Captive

by R. J. Lewis

  “Where do you draw the line?” he asked, curiously. “Because it wasn’t just in the bedroom you tried to be indifferent to me.”

  “I didn’t draw a line,” I answered. “I lived my part, protecting myself from what was happening between us, while also longing for freedom.”

  “Tell me,” he urged, desperately, “is it what you thought it would be?”

  More tears fell. “No,” I admitted. “It isn’t, but I just wanted to have that choice, Nixon.”

  “You think,” he took a deep breath now as he fought to control his emotions, “that if I had given you the choice before, you might have stayed with me on the island?”

  “I would have stayed, but it wouldn’t have ruined me, and I needed to be ruined.”

  “Explain.”

  I smiled sadly. “You needed to let me go. I wouldn’t have known otherwise the extent of my feelings. I needed to feel your absence. I needed to have lost you.”

  He devoured every word I spilled between my lips. He looked wretched. His eyes were raw with unshed tears. It was the first time I ever witnessed him look so utterly broken.

  And vulnerable.

  I sensed fear in him. I knew it was there when his gaze wandered about my face, the longing, the affection, the desire so fucking thick. When he’d realized what he’d done – when he’d let it slip and knew I’d seen it – it was too late to hide it under his rage.

  He knew it, too.

  He didn’t bother to hide it at all.

  His forehead dropped to mine. His gaze was trapped to my lips as he slowly began to trail his finger along my core, sliding it through the wet folds. My eyes drifted shut as sparks flew beneath his touch.

  “Did you miss me?” he asked, that cocky edge returning.

  “Not really,” I forced out between moans.

  “You didn’t miss my fingers along your cunt?”

  “You had them along my cunt very recently,” I murmured. “I wasn’t so deprived.”

  I heard the smile in his voice. “What about my mouth?”

  I shrugged one shoulder. “What about it?”

  “Do you miss my tongue against your clit?”

  I opened my eyes, feeling like I was going to come just from the look he was giving me. “Maybe you should remind me what it feels like.”

  His chest shook with silent laughter. “I’m afraid the days of selfless servitude are over, baby.”

  “What does that mean?”

  His grip along my hair tightened painfully. “Kneel, Vix, because I need to be reminded what I’ve missed about your mouth, and it’s not just the utter shit you spew.”

  Before I could reply, he forced me down to my knees, that hand still fisted in my hair. My fingers trembled as I unzipped his jeans, glancing briefly up at him as he watched my every move.

  “I’ll fucking bite you if you’re rough on me,” I warned, though my lips flickered up.

  He smiled back. “Noted.”

  I purposely took longer than necessary to pull his briefs down. I could see the patience leeching from his eyes, felt my scalp burn from the tense way he was tightening it.

  I rolled my eyes when I released his hard dick from his briefs. I’d nearly forgotten how huge he was. He didn’t need anymore ego than he already had, so I masked my utter fucking need to devour him by flippantly bringing his tip to my mouth. I sucked him only lightly, hardly giving him what he wanted.

  “Baby,” he said, threateningly, “I’ll throat fuck you if you don’t stop this shit right this second.”

  I bit back a smile and widened my mouth. I played it cool for hardly five seconds before I lost control of myself. I sucked him hard, the way he liked, teased him, the way he liked, making him remember what he missed about me.

  “Only I know what you like,” I told him, watching his expression as it morphed to pleasure. “Isn’t that right, Nixon?”

  He had a ghost of a smile. “Only you, baby.”

  My heart soared as I took him in deeper. His breaths came out faster. I could feel his body shuddering above me. Jesus, who was the sensitive one now?

  “Oh, Nixon,” I murmured, smirking now. “I don’t think you’re going to last very long.”

  He barked out a laugh mixed with a tortured groan. “I think you’re mistaken.”

  I took him deeper and he tensed, fighting himself. “Used to take longer than this. What happened?”

  “Two years without your sweet fucking lips, Vixen,” he hissed. “That’s what happened, but I’m not going to come down your throat. We can do that later.”

