by Lucy Wild
“I’ve good news and bad,” he said as he turned away from the ticket office. “Which do you want first?”
“The good.”
“We’ve two spaces on the coach to Gladwell.”
“Great. What’s the bad news?”
“It’s not until tomorrow morning.”
“Damn it. Do we just sit here and wait?”
“That’s an option but there is an alternative.”
“Which is?”
“We stay in a hotel for the night. I’ve enough cash for us both.”
“I can’t let you pay for me again.”
“Yes you can. Daddy looks after his little girl.”
My heart skipped a beat when he said that and it was impossible to keep the smile from my face.
“Come on,” he continued. Let’s go find somewhere.”
I was still smiling as I followed him. I’m sure he could have hired a car to get us there quicker. The only reason he hadn’t done that was the same reason why I was so glad he was coming with me. He wanted to spend time with me. It was a nice feeling, giving me a warmth deep inside me that was only affected by my self doubt over Ben. Was it right to think about Jake that way? As my Daddy?
Once we reached the hotel, he headed up to the reception desk and I followed him in time to hear him ask for a double room. “Not sleeping on the floor this time?” I asked him as we walked across to the lift.
“Not this time,” he replied.
When we reached the room, I headed into the bathroom. I came out to find him with his top off and there was his chest again. My insides tingled at the sight of all those muscles. “What are those?” I asked, walking over to him. I realised as I got closer that he was covered in scars. “How did you get these?”
“Doing my job,” he replied, looking down at my hand as we both realised I was sliding my finger along one of the scars on his chest.
I coughed loudly, leaping away from him, looking anywhere but at his body. “I…err…better get ready for bed,” I said, pulling back the covers and climbing in.
“Not going to undress?” he asked, moving over to his bed.
I shook my head. “What kind of girl do you think I am?”
“I think you’re Daddy’s little girl and you should get undressed before bed.”
“But I don’t want to.”
He took a single step towards me, folding his arms as he did so. “I told you to get undressed before bed. You’ve been in those things all day. They’ll be filthy.”
I thought about reminding him that he’d had them cleaned for me but decided against it, he looked angry enough without that. I knew I should buy more things but I also knew my father was monitoring my cards and I had no idea how to get round that. I wished I’d brought my suitcase with me but I also knew I’d left it behind to speed up my escape. What a great plan that had been. I was quite the genius.
I looked up at him, thinking he was joking but he was still standing there. “Well?” he asked.
“Well what?”
“Are you going to get undressed?”
“Not with you watching me.”
“Fine,” he said, looking as if he was wrestling with his decision before crossing to the bathroom. “You’ve got two minutes.”
TWENTY-ONE
ISABEL
I did undress before climbing into bed. I told myself it was because I wanted to but I knew the truth. I was doing it because he’d told me to. Laid under the covers with no clothes on, I felt just as exposed as if I’d been standing naked in front of him. It was much tenser than last time but what had changed, really?
When he came out of the bathroom, he was wearing just his boxer shorts and he looked good, he looked really good. I did my best to only glance at him out of the corner of my eye as he crossed the room and climbed into his bed. “I hope you did what Daddy told you,” he said, turning his head towards me.
“I did, Daddy,” I replied, lying on my back and feeling my nipples stiffening, rubbing against the blankets while my pussy began to throb with desire. I could throw back my covers and show him my body, beg him to fuck me. Would he do it? Or would he tell me that wasn’t how little girls were supposed to talk? Or act?
I closed my eyes, refusing to look at him any longer lest I do something really stupid. This wasn’t the plan, this wasn’t what was supposed to happen. I was supposed to be running away to the love of my life.
Was Ben the love of my life though? That was the big question. I was torn in two different directions and the crying out of my pussy for attention wasn’t helping me to think, nor was knowing that a cock that could solve that problem was a few feet away, hidden from me by a single layer of clothing.
I had been so sure I wanted to go and see Ben before I met Jake, or at least that was what I told myself as I lay there. But was I only doing it because if I didn’t then I had no clue what I’d do otherwise? Ben was part of my past and was I just trying to return to my past? To a time before all these problems began.
He’d been the one beacon of light in a shitty childhood. Sure, I’d had money, for the most part. But what good was money when you were stuck at a boarding school you hated? Whenever I came home for holidays, I could tell my father resented me being there. “Why spend money on an education if you’re just hanging around the house?” he used to say.
I wanted to tell him what was happening at school. I tried three times, three times that I remembered vividly, to tell him what had happened to me but every time he was called away by a phone call or a meeting or some bullshit reason that meant he didn’t have to listen to me any longer.
So I didn’t tell him about Mr Villiers, the French teacher with the wandering hands. I didn’t tell him about every lesson of his, that I dreaded going into his classroom because I was scared he might do it again. The way he singled me out, telling me what a big girl I was compared to the other students. The way he held me back after class and made me dictate verbs to him, his hands sliding down my body as I froze in place. The way he whispered to me to keep what he’d done to myself.
