by Amanda Boone
I reached my hands under his belt, loosening the leather strap and unbuttoning the ever tightening waist line. I slowly unzipped his jeans, laced my fingers behind his boxers, and felt him for the first time. He let out a soft, deep moan and bit my bottom lip hard, though it didn’t even hurt. His fingers scrambled to my panties and tugged them down off of my hips. My heart fluttered as I felt his fingertips nearing closer and closer to the void I was so desperate for him to fill. When he touched me, I felt myself inviting him inside, hungry for a man that made me feel so safe and secure.
“Are you sure?” he asked me again, breathlessly. I kissed him hard and pulled bare hips towards mine. When he entered me, it was as if I was having sex for the very first time. I could feel every inch of him and my adrenaline was soaring through my veins. I saw colors and felt heat radiating outward from my stomach. I thought for sure he could feel it too and worried if maybe something was wrong with me. He thrusted in and out, each time pushing himself further and deeper into me. He moved slowly, the way they do in the movies when Phil Collins is playing in the background and the moonlight pouring through the window makes everything look a little hazy.
Our breathing, hard, was in a syncopated rhythm. I had never felt so close to anyone in my life. If this was what sex was supposed to be like, I don’t know what I had been having up to that point. We worked so well together. I knew he was there for me and I trusted him completely. He kissed me with every thrust, our lips magnetized. My fingers rushed over his chest, memorizing every scar, reading it like braille. I let myself moan and be as loud as he warranted. It was exhilarating.
I felt I was at the cusp of climaxing. All of my muscles contracted, keeping him inside of me. My thighs shook violently, as if they were being jolted with electricity. My back arched, bringing us even closer together. It took only a moment longer for him to join me in absolute ecstasy, our bodies writhing in pleasure. I don’t believe there had ever been a more beautiful moment in my life. Laying side by side, breathless and beaded with sweat, he held my hand in his and kissed my forehead. My mind was so clear. I felt weightless.
“That was amazing,” he broke the silence as he fingered my knuckles that I had been cracking since I was thirteen.
“Yes, it most certainly was,” I laughed out in the awkward cloud that hung around the room. I placed my other hand on his chest, tracing his scars with my finger idly.
“That one was from a knife fight outside of a camp in Baghdad.” He began pointing out all of his scars and telling me the stories. Some were silly, some warranted larger scars than what he had, but none of them were quite as shocking at the crater near his heart. “This one,” he pointed to the crater, “was my kill shot.”
“You’re what?”
“It’s the injury that got me taken off the SEALs. I’ll let you guess what it’s from.”
“It’s clearly from a bullet.”
“Actually, it’s not.” He smiled. “There’s a matching scar on my back. I took a spear through the chest while approaching an undisclosed location from sea.”
“Seriously?” I asked propping myself up on my elbow to stare at him. “That is so badass!”
“Yeah,” he chuckled. “It wasn’t that badass when I was losing three pints of blood on the beach. If it had been a centimeter closer, I’d have died. If it had been a centimeter further, I would probably still be in the SEALs.”
“But you’re alive now. And that’s pretty important, too. At least to me.” We smiled at each other and leaned in for a kiss when a crashing sound echoed throughout the house. It sounded like glass splayed across the hardwood floor in his living room. Tweety began to howl as Brian shot up out of bed. I watched him run naked towards the door, pausing to assess the action downstairs. He looked like a Greek god, shadows hitting him in all the right places. He came back towards the bed and put his jeans on.
“Stay here. Be quiet. Lock the door behind me.” I nodded and watched him leave. I rushed into my clothes and locked the door behind him. I couldn’t hear much of what was happening, but there was definitely a scuffle beneath me. I could hear yelling, but no words were coming through clearly. I began to panic. Even though Brian’s room was the largest in the house, I couldn’t stand still knowing that I had locked myself inside.
I ran to the window and opened it, allowing the cold wind to come in and wash over me. I took several deep breaths before realizing that it had fallen quiet beneath me. I could hear Brian coming up the stairs and I walked towards the door to unlock it and let him in.
That’s when everything went black.
Chapter 3: That ended in a trunk
When I opened my eyes, everything was still black. I was on my back, my hair pinned underneath me. Groggily, I exhaled and listened to the sound echo. I felt my breath hit me in the face. That’s when the panic set in. My heart instantly started pumping blood, throbbing hard enough to shake my ribs. My hands swung out in front of me, but I couldn’t stretch my arms out straight.
“Help me!” I screamed as loud as I could. My voice reverberated in my ears. My chest heaved as my breathing got more and more shallow. I began clawing at the lid of whatever box I was in. Every part of my body was shaking, whether it was from fear or from how cold I was I couldn’t be sure. That’s when it occurred to me where I was.
I was in the trunk of a car. I felt around the ground beneath me for anything. My fingers searched frantically. The air tasted sour and like it was filled with dust; it actually felt like a solid mass forcing itself into my body. It was like being in that bathroom all over, except I was in a closet in a bathroom. I felt so far away from the world, even though the only thing separating me from it was a thin piece of plastic. Or metal. Who knows what cars are actually made out of these days.