  I wanted to prove him wrong. I sped my movements, determined to feel him come in my mouth. It disturbed me how much I wanted to taste him. How cock hungry I felt for this asshole.

  His cock swelled impossibly. Just when he was about to come, he pulled away abruptly and yanked me up to my feet. He dragged me like a fucking ragdoll to the bed and threw me down on it.

  “Take your top off,” he ordered breathlessly. “Now, Vixen, or I’ll fucking tear it off with my blade, and don’t think I won’t.”

  I took it off and heard him groan. “Fuck, your body is something else.”

  “It’s really not,” I argued.

  “Shut up, baby,” he retorted, dropping down over me. He dropped his head to my chest and took a nipple into his mouth. My hands grabbed at his shoulders, the tips of my fingers sank into his skin as he moved to the next breast and sucked it. Then his hands came up and palmed them, a soft groan leaving his lips as he pushed my breasts together. “See that,” he told me. “See how they fit in my hands just right, Vixen? Tell me your body wasn’t moulded for me.”

  “It is,” I admitted, refusing to lie about this. “It really is.”

  Without letting my tits go, he slid down the bed and buried his face between my legs. His actions were always so abrupt. I jerked at the feel of his tongue as it feverishly worked me. I was going to come already. My hands shot to his head. I grabbed a fistful of that fuckable hair – always that fuckable hair that riled me up – as he devoured me and sent me into a perilous fall.

  I chanted his name.

  It was all so familiar.

  It was everything I missed and more.

  I came quickly, the orgasm so big, I shook through it.

  He pulled away. “I missed your little sounds,” he said. “God, I missed everything about you, baby.” Now he paused as he brought his body over me, dropping his head back down to mine. “Why are you crying?”

  I was an emotional mess.

  The orgasm had left me boneless.

  I felt intense whiplash.

  “I feel like my soul’s being ripped open,” I cried. “I spent so many hours thinking about you…I cried myself to sleep, Nixon.”

  He looked broken. “I never intended to hurt you. I needed you to live for yourself.”

  “I never moved on,” I admitted, breathing harshly. “Nixon, I was never with anyone.”

  His expression tightened. “That neighbour –”

  “We kissed. That was the extent of it.”

  I watched as he swallowed. “I thought…I thought you’d forgotten me.”

  I laughed through my shock. “Forgotten you?” Tears streamed down my face. “You were my hero, Nixon. You saved me.”

  His eyes misted over. He fought to contain himself. “I’ve not been in a good place, Victoria. I feel…I feel like I’ve been walking around without a pulse. Everything works, my body moves, I breathe, and I drink, and I eat, and I sleep…but there’s a hollowness in my core. My heart’s missing, and I’m okay with living with that void if it means you’re happy out here.”

  I ran my hand over his face, tracing his features. “I’m happiest with you.”

  The look of vulnerability returned. He sucked in a breath. “It’s just been you, baby. Just you.”

  “No girls?”

  He looked at me like I was stupid. “You’ve ruined me.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He wrapp
ed my leg around his hip, his cock hovering over my entrance. “I don’t care. It’s true. You’ve ruined me in this life and the next. It’s just you, only you, all you. It’s been you since I saw you on that fucking bus, looking so pitiful.”

  I felt heat in my cheeks. “I was pretty pitiful.”

  He sank into me slowly, chuckling as I winced. “Go on, baby, say something vile. I know you’re waiting for it.”

  But I was too busy staring into his blue eyes, too busy feeling like I was being healed from a slow death. “I don’t think it’s one of those times, Nixon. I need you. I need you over me. I need you in me. I need you kissing me, feeling me, whispering in my ear. I need your love and your affection. I need all of it because I’ve without it for too long and I might die if you don’t give me this.”

  His amusement faded as he nodded solemnly and delivered just that.

  He moved in and out of me, bringing his lips to mine, devouring my mouth as he moved slowly inside me.