Between being bullied by the older girls and being given lessons in things no one my age needed to learn about, I had an awful time at school and no better a time at home, ignored by my father who thought throwing money at me to keep me occupied was better than spending any actual time with me.
But when the new caretaker moved on site and brought his son with me, a ray of light burst in on my existence. Ben found me crying on the back of the field after one French lesson, and best of all, he didn’t take advantage of me. He sat with me while I cried, he didn’t even ask me what was wrong, he just sat there. That was a good start.
We liked the same films, the same music, and best of all we both hated the school. Two years I put up with Mr Villiers and two years I took to realise I’d fallen in love with Ben. That first love is one everyone remembers and mine most vividly for how wretched I felt when we were torn apart.
Ben’s Dad was only trying to do the right thing. When he walked into the French classroom and found Mr Villiers reaching into my shirt, he couldn’t realistically keep quiet. He had to tell the head. But doing that had repercussions he could never have imagined.
Yes, Mr Villiers took an early retirement and hopefully never touched another teenage girl again. But Ben’s Dad was sacked for trumped up bullshit less than a month later, for making waves, as Ben called it.
Ben had to go with him and I was distraught, blaming myself for what happened. We kept in touch by letter, me telling him how sorry I was, how it was all my fault. Through it all, he didn’t blame me. He told me he loved me too and always would but the gaps between the letters got longer and longer as the years went by. It reached the stage by the time I graduated from school that my drunken texts and his replies were the only times we ever contacted each other.
I was distracted from my thoughts by a shadow falling over me and I opened my eyes to find Jake looming over my bed. My eye was drawn straight to his boxer shorts a
nd it took a concerted effort to force myself to look him in the eye.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice sounding weak.
“I need to tell you something,” he replied. “I can’t wait any longer.” That was when all hell broke loose.
TWENTY-TWO
JAKE
When they came for her, I was standing over her bed. I’d gone to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face while she undressed. I’d told her to get undressed. That was stupid. I needed to get a hold of myself.
Climbing into my bed in just my boxer shorts was stupid too. It made it harder to resist grabbing her and fucking her. Knowing she was naked under her blankets was torture. In the end, I couldn’t resist her any longer. I had to do something. So I climbed out of bed, crossing the room while her eyes were closed.
I knew she was awake, that was obvious from the way she was breathing. All I had to do was reach down, whip back the covers, and she’d be mine. She opened her eyes and looked straight at my cock, straining as it was against the fabric of my boxer shorts. I knew it was going to happen then. Consequences or no consequences, I had to have her.
When the door of the room crashed open, it took me too long to realise what was happening. I should have been ready, I should have heard them prepping outside, I should have been dressed, I should have been lots of things.
Instead I was too consumed by lust to pay attention and I got a timely reminder in what happens when you let your emotions rule you instead of stamping down on them and keeping them under control.
There were two of them and the first flicked the light off as the second ran for me, something glinting in his hand. If it was a gun, I knew he wouldn’t fire it for two reasons. One, the noise would be too loud in a hotel like this. Two, he’d presumably been hired by Tony and was under the same instructions as me to make sure she wasn’t damaged when she was taken back. That left the only use of the gun as a threat but he didn’t know who he was dealing with. If it was a knife, things would be no different other than I had to be careful to make sure he didn’t accidentally stick me now the room was pitch black.
The one who’d turned the light out had also shut the door to the hallway and he approached a second later. All this took place so fast, Isabel hadn’t even begun to start screaming. She was still inhaling when I threw my arm forwards and dived, rolling across the floor like a bowling ball, smashing into goon two’s legs. He fell forwards, landing on his face. I was up with my arm swinging by the time he’d reacted, my clenched fist hitting goon one in the chin, sending him thudding back against the door behind him.
I didn’t pause, spinning sideways as goon two got up. By my side was a table and on it was just what I needed. With a yank, I pulled the lamp from the socket, throwing it at goon two. He raised his arm to bat it aside and I caught a glimpse of what was in his hand.
It was a knife after all. They’d not even brought guns. Amateurs, the pair of them. Outside hires, no doubt. They’d managed to track us down, I’d give them credit for that. But everything else about them told me why they were outside hires. They weren’t fast enough or coordinated enough to be a real threat.
As goon two bashed the lamp away, I went under it, lowering my head and slamming into his midriff, sending the air from his lungs. The knife clattered to the floor but I ignored it. I didn’t need it. I kept pushing him back until he hit the bathroom door, crashing through it and knocking it from its hinges.
With a twist of my hands I got hold of his head, ignoring the punches he was landing on my back. I shifted my weight and took him with me, bringing him underneath me so as we fell, his head struck the side of the bath. He went limp at once and I let him go, turning to find goon one was already making his escape with a screaming Isabel in his arms.
“Hey,” I called out to him. “You forgot something.”
