly in his arms, he moved an arm to hold tightly to her waist. The heat flooded through her body again, and this time it came in worse, hotter. It felt like if it were actually a flame, it'd burn brighter, it would…
“Put your arms around me,” he said.
“You didn’t actually need to carry me, you know.” She was waking up now. She regretted saying it as soon as the words passed her lips; he might put her down now, and she was loving the feeling of being in his arms. The last time she was in his arms, they’d been cuddling on the couch after they had sex.
“Are you saying you want me to put you down?” He looked down at her, tilting his chin just so. His mouth wasn’t that far from hers, and if she moved herself a couple inches towards him, they could be kissing. She bit her lip again – and he noticed. A lustful look passed through his eyes, but nothing came from it. They were still in the middle of the parking lot, after all.
She shook her head quickly, and then did it again. “No.”
“Good.” He kissed her jaw quickly and then pulled away. She reminded herself again: they were still in the parking lot. He was probably thinking the same thing. “Hey, you?”
“Yes?” What was he going to ask her? This had to be something important.
“Will you actually put your arms around me? You need to hold on so I can close the door properly and lock up,” he said. He was smiling. Again. But it seemed like he was always smiling. At least, he was always smiling with her. When she’d just seen him before, it seemed like he wore a casual smirk or maybe a scowl, and those were the only two expressions he was capable of showing on his face. His handsome face.
She didn’t want to only put one arm around him. She brought both of her arms around him, so she was clinging to his shoulders. And since it seemed like he was inviting physical contact between the both of them, she leaned so that her face was pressed up against his neck. And then she breathed him in.
The car door shut with less noise than when she’d shut it earlier, and the reassuring chirps that came after told her that he had locked everything up. Then they started moving.
Some of the rooms were in the main hotel, but there was also a section of rooms accessible from the back. They were behind a gate, though, which was locked and had a small post by it. A guard stood within, although really, he seemed to be rather relaxed, and if either Darren or Victoria wanted to just get past him covertly, they probably could have.
But neither of them needed to be sneaky.
Victoria pushed an arm out and pressed at the gate. It swung open without any fuss, and they continued on their way as the metal swung shut again behind them. There was a lock on it, it just wasn’t in order. Victoria looked at Darren and rolled her eyes at it, and he did the same in return. It was just a facade of safety. Nothing more.
Inside was far more impressive. Maybe they focused on things beyond general security; or maybe the gate was just being worked on right now, even though Victoria didn’t see any signs about that anywhere. She didn’t want to ask Darren. Hell, she wasn’t even that focused on it right now, and she hopefully wouldn’t be thinking much about it later.
There were only three villas past the gate, and there was still some walking to do. They were barely visible in the distance along the little walking path that was laid out in front of them.
She leaned in close and whispered in his ear. “I think you should put me down.”
“And take my hands off of you?” he whispered back, but, even as he said it, he quit walking.
She wished that he wouldn’t do that; she just wanted him to hold onto her forever, and more than that. He wasn’t just going to stop, though, and she loved that about him – it was obvious that although part of her wanted to be put down, another part of her wanted him to hold onto her always. And his voice was playful, but there was something more there, an undercurrent.
She took a deep breath and swallowed, and tried to focus on anything besides how much she wanted him and the fact that they were going to be all alone in a hotel room together for at least one night.
He set her down gingerly, and she had to use everything in her not to beg for him to take her into his arms again. They walked a short distance, and she tried to keep herself from leaning against him. She couldn’t. His hand went to her lower back, and, when it didn’t dip down to her ass, she thought she could nearly cry from desperation.
The villas were farther apart than she was expecting from first glance. Her hand went to Darren's and they wrestled. It wasn’t a sweet hand-holding; she was going for his keys, trying to find the number engraved on them to discover which villa was theirs, and she intended on getting there before he did.
It didn’t work out as well as she wanted it to. Their hands gripped against each other’s, and she shoved him, gently with her hips at first, and then –
She started falling.
His arms went out to catch her before there was any chance that she might even hit the ground, but there was still fear in her chest as she descended. And it was stupid; she had been in much worse situations than a simple stumble. But that still set something inside her aflutter. It was probably because Darren was so close to her. She didn’t even mind falling, not really. It meant that he was holding her for a second time.
While he was focused on holding onto her, she reached into his hand, which was no longer bunched up and defending the keys that rested there. She grabbed them, and then she moved her arm behind her so that there was no chance he’d get them easily.
But she moved first. She turned quickly, twisting her body so that her back was to him by the time he reached out for her. Both of his arms snared around her waist, pulling her back to him. It was now or never to check; she might not be able to get away from him, but she wanted to know. She opened her hand up just slightly, looking for any kind of engraving on it so she could figure out where they were going.
#1. The first villa.
Her eyes scanned for signs illustrating which villa was which, because, by her guess, theirs could either be the giant one on the far left or the equally large one on the far right.
Darren’s hands reached out for the keys, and he grabbed them. But as he did it, his body brushed up against hers. Victoria felt her butt drag across something hard, something familiar, and instantly she was filled with a pulsing ache, and all she wanted to do was stay attached to Darren forever. Right now, they were barely touching. His arm was still around her waist, holding her still as his other hand reached out and took the keys from her slack grip. She leaned back into him, trying to keep a sigh from escaping her lips.
Neither of them moved. She didn’t want to break the spell or otherwise ruin the moment by saying anything, though, so she kept still. She couldn’t stop thinking about how it felt to have him up against her, though, and it felt like he was getting even harder. The pressure in her stomach was rising and she gulped.
His hand moved from her waist to her stomach. For a moment, she thought that his hand was going to dip somewhere lower, to touch her. It didn’t. He let her go, and she stood there a foot or so in front of him, trying hard not to make it seem like she was thinking about him too much. Why could the smallest of touches from him do this to her?
He coughed low in his throat, and she turned to see him raising an eyebrow at her. Instead of stopping to say something back to him, though, she just continued on her way. Their villa was the one that was farthest to the left. It was set slightly on a slope, so there were a bunch of stairs in the way.
Victoria hopped up all of them as fast as she could. The entire time, though, she couldn’t help but be awa
re of Darren's eyes on her back.
The inside of the villa was beautiful, but Victoria didn’t have time to appreciate it before Darren’s hands were on her. The door had already swung open without making much noise, and her hand was on the light switch that was just inside the entry way. The light in front of them flooded on; for the most part, however, the rest of the villa was still in complete darkness.
And as much as she hated to admit it, part of her loved that.
But her mind was more on his hands than it was on the lighting.
And the door.
The open door.
She turned to say something to him about it, but she couldn’t. His hand found her jaw and brought it up to his face, pressing his mouth down on hers hard as he pulled her body even closer to his using his other arm. She gasped for a second before it turned into a moan, and then she let her body melt into his. Their mouths were hard against each other’s, hunting the other out and trying to keep them both steady.