  It was intimacy.

  It was love.

  I’d never felt so peace before.

  Nixon…

  She was his everything.

  He cradled her to his chest, holding her tightly, never wanting to let her go.

  He hadn’t felt this happy in all his life.

  When Jane Sullivan had seen him, had saved him, had tried her hardest to keep the darkness at bay, she’d said something to him.

  Something he’d needed to hear.

  She’d held his hand and dropped her mouth to his ear, whispering, “Leona’s greatest regret was not reaching out to you in time. She loved you, Nixon. She said you protected her. You were her hero. She would want you to hang on. Please, Nixon, hang on.”

  And he did.

  And he’d wondered why when all hanging on had given him was this bleak emptiness.

  But as he held Victoria in his arms, smelling her scent, kissing her head, feeling her warmth, he understood why he’d held on.

  So he could have this moment.

  53.

  Victoria…

  Chatter woke me up from the deepest sleep I’d had in two years.

  I rolled over in bed, my arm outstretched, searching for Nixon. When I didn’t feel him, I opened my eyes to the sunlight pouring through the window.

  I’d slept in. I could feel that the morning had come and gone. Glancing bleary eyed at the clock on the nightstand, I was right. It was noon.

  As I slid off the bed and went to the bathroom, I ached everywhere. It was that delicious feeling of being fucked so thoroughly, every inch of my body used and deliciously sore.

  The lights in here were oppressive as fuck. I blinked at the mirror and shuddered. I looked like a gargoyle on acid. My hair was everywhere, the bags under my eyes were absolutely criminal. No girl should look so bad in the mornings. Looking away from that negativity, I went to the toilet and then I hunted down some Listerine from the sink cabinet. If there was one thing about living with Nixon had taught me, it was that he was extremely anal about dental hygiene and the cabinets had always overflowed with every bathroom essential.

  I washed my hands and face and brushed my teeth with a new toothbrush.

  Feeling a bit better, I wandered out of the room, still half-asleep, not really paying mind to the fact that the chatter I’d woken to was still carrying on.

  I froze midway to the lounge room, my gaze connecting to the couch where Nixon and a biker sat. They heard me approach and turned their heads to me.

  “I’m sorry,” I immediately said, realizing how inappropriate I looked. I was still in Nixon’s baggy t-shirt, and while it looked like a tent of a dress on me, it was white and kind of see-through. I crossed my arms over my chest in an effort to covertly hide my boobs.

  “It’s alright, baby,” Nixon replied, smirking at me. “We were just talking about you.”

  “Why?” I asked, my tone sounding accusatory.

  “Running through what happened last night.”

  My gaze swept back to the biker. When his eyes met mine, I realized I’d seen this bastard last night. “You were the asshole on the chair,” I said rudely. “You sent me to that nasty fucking old man!”

  “I didn’t want to,” he responded. “By the time everyone was agreeing to send you up, I had no choice.”

  I stared at him for a few moments, my eyes narrowed. He sounded familiar, and again, I thought of Roz when I looked at him. My chest tightened with emotion as I took another step closer to him, tilting my head to the side, inspecting him.

  He didn’t look familiar, but there was something I recognized in his eyes and in his expression.

  “Who the fuck are you?” I asked aloud, more to myself now as I studied him.

  When he smiled softly, I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. I knew that charming smile. I’d blushed under it furiously once upon a time. Choked up straight away, I questioned in a weak voice, “Flynn?”

  “I worried you recognized me last night.”

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered, swinging my eyes back to Nixon. “What the fuck is happening?”

  “The powers that be are changing,” Nixon replied carefully. “When you see an opportunity, baby, you take it. That’s what we’re doing.”

  I shook my head, confused. “I don’t understand. Flynn’s a biker now?”

  “Flynn’s climbed the ladder in the most unprecedented way,” Nixon explained. “He’s revived a dying MC with my help.”

  I looked between them, shocked. “Why revive the One Percent?”