My sobbing, which started without my even realizing it, was making it even more difficult to breathe. My nose had started beginning to clog and the tears were stinging my eyes, causing them to water even more, depositing all of the tears into my ear canal. I never cried laying down because it reminded me of wet willies, yet there I was drowning in my tears, quite literally. I could hear muffled voices.
“Brian!” I screamed, though it was a pathetic and hardly loud enough for me to hear. That’s when the tremors set in. Uncontrollable shaking took over me, exaggerated kicking and arching. I could never tell you really what it looked like, but I always imagined it resembled something like a demon possession minus the speaking in tongues and Hollywood magic. My mouth felt dry, my tongue weighed ten pounds and was covered in glue, and my entire body was flashing hot and cold. I did what I could to overcome my body’s natural response to the trunk to bang wildly on the hatch. I attempted to scream Brian’s name once more, but absolutely no sound came out.
I learned that night that even in the dark, you can see spots. My lips and fingers starting tingling as the blood drained from them. It felt as if I was turning into stone; I had stared into Medusa’s ugly eyes and she was forcing her spell over me. My feet began to go numb, even though I could feel that my shoes were soaked with sweat. This was the worst attack I’d ever suffered through. My eyes started to dry out because I wasn’t even able to blink.
“Nellie!” Brian’s voice boomed from outside as he reached the car, jolting it with his weight and me along with it. I felt no rush of relief. “Nellie, are you in there?” I squeaked in an attempt to respond, but absolutely nothing came. I summoned the strength of a Greek god and still it was of no help. I could have very well been bound and gagged with the amount of help I was doing for myself.
Adam knew. He knew that he could do something like this and he knew I’d be defenseless. I feel it deep within my soul even today that he had been planning to do this for quite some time. Maybe not consciously, but in a way that anyone thinks of what they would do to someone else to hurt them. Everyone has a kryptonite, some more obvious than others, and it doesn’t take someone with the blackest of hearts to stow that information away for a rainy day. Or a day when your
fiancé leaves you because you are a worthless pig.
“Okay, Nellie, are you by the door? Are you near the edge or are you closer to the seat?” Silence. “Okay, get closer to the seat. Get as close to the seat as you can. I’m going to open the trunk.” I couldn’t move. Not for my life, not an inch, not at all. There was no air left in the trunk and I began to suffocate on my own phlegm and tears. My body wasn’t even coughing it up. I was rendered completely and utterly helpless.
There was a loud bang and the car shook. Another bang. A third bang and I could hear Brian grunting as he lifted the now dented trunk hatch open. The air hit me like shattered glass, piercing my skin and leaving my lungs shredded. I gasped and it hurt, like eating a feast after fasting for a week. My entire body ached as Brian lunged into the trunk and pulled me out. I felt like a ragdoll, my limbs weakly dropping with gravity. He laid me down in the snow and hovered over me on his knees. I just stared aimlessly into the dark black sky above us.
“Is he gone?” I asked, once my tongue began to move at my will.
“Yes, he’s gone. He’s never coming back.” I stared into Brian’s face, which was beaten and sore. His lip was bleeding, but it was as if he didn’t even feel it. I could only imagine what Adam looked like. Police lights shined themselves into our eyes as two squad cars pulled up. Officers rushed out and cornered Brian, who put his hands up and calmly explained what had happened.
Another office ran over to me with a blanket, picking me up out of the snow and sitting me down on the front steps of Brian’s house. He was talking to me, asking me questions, but I wasn’t listening. I strained my ears to hear what Brian’s statement was, but all I could see was him pointing down the street and saying something about a broken arm. He turned and looked to me, smiling softly.
“Nellie? Oh my God, what the hell is happening?” Laura’s shrill voice carried all the way from the street. I looked towards her voice and watched as she came through the crowd of officers, shooing the one next to me away. “Excuse me, this is my best friend. My name is Laura Wallace and I am Nellie’s best friend. Just what the hell is going on here? What happened?”
“It’s a really long story, Laura. It involves Adam, a dead cat, me being locked in the trunk of my broken car, and sex with Brian.” her face looked stunned, though it eased with understanding. She wrapped her arm around me and rubbed my shoulders hard in an attempt to keep my warm.
“Oh my God, you slept with Brian?” she pointed to him as he smiled back.
“Yes, yes I did. Out of all of that information, that’s the part that you picked up on?” I smiled at her.
“Well, yeah. I mean, yes I’m worried that you were locked in your trunk, but you’re not anymore, so tell me about sex with Brian!”
“Laura, lower your voice, God.” I looked up at Brian as he began walking over.
“So, someone actually already reported Adam’s car on Route 80 heading towards the city. They’ve got someone on the road and closing in. So, everything is going to be okay.” He nodded and patted me on the shoulder.
“That’s it?” Laura said. “A pat on the shoulder? Didn’t you just save her life?”
“Laura,” I started.
“Everyone knows that the guy who saves the girl kisses her at the end of it. I’m Laura, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Laura,” Brian smiled at her, “and you’ve got a lot of great ideas.” Brian turned to me and kissed me sweetly on the mouth. “Now, I know this means we’re probably going to be spending the rest of lives together, but I was wondering if maybe you wanted to slow things down. I’m thinking lunch tomorrow.”