He opened his mouth to reply with something clever but I didn’t care. Idiots quipped. The rest of us got the job done. His pause was enough time for me to sprint across to him, sliding onto my back, my feet outstretched. I caught him on the shin with a satisfying crack and he yelled. It gave me enough time to grab Isabel and run, leaving him to chase after us.
Once in the hallway, I smacked the fire alarm, the screeching bell bringing people to their doors a second later. The goon was having to fight his way through the mass and it was enough of a delay for me.
I pushed open the fire escape and took the stairs two at a time. We reached the bottom in under a minute. “Wait,” she screamed, tugging her hand away from mine as I went to push open the door to reception. “I can’t go out there with no clothes on.”
I swore loudly, dragging her through. The hotel guests were making their way out of the front door as the alarm continued to ring. “Here,” I said, grabbing a couple of discarded coats from one of the armchairs that dotted the space by the reception desk. “Put this on.”
I didn’t give her time to stop, knowing our only advantage was in getting far enough away from the goons before back up came. There wouldn’t be just the two of them if I knew Tony Matteo.
“My feet hurt,” Isabel said as we ran outside, both of us throwing the coats on. I looked down and saw her limping over the crap that lined the pavement.
“Come here,” I said, lifting her up and throwing her over my shoulders. “There,” I said. “Just hold on.”
On the other side of the road was a train station. It would be perfect for us both. I ran over the road, ignoring the blaring car horns as Isabel continued to protest about her treatment. She clearly had no idea how close we’d been to disaster. With outside hires, there was always the risk that they’d not take her back to Tony but keep her for themselves. I’d be dead before I let that happen.
I didn’t dare look back until we reached the station. When I did, I could see both goons in the mass of people, shoving them aside in their impatience while they tried to track us down. I turned back into the station, running onto the nearest platform just as a train’s doors began to close.
I got a hand into the gap between two doors, stopping them from sliding shut by the narrowest of margins. “Get on,” I said, twisting her off my shoulders as the doors hissed open again. She landed in the train and I leapt after her, the two of us crashing to floor as the train began to roll slowly out of the station.
TWENTY-THREE
JAKE
‘You should have let them take her.’
I looked at the phone screen and had to resist crushing it in my hand. We’d been on the train for about half an hour when Tony texted me. Isabel sat with the coat wrapped round her, her legs crossed, looking terrified, as if she might never recover from what had just happened.
“Who were they?” she asked, holding the coat tight against her.
“Men hired to take you back.”
“Like you?”
I nodded. “Not as good as me.”
“What if they find us again?”
“We’ll be more careful.”
“We were careful. I can’t live like this, Jake. Maybe I should just give in, accept defeat.”
“You want to marry Kingsley?”
“No, of course I don’t.”
“Then we keep going.”
“Thank you,” she said as my phone vibrated in my hand.
“What for?” I asked, trying to ignore the phone.
“For saving me,” she said as I glanced down at the screen. The sound of the train rattling along faded away as anger took over me, my eyes scanning the message. He didn’t care about her getting safely home, that much was obvious. He just cared about his pride.
“What does it say?” Isabel asked and I wasn’t sure how to reply. “Is it from Tony?”
I showed her the screen.
“That bastard,” she said. “How could you ever agree to work for him?”
“I doubt I’ll be working for him much longer.”
My phone buzzed again and I glanced down once more.
‘You chose a hotel I own
, you fucking moron. I don’t know what you’re playing at but if you think you can hold onto her to get more money out of me, you’re very much mistaken. Bring her back. Now.’
“What does that one say?” she asked as I turned the phone off.
“It says he’s not too happy with the choice we’ve made.”
“I’m sorry, Jake. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this. Now you’re going to get killed because of me.”
“If I’m killed, it will not be because of you. It’ll be because I let my guard down.”
The door at the far end of the carriage slid open and the conductor appeared. “Tickets please.”
“Come on,” I hissed, grabbing her hand and moving the other way. “Before he sees us.”
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“In here,” I replied, pulling her into the toilet and closing the door.
I was squeezed up against the frosted glass window and Isabel was pressed up against me, the space barely big enough for one, let alone two.
“I never expected you to be afraid of a ticket inspector,” she said quietly.
“I’d rather avoid complications,” I replied. “Let’s hope he’s not the conscientious type.”
“Tickets please,” I heard through the door. I held my breath and waited but the sound of footsteps moved on. Still, Isabel remained pressed up against me.
“I think we’re safe,” I said, looking directly into her eyes, feeling her breath on my cheek. From this close, I could smell her skin and she smelt sweet and pure, far too good for someone like me.
“Better stay here a moment longer,” she whispered back, her body pressed up against mine. “Just to be sure.”
With her body crushed up against mine, I froze. It felt ridiculous. I’d been in fights so violent, I’d almost died, I’d taken one woman after another without batting an eyelid and yet with Isabel stood in front of me, I froze. Why was this so different? What made her so different? It was as she stared up at me that I realised it was because I cared about her. For the first time since Abbey, I cared about another human being. It was such a long forgotten feeling that I hardly recognised it.