  “They were fading out,” Flynn explained. “The club was dying, but the city still feared their name. You can’t build that fear without shedding so much blood. I couldn’t start a gang up and in such a short amount of time scar the public the way the One Percent have. So, I became part of it. With Nixon’s help, I managed to create a new network that ensured they’d rebuild themselves.”

  “Flynn recruited the crew to intercept the drug supply from the Vipers,” Nixon continued. “The Vipers overtook the One Percent when they burnt out. There was a huge vacuum in the drug market. They began dealing with the cartel themselves, elevating their rank, but they weren’t good with their money. They spent it on shit, got the law on their backs, got sloppy with their transport trucks. They were going to cause more harm than good if they weren’t stopped. An imbalance in the drug supply would have driven the prices right up, would have created a lot of crime on the streets as people got desperate. This is necessary. A feud, a fight to overtake a sloppy power.”

  “A resurgence of gang violence,” I murmured, remembering what Peter said. “You created another war. The Vipers against the One Percent and their hired rogue contractors.”

  Nixon nodded. “Yes, baby.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “To evolve,” he said. “I don’t want to migrate from job to job. I’m tired of cleaning out money houses. It’s time for a change. For a new superpower.”

  “And that’s you?”

  Nixon glanced at Flynn. “The President of the One Percent is dead, but he got so close to Flynn that Flynn, a spark in the dying embers of that gang, became VP. It was an unparalleled elevation of rank no gang has ever witnessed.”

  “What did you have to do to get to that?” I asked Flynn, feeling horrified.

  Flynn’s expression remained blank. “I owe it to Nixon for what he did to help me get there. We shed a lot of blood, Vixen.”

  “The President was going to die regardless of me being in his room,” I said, trying to connect the dots now. “And the unconscious guy on Eman’s shoulder –”

  “The leader of the Vipers,” Nixon cut in. “Sedated on the elevator on his way up, but conscious for the imaginary meeting we orchestrated on his way there. Enough witnesses got to see him. He was just found dead in the Prez’s suite in what looked like a shootout between two men.”

  I felt faint. “This is going to be another bloodbath.”

  “The Vipers are being cleansed out
,” Flynn said. “If they’re smart, they’ll back down. We’ve intercepted their drug supply, we’ve made contact with the cartel, we’re in the midst of forming a better deal. The Vipers have nothing.”

  I wasn’t looking at Flynn now. My eyes were glued to Nixon’s. “Where do you fit into this?”

  “I’m buying out businesses,” he said. “Hobbs and I will be funnelling the One Percent’s earnings through our books.”

  “Laundering.”

  “With a cut.”

  I felt weak now. Like I might collapse. “And Flynn is going to become President?”

  “Is that so hard to believe?”

  I looked back at Flynn, trying to remember that charming man from two years ago. Any sign of kid in him was gone. He was all man. His body had filled out. His facial hair was startling because it made him look older than he was. He seemed…detached but…also self-assured. There were shadows in his eyes. He’d seen and done things he wasn’t proud of.

  If he hadn’t smiled at me, I wouldn’t have made the connection. I wouldn’t have known it was him. I stared at him for longer than normal. It was downright astonishing how unrecognizable he was.

  I felt sad that the man that had reacted purely out of love to avenge his brother was now driven to doing such vile things. Was he so far gone that he could justify wanting to live as a biker of a gang his whole life? And not just any gang, but one that had ravaged the city’s streets for so many years, inflicting terror on its citizens and solidifying a reputation in the underbelly.

  This was too much to take in all at once. I took a step back, feeling like my head was spinning.

  “I need a minute,” I whispered, leaving them on the couch to return to the bedroom.

  I sat on the bed for a long while, staring bleakly out the window at the skyscrapers and overcast sky.

  I couldn’t determine what I was feeling. I felt like I was being pulled in all directions. I was infatuated with Nixon, completely consumed in him. I fucking loved him, and being in his arms had felt right last night. I’d spent two years pining for him; I couldn’t let him go, no way…