“Lunch? Tomorrow?” I pretended to be shocked. “That’s much too soon.”
“Alright. Dinner tomorrow it is.”
“Much better.” I smiled as the three of us sat on the porch, watching the red and blue lights swirling against the snow. Suddenly they seemed so much nicer.
Protect Her
Navy Seal
Chapter One
Michael Boardman was always a respected man due to his navy seal status. He was loved by all, admired by young men and women alike, and praised by his team mates as being the perfect soldier.
Yet Anne could not stomach him. To her he was an evil man, a man who could never show a shred of kindness. Her mother had married in four years before and they had moved to the navy seal base estate surrounded by other seals and their families. On the outside their family was truly happy, always attending social gatherings with a bright smile, greeting new neighbors as though they were the estate’s welcoming committee. Yet behind closed doors Anne was terrified. She hid the bruises beneath long sleeved tops and jeans, never daring to wear anything girly for fear that someone might look at her properly. Whenever he made a mess of her face she would hide away until the bruises faded and then pile on the makeup.
Her mother saw only what she wanted to see. The money that came in on a navy seals wages were enough to keep them housed comfortably and Anne knew that she loved her new husband though she herself couldn’t see why. She hated him with every fibre of her being yet there was no escaping him. she had once tried to leave, set up her own life in an apartment in a small town north of the estate yet he had found her and forced her home, back to the misery that were his beatings.
She sat in her bedroom with a book perched in her hands though she wasn’t really reading. She was listening, waiting for the door downstairs to click shut so that she would know he had gone off to work and that she would be safe for the next few hours.
As soon as she heard the familiar sound, her heart finally began to beat. Each night she lay awake in bed, her heart stopped, holding her breath for the morning to come. She climbed off the bed, grabbed her dressing gown and pulled it over her shoulders as she made her way out of the room.
She found her mother in the kitchen, nursing over a plate of pancakes with a mug of hot coffee in her hand. “Finally,” she smiled as she turned to look at Anne, “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to get up.”
“I thought you’d have gone with Michael.” She struggled not to growl his name as she headed over to the coffee machine and poured herself a mug. She took a long swig to help ward off her exhaustion before she settled down on a chair across from her mother.
“I decided to wait for you to get up,” she replied, “I thought we could go and do a little shopping.” There was nothing Anne wanted to do less yet she knew if she refused it would get back to Michael and that would be another beating.
“I guess I’d better go and get dressed then.” Anna downed the rest of her coffee before she headed back upstairs and went into her en-suite. She closed the door behind her and locked it remembering all the times she’d hidden from her step father with the door locked, sitting in an empty bath tub with the shower curtain pulled across while she cried.
The memory brought tears to her ears as she washed herself and brushed her hair. Over the last four years her long glossy black hair had gone dull and straw-like as though her ill treatment and exhaustion had sapped everything from her. Her face was pale beyond belief and she had black bags under her eyes the size of suit cases.
She tied her hair back from her face and her features looked even sharper. She couldn’t help but notice how gaunt her cheeks had become. She hated what Michael had done to her. She wanted nothing more than to run again yet she knew he would always find her. He was too good at his job and had too many connections for her to hide from him forever. She had once tried to speak to her mother, get her to leave him but it had all gone sour and she’d received a slap for her trouble. That had been the first time her mother had ever raised her hand to her.
Anne tried not to think about it as she put some light makeup on and then headed into her bedroom to get dressed. She wore a pair of skinny jeans and a red blouse. Her mother would not be seen with her unless she was looking respectable. Everyone in the town gossiped whenever someone wasn’t looking their best. Anne always had to try her best to keep
the gossip off her. It always seemed to get back to Michael and her mother whenever someone was talking about her. Whether the gossip was good or bad it always got more than a few harsh words from Michael. “You shouldn’t be giving them any reason at all to gossip about you.” He’d yell before he’d slap her or punch her or even hit her with his belt. She felt like a child, unable to protect herself though she was twenty years old. He was the cruellest man she had ever met and there was nothing she could do to escape him.
Chapter Two
When she came back into the kitchen her mother looked her up and down and gave a small nod of approval. Then she grabbed her handbag off the table and threw her keys into the air to catch them again. She smiled as she turned for the front door and purred, “Shall we?”
Anne followed her out of the kitchen and out onto the front garden. Like the rest of the house the garden was perfect. Her mother was a keen gardener and spent a lot of her time pruning and weeding to her heart’s content. The only place Anne found anything like it was in her books. She envied her mother her happiness. It was given at her sacrifice. She was unhappy for the sake of her mother’s joy.
Ivy unlocked the BMW and climbed into the driver’s seat. Anne paused for a moment and took a deep breath to compose herself for the act ahead of her. She would have to smile and wave at everyone they met, play the perfect daughter to the perfect navy seal and his wife.
“I thought we could get you some new clothes,” her mother suggested as she climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut, “The summer fair is coming up and Michael will want you looking your best.”
“He always does.” Anne grumbled as she clicked her seat belt into its holder. Her mother pulled the car off the drive and they were away down the street toward the small shopping